When I went on a mission in the 1960s, the encouragement was to find the always elusive Golden Family. We had them back in the 1960s. I remember a few of them joining the California ward I was in. A golden family was defined as a hard-working, mainstream nuclear family--dad, mom, kids, especially dad--who were seeking truth. These families were out there, waiting to be discovered and "brought to the Truthfulness of the Gospel." You didn't want some single mom, no matter how hard-working. Nossir. They drained the church of welfare funds and represented a threat to married women. And they couldn't take over priesthood positions, because, you know... Women. You wanted the Dad and the (lower case) mom. And their kids, of course. The whole megillah.

My now-famous ex-Mormon comp and I managed to tract out one of these families in a burned out Swiss city, relentlessly combed over again and again since time immemorial by Mormon missionaries. (Shoot, I personally tracted the entire city twice, with two different companions.) In Switzerland! A true miracle. Anyway, we got 'em baptised and received a whole lot of praise and mission publicity for it. The praise flowed so liberally that I felt for a while like we might be invited to the White House. This Italian-speaking Swiss family did indeed get sealed in the temple and remained active for at least 20 years, which was the last time I checked.

I'm betting that the Golden Family is no more, or is at least more elusive than ever. The normal complaint of my über-TBM DW is that the missionaries are only baptising "problem people," described as unemployed and uneducated single people with obvious mental disabilities, people who require a lot of hand-holding, people for whom there is no possible ward calling. No more hard-working men ready to fulfill a priesthood calling. Not even the hard-working single mother, threat to married women notwithstanding. To hear DW talk, the Golden Family is now extinct, a distant memory. Where on earth have they gone, I wonder?

Did any of you baptise a Golden Family? Seen any lately?

Evangelical Christian megachurches got them.

The thing/ person that MORmONISM goes after now, or at least has to settle for, is the Not so golden but very desperate refugee. People who have been so busy running for their lives in some third world country that it was impossible for them to learn to read, let alone get on the internet and learn about LDS Inc's Book of MORmON and Unmentionable secret handshake family togetherness scam.

The thing that makes an investigator "golden" now is one who will get baptized many times over, like every time a new batch of food or american clothes from DI shows up in their african village.

society no longer creates them. the new 'normal' family is a non-traditional one. Liberated women don't need a man, men don't need to provide for their kids, hardly anyone marries anymore - life without commitments of any sort (except financial) is becoming the norm, especially in the UK.

My family was golden. I was five years old when my parents joined the church on the east coast in 1960's. White, educated, hard working, 3 children. Mom and Dad filled a big role and fit in perfectly socially in our branch. Dad was a perpetual counselor in the branch presidency, eventually a HC and bishop.

The church is my mother' s entire social circle on the East coast. Everyone she hires to do yard work, or house cleaning or construction is from her ward.

I think educated people these days are NOT joining the church because they know how to use the internet.

My family was considered a Golden when we were bamboozled into the LDS scam. We were the very definition of what the church was foaming at the mouth for.

As a missionary in the UK I had one "Golden" nuclear family join. They went to the temple, got freaked out and promptly left.

In one of his books Tom Monson tells the touching story of Missionary finding a young family and baptizing them. In reality the young family was an old alcoholic woman who was allowed to smoke her "last" cigarette 5 minutes before she was dunked. She never came back to church.

the golden dream was originally coined by Joe smith. He gave instructions to the elders in Nauvoo about which kind of people they "really" wanted to tract out. Men! and women and kids in the background. There is wisdom there I guess, most women will follow along what their man tells them to do (most of the time) it's in their nature.

Ones on the board maybe not so much? they think for themselves more, and tend to get into more trouble...

poopstone Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> (snip)
>
> most women will follow along what their man tells
> them to do (most of the time) it's in their
> nature.
>
> Ones on the board maybe not so much? they think
> for themselves more, and tend to get into more
> trouble...


Who are these hussies, that we may chastise them!?

