Dmitri Yatsenko’s two-year mission to Seattle, Washington influenced his criticism of and eventual break from the Mormon Church.

What influenced you to go on a mission? Were you expected to go?

The expectation to go on a mission is continually reinforced by the Church leadership. Every address to pre-mission youth contains some form of encouragement for young men to go on a mission and for young women to bias or to limit their romantic preferences to returned missionaries. I wanted to go because I believed that I could help others and make a difference in their lives. In retrospect, my mission may have made a few people’s lives better and simply annoyed many more.

What did you learn by going on a mission?

I learned a great deal about the influence of the collective on the individual. The mission seems to have made me less credulous even when the person selling the goods appears to be sincere and honorable. It taught me to rely more on my own critical thinking and only then seek social approval. I may be more cynical now than I would have been had I not gone on that mission.

How did your mission change your feelings about the Church?

During my mission I understood that my own worldview and ethical priorities differed in some respects from those taught by the Church. The differences grew until they led me out of the ranks of the Church a couple of years later.

Why do you think the missionary program is successful? Why are young Mormon men so willing to spend two years on a mission?

I don’t think the missionary program is successful. Considering the tremendous investment, the return is dismal and decreasing.

Young men and women go on missions essentially because of their sincere idealistic desire to do good and to change the world for the better. They go because they want to validate their own faith by sharing it with others.

If you could go back in time, would you still go on a mission? Why?

I wish there were programs as well funded, organized and promoted as the Mormon missionary program with the agenda of protecting the environment, improving the quality of life, advancing scientific progress and defending human rights without promoting dogmatic views of a self-serving organization. I have heard many missionaries say that they would have rather served in those countries where proselytizing was illegal and where the Church had humanitarian service missions. I wish I had gone on that kind of mission instead as well.

What are you doing now? Did being a missionary play a part in your life today? How?

Little in my life says “returned missionary” now. Many of my friends don’t know I was ever a Mormon.

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