I’ve been reflecting a lot on my days as a missionary lately. One of the thoughts that has occurred to me is where missionaries fit into the organization of the church. Are they the sales force for the church? Are they a part of the operations function of the church? Or are they, in a more creative line of thinking, a product demo?
I see a case to be made for each.
Sales Force
Seeing missionaries as a sales force is the most obvious perspective. After all, missionaries are seeking to baptize new converts to the church. There are many parallels to a sales force in a business setting:
- Metrics, at least when I was serving, were all sales metrics:
- Number of contacts (similar to lead tracking). These are housed in a contact book that stays with the area (or sales territory) for future missionaries (sales people)
- Number of discussions (similar to tracking the number of pitches / bids / presentations)
- Number of convert baptisms (akin to sales)
- Tracking proselyting materials / using specifically approved collateral for discussions (brochures, handouts, etc.)
- The focus in the MTC, aside from language acquisition, was learning to craft the sales pitch and was all designed around the sales process:
- Building relationships (BRT stood fro Building Relationships of Trust)
- Overcoming objections (including practicing standard objections and answers)
- Asking for a commitment (closing the sale)
- At the end of the sales process, the converts are handed off to the operations (local ward) to manage from then on out.
This is probably the most traditional way to look at missionary work, one behind the skit that some missionaries put together at a mission conference I attended in which the elders were like a used car sales team pushing for commitment and lowering the barriers to entry:
ELDER: (Very energetically) We’ve got a great Celestial Kingdom plan for you that comes with baptism. What do you think?
INVESTIGATOR: Well . . . I’m not really ready to give up smoking.
ELDER: That’s totally fine. Totally fine. (rubbing hands together) We’ve got another sweet package for you called our Terrestrial Kingdom package. And guess what–that also comes with baptism!
INVESTIGATOR: Well, that sounds pretty good (looking unsure), but . . . I guess I’m not so sure about giving up sex with my girlfriend.
ELDER: No problem! (enthusiastically) There’s a package that’s just right for you. It’s our Telestial Kingdom package. That also comes with baptism. So what’s it going to take to put you in a font today?
When missionaries function as a sales force, it often creates ill will with the downstream group, operations. When new converts are not strong or don’t contribute or aren’t well sold / don’t understand what they bought into, operations (local wards) feel disillusioned with the sales force and resentful of the missionaries who are making their lives harder, not easier, by increasing the membership.
Operations
Another case could be made that missionaries are part of the Operations Team. There are a few justifications for this perspective:
- Missionaries (now at least) work with the Ward Mission Leader to fulfill ward goals for growth. This wasn’t the case when I was serving, but it’s more common now. Missionaries participate in ward councils, sharing information and taking assignments alongside locals.
- Converts are not merely being convinced to make a commitment to “buy” the gospel, but to participate in the gospel by taking a calling at the local ward level. They aren’t customers but part of the overall clockwork of the organization, bringing their time and talents to the equation and helping to run the local ward. This is true whether they join an established ward or a new, understaffed one in a remote area where the church isn’t strong.
- Some see missionary work not primarily as a method to grow the church through converts but as a method to grow future leaders of the church in a sort of junior executive program. Missions are supposed to build skills and commitment among young people, to teach them to work together in the church organization, and to develop their knowledge of how to run wards. Many missionaries also serve in running understaffed local wards, as branch presidents, teachers, choristers, teachers, or whatever else the ward needs.
Product
It occurred to me on several occasions as a missionary, that we were not just a sales force, not just a stop gap for local vacancies or a training program for future leaders, but locals saw us as a product demo of what the church created: the church’s product. They saw us as a beautiful aberration, young adults in the prime of our lives voluntarily (and at our own expense) stepping away from education, dating, jobs, and other personal pursuits, to talk with strangers about Jesus and the gospel. What could drive this level of devotion? What could create such amazing young people?
When we were threatened or harmed, locals often defended us vigorously, wishing to protect us. Their idea of us was noble, innocent, precious. Not exactly the same idea of us I usually had as an insider, but I was enough of a sales person not to let on. And yet, they were probably on to something. I might have seen our warts and all, but what missionaries do is rather extraordinary.
Conclusion
- If you served a mission, which of these did you think was an accurate description of what you were doing?
- Has the church changed what missionaries do and how they fit into the organization?
- How do you see missionaries fitting into the organization now?
Discuss.
Wheat & Tares 
My view is that the church needs returned missionaries more than it needs missionaries. So that would put me somewhere in the middle category.
Before my mission and for a decade or so after I certainly thought of it as the “Sales Force”. And being a more introvert, it was hard. But pushing through that and learning to overcome some of that fear is probably the biggest blessing from my mission.