While I wait for your list, I will pray for them, generically, that the hussies, whoe'er they are, might yield up their silly independence and find peace in the guidance of men.

HA HA HA HA!!!


. . . . . . F@&# off.

We were a Golden family of the 60's. Working Dad, Mom and four kids. Nobody into drugs or anything.

But really I guess we were only GOLD PLATE because only half stayed in.

The man, in his role as husband, father, and primary provider, would be the golden convert. Whether or not you like the idea of male headship is beside the point: the culture of those (and most) periods was so predicated. If the father said, "I've been transferred to Toledo," the family in all likelihood moved to Toledo. And if the Father said, "I want to follow this holy man to Eden in Missouri..."

Things are different now. Even in an intact, two-parent home, the answer to the "transfer to Toledo" issue may well be, "But what about MY career?" And "is it best to yank the kids out of this school system?" More to the point, more families are female-headed or co-habitating adults. TSCC will have to just settle for what's out there. The huge fish-stocks are gone.

Hopefully, when Dad says "I want to join this Utah-based church" the family response is, "Dad, have you lost your mind?"

My husband wants to know where they are, as well, and if he can trade me in for one.

Yes, because men are always known for making such brilliant, logical decisions and never make mistakes. I'm sure you always make excellent choices that never get you into trouble, including choosing an education that led to having a mental breakdown and subsequently led to you working in a crappy big box store. Clearly, the virtue of having a penis leads to such impeccable decisions in life.

If you ever wonder why you're single, you should read these thoughts out loud to women your age and see what they think.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/06/2016 12:08PM by Itzpapalotl.

Lol.

Sometimes I wonder if dear poopstone is for real, or if he's just a mischievous imp, playing us all.

Things that make you go hmmm...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XF2ayWcJfxo

But having spent time on the "manosphere" plenty of boys (and that's what they are, NOT men) think this way and that woman are just giant children that need their guidance and rules.

I don't know if it's tragic or funny, but from a subjective experience, the most destructive periods of my life have been while under the influence of and listening to men. (Not that I'm seriously shifting blame, but according to this line of thought, it's all THEIR fault, right? They should know better, right? That's sarcasm, peeps.) The most constructive periods are when I sit down and mull over my options for a few days and make my own choice.

The last "golden family" I heard about joining was a number of years ago in my parents ward. It was a stable African-American family and parents and all kids joined and were quite active and well fellowshipped for awhile.

When it came time for them to go to the temple and be sealed, one of the teenaged daughters was pregnant out of wedlock. She hadn't had any disciplinary action taken against her by the church, but they were told she couldn't go to the temple with them and be sealed. So of course, they weren't going to go until they could all go. People in the ward thought that was awful that they wouldn't want to take the rest of the kids and be sealed. Hello. They were supposed to tell their daughter that only the perfect people who commit sins that don't show on the outside can go?

I never heard anything about that family again, so I don't know if any of them are still active, whether they got sealed or anything else. But everyone else I've heard of that has joined in the last 30 years were cases of desperation (desperate for help or friends or financial assistance, etc.) or hormones.

No normal educated people are going to join mormonism if there isn't some personal non-doctrinal thing in it for them. It's called the Internet.

That's kind of a tragic story, but all too often Mormons are hoo-rahed by their own rules. Then they can't figure out why "outsiders" don't understand them.

Yeah, word on the street is that missionaries will baptise anything with a pulse.

For sure, in Chile, tombstones with names and birth dates was the source of baptism certificates handed in to the ward and the mission home. Could have happened other places, as well.

In other words, pulse optional.

Yeah, I baptized a "golden family." In France, even -- which was VERY rare (1980). A young couple with no kids, but about to have some. I too got a lot of praise and accolades.

