I have TBM friend who is aware of my disbelief in the Mormon church. One of the issues we have discussed is the missionary program, as her son is soon approaching Mishie age.

I have pointed out how amazing it could be if missionaries spent the majority of their time in service to the communities in which they are assigned instead of pointless knocking on doors and annoying people who aren't interested in discussing religion with uninformed young boys & girls.

She has recently begun to claim that the majority of missions are now exclusively service missions and that the missionaries proselytize only when given a specific referral. No more knocking on doors or accosting people on the streets???

I assume this is just wishful TBM thinking but would like firm evidence before broaching the subject again so I am crowd-sourcing a response from the RFM community.

To my knowledge, they are experimenting with service missions. I think they started in San Jose, CA (?). And also, I've heard that it's been hard for the missionaries to find "services" to perform and are spending as much time finding something to do, as doing something.

Additionally, I thought I'd heard that they were not baptizing more people than with the old methods, which is not much.

ETA: Here's an article claiming that it was started in the Bay Area, I think specifically San Jose though.

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/57473415-78/missionaries-service-lds-says.html.csp



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/29/2014 06:05PM by Devoted Exmo.

There hasn't been service missions in--I think--quite some time. In the 1980s I interviewed a young lady who came back from a service mission to Peru. She was an RN and helped some LDS doctors down there for her 18 months. But serving people with professional Christian service is just so not Mormon. It was a new thing in the 1980s, and I think the idea folded in the 1980s, too.

There used to be other mission options. The only one I know of now is the one in SLC where you spend all your time in the genealogical library and places like that.

And no, the elders and sisters today do not do "service" stuff unless they have absolutely nothing to do. It always comes with strings (nay, great cables) attached.

Free labor.

I don't know of youth missions but I do know that senior missionaries are recruited for their skills, but their "service" are usually put to work for LDS, Inc.

Our old Bishop was a general contractor. He was called on a mission to build the temple in the midwest, at his expense, of course. He worked for free, uncompensated for his expenses, building the temple. His wife spent her days making meals for the workers. A cynic would say that the church should have paid him or someone else for his professional services, and that using "missionaries" to build churches serves no one but the church itself.

It's true that there are several kinds of service missions. There are the kind like the San Jose experiment. There are some medical service missions, often using young female RN's and there are service missions for young missionaries with handicaps, etc. where they often work in call centers, etc.

There are also service missions for seniors where they are spending their days "extracting names" for the genealogy program or working on church "farms" or "ranches" or "game preserves."

But most missions are the usual, proselytizing type.

The elders and sisters in our area do a lot of service, but that may be because there isn't anything else to do. Either way, service is a good thing.

My parents served a service mission where they coordinated projects like building wells, supplying wheelchairs, and other projects that benefited communities. Of course there was a desire to increase interest in the church, but many times they were forbidden by law to proselytize.

Personally, I'd rather have them doing a lot of service than unwittingly spreading lies.