Sheri Dew is trying hard to create another Nelson-credited "miracle."
In 2014, then-Elder Russell M. Nelson chaired the Missionary Executive Council. One day he announced to the council the need to put smartphones in the hands of every missionary.
In time, the council began pilot testing in a few missions, and every problem the council predicted could happen, happened. However, “Elder Nelson never wavered in his conviction that missionaries could be taught to use the internet righteously and that they should have smartphones,” Sheri Dew related during a BYU–Hawaii devotional on Nov. 1.
Fast forward to January 2020 when President Nelson, now President of the Church, authorized every missionary worldwide to have a smartphone. Within three weeks, the pandemic shut down the world and proselyting stopped.
Elder Brent H. Nielson, executive director of the Missionary Department at the time, said, “I quickly learned that the Lord had prepared us for this day. Prophets can see around corners.”
Well, not quite. Also reported in the lds church news:
...Sister Joyce Havens, a senior missionary with her husband, Elder Gary Havens, in the Tahiti Papeete Mission, chronicled how a pandemic prohibition on groups larger than 10 and the closure of Church buildings resulted in missionaries unable to watch April 2020 general conference in meetinghouses or member homes.
And the mission-issued models of cellphones didn’t allow missionaries to access the internet to listen.
...Cellphones created a unique “conference call” for the Tahiti Papeete Mission, when pandemic precautions restricted groups to no larger than 10 and closed Church meetinghouses.
Missionaries were unable to watch April 2020 general conference — and couldn’t listen since the mission-issued phone models then didn’t allow internet accesses.
...And the Portugal Lisbon Mission in spring 2020 was representative of others throughout Europe and across the world.
So the need for missionaries to have internet access was revealed in 2014, but the smartphones assigned to missionaries in 2022 ..
didn't have internet access.
Sheri Dew recites this as evidence of prophetic revelation.
The most recent Mormon Stories episode goes into some detail about what current missionaries are allowed to have.
She brought her own Samsung phone, which the mission managed with a piece of software called MaaS 360. It essentially locked down the phone and limited what missionaries could do with their own phones.
She claims if you went to any website that wasn’t whitelisted, an alarm would be sent to the mission and the phone would be locked.
The most recent Mormon Stories episode goes into some detail about what current missionaries are allowed to have.
She brought her own Samsung phone, which the mission managed with a piece of software called MaaS 360. It essentially locked down the phone and limited what missionaries could do with their own phones.
She claims if you went to any website that wasn’t whitelisted, an alarm would be sent to the mission and the phone would be locked.
I just finished listening to this podcast with Brinley Jensen today. Back when I had interaction with LDS missionaries, it was landlines which were listed in the mission president's names.
"Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them." Psalm 139:16 ESV
On Sept. 17, 2020, Sister Dew was invited to a communications meeting with President Nelson where it was suggested that he record a message of hope for Church members as the pandemic was raging.
Eventually, President Nelson told the group he should record a message for the world, not just members, that it should be about gratitude, and when it should be released and how long the video should be.
If group members had relied on their own expertise, Sister Dew said, they would never have made the video as long as President Nelson specified nor would they have released it. “But a Prophet had spoken and we went to work.”
So Nelson received revelation that his message should be grander and longer than was the original idea. I'm not seeing prophetic ability, I'm seeing narcissism.
Did Sheri stop to consider why a Prophet needed a communications meeting where someone else put forward the notion that perhaps members needed a message of hope from the President of the Church, before he realised members needed to hear a message of hope? If there was a Prophet in that meeting, it wasn't Nelson.
I love when technological advances and the shifts they make in the world get credited to prophets. "Well the way things work in the world means we may need to adapt". Did you hear that? The prophet has spoken. Praise Jesus. Technology is inspired by God.
“Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
Incoherent miracle stories. That’s the best she’s got, or you can bet she would have brought better.
by the way, Nelson is fond of saying “good information leads to good revelation.” Think about that…
Well, you need to study it out in your mind, and do some market testing, and perhaps some polling of the members, and hire outside consultants, and have committees brainstorm and make reports, and include prayer every step, and only then are you in a position to get some "good revelation."
Myth is misused by the powerful to subjugate the masses all too often.
Incoherent miracle stories. That’s the best she’s got, or you can bet she would have brought better.
by the way, Nelson is fond of saying “good information leads to good revelation.” Think about that…
Well, you need to study it out in your mind, and do some market testing, and perhaps some polling of the members, and hire outside consultants, and have committees brainstorm and make reports, and include prayer every step, and only then are you in a position to get some "good revelation."
Don't forget to have a hardy investment scheme in the smart phone companies in order to bring in more wealth than all other churches combined. God is pouring down his blessings on the church in the form of mammon. Apparently when Jesus said you cannot serve God and mammon, he was not speaking as the Savior, but was just giving out his own opinion, so the church can safely ignore that and go into full 225 mph NASA car mode after money. If the pile doesn't dwarf the height of the Salt Lake Temple by 2023, they have failed to fulfill an unspoken prophecy of Jesus which only they are aware of.
Did Sheri stop to consider why a Prophet needed a communications meeting where someone else put forward the notion that perhaps members needed a message of hope from the President of the Church, before he realised members needed to hear a message of hope? If there was a Prophet in that meeting, it wasn't Nelson.
Turning a message of hope into one of gratitude should have clued Dew into the danger of being surrounded by yes-men minions.