After a while I started to gravitate to more of seeing missions as a “training ground” as I saw boys leave on missions and learn to be more leaders.
I now see it fairly firmly in the “product” category where it is about making the youth more church-broke.
But I do think the mission president you have is significant. My kids have had quite a varied set of MP’s and that plays a big part in how much they enjoy their missions and even how they view missions in the categories listed above.
I served in Washington state from 78-80 and it was totally a sales force. Everything was about the numbers! I’m no longer a part of the church, so I can’t speak to how the missionaries fit in today’s model.
What you’re admitting with this whole discussion is that the Church is a corporation, and we are all just part of the business. I find this thinking repugnant on several levels.
hawkgrrrl, great, thought provoking categories. I served in the Philippines in the early 00s and we seemed to be very much a blend of all three categories. We weren’t nearly as sales oriented as others, though I recall one month we had a plunge in our goals due to new restrictions on baptizing people with WoW issues. I put the relative leniency on sales numbers on the fact that my MP was independently well off , at retirement age, and not trying to make the jump to GA so he had little compunction on pushing back against the dictates of the area presidency when he felt it necessary. I sometimes wonder if the age of the MP has a strong correlation with a push for numbers with the idea that young MPs who are hoping to make the jump to GA.
In connection with the second category, I distinctly recall my MP telling me to use my experience growing up in a functioning U.S. ward to help advise the bishop when he decided to ask us for our advice on how to help the ward better function. Sometimes that advice came in the form of asking the bishop what he wanted us to do (the first time I ever did that, the bishop’s mouth dropped – he’d never had missionaries ask him for weekly assignments before, which is kind of sad) and then providing suggestions for what we could do to help him when he asked for suggestions.
Wally, do you find that fact that the church is a cooperation and operates as such repugnant, or the fact that hawkgrrrl (the author) suggests such a fact, and you don’t think it’s a corporation?
I’ve always thought of full-time missionaries as primarily a sales force, and many non-Mormons view them this way also; it’s such a pervasive trope that it inspired a hit Broadway musical that directly lampoons it. I’ve never liked the sales force image myself, as it offends my introvert heart and often brings out the worst in people. Notably, we have a long history of using unethical approaches to recruit new members, both unauthorized and officially sanctioned. From where I sit, it looks as though we are transitioning away from the sales emphasis, as the missionary force is contracting and the door-to-door salesman is becoming obsolete.
I’m also hesitant to regard missionaries as the product itself, as this is a self-licking ice cream cone at best, pyramid scheme at worst; it essentially establishes the primary purpose of members of the Church as, well, recruiting more members of the Church. I consider this as disingenuous as the salesman-missionary model.
As far as operations, I think the missionaries are too far removed from the day-to-day lives of everyday church members to be contributing meaningfully to the functioning of wards and stakes–at least in the U.S. and other places where the Church is well established. And I wouldn’t want them to. More than once, a zealous Elder or Sister visiting my home for dinner couldn’t wrap their heads around the fact that missionary work wasn’t the highest priority of my life, as it was for them. I understand they are young and have not yet had to figure out how to balance the demands of families and careers, but even after explaining it they continued to press me for referrals. I also don’t like including them in ward council, since they rotate out frequently and are not invested in the long-term growth of the ward.
I see all three. I agree that in many ways the RMs themselves are the most important result. And I can see the product themselves argument in our current elders; they are very impressive young men. I think the Church makes a very serious, fundamental mistake by separating missions (sales) so much from wards/stakes (operations). The sales force is motivated to get that notch on their belts, and then they’re done. If they baptize, they succeed, and that’s it. But the apparent strength of the numbers on the mission side is a mirage; the vast majority of those numbers are not going to become contributing members, and so your pseudo-success on the mission side is a heavy anchor on the ward/stake side, as they get weighted down with people they’re supposed to minister to but who very quickly decide they want nothing to do with the church and are added to the already lengthy list of lapsed members. That does not create strength. Instead of judging success by baptisms, we should have a more holistic and integrated approach and judge success by some other metric, perhaps going to the temple or something. The church is supposed to be so astute in matters of business and management, but this is an obvious failing that they have done nothing to correct. (I imagine it is deeply engrained in Church HQ culture; I remember when GBH tried to fix this and not even he could make a dent in it.)
To continue the corporate analogy I remember a discussion I had with a friend where she compared church members to junior employees. I countered that the members are not the employees. We’re the customers or at least we should be.
I do think of missionaries as the sales force. If sales are down maybe we need to look at the product. Two hour block anyone?
