I was at my Mormon mother's and stepfather's home today (they were out) when the door bell rang. Through the etched glass, I recognized the distinctive Mormon 'uniform' for male missionaries. I opened the door, greeted them and introduced myself, and invited them in to the front hall. The senior comp. said they'd stopped by to get some food that my mother and stepfather had told them on Sunday would be available.

I went into the garage, found two bags of groceries, took them into the front hall, and handed them to the mishies. The senior comp. then said - a bit sheepishly - that my stepfather mentioned he'd bought milk for them. I went back into the garage, looked in the fridge, saw two jugs of milk, retrieved them, went back into the house, and gave them to the elders.

As I did so, I asked, "What do you guys get for cash each month to spend on groceries?" The senior elder replied, "$200 - but we have to pay for other stuff as well."

"For each of you, or per person?" was my next question. "For each," he responded.

Doing some math aloud, I said, "So, $200 bucks per month per missionary - that's a bit less than $50 per week. Hmmm. Seems a bit tight to me. Groceries CAN be costly."

As the older comp. started to agree with me, the junior elder said, "We ran out."

"Out of groceries?", I asked.

"Yes," they simultaneously replied.

"But, it's only September 21st," I pointed out. "What were you going to do for food for the next nine days if you hadn't gotten these groceries? Can't you get more money from the mission?"

"No," the senior companion replied. He went on to explain that out of the $200 per month, missionaries have to pay for not only food, but personal care items like shampoo, deodorant, shaving cream, etc., dry-cleaning, and some "car expenses."

Clearly, if missionaries run out of food before the end of the month, they're to go to local members and request - beg, effectively - for groceries.

The 'one, true' religious corporation of Jesus Christ, LD$ Inc., has spent at least $4 billion so far on its City Creek shopping-mall-and-condos project in Salt Lake City as well as several million this year on its new, 220-unit hotel in Hawaii and tens of millions of dollars on commercial real estate acquisitions during the past 12 months alone, according to news reports.

However, the super-wealthy LDS Church, which owns 17 pieces of priceless Rembrandt art plus billions of dollars of other assets, including water and mineral rights and commercial farms and ranches, won't spend a few extra million dollars annually to keep its 'army' of thousands of missionaries from going hungry.

No, along with scrubbing chapel toilets and performing other church building janitorial duties for free, keeping the mishies from experiencing an unwanted weight-loss each month has been 'downloaded' on to Latter-day Saints. Many of them have lost jobs in the Great Recession of the past three years and seen their home equity and retirement savings decrease significantly, thanks to the subprime credit catastrophe in the U.S. that began in early 2007.

As the elders left with the groceries, I wondered how many other local, financially hard-up members (my mother and stepfather are seniors) are going without even as LD$ Inc. spends millions and billions of dollars to increase its already massive wealth.

Disgusting. There's always the local food bank I suppose.

Johnny Canuck Wrote:
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> Disgusting. There's always the local food bank I
> suppose.

Perhaps they could approach some other local Churches for some help!

Especially if when the mishies got food assistance from other churches, word of it somehow "accidentally" got out to the local press. I'm not suggesting it mind you, I'm just sayin'....

We can't have members sitting in the dark while listening to their profit. Oh wait, they are in the dark. Never mind....LOL



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/21/2010 10:35PM by foolserrand2.

I ran into the mishies at my elderly dad's house the other day. I wonder if he wrote them a check? In a way I kinda hope so. Still I don't want him to become known as an easy mark for futures mishies.

God damn a church that demands free labor and then lets the slaves starve. I hope their zillion dollar mall fails and shows the sheeple the truth about the "power of discernment".

I haven't been in a mall since I got the internet. All malls are good for is walking and walking.

I tried this sob story once. I blew my monthly allotment on steak dinners. "I am out of food, and we need some help" I said to the relief society president. Not 6 hours later, the apartment was stocked with food. Someone even brought an entire box of fruit.

I was young and stupid. It was a silly thing to do. However, we had a mix of canned goods that lasted until I left the area. ;)

because my nevermo dad doesn't want to invite the missionaries over for meals. I told her instead of getting food she should get toilet paper, dish soap, shampoo etc for them because those little incidentals make a huge dent in a missionary's food budget. A couple of missionaries tried to take advantage, asking for expensive shampoo or laundry soap but most were very considerate and appreciative of her help.

Incidentally, stories like this make me absolutely LOATHE the people in charge of the Mormon church. How dare they take advantage of peoples' faith and sincere desires to be good like that? I mean, seriously, how DARE they?

I mean it was one thing to make such sacrifices when the church was starting out and had no money, but what is the excuse now? This is why the books need to be open so there can be an accounting of how the leaders spend the widow's mite.

MORmONS are immune to the economic down turn due to living the law of MORmON tithing! & LDS INC is making similar claims on CCC. Its a magical economic marvel that just generates money from MORmON goodwill & favor with god!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQSV_Uv6Vhc

"Many of them have lost jobs in the Great Recession of the past three years and seen their home equity and retirement savings decrease significantly, thanks to the subprime credit catastrophe in the U.S. that began in early 2007."

BECAUSE it is stingy as H*ll with its mishies, with its "welfare" programs, with its other budgets, yada, yada - but there is plenty of money for top-level executives and gazillion-dollar malls and Polynesian paradises.

