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Elder Oaks on early returning missionaries


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This seems to bear out a lot of what I have been saying for years about sending out way too many youth --- even youth who aren't ready or shouldn't go on a mission:

https://www.deseretnews.com/article/865695173/President-Oaks-shares-the-two-most-important-duties-of-missionary-work-with-MTC-presidents.html

I was struck with his statement that, if kids are going to go home early, then do it ASAP and spare companions, presidents, missions, and units the dead weight of dud missionaries (my words, not his, obviously). He also said that we need to to a better job of screening missionaries beforehand, which indicates to me that we are going to continue to see missionary numbers drop (a good thing, in my view. I think "Gideon's Army" is a better approach than "send all youth, whether they want to go or should go or not, to try to keep them from going inactive or missing").

Thoughts?

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I still suspect that they'll make some big revisions. I don't think it's worked out well for various reasons. I'd also like to see more leveraging of older singles who volunteer. The age 26 limit and limit to a single mission limit people who might be financially well off and looking to serve. So say six month missions - particularly service missions. Since many may well have been on a mission already they'll also come better trained.

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1 hour ago, rongo said:

https://www.deseretnews.com/article/865695173/President-Oaks-shares-the-two-most-important-duties-of-missionary-work-with-MTC-presidents.html

I was struck with his statement that, if kids are going to go home early, then do it ASAP and spare companions, presidents, missions, and units the dead weight of dud missionaries (my words, not his, obviously). He also said that we need to to a better job of screening missionaries beforehand, which indicates to me that we are going to continue to see missionary numbers drop (a good thing, in my view. I think "Gideon's Army" is a better approach than "send all youth, whether they want to go or should go or not, to try to keep them from going inactive or missing").

Thoughts?

I don't know if I quite understand Scott's statement here. Maybe he could fill me in if I'm misunderstanding:

"He[Oaks] exhorted the new directors and their partners to promote member-missionary work.

'Don’t let members use you or your missionaries as conduits or authorities to answer doctrinal questions,' he said. 'This is not your assignment.'”

It almost sounds like they don't want missionaries to answer doctrinal questions, period. I kind of thought that was one of their main functions - to teach Church doctrine. Has the Church narrowed their role to one more focused on teaching the gospel only? How do you separate that and other doctrine? I can understand not wanting the directors to use all their time doing that, but I don't understand the rest of the comment I guess.

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I have a hard time seeing people becoming or being very productive with six month missions. It's too short of a time, with learning curve, getting your sea legs, etc. 

I also wonder how popular strictly service missions would be for normal youth (i.e., letting youth choose strictly humanitarian/service over proselyting). I think there would still be an informal 1st class/2nd class stigma within the Church between various mission "smorgasbord flavors" if people can choose mission specifics, a al carte. 

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I had 20 companions, I didn't think people shouldn't have gone but I do think people should have been better prepared for the experience. I trained 5 times and also "babysat" for 3 or 4 comps. It's funny though one elder I had for 3 months, I could see looking back on my mission being prepared to deal with him. This was before "raising the bar" so literally anyone could go!

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25 minutes ago, RevTestament said:

"He[Oaks] exhorted the new directors and their partners to promote member-missionary work.

'Don’t let members use you or your missionaries as conduits or authorities to answer doctrinal questions,' he said. 'This is not your assignment.'”

It almost sounds like they don't want missionaries to answer doctrinal questions, period.

I think this is more of an issue in other, less developed countries, where access to education and information aren't as prevalent. You don't want missionaries / mission presidents to be spending all of their time teaching existing members. Their main focus should be teaching the gospel to those who have yet to hear it.

 

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1 hour ago, rongo said:

This seems to bear out a lot of what I have been saying for years about sending out way too many youth --- even youth who aren't ready or shouldn't go on a mission:

https://www.deseretnews.com/article/865695173/President-Oaks-shares-the-two-most-important-duties-of-missionary-work-with-MTC-presidents.html

I was struck with his statement that, if kids are going to go home early, then do it ASAP and spare companions, presidents, missions, and units the dead weight of dud missionaries (my words, not his, obviously). He also said that we need to to a better job of screening missionaries beforehand, which indicates to me that we are going to continue to see missionary numbers drop (a good thing, in my view. I think "Gideon's Army" is a better approach than "send all youth, whether they want to go or should go or not, to try to keep them from going inactive or missing").

Thoughts?

If this is a sign of things to come in the new order, then its a bad sign.  I had been encouraged in recent years that it seems more missionary flexibility has developed with less emphasis on "repentance and baptism" as being the primary importance of missionary service, this sounds like retrenchment.  

