I am happy to say I never wore one of those on the mission. It’s a fanny pack when you wear it in the back, but what is it called when you wear the pouch in the front?

I’ve never associated those packs with missionaries. Nobody wore one in my mission 30 years ago, and if missionaries wear them now, I hadn’t noticed. It was common however for elders in my mission to stuff a couple of Book of Mormons and maybe a flipchart into the back of their pants. Maybe that was the original fanny pack.

I went to school with guy who served a mission in Asia. He refused to wear shoes into people’s homes, regardless of what other people would do he would leave his shoes at the door. In this particular case, I think there would have been any number of Asian cultural norms that would have benefited him much more than walking around in his socks.

My brother, raised on the East coast and served a mission in Europe, came back with all sorts of mission-centric style/habits that we assumed had origins in the Mormon corridor, but he was always (still is) a sucker for tribal identification.

I remove my shoes when I enter my house. Protects the carpet.

Fanny pack worn in front = belly bag. I’ve even seen some specially-made holsters disguised as belly-bags, with a hidden compartment for the handgun. Some were big enough to conceal a Colt 45 in the “hidden” compartment, plus still carry stuff in the main compartment.

Orwell: In my overseas mission, the members of the EQ, and especially RM’s, usually wore the oil vial dangling from a belt loop. I think it was their “I’m an elder” tribal identification.

Sometimes, an over-eager priest, chomping at the bit to go on a mission, would also wear the vial from a belt loop “just in case an elder didn’t have his, and one was needed.” Some thought it was false-advertising, but I can’t think of any rule that says a non-MP-holder can’t possess consecrated oil.

The fanny packs were all the rage in my mission… that’s why it took me a moment to realize what was so strange. I know mine wasn’t the only one, but I am still a little surprised that no one else (so far) knows what I’m talking about. I’ve certainly never seen it in the states, though. We didn’t have bikes or cars and weren’t required to wear suit coats everyday, all of which aren’t conducive to a fanny pack culture.

The issue isn’t so much the fanny packs themselves, though. It’s more that they’re still carrying them around at church like a moth-eaten letterman’s jacket (over their shoulders, no less).

Bookslinger, that vial story is just the sort of thing I was talking about, thanks. (Also, wouldn’t it be a great Freudian moment if I had written “vile” instead?) “Tribal identification” exactly describes the fanny pack phenomenon.

Also, it never occurred to me that they all might just be packing heat. I’ll definitely think twice before I make any extra-manual comments in EQ.

Orwell, it’s actually the opposite for a responsible heat-packer. He/she will limit their actions so as to reduce the chance of giving offense or drawing attention, even allowing offenses they receive to slide by so that things won’t escalate.

As a missionary, I often carried a cheap briefcase that appealed to me more than a backpack. It irritated some missionaries that I looked too much like a Jehovah’s Witness. I guess they had a point. A year later at college, I was still using the mission briefcase when I slipped on ice one dark pre-dawn morning. The briefcase took some of the impact and shattered. I had mixed feelings; I didn’t like losing the briefcase, but my knee hurt as it was, and I was glad it wasn’t worse.

Um.. that title will be a shocker to some of your British readers.

“in England `fanny’ is vulgar slang for female genitals”
-from Princeton Univ’s “wordnet”

They’re always a bit slower on the social spectrum.

good one.

OK, I’m sitting here trying to remember how we carried our stuff around in my mission 35 years ago (Central America, 1972-74). I know it wasn’t fanny packs. My guess would be backpacks, since we often rode bikes. Maybe briefcases. I’ll have to dig out surviving mission slides and see what I find. ..bruce..

Fanny packs and backpacks were both banned on my mission. Nobody was carrying either, as far as I know.

n Chile 1973-75 we carried our stuff in cheap Chilean satchels, calling them briefcases would be too elevating

Southern Chile, 1989-1991, we used backpacks in the dry season and in the really wet season (the other 9 months of the year), a companionship would split up their belongings — one would carry the triple, one could carry the bible, one could carry flipcharts, and they’d split 3-4 copies of the Libro de Mormon. All of this would be wrapped in ziplocks to keep dry and stuffed into the pockets of the overcoat. Why? Because the rain in Southern Chile usually moves sideways. Umbrellas were useless. Backpacks wouldn’t stay dry. So you’d stuff your pockets, get a nice knit woolen gorro, and amble like a hunchback from place to place.

Not ideal for bicycles but only one city in our mission had bikes, everyone else walked, took buses or used taxis (cheap exchange rate.)

Yup. Only the ZLs in city-based zones had bikes. Everyone else used the micros or the colectivos.