They know, the black-hearted SOB's, that parents and/or kind church members won't let the mishies go entirely without food or necessary supplies. They force others to do the "charity" work for them.

Makes my blood boil just thinking about it.

I've always believed that missions were designed to convert the missionary more than the "gentiles". I don't see starving mishies going home with that burning in the bosom they're supposed to have.

The times in my life when I've been hungry I've also been damned pissed off about it.

I wonder what would happen if exmos everywhere started feeding the mishies and planting seeds. Such as the fact that we're not all bitter and mean. Well not always! And the most radical thing of all that someone can be exmo and happy.

I have only one problem with that though. I don't want to be seen in the local cafe with the mishies. I can only imagine the talk that would stir up in town. Hmm I haven't had homemade cookies etc in a long time though. I might get love bombed once or twice. It's been a while.

But if members are only getting $75 in rent that still leaves $325 per pair of missionaries unaccounted for.

Isn't it also true that supposedly these days everyone pays $400 / mo no matter where they are called? So some expensive locations like LA or NY or Tokyo may be getting subsidized by elders in cheaper locations like So America?

If Church is an Entity, which is in the Business of exploiting people, young & old, whose fault is that people want to serve?
If I was the parent of that kid I'd never send him on the field
if he still wanted to go, I'd tell him He is his own.
Sorry I couldn't finish your story, this is plain stupid, waste of time.

No one should be in the business of exploiting the foolish or credulous - just because you can.

It's a sad thing that so many people are so simple or so needy that they can be victimized, but those who sheer those sheep are foul.

OK, first of all, I agree with the prevailing sentiment that missionaries are duped, exploited and abused, and I feel pity for any missionary I see. I also agree with what has been said about the Great and Spacious Mall and other current building projects.

That said, speaking from my experience during and after my mission, I don't think this pair has anything unusual to complain about with regard to money (other than the fact that they and/or their families are paying for the privilege of working 60-70 hour weeks as door-to-door salesmen for a cult).

During my mission, the mission office handled fixed costs like rent, utilities and appliance rental directly. Our monthly allotment only had to cover food and personal care items. We had a gas card for the mission car, and the office had maintenance agreements with certain shops so when the car needed repair or an oil change, we just dropped it off and picked it up, and the office handled the rest. There were office missionaries whose whole job was to deal with logistics so the proselyting missionaries didn't have to worry about it. I got the impression that this way of doing things was standard throughout the mission field, as it maximized efficiency by ensuring that the proselyting missionaries could spend every waking hour focused on the job.

I'm curious what "car expenses" these guys have to cover. Almost everything we ever had to replace was paid for directly by the mission office, and if we ever had to pay for something like wiper blades or a headlamp out of pocket, we got it reimbursed.

$400 per month for two people to buy food and "miscellaneous items" is more than Mrs. Luther and I spend in those categories, and we don't eat dinner at other people's houses 30% of the time like many missionaries do. I have a hard time feeling sorry for someone whose budget is bigger than mine, who gets fed for free a lot of the time, and who still can't make it through the month without running out of money.

Just sayin'

to live on. $200 would be for two of them, which, of course, can not possibly cover all of their food and personal needs.

I'm appalled at how the LDS Church handles the missionary funds these days. IT puts them below poverty level.

Our "kids" had their money sent directly to them, as did their father years before, were able to ask for more help from home in emergencies, or for other needs which we supplied as needed, both state side, and in So. Amer. Clothes wore out, shoes wore out, bikes and helmets were stolen, money was stolen, items were stolen, sometimes there were special needs, then ran out of film, etc, etc. etc. We knew going into this that the monthly missionary allotment set by the church would not cover everything for two years.
They handled all of their money, found their own places to live, etc.
Fortunately, I was able to get a job to handle those additional costs, which supplemented what they saved and was donated by some of the members.

I try to give the missionaries a little money, or pay for a few things if they are in the check out lane with me, just as I would like my kids to be treated.

After many years away my sister returned to the fold and is an enthusiastic tither. My greatest fear is that she will encourage her grandson, my great nephew, to go on a mission. He is just too sweet a boy to be treated like this. I've warned her. So at least she will be alert to go and bring him home if this sort of things happen.

Cram them in one bed and tell them to grow together like man and wife and expect them to keep hands off each other and then starve them. Welcome to the modern equilent of the hand cart parties. Lots of faith promoting stories when the elders get home. They can give sacrament talks for fourty years about starving for the lard.

I commend these kids for following what they think they need to do. I would never consider them duped or brainwashed. They are making religious choices like thousands and thousands of other missionaries with other churches.
They can do that.

I come from a line of Christian ministers and missionaries that served in other countries.
I respect their dedication, even though I have no belief in their religious choices.
I consider it my right and duty to respect other people's religious choices.

A year or so before I left the cult the new bishop would not help me with my gas/heat bill, so I went a year and a half without any heat whatsoever in a crummy trailer that should have been condemned a lot sooner. Funny how when this new bishop was elected any help the "elders" tried to do on my crummy trailer was cut off, as was my heat in the middle of winter and I was even refused any and all food orders too. Now that sounds like a church I want to join!! NOT! I'm so glad I am no longer a utah mo!