Secondly, what do people think of his comments to missionaries at the church visitor centers and historical sites?  It sounds like he doesn't want them focused on explaining history at all.  But isn't that what the people visiting these historical sites want to hear?  It sounds like he wants the missionaries intentionally deflecting when they get these kinds of questions.  One quote that talked to this sentiment:

Quote

Help your missionaries know that they are called as teaching missionaries, not historians. Focus primarily on teaching people according to their needs, not on the facilities.”

I hope I'm not overreacting, but I really disliked what I read here.  

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23 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Lastly, I would like to see General Authorities clearly admonish members to not engage in patent, or even latent, "White Feather" behavior, and to instead exercise greater compassion and love and abstention from judgment.

I think, like a lot of complaints about "judgmentalness," much of this is self-imposed by the people themselves rather than the members, the culture, etc. In other words, I think a lot of the feelings of shaming, etc. are not due to actual behavior or even attitudes by the members at large, but are instead feelings and doubts by the people who didn't serve instead.

Think about it. We generously have, what, only a third who serve missions, if that? And it's been this way for a long time. The reality is that *most* youth don't serve missions; missions are numerically the minority. My stake was at 12% (this has improved over the last year and a half).

Most of us don't see overt or latent shaming or stigmatizing of those who don't go (who, again, make up most of the youth). Yet, the people who should have gone, but didn't, feel judged, shamed, stigmatized, etc. I think a lot of this in in their heads, and not because members are doing the judging, shaming, and stigmatizing.

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1 hour ago, RevTestament said:

I don't know if I quite understand Scott's statement here. Maybe he could fill me in if I'm misunderstanding:

"He[Oaks] exhorted the new directors and their partners to promote member-missionary work.

'Don’t let members use you or your missionaries as conduits or authorities to answer doctrinal questions,' he said. 'This is not your assignment.'”

It almost sounds like they don't want missionaries to answer doctrinal questions, period. I kind of thought that was one of their main functions - to teach Church doctrine. Has the Church narrowed their role to one more focused on teaching the gospel only? How do you separate that and other doctrine? I can understand not wanting the directors to use all their time doing that, but I don't understand the rest of the comment I guess.

It’s not so much my statement, but my quotation of then-Elder Oaks’s statement. He didn’t elaborate beyond what is quoted here, and I didn’t seek opportunity to follow up with him one on one after the address. 

Also, that portion of the talk was expressed as a series of bullet points. In reporting it, I tried to save space by reporting the points in narrative format, so don’t let that mislead you into thinking the statements you quote here are necessarily connected thoughts. 

In considering your question, it occurs to me that the context is not proselyting missionaries per se, but rather, sister missionaries who serve as guides at Church visitors’ centers and historic sites and the Church members who encounter them. What then-Elder Oaks seems to be saying is that such missionaries are not to allow Church members to try to use them as authorities on deep or advanced doctrinal topics and questions, because such is not their assignment. 

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1 minute ago, rongo said:

I think, like a lot of complaints about "judgmentalness," much of this is self-imposed by the people themselves rather than the members, the culture, etc. In other words, I think a lot of the feelings of shaming, etc. are not due to actual behavior or even attitudes by the members at large, but are instead feelings and doubts by the people who didn't serve instead.

Think about it. We generously have, what, only a third who serve missions, if that? And it's been this way for a long time. The reality is that *most* youth don't serve missions; missions are numerically the minority. My stake was at 12% (this has improved over the last year and a half).

Most of us don't see overt or latent shaming or stigmatizing of those who don't go (who, again, make up most of the youth). Yet, the people who should have gone, but didn't, feel judged, shamed, stigmatized, etc. I think a lot of this in in their heads, and not because members are doing the judging, shaming, and stigmatizing.

There are areas where the percentage goes way up though, mostly in Utah, but also elsewhere.  In Canada, out of 13 in my son's peer group, I am thinking only 1 didn't go and he was mainly inactive and atheist and only attending when he did because he liked the group or his mom made him.  Even the two I thought would be refused due to ADHD were able to go and one at least did quite well (we had moved before the other got back).

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1 hour ago, rongo said:

I have a hard time seeing people becoming or being very productive with six month missions. It's too short of a time, with learning curve, getting your sea legs, etc. 

I also wonder how popular strictly service missions would be for normal youth (i.e., letting youth choose strictly humanitarian/service over proselyting). I think there would still be an informal 1st class/2nd class stigma within the Church between various mission "smorgasbord flavors" if people can choose mission specifics, a al carte. 

While Church-service and humanitarian missionaries fill valuable and needed roles, I think we must bear in mind what then-Elder Oaks emphasized in this address: that the scripturally mandated purpose of missionary work, one that the Church collectively ought not shirk, is to teach investigators and baptize converts. I expect that will always be the case. 

