[QUOTE=Aveverumcorpus;586083]Well, when you have to be placed in a sterile bubble without a single thought of sex and your hormones are raginging, what do you expect??[/QUOTE]

I've been in that sterile bubble.  This guy knows better.  It's probably impossible to be 19 and not want what every man is wired up to want, but that's not an excuse to be so irresponsible.  Missionaries are not the only people who are in positions of trust who have to exercise restraint for the betterment of others.

I was in the MTC for eight weeks (Spanish).  About three weeks in, some of the sister's started to look pretty good - and even in good lighting.  Did I want to jump a bone or two?  Sure, but you tell yourself to snap out of it and life goes on.

If you believe in what you're doing, the experience of being sent on a mission can be thrilling.  You get to play dress up and wear a name tag.  You get sent to a place you hopefully have never been before.  You go through your training, learn your discussions and - if you're given a second language to use - you study a lot so you can carry on conversations with people from all over the world.  I went to Utah, the most hated mission in the Church, and I had a blast.  I had lonely times, frustrating times, depressed times - and Utah is enough to shake anybody's testimony - but it beat the crap out of working a 7/11.  Of course, we didn't have Halo then . . .

For Mormons, going on a mission is the middle-class equivalent of what the well-to-do in Europe used to do, when sons would be sent off to live in a strange land and experience the world.  You can make fun of "the bubble" all you want but there were times when it was better than Disneyland.

Belittling the mission experience is a cheap shot.  I can understand slinging a little reality check at those who call it "the best two years of my life," but knocking it just to knock the Mormons is ignorance in motion.