Their latest letter talked about having a few anti-Mormon moments recently. They testified in their letter about how they were glad it was The Spirit which was providing the evidence for Mormonism being true. The way they talked in their letter it made me wonder why real live missionaries are even needed?

I ask this because in reading these letters they seem to consist of reactivation and member strengthening and not missionary "golden contact" moments.

In my opinion LDS missions are Mormons paying for the opportunity to convert themselves and assist others in converting themselves to something they already claim to believe. I wonder if LDS missions have always been this way and it is seems so obvious now since I'm apostate from it?

Seriously it looks more like study your cult abroad/youth outreach to members more than going on the hunt for The Lord's Very Elect.

Obedience in spades.

I agree. These letters seems strange to me. When I was a missionary it was all about praying, inspiration, reading scriptures, help with the language (speaking in tongues lol) and other things that either directly or indirectly involved finding people to teach.

These letters read like some other church. It is all about relationships with members and the few investigators are rarely found "cold" off the street or tracting.

The general feel of missionaries in the blogs that I've read is all about the experiences of being a missionary sprinkled with how much they love the church and have feel the spirit.

It is like a window into a cult member's eyes and less about a young person struggling to find people so they can feel like they were a good missionary.

It definitely doesn't sound like a numbers game anymore. So, the subject of my post is it isn't an "LDS mission" like mine where we were supposed to be inspired, guided by God salespeople out to find new members to increase the numbers. But on the flip side it isn't about an internal conversion either to me. It sounds like an outreach like these missionaries are working with the homeless or drug addicts and they are the shiny happy young people (of the cult.)