I have a brother in the Army and a friend in the Peace Corps and they always make sure to stay in contact. I can reach out to them whenever I want when they're stationed abroad or in-state. They're treated like ADULTS.

My brother comes home from his mission soon (thank goodness this nightmare is over), but it makes me so angry that they don't let them call their family. They're only allowed to talk to their parents TWICE A YEAR and aren't even allowed to call to let them know they're okay after a major illness/injury/natural disaster? WTH.

My grandparents when on a mission and we skyped with them all of the time. It's just infuriating how they treat these young adults.

I agree. This supposedly family-oriented church should be promoting family communication, not preventing it.

I agree with you. We live in the Communication Age. Teens and even pre-teens are so tech-savvy these days. They are in constant contact with each other and family members over social media, emails, texts, etc. With the ease and affordability of communication, there is simply no excuse to continue with the Mormon missionary expectation of the twice a year phone calls. Even military members Skype with their families while they are serving in war zones.

I remember when I was a college freshman. At the time, my school attracted a large number of students from all over the country -- I think about 40% of us were out-of-staters. For the most part, we called our families at regular intervals, maybe every week or two. But some students needed daily contact. Young people are different, and trying to put all of them into the same mold as they are establishing their adult independence is cruel and wrong.

Regular, unfiltered contact would also help missionaries who are depressed, underfed, poorly housed, or severely ill to get assistance from their parents in getting their needs met.

It's the LDS last-ditch effort to fully indoctrinate, or "church-break" children. It why they take these vulnerable, un-streetwise kids and throw them to the wolves.

"See, wasn't your church family so much more comfortable? You now see how cold and cruel the world is, how you will be persecuted by gentiles."

When in fact, LDS dictates every parameter of the experience. It's not like - oh, imagine! - they could garner more converts by establishing revival-type tent gatherings, where friendly, food-bearing mishies with name tags welcome every soul.

Discomfort and alienation are necessary elements - they *are* the mission of the mission. Converts are not the purpose of missions, or LDS would be better at it. BIC life-long tithing is the purpose of missions.

By their fruits...

I've always believed missions were to cement the missionary to the church, not about conversations, but I'd never considered that the church could get more converts and chooses not to.

I agree. That's the purpose of missions, to "church-break" the ones born in the fold. They are the ones who, if they make it trough mission and temple marriage, are likely to be lifers and full dues payers. Not a lot of converts go on to make it big in leadership.

If they really wanted converts they would make all missions service missions--like for real, where they have a set assignment working in the community. People would want to know who they are and what makes them that kind of youth. But that's not the point. The mission is indoctrination boot camp.

That's what I've always believed as well. Attachment to the church, get them married quickly while still indoctrinated making their escape less likely due to watchdog spouse then kids, and, finally, I believe the missionary program is an income stream for the church.

That's also what I think missions are really for, to further break down those born in the cult, so they become lifelong tithe payers and breeders before their brains fully develop in their mid 20's. In my opinion, the reason they lowered the ages was that they were losing too many younger people, especially women. They also were afraid that as Mormons were starting to catch up with others as far as marrying in their mid 20's at least, they were having fewer children. For the GA's, it's better to have someone return from a mission at 20-21, then get married within 6 months, and have their first child before their first wedding anniversary.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/19/2017 01:19PM by adoylelb.

My mission president more or less admitted that. We had a lot of struggling missionaries and they were assigned to good missionaries as companions - who pretty much had to babysit the struggling missionary. When questioned about how effective this was in gaining converts, our mission president told us that an investigator may or may not get baptized and may or may not stay active but a full grown missionary was invested in the church already and we had to do everything possible to make him/she successful in his/her mission. The missionary was more important than the investigator. That is an almost exact quote.

This MP later went on to be in the Second Quorum of the Seventy.

No Brother, NormaRae, and others---I agree. It's not what they tell the missionaries and their families--that it's about making converts, service---It's about cementing in the childhood indoctrination---brainwashing.

The calling of missionaries has a two-fold purpose and I don't know what weight to give each purpose; opinions will vary.

The first purpose is quite obvious, conversions.

The second purpose has had much mention made of it but sometimes it surprises people: converting and/or "church breaking" the missionary.

The GAs have long been aware that the mission ends up alienating x% of RMs, and apparently they are comfortable with that figure.

Are there better ways to proceed? Probably.

Are things likely to change? No.

"It's just infuriating how they treat these young adults."

It's a freakin' cult. Isolation, exhaustion, malnutrition, etc. are proven brain washing techniques. The entire program is designed to convert the missionary to a life long tithe payer. That is the entire purpose of a "mission". Don't be distracted by the smoke and mirrors of any other stated missionary goals.

