This past Sunday my tbm wife and I were at her parents house for dinner. We do this every week and after dinner there is always a "spiritual lesson" taught by somebody in the family. This week the lesson was given by my brother in law who just got his mission call. He chose to give the lesson on how it was decided where you were called on your mission. He talked about how there is a committee of sorts and they fast and pray and yada yada yada... At the end of the lesson the family starts talking about what an amazing process this all is and how it is so inspired. Then my tbm father in law says he has a funny story about this subject. He proceeds to tell us all about a young man in the stake who just got his mission call. This young man was from Salt Lake City and was away at college in New York when he sent in his papers. The funny part was he got called to the Salt Lake City mission! When he got his call he immediately called the church HQ's and explained that there must be a mistake. They said they would look into it and get back to him. Sure enough they called him back and told him that there was a mistake. Because he had sent in the papers from an address in New York they thought he was from New York and thus were "inspired" to call him to the SLC mission. He was told he would be getting another mission call in the mail shortly. He did and was called to some South American mission... I was blown away by this story. I guess not really so much by the story itself but by the fact that it was being shared in this setting. What was even more shocking was how the family reacted to it. They just laughed and said he must have been shocked to have gotten a call to SLC. That was it. The end. I wanted to badly to just shout out "DON'T YOU SEE THIS MAKES YOUR RELIGION BULLSHIT?". Anyways, I don't post much here but thought I'd share this little story.

Ha, thats super funny actually! How ironic. And they aren't smart enough to see that this kind of thing would directly prove their powers wrong.

Same kind of people that would probably see nothing wrong with the whole hoffman debacle or whoever it was that forged a bunch of papers and sold them to the church. The sheeple of the world make the church go round.

There was a talk given in general conference in the last couple years where a member of the presidency of the seventy talks about how over and over he got a different "prompting" than Eyring of where the missionary should go.

Finally he had this huge spiritual experience that both he and Eyring both felt like a missionary should go to Japan - albeit different missions in Japan.

Does anyone remember who gave this talk? (I was thinking Rasband and tried to do a quick search but didn't find it.)

Anyway I was already a non-believer when I hear this talk, but I just kept thinking: How much more obvious can it be that this whole Holy Ghost thing is a crock? Even a seventy and an apostle can't get the same revelation on where missionaries should go...

It was Rasband, and the talk was a load of bullshit. He was kissing butt like nobody's business. Anyone paying attention had to call bullshit on the whole method of extending calls.

in 1984 I received my mission assignment to the Argentina Cordoba Mission. My twin brother received his call the same day to the Argentina Bahia Blanca Mission, but his report day was two weeks after mine. My family did not live in Utah so getting two boys to Utah two weeks apart would have been a finacial strain on my parents.

My dad called the Missionary department to see if my brother could report the same day as me. They informed that was not possible but would be more than happy to change my brother's missionary call to a different mission to accomodate both of us reporting the same day.

My dad declined the invitiation but I know it bothered him to known how non-inspired the calls had been.

I wonder if we know some of the same people, Odell. I was in Cordoba (2x), Lujan de Cuyo, and Tucuman. Don't remember about Tucuman--it was the last three months of my mission and I was totally exhausted.

I think I got called to a Spanish speaking mission because I had Spanish in high school. Weird thing, though, I had a second cousin I hadn't know who served a mission in Cordoba. I found out she was treated at the same hospital I had been by the same doctor and that a family in Cordoba knew her and even showed me a Bible she had given them. Small world. Still strikes me as strange.

I am sure we knew many of the same people, I was in Cordoba (San Vicente), Mendoza (San Jose), Catamarca, Jujuy (two areas for five months), Cordoba (Alto Alberdi), Tucuman (Diamonte) then I spent the last months of mission traveling through most of the mission.

I really enjoyed Argentina and make it a point to drink Shiraz and Malbec wines from Mendoza.

I did my time in Bahia Blanca in 2007. My mission president was from Cordoba. Raul Spitale. Maybe you know him? I know he was a big shot in the church in Cordoba.

Way past my time :-) I was in Cordoba 1977-1979. The Chiodi family was prominent then. I really like them. He was bishop and I made him madder than hell at me. Then we became close.

I dont have any specific memories but the name seems familiar

OK. Let me get this straight. The committee fasts over every mission call? How many mission calls do the give out per week? How many meals does this group have to forgo per week? This job sounds like a suicide mission!

Maybe they have a rotating schedule?

I think what happens is because the Mormon Church is believed to be God's own church the decisions that are made are God's will even if God himself is not making them or inspiring them. They are sacred--that is, within the provenience and will of God even when they are changed. This is why Mormons can consider missionary callings both inspired and subject to change. We may not consider that logical but I think there is sense to it, although we don't accept it.

Perhaps,

However within Mormon culture it is widely accepted that mission calls are based on direct revelation.

fuck'em if they can't take a joke.

Is your wife a knockout or you have dozen kids?

These days those mission calls are probably computer generated. They keep the story going about them being inspired so they can manipulate the parents and the 19 year olds by trying to make them feel like it's straight from Gods mouth.

