From the Horse's Mouth: A Former Mission President Tells All

Have you wanted to know what a mission president does from the horse's mouth then have I found a great source for you. I want to give exposure to a generous person who wants to get out the word. Richard Rife, former mission president in the Daejeon Korea from 2001-2004, has put together a very insightful account of what it was like to be a mission president in his "mission president's journal." I fell upon this blog when reading the Greg Jones Blog who also gave him a plug. I had tackled what a mission president does myself from reading current mission presidents blogs but not extensively as Brother Rife.

Brother Rife says "The journal was originally 530 pages of 11-point type. I have edited it to omit redundancies and to make it a readable 254 pages. It is overwhelmingly positive and edifying, but I have retained enough “negative” experiences and “challenges” to give the reader the full flavor of what it’s like to be a mission president. However, my editing has made it impossible to identify any missionary about whom a negative incident occurred."

His motivation for writing it is explained nobly:

I said that I don’t want money for my book, and that’s true. My mission president experience is too sacred to me to be shared for money. But I do have a two-part request of you, the reader:

First, if you enjoy this book about mission president life, please donate $10 (or more, if you’re so inclined) to the ward or general missionary fund and use the comment feature of my website to let me know. You don’t know how good it will make me feel if you enjoyed this book enough to “buy” it by making a tax deductible donation to help the missionary work of the Church (If you hate the book, please keep it to yourself; there’s no reason to ruin my day).

Second, please tell a friend about this book. Maybe they will like it—and maybe they will donate to the missionary fund.

Serving as a mission president was an exciting and life-altering experience. I hope you will enjoy reading this book, and I hope you will find it edifying and will feel a sense of what it is like to be a mission president.

You can download the book here.

In addition Rife was an early blogger and his Daejeon Korea experiences are on his own generated website Richard Rife.Com. In addition to his recent blogging thoughts in his The Switch blog. It is a clearly organized site with easy navigation. I guess he takes a no-nonsense approach being a former trial lawyer.

Brother Rife describes his site as:

This website:

• Hosts my blog, entitled "The Switch," flipping back and forth, depending on the day, from spiritual/inspirational to humorous
• Contains a web page dedicated to the missionaries who served in the Korea Daejeon Mission of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 2001-2004
• Offers a free download of a book entitled "A Mission President's Journal," an edited and redacted look at my three years as president of the LDS Church's Korea Daejeon Mission.

I hope you will enjoy this website and will return to it often.

It also makes for good field research to compare his blog with current mission president's Alan G. Perriton's Anyanghasaeyo:News of the Korea Daejeon Mission blog. It really is good to see different mission president styles and see if there is any commonality between what mission presidents face even in the same mission. I think you can learn a lot by the experiences of both men. I wish I had found Rife's blog sooner when my oldest daughter was serving in the same mission it would have helped me culturally understand what she faced by serving there.

I think future mission presidents and current ones interested in learning about what a mission president really does should check out this site. Even if you just are curious check out his musings. I did and want to share the wisdom I found. You will learn what challenges and joys a mission president faces.

A Christmas Story or A Family Sacrificing for Children's Missions

Recently I have been exchanging comments with people about sacrifices they have made in serving missions. I think most families in the church all have interesting stories to tell about how they financed their children's missions. I don't think the majority of missionaries earned every cent by themselves but that most had help from others whether a parent, a sibling, or someone else. I disagree with a few hardliners who insist that if a missionary didn't earn every cent they won't value their mission or give it their best effort.

This year I attended my daughter's wedding in Salt Lake City. She had gotten home from her mission in March from the Korea Daejeon Mission. She served a very successful mission and brought several people in to the church. She met a nice returned missionary at BYU and was sealed in the Salt Lake City Temple on 23 December 2008. Her sister also served a mission to Italy Rome Mission and came home in August. She also served a successful mission and brought people in to the Church. She hasn't found anyone to marry her yet. My third daughter who graduated from BYU--Idaho two weeks ago is going on a mission to the Taiwan Taipei Mission in January 2009.

As we were riding back in our Nissan Quest minivan with our other four children and my third daughter we had a lot of time to talk as it took thirty hours to return to South Carolina where we currently live. She told me about some unselfish things that my second daughter had done that had served in Italy.