This won't improve until families and local ward members complain and say they won't let mishies go unless it changes.

I'm serious.

Yes, indeed. Many things won't change until the members collectively say, "No more." There is a movement afoot right now to clamp down on private interviews that bishops have with minors. But parents also need to start insisting on more humane treatment of the church's volunteer missionary force.

Sadly, they don't know this and don't use their power.

Cheryl, with all due respect, if they understood that that had any power, they wouldn't be mormons in the first place. The fact that LDS Inc. gets them to actually pay for their own brainwashing is sheer genius.

... just look at (1) the temple, and (2) the regimen young missionaries are required to comply with.

Case closed.

I believe if the church allowed a 15 minute phone call home every month or two, it would see a DECREASE in the cases of depression in young missionaries and a general up beat in the "spirit" of missionary work. I don't believe as many would be going home early as well.

Just sayin'

The two calls per year may have reached the status of Rite of Passage, and may now be considered unassailable. And it does beat going out onto the Savannah armed only with a spear, to kill a lion.

"What, you got to call home monthly!!! Why, when I and everyone I know were out, we only got to call home twice a year! What the hell is happening to this church?!

How about unrestricted communication on P-days? Missionaries may call, Skype, text, mail, or email family and friends within the framework of their personal budgets. They may talk about whatever they please, being mindful of maintaining their investigators' privacy. They may use whatever email accounts they wish, because they are volunteers and not employees.

I certainly considered myself to be a volunteer, and I would have availed myself of the internet had it been available. As it was, I corresponded by mail as I saw fit. Our only restriction: you could not correspond with a member of the opposite sex who lived within the mission.

I sincerely believe that the position morphed from volunteer to slave when D-day changed to P-day. The kids could no longer divert themselves, but had to spend the day preparing for the work week. It was game-on for church-breaking.

No matter how we on the outside see it, the morgbot kids see themselves as part of something bigger, while the ones with at least partially opened eyes recognize that being sent home early is likely to have far worse consequences that would gutting it out.

I think that this is supported by the ninnys who endanger their health by doing all they can to avoid cutting short the mission for medical reasons.

The missionary program, by definition, "works" for the church. They probably didn't know what they'd be getting, but they are now very comfortable with with what they got.

Me as well. I wrote long letters and received lots from home. I did not feel disconnected. Overseas calls were also quite expensive. My dad wasn't Mormon and my mom was a very recent convert who only followed Mormon rules when she thought they made sense. YAY Mom! Since my parents were not "church broke" they called me when my grandmother died. If I had felt the need or hadn't been getting letters, I would have called them often. I didn't have the internet either but my dad would have been pretty angry if I had shunned him on my mission. Do the G.A.'s even THINK about non-traditional Mormon ie. convert families? You cannot just expect people to fall into lock step when someone in their family becomes Mormon.

What they need is mormon rumspringa.

I think many of us self-indulged in rumspringa, and the reaction, if you didn't knock up a good LDS girl, was, "well, boys will be boys..." and most of us were sent off on our missions.

Aside from brainwashing, I don't think they want them calling home to report about new things they've learned. The mission is often a kid's first exposure to the truth about mormonism, or the uncomfortable history, even recent history. I don't think they want them communicating this to parents/friends for further research or pondering.

A mission can bring down a missionary's entire faith. A missionary in unmonitored, regular contact with TBMs could bring down the faith of a whole lot of tithe payers.

The restrictions clamped on youth missionaries are not just ridiculous in my opinion, they are child abuse and extremely dangerous.

For god's sake, these are kids whose frontal cerebral cortex's are still developing.

I believe older adults are the only ones who are mature enough and have enough life experience to go on missions, missions which last 18 or 24 months as Mormonism requires of its youth. By then, these more mature people can decide FOR THEMSELVES that a mission is for them....that this is what they CHOOSE to do.

It is the indoctrination and mind control the youth have been exposed to from church, family and friends that has convinced them they are chosen and must go on an LDS Mission at the young age of 18 or 19. For years upon years, this duty of serving a mission has been advertised as vital and become THE most central and important Rite of Passage which is so expected of youth that even suicides have resulted when youth have not qualified or have been sent home early.

Instead, what church, family and friends need to make a Rite of Passage is the teen's further education in critical thinking which will guide and assist him in experiencing and exploring the world. The youth have a RIGHT at this point in their lives to be doing what comes next in child development - discovering and experiencing their dreams and their joys, not someone else's.

Federal prisoners convicted of violent crimes are able to communicate with their families more frequently than that. Let that sink in for a moment.

I hope the Morg leadership continues being a**holes!
Their behavior FEEDS RFM!

Well, see, the military and Peace Corps are totally voluntary whereas most missionaries are only there under duress.