After I read a claim that a mission in S. America had instituted a new rule that investigators had to pay at least one "offering" before baptism; I started searching.

Turns out to be a true policy in the Peru Lima West mission:

"We went to Lima and had our monthly leadership training which was awesome. They put in a couple of new rules for baptizing in this area. The investigators have to attend church three times, and they have to go to church all three hours three times before getting baptized. Also, they have to pay some sort of offering or donation before they can get baptized. It will make things a bit trickier but I can definitely see the wisdom in these rules, making sure that the converts remain active and faithful members of the church. We'll see what type of good results it brings!"

http://hermanajonesperu.blogspot.com/2014/09/chanchos.html

I wish that was a world wide rule, it will quickly kill their baptism numbers in most of the world. People often get baptized due to social pressure the missionaries exert on them, but I am willing to bet a lot fewer of them, especially the poor will actually be willing to pay up.

Great observation and I agree with you, requiring an "offering" such as a first tithing payment would kill what little quality baptisms TSCC is having. (Quality being a definition of TSCC, not my judgement of any person choosing to be baptized.)

I also believe it is a more honest approach by TSCC. They expect a full tithe be paid before members can live with God again (must have received the endowment and been married in the temple–which requires a temple recommend, which requires a full tithe), so making a future member pay before being cleared for baptism make sense.

HEIL JOSEPH

Agreed. Most "high-baptizing" areas would have close to zero baptisms if these rules were enforced. We had thousands of "members" in my mission that had been baptized, but never confirmed. Probably half the baptized members in Brazil have never spent more than a few hours in a mormon church.

Part of the 15 million and growing! What utter nonsense. How any member believes that figure is beyond me.

Some churches require a lot more than those minimum rules. The problem is that the investigator doesn't investigate anything as the answers from the missionaries are minimal.

Back in the early 60's in our area, if you were designated as a "Golden Contact" the missionaries came to your door with a one month baptism date set between them.

We never attended the LDS Church before we were baptized. We did not have home teachers or visiting teachers either for a long time. Can't remember the first time. Over a year maybe?
I sat in classes as a young adult and listened and tried to figure out what the heck was going on and what they were trying to say.

It's worse now as missionaries are asking investigators to BE BAPTIZED during the first meeting. This is a requirement at the urging of that board favorite, Elder Bednar.

Missionaries are to state up front that their purpose is to baptize investigators into the church, and ask those same investigators if they would like to be baptized before they finish the first visit.

The investigator knows nothing of requirements of membership (unless they ask). They do not know about tithing, fast offerings, calling or attendance requirements, temple attendance requirements etc.

The investigator does not know about temple wedding restrictions, or any other potentially negative ways TSCC will impact their life.

They know nothing of the controversies, or the TSCC's responses in the form of "essays" which are being posted on the sly to LDS.org.

In business missionary work would be considered selling. In selling asking someone to buy your product before you've told them anything about it is called desperation.

I think anyone who wants to join the mormon church should also have to clean it at least once before baptism.

We had the rule about attending three meetings before I joined. At least, it sounds vaguely familiar to me. I found that the missionaries weren't very upfront about things so they avoided explaining much to investigators, especially mission rules.

Paying for baptism doesn't sound good but I'm sure they will find a way to explain it without using those words.

This missionary sounds so naive (as most of them seem to be) in thinking that these two rules at the start of a person's sojourn into Mormonism will keep newcomers active. It's not hard at the beginning to go to three full meetings as most converts will be enthusiastic about it, not knowing what to expect and not yet having time to become disillusioned (or shocked, take your pick). That alone does not in any way guarantee that a person will stay active. A little bit of a logic disconnect there!

In one SM I attended a very emotional young female adult was giving her testimony. Many in the audience seemed thrilled at her passion. In my view, she had lost it, not seeming in control and going on and on about "spiritual" things. She included the wonderful (to her) prospect of becoming a god. I was shocked to hear this, needless to say.

After the meetings, I, as a new member, and an investigator getting ready for baptism, queried this with the ZL missionary (we had got to know him really well and he could cross boundaries to still visit with us). He, as well as other missionaries, denied this doctrine, saying "we don't teach that". Uh, no, maybe they don't - teach it, that is. However, that fine distinction doesn't hold true as we know (now) that the Mormon Church's doctrinal beliefs includes the 'becoming gods' concept. Of course, maybe they mean only the males - I've never been sure on that.