I served in Korea in the mid-to-late 90s. At the time, I didn’t see myself as fulfilling a sales role for the church. I thought I was out there fulfilling a scriptural mandate to bring spiritual truths to people who needed them. And maybe that was true to an extent even if I now don’t believe in some of what I was “selling.” I still value my experience as a missionary; especially the rich education that it provided for me in terms of humanity and culture. However, I now realize that I was fulfilling a sales role for the church. My mission even had (prepare yourself to be nauseated)…….an Ammon Award. I can’t remember what the requirements were for winning the Ammon Award; whether it was for being tops in baptisms for a given month or (since baptisms were relatively infrequent) whether it was for placing BOMs. Either way, that smacks of sales incentives. I never received the Ammon Award and that is one of the things that, in retrospect, I am the most proud of.
None of the above for me. I’m too old to be in touch with happenings today.
The most important thing I did on my mission to Japan n the 70’s was to learn how to date. My first companion was among the best instructors the Lord could have sent and I needed it. This could have been even more important as I was engaged to marry a cute Japanese girl when the 6 month deadline arrived that the mission president had given us to be married at our final interview.
We were so often pulling pranks that I don’t see how we were helping operations. Language was another huge barrier. In a few instances, I noted conflict between local leadership and American missionary leadership; the locals were right but we usually won. This because they eschewed conflict and sought consensus. Most of the time I was in small branches of less than 40 members and even one was a genuine house church where the maybe dozen or so members met where 4 missionaries lived. Those situations had no relation to operations in a regular ward. When I was at a larger branch, we were divorced from any operations.
The selling aspect ate up 95% of our time, yet lasting success was tiny. Almost all of our rare converts were young single girls. The culture of Japan then was such that harmony in the home was far more highly valued than a woman’s opinion on religion. Hence, women almost invariably took on the religion of their husband at marriage. Even if we managed to convert 20 guys for the 20 single girls in the branch to marry, these guys could just as easily marry outside the church and by the same principle their wives would convert. If the single sisters remained active for very long, it compromised their marriage prospects outside of the church. The LDS church in Japan was built on the backs of these single sisters and we did them few favors.
The most effective selling tactic was bait and switch. We created our own seat-of-the-pants English classes. For most of us being from Utah, PROPER English was a second language for us. But what we brought to the table was pronunciation and conversation skills not available. Teaching English was quite fun and dove-tailed nicely into flirting and beat tracting every time. Virtually all of the members who stayed active more than a few weeks were English students at the beginning. Since so little church material had been translated into Japanese, English was the keystone to adult level gospel study. Learning to speak better English helped many people who did not join the church. I think missionary work would be far more effective if missionaries did more service ( they are doing more now) and this was as close to genuine service as anything we did.
I heard the most important convert was yourself. (Self-licking ice cream cone- great description!) I think this is a major reason for the emphasis on the LDS mission experience. Clearly doubling the missionary force did not increase converts so the selling aspect is not working and nothing much was done about that. Yet doubling the number of return missionaries was valuable,
I think full-time missions feed into the culture back home in ways that keep church central in the life decisions of our youth. During the mission, the church has total control over everything you do and near complete influence in everything you think and it is pretty consistent worldwide. The mind set created in the mission field is used to leverage our unique culture towards more devotion during the coming years, for better or worse. (Negative example: My daughter’s reason for or not dating RM’s was “I don’t want to be junior companion for life.’) Markedly more sister missionaries, even if they are kept in submissive roles, is going to modify this culture and probably in some unintended ways.
I knew a mission President stateside that would reward the top baptizers in the mission with a trip to a MLB game during the baseball season.
Not a Cougar, those are some interesting thoughts about the age of the mission president having an effect on what happens. Before I got to my mission, I heard recent RMs raving about how our mission had set a record for the number of baptisms in one month just a few years earlier. I was so disappointed when I got to my first area and realized that the vast majority of those baptisms were children or teenagers who had no idea that they were baptized members of the Church. I was also disappointed a few years later when I found out that the young mission president who had supervised those unethical baptism practices had “made the jump” to GA. Kind of makes me feel icky about missionary work and callings to “important” positions.
Fifty years ago in Belgium and France, missionaries were largely salespersons. If we didn’t have meetings, we were expected to tract. Most of the really unethical practices–swimming pool and baseball baptisms–had been discontinued. But the French mission area had been recently split into 3 separate missions because a fundamentalist scandal. Member activity rates were about 10 percent. The Church, in many cities had small, almost nonexistent, attendance. There were 3 cities that did have viable branches or wards. But the rest were pretty much comatose. Despite 3 new buildings, there was little infrastructure to support the members.
