Mission As A Sanctuary?

In my mid teens I was planning on serving a mission & 2 of the big reasons I realize were pretty dumb in hindsight.

1. I thought it would be an opportunity to run away from all my problems. (The reality is that I would’ve just traded them in for a whole set of new problems & may have missed the problems I’d had back at home.)

2. I thought missionaries were so nice. They were the one demographic where I’d never met one I didn’t find very likable. I thought living among them would give me a nice break from all the assholes I was having to deal with in my day to day life. (Turned out all their niceness was reserved for outsiders.)

I did a Summer mini mission which did an excellent job of removing the rose colored glasses I’d been wearing. I had a companion I really butted heads with & I realized it was much harder than I thought it would be when I was on the outside looking in. The silver lining was that it prevented me from committing to 2 years of that.

Did anyone else have a mission experience that shot down preconceived ideas of what it would be like?