oh my what the hell is this. I think I would have been sent home the first day. I was not an exact obedience missionary and still baptized like crazy.

I would not have made it out of the MTC but had I got into this asshole's area, we would have had issues. Obey???? I think not...

RB

Yer garmints are meant to convey this very message every time you put them on.

The big 'L' reminds us of performing our duties with exactness and honor.

The big 'V' reminds us of an undeviating course.

I always felt uneasy that the undeviating course pointed dowmward.

Exact obedience - Just sounds like a standard MP thing.

That was always the mantra from my MP - exact obedience, or sometimes for a little variety - obedience with exactness.

The missionaries who could demonstrate their exact obedience, by giving the appearance they were even more obedient than required were chosen to be the leaders.

Standard mormon business procedures.

Way off topic, but do I detect a huge age difference between the MP and his wife?

I can't even read all this. So much crap.

Nice to see nothing has changed through the years. That was right out of my MP's playbook 35 years ago.

Whats up with Christ now with all these references i'm hearing of Christ being the Master Teacher. Is this a new directive out of SLC? If so, someone please show me where in the scriptures that exactness in obedience is a prerequisite for representing Him.

The old boys are getting the message that contrary most Gentiles either know nothing about a mormons or thinks they are creeps and weirdos. So this is nothing more than an attempt to make themselves look like a slightly different variety of Christian. Keep JS a on the downlow and start selling JC.

Dear President Clark. I'm an excommunicated sister. Would you mind sending a couple of handsome missionaries to my home to teach me the gospel again? Meals provided. Yours truly, Exed Sister.

I know, right? :)

"To want to be exactly obedient every single day because we don't want to go a single day without the blessings that come from exact obedience. Not just here in the mission field, but throughout the rest of our lives and throughout our families' lives."

Zactly!

That's what the mission is all about. Obedience. Learn it. Internalize it. Live it. THROUGHOUT YOUR LIFE. If a missionary has learned exact obedience to those above him, his mission has been a success. Whether or not he baptized a single person. Understand that the thinking has been done. All you do is bow your head and say "yes."

As I read through this message from the MP, I kept thinking, those poor mishies having to put up with the continual message that they are falling short once again. Isn't that the message you can always bank on getting from the cult - that you need to be doing MORE and then, and only then, will the cult be happy.

Send all of those sweet, young, naive, trusting missionaries home you damn cult. They need to be home doing what kids there age SHOULD be doing, discovering and enjoying life and working on their education and skill training. You, the cult, are responsible right now of corralling these young people and stampeding and placing them in situations frought with danger, physically, mentally and emotionally.

Shame on you cult.

Only precision groveling elicits the best empty promises.

This is sick.

You know you've got problems as an organization when you're instructing others based on the musings of a 19-yr-old cultist. The first (long) paragraph of this letter reads like instructions for carrying out righteous witch-trials in Salem. "When missionaries correct other missionaries on the rules or anything else, . . ." This is a discription of living hell, or North Korea.

"Now, the fact that so many missionaries have failed to understand this is most definitely not the fault of the mission president, but I believe it is the fault of the missionaries." This guy's got a bright future in Morg leadership!

He continues: "We often fail to see what is right in front of us. I have been, perhaps, one of the biggest examples of failing to see what has been right in front of me." Like, while I think I'm repentent, actually, I'm a complacent brown-noser. Is that what he means by failing to see what's right in front of him?

"I want to make sure that I do everything in my power to develop a firm and solid testimony of the things I have talked about and of every single rule or suggestion in Preach my Gospel, the Missionary Handbook, and our culture." This is just stupidity. I'm sorry the leadership is so poor that it can't see to correct him on these seriously misguided points. No one ever achieved anything by being so afraid to make a mistake that he dedicated himself to slavishly following every rule and suggestion set out in a book. Moreover, no one, especially a youth, should dedicate himself to embodying every error and injustice created by ones' forebears and perpetuated as culture. After all, someone's got to figure out that the presidents of the church werely merely bigots in their justifications of God's racist policies.

"I truly do want to be a disciple of Jesus Christ and pray that He will forgive me all that I have done wrong. I love Him, and I want to show Him that I love Him. I will and know it all begins with Exact Obedience." This now just an orgy of self-abasement and cultism. Stockholm Syndrom.

Exact obedience

That's right up there among the top trite Mo-speak words and phrases I despise along with:

Quiet Dignity

Return with Honor

Worthiness

"Free Agency," which later became "Moral Agency" or just "Agency"

Looking beyond the mark

it's like a trip to the Twilight Zone.

I caught myself wondering if it was a parody or for real.

These are HUMAN BEINGS out there on missions! People who have free will and unique personal skills and qualities--or at least they did when then started those missions. This sort of crap is what makes them turn into zombies by the time they come home.

Some of my kids' friends have been freaked out when their big brothers come home from their mission, and they aren't the same big brother anymore. They are often stiff, self-righteous, not fun anymore. My daughter told me that one of her friends just cried and cried after her brother came home.