Several of the branches had missionaries for branch presidents. Missionaries, as a rule, had a couple of baptisms at best. Many had none. With no structure behind us, in most cities, we were literally wasting our time. And missions to France back then were 2-1/2 years. Weekly reports to mission home were frequently fudged. Programs coming out of the mission home were frequently flawed. For example, several new cities were opened to missionaries in an environment that already had too many small unviable branches.
I understand that the current situation in Flanders and Holland is in such a state that wards and stake were consolidated. I wonder if something similar is happening in Wallonia and Alsace-Louraine.
I should have spent my time working in the civil rights movement.
Troy,
I think I can top your “Ammon award”. In my mission we had “PPP” week – Parley P Pratt week where we tried to get the most impressive stats in. We would eat breakfast early, leave and walk to the far side of our area (since all that time was tracting) skip lunch, bum dinner off part member families (that counted) and work until the last minute we were allowed. That semi annual week was stopped when one of the elders feel asleep at the wheel and totaled a car and gave the 2 a few injuries (but the shame was a bigger issue for them)
I served a mission in Taiwan in the late 1970s, at a time when political tensions were running very high, and this negatively impacted missionary work. The United States government was preparing to switch diplomatic recognition to the PRC, and the Taiwan people wanted to talk to the Chirch’s missionaries, who were almost entirely American, about that, and not the Restored Gospel. Baptisms were very low, but to his everlasting credit, our Mission President emphasized missionaries doing the right things for the right reasons, even if that message did not produce flashy results, and was not always followed! I saw good missionaries struggle to find people to teach, and bad missionaries hit the so-called “convert jackpot.” Subsequent visits to the island over the next 35 years showed considerable growth and maturation of the Church, despite high number of converts having effectively left the Church; the growth just seemed to happen organically on its own, through periods of both high and low baptismal numbers. I have concluded that missionary and baptismal statistics do not necessarily have a close relationship to Church growth! We like to neatly categorize and make broad assertions, especially about the Church, whether from a “pro” or “anti” perspective, but the actual unfolding of events seldom follows our beliefs or biases.
I see the missionary program as a sales pitch….goal oriented , numbers , statistically based and motivational meetings…..we look like a corporate business group and function like it.
I have no idea why people are offended that the Church is seen as a corporate business body, it is.!We have a published Corporate structure ( see the Ensign) we dress like a group of bankers( males anyway) or as my Mission President it is wonderful to see you all dressed in the uniform of the Priesthood! What! Corporate uniform and corporate systems. I did read an article that has resonance to me, that in the 1950’s the Church adopted insurance sales methology as a missionary format to preach the gospel.
My wife and I served our mission in Eastern Europe a tough area with a tough people that we loved. I well remember a Area Authority asking us at a Zone Conference “what was the mission of the church” ……I naively said “ to bring people to Christ” he savaged my answer and actually screamed into the microphone BAPTISE ! Well that’s motivation?
In the country we were in the average missionary would baptise .4 of a person in the 2 years, so the idea of baptising was not likely for many….surely the idea of just “ ministering “ to this nation would have been a loving foundation……where eventually the gospel could be introduced to them.However the ‘sales’ program sees this as not getting tangible results.
They were a very religious people and family oriented and our sales technique had an interesting effect. With some 300 active LDS in the country what was outstanding was about 160 investigators would attend Sacrament Meeting each month but only 2-3 would return after one discussion and maybe 1 after the second discussion…..less than 20 would join a year…few lasted.
The trouble with the missionary ( sales) program is that it is a tired, not appropriate method to address the issues that people are interested in. We are more focused on telling people what we think they should know, or what they may want to know….including just socialising….
Or as my Italian x Mission President said to me the Americans want to tell us about Joseph Smith seeing The First Vision,early in the discussions…..like it is something dramatic…”.look we Italians have been seeing visions for centuries “…I’ve often thought about this …the “sales pitch” is the unique drama and new theological insights of this event. Should be interesting and more!…but cultures interpret things differently….language is another issue for non English speakers….the sales pitch is often lost in all this.
The elephant in the room is often , as some have said, the Mission President….some are wonderful while other I see and have experienced as the ‘ Apostle Envy’ group in the corporate structure where success lies in the “ successful numbers” ..to me the church’s growth lies in divorcing itself from the business US corporate model in many many of its areas…I see great hope in the turn towards ministering……
Kangaroo:
I am trying to imagine myself and my opinionated wife (who left the LDS church and became an evangelist Christian- so this is impossible) as senior missionaries in a zone conference and my wife would respond “to bring people to Christ.” And then some white shirt Area Authority “savaging” her answer and actually “screaming into the microphone BAPTISE ! ”
I have too much of the blood of J. Golden Kimball in my veins. I would have stood, walked slowly to the podium and punched him in the nose hard enough to knock him on his ass. And the like J Golden I guess I would have repented of it as damned fast as I could to avoid going to jail for it..
