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The Armpit of the Mission Field: “Heaven Up Here” by John K. Williams

chanson, November 24, 2011

When John got his mission call to Bolivia, it was like a joke come true. Before the letter came, he and his friends had a running gag that he’d be sent there — because it’s the clich worst-possible foreign mission (see here for a coincidental example). Then he really got sent there. And, as a faithful kid from a troubled family, he was determined to fix things by devoting himself entirely to the Lord’s work.

Heaven Up Here is the complete story of Elder Williams’s mission, full of colorful (and often graphic) descriptions of what life was like for Mormon missionaries in Bolivia. But (unlike some complete missionary memoirs) it’s not a laundry-list of companions’ names and culture notes. His fellow missionaries and Bolivian friends are fully-fleshed out characters, and the local culture is presented in the context of interesting, often poignant stories about what he experienced and how it affected him.

One amusing example of the clash between Mormon missionary culture and Bolivian culture was the tale of a Bolivian member who was constantly giving suggestions for ways the LDS church could be improved. To the missionaries, it was almost laughably absurd that some random Bolivian would think that the church might change its policies based on his suggestions. Meanwhile, the missionaries themselves recognized that the church policies could use some major improvements, and joked that they’d have more success if the meetings were less boring — and were more like the Pentecostals’.

The brilliance of the narrative, though, is the lack of retrospective editorializing. I happen to know that the author is currently an ex-Mormon, and that he didn’t stop believing until many years after his mission. But precisely where he’s at now is not obvious from the text. There’s no future-retrospective narrator re-interpreting the stories as evidence towards a particular conclusion about the CoJCoL-dS. The events that built up his faith at the time are presented as such, and the disheartening aspects (like the relentless focus on the number of baptisms) are presented as he felt them then as well. For example, here’s a typical passage that illustrates the contraction between the way he felt at the time and the way he thought he was supposed to feel — but not about how his present self feels about having been put in that position so many years ago:

My companion and I went home that night feeling devastated. We had been working so hard. We both had been sick and had some days forced ourselves to get out of bed and do the Lords work. But it was clear that what we had given wasnt enough. The Lord expected more from us. In our bedroom we sat, nearly in tears, talking about what we had heard. It didnt take too long for us to decide that Elder Howard was right: we werent working hard enough, and we needed to be more committed. By the time I wrote in my journal that night, I had decided that this conference had been Awesome!

Heaven Up Here is a fascinating, page-turning narrative that I highly recommend to anyone who is interested in learning more about the Mormon missionary experience (or in comparing notes about their own mission experiences).

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Comments (9)

  1. Chino Blanco says:
    November 24, 2011 at 10:38 pm

    Now I gotta read this.

    By the way, I tried promoting this over at r/mormon on Reddit, but the Danites are downvoting it off the front page. If you’re reading this and you’re a Redditor, pls consider showing this link a little upvote luv:

    http://www.reddit.com/r/mormon/comments/mnuc8/it_didnt_take_too_long_for_us_to_decide_that/

  2. chanson says:
    November 25, 2011 at 1:36 am

    Now that I’ve finished my review, I went back and read Packham’s review. He makes some good points.

    Not directly related to this book, but it’s true people sometimes make erroneous, anachronistic judgements about people who didn’t go on missions because they came of mission-age before a mission was expected for everyone. My ber-Mormon grandpa didn’t serve a mission either, simply because it wasn’t expected.

  3. Chino Blanco says:
    November 25, 2011 at 1:51 am

    For what it’s worth, I noticed how your fourth graf addressed the lack of an epilogue. And although I haven’t yet read the book, I suspect I agree with you about that, but in any case, I’ll be tickled if I make it to 78 with a fraction of the vim Packham brings.

  4. chanson says:
    November 25, 2011 at 1:57 am

    OK, I have to ‘fess up — I cheated a little bit on that one. 😉

    I generally try to avoid reading other reviews before writing my own reviews (so that I don’t accidentally just repeat or respond to what the other person said), and I didn’t read Packham’s review before writing mine. However, the author mentioned to me that Packham had criticized the lack of an epilogue, so I was kind of responding to Packham there, in that I agree with the author’s choice.

  5. Chino Blanco says:
    November 25, 2011 at 2:05 am

    And I suppose you think that because you linked to Packham’s review we’re now going to simply disregard your unseemly collusion with the author? Ha! 😉

  6. John Williams says:
    November 25, 2011 at 8:16 pm

    Thanks for the great review! I’ve been very happy with the book’s reception. Your review made my day.

  7. chanson says:
    November 25, 2011 at 11:39 pm

    I’m glad to hear you book is getting a good reception — it’s deserved!

  8. wry says:
    December 7, 2011 at 5:44 am

    The book is great, I really enjoyed reading it. I do think an epilogue is in order, though. Not to out anyone’s current beliefs, but because there are a lot of interesting ‘characters’ and it would be nice to hear where they are now. I’m just nosy that way.

  9. Pingback: Lou Midgley Gives Two Tens for a Five « Runtu's Rincn

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