It is unusual, I take it, that a member would bring up "deep doctrine" in an SM. There was always an air of mystery to me and I knew there was something under the surface but I couldn't get at it (pre-Internet and not knowing about RfM). I think you could attend way more than three meetings without tripping over the material that many ex-members find out or research and study and that new members or prospective members may not discover for quite a while and only if they look in the right places.

We are so familiar with the topics after spending time at RfM it is easy to forget that they don't just come up in people's day to day lives. I think members are quite shielded/blocked from incoming information. That's partly why it takes finding a key to someone's brain and heart before they get what you're saying with much of the other side of Mormonism (the ex- or never- side).

Interesting that they chose the number 3. I'm thinking its so the smart mishey's will avoid F&T meetings with their new victim. That meeting has probably been the undoing of many prospects.

Peru has so much poverty, and it is SO real, and there is SO MUCH real suffering that is going on all of the time for most of the population...and this just hurts unbelievably to read. Whatever "offering" is now extorted from new members before they can be baptized SHOULD be going to food, or WATER, or soap, or whatever care is available for pregnant women and infants and young children...or for "new" (discarded junk of all kinds, collected from streets and informal dumps) "roofing" or "construction" materials to keep out the real cold and the Andean winds.

I think of the hunting reserves for the entertainment of the LDS select (the hunting reserves are one of my own LDS Top Peeves), and all of the other Marie Antoinette-type luxuries and frills that go with that LDS level of life, and then I think of the really poor people I have not just seen...but SMELLED, because I was smelling-close to them. (Sometimes they needed a shower--something they probably do not know exists...but often they were reeking, and SEEPING, from the many diseases of that area that were slowly eating away at them from the inside.) Just a decent meal, and some decent water, and some soap, and a few decent clothes (don't have to be new; used is fine) could have done SO MUCH!!!

I have never been to Peru...but I HAVE been to Colombia (Peru's northern neighbor), and I'm pretty sure the two countries share a great deal when it comes to the practical effects of widespread, hopeless poverty among their populations.

Does the LDS leadership have ANY idea what happens when kids (especially male kids) are dropped by themselves on some street or lane and left to themselves to survive? It is a custom there for women, when they get a new boyfriend, to abandon their previous children (especially their male children) to the streets so that the boyfriend will feel comfortable beginning a new family...until he gets tired of the woman and the cycle begins all over again. Does ANYONE in LDS leadership realize what it must be like for a child UNDER TWO YEARS OLD to be ABANDONED on the street? Yes...most definitely...EVERYTHING you can imagine COULD happen to those kids DOES HAPPEN to those kids...and the ones that make it to adolescence or adulthood are destroyed forever inside.

And they want some parent to take the pitiful amount of money they could put together to contribute for baptism (which COULD buy food and water for maybe another day for their children and themselves) and give it to the LDS corporation???

I bet not one of them considers that they are hastening the hour when "this" REAL CHILD from this REAL PARENT is abandoned to the streets...hopefully to die of exposure in the Andean cold because that is the BEST thing that could reasonably happen to them once they are abandoned.

I know they don't care. I know that all that counts to them is membership numbers on a page and monetary units which go to the credit of the LDS corporation.

But I also know those people who are being victimized (or I know their neighbors, anyway), and I read this with the same sickness I feel as I read the accounts of massacres in the Middle East or Asia or wherever.

And I am strongly coming to the opinion that anyone who is NOT part of the solution on this is, in actual truth and reality, a cooperating part of, and contributor to, the problem.

unless immediately followed thereafter by 3

Isn't that an absolute mind blower... The meeting where members share their most spiritual experiences is the one that everyone wants to keep investigators away from attending.

(They are also the Sacrament Meeting most members would like to see just go away.)

A fulfillment of prophecy!

Baptism is a ritual that cleanses you from your sins, isn't it?

The Book of Mormon prophesies that the time will come when churches will promise to wipe away your sins if you pay them. Mormon 8:32

"Yea, it shall come in a day when there shall be churches built up that shall say: Come unto me, and for your money you shall be forgiven of your sins."