Nothing worse than a bunch of teenage idiot missionaries trying to 'oughtRighteous' each other.

The make AP and other leadership positions and then go home to be just another RM - which really screws up their thinking.

"We have heard men who hold the priesthood remark that they would do anything they were told to do by those who preside over them -- even if they knew it was wrong. But such obedience as this is worse than folly to us. It is slavery in the extreme. The man who would thus willingly degrade himself should not claim a rank among intelligent beings until he turns from his folly.

"A man of God would despise this idea. Others, in the extreme exercise of their almighty authority have taught that such obedience was necessary, and that no matter what the Saints were told to do by their presidents, they should do it without any questions.

"When Elders [leaders] of Israel will so far indulge in these extreme notions of obedience as to teach them to the people, it is generally because they [the leaders] have it in their hearts to do wrong themselves."

-- Joseph Smith, Jr.
Millenial Star, Archive Volume 14, Number 38, Pages 593-595

I agree with JS about something!

Oh, know! I think I'm going to spontaneously combust!

A goal of one hundred baptisms in a month? An average of over three per day? Good luck with that.

And after your failed mission, you'll feel compelled to make thing right with the Lord by obeying the church forever.

We routinely bapped more than 200 in my mission, 300+ would be a good month 200 horrible. 100, that would be inconceivably lw

Was your mission in Fresno, ca. 2015?

They've been sent to Fresno...isn't that punishment enough!?!?

I like this quote: "... I am impressed to challenge you to read the Book of Mormon to discover the Christ-like characteristics taught therein."

You know, Christ-like, like...uhhhh....destroying several cities and killing a buncha folks??

------ Chicken N. Backpacks
semi-proud CSUF graduate

Postum is for closers!

Seriously, I just read this and substituted "Brand X' every time he wrote "The Lord" or "The Church", and "franchise" everytime he wrote "mission".

They could be the flagship franchise.

Top baptizers get a car area
Next in line get the steak knives
The rest get P-Day taken away from them

Have fun this summer in Fresno, poor kids.

excuse me as I upchuck.... All I can say is there will be a whole new set of elders and sisters that will be joining the recovery board coming soon. I look forward to hearing their rants in times to come :)

If indeed it was a real letter. Very sophisticated in its manipulation. Ted Bundy?

https://www.lds.org/manual/gospel-fundamentals/chapter-5-jesus-made-the-earth?lang=eng

How long has this been around?

This really does look like mind control. Forget marketing, they are now hiring malevolent psychologists.

Regular poster, but must be anon on this one:

The second I clicked on the article I recognized this MP. He was my missionary companion (19xx) in the Spain Madrid Mission in the city of Xxxxx where he was made branch president over the 5 or 6 members. We were together for one transfer. I COULD NOT stand him. He was my least favorite companion. He was ultra-arrogant and into himself – 100% narcissistic. Back then he was very slender, one piece garments, and white-white pasty skin who were ultra-tight jeans on P-day. I watched one of the videos from a link below and I cannot get over how creeped out I am seeing his facial expressions and hand motions. To make sure it was him I ran out into the garage to my file cabinet and looked at the professionally made directory that the mission office produced of the entire mission. Yup, it's him, with his photo - Jeff D. Clark. I guess LDS loves him. Looks like he's another multi-millionaire with his own investment funds business and boring stories.

In the mission field, Clark was all into rules and had such an act that we called him "beato" meaning he thought he was "blessed." He was into numbers and impressing the MP, Sterling Nixon. Guess that’s why he went into accounting, hedge funds and investing.

http://huntsman.usu.edu/alumni/htm/directory/memberID=4288 (scroll down to videos)
http://huntsman.usu.edu/news/htm/blogger/articleID=22705/

He creeps me out.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/09/2015 09:17AM by Maude.

We've often discussed here the fact that some missionaries are sent out to be reformed.

Who's to say that some MPs aren't sent out for the same reason, especially to phony "created" missions like Fresno. The local stake missionaries could easily handle what few investigators they must have. Lots and lots of missionaries make for lots and lots of missions requiring lots and lots of MPs. Some good, some bad, and some just plain jackasses like Pres. Clark.

Who, but a complete fool would say in writing: "I know without a shadow of a doubt we will be this model Mission. And I know that by doing so our baptisms will soar, even well above 100/month. I want to bear you my testimony of this for I absolutely know it is true as the Spirit has borne witness to me of these principles. It is a great day to be a Missionary in the California Fresno Mission!!!!" (sic)

Did he receive a vision of the return of "Baseball Baptisms"? My first MP, the older brother of a GA, was a real jerk like this hopelessly demented fool who happened to be "called" right after his business failed. It's good that he was released two months later, because I could never have lasted two years with this clown.

Our next MP was great and would have never put out a letter like this idiot did. All he ever wanted was for us to get off our dead asses and knock on doors (in the early sixties). He was a great MP. I can't remember him ever sending home a missionary. He would have done everything he could do before giving up on anyone. He was that type of person.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/08/2015 02:02PM by Templar.