They lasted about 2 years after I left that town (Caen). The had their first child "blessed" in the church, then they were out, never to return. I looked up the husband on facebook a while back, and he was at first reticent to reply to my friendly message, because he was afraid I was trying to reactivate him. He looked around my public facebook page, and saw pictures of me out with friends drinking beer, and decided it was OK to contact me. I was glad to find out he and his family left, and I didn't do any permanent damage to them.

The "golden family" is largely a thing of the past, as you point out. They are all either in a religion they're content with, atheist/agnostic/irreligious, or too smart to fall for the cult's claims (or a combination of those things). The missionaries appear to be actively seeking out the desperate, downtrodden, and gullible -- all that's left in developed nations for them to pick from.

Good. :)

Your comp wasn't Aaron Eckhart was it? I have a good friend from your mission who was also comps with Aaron Eckhart. I was in Paris shortly after this.

Per your question, no, we never found the Golden family. A few single girls, a handful of immigrants, but none the blonde, beaming eternal families were interested in France. Who can blame them for not joining an American cult?

No, I was in the Italian Mission, only two years after it was first formed. It included all of Italy and the Italian speaking canton of Ticino (Tessin). My comp was gay. "Gay as a goose," I once told somebody. He was awesome. I only had one more comp that I got along with that well. Anyway, he went back to BYU, married, had kids and everything, so I thought I must have been wrong. He became a millionaire, and a few years afterward came out as gay, left the church very publicly, and is now an LGBT activist using his money for good.

(It's good to see the demise of things in Italy. They're putting on a brave face. They created a faltering stake in Rome from their faltering district, and then, just to up the ante, created second faltering stake in the region. Almost all the chapels are still store-front churches, and there's probably only 10% activity over all. All the tithing payers can be counted on your fingers. They've also dissolved 2 of the eventual 4 missions. When they closed the Sicily mission a couple of years ago, they claimed that it was due to "maturity" in the area, and no longer needing a mission. Right. Makes you wonder, then, why do they have missions in the western US, or anywhere else where there are lots of members? They're now down to 2 missions in Italy, and I see a time when they will drop back down to one.)

I think it's great to see Aaron Eckhart in the films again. I hadn't seen him in anything for a while, but he's in something now at your local cinema. Did your mission included Reunion? Because ex-Mormon actor Kevin Rahm also went on a mission to France, and spent half his time in Reunion. Sweet. What a transfer, eh? "How long will it take to get to your new city, elder?" "About 24 hours."

Our neighbor and friend served with Aaron eckhart in France. Small world!!

I'm always so glad to be able to say that I didn't convert anyone on my mission -- THEY nearly converted ME! ;->

There is nothing in TSCC to appeal to an educated woman, and really, very little to appeal to an educated man. Wives no longer "go along for the sake of the family" the way my maternal grandmother did. As soon as my grandfather died, she went back to her coffee and cigarettes, and let the kids decide for themselves what they wanted to do in the way of religion.

When I moved into my current ward there was an entire family that had just been baptized. They were THE GOLDEN FAMILY. Dad was an attorney and mom stayed at home. Kids were well liked in the local schools and everyone was so pumped about this family they didn't make a big deal over my large TBM group. (We were made to feel welcome.)

ONE MONTH after we moved in the family stopped coming.

That was the last family I've seen join the church. Almost 12 years ago.

Mike T. Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The normal
> complaint of my über-TBM DW is that the
> missionaries are only baptising "problem people,"
> described as unemployed and uneducated single
> people with obvious mental disabilities, people
> who require a lot of hand-holding, people for whom
> there is no possible ward calling. No more
> hard-working men ready to fulfill a priesthood
> calling. Not even the hard-working single mother,
> threat to married women notwithstanding.

In other words, people for whom the Church could do a lot of
good. The types that Jesus said to care for.

What the leaders want are people who are good for the
Church--who will build up the organization, not people for whom
the Church will be good.

Years ago I recall reading a friend's saved mission
newsletter. The MP was exhorting the missionaries to stop
tracting out the trash contacts and go for the wealthy
ones--"go for that future stake president," he said.