It reminded me of a quote about sightseeing and what is of value to missionaries by Joseph F. Smith in his Letters to his Missionary Sons:

Too many of our missionaries spend their time idly, sight-seeing or wandering around in the parks, attending theatres of places of amusement.This should not be. It is all right to go to the theatre once in a while, or to go out in the parks, where it is nice and cool, for recreation, but to lounge around idly during the day or sight-seeing and spending the time that should be devoted to missionary work is not right. Neither is it the proper thing for missionaries to sit up late at nights, and then stay in bed in the mornings when they should be planning the work to be done. Many of the elders sleep away and idle away the best part of their lives when they should be up and hustling.

The elder who is devoted to his work, who is energetic and who puts his trust in the Lord and is dependent upon Him for his support, is the best missionary. The one who has all the money he desires and spends his time in idleness and sight-seeing and putting on airs with fashionable clothes and cane, who attends theatres when he should be visiting Saints or holding meetings or improving his time, will never be happy and faithful as the boy who has to make the best of his time and means. (Joseph F. Smith, From Prophet to Son:Advice of Joseph F. Smith to His Missionary Sons, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1981, p. 119).

Last year when both my daughters were on missions our family was living in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia where I went to save money to go on a mission in a few years. I only made about $60,000 but it was all tax-free and I had for a brief time about fifty thousand dollars in the bank. Since we had sporadic postal service where the mail persons occasionally keep things my wife and I didn't send a package to either girl on their mission since it could have disappeared in the custom's black hole. I discovered from my third daughter a story I didn't know. The daughter telling me the story is in to sending missionary care packages so she sent my two daughters a few snacks from Rexburg. She asked if I knew that my wife had sent my two missionary daughter's some money last year. I said I didn't know that. I didn't know that my wife had also given each daughter two hundred dollars for Christmas because she handles the money. I have walked around for the past twenty years usually with nothing in my pocket. I have gone without lunch for that period of time to help my eight children have advantages like music lessons etc.

The first or oldest daughter in Korea did what most missionaries do in foreign countries, she bought souvenirs or unique keepsakes so that she could remember her mission. The other daughter was teaching with her companion some poor Italian young adults a missionary preparation class. She used her Christmas money to buy every youth over sixteen in the ward an Italian Preach My Gospel manual.

This year for Christmas we stayed in a cabin that we had rented in Heber Valley. Our finances were tight since we had to pay about six thousand dollars for the wedding. We also discovered our fourth daughter who is an engineering student had all her prerequisite classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays so no one would hire her since she could only work Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays. It turns out her sister who had served in Italy who was now working as a carpet cleaner twenty hours a week had feed her the entire semester. We weren't told about this fourth daughter's financial situation because she knew I would be angry since I told them to get a part-time job or starve that I would help them with tuition, books and/or missions. This daughter had made about three thousand dollars as a nanny in the summer working in Michigan but could only afford her first semester's tuition, books and rent.

The second daughter was also a conscientious and good student in the business school at BYU. Her third sister helped her reapply for school and had learned at BYU Idaho to apply for scholarships even if she wasn't likely to get them. Since her sister had about a 3.65 average in her junior year she applied for a scholarship in her name and she was awarded it. Between Pell grants and her small scholarship she was able to pay all of her tuition and books which was a small miracle in itself. Daughters one and four had bad grades for one semester and weren't eligible for federal money or scholarships.

I felt bad this year because in order to pay the oldest daughter's marriage and tuition and the fourth daughter's tuition and outfit the third daughter's mission clothing and pay her first four hundred dollar payment by January 2009 each of my children only received one good gift and some candy in their stockings. The first daughter and the fourth daughter didn't get any gift since their tuition and books is their gift. The second daughter received a thirty dollar pair of boots from my wife when she went a couple weeks earlier to get ready for the mission. The other four children received gifts that cost around $100. When we passed out gifts the unselfish daughter didn't even have a gift to unwrap I gave her a box of chocolates I received from my work. I personally received the same thing I always receive which is a bottle of Pepsi Free and a bag of Fritos. My wife didn't get any present either.

