premarital relations

[byuguy14]

what will the repercussions be for oral sex outside of marriage? my friend just slipped up and is trying to figure out if he can even still go on a mission.

[NeuroTypical]

Hi and welcome!   Questions like this are pretty common actually.  The answer is always the same though - your friend should confide in/confess to his bishop, and work through things with him.  Far, far, far better to get stuff like this out into the open and dealt with and resolved, than to keep it secret where it festers.

[Just_A_Guy]

I agree with @NeuroTypical.  Frankly, the history of having committed the act probably doesn’t disqualify him if  he has fully repented.  But the bishop needs to be part of that process.

The bigger question here is, why does he want to go on a mission?  The function of a mission is to preach the Savior; and preaching a Savior begs the question:  a Savior who saves us from what, exactly?

Does your friend consider oral sex outside of marriage, to be the kind of behavior (or behavior indicative of a mental state) from which a) people, speaking generally, need to be saved; and b) from which he, specifically, has in fact been saved?  Those, to my mind, are the million-dollar questions; and more than anything else those answers determine whether your friend has any business in the mission field at this point in time.  

[Fether]

1 hour ago, byuguy14 said:

what will the repercussions be for oral sex outside of marriage? my friend just slipped up and is trying to figure out if he can even still go on a mission.

I have known many missionaries who had some sort of justification for not confessing to the bishop and went on their mission. Doing so are them alive until they finally confessed. Every second is mental and emotional torcher if your friend goes on a mission without confessing.

Here are some exercises I have done to help my self chill out about confessing sins to the bishop.

1) tell myself “repenting and coming clean is a requirement for exaltation. Serving a mission is not.”

2) Ask myself “do I really believe there is a God? Do I really believe this is God’s church? If I really believe these things, going to my bishop is the obvious decision. If I don’t and I am only in it for the cheap schooling and social life, than who cares, I’ll just go on a mission without repenting”

3) tell myself “this is a weakness I have. The only way to overcome it is through Christ. Christ has given clear guidelines on what someone ought to do to become clean of their sins. Do I become clean or do I stay hiding?”

Maybe share those with your friend

Edited July 8, 2022 by Fether

[askandanswer]

Oral sex is clearly something that needs to be repented of. Once that fact is accepted, then it simply becomes a question of working out when is the best time to repent. I really can't see how the advantages of repenting after a mission could in any way outweigh the advantages of repenting before a mission. No matter how many times you draw up the list of advantages of pre-mission repentance and compare it with the list of advantages of post-mission repentance, it will always come out in favour of pre-mission repentance. And the advantages of repenting, either before or after a mission, greatly outweigh the totally non-existent "advantages" of not repenting at all. So since repentance is necessary, it makes sense to do it at the most advatageous time possible, which is  before a mission.  

I am confident that your friend will have a far more saving, life-changing, fulfilling mission if he fully repents before going. I think that a full, honest, sincere confession and repentance to the proper authorities in the proper way may lead to a delay in going on a mission, because repentance takes time, but I don't believe the action on its own, once repented of, will actually prevent your friend from serving.

Going back several decades, during my mission I knew a missionary in my District who concluded/remembered/realised that his pre-mission repentance had been inadequate. It troubled him for some time until he finally went to the Mission President and confessed. I heard later that the Mission President called the missionary's Stake President back home and they discussed if the missionary should be sent home. He came back to our District much happier than when he had left although I don't recall if his effectiveness as a missionary increased. I presume it would have now that he no longer had that extra baggage of unrepented sin to carry around. 

5 For thou, Lord, art good, and ready to ^aforgive; and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee.

Psalms 86:5