Most of Us Come Back. Alive and Active - The Missions that We Undertake

    Some make fun of missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Matt Parker and Tre Stone, enjoy your millions made for your mocking comedies and catchy, profane musical about guys in the faith who in their case went to a mythical yet stereotypical and rather insulting or racist African nation.

    Missions for the Church were a thing before that, during that, and since. The musical still goes (in 2025), but I think since the George Floyd summer of 2020, more people realize that racism is alive and well (stinky well) in so many ways.

    But this post is not about those that are against Latter-Day Saint missionaries. Rather, I wish to discuss the survivability and the endurability of those that go on full time missions for the Church, the one so many call Mormon, but in the faith itself wishes to promote and sustain the name of Jesus Christ.

    Some outside the religion based in Salt Lake City respect that naming convention, the longer and official one, but do not evince the faith and purpose for which it is promoted and for which it enforces such nomenclature. It is of Jesus Christ, say us believers, not Mormon, no matter how great a prophet he was and the book that he edited. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Not some ancient follower of Him, he who commanded armies of Nephites, and who redacted golden plates.

    Missionaries of the Church (of the Lord, we say), go on full time status and regularly go to distant places to share and uphold the faith of the Latter-day Saints. Mormons, as most call me or us at work.

    One is normally the other. Names and labeling. Okay, we establish that. LDS missionaries. Mormon evangelizers. Elders and sisters. Full time, set apart, young and old badge-wearing, adult representatives of the Church. Of Jesus Christ. Of Latter-Day Saints.

    I was one, my wife was one, my mother and step-father became them. Many of us go and do. My daughter has been one, my son and his girl friend are now in this perhaps momentous month of January 2026. May they go, learn, love, and thrive!

    Since the 1830s we have gone and served, preached and taught, testified and bore witness to Jesus the Savior, Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, the Priesthood of God restored, and all the other points of the faith. Principles, morals, tithing, temples, vicarious ordinances, music, gatherings, family togetherness, and on. Things churchy, Mormon, Christian.

    I do not mean to meander, or bluster on about the things that we all know and have heard before. I wanted to talk about the ones that go out, that most of us return, and not the same numbers but most of stay active upon returning and going "part-time". Some fall away. Some quit during the missions and never go back. I know a few stories of this. We are hundreds and thousands of stories and case studies.

    Some die in the mission field. Occasionally murder. It happened to a young elder in Virginia Beach this century. Or Chesapeake, the Hampton Roads area. A random thing, but devastating to him and his family. People get attacked and killed while serving. Not often. It occurred in Peru in the 1990s when I served full-time. A knife attack by a random crazed guy?

    Traffic accidents and deaths happen. A bad one in Iowa in the 1990s, to James' mission, he of Southern California. Sicknesses and illnesses. Some mysterious. Some, like soldiers or others on more secular missions, die of strange and unexplained heart defects or stomach poisons, never to be fully discovered. 

    But as stated from the start, most us return alive. Not all healthy. A man in his forties in Utah has a type of mental illness perhaps derived from some crazy bacteria or microbes from Spain, of all places.

    Most of us come home alive, breathing, and primarily healthy. Some changed, some forever, others not. And we move on with our lives. Some work and achieve tremendous success. Others not. Some might devolve into mental illness, or physical disrepair.

    We keep moving. An illness took a fellow returned missionary with brain cancer last month, December 2024. However, he went out as a champion. I attended his funeral yesterday. A honorably returned missionary, now to his eternal creator. He left behind two young boys, future emissaries of Jesus, like him, who went to Little Rock, Arkansas.

    Most us returned missionaries will grow old, and grey, and perhaps senile. Like my fried Ron M., who is now deep into his 80s. His wife passed this last year or so.