Unfortunately, the passage implies that such a church would be a false church.

Great point. Excellent example.

I'd say I like the new rules!

The investigators will be more informed before they are dunked!!!

It will take at least one year 2 hour weekly classes in the Catholic Church before you are dunked. Or you have a chance to
run as fast you can if you don't like the history, teachings etc.

Why it would only take a word YES, for mormons??? This is just
a mind boggling to me!!!

Don't even tell me about the "milk before the meat" crap!

It took the Church leaders only 50 years to figure out what every Missionary in latin American knew 50 years ago....that most people will drop the Church as soon as the missionaries "drop" them. The Church ain't too bright. Takes it a LONG time to learn!!!

The Church would retain MANY more converts in Latin America, if it did the following:

1) Restricted Church to two hours per day.

2) Restrict tithing to 10% of net, and no tithing for the poor (replaced by occasional free labor on Church farms, industries, etc.)

"The Church would retain MANY more converts in Latin America, if it did the following:

1) Restricted Church to two hours per day."

That would help some, but in Latin America mormon congregations of a dozen or so members are often competing with large evangelical churches with rock bands, etc... Who's going to stick around in a mormon congregation with 6 missionaries and 6 locals for long when they have to pass 10+ larger and more interesting churches on the way to the rented shack that the LDS meetings are held in?

Pay to Play, Pray, and Obey......

I served in Japan in the mid 2000's. We had the 3 meeting rule. I don't think it makes any difference. The entire mission averaged 2-3 baptisms a month and by the time I left, very few that I knew of were still active.

It's the spirits fault. I just heard some TBM today tell me that all we (as members) need to do is make introductions for the missionaries.

The SPIRIT converts and testifies of the truth of TSCC Gospel.

The more one is committed by actions and money, the harder it is to stop. The rules relating to joining are clearly to inculcate the cult more. When one gets something for nothing, it is meaningless. When people have given time and money they seldom decide to leave. Just think a moment. If you are given something of value, do you give it equal standing with something you spent a lot of money on? No, TSCC knows that such rules will, in fact, improve both the numbers and quality of "conversions". Catholicism requires a long course before baptism as do many other groups. Even Judaism requires much study before conversion is permitted.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/17/2014 06:22PM by rhgc.

Just posted Mormon 8:32 to this hermana's blog...

You have to make a financial contribution to join my local UU congregation. I've never been there, but it says so right on their website. The amount is totally up to you, but you have to have a meeting once a year with the minister to make a plan for what you feel you can contribute.

Most clubs charge some kind of dues. It keeps people active and committed. But the difference is, they don't threaten and shame people into paying them. And if you don't want to belong to the club anymore, you can walk away any time and still be friends.

It's not THAT the cult charges admission that gets me, it's HOW. That, and their product sucks.

the prior "Mr. / Brother Brown" "discussions" were an absolute insult to 'gators'; the missionary would 'ask a question' but with a suggested-indicated answer.

If the answer/response was anything close to what was wanted, the missionaries would Smile & nod. If not, either 'the answer' or a stronger hint was given.

What will happen in 3rd world countries is the missionaries will make a donation on behalf of the investigators just to get the baptism. U.S. dollars go a long way there.

The possibility that missionaries will feel pressured to make a donation on behalf of the investigators to get the baptism, makes me irate to know there is yet another burden forced on these young mishie kids. I can see some of those kids going without the proper food to make this happen. Mishies out there from countries like America, Australia, England etc. must be engulfed with feeling inadequate to come to the aid of the poor people they encounter. Some I know that have served in South America, Africa, Haiti, and the Philippines have said as much.

Add this to just another reason the LD$ Church-cult MISSIONARY SYSTEM SHOULD ONLY BE FOR MATURE PEOPLE, like the 15 Doofus-Blacksuits. I mean even though most of the 15 are in their 70's, 80's + THEY CAN BE SERVING MISSIONS AT LEAST PART TIME BY making phone calls or using the Internet, helping to set up appts. for those to contact who have the necessary health to accomplish this. If they are so set on having a missionary system, let's see them participate now!

I detest the LD$ Church-Cult missionary program that enslaves young, sweet, naive teens. It is evil.

the buy in.