They've screwed up so many times that people are starting to figure out it's not like they say. It's just another thing the church demands they do in order to keep the system going.

Give us your kid, your money, and we will give you nothing in return. We won't treat your kids well, but you won't hear about that. If anyone says different, they've lost the spirit, or are lying.

You will be more blessed while your child is on a mission than any other time in your life. How many of you heard that one?

Mia Wrote:
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> These days those mission calls are probably
> computer generated. They keep the story going
> about them being inspired so they can manipulate
> the parents and the 19 year olds by trying to make
> them feel like it's straight from Gods mouth.

From "On This Day in Mormon History:"

June 2, 1979 - CHURCH NEWS article "Computers Aid Church" refers to use of computers by Missionary Department. Due to massive increase of missionaries, computers have assigned Mormons to their full-time missions since church-wide computerization in 1970. First Presidency has neither oversight nor review of mission calls. Special committee (LDS bureaucrats and one or two general authorities) reviews computer print-outs of proposed missionary calls and occasionally changes some mission assignments. Signature machine signs church president's name to letter informing LDS missionaries of their assignments. Management Systems Corporation is dissolved in 1979, its functions absorbed by Information Systems Department.

Inspired computers?

HAL?

Yes, Thomas?

It's okay when TBMs say these kinds of things. But if you, the exmo, so much as suggest that there's something wrong with the system, you're screwed!

I wish I could give more detail but in the interest of staying under the radar at my age...

I hand delivered my application signed by sp/bishop to SLC decades ago with instructions written by me of where I wanted to go.

guess where I went?.... right where I asked

Inspired my ass...scroo -em

Well the joke is on them. That's kind of embarrassing that they were even sharing this story without realizing what a crock of $hit it all is.

Mormon brains are unable to connect the dots/aka make logical conclusions.

Your story did not surprise me in the least. I have had many similiar conversations with my tbm family members. It's like their brain synapses shut down at anything that might challenge their testimonies.

I wonder if Mormon brains are undergoing an evolutionary change which in a few generations will be able to be studied (i'm not kidding)

I heard all the missionaries are pre-assigned to a mission based on their interest in learning a foreign language, health issues, and all the other factors in the questionnaire they filled out. They know which missions are having openings when so they just fill them up as the applications come in. Then an apostle goes in each day and looks at the missionaries picture and a map of where they have been assigned and decides if it feels right or not. There is no way 12 people could receive revelation individually for each call. It would just take to long even if they were really fast at receiving revelation.

That's hilarious! And it's always interesting to see what TBMs will look past in order to deny truth.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/04/2012 09:04PM by dogeatdog.

Is it just me or do the more well-connected missionaries get sent to the safer missions (say Europe or the U.S.) where the less well-connected missionaries get sent to the more dangerous areas (third-world countries, countries on the verge of turmoil) Does anyone else see that correlation? Or am I just cynical?

postmormongirl Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Is it just me or do the more well-connected
> missionaries get sent to the safer missions (say
> Europe or the U.S.) where the less well-connected
> missionaries get sent to the more dangerous areas
> (third-world countries, countries on the verge of
> turmoil) Does anyone else see that correlation?
> Or am I just cynical?


I've seen enough of this to believe that it's generally true.
Does anyone know where Mittens' boys served?

Romney served in France, I believe.

robertb Wrote:
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> Romney served in France, I believe.


But where did the younger Romneys serve?

Oh, you mean like how Mitt Romney was sent to France -- at a time when elite Americans were not considered sophisticated unless they spoke French?

When both the bish and the sp 'forgot' my papers in their desks for quite a long time, one of my friends told me not to worry, it was surely because the people that needed to meet me must do so at the right time and that is why 'heavenly father' was all right with my papers taking so much time to be processed...so I could be there meeting them at the 'right' time.
How in the world did I accept so much bs for such a long time!!

I was corresponding with a sister in Florida with a son serving in the mission where we lived. I asked an elder in our ward if he knew this woman's son. I learned 3 elders with that surname were serving concurrently in our mission.

Brothers and sisters (or should I say BSs), the church assigns missionaries to their missions in alphabetical order. That's as inspirational as it gets in the LDS Church.

Or while serving the mission, we're led to believe that we're called by inspiration to serve in each area. But then, after a few transfers I could see that I was "following" another missionary who was one ahead of me alphabetically. It was quite the revelation when missionaries predicted their next assignment!

They also claim that ward callings are inspired, yet they're constantly giving people callings that they aren't fit for. My mom was once called to be the ward pianist, or something like that, and she didn't even know how to play! So of course she turned them down.

Well, if God is omnicient, then he already knows that she can't play and that she'll turn the calling down. So why would he 'inspire' the leaders to even give her that calling in the first place?!

Well that was just your mom being hard hearted. If she had accepted the call she could have taken piano lessons and the Lord would have blessed her to learn to play the hymns in just a couple weeks. Then she would have had the cool new skill of piano playing because she was obedient and did what the Bishop said.