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19 minutes ago, rongo said:

I think, like a lot of complaints about "judgmentalness," much of this is self-imposed by the people themselves rather than the members, the culture, etc. In other words, I think a lot of the feelings of shaming, etc. are not due to actual behavior or even attitudes by the members at large, but are instead feelings and doubts by the people who didn't serve instead.

Think about it. We generously have, what, only a third who serve missions, if that? And it's been this way for a long time. The reality is that *most* youth don't serve missions; missions are numerically the minority. My stake was at 12% (this has improved over the last year and a half).

Most of us don't see overt or latent shaming or stigmatizing of those who don't go (who, again, make up most of the youth). Yet, the people who should have gone, but didn't, feel judged, shamed, stigmatized, etc. I think a lot of this in in their heads, and not because members are doing the judging, shaming, and stigmatizing.

over the years I've known many mormon boys in particular who didn't go on missions.  Each one, as far as I recall, have claimed to have to learn to deal with the "judgmentalness" you claim doesn't exist.  I suppose in each case they could have made up the judgmentalness and created this inferiority.  But if it happens to them all, then one must wonder if that which they are making up is coming from somewhere.  

I find Pres Oaks words here to be opposed to scripture in a sense.  If you have desires you are called.  He seems to be saying it's not just a desire, but one must reach a certain level of desire, a level humans simply can't determine lest they get too judgmental.  

This to me is a mess.  It's a Church I don't really resonate with.

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6 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

While Church-service and humanitarian missionaries fill valuable and needed roles, I think we must bear in mind what then-Elder Oaks emphasized in this address: that the scripturally mandated purpose of missionary work, one that the Church collectively ought not shirk, is to teach investigators and baptize converts. I expect that will always be the case. 

One wishes the crackpot reporter behind this piece would elucidate that that was his take from the address.

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6 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

While Church-service and humanitarian missionaries fill valuable and needed roles, I think we must bear in mind what then-Elder Oaks emphasized in this address: that the scripturally mandated purpose of missionary work, one that the Church collectively ought not shirk, is to teach investigators and baptize converts. I expect that will always be the case. 

Unfortunately, it's quite possible that humanitarian missions might be more productive in getting solid converts than the usual missionary work, but apparently we'd never know that.  The scriptural mandate isn't about making missionaries follow the Church's current rules, policies and regulations for missionaries.  It is about converting people.  If the Church sent them out to work for others, we might see far more benefit, and a much more productive means to follow the scriptural mandate.  

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19 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

It is about converting people.

If this is truly their goal (and I believe it is), I believe there needs to be less emphasis put on number of baptisms and more time spent with investigators....being more thorough....and confirming they really have a testimony and a true conversion prior to baptism.  This is one of the main reasons that retention rates are so very low.

I gave an example here of the most recent baptism in our stake.  This man was literally rushed into being baptized after just one lesson and attending church once.  He had not read the Book of Mormon.  And yes, he is already not attending much now.

I do think that Pres. Oaks addressed this (baptism not too soon...but don't wait too late either....paraphrasing here).  I'd like to know what he considers too late?

Our church could learn from what a person has to go through to become a member of the Catholic church, IMO.  

ETA:

Here's from the article:

Quote

 

He posed the question of when in the teaching process the invitation to be baptized should be given to an investigator.

“Not too soon, but not too late!” was his response. Further instruction on that subject will be forthcoming, he said.

 

I'll be watching to see what these "further instructions" are.

Edited by ALarson
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Just now, ALarson said:

If this is truly their goal (and I believe it is), I believe there needs to be less emphasis put on number of baptisms and more time spent with investigators....being more thorough....and confirming a testimony and a true conversion prior to baptism.  This is one of the main reasons that retention rates are so very low.

I gave an example here of the most recent baptism in our stake.  This man was literally rushed into being baptized after just one lesson and attending church once.  He had not read the Book of Mormon.  And yes, he is already not attending much now.

I do think the Pres. Oaks addressed this (baptism not too soon...but don't wait too long either....paraphrasing here).

Our church could learn from what a person has to go through to become a member of the Catholic church, IMO.  

Good points.  One thing I hated about being on a mission was, we weren't about the people but about converts.  We were moved from area to area in shorts amount of time trying our best to get people baptized.  the frustration of the members was always our biggest obstacle.  They didn't want people just coming, and getting baptized right away.  I hated when my companions and others wanted to dismiss everyone who wasn't ready.  

My take is everyone should be baptized with any amount of desire.  But the whole system and culture was broken.  It was set up to get as many as possible, initially, but as soon as one was got, the whole program wasn't working and if it didnt' work it means they weren't ready.  I think it's less about getting people ready, then having the system and culture of Church to be more amenable for others.  A place that really works.  It's not.  Therefore the best thing now is to wait until people are ready.  But then the Church just gets more exclusive, in my view, and less helpful.  

