I get a weekly group e-mail from my nephew who is in Brazil on his mission. In his latest installment, he talked about teaching the word of wisdom to a “golden” young couple, and them throwing out their coffee. I remembered doing this on my mission, pretty typical for missionaries world wide. Then he wrote about teaching them that our bodies are temples, and we should not pierce our bodies, and the man took out all his piercings and gave them to the missionaries to throw away. This part I don’t remember!
This got me to thinking about all the crazy things missionaries do and say when they are trapped in the bubble of the mission. They eat, drink, and think the church 24/7 for two years. Little things (like men having an ear pierced) become big things, so much so they are woven into the lessons.
The down side of this is that they come home with some pretty crazy ideas of what a regular member is. Also, the new convert is going to be confused the first time he sees a fully active member of the church passing the sacrament with pierced ears.
I don’t remember teaching stuff like this on my mission, but one companion of mine told about a woman in his previous area that really wanted to get baptized, but couldn’t because her husband made her take birth control pills. I was still a new missionary, and hadn’t really thought this through, but I was left with the impression that married people could not be baptized if they used contraception. It didn’t dawn on me to ask how this came up in conversation with this woman as they were teaching her! It should be noted that this was the 1970’s, and birth control was a topic on conversation in several general conference talks of the day.
So what crazy things have you seen missionaries teach, or your younger self taught as a missionary? Are current missionaries teaching things not in the lessons? Are things more tightly controlled today?
Wheat & Tares 
We had a dear friend ask to be taught about Mormonism. She hoped to become LDS. We sent the missionaries to teach her and her family. They are very white and pale. Within a couple of meetings, somehow, the topic of race and skin color came up. The missionaries taught her that dark skin started out as a curse from God. The mark of Cain.
She bluntly told them that they and their teachings were evil/wrong and skin color was simply that — skin color.
Honestly, I was proud of her to make such a stance. I would have been disappointed if she had agreed with such a teaching.
She converted to Catholicism instead of Mormonism and remains a dear friend.
A woman I know was a Jewish teenager taking missionary discussions. She asked questions about the problem of evil: if there really is a loving all powerful God, why did s/he allow the Holocaust to happen? The missionaries responded that God has to allow the Holocaust to happen in order to prove Hitler was as bad as he was. They used scriptures from the Book of Mormon about Alma and Amulek watching children being thrown into a fire to support their case. I was a young teen and this was confusing to me. I talked to parents and friends and everyone agreed that the missionaries were right. But I felt like it didn’t really explain anything, and it was also very offensive to my Jewish friends. An interventionist God could have intervened after just a few people were killed.
She did not get baptised at that time, but she did many years later.
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I don’t remember crazy doctrines being taught in my mission. Baptisms were rare, and we were not about to add extra requirements for baptism. Specifically, I don’t think we ever discussed piercings or contraception with investigators, although we might have discussed such things amongst the missionaries.
On my mission in a predominantly Catholic country I regularly referred to that church as the great and abominable church. So rude. Now I tend to think that our LDS history isn’t much better than the history of that church.
I served my mission in the mid-1960’s. I don’t remember teaching anything crazy. There were still some reminders of the Dyer crazy stuff, but it wasn’t taken seriously. The black priesthood ban was problematic.
My major problem was the liberal church I grew up in was not the church I was promoting in France. I struggled dealing with the contradiction. And back then, foreign missions for males were 2-1/2 years. So I had plenty of time to struggle. But being marooned in France wasn’t all bad.
My wife is from South America. They were told no nativity scenes were allowed. They regrettably thew them all out to the trash, to be obedient to the prophet. Even old family heirlooms and historical ones.
Then when they visited temple square and saw mulipe church promoted nativity scenes, and then stake sponsored nativity scenes they were applauded.
What hippocritres!
Correlation typically causes harm with cookie cutter advice and programs..but in a case correlation would have been welcomed, it was silent.
“when they are trapped in the bubble of the mission.”
Prior to that they are trapped in bubbles of the public education system and their parents’ bubbles. When they return, they will become trapped in bubbles of news, politics, church, employment.
These comments show that each person is in a bubble but not the same bubble. If you escape the bubble, where are you? Still in a bubble. The English language is a bubble; if words do not exist to convey your thoughts, or to receive new thoughts, it is a barrier, a bubble. W&T is a bubble.