    Most of us will have deep and meaningful experiences in our church missions without getting too ill. Some, like my nephew Robert, will get sick multiple times while in Sierra Leone. Or like Greta Johnson, who fought malaria throughout her senior mission in Ghana. I had a sickness for a month, about eight months in, and lost a month of service time. It was hard; there was some time of pain and loneliness. But I made it. Decades later I had a similar sickness, and it was diagnosed as Epstein Barr. Or maybe cytomegalovirus. Either way, like mononucleosis. Not great, but we still stayed current on our investigators and we taught and baptized. I recovered.

    Some do not. Some are electrocuted, and die, like in Guatemala (I was shocked in Chile but only stunned a bit) or shot like that poor elder in Jamaica in the last few years. Some come home early, like two different cases I know from Hawai'i. 

    Most of us finish out our 18 months or 24 months with honor. Some do not. Some confess about getting too close to a girl in some remote part of South America, like where you get relegated to after three months of Santa Juana, with me. I cannot recall the name of the town now. Remote. Away from stuff. Perhaps the confession gave our mission president a heart attack. But he survived. Lived till my oldest was eight or nine, a good, long, life. Jud Allsop. Great man. Great guy. Man of faith.

    He served his mission in Mexico, where he met his wife. Decades before.

    More and more missionaries and ex-missionaries and returned missionaries all the time.

    Most of us come back. Whole, or at least partially intact.

    To go on more battles or missions or to fight windmills or slay dragons.

    And come back alive, to breathe to tell tales of the heartaches and emotional swells, the triumphs and the lows, the beauties and the challenges.

    May we all come back alive.

    

 Indiana Men: In Basketball, You Suck. You are Kind of Pitiful

    Well, I can be that way, too. Same, same, maybe.

    But I am not worth millions of millions of dollars, with a huge alumni base rooting for all my minutes and games week to week, month to month. 

    Lamar Wilkerson. Too inconsistent. Peyton Conorway. He played decently against Iowa for a while in Bloomington today, this  afternoon, but not enough, and nothing after IU cut it to four in the second half when I turned on the game. Indiana did little right after that point. They have crumpled against the last few teams: Michigan State... a whole lot of nothing late, 19-0 run against them. Who else? Wisconsin? No, Ohio State? Whoever, they were up by six and then all bad. Illinois? They had Nebraska down by 16, and crumpled.

    Crumple, crumple, IU men in b-ball.

    So sad. DeVries is the new coach. His son and the big men were supposed to be good, better.

    Tucker. Reed. Trisley, Alexis. 

    Connor Enright flashed perhaps two good games in a row, but not good enough lately. 

    Ugh. We need better. 

    We need an enema. Nah, that is Jack Nicholson playing the Joker.

    We need a general, again. Great recruiting. Tactician work.

    Do we have it? Not convinced.

    Better luck next year? Or, they may rebound this season.

    Slight chance. Slightest of chances.

 Indiana Men's Basketball: Relegated to the Dung Heap of College Championship History?

    Maybe. Maybe these Hoosiers never get the talent and the moxy that they need. Perhaps we have left them behind in the 1980s. Perhaps we will never return to any of those glory days.

    Year after year of futility. Now decades. The current coach and the program writ large are okay. Brand new. But they lack grit and talent, plus cohesion.

    DeVries and Devries. The coach might be big-time enough. The son is too slow, in my opinion. I wish he shot a little bit better. And would move better. Same with all the new Hoosier guys.

    They made a second half run at Michigan State tonight in East Lansing, as I write this, but then they folded and were crushed. A bit like the last game in Bloomington to undefeated Nebraska. Yes, top ranked Cornhusker nation. They are being picked by some as a number one seed.

    Nebraska. 

    Meanwhile, Indiana lingers as a bottom of the basketball cellar dweller, after being briefly ranked when winning a few games in the pre-conference months. Marquette looked like a great victory, but now they are little regarded as anything special.

    And now IU.

    Nothing special. No championship prospects again. 

    1990s. One Final Four. Duke stood in the way.

    2000s. One great run to the Final Game. Maryland had its way.

    2010s. Crean had one great team that choked in the Sweet Sixteen.

    2020s. Over halfway through and Indiana is not good enough.

    I am too old for this.

