During my mission, I saw only one General Authority (they seemed to be afraid to come to Bolivia, for some reason). As I wrote in my book, we were really excited to see one of the Lord's anointed servants, and it was devastating to have him yell at us for about an hour.

I thought that this guy was an exception, but then I remember missionaries telling me that Angel Abrea had given them a similar dressing down before I arrived in the mission. One of my friends said, after reading that account, "I have been convinced for a long time that the General Authorities hate missionaries." I asked him what he meant, and he said that, because he was an AP, he met a lot of General Authorities who came through his mission. All of them treated the missionaries with unmistakable contempt; it was clear to my friend that they viewed missionaries as children and almost as necessary evils to be tolerated because no one else will do the grunt work of bringing in converts.

So, my question to you is this: Is my friend right? Do GAs generally treat missionaries with contempt?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/15/2012 12:12PM by runtu.

MORmONISM is a pyramid scheme based on elitism
the AP's have contempt for the regular missionaries


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuN_ZDJKkPo

Note the top reply written in caps and full of swearing- I can't decide if the person is defending the missionaries or just bashing the guys making the video, but he sure doesn't sound like he should be speaking for the church.

On my mission in Anaheim CA (90-91) we only had one GA come and speak while I was out. It was more of a rah-rah spiel, after which he had us line up and walk by him to shake his hand. It was very weird.

To answer your question - yes, I think most GA's look down on the missionaries, as evidenced by the little white book they created, the guys they pick as MPs, the constantly changing mission specific rules made up by the guys they pick as MP's, and the restrictive finances allowed each missionary for food and hygiene each month.

My mission pres Celo Chambers was a businessman first - he tried all sorts of ridiculous financial schemes including keeping most of our cash each month to pay our bills for us. He was, and I can only presume still is, a moron (and still one the least christlike people I've ever met, which makes him a great mormon).



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/15/2012 11:20AM by Truthseeker.

GAs, MPs, Temple presidents, all of these were contemptuous to me as a missionary... Of course I wasn't in the right area when the Guayaquil temple was dedicated to tell you anything about hinkley, except my MP made sure that only the missionaries in the Guayaquil zones were there. He may have made an exception for some ZLs, but rank and file? No way!!

The one time as a missionary I got to go to the Guayaquil temple, the temple president took the time to yell at us to always be temple worthy...

Even the MTC president got upset at me because I wanted to go to my grandfather's (whom I was really close to)funeral. I had been in the MTC 10 days, I think...

It was always about keeping the elders in line... Honestly we had very few problems, but I guess that with the number of boys (11-14) that lived in Ecuador who were named elder "after the father" they felt that they needed to keep a tight grip on the missionaries. And look at apostate elder dragwit now!!!

Where I went on a mission (I prefer not to name it at this point in time) the Area Administrator would regularly bitch out the missionaries for everything from slovenly person habits to cultural offensiveness.

LOL! In retrospect, I have to say that I agree with the intent if not the method of delivery...but that isn't the missionaries' fault, is it? They have been trained from birth to export their bizarre brand of Mormon-American culture around the world and do their damndest to extinguish as much of the local culture as they can. Of course they are going to be culturally offensive in every way, and the only people who buy what they sell are the losers who reject their own culture in favor of some ersatz version of American-style behavior.

I just think the whole missionary program is stupid beyond belief, and I became convinced of THAT about 1/4 of the way through my mission. My philophical disconnect was so stark that I suffered deeply the rest of the way through that experience. The only activity that kept me somewhat sane was to focus on absorbing the culture I was immersed in.

Afterward, when people asked me what it was like, I would reply that selling religion to people who don't need it is like selling stripes to zebras. That pretty much killed any further nosey inquiries about my mission experience.

So, yeah, if I WERE still a Mormon, and WERE (by some freak of family connections, outrageous goose-stepping, and shameless sucking up to the powers-that-be) a G.A., I would probably hate missionaries too ...I hate them anyway, so shoot me, LOL!

I 2nd that resounding "YES".

My mission experience with the visiting GAs and the MP convinced me that the Mormon Church is the only church on earth that persecutes its own missionaries.

I dont recall reading in the scriptures about Christ dressing down his disciples when he appeared to them after his resurection. He said 'peace be unto you' and then had them come to him see for themselves that he was real. Must have been a comforting moment.

Had Jesus Christ been a Mormon GA, the meeting would probably been like one of the Zone conferences I attended. He would have said "...you disciples are failures as missionaries. Look at the low numbers on your reports for baptisms and discussions taught. Why are you sitting here on your asses eating when you should be out tracting. What Peter? You spent more than 1 hour having dinner with no investigators at the table? Look at your robes and the length of your hair. Your sandals dont match and your beard needs combing. And what about you James and John? Are you out of your mud hut by 9:30am? Apparently not as your reports suck also. And where is Thomas? Is he not here because he is mastrubating again?

