WOW: A must watch! Admissions of a mission prez!

[_Boaz & Lidia]

All I can say is OMG.


A former mission president to the Chile mission, BYU Professor Dr. Ted Lyon, has gone on camera and quite candidly talked about the completely dishonest practices of the church in that mission.

He admits that the activity rate there is 10-11%!!!!!

He talks about when he arrived as mission president that they had what they called "2 hour baptisms" and they were proud of it, and "made up baptisms" where they would simply make up names of baptized converts.


He also said there was 210,000 members that the church could not locate, and this puzzled him and he suggests that perhaps the names were made up..

This whole thing is sooo troubling on so many fronts. He even admits that the 13 million number was misleading as there is probably only 4 million active members.

I would like to ask him WHY the records department HAS NOT removed all of those membership records that he knew was obtained with dishonest means.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=VzCcCacfnfU

Later, completely unrelated, he rambles on about his first self induced emotional epiphany when he was 16 or 17 and how he always goes back to that experience when his faith faced challenges. Odd that a full grown educated man would trust his immature feelings...


Annnd later on he talks about why there is so much CONTROL over what is said by the leaders and how and IF it is disseminated.

OH oh oh "Rough Stone Rolling" is mentioned and they talk about "INOCULATION" for the members and tell the truth and whole truth of Mormon history.. because like his own father taught, they don't want a 30 year old member finding out something odd about Mormon history that WOULD CAUSE THEM TO LEAVE THE CHURCH.



Watch the whole thing.. very open and telling.

[_Inconceivable]

Thanks Boaz.

I'll show this to my 18 year old son that is still active.

[_Yoda]

I can't watch YouTube at work, but I'll check it out when I get home.

[_The Nehor]

Thanks, I enjoyed it.

[_Dr. Shades]

Interesting stuff. The video is over 40 minutes long, so to save y'all the time I'll list the other noteworthy items that B&L hasn't already conveyed:

• He mentioned how, when he showed up, there was a missionary who was recommended to be the next AP due to all the baptisms he was getting. This missionary frankly admitted that most of his baptisms were made up names. He commented (paraphrasing), "What sort of message are we sending the missionaries if we show them that deception is rewarded by promotion?"
• He talked quite a bit about Ernest L. Wilkinson, notorious former president of BYU. He described how, after being made president of that university, Wilkinson "made himself" president over all of CES as well. Regarding Wilkinson, he flatly stated, "He wanted power."
• He mentioned how Wilkinson planted spies in the classrooms of T. Edgar Lyon & Lowell Bennion.
• A former sister missionary described how, when she was in Colombia about the same time this dude was in Chile, the high-pressure tactics were the same and that they disturbed her, too. She asked where the pressure comes from. He responded that the pressure comes from the mission presidents themselves since "They often want to make a name for themselves." He discussed how there was a monthly newsletter of sorts passed around to the mission presidents in each region, and how the number of baptisms in each mission was listed. He mentioned that a mission president could see their own mission being way below another one and then turn up the heat.
• He said that he had kept all of these newsletters and was donating them to the BYU library. I was quite surprised when he openly admitted that he wouldn't donate them to the church, since "the church wouldn't make them available."

That was only part 2 of 3. I couldn't bring myself to watch the other two parts. Did anyone else do so?

[_The Nehor]

Interesting stuff. The video is over 40 minutes long, so to save y'all the time I'll list the other noteworthy items that B&L hasn't already conveyed:

• He mentioned how, when he showed up, there was a missionary who was recommended to be the next AP due to all the baptisms he was getting. This missionary frankly admitted that most of his baptisms were made up names. He commented (paraphrasing), "What sort of message are we sending the missionaries if we show them that deception is rewarded by promotion?"
• He talked quite a bit about Ernest L. Wilkinson, notorious former president of BYU. He described how, after being made president of that university, Wilkinson "made himself" president over all of CES as well. Regarding Wilkinson, he flatly stated, "He wanted power."
• He mentioned how Wilkinson planted spies in the classrooms of T. Edgar Lyon & Lowell Bennion.
• A former sister missionary described how, when she was in Colombia about the same time this dude was in Chile, the high-pressure tactics were the same and that they disturbed her, too. She asked where the pressure comes from. He responded that the pressure comes from the mission presidents themselves since "They often want to make a name for themselves." He discussed how there was a monthly newsletter of sorts passed around to the mission presidents in each region, and how the number of baptisms in each mission was listed. He mentioned that a mission president could see their own mission being way below another one and then turn up the heat.
• He said that he had kept all of these newsletters and was donating them to the BYU library. I was quite surprised when he openly admitted that he wouldn't donate them to the church, since "the church wouldn't make them available."

That was only part 2 of 3. I couldn't bring myself to watch the other two parts. Did anyone else do so?

One note Shades. The missionary did not admit he made up the names. He found that out when he went to the branch the missionary had just served in.

[_Dr. Shades]

One note Shades. The missionary did not admit he made up the names. He found that out when he went to the branch the missionary had just served in.

I thought he found out from the missionary when he went to the branch the missionary was serving in.

[_The Nehor]

One note Shades. The missionary did not admit he made up the names. He found that out when he went to the branch the missionary had just served in.

I thought he found out from the missionary when he went to the branch the missionary was serving in.

I doubt it. He said the missionary was in the very southern end of Chile when the fake baptisms occurred. If the missionary was made an AP, he would not still be out in the boonies. He'd work closer to the Mission Home and Office.

[_Dr. Shades]

I doubt it. He said the missionary was in the very southern end of Chile when the fake baptisms occurred. If the missionary was made an AP, he would not still be out in the boonies. He'd work closer to the Mission Home and Office.

Yeah, but he said the missionary was recommended as the prime candidate for AP. He never said whether or not the guy actually made AP.

[_Mary]

I liked this guy. He was being honest and open.
I think the church needs more people like this who are prepared to say it as it is.
Unless there is an admittance about what is going on and the rights and wrongs of it, nothing will ever change for the better.

I don't think this goes on in every mission by the way. I'm not saying numbers weren't important. They were, but I remember
my 2nd mission president trying to reign some of the missionaries in... Difficult though, because there is/was a lot of pressure to conform, in the name of God, to the ongoing ethos.. I found it quite perplexing at times, particularly when it involved children, mentally retarded or very vulnerable, lonely people..

Oh well....
He seems like a good man. Felt he was a bit nervous though...

Mary