    Go, IU. Fight, fight, fight...

    For relevance.

Indiana Football Team Primed for the Hurricanes - No Jinxing It

    One week from tonight.

    The Hoosiers have most of their necessary guys. Oregon was hurt in the running back department.

    Mendoza is amazing, as are the offensive guys, the men on defense, the special teams.

    Miami has been clutch.

    I will report on it. The first team to ever go 16-0?

    We shall see.

The Knapsack, Go-Bag: Emblem of the Hobo of the Modern Times

    Our country has a long tradition (possibly two hundred years or more?) of guys--men, typically, called by the rest of polite society as vagrants or hobos, many times jumping on train cars across the nation, finding their luck or fate in various and sundry ways, making their life a bit haphazard and carefree, perhaps a notion of threat to the rest of us, living in less of a sedentary style, but more like a nomad or a romanticized Gypsy of yesteryear.

    Hobos. Vagrants. Bums. Train spotters or jumpers. They would have those cloth knapsacks, stereotypically attached to the end of stick. It does not have to be just these guys. Houseless tramps, wandering migrants and illegal immigrants. Some come from Latin America, but in the vast expanses of the United States, and maybe into Canada, there is space and opportunity for the long distance travelers, sojourners, soul searchers, malcontents and homeless, the poor or the random well-off miscreant, maybe an alcoholic or drug-induced wanderer. Sane or not, smart or dumb, hairy and hirsute or well shaved and or bald, these people take their bags of choice to and fro.

    We do not have to be a hobo or a poor wayfarer to use bags that aid us in our travels.

    Regular travelers and tourists use their luggage and bags for their belongings or gifts, their keepsakes and knickknacks. Knick knacks in knap sacks. English. Gym goers have gym bags, or sacks, cases,  or even purses, to pack their wares and change of clothes and footwear.

    Some of us in other realms use bags and sacks for our purposes, which can be named by different appellations, like the "go-bag". A sack or bag that can be picked up in a moment's notice, to be highly mobile and still effective in our duties and missions. I had one once; I used it in places where we traveled by day or by night, whenever or whatever we had to do. It was far away from where I am normally, and I kept it in my house storage. I believe that my daughter or maybe my son, or maybe both at one point, borrowed it for their own traveling or sporting purposes.

    It was long, it was made of a strong, tannish material, it had some adjustable straps. It brought back good or nostalgic memories from my times away, my ventures into odd and exotic places where I was supposed to be, doing what I was doing. With others, but not always. Sometimes by myself, moving between bases, some times back to places that I knew before, some of those places familiar and homey, but becoming distant as time wore on.

    My kids say I can be cryptic. Okay, maybe, but these things mean stuff to me, and perhaps it could be meaningful to another. Not too special, not too outlandish, nothing too crazy, but some footnotes, not endnotes, of my life. My go-bag was a nice and maybe bittersweet reminder of a few days, or past moments where I was engaged in some far off travels and jobs. Moments with others and by myself.

    Perhaps it was canvas, that go-bag. Not burlap. But alas, not all things can or should last. My wife did a long, cold, late night cleaning up and out of the detritus and materials of our cluttered garage. It was kind of an end of the year purging, if you will. Within some of the things found, was a solid amount of rodent waste, and some of their damage and contamination to our things, to include that once valued go-bag. Not just a knapsack or cloth satchel, but the once valued carry item. Perhaps three of us used it over ten years?

    It sat at the top of the trash heap. Actually, there were two trash cans filled to the brim. It sat close to the top of one.  I tried to see or determine if the stains could be removed, if this bag could be salvaged. Some of those memories spoke to me as I touched it, analyzed it status. No, it was time to bid it adieu. Goodbye. Farewell. Best wishes. This little remembrance or tribute a bag used and used up. To a container that worked for a season, that had its use and purpose, sat silent and mostly forgotten, and went off with many other old, discarded possessions. I was glad I saw it before it left for the dung heap of the our greater nation. It may sit moldering somewhere, below maybe by now, a ton of other things, large and small, remembered or forgotten, valued or disdained.