Seriously, how do we as a people let our leaders get away with misbehavior like this? I can excuse the young elders, all fired up with religious zeal and lacking in experience. But retired couples on missions who have no where further up the corporate ladder to go sitting quietly for this kind of abuse? I guess if your wife has been junior companion for life that makes it easy for your church leaders to be zone lords for life.
Mike
Our very lovely European Mission President came to us after the Zone Meeting and asked me what did I think of the meeting.
My response was literally “ on behalf of all these young missionaries and my wife and I, I am insulted and appalled “ . My Mission President was a bit amazed and a bit stunned then slowly walked away.
This Area dope interviewed us after the meeting ( as he did others selected by our President) and was then equally unpleasant asking us to keep our eyes on the missionaries for misbehaviour…..instead we chose to take our missionaries to dinner ( which we did from the beginning anyway) as we travelled around the Mission…and loved and need I say ministered to the lovely young people we served with in a very tough cold land…..we were not called as spies!
The ” ‘ Apostle Envy’ group” is a label new to me. I like it. I have always just called them ecclesiastical climbers. Thankfully, not all MPs and AAs are like that. I have known young missionaries who were like that even in the LTM. (Now there’s an acronym from the distant past.)
As a young missionary I wasn’t sure whether I should be shocked, dismayed, or angered by a new MP’s unthinking, repeated pounding on the pulpit in sacrament meetings while declaring that the Spirit of God was to be found nowhere in all of [insert European country] “except within the walls of these chapels.” Until I later pointed it out to him, he was quite unaware that he had just announced that the members and missionaries never had the spirit in their homes or in any of their rare attempts at gospel discussions with others. I’m told by some who served later in that mission that he became a good MP. But at a later mission reunion Sister MP (whatever one chooses to call her) made it clear that she and her husband were very much more interested in ecclesiastical climbing in Utah than they were in the members or missionaries or any potential converts in their mission area.
I can attempt an answer only to the first of the OP’s 3 questions. We perceived ourselves as a sales force without any significant hope of ever closing a sale. (Some did; I was lucky.) Earlier missionaries there had sometimes been a part of operations — serving as branch president, etc. — but we were not. Given the very wide variety of appropriate and inappropriate missionary behaviors, if we were ever observed as a product, there could be serious questions as to whether the product was any good.
This makes very discouraging reading, but is also a comfort as my son is not serving a mission but has chosen med school instead. I don’t think either he or we would have survived a mission like these.
Although, I guess it’s significant to remember that both my husband and I were baptised by missionaries, and they did teach us the doctrines of the kingdom, which were significant to both of us and the deciding factor in our baptism.
When ever we have the missionaries to dinner, which is not often these days as I find it such a strain, we preach the gospel of tolerance and respect for our friends, neighbourhood and community. DH was ward mission leader for 7 years and stake mission president at the same time for some of those, so we had plenty of opportunity, though we were often in a struggle with the testosterone brought to the task.We were always repulsed by the sales tactics, as any right thinking european would be. I’m hoping there is change afoot, and feel the missionaries we see here are a little more respectful of where others are coming from.
Let’s hope ‘The Book of Mormon’ musical makes a difference,gleaning awards recently for it’s contribution to the cultural landscape,and for dealing in a sympathetic and civilised manner with matters of belief and culture.
I imagine many mormons may feel differently.
I also think the wikipedia entry for the church is wonderful, laying out the whole plan from beginning to end, but inviting critical thinking without sales pressure. Not sure we need anything else, except a service force a little like the peace corps.But that’s where I’ll be referring my friends, having already encouraged the missionaries to engage with the content.
Handlewithcare, Yes, these accounts are discouraging, as far as they go. However, despite the matters I mentioned (and I could have gone on significantly longer about some of them and additional negatives), the facts remain (a) that the lives of some of the members and converts in my European mission were significantly blessed by the efforts of some of the missionaries, and (b) that serving then and there produced for me some life-long friendships and a maturing understanding of institutional and individual behaviors that have been of inestimable value to me and my continuing efforts to participate in the Church as a place to practice gospel living and to be of service, and (c) that for me the mission provided a context that encouraged (or even demanded) spiritual growth and some revelatory experience. While I have been known to summarize that mission experience as being a baby sitter who needed one, it was and remains immensely valuable. None of that diminishes in any way your son’s choice of med school instead of mission. Not all need or benefit from the experience I had.
Kangaroo: Kudos for you. That approach had a far better result than nose punching. Probably more in line with what Jesus taught- something about turning the other cheek, or was it punching the other cheek? I will have to check in Matt chapter 5 on that.
