Fine, I'll make this as bad as I can

Part 1/3

“When I was 19, I got my mission call to Ecuador. I was excited, but there was something that just felt really weird. I got a father’s blessing, which said, ‘The things that are going on right now are going on for a reason, and you’ll understand the wisdom in what’s going on right now years and years down the road.’ I remember when that was said, it was as clear as clear could be that I needed to call off my mission. I was worthy to go on a mission, but I didn’t feel ready to go through the temple, because that was a big deal for me. I went to the temple every week from the time I was 12 to 17 ½ to do baptisms for the dead, and I loved it.  But I knew that I was not as mature as I felt I needed to be to take out my endowments. I wasn’t ready. So I called off my mission.

“I could tell it was a blow to my bishop, and I didn’t know why. He was really upset. The bishopric was digging and digging to try and find out why I called it off, and why I wasn’t worthy. The bishop tried to excommunicate me.

“Before it got to a stake level, I had a disciplinary council with the bishopric. Typically, those last for 20-30 minutes. But mine lasted for 4 hours. And then they did a second one for another 4 hours on a different Sunday.

“It lasted so long because there were no grounds to excommunicate me on. But my bishop wanted to so bad. So bad. And it pissed me off, because they were just being really weird and jerky about it. They were titillated because a good kid had called off his mission. They wanted to eat it alive. It was really gross. That really hardened me, because I felt like they were out to get me. So I was just feeding them—I was aggrandizing everything I could. My attitude was basically, ‘Fine, I’ll make this as bad as I can.’ Because I hadn’t done a lot of stuff.”