Did you ever deliberately deny or withhold the truth to investigators on your mission?

Can't remember... Hopefully not deliberately.

But I do remember stealing an anti Mormon book w/ temple pix and photos of folks in robes and what not from the Milwaukee public library and I tore it up and threw it in the trash. Way to go you f*ucking lemming elder (me) and protecting free speech and safe guarding public property. Much like Br. Jos Smith I found it my duty and responsibility to safeguard the saints and bring others unto Christ by destroying books. I'm going to go throw up now.

Don't feel so bad. At least you didn't go find the printing press and destroy it too, like Joe did.

Our mission president told us to answer the question "how long have you been out?" with the answer "just over a year," or "just under a year." The idea was we wanted the local members to think we were in the middle and not green or trunked.

Well, early on, one member started questioning me about where I'd served, and I was awkwardly caught lying. So much for that. It was one of my first "lying for the Lord" experiences, and it didn't go well.

My mission was all about sales presentation, so it was probably more of cover-up and withholding than overt lying. Or deception. Or just telling mis-truths due to being naive or oblivious. Or asking things like, "Why do you think Joseph Smith was a prophet?" as opposed to "Do you believe Joseph Smith was a prophet?" The latter was certainly more realistic and truthful.

Sounds an awful lot like my mission

I had a companion at the very first of my mission who swore that she learned to lie on the mission. I didn't really believe her though, because she was such a good liar. But she had a point - there are so many things to lie about. The easy ones like "I KNOW Joseph Smith was a prophet" where you lie because you can't possibly KNOW but you want it to be true. The harder ones where you know you are withholding the truth from an investigator because you know they won't join the church if they learn about tithing before they have a testimony. The outright lies you tell to the MP about how hard you are working or how obedient you are and the outright lies you tell your comp to get them to get out of bed in the morning when they can't stand to work another minute. Oh, and don't forget the lies you write home, so your parents can have a letter to share with the ward members that they can be proud of.

Yep - missions and lying go together like peanut butter and jelly. Except not in Spain where I was, because in those days, peanut butter was very hard to come by in Spain. Maybe I should have said: Like oil and vinegar.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/03/2011 01:51AM by CA girl.

Milk before meat is cult mind stopper to help members justify lying. Members lie part time and mishies are close to fulltime liars. That's their job.

Hell yes, I lied.

The mormon church TAUGHT me how to lie when I was 12 years old asking about whakamole.

I think the first crack in my beliefs happened on my mission.

We were teaching a lesson and it was the so-called "first vision". I was teaching in Japanese, and it just hit me with a ton of bricks. "this is so stupid". "who would believe this?". "really?".

I remember it like it was yesterday.

Only unknowingly...every time I taught a discussion.

"Hi, my friend and I are conducting a questionnaire on families and the purpose of life. Would you like to participate?"

I accidentally said "survey" at first and was admonished, because according to the laws of the country we were in we would have had to publish the results of the survey -- and of course we weren't doing any kind of survey or questionnaire. We were just trying to get in doors to segue into a first discussion.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/03/2011 06:25AM by Makurosu.

No, I didn't lie to my investigators, I answered any questions they had. I thought that the truthfulness of the "gospel" would be self-evident.

On a related note, I didn't baptize a single person on my mission.

Going by the George Costanza rule, it's not a lie if you really believe it. I said some things that stretched my faith, but the only deliberate lies I told on my mission were to the MP, APs and ZLs.

I lied by omission. It was all milk before the meat. You are trying to sell your religion. You knew if you started off talking about Urim and Thummim, polygamy, tithing, sacred underwear, etc. you'd be shown the door. So you talk about Jesus, the First Vision, Book of Mormon, Families are Forever, etc.

I only discussed the meat if they asked about it and even then it was all spin and half truths.

I don't think I ever point blank LIED but I didn't give them the FULL truth unless they specifically asked for it. For example I would never bring up the fact that the church previously practiced polygamy but I would tell them it was true if they asked about it. Of course I tried to downplay it and spin it like the apologists.

Of course I'm ashamed of it now. But at the time, the end justified the means. You didn't want to scare them off with the dirty little details they weren't "ready" for. You wanted them to "gain a testimony" first before handing them their mop and bucket. This is why you don't just ask Mormons if you want to know about the Mormon church.

I guess its a lot like raising children. You feel you know better than they do. You what's good for them. And you don't have to tell them EVERYTHING just want you think they need to be told.

The part that is troubling is how patronizing mormons think they have a right to treat nonmembers as if they are children.

Of course no one hides meat from babies and babies don't want it.

Investigators DO want the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but. So the half truths they're fed are lies.

"...patronizing mormons think they have a right to treat nonmembers as if they are children."

Well, when they think they are under the directive of God, they do.

Of course I lied! I wasn't ever too good at it, but it made it a lot easier lying in Spanish.
I think the most lies came from my companion, who gave us the best numbers that area had ever had. Who knew somebody could fake a baptism??

I didn't know enough about the church to lie to the investigators, but I was very proficient at stretching our numbers to meet demand :) Those weekly reports to the mission president contained some brilliant fiction.

Like the Joseph Smith story. It was a lie. The Great Apostasy and the Restoration. Lie. The One True Church. Liar, Liar, pants on fire.

An investigator asked us about our new names from the temple. I looked at him straight in the eyes and said I didn't know what he was talking about.

Even though I felt I had defended the sanctity of the temple I felt a little bit of me die that day as I realized I had to compromise myself by lying to protect the church.

Must be why I didn't advance in leadership roles. I always thought I was being as obedient and honest as I could be. Turns out, I wasn't learning the real lesson.

Its a set up to compell mishes to lie. There is no way elders are actually contacting the public over 65 hours a week as missionaries are demanded to report in the numbers, or face having the leaderSHIT riding their backs. I hated lying, bUt I hate being bugged by my POS leaders for HONEST LOW report number even more. So I started lying to keep them off my back, and I KNOW we were doing far more work than them even though they reported far more work than us.

all in all its my fault because I did not hate the entire rotten BS deal enough to pack my bags and leave it behind.

people becoming gods or "god" really being an evolved man with super powers, dark skin being a curse rather than protection from the sun, and so on. Once you start to lie for the cult you can start to rationalise anything for the cult...