I think they see missionaries as little more than equipment. Maybe that's not accurate either, since it's in a business's interest to take care of its equipment rather than neglecting and abusing it.

Maybe it's that the only motivational tool in the GA tool box is shame. It would be interesting to learn what type of fathers the GAs had. Were young GAs-to-be always bullied by authoritarian fathers?

Or is it part of GA culture? Do the brethren only pick those who also believe shaming is the best management tool? Do they administer psych profile tests to weed out the compassionate, nurturing types? (Or does rising through the priesthood ranks naturally weed out the nice guys?) Are they given specific instruction from the brethren to only yell at missionaries?

Whatever the cause, the @sshole GA browbeating missionaries seems to be more the rule than the exception.

Mormonism is a caste society. Everyone who believes to be part of the elite looks down on the little people. That goes for BIC TBMs and recent converts, Mormon Royalty and ordinary BIC TBMs who are only third generation or so, and by the same token, recent converts quickly become high and mighty and look down on their nevermo colleagues. GAs and mishies? Same crap, different type of hierarchy.

Just my two cents.

What a POS! I'll bet he was 'banking' that no one c/would call him on that (not knowing the details).

the parent-to-church-to-missionary puts ChurchCo in yet another position of leverage over the people that are out there working their butts off guts & glory.

I don't think any other church would do that, yet I wouldn't blame them for looking at ChurchCo, thinking that ChurchCo is a 'successful model', and copying it.

ChurchCo looks Bright & Shiny on the outside, but inside it's a POS.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/15/2012 11:24AM by guynoirprivateeye.

I am old. Until reading above, I had thought that apostalic Mormon snobbery was an anomolic relic of antiquity, i.e., the 1960s when I was a missionary in black Brasil where only a relatively sparse percentage of its population was Mormon-worthy (white).

I was senior of first two Mormon missionaries to infect City of Vitoria, Espirito Santo with Mormonism. Living conditions were subpar. Work was challenging but we succeeded. I boast not.

During a missionary conference held in Rio de Janeiro, an "apostle" declared that we missionaries were "all going to Hell" for failure to work hard enough, even though he had never seen us before nor spoken individually to any of us.

Perhaps vibrant, upcoming, adolescent missionaries are viewed as threats by declining, old windbags who have become jealous, corpulent, softies. Old bastards who can no longer get it up, not even with a rope and pulley.

Should I feel shunned because nobody yelled at me during my mission?

I think they hate everyone.

You can't practice lying for the lord without having a certain level of contempt for your fellow human being.

"The ends justify the means" is also another way of saying we will do anything to protect the instituition (see Hoffman incident, see Ballard backpedal on BBC, see Prop 8 denials).

They probably even secretly hate themselves. I would, if I were them.

EXACTLY RIGHT ! MORmONS HATE EVERYONE! INCLUDING EACH OTHER!
LDS ARE THE BIGGEST BACK STABBING LYING POS WHINERS AROUND!

The LDS Church treats its missionaries like crap. I feel sorry for missionaries. The church values them as much as they pay them, which is nothing.

They carried that air of importance about them, yet they seemed to be on autopilot -- repeating the same things they've said elsewhere and without much passion or thought. Going through the motions, perhaps. Shaking your hand but not recognizing your existence.

They were leaders in an organization that exists on momentum, each doing their time in the current calling before moving up the ladder to the next.

No auras or halos.

I met one GA on my mission, Gerald N Lund, and he was a legit, genuine person, as well as his wife. He went around our mission for about 3-4 days to speak at the Zone Meetings (about 2-3 zones would meet together) and he didn't belittle anybody. In fact, he was quite uplifting. I thought he was going to ream us mishies, but he was very different than I expected.

At each zone meeting, Lund wanted to personally meet something like 3-5 mishies, just one-on-one in a room and see what they are like. I happened to be one of those mishies and never thought for a second that Lund was a phoney or any type of low-life. If I saw him in person again, I would shake his hand and tell him how much I appreciated meeting him.

From reading the other posts, I think my experience was the exception in regards to GA's "hating" mishies.

