I live in southeastern Idaho. There isn't a day go by that I don't see some missionaries trudging around town. Some days I may see 3 or 4 pair in a day walking around. They walk around my neighborhood all the time. They seem to be everywhere.

So what is going on? Are they just circling the wagons now to protect the faithful from leaving?

I hardly ever hear about missionaries being called to foreign countries. They all seem to go state-side now.

I live in Provo and see them everyday, trudging around with their over-stuffed backpacks. Their body language speaks volumes about what a huge waste of resources it is to put these poor young men and women in areas already saturated with the "WORD". They just look miserable and unhappy. Where are all these converts that require such proselyting numbers?

Flanders Wrote:
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> They just look miserable and unhappy.

Funny that you say that. I'm on the east coast, and I have the same impression. In the last decade, I only remember seeing one smiling, happy-looking missionary walking around here. I don't even see neutral expressions on their faces all that much (probably what you would expect to see most of the time from people just walking from place to place.)

Most of the time what I see is a hunted, wary look -- like they are very conscious of constantly being on display, constantly being judged. They look like they don't feel very welcomed here -- strangers in a strange land. One mishie I saw looked very irritated and angry.

I remember seeing one who was web-surfing at the public library. He had the typical hunted look. As soon as he saw me glance at his nametag, he immediately exited out of his browsing session. I felt like saying, oh honey, you don't need to do that on my account. lol

Yeah, we seem to have lots of mishies here in the east valley. Whenever I'm at the library there are always a ton. And they're always on FACEBOOK! It's hilarious :)

They seem bored and miserable. Poor guys. They should be having the time of their lives at 19-21!

I once met a mishie ten years ago whose mothers name was Flanders. He mentioned that when I mentioned I had lived in Flanders. Don't remember his own last name, though I believe he was from your area of Utah.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/31/2011 02:41AM by Zeno Lorea.

I do think your theory is correct! The Missionaries are prowling around to make sure that Mormon parents get married in the temple, keep having lots of babies to bless, and get them baptized at 8 years old. At eight, brainwashed BIC children really aren't able to make their own decision--but their parents are! Young parents are leaving the cult in droves! Ages 25-35 is the group that is leaving the fastest, and they take their babies with them.

The Mormons' greatest source of NEW members is newborn BIC babies. I wonder if their birth-rate offsets the rate at which members are fleeing. ??

I have always felt that 'The Family' is the Mormons' greatest weapon. Mormons use family and peer pressure to try to both convert new members and to prevent members from leaving. The more Mormons in their "army," the more success they have. Yes, they often refer to themselves as an "army". Scary, huh.

The missionaries are there to put the pressure on the MEMBERS, and the official message from the GA's is that it is up to the MEMBERS to prevent their TBM neighbors and TBM friends from leaving the cult, in addition to just their own families.

More pressure than ever before is being put on the elderly to go on senior missions and to leave money to the cult in their wills, etc. This also puts pressure on the adult children and grandchildren: "Look at the great sacrifices grandma and grandpa have made for The Church. We owe it to them to remain faithful." Bla-bla. Oh, yeah, the family is a powerful tool.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/30/2011 02:14PM by forestpal.

Agreed. I think too young missionaries are brought in from other regions and countries in the hopes that they will see and "understand" how things are done in Zion, i.e., a place where the brainwashing has proven out and the LDS are the dominant culture.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/30/2011 02:22PM by derrida.

Sending mishies to the mormon bulwarks is not about keeping the members in check but about indoctrinating the missionaries, often themselves converts, from the weakest links in the mission field. Think Elder Borat from Kazakhstan or Sister Convertsen from Scandinavia.

I noticed them alot prowling around Hillsboro Or. Which coincidentally was a place where they had a seminary. Other parts of Portland not so much. I was always in residential areas and I would see them almost daily in the same areas. They shipped a lot of propaganda or whatnot through our company. And the area I saw the missionaries had quite a few Stake heads and others according to the address labels. Here in rural Alberta I have only seen them once come by our house, as we were leaving.

I'm from Beaverton and only once did they stop by. My mom brought out he Bible and said "You can teach me about your book and I'll teach you about mine."

They declined. :)


In my apartment near OSU last year, two missionaries came by. I amswered the door in a bikini (I was expecting my friend to go lay by the pool with me!). The landlord was in the parking lot and YELLED at them to go away. Said they don't let sales people around.

They replied "We are from the church of jesus chr..." He cute them off and said "YOURE STILL SELLING SOMETHING! GET OFF MY PROPERTY!"

bahahahha!

Lots of immigrants from Latin America moved to the west side of the SL Valley.

They have a harder time finding material in their native language about how Joseph Smith was a child-molesting con man than we White & Delightsome types do.

DH tells me they did walk by one day several years ago when he was out working at the yard. I occasionally see a mob of them at lunchtime at In 'n Out about 15 miles from where I live. (Most of them buy Cokes.) I haven't been there lately.

Could it also be politics....have to keep those Mormons in the state legislatures.

Yeah, good point. I think the last time they baptized anyone in my ward it was a lady who needed friends in the neighborhood. I think she just played along with everyone and now she is part of the ward family. I have a hard time believing that anyone who joins really falls for the crap. Dumb dumb dumb dumb.

there are also large concentrations of inactive Mormons. Which means there are large concentrations of kids who weren't baptized at eight. Which means there is plenty of low hanging fruit to pad convert baptism numbers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHGrVJpYTA0&feature=player_embedded
This is the clip from the movie The Singles Ward where a guy gets his mission call to Boise Idaho. Peoples reactions are spot on. I love the lady's reaction at the end. This happened to my cousin. He got his mission call to Ogden, Utah. Everyones reaction was "Ohh......... how nice." He felt horrible because he thought something was wrong with him, being called to serve in Utah. He still gets the same reaction now, years later when acked where he served.

