I was just thinking, that when it comes to begging for fast money every month, Mormon men aren't brave enough to do it themselves. Instead they have the little twelve year old Deacons do it.

This is smart because who wants to look bad in front of a kid, but also very cowardly and disgusting to use kids to get money for you. I have no confidence that even the fast money is used appropriately given the lack of disclosure of church finances.

Why can't the tithing money be used to help the poor members? Don't the members already give enough in their 10%? Why should the tithing money be used to support BYU before it's used to help the poor, both in and out of the church?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/12/2015 12:12AM by raiku.

I don't think most of the tithing money even goes to pay overhead for running a church. Most of it gets "saved" away in real estate and other investments.

Cold-Dodger Wrote:
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> I don't think most of the tithing money even goes to pay overhead for running a church. Most of it gets "saved" away in real estate and other investments.

I don't believe ANY tithing money gets "saved" away in real estate or other investments. I'm quite confident that the "for profit" side of the church, combined with other donations outside of tithing, generate enough revenue to more than support the church's real estate ventures and other investments.

Back in the day before the block program, the Priests used to drive us Deacons around to collect fast offerings between Priesthood and Sunday School.

The thing I hated the most was knocking on doors of members I had never met or even seen in church before. Most of them had no idea what a fast offering was. Hell, I didn't know. All I knew was I had an envelope to hand them and they were supposed to give it back with some cash in it.

It was mildly entertaining though when the person would come to the door hung over, smoking a cigarette, or sucking down a cup of coffee.

Prove it. Oh wait... The church hides those numbers. Why do they hide those numbers? Is it because everything they do is perfectly legitimate?

Cold-Dodger Wrote:
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> Prove it.

Yawwwwwwwnnnnnn. Prove that tithing funds are "saved" away in real estate and other investments. Yeah...didn't think so.

> Oh wait... The church hides those numbers. Why do they hide those numbers? Is it because everything they do is perfectly legitimate?

So you are saying that their use of funds is not legitimate? Wow, with that knowledge you should be able to go to the I.R.S. and bring the church down. Let me know when you give that a try. Yawwwwwwwwnnnnnn.

I think this practice is very stupid. There are all kinds of child molesters out there. Oh never mind. I forgot that the CULT was founded on pedophilia so I guess it wouldn't even get noticed.

Growing up in the church that is one thing that I really did not like doing, asking people to give fast offerings for The Lord never seemed quite right, even to a 12 year old.

The only thing I enjoyed about collecting fast offerings was the monthly visit to a inactive families doorstep where every time with out fail a 17yo something girl would answer the door in her bra and a pair of shorts. We always thought it was just coincidence but as I got older I knew she was just patronizing us. They never gave a cent to fast offerings but they did fill our young minds with many thoughts!

My ex-Mormon cousin opened the door very suddenly, and she was right in the door frame, and said loudly, "Do you know you belong to a cult and are being brainwashed?" The little Mormon money-collectors never returned.

ya I never understood why tithing isn't enough, why there is fast offering anyway? I read the other day that it was Harold B. Lee's idea of sending kids door to door during the depression. But things were different back then. The church was poor. Utah was poor. It was the norm to go door to door selling things in those days. It's weird today.

My relatives like to tell everyone that they give a "generous" fast offering to distinguish that it's way more than $5. I'm always thoroughly impressed when they tell me :)
My folks on the other hand always gather the loose change and pay it in pennies. I know the ward clerk just loves to count it all back at the church.
(actually I think it was LeGrand Richards who came up with the idea?, It is in a nauseating biography I read years ago)



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 01/12/2015 11:06PM by poopstone.

My TBM family pays them at least $25 in fast offerings. Then throw in a couple hundred bucks in tithing. To think that TBM's like my family don't even ask on what it's actually spent on. What a money making racket and scam!!

Showing up at doors unannounced and expecting special consideration for being rude is what Mormons do. These kids have learned to respect privacy since they hear the story of The Three Bears in kindergarten. Collecting money from people who are busy or sleeping in their homes breaks down the idea of normal boundaries. These boys learn to ignore their finer inclinations when they're doing it for their church.

Never thought of that before
Everything has a purpose, doesn't it?

In many 3rd world countries, parents send their small children to beg for money on the streets. Passers-by, feeling sorry for these poor young children, give them money, which ends up going to irresponsible, abusive parents.

This is very similar to what happens with teenage LDS missionaries. Members are supposed to feel sorry for them, feed them, house them -- when these missionaries should not be begging in the first place. (The Morg is a multi-billion corporation who can afford to take care of them.)

And it's the same for deacons begging for fast offerings. People feel bad for these 12-year-olds, and give them money. But these boys are simply being exploited by a greedy organization who uses them to extort as much money as possible.

