Well me and my dad are having a large debate on whether he thinks a mission call is revelation based on what is given from church headquarters. I think its a bunch of crock and that they simply choose from a list of needs and then say "Here, we can put this mishie here"

What say you?

My parents are so devout they will never listen, this is one thing I would like to change their viewpoint on.

There is no inspiration. It's a computer program based on needs.

No inspiration at all.

NOTHING is inspired.

I grew up on the east bench among many of the GAs. For a variety of reasons, I was "called" stateside. I have doubt it was orchestrated by M R B as a compromise in order to keep my family happy. It is NOT inspired.

I meant NO doubt.... :-)

They process something like 500-1000 applications per week.

There are only 2400 minutes in a workweek. So, unless the two GA's assigned to watch over the process can get 'inspired' in less than 3-5 minutes, it's just a computer function.

If they are so devout as to not even listen to their child's reasoning, what purpose is there in changing their belief? What would that even accomplish.

From a practical standpoint it is plainly obvious there is no inspiration... the church is too organized for it to be anything but meticulously planned out. (Not by God).

Its all numbers. If a mission doesnt "need" more missionaries (according to its numbers), it doesn't get them

From "On This Day in Mormon History:"

June 2, 1979 - CHURCH NEWS article "Computers Aid Church" refers
to use of computers by Missionary Department. Due to massive
increase of missionaries, computers have assigned Mormons to
their full-time missions since church-wide computerization in
1970. First Presidency has neither oversight nor review of
mission calls. Special committee (LDS bureaucrats and one or
two general authorities) reviews computer print-outs of proposed
missionary calls and occasionally changes some mission
assignments. Signature machine signs church president's name to
letter informing LDS missionaries of their assignments.
Management Systems Corporation is dissolved in 1979, its
functions absorbed by Information Systems Department.

Nice find!

During my mission, a visiting GA emphatically said that each and every one of our mission calls were personally signed by SWK.

Do you think that was valid or not?

I knew (even back then) that the signature was mechanically produced, I just don't know if the GA was ignorant or dishonest. I suspect the latter.

The morg uses a signature machine.
Wise up.

Yup seems pretty obvious that signature devices make the cult go round with all its falseness.

You really think Monson spends all day signing letters to missionaries?

Very unlikely that Tommy signs anything.

Known only to prayerful members, there is one specific computer that handles all missionary assignments. The machine's crystal oscillator is built from harvested material, or shavings, from Smith's peepstone.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/2014 10:27PM by fudley.

I should note that being a college student I have tried everything to be subtle and careful to sway my family to understand, that my youngest brother who will be putting in his papers should realize it's all a sham... Lot of good it will do to make my brother see reason in a reasonable way.

When filling out my mission papers there were three choices as to where I would prefer to go, I put down England, Canada and Australia in that order. My mision call was to England, Soooooo inspiring at the time.

I took 4 years of French in HS and French 301 my Freshman year at BYU. They split the European Francophone missions from 2 to 3 the same time I entered the MTC. I got called to Paris.

Inspiration, or did they just need 100 more missionaries in France and I had more French training than 90% of the other people called to my mission?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/2014 10:50PM by axeldc.

I requested an english speaking mission because I didn't want to go to Mexico or South America. Personal preference at the time.

I was told that I did real well on the Language aptitute test. So...

Denmark for me & now I'm really greatful. Not only is it my heritage but I enjoyed the hell out of it.

Of course, my TBM family knew it was inspired.

I loved Denmark and would love to spend more time there. Such a cute country and I am 1/4 Danish myself (1/4 Norwegian, 1/2 Swedish).

axeldc Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I loved Denmark and would love to spend more time
> there. Such a cute country and I am 1/4 Danish
> myself (1/4 Norwegian, 1/2 Swedish).

Sorry for the 1/4 Norwegian! LOL.

The Danes are wonderful loving people. I still have friends there & some are even on my facebook.

I got to visit there on a business trip in 2007 & had a great time. They threw a party for me & even though most of the attendees were LDS they accepted my departure from the church & treated me like family. I drank some great wine with the nevermo's there!

I could easily live in Scandinavia after retirement.

I could live in Montreal but I don't want to spend my old age trudging through the snow.

They are completely inspired! By the same god who runs around finding lost keys and much needed parking spaces for Morons in a hurry.

Unfortunately, this keeps him too busy to do things such as provide guidance on mistakes in doctrine such as the Blacks and the priesthood, which 10 presidents and scores of apostles got completely wrong for over 100 years. You know, the little stuff.

Or the inconvenient truths such as the Book of Abraham not actually being a translation. More little things.

But hey, for the really huge things in the eternal scheme, such as if it matters if Bobby goes to Tokyo or Toledo, then that god is right there.

My stepson had bouncing-off-the-wall type ADHD. His grades in school had been atrocious until he was placed on Dexedrine and could then function normally. His last two years of high school were nearly straight A, while before, he had been scraping by with a low D-minus average. He just could NOT pay attention. But with the Dexedrine, he was a different person. He settled down, found a good internship program with a local company, and then turned in his papers for a mission.

We were VERY careful to put all the information about the ADHD and Dexedrine into his application.

So what did the Great Inspired Beast in SLC do? They initially assigned him to a country in Latin America where the mere possession of Dexedrine, whether prescribed or not, is a jail-able offense! Of course, I had to ask around to learn this.

When I did, I called the people in SLC and explained that unless they reassigned him Stateside where he could stay on Dexedrine in order to function, we would have to withdraw his application.

They did some hasty scrambling, got re-inspired, and sent him to a Stateside mission in a hurry. From there, he was able to put their local doctor in touch with our family doctor here, who assured the doctor in the mission area that yes, our boy did indeed require Dexedrine to function normally, so the doctor there continued to prescribe it and our boy completed his mission with flying colors.

He has remained a TBM and eventually outgrew his need for Dexedrine. But gee - shouldn't the mission people have been "inspired" enough to read EVERYTHING we put on the application before we had to go through all this nonsense???

Interesting story.

Job application = "putting in mission papers" - Putting in mission papers = "calling" - Calling - inspiration - need - gap filled - usefulness...

Some factors include family, history, background, outlook, looks, "testimony", experience, size, smile, stature, appearance, usefulness to the mp or the ap or the "field".

They use man and machine, neither of which are "inspired" - they do as Mormons generally do in every other instance. They make a decision and then pray about it- not the other way around... which may be interpreted exponentially.

The mission calls are signed by auto-pen. That ought to tell you something.

there is a YouTube video about a girl opening her mission papers to find out she was assigned to the same mission her boyfriend was currently serving. She was like.. I can't go there?! She had to get her mission reassigned. I'm sure she thought it meant it was destiny for her to marry this guy.

Not inspired.

http://exmormon.org/d6/drupal/Young-Women-Temple-Square-Mission

We were taught, on my mission, that one of the Apostles gets missionary assigning duty on a particular day of the week, and that all of our information and our picture gets put up on a huge screen, along with a suggested location. The GA then nods, or pauses and reassigns each missionary until all are filled.

Dunno how it actually goes. I was also taught that I'd been honored with the responsibility as 'travel leader' for my MTC group on a personal recommendation from my BP, and discovered later that that honor fell to the alphabetically first last name. Still a little hurt, honestly. The idea that my mission wasn't inspired hurts a lot worse.

I hope someday they accept my mission resume, when it grows a line or two.

I'm convinced there is a handful of Admin types who put the info from the papers into a database that then assigns missionaries according to preset parameters.

I took two years of German and two years of Latin and was sentenced to Rome. My brother a few years afterward received the same sentence. My thought at the time was that they store family mission history to take into consideration.