Church Office Building /office Of First Presidency

[Baurak Ale]

Hermetically Sealed

[charity]

baurak, I think that only the most naive would expect in a Church of 12,000,000 members that the Prophet would personally look at every piece of mail, sign every missionary call, etc.

First, when you hear a story from an ex-member, remember, they obviously have an axe to grind. At the very best construction you can put on it, I am sure they pad or puff their story. A usable office, maybe small, but adequate to the task becomes a room with toxic vapors and a thread bare carpet.

Second, yes, the manuals are written by "ordinary" people. But those ordinary people are given gifts and blessings to carry out their tasks when they are called to do the work. And the work is reviewed at the highest levels and sent back for correction and revisions if needed.

Third, members are requested not to write to the General Authorities directly. This is a church of order. If we have a concern, we go to the bishop. His next in authority is the stake president, then regional authority. The person who writes directly either does not understand the order, or wants to circumvent it. One is ignorant, one is rebellioius.

Fourth, we see the General Authorities regularly, but this is not a celebrity thing where you want to shake hands with Jay Leno, so you could say you did. It is about being adult. recognizing the realities of the situation. And knowing that we respect the office of the person, whether it is a bishop or the President of the Church.

It might be nice if we could live in the same small community with the prophet and he could rescue us from a mud puddle and wipe our shoes off with his handkerchief. That works with a community of 2,000 people. But that isn't our world.

You attitude is plain with the disrespectful language you use.

[KevinG]

Am am very close to some of the ordinary people who work in the great and spacious Church office building.

The most ordiary of them have regailed me with tales of their frenzied work preparing for the very personal and hands on input of the Prophets, Seers and Revelators in the production of Church curricula and presentations. (And the frenzied work afterward making the editorial changes as suggesed by said Prophets, Seers and Revelators).

Rest assured they are involved...

...I will now await the inevitable criticisms that they are too involved.

In all seriousness one of my friends described to me the "very neat" experience of having an Apostle point out some doctrinal reasons why something should be presented in a particular manner, which an entire production and editorial staff had completely missed, but that the Apsotle spotted right away. This friends description of what was noticed, how it was handled and what the result was increased my respect and admiration for the stewardships of these men.

[Homestar Runner]

I think Baurak brings up some of the issues that has led to our Prophet making and remaking the point, that he sees one of the biggest struggles he and his sucessors will face, will be handling the incredible growth and internationalization of the church. The notion that there is about one GA for every 30,000 members, and GA's have the same 24 hour day everyone else has, is just something lost on a lot of people.

HSR

[cdowis]

I know someone on the Music Committee. They worked night and day to get the new Nauvoo pageant completed and in production in time.

[nana]

My very TBM married daughter worked there for 6 months,

She left because there was no place for a woman. She had one supervisor who told her that women should not be employed by the church,because she should be at home taking care of the babies.

She has no children, and is working on a master's degree.

This man spent more time telling her what she should be doing with her life than working.

She was told that her testimony had to be really strong to work there, and she decided that it wasn't strong enough.

She holds no grudges, still loves her church, just didn't fit in with the required mode, these were her words.

[Jan]

And the other thing is when someone writes to the Office of the First Presidency and the Secretary to the First Presidency Michael F. Watson answers the mail for them do they ever see or hear of the mail? I dunno just an honest inquiry just wondering?

Sometimes the answer is yes. It was for me.

[bluebell]

My very TBM married daughter worked there for 6 months,

She left because there was no place for a woman. She had one supervisor who told her that women should not be employed by the church,because she should be at home taking care of the babies.

She has no children, and is working on a master's degree.

This man spent more time telling her what she should be doing with her life than working.

She was told that her testimony had to be really strong to work there, and she decided that it wasn't strong enough.

She holds no grudges, still loves her church, just didn't fit in with the required mode, these were her words.