I have to say this was not the first time that my children went without Christmas presents. The first year when both were on missions and the third and fourth daughters were in college our family decided that only the youngest daughter who was eight years old would get Christmas presents. Every year for the past decade our family has pulled together.

We have a family goal that all of the children will get a college education and serve a mission. My children have all worked hard. The second daughter actually worked three jobs every summer to pay for college or a mission. My oldest daughter's first year in college when the second daughter was a senior in high school I was making $58,000 as the director of a library in Utah. The second daughter had about $2800 saved up. She gave the first daughter $2000 for her second semester's tuition. The next year the second daughter had a dream of being a recording artist. She met a record producer and entered a contest where she was offered to do a demo record in Florida. The first daughter reciprocated and gave her the money. Even though it didn't work out since it was a chicken and the egg where she needed an agent before the record company would sign her and no agent would sign her without a record contract she at least gave it her best try. She learned on her mission that even her goals in school of being an entertainment lawyer were not what she wanted to do any more.

Whenever I think about the two girls serving a mission I remember something the second one told me that met Boyd K. Packer at a missionary devotional in the MTC. When she told him about her and her sister both being on a mission Elder Packer told her "Your parents will be blessed." I feel that my family is blessed in that they have learned what things our of the greatest worth. I am sure one day when my children met those they brought in to the church in the next life that they will have a great reunion which will make up for worldly things they missed out on since they will be in the celestial kingdom of God.

I think there are untold stories of people throughout the church. If you have a story to tell feel free to added it in the comment section.

Should Mission Presidents Attend Their Missionaries Weddings After Their Missions

Yesterday my oldest daughter Genevieve was married in the Salt Lake City Temple to Stuart Larsen. Both were returned missionaries my daughter served in Korea and he in Brazil. My wife and I are the only members of our family and both of us served mission. At the sealing and receptions we had no relatives other than our children. My oldest three daughters were all endowed as the oldest one had served in Korea Daejeon and was the one getting married, the second served in Italy Rome, and the third is leaving in three weeks for Taiwan Taipei.

My daughter and her financee invited their mission presidents and a few mission companions. Only my daughter's mission president was able to come as well as three of her companions. One of his companions came but not his mission president. Norman Nemrow and his wife Cindy came for the sealing and they would have stayed for the reception in the Joseph Smith Building but had he not had another sister missionary who was getting married and was making the effort to attend both driving immediately after to Midway for the other missionaries reception.

He told my wife that if possible he would attend all of his missionaries weddings and receptions since he loved everyone of his missionaries so much. He was a very kind and considerate man. He said many of his missionaries temporarily stayed with him and his wife when needed when they transitioned to their education in different places in Utah. He considered his missionaries like his own children.

I was very impressed with his love for his missionaries and his sacrifice of time, money to keep their bonds of friendship after their missions.

I understand the love of a missionary for his mission president. All the missionaries in my mission field loved our mission president so much that we wanted him to seal us as he was a general authority. Today the few that had him do it and a few that didn't ask him to do the dame for our children. He really can't because there are too many of us. Even though it is disappointing that he can't share our most precious moments we all realize how hard it is for him to make that happen because of the demands on his time from his own family and church duties. Even if a former mission president were not a general authority it would take a tremendous effort in time and money to attend the two or three hundred missionaries major life events.

I realize that not every missionary feels as close to their mission presidents as I or my daughter might and that only fifty percent might even invite him. It even gets more complicated when you have three mission presidents like I did. I think there are a lot of factors to consider if a mission president can or will attend their missionaries weddings. I think relationship is a primary factor. Also you need to be considerate of the man and his families circumstances. There are a lot of other factors that can be discussed.

I do know that when they attend it affirms their respect for you and show how much they value you. I don't think if they don't attend it says they don't but it sure made my daughter's event special that he loved her enough to be there. I sure was impressed.

Spiritual Transformation: Thoughts on My Daughter Being Born Again While Serving a Mission

Ever since my daughter has been a baby I have taught her that it was a question of when she served a mission not if she would serve a mission. When she was barely three years old I began singing to her and her sister Gianina I hope they call me on a mission when I have grown a foot or two. I remember carrying her on my back and her sister in a baby carrier walking on the streets of Provo. At night I would sit by the side of their beds and talk to them about the gospel and Heavenly Father. Every now and then my wife and I would talk about how we joined the Church and went on missions a year after we were baptized. Then we would kneel down and pray for the missionaries and that one day they would be missionaries.