They could save the time and money by allowing members to pay it at church! It would save members time and gas. Or is the morg still unaware that the economy still in the crapper!???You'd think with their tithing and members leaving in droves, they'd realize that! Or are incompent morons and blockheads running the morg!??

Outside of the morridor, they don't collect by going door to door, it is included as a category on the tithing donation slip and turned in monthly with tithing.

Tithing mostly goes to SLC, a pittance is sent back for operating costs, but any charity given out to members at the ward level, a bill paid here and there, is supposed to come from fast offerings, not tithing.

That is not entirely true.

I grew up in Oregon. I went out as a deacon and collected fast offerings.

My boys were expected to do it in Las Vegas also.

Weekdays I went to school without lunch money in Oregon. I was hungry all the time. Some priesthood butthead I didn't even know drove me around to knock on the doors of old inactive members' houses. The money, much of it coins, was placed in a manila envelope with peepholes. I stood on the creaky porches of strangers, waiting for the dollar sixty-nine while my stomach rumbled from being underfed. It was fast Sunday, and I didn't even get enough to eat on school days.

Every month for about six months, I told them at the door that they don't need to come by as I pay at the church. They have stopped coming by.

Oh, and I don't pay at the church........

I absolutely HATED collecting fast offerings. I think I did it twice..then refused to go. I seemed to get all the poor widows in the ward and was embarrassed to ask them for a penny. Back then I wasn't aware that the church was a money grubbing, soul sucking corporate level fraud. I just knew what I hated having to do to those poor people.

Ron Burr



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/12/2015 11:34AM by Lethbridge Reprobate.

don't live in an area with a lot of Mormons, they don't have the deacons go door to door.

This always horrified me as a child and I was always so glad I wasn't a guy. I can't imagine doing this or passing the sacrament or blessing the sacrament, etc. Going on a mission--my worst nightmare.

I think there are much worse things in mormonism than being female.

Collecting FOs is ridiculous.

Where I live they do it after church. Typically about a hour after church is over. They even come by when my TBM family decided not to go to church because they were sick etc...!!

I didn't mind passing the sacrament after the first week or two of feeling insecure doing it....and blessing it was OK...because nobody in the audience was paying attention to what we were doing.

Ron Burr

When I was 12 I always got the packets of the large apartment complex. They would send us out at 9 am Sundays. People would come to the doors hung over, bleary eyed, in their underwear. When I said I was there for fast offerings, most just slammed the door shut. Some of them handed me a $1 bill. None of them had much of any idea what was going on. There were 3 large buildings, 3 stories each. There were about 60 packets. They sent me out ALONE. I did this a time or 2, and after that I would empty the donation slips in the garbage, and return the packet.

I would watch little old widows put two dollars into the envelope.

It was totally disgusting.

My dad would drive me to each house to collect fast offerings. I only remember doing it a few times.

As if the church isn't already getting enough money from you in tithing. But I guess it all goes towards that awesome mansion you'll get in super VIP heaven.

Great post. My wife said the same thing the other day when they came by. We did not answer the door. How can you deny a 12 year old.

We lived in a ward that was pretty far-flung. Fast offerings were collected at church along with tithing. Every once in a while, tho , we'd get a super-uber-righteous bishop or ym leader who would think it would go much better for the youngsters to be driven all over to collect fast offering. We didn't participate either in the collecting part or the giving-at-the-door part.

The money is not any more 'righteous' if a kid hands it to the bishop, than if an adult does. And btw, i thot we were paying enuf, with our tithing. I realized that the 'poor' family that needed my fast offering was my family!

"The poor family that needed my fast offering was my family."
I don't go to Mormon church except for family or close friend celebration. I work weekend night watch. On Fast Sunday I expect 1of3 scenarios.
Two new deacons waiting at my door or near my park space.
The same deacons wait at the corner of my street. An older deacon gesturing toward me, talking to the newbie, whatever his opinion of me might be as I drive by.
When they confront me at my car I reply: I'm the only wage earner & work 2 part-time jobs. Sometimes my grocery budget is only $10 per week. If a pompous deacon persists I add a reason why I don't go to their church.

Last time I had to do this was in the 1970's in the Pacific Grove Ward in CA, and the bishop demanded a complete fast offerings blitz of the ward boundaries. We had to all meet at the EQ president's home along with all the Aaronic priesthood boys, and we had a pancake breakfast before dividing up the envelopes between all the groups. Each group was two boys and an EQ member. The adult drove the boys around to all the houses on their particular route. In involved a lot of wrong turns, getting lost, and having doors slammed in faces. Afterward we came back and looked over our treasure. It was exceedingly small, and most of the envelopes were empty.

It was a horrible experience. This wasted hours of our day and I told myself to never do anything like this again. But after that I was mostly in the military and we didn't do this among the military. Afterward, I was never asked to do it again.