A Ukrainian Mormon Journey - Anastasia Bigun Pt. 4 | Ep. 1273

The Cultural Blind Spot: Why Mormon Missionaries Struggle in Ukraine

American Mormon missionaries arrive in Ukraine armed with pamphlets about eternal families and the Plan of Happiness. They carry a cultural script that demands smiling optimism as proof of spiritual truth. Anastasia Bigun, a Ukrainian convert who later became a political scientist, watched these young Americans stumble through her country with a mixture of compassion and frustration. In a recent Mormon Stories Podcast interview, Bigun articulates a failure that runs deeper than language barriers. The Church, she argues, sends teenagers abroad with almost no cultural preparation for nations scarred by historical trauma.

Background: The Weight of History

Bigun's critique cuts to the heart of a colonial impulse that persists in LDS missionary culture. Missionaries enter the Missionary Training Center constructing an idealized version of themselves, she notes, then step into Ukraine expecting to find the same performative cheerfulness they left behind in Utah suburbs. They do not understand why Ukrainians do not smile at strangers. They have not studied the generations of Soviet oppression, the Holodomor, or the current Russian aggression that keeps Ukraine in a state of perpetual defense.

The emotional reserve Bigun describes is not rudeness. It is survival. Ukraine endured World War after World War, foreign invasion, and systematic attempts to erase Ukrainian language and identity. The Soviet legacy taught people to mask suffering behind pleasantries. Bigun, who describes herself as an empath, finds this performative disconnect disturbing. She can sense when someone smiles while feeling dead inside, a common survival strategy in post-Soviet culture that American missionaries interpret as hostility or spiritual darkness.

Key Claims: Politics, War, and American Naivety