DiscussMormonism.com

bcspace wrote:

Finally Someone Asked the Question..."Are Missionaries Safe"

Sensationalism (yellow journalism). What's the typical accident/death rate of a small city of say, 60,000 people, compared to the accident/death rate of the Church's missionary force?

Apples to oranges. The comparison is invalid as the groups do not represent one another.

Sensationalism (yellow journalism). What's the typical accident/death rate of a small city of say, 60,000 people, compared to the accident/death rate of the Church's missionary force?

Apples to oranges. The comparison is invalid as the groups do not represent one another.

In a sense you're right as one would expect the missionaries to be safer as a group than the average American city and that indeed seems to be the case. But that merely negates the mock concern being shown here.

maklelan wrote:

Bazooka wrote:maklelan, you seem to be running off with a list of claims but not supporting them with facts.

1. What does the Church do, specifically, to minimise the risk to missionaries from either traffic accidents, health and safety incidents, physical harm, health problems, mental issues etc?

Numerous things. For instance, missionaries are trained in the MTC to take care of certain common health concerns, like ingrown toenails, tapeworms, diarrhea, etc.

Since when? I received no such training.

maklelan wrote:And that would be the kind of thing the missionary department would like to hear about. They're actively trying to stop that negligence, and it's hardly the norm.

I hope you're right. In my mission, when members and missionaries from a particular area of La Paz went to the mission president to warn him that those specific missionaries were being threatened, he told the missionaries that as long as they kept the rules, prayed, and read their scriptures, they'd be protected. They were both shot and killed when they arrived at their apartment on time at the end of a normal day.

If I had a son or daughter in the mission field, I wouldn't simply take anyone's word for it that my child was adequately prepared and protected from harm. I would hope they would be, but I wouldn't assume it.

Bazooka wrote:Maklelan, the missionaries have just been here for dinner.
I asked them the question I posed on this thread "what did the Church do, specifically, to ensure your safety and well being whilst here on your mission?".
I'm not saying that you are lying, but your account and their account were somewhat different.

I must be lying about it all, then. Good thing you found two missionaries (serving in the states, I presume) to set me straight about how the Church deals with high risk areas.

Bazooka wrote:I don't think the following article about how missionaries spend their time in the MTC tallies up with the picture you are trying to paint....

I don't think you've bothered to take the time to try to understand the picture I'm trying to paint, but that article also wasn't an event-by-event account of what goes on. It was a broad overview of what missionaries do in a given day. They didn't mention all the initial training and exams, like waiting in line to get all the inoculations you didn't know you needed, or all the paperwork you're given, or even all the videos you watch.

Bazooka wrote:Perhaps the Deseret News team just don't have access to those secret documents of yours.

No, it's just not a comprehensive look at everything that happens in the MTC. Are you really going to go this route? You really want to suggest I'm just making all this up?

TrashcanMan79 wrote:Since when? I received no such training.

They've been doing it since long before I hit the MTC in 2001.

What I would be interested in knowing is whether, in places like Bolivia, where I served my mission, the church can guarantee access to adequate health care. Even if we'd had money to go to the doctor, I'm not sure we would have known where to go or what services to request.

Does the church make sure that, wherever there are missionaries, an adequate provider is found and contracted to care for missionaries? I'm not even sure that's possible in many parts of the world.

Runtu wrote:I hope you're right. In my mission, when members and missionaries from a particular area of La Paz went to the mission president to warn him that those specific missionaries were being threatened, he told the missionaries that as long as they kept the rules, prayed, and read their scriptures, they'd be protected. They were both shot and killed when they arrived at their apartment on time at the end of a normal day.

And that's a terrible mission president that is entirely antithetical to the training they receive these days.

Runtu wrote:If I had a son or daughter in the mission field, I wouldn't simply take anyone's word for it that my child was adequately prepared and protected from harm. I would hope they would be, but I wouldn't assume it.

You obviously had rare and horrible circumstances surrounding your mission, but that's not at all the way it is these days.

maklelan wrote:

Bazooka wrote:Maklelan, the missionaries have just been here for dinner.
I asked them the question I posed on this thread "what did the Church do, specifically, to ensure your safety and well being whilst here on your mission?".
I'm not saying that you are lying, but your account and their account were somewhat different.

I must be lying about it all, then. Good thing you found two missionaries (serving in the states, I presume) to set me straight about how the Church deals with high risk areas.

Bazooka wrote:I don't think the following article about how missionaries spend their time in the MTC tallies up with the picture you are trying to paint....

I don't think you've bothered to take the time to try to understand the picture I'm trying to paint, but that article also wasn't an event-by-event account of what goes on. It was a broad overview of what missionaries do in a given day. They didn't mention all the initial training and exams, like waiting in line to get all the inoculations you didn't know you needed, or all the paperwork you're given, or even all the videos you watch.

Bazooka wrote:Perhaps the Deseret News team just don't have access to those secret documents of yours.

No, it's just not a comprehensive look at everything that happens in the MTC. Are you really going to go this route? You really want to suggest I'm just making all this up?

I don't think you're making it all up.
I think what it says in those papers you have at your disposal:
a. Isn't a reflection of what really goes on, and
b. It clearly isn't enough.

Or do you think the Church is doing enough to manage the risks to Missionaries?

maklelan wrote:You obviously had rare and horrible circumstances surrounding your mission, but that's not at all the way it is these days.

Again, I have no doubt that the church trains people to do the right thing, but I don't know how anyone can guarantee that the right thing actually happens.

I know, I am jaded by some pretty bad experiences, but I have learned in my lifetime that, just because there's a written procedure for something, it doesn't mean that's what happens.

In places where there are no phones, for example, which was the case in most of my mission, there's no way you could check in on missionaries every night. I once went 3 months without speaking to any missionary other than my companion. And if missionaries weren't allowed into bad neighborhoods, almost half of La Paz would have been out of bounds.

I don't mean to sound cynical, but I would guess that mission presidents and missionaries in certain parts of the world have to bend the rules as they see fit because the rules you describe simply aren't feasible everywhere.