Sort of ironic- punching a pompous goon for going savage against the idea of bring people to Christ. At least I can take slight comfort that the apostle Peter demonstrated similar tendencies.a couple of times.
Yes, “apostle envy” the perfect excuse for their jackass behavior and it is such a hopeless cause for them. Twelve apostles- 12 million members, well maybe fewer. Your chances of winning the lottery are about the same. Your chances are even less because at least some of the apostles are not prone to this unrighteous dominion. I’m sorry, the Q of the 70 just isn’t high enough for me. Might as well be a ZL with the APs riding your ass for life..
I will have to say my mission was worth it in the final analysis and I think it does benefit many people. What is so disheartening is how a few with the Iron Rod up their …..get in control and do so much needless damage.
Handlewithcare; I wish to elaborate on your comment about your son going to medical school instead of a mission.
I have a son who is probably the most Christ-like person I know although he does have a couple of faults.His decision to serve a mission was complicated by his mother not wanting him to go and he does take seriously the commandment to honor thine father and mother. I went through 4 stages as he struggled with this decision.
1. I am his father and he generally listens to me. It is my duty to convince him to do the right thing and serve a mission and this will not be that difficult with a good son like him.
2, It is his decision. I trust him to make the right decision and serve a mission and he will because he walks with the Lord.
3. He has several good options and several not as good options.Good options include a mission, college, military, community service. Not so good include being lazy and hanging out in the basement, being immoral with girls, using drugs, criminal activity. A mission seems like the best of the good options to me, but maybe the Lord has another plan for him.
4. He listened to the Lord and he selected a top STEM institute and gave that path every bit as much devotion and effort as any missionary. (Actually more because he only sleeps about 4-5 hours a night and that would limit him to a degree as a missionary).I became completely reconciled that he followed the Lord and a mission was not the best choice for him.
I think what influenced his decision most was going on splits with full-time missionaries several times and realizing they seemed to be wasting so much of their time and he could accomplish about as much with a little bit of effort on his own terms.
*****
Bragging about children warning: Read further at your own peril.
What were the results? He earned straight A’s and completed a 5 year program in physics and math in 3 years. He got a perfect score in both on the GRE. He was named the top physics student and the top math student upon graduation, never happened before at that institution. The math department chairman described him as the best mathematician he had ever taught in 25 years as a professor. At age 21 he published an article as first author in the Physics Review Letters which I am told is the top journal in that field. His article got picked up by PubMed which mystifies him. Every grad program he considered wanted him. He skipped the Ivy Leagues and told me he had made enough accomplishments, it was time to give back. He went to a very large state school with solid STEM departments because they let him teach courses without a PhD. He has endless opportunities to help other grad students and professors doing the math heavy lifting for them or other things. He got the LDS Institute of Religion classes going better and visited other Christian ministeries on campus in both places making many friends along the way.
One of the doors that opened up a few years ago was the opportunity to teach for several months in China. He discovered that a few LDS meetings are held there, attended mostly by expatriates. No proselytizing is being done by us because it is illegal. But many people are becoming Christians spontaneously. Many do not have access to a Bible. Other than a couple bogus state Christian churches , Christianity is technically illegal although there are other churches with historic roots deeper than the purge of Chairman Mao in the 1960’s. The police tolerate small groups meeting in homes but if any leaders appear to be gaining much influence they are arrested. Some estimate as much as 10% of China is now practicing Christianity quietly in these house churches or alone which would be well over 100 million people. Many Christians are afraid to self-identify as Christians on surveys. Few have any connection to any sect or any understanding of what divides us.
A certain person not to be mentioned was curious to attend one of these meetings. He was secretly given an address by a trusted friend and told to show up there at dawn. He didn’t see any signs of groups of people except on closer inspection a quiet steady stream seemed to be individually disappearing into this building. He ventured in and discovered a crowd of many hundreds with standing room only singing hymns quietly and badly. without instruments. He was head and shoulders taller than the rest and was immediately ushered to the front and a translator materialized. They asked him if he had ever attended a church before in America and if so would he mind telling them about it. He asked for how long, they said as long as possible. He said mischievously, an hour? They said even more if you can. He had a Philmont issue backpacking New Testament and he began with sort of introductory remarks. Each sentence had to be spoken and then translated. It was tedious which caused him to really think about what he said. Then he read a few verses from the Bible and explained them.