My daughter and her sister were very intelligent. By the time she was three and her sister two my wife and I began teaching them to memorize scriptures and poems. We waded through the Book of Mormon. She knew about fifty seminary scriptures. We recited the Road Not Taken by Robert Frost for weeks until they could say it perfectly. It was amazing to see her at eighteen months toddle up the podium during a testimony meeting and bear her testimony without any help. I had her stand on a table and practiced bearing her testimony for several weeks. I told my wife we would not be like parents who stood by the side of their kid and spoke in their ear.

As she grew older she had one or two spiritual experiences. When she was about five I asked by a man in Hawaii for a special priesthood blessing. I had him sit on a plastic step stool we used to let my four daughters use to climb up to the bathroom sink and brush their teeth. During the prayer I felt the Holy Ghost enter the room and felt a strong presence as I blessed him to receive the desire of his heart. She said she opened her eyes and saw a heavenly being standing next to me. She said she recognized him as being Jesus Christ. My daughter always had a sensitivity to the Holy Ghost.

As she grew to her teenage years our family grew to eight children. We moved around quite a bit about eleven times in her life. Despite the fact there was a lot of stress in our home she never wavered about going on a mission. She would constantly say when some of the younger ones questioned whether they should serve a mission that she was going one day. She told them all you are all going on a mission despite the fact that one or two of her seven sisters would say no I'm not I'm getting married that is what the Church teaches. I would remind them that Sister Flora Benson and their mother served missions and that any guy who wanted to marry one of my daughters could wait like Ezra Taft Benson for them. In the grand scheme what was a year and a half. Then I would remind them that the divorce rate dropped by half for Mormon women at the age of twenty-four and sisters came home at twenty-three and a half and need six months to get married.

In her teenage years she rebelled not against going on a mission but against the prescriptive standards of the Church. Having suffered a brief bout of promiscuity for three months when I was seventeen I warned my children of the dangers of immorality and the hell I suffered when my girlfriend carried on with three boys at the same time and had an abortion. She knew the story and yet she told me one day she didn't care she was going to live her life the way she wanted. I told her she was on the road to hell and she would regret it unless she repented. I was disappointed because I never wanted to see my children suffer as I did the overwhelming power of almost being destroy spiritually for a moments lapse. I remembered the darkness I felt over the loss of what could have been my first child and the suffering and loss I felt as I cried out to the Lord for forgiveness. She made a few mistakes but straightened out her life.

Finally she became twenty-one and she didn't put in her papers. She became serious with a Hispanic boy who wasn't a member and spent an excessive amount of time with him. He joined the Church for her. I didn't feel right about him not because he was a bad boy but because I knew she needed to go on a mission and he disrespected her. They were so serious they even had a joint bank account which I told her was a huge mistake. I had a rule that no one could be in their bedrooms on a few occasions I caught him there and told him that I had a rule that said no one can be in my daughters' room and that they had to have two feet on the floor at all times. They assured me nothing was happening but having respect in the Spanish culture was something culturally that I knew was practiced as many of my friends talked to me of respectivo. It was part of the Texas culture where we lived.

Despite all that she decided that since a mission meant so much to me she would go and that her boyfriend would help support her and that they had eight thousand dollars between them. They were still too young to get married since he was actually a year younger than her. I knew because the Spirit had told me that her boyfriend had been involved with other girls when he went for diesel training in Illinois. I told her he wasn't going to be there when she got home. She didn't believe me.

A few months dragged on and she didn't put in her papers right at twenty-one. Her sister moved down to Houston to work the summer mostly to get her to go on a mission. In July they both came up to Utah on a greyhound bus. She put in her papers and was called in September 2006 to the Daejeon Korea Mission.

She was very excited and had me bring home all the books at the public library that I directed. She began learning Korean using the Rosetta Stone Software we provided patrons at the library.