    Have I put it to bed? Have I evoked the gods and spirits of the hobos and free spirits, the workers and the tourists, the travelers and the hikers, the itinerant workers and the specialized operators, who crossed the nation as poor and rich, loved and hated, abandoned or cherished?

    Have I become a modern hobo, looking back across the fields and meadow and rivers and bridges of the land, albeit in memory and emotion, thinking back to a time when I was less inhibited, less constrained, freer to live yet stuck in the same rhythms that we all ultimately find ourselves in?

    Sure, maybe.

    I will get that to-go bag to go, please. Rest it on my shoulder and move on down the road of life.

    

Six Undefeated Men's Teams as of January 4, 2026. Who can do it?

    Five majors and one minor are without a loss, this far into the New Year. What will be by March? Will Venezuela be okay, after we took their president and first lady? Will nothing else get crazy in the world, like in Ukraine or Israel-Palestine? Will anyone care about Sudan or other war-torn places, perhaps maybe Congo?

    This post is about men's Division One basketball, not world affairs. But occasionally one will affect the other. Like 2020 and COVID. The Chinese pandemic.

    Who are the unblemished? Vanderbilt, Arizona, Iowa State, Nebraska, and Michigan. Oh yes, and Miami of Ohio. The Redhawks? The Mighty Mid-American Conference, anyone?

    Will any of them run the table? Not likely, for at least three reasons. I will also add the psychological factor. We are prone to mess up. Like I explained about free throws yesterday.

    Reason why no one of these teams will go undefeated into March and run the table, as we say:

    1). Historical precedent of parity. Not since the well endowed Hoosiers of 1976 has a team gone undefeated and won the National Championship. There have been some powerful teams since, probably a few better than the Indiana Bob Knight squad of my little years. 

_____________________

BREAK: Now January 7. 2026.

Vandy is playing ranked Alabama tight in the second. Arizona is getting on Kansas State. Koa Peat is impressive. 

    I wager none of these teams will make it unscathed during this month. Maybe Miami of Ohio? But they may not even make the 68 field of the Big Dance in March. May I make it in my work till then? We shall see. Just live and breath. Drive safe.

    Nebraska will get theirs. Michigan, too. Purdue and a few other Big Ten teams are good, a few ranked like Michigan State and Illinois. Maybe Iowa, and of course my Hoosiers. Not Maryland or Rutgers, they are down.

    It is a long season.

    May the one loss BYU Cougars prevail! Not Arizona. Should be fun.

    Enjoy, last of the undefeated. You will all lose soon enough.

    See ya. Blog on.

 You are Not as Great, or Good, as You Thought You Were. But that is okay

    You have to believe that you are good enough, because even when you are failing, or falling, or mis-que-ing, (need to look up that word). When others doubt or mistrust or fail you, you have to hang in there. Or then you will really fail. You have to believe that you and the good will work out.

    Religious or not. Otherwise, things can get too hard to withstand. You need some self-belief and some confidence, if not that much in yourself than at least the system. Or systems.

    God, or Jesus, or the spiritual paths to the good are important to many of us. They are crucial. For the secular or more agnostic, we have to have systems and checks that will stay there for us.

    We understand being down and depressed, lonely or feeling lost or abandoned.

    We have to be found, as they say, by whatever means.

    I guess the guy four years older than me who killed himself a few months ago gave up hope. He had issues, that we can all agree to. But we must figure things out better.

    Some say he did not think that people liked him enough.

    Yeah, I get it. Sometimes we can be hard on ourselves in that vain, too.

    But we have to ease up on the scrutiny, do our best, and live for another day.

    Make it through the storms, rains, and mists. The sun and temperate times will come.

    It will be okay.

    Do not hate yourself or others that much, because that formula is a negativity cycle that will not end up well.

    Patience, love, forgiveness, are key, especially to those closest to you, like you and your spouse.

    Love you. Love me. Thanks for doing that.