Missionaries Instructed to Lie By Apostle

[bill4long]

Happy February to All!

I just watched RFM's new and very entertaining Mormon Apologist Steps In It Again! Youtube video about Jacob Hansen (I just puked a little in my mouth) and it reminded me once again of my own experience of how deception is baked into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints™ in various ways.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di2N4QKoBsI

As I was attending the Missionary Training Center circa 1984, one Saturday evening an Apostle™ came to visit for an evening peptalk a.k.a. Fireside™. As I was daydreaming about more pleasant things, (something I usually did at Conferences™ when GAs™ and other authorities were dishing out their leaderly wisdom and council in their almost hypnotically robotic Conference Voice™), something the Apostle™ said jolted me out of my mental happy place. The Apostle™ uttered some of the most profoundly Mormon words I had ever heard from any LDS authority. This ordained "prophet, seer and revelator™"* counciled us: "do not worry if you don't have a Testimony™ of the Restored Gospel.™ Bear your Testimony™ anyway, because the truth will come in the telling."

In other words, an Apostle™ was telling us to Fake It Til You Make It. Lie for the Lord™.

Anyone else around here have a similar experience?

Cheers!

* All LDS Apostles™ are ordained "prophet, seer, revelator".

[I Have Questions]

The Candle Of The Lord by Elder Packer

It is not unusual to have a missionary say, “How can I bear testimony until I get one? How can I testify that God lives, that Jesus is the Christ, and that the gospel is true? If I do not have such a testimony, would that not be dishonest?”

Oh, if I could teach you this one principle. A testimony is to be found in the bearing of it!

(From a talk given at a seminar for new mission presidents, 25 June 1982)