I guess I really lucked out on my mission. No one every yelled at me. My mission president was a very nice guy. I only saw him raise his voice a little with a missionary once and the missionary was being a real jerk and very disrespectful. He wasn't the typical rich businessman and was actually a pretty humble guy. We only had one visit from a seventy when I was on my mission. He had two meetings with the two halves of the mission. The first one was in the north and he received a revelation during the meeting that every companionship there would have a baptism before the next transfer. I was in the south and he talked about what a great meeting they had up north and some very special revelation they received. I was curious what it was but thought it would be impolite to ask. I didn't find out until a couple months later when someone mentioned that all the missionaries up north were getting depressed because the prophecy wasn't coming true. He was pretty nice to us overall and thanked us for working so hard. He told us we needed to work smarter and work more with the members.

The whole mission is a quasi-military operation. NOtice that military men go on "missions" too.

The GA's are the drill sergeants. They pick up where the MTC leaves off, so they have to whip the boys into shape and help the mission president.

That works as a good cop/bad copy with the MP who is left behind as the good cop who allowed a little too much wiggle room with the troops.

Anagrammy

Never got yelled at, but Ballard and Ashton spoke in my mission. Ballard seemed very unfriendly . . . not what I expected at all. Ashton seemed like a nice guy, but that's because I think he was actually a nice guy.

Neal A. Maxwell visited my mission, and he was sincerely interested in us. He spoke for a long time, answering questions about some very deep doctrinal ideas, and I think he tried to make it a memorable visit. I appreciated that. I think Maxwell understood that we were the future of the Church, and that he needed to take us seriously if he wanted to be remembered well.

Alexander B. Morrison, on the other hand, yelled at us from the pulpit, pounded his fists, and behaved like a baboon. I remember the way his double chins rippled and shook as he ranted about "Discipline!" I took the train from Belfast to Dublin to see that, and I didn't deserve to be yelled at. I think he had outright contempt for us.

I've been on that train. The clacking of the tracks is still in my ears. Yeah, that same guy spoke to us once, too. I forgot about him, but your characterization is right on the mark. (IDM 86-88)

Interesting. I wonder how many othr IDMers have seen the light. I thought it was a tough mission. Gull the "buisnessman" was so contrary to my personality that it really made my mission more difficult than it might have been under Tipton the "grandpa"--who was there for a week after I arrived. My first area was Portadown . . . got there for marching season and spent three days indoors while the petrol bombs were flying down in the town center. A lot of memories . . .

At least we got to speak English and there were no parasites and we could eat fairly well. The "troubles" and the short days and overcast skies and cold rain combined with very little success and people telling us "What are you doing here? We've got enough trouble with religion and you want to bring us more?" and knowing they were right -- that all made it pretty tough. Not to mention Gull and his narcissism.

I worked in the mission office toward the end of my stint, and my companion and I estimated at that time that about 25% of the elders who returned home went inactive. There's another poster on RfM who was an IDM'er from our time too.

I think you're right on the mark with Gull. What was he, about 42 when he became MP? I know honest money can be made, but my experience since the IDM leads me to believe that some become wealthy because of thier pushy, ruthless nature. The demands that were made on how we spent our time leads me to believe he may have been one of the pushy, ruthless type. I couldn't stand treating the people like clients to whom I was trying to sell a used car.

I tried to do most things right on my mission and do things how he told us to do it. I hated the false pretenses we used to get into people's homes and the "soft baptismal" challenge on the first visit was stressful. I didn't realize how much I hated what he made us do until many years later.

Anyway, nice to know a few IDMers have made their way out. I can't think of very many of 'em that I dislilked.

There were very few that I didn't get along with. I remember some wonderful conversations with the other elders.

I hesitate to speak candidly about President Gull in public, as he is still around. Right now, he's president of a university. He was a real piece of work. Also, this thread will be closed soon. If you'd like to talk more, I'd love to talk to you by email. I'm at makurosu@rocketmail.com

"How grateful I am that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has from its beginnings stood strongly against racism in any of its malignant manifestations."

http://www.lds.org/ensign/2000/09/no-more-strangers?lang=eng&query=alexander+morrison

They do tend to think harshly of them and speak abusively to them.

I once sat on the floor of the mission home and listened to Hugh B. Brown. Nice guy. And he made a very interesting comment: "While gathering in the flock, we should make sure we don't lose the shepherds."

I assume the statement suggests he wasn't totally happy with the business/marketing strategies (and especially the focus on numbers) that were taking over the church in general and missionary work specifically.

I wonder if he'd be surprised at the number of shepherds who have been lost since he made that statement.

In my experience, most GA's are arrogant and rude to the missionaries. These are all successful business men, doctors, lawyers, etc. forced to deal with teenagers as their workforce, kids that hang on every word they say as if it's prophecy. I am sure they feel they are hot stuff, so they think the arrogance is warranted. IDK, most are d-bags, but I will say that Carlos Godoy was a genuinely cool guy, never got anything less than kindess and gratitude from him. The others suck.