“Little things (like men having an ear pierced) become big things”
And vice versa. What is big or little depends on context (IMO). If the local culture relies heavily on tattoo (think Maori) then it is tradition and thus conservative to go with tradition. It is when a person goes against local traditions that he is sending a social signal. In my world, men do not have earrings, certainly not vampire slaying spikes. Your mileage may vary. Will I judge you and perhaps make a mistake? Count on it. But if I were to show up with a MAGA hat, not knowing there was any significance to it but it was cheap and I liked the colors, would you judge me? Probably.
But if I know the significance, and wear it anyway to a gathering of sheep, that would be provocative and your judgement of me probably accurate. Were I do actually do that it would be to demonstrate the limits of inclusion and diversity. But I doubt such a demonstration is needed.
“She asked questions about the problem of evil: if there really is a loving all powerful God, why did s/he allow the Holocaust to happen?”
Obviously the kind of God that stops Holocausts does not exist. The kind that allows the majority of the human race to live in poverty and misery DOES exist.
Whether he actually cannot stop it, or merely chooses not to stop it, I have no knowledge or opinion. It is either of them.
My choice, my duty, is to choose to do what I believe is right with the blessings (assets) I have been given. Whether God (by any description) actually exists should not alter my behavior to others, human and animal alike. As it happens, it probably does, since I know there’s a God. But he’s pretty much aloof, rarely intervenes and even then only when asked. Now it may be that subtle interventions are daily and I would not know it.
“The English language is a bubble”
Sigh, jumped the shark. Your head is a bubble.
I went on splits with a missionary to a family preparing for baptism the following Saturday. The missionary told the father that he would be baptized first, immediately be confirmed and ordained a Priest, and then baptize his family members.Not only was this an incorrect procedure, it scared the heck out of the father. I diverted by saying the Bishop would have to be consulted first. I wondered where he got that idea.
Another missionary once told me that “any hymn not in our hymnbook is not a real hymn”. I didn’t hesitate to set him straight on that notion; which is what most of the crazy things are. Doctrinal beliefs/concepts are awkwardly extended by someone who has a margin of authority over others receiving. Stay with what’s in writing (hopefully knowing its source) and triple-check everything else, even if you agree with it.
“The missionary told the father that he would be baptized first, immediately be confirmed and ordained a Priest, and then baptize his family members”
What a wonderful opportunity! Imagine my surprise that anyone would think otherwise:
“Not only was this an incorrect procedure…”
As for scaring the father, of course it will; but it ought to be the father’s choice.
John W writes “Your head is a bubble.”
Yes! An excellent example because it is the bubble most difficult to burst or escape.
Sorry to disappoint you, Michael 2, but confirmations of adults are done in Sunday Sacrament (or is that a notion?) and an Adult Aaronic Priest is ordained after a reasonable period of time (in my case, two weeks) and the membership votes in assent.
I suppose all of this could be notions; I don’t remember seeing it in writing.
We were teaching a recent convert and following up on how her new spiritual practices were going (scripture, prayer etc.). The recent convert said she was busy because she was a full time law student and also working 30+ hours per week but she often read her scriptures on the bus home. My companion told her that scripture study should be done in the morning, because that is when the spirit is strongest. That was when missionaries did personal study. My comp invited this sweet sister to repent. People say silly things when they are in the bubble. We set the record straight that reading scriptures, at any time of day, was a-okay.
markagblog – I’ve been present for a couple of baptisms like this where the father was confirmed and ordained on the spot and then baptized the rest of his family though it was not done on my mission and was many years ago.
Strictly speaking, priesthood can be conferred before baptism, for that is now baptism came to exist in this dispensation. Neither is there a godlaw that says a congregation has any say in the matter; if I hold the keys of ordination, and I ordain you, then you are ordained; no sustaining vote necessary. Presenting a new priest to the congregation is for recognition, not assent. It seems customary to allow the congregation to have some say before an ordination just in case someone believes you shouldn’t be a priest.
That’s the gospel according to me, of course.
I make distinction of the slight difference in what the church views as what I might call a structural ordination; which is to say, induct you into the structure or hierarchy of the church; which is not the same thing as bestowing upon you the powers of God, or more precisely, the right to invoke the powers of God; but whether any power is actually at your disposal is not for me to say.
There was a saying in the mission field 50+ years ago that went something like this: “the church must be true or the missionaries would have killed it years ago.”
But the biggest screwup during my mission (mid-1960’s) was by leadership. A Caucasian Canadian member and his Czech wife asked to have her part African child sealed to them. The answer from above was no. Really?