Sometimes he just doesn’t know when to quit and he has a near infinite attention span. He thought of it as a contest, to see if he could speak longer than his audience could listen.They must have taken some breaks and people maybe slipped out. His teaching went on for 16 hours and they were hanging onto every word.Tears or was it sweat poured off their faces. He was led to another unrelated place the next Sunday with a large congregation and similar results. Nobody seemed to be in charge and he expressed fear of getting arrested but many people helped him keep a very low profile, He traveled quietly as a tourist on Saturday to other cities with underground Christian friends and taught for 12-16 hours straight each week for over 20 weeks with many hundreds in each audience. He kept it very simple and generic and stayed away from politics and close to the Bible. The lower class people of China are hungry for Christianity and the Lord does not need 60 thousand missionaries to convert 100 million people.
Great things can happen as the gospel of Jesus Christ spreads across the world and it does not have to be organized by the LDS missionary department.
JR
‘Apostle Envy’ was a term I invented as a result of the terrible ‘abuse’ of power from some and I say some of the leadership I have encountered over the years. In our country we have had a number of ‘middle management ‘ who bully and demand performance from the church membership so they can look good…..pushing for promotion.?
Loren C Dunn was a case in point when I was bishop at the time…..we had to all stand as he entered Stake Conference ….give him your seat if he came into the Bishops office….I refused…it didn’t go over well……asked why he said ‘I represent the Prophet’….the missionary program was nearly stopped by State Legislation because he and his weird friend he brought out as MP which sent missionaries to emotional collapse….they wanted results at any cost..
Area Authorities and MP are the main Apostle Envy group as they are more exposed to higher authority….we have had in our Area a number again who fit this definition …the technique of abusing the membership for poor results….in our culture particularly it is a fatal ‘technique’ …authority and power must be earned not just given
“weird friend” is an interesting teaser
“authority and power must be earned not just given” — There are always some who do not realize that D&C 121:39, et seq., applies to them, who seem to think that by virtue of position, whenever they reprove “with sharpness” they were “moved upon by the Holy Ghost” to do so. This can be both saddening and maddening.
Happy Hubby –
I’ll go you one even better. In my mission, we weren’t allowed to take a dinner break. Ever. Not once the whole 18 months. We usually waited on lunch until 2 because it was the last food we would get… except for the chocolate bars I kept in my pocket :). We weren’t even allowed to schedule appointments between 4 and 9 pm if it could possibly be avoided as those were sacred contacting hours (ie the only time people would be home).
Many sisters ended our missions with digestive and other chronic health problems, and I can’t help but wonder if this crazy rule contributed to that. Imagine my reaction a decade later when I found out that most of the Elders ignored this rule and just ate dinner like normal humans! At first I was horrified that they weren’t as dedicated as we were; now I’m jealous that they weren’t as fundamentalist as we were. I wish I’d had the sense to ignore this rule as well.
Unsurprisingly, though, the young mission president who radicalized us did in very short time make the jump to GA. He’s a 1st Seventy these days. He had us count any street conversation that lasted more than 5 minutes as a 1st lesson, and we weren’t allowed to head back to the apartment at night unless we had each done ten “extra” contacts that day. Contacts counted as “extra” if you would normally have skipped contacting that person due to social norms, awkwardness, or safety hazards. We systematically ignored our gut feelings of danger or decorum to get those contacts, and ended up in exactly the situations you might expect from this.
My second mission president had quite a job trying to help us get back to more normal boundaries without feeling disobedient. He was a wonderfully caring man, and his wife was a godsend. He, naturally, did not advance to area or general authority status.
Elizabeth St. Dunstan, OK – you win (or did you lose by having been under this MP?)
I’m hoping someone sane with responsibilities and accountability is reading this stuff, because Elizabeth if you were my daughter and came home with those stories I would be going to the press…
Handlewithcare –
Thank you for your concern. Unfortunately, I can tell you that the area president (who was American) knew exactly what was going on. Through a strange and distant connection, my parents did send the area president’s wife to basically do a welfare check on me toward the end of my mission. By then, my first mission president had left to become a counselor in the area presidency and my second mission president was trying to help us shift our norms. Less than a year later, my first mission president replaced the area president.
I told the worst of my experiences to my second mission president the night before I went home. He was horrified. He implemented many changes after that, including closing one of my areas for sisters. It took me years to be able to talk to my parents about it completely.