LOL...have you seen the RM? Where they're at the singles dance sharing mission stories and they're all talking about the cool stuff that happened on their foreign mission and Jared is like, I went Wyoming, South, where one of the members had a hogie yogi...we got free glazies on Wednesdays. Awkward silence.

HA. So funny...

Ok carry on...

Maybe for the same reason there are so many cops in the police station. The guy that didn't do well in the street is given a job filing fingerprints and inventorying the evidence room.

I know things have changed since my mission in 1985. I've told the story before that I went to Puerto Rico, became sick, and was transfered to the Utah Salt Lake North mission.

Puerto Rico was miserable, third world conditions, living on a hill top. The Utah mission was so comfortable and easy. I was miserable but that was because of the church itself, the conditions as far as a mission were concerned were heaven compared to Puerto Rico.

But anyway, as missionaries we had tons of baptisms because the members referred so many people. We depended on them for referrals. We didn't even go tracting on this mission. At the time, we never interfered with members or had any responsibilities toward them. We were the recipients of their efforts preparing their friends and families to hear the missionary lessons. We were also assigned the 8 year olds from one parent member households (I don't remember why exactly).

Wherever there are high concentrations of members, there are usually lots of baptisms because members are very good at helping convert friends, neighbors, family.

Heck, I'm sad to say I referred 5 friends to the missionaries at different times who ended up getting baptized. (All eventually went inactive within 2 years, so I feel okay.)

I could be way off base with this thought but I wonder if maybe some of it is to save on housing costs?

What % of mission funds goes to pay for housing? Judging from posts where I've seen how little they give missionaries for food, I would guess housing. People pay money every month and perhaps they can't afford to keep an apartment in some of the more expensive cities in the U.S. and around the world. So instead of pulling out of cities, they merge areas and send more missionaries to Utah and Idaho, places where it's probably quite easy to find a member family or couple to house the missionaries.

Because Mormons can only find normality in the Mormon corridor.

A young woman from my last ward who sometimes babysits my kids for me, told me that the church recently announced (well this was several months ago now) that missionaries are going to be called to areas that are in the same general geographic area in which they live. For example, a young man from Seattle may be called to serve in Eastern Washington, or Portland, Oregon. A person from Dallas might be called to Oklahoma City. She is planning on going on a mission so she goes on splits with the missionaries quite often. She said they (the TSCC) have decided it's better to keep missionaries local, so very few missionaries now will be called on foreign missions, this includes missionaries outside the USA staying in their own countries. So that may be why there are so many in Idaho and Utah, there are a lot of Mormons there--maybe the Utahans go to Idaho and the Idahoans go to Utah.

Personally I think this may discourage young men and women from wanting to even serve a mission, now that the chance of going overseas is so slim. So lame.

I know a young guy from Salt Lake that just got sent to the West Indies. And from the photographs of his mission, all the other missionaries there were Americans. And if you ever goggle on youtube for videos of missionaries opening their letters, many,many, many are going overseas.

That is why the oldest son of a (white) TBM friend of mine here in Eastern Montana just departed for a two-year mission to Kenya. Yep, that's exactly what I think every time I look out my window: "Wow! Montana sure looks like Africa!"

And for the sequel, his family comes over to celebrate the wedding in a five-star beach resort.

My family was living in Madrid at the time and it was said that the time had come for countries to produce their own mishies instead of importing them from "la fábrica" (Utah). People from Madrid would serve in Málaga and vice versa. Yeah, right. The only "Spanish" mishies I saw in Spain after that were immigrants from South America. Now I live in Venezia and all the Elders Tarantino, Napolitano and Bergamasco I have met were not from Taranto, Napoli or Bergamo, but North America.

Sending 18-22 year olds to do nothing but repeat what they have been taught their entire lives reinforces the Morg agenda. These are normally the most impressionable years when young people question everything. It's very important to quash this. It's not about how many are baptized. It's about solidifying the cult belief deeply and prevent the missionaries from investigating for themselves. It's not about the numbers. The institution knows that there are going to be no baptisms in countries where wine is a part of the culture (Europe) or where Buddhism had been the religion for centuries (or in Beverly Hills where the folks would laugh until they got hiccups about the tithing 10% bit.) It's about keeping missionaries intent on only one thing -to become RM's. It's a reinforcement program.

This is so spot on. It's never been about spreading the gospel. It's like the final step to the complete indoctrination process. What better way to convince yourself than to try and convince others?

It's all about getting that 10% for LIFE.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/31/2011 12:05AM by steve benson.

True! Here in Brazil the church is starting to have big problems because american missionaries´visas are being held up by government officials that don´t sympathize with them. Someone was telling me the bishops are asking people to fast to get that situation resolved.

If i remember right, in my area there are about 18 missionaries being held up in the US, while the mission will lose a bigger number by the next transfer and lots of wards will have to share missionaries, or will have to do without them.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/31/2011 02:16AM by fmelo.

If a missionary from a "normal" state is being sent to Utah do they have to go to the MTC to learn how to speak "Mormonish?"