I hate to blame converts.  I think the problem lies in the leadership, which directs and plays within the culture, it seems to me.  

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22 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

One wishes the crackpot reporter behind this piece would elucidate that that was his take from the address.

One would expect the intended meaning would be clear from then-Elder Oaks’s quoted comments without the crackpot reporter having to gild the lily, so to speak. 

Edited by Scott Lloyd
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13 minutes ago, ALarson said:

If this is truly their goal (and I believe it is), I believe there needs to be less emphasis put on number of baptisms and more time spent with investigators....being more thorough....and confirming they really have a testimony and a true conversion prior to baptism.  This is one of the main reasons that retention rates are so very low.

I gave an example here of the most recent baptism in our stake.  This man was literally rushed into being baptized after just one lesson and attending church once.  He had not read the Book of Mormon.  And yes, he is already not attending much now.

I do think the Pres. Oaks addressed this (baptism not too soon...but don't wait too late either....paraphrasing here).  I'd like to know what he considers too late?

Our church could learn from what a person has to go through to become a member of the Catholic church, IMO.  

ETA:

Here's from the article:

I'll be watching to see what these "further instructions" are.

I’ll be interested to see them as well. 

I understand there is to be a revision of “Preach My Gospel.” Perhaps the further instructions will come by way of that revision. 

By the way, when I was on my mission, there came a short-lived period where missionaries were encouraged to strive for “three-week baptisms” — baptize the investigator within three weeks after meeting him. 

I tried this on one occasion only, extending the baptismal challenge during the first lesson. I was told in no uncertain that the man would not be pressured or pushed and that if I wanted our meetings to continue that I was to back off. 

Gotta love those Swedes. I think I inherited my stubborn streak from my Swedish ancestry. 

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19 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

One would expect the intended meaning would be clear from then-Elder Oaks’s quoted comments without the crackpot reporter having to gild the lily, so to speak. 

Perhaps, but his strange divergence in the article linking the address to transubstantiation and Adam God seemed a little extreme to me.

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4 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

I’ll be interested to see them as well. 

I understand there is to be a revision of “Preach My Gospel.” Perhaps the further instructions will come by way of that revision. 

By the way, when I was on my mission, there came a short-lived period where missionaries were encouraged to strive for “three-week baptisms” — baptize the investigator within three weeks after meeting him. 

I tried this on one occasion only, extending the baptismal challenge during the first lesson. I was told in no uncertain that the man would not be pressured or pushed and that if I wanted our meetings to continue that I was to back off. 

Gotta love those Swedes. I think I inherited my stubborn streak from my Swedish ancestry. 

I remember being taught that we were to extend the baptism challenge and get a baptism date at the end of the 2nd lesson no matter what. I thought it was kind of crazy. 

At the end of the 2nd lesson all you covered was the first vision, the BOM, and Jesus Christ. It was so uncomfortable to try to get people to commit to baptism who were living with boyfriends or girlfriends, smoking and drinking and who had no idea yet what changes they would have to make and covenant to live. Most had not even been to church yet.

Ive heard that the church is now allowing missionaries to try to follow the Spirit and to personalize their teaching and commitment timeline to the person they are teaching. That sounds like a much better approach. 

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54 minutes ago, Anijen said:

Emphasis mine.

Those who return early are in some cases "honorably returned missionaries." I think it might be a little bit of labeling to say "dud" (I know it was you who said it and not President Oaks) . . .

This in my opinion is how we as members should consider those who return early. It relieves the "stigma" of not fulfilling an entire mission. The missionary program and improvements like these strengthen my testimony that the Lord is definitely in charge. So IMO, early returning missionaries should not be considered "dead weight" or "duds."

Absolutely. In some cases, those who return early are honorably returned missionaries in every sense of the word. The converse is also true, though, and it's kind of an 800 lb. gorilla in the room that we're not allowed to talk about (I like that President Oaks started to here). Some of those who return early were duds, or couldn't hack it, or shouldn't have gone. There are also missionaries who are duds, or dead weight, in every sense of the word. 

I think the latter group is of much greater concern. Our culture promotes an ideal where people like the idea of having been a missionary, but there are youth who would like the status but don't want to do the things "in the now" --- and the opportunity cost in their minds makes them seek a release. This is a tremendous drag and drain on missions and the local units. And there are personal, psychological, emotional, and spiritual consequences for this when there really wasn't a good reason other than not wanting to stay. It seems like some people want to absolve all missionaries, regardless of circumstances or choices, of these consequences, where applicable. As I see it, acting like there are no consequences doesn't get rid of the very real effects of choices. There are always consequences ---- that's eternal law.

Edited by rongo
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