Perfectionistic Mormon Missionary Sent Home Early From Brazil - Debora Meireles Ling | Ep. 2128

Debora Meireles Ling was taught that worthiness is a state of constant vigilance. By the time she opened her mission call to São Paulo South, the same city where she grew up, she had already spent years inventorying her flaws with the precision of an accountant auditing a failing business. Her story, shared on John Dehlin’s Mormon Stories Podcast, illustrates how the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ emphasis on perfection can collapse under the weight of its own expectations. For Ling, the collapse came the night before her departure, in the form of her first panic attack.

Background: The Making of a Perfectionist

Ling’s childhood in Brazil was defined by a rigor that many American Mormons might find unfamiliar. Her father became a bishop at age twenty-two, barely a year after returning from his own mission. The family treated scripture study with the gravity of military drill. When young Debora grew drowsy during evening Book of Mormon readings, her parents instructed her to stand up. Sleep was not an option. The message was clear: spiritual diligence requires physical discomfort.

This was not casual religiosity. In a country where Catholicism dominates and evangelicals compete aggressively for converts, Ling’s family occupied a distinct minority position. They wore temple garments beneath their clothes in