Pretty Decent Summary of Missionary Life for many of us

[_SoHo]

From this month's issue of Toronto Life Magazine:

http://www.torontolife.com/features/sal ... /?pageno=1

"When I was 19, I spent two years trying to convert strangers to Mormonism. I was shouted at and chased off lawns. It was a test of my faith, and ultimately I failed."

[Guest]

From the article:

"We would try never to go home before 9:30 p.m., even if it meant wandering around parking lots, stopping people getting into their cars"

Talk about the least most effective tracting technique. The church is clueless about sales. Get the missionaries involved in their communities and not as passing transitional door to door hucksters.

I could relate to every word the young man shared. I wonder if his story was ghostwritten, it sure seems clever, well articulated and expressed like a seasoned writer and not like a 26 year. old.

Now I don’t even know if my life was improved by being baptized. Wouldn’t I feel less guilty, less fearful of eternal damnation, if I had never been introduced to the church?

Exactly my sentiments.

[_StructureCop]

If you believe that story, it’s not such a big leap to accept that God also told Joseph Smith that caffeine is prohibited.

You're doing it wrong.

[_Inconceivable]

Missionaries work without compensation, buying groceries on an allowance pro­vided by the church. The church arranges for a car, if necessary, and finds apartments, too. (For a predominantly right-wing church, its operations are surprisingly socialist. Missionaries and their parents contribute roughly $10,000 to the church prior to their mission, and the funds are distributed around the globe as needed.)

I would agree the article was ghost written (catching the above innacuracy) but the overal theme parallels my mission experience.

It makes me angry that one of my boys is putting in his papers this month. I wonder if it will do him more harm overall than good. It would be nice to present a viable alternative to this pathetic right of passage for Mormon young men.

[_zzyzx]

For most I know in the Brigham/Logan/SoIdaho area a mission is a right of passage more than anything else. A viable alternative is military service even though many members feel the person is a failure if they choose it over a mission. A good alternative would be Peace Corps service but the stigma there in LDS circles is even worse.

Actually serving people rather than learning to be a future insurance sales type is not what LDS, Inc wants for the youth of missionary age.

[_Jason Bourne]

Honstly I still look back at my mission with great fondness. Was it hard? Sure. Were there some elements of what this fellow wrote? You bet. Some was a bit of a stretch...getting into peoples cars just to stay out till 9:30???


But my mission taught me how to work hard, built a ton of confidence in my, something I did not have as a bit of an awkward teen. It taught me how to get along with a variety of people. I learned to speak well in public and how to debate. Yes I enjoyed a good Bible bash here and there. It taught me some leadership skills as a DA and ZL. It taught me how to care for others because I did care for those I taught and many members I came to know. Also I cared for my companions.

So much of my success later in school and my career really has its roots in what I learned on my mission. Was it easy? No. Was it all great. Heck no. But much of it was and I have no regrets. I am sorry for those of you who do.

[_truth dancer]

I'm guessing it won't be too long before the LDS church stops its door to door/look for people on the street or in the parking lot, method of contacting folk.

Too many people hate this tactic and it is most likely causing more bad feelings than it is helping. Seriously bad PR in my opinion.

It was one thing to go door to door during the 1940's when it was common, accepted, and pretty standard but today it is just so not cool and quite annoying to say the least.

In my neighborhood, after the elders came a tracting, a big sign was posted at the entrance stating no soliciting of any kind, in direct reference to the missionaries along with a few other groups of LDS young men who were selling security systems and insecticide programs. (Yeah, it was quite a summer).

It just seems like a really archaic method of salesmanship in most of the modern world.

Anyone want to bet me a hot cocoa that this practice will be gone (in the US) within ten years?


~td~

[_Jason Bourne]

It just seems like a really archaic method of salesmanship in most of the modern world.

Anyone want to bet me a hot cocoa that this practice will be gone (in the US) within ten years?


~td~

I will take that bet. Archaic and annoying as it is it still yields results.

[_Inconceivable]

Hi TD,

Tracting is part of the right of passage as well.

It's how a young man will experience first hand what Mormons inacurrately label as religeous persecution.

Keep in mind, missionaries are taught that the wicked goats reject Jesus, not the missionary. The sheep hear His voice, right?

I concluded that Jesus must have a very, very small herd of lost muttons. Made me feel that much more important knowing I was one of the few without mud in his ears.

[_MsJack]

Anyone want to bet me a hot cocoa that this practice will be gone (in the US) within ten years?

I don't think tracting is going anywhere anytime soon. The church hasn't given one drop of consideration to altering its other archaic and ineffective practices, like Sunday hymns accompanied by a lone piano/pipe organ sung to the tempo of a dirge as the only style of music offered. Change does not come easily to the LDS church, even when it really ought to.