Elizabeth St Dunstan, My difficulties with mission presidents and arbitrary, counter-productive, and in one case abusive rules were minor compared to yours, and still concerned me deeply for some years after returning. I think that “abusive” is the appropriate word here and that MPs who institute and pursue such rules should be reported by name as abusers, though I can’t imagine how or where that could be effective to change the culture. For me it was enlightening to have an interview with Elder Ezra Taft Benson at a mission conference early on in my mission as I was realizing that certain rules were counterproductive to attempts to teach the gospel. I reported to him that some GA in the SLC mission home week prior to the LTM had taught us that the mission rules were commandments of God and that we could not possibly have the spirit with us if we broke any of them. ETB was significantly unhappy with that unidentified GA and told me that mission rules were nothing but the collected, practical, general advice from 130+ years of missionary experience and that when they got in the way of teaching the gospel they were to be ignored. For me that was freeing. With an MP like your first, I doubt it would have been enough. I have spent some time thinking, or at least fretting, about how one can prepare an 18-19 year old to work/live healthily under the thumb of an abusive MP (or other mission leaders) when there is at least a very strong likelihood that he/she won’t have to. I have been able to come to no conclusions except to leave that in the hands of their parents (I’m thinking of grandchildren now) and to be honest about my experiences if and when asked. I fear the possibility that no preparation will be enough.
Wally: “What you’re admitting with this whole discussion is that the Church is a corporation, and we are all just part of the business. I find this thinking repugnant on several levels.” Your comment is funny. You use the word “admitting,” meaning that it’s something true, but then you say that it’s repugnant. It’s like saying that you find it repugnant to admit your real weight on your drivers license. Maybe your weight’s repugnant, maybe not, but admitting things that are true even if they are unflattering isn’t repugnant. Having said that, I’m also simply surprised that you think it’s repugnant for the church to see the missionary force in these ways. Human organizations behave in some specific patterned ways. These functions are simply part of how groups of people organize. Cave men probably recruited new people to their tribes, too, when they were gearing up for the big woolly mammoth hunt. Is it repugnant to call them a sales force?
Some of these mission stories are pretty bad, but I suppose that’s because of the influence of the MP selected. I think the connection to whether that person has church ambitions is probably linked to how they perform their role, and from what I’ve seen, those who aspire for church promotions are a pretty compromised lot. I found my own experience to be mostly positive and worthwhile, whichever of these three categories we fit. I’m glad I served.
I saw us through the eyes of an idealistic young convert, as building the kingdom. In retrospect, in Italy in the late ’80s, we were operating as sales people. That impression was reinforced upon my return when I got a job in sales, in part because of my missionary experience. (I’ve been spit on, sworn at, had doors slammed in my face, had stones thrown at me, and had dogs sicced on me. So they don’t buy my mutual funds. Who cares?)
We had about the same confidence in Ops as any sales people have, and the branches in Sicilia had a lot of growing to do. They were, however, much better than we probably gave them credit for.
And we had a Seventy come out and do the Glengarry Glen Ross scene. Took me years to recover. I’m glad that things have changed and that young missionaries are now more able to work with the locals, and work in local communities.
I was picked up at the airport when I arrived in Japan by this nutcase I knew in high school who preceded me to the same mission by a couple months. He was already identified as a problem and sentenced to the mission home running errands. I could go on for a long time about his numerous stunts, but one should suffice. He was sent home from his mission twice. Our president was very tolerant but my classmate went far beyond the boundaries and was sent home in the usual manner. He returned to Japan as a civilian and proceeded to disrupt missionary work by visiting his friends and pretty much picking up where he left off. The mission president called him in and asked him to go home permanently this time or he was going to take legal action against him and land him in jail.
Anyway, this character told me that first night at the airport that “the very foundations of hell are beneath this mission” and he also claimed our crazy Japanese mission president looked and acted like a frog. I guess for some these descriptions proved to be closer to the truth than I imagined.
I was so internally motivated that I pretty much ignored mission leadership and did what I thought was best and left it to the Lord. Feeling guilty about dating the first few months resulted in a hopelessness of ever proving worthy. I was a sinner and I knew it and my only hope was Christ carrying my burdens. So I didn’t pay much attention to mere mortals, they were not going to save me.
My second mission president was BKP and his take on the work was that if you didn’t have an investigator you didn’t get to go to church. We had a reliable one for sacrament meeting but ( this is before the block) for SS in the morning we didn’t so during that winter in New England we were out on Sunday mornings knocking on doors regardless of the weather. I can still remember the looks on peoples faces when they came to their doors. I can honestly say that in relying on his rules instead of the Spirit it was all a waste of time .
The missionary program is focused on production and numbers, which means it is about what they get out of it. However, the focus should be on the people that want to hear the gospel, nothing else. This is why people do not stay in the church. You cannot force a conversion within a specific timeline. This is very selfish. Moreover, I have served as a stake missionary, and also used to help the missionaries until it got to the point of abuse and harassment. Therefore, I refuse to go out with them again. I was expected to be there at any time they wanted and I will not do that. In contrast, the missionary program in the spirit world is focused on the people being taught, and love is the main reason they are being taught. This needs to be done in mortality as well.