Soon the day of her mission came and we went to the MTC. We meet up with her sister who was a business major. We stood in front of the MTC and had people take a few pictures of us standing in front of the sign. We then went inside and a sweet elderly lady pinned her name tag on her. My wife and I stood with her in front of the picture of Christ. We then went with the other parents on one of the sessions for incoming missionaries. We listened to the talks by the mission training center president and his wife and watched the brief video by President Gordon B. Hinckley. The program ended then we were asked to leave through one door as our missionary went through another door. She clung to her mother and didn't want to leave her. I actually shed one tear which for me is unusual since I am not overly sentimental.

I was amazed at her progress she quickly picked up all the lessons and the language came miraculously to her. I had struggled when I tried to learn Italian and it was a great chore for me yet my daughter was talking Korean within days. I had been a junior companion my whole mission but my daughter was made the coordinating sister while in the MTC.

I spoke to her once before she left and she was excited and told how she ran the call center and worked with prospective people that the Asian missionaries ran parts of the MTC since they stayed for three months. Soon she was off to Korea.



She hit her mission on the run but she ran in to a few companions that had difficulties. A couple of them suffered from low self-esteem and wanted to go home early from their missions. I knew the feeling having suffered on my mission also. Her mission president Nemrow told her unless one of her companions straightened up she would be sent home. I told her even if her companion kept them from converting people that she needed to make sure she was not the cause of sending her home. Under no circumstances was she to encourage her mission president to send the companion home. I told her that the companions salvation was as important as any new converts.

I remembered one time on my mission when M. Russell Ballard told me to pack my bags he was sending me home. I remembered the injustice I felt since I had done nothing to be sent home. I was struggling having been transferred for no real reason from one mission to another for a matter that should have been washed clean in the waters of baptism when I joined the church. The other missionaries in my new field treated me as a sinner instead of a saint. I knew how those elders and sisters felt who were rejected by those who should have loved them the most. One sister she served with finished and another went home early. The one girl said that my daughter's love for her made it possible for her stay and now she is living a happy life. The other girl is being fellowshipped by the Korean return sisters who won't give up on her.




My daughter spent eight months in the same area and grew to love the people of Korea. She baptized a complete family and several other people over the course of her longevity in her area. I on the other hand never stayed in any one area more than two months and sometimes lasted only two weeks. I went through companions like revolving doors many who fought with me within minutes of picking me up telling me things like we heard all about you.



I didn't hear much from my daughter during her mission. I had to get her emails from my wife and children. I was disappointed that she wouldn't share with me even though I spent years walking on shoes with holes in them and doing without lunches so she could have music lessons and finally her mission. Her boyfriend it turned out dumped her within two months. She never got a dime from him as he kept her money and personal goods which included a 42in Plasma screen and her personal diaries. She learned on her mission when she called his mother on mother's day that he had married three months after her mission another girl and didn't tell his parents for four months. I had told my daughter's bishop that it was worth the money to not have him in her life anymore.



Last Saturday she came home from her mission. She had to return to the U.S. without any parents since we have been living and working in the Middle East. She was released by a former companion's stake president. She was blessed by the Lord for serving a mission as she was readmitted to BYU despite dropping out. When she was sixteen I sent her there after she graduated from high school to try to reform her. She didn't do well being so young and had a low grade point average.

She called me on Skype and wanted to do a father's interview much like a mission president's interview. I asked her to report her mission. She thanked me for supporting her on a mission and told me she didn't email much because she was instructed as a missionary not to discuss negative things. She said that she thought when she went on a mission she was doing it as a form of repentance for herself but came to understand that she was there for a greater reason to help her companions and others know of the love God feels for them. She told us of her desires to do everything she could but that the Lord would bring to pass his will with or without her help. I saw a different person than the one who entered the mission home eighteen months ago.

I asked her if she regretted losing her boyfriend and if the sacrifice was worth it. Instead of being sad she said I know it was the Lord's will that I should serve otherwise I wouldn't have known the real love he had for me.

Along the way I also learned a lesson I was hard on my daughter when she slipped as a teenager. It took her telling me over and over that the atonement of Christ could cover all sins. I have let it go and see the transformation of a spiritually vibrant person dedicated to the building the kingdom of God here on this earth. I have learned many spiritual lessons from my daughter who has a superior intellect in which I am well pleased.