I have a dear friend (TBM) who worked there for a while delivering mail to the different offices. She still talks about how much she loved that job, how loved she felt by all that she worked with and how much she wished she could have stayed there.

She's a single sister as well-but she just cannot say enough good about that place....

I think it just goes to show that the church office building is probably a good or a bad place to work-depending on the people you work with-like most jobs.

[TheObserver]

She had one supervisor who told her that women should not be employed by the church, because she should be at home taking care of the babies. She has no children, and is working on a master's degree.

Well, according to To Mothers In Zion, the church pamphlet by Ezra Taft Benson which is availabe in the foyer at my ward's meetinghouse, shouldn't your TBM daughter be home taking care of babies, or, if she doesn't have any yet, having them?

[hondo]

I had a letter from the Q12 and it wasn't from Bro. Watson it was from someone else. I requested a talk from them but they didn't publish it or something. O well. I don't think I would like to work for the Church in ANY capacity except for callings.

[Calm]

The following is just some of my musings.

Might be better to separate these into different threads so all get addressed.

Dan Peterson has worked on manuals before so if you do a search on his name with the term "manual", you will probably come across a description or two of how it works.

The tunnels exist between some of the buildings (we had similar 15up in Calgary due to the weather conditions), there are some tunnels at BYU too. I hear there are good acoustics for singing in certain of them.

As to never being seen by the public except at general conference, this is highly unlikely as the GAs are out and about visiting their regions, President GBH himself has in the past been quite the jetsetter going all over though his travels may be restricted now due to health plus the GAs need to attend sacrament meetings just like the rest of us. Up in Calgary we had several GAs come up every year to visit, most would take the time to shake hands after the various meetings.

I've seen the previous prophet myself several years ago going down the hall in the temple, I would assume the same could happen these days.

I've heard both good and bad stories from church employees, including women. It seems to depend upon to a great deal who they actually worked with rather than the overall atmosphere....just like most other occupations. (bluebell got here first, )

add-on:

The notion that there is about one GA for every 30,000 members, and GA's have the same 24 hour day everyone else has, is just something lost on a lot of people.

I think it's very wise to streamline those things that can be taken care of by others (such as the computer doing the work of signing letters whether or not the decision was made by the GA) so that the necessary hands on work can be given the time and attention that is needed. I realize that personal attention is wanted by all individuals, but this attention is to be supplied most of the time by local leaders, that's why the church is structured the way it is and it's important to realize this so that we value and support our local leaders as much as the regional and global ones.

[alter idem]

She had one supervisor who told her that women should not be employed by the church, because she should be at home taking care of the babies.  She has no children, and is working on a master's degree.

Well, according to To Mothers In Zion, the church pamphlet by Ezra Taft Benson which is availabe in the foyer at my ward's meetinghouse, shouldn't your TBM daughter be home taking care of babies, or, if she doesn't have any yet, having them?

As a TBM mother who IS home taking care of children, I think I can answer this. NO...it's not the place of her supervisor to be telling her what she should be doing, in fact, it was very inconsiderate of him to say anything. He has no idea whether this young woman is trying to have children and is possibly having difficuty. It's not his business. I'm sure even Pres. Benson, who's talk is in that pamphlet would have felt this man had overstepped the bounderies of what was appropriate in his rude comments. If the church didn't want her working there, they should not have hired her in the first place. It is up to her and her husband to decide when they will have children and how many they will have.

[nana]

Well, according to To Mothers In Zion, the church pamphlet by Ezra Taft Benson which is availabe in the foyer at my ward's meetinghouse, shouldn't your TBM daughter be home taking care of babies, or, if she doesn't have any yet, having them?

As a TBM mother who IS home taking care of children, I think I can answer this. NO...it's not the place of her supervisor to be telling her what she should be doing, in fact, it was very inconsiderate of him to say anything. He has no idea whether this young woman is trying to have children and is possibly having difficuty. It's not his business. I'm sure even Pres. Benson, who's talk is in that pamphlet would have felt this man had overstepped the bounderies of what was appropriate in his rude comments. If the church didn't want her working there, they should not have hired her in the first place. It is up to her and her husband to decide when they will have children and how many they will have.

[Heidi]

Yeah, the fact is that the church is simply too big for the First Presidency of be involved in all its affairs. I don't have a problem with it. It's merely a matter of fact.

[charity]

Whoa, Heidi. The First Presidency is involved in everything that pertains to the Church and its members. But not in the specific instance. A good CEO knows his business from the ground up, but he doesn't usually spend much of his time on the production line.

[Heidi]

Yeah, yeah. You know that's not what I meant. I'm referring to the particular issues that were hitherto brought up. Yes they're involved in the overall direction of the church, and they probably have their hand in a lot of things, but on the whole, they simply can't be on top of everything.

[juliann]

She was told that her testimony had to be really strong to work there, and she decided that it wasn't strong enough.

She holds no grudges, still loves her church, just didn't fit in with the required mode, these were her words.

Hopefully we can breed out the last remnants of insufferable chauvinism from Mormon men within another decade. It depends on when this happened as to how typical it is...and it is not a Mormon problem. One of my jolly memories is applying for my first job in a SLC school district in the early 70s. My first question was why I hadn't graduated in "Home Ec". But when I went to CA thinking I was safe from such Mormon attitude....I was asked if I planned on getting married in the first interview.

[Calm]

I grew up in San Francisco area and thought that would be a more enlightened area than Utah, but I got a lot more sexist remarks thrown at me in SF than in UT.

I'm not saying that it doesn't exist in UT, just that the segment of the population that thinks that way are more vocal in SF (more vulgar too, not surprisingly, lol) which makes me wonder if the church leaders' teaching about respecting women have a signficant effect on what comes out of men's mouths in the church.

The only really sexist remarks I've heard consistently in the church have to do with women being more likely to enter the CK than men.

[cougarfan]

The LDS church is a large organization, and is managed in several ways as large organizations are.

I used to work for a very large banking organization. Over the years, I had several customers go "over my head" and directly to the CEO either by mail or phone. The CEO had a staff to handle the mail and the phone calls. I would invariably get a call wanting to know what was going on. I worked most of those years in "special loans" - customers (who had developed problems) the bank wanted to find another home. When I would explain that we wanted the customer to be displeased enough to move to another bank, the CEO's staff always laughed. The point is that the top guys don't answer their own mail or answer their own phones.

As far as President Hinckley goes, he is fairly well sequestered by church security in an apartment adjacent to the church office complex. While at 90+ I am not sure just how "about town" you expect him to be, but I know he does go out to dinner, social functions, etc.

I believe that the 12 have their offices in the old church office building, I am not sure where the prophet offices. There are underground tunnels that run between the apartment complex where the prophet lives to the church offices and the SLC Temple.

According to the link by Dr. Peterson several months ago, the tunnels are also used by reptilian aliens that allegedly control the church. The same website says those tunnels extend out for hundreds of miles...

[russianwolfe]

She had one supervisor who told her that women should not be employed by the church, because she should be at home taking care of the babies.

[Baurak Ale]

Hermetically Sealed

[Daniel Peterson]

I have always been intensely curious about what goes on inside the Church Office Building and Office of the First Presidency. The following is just some of my musings. I have read many humorous stories of X-employees, but no hard facts. I read an account of a young man who was stuck in a little room once used for storing toxic cleaning materials with thread bare carpet and no proper ventilation that was still working on his first degree who was writting the Church Priesthood Manuals of Instruction, x-member now of course but I had always wondered who wrote those, as ya do.

Well, I'm not sure that that story's going to get you very near the "hard facts," either.

I served for nearly ten years on the committee that writes the Gospel Doctrine manuals for the Church. We didn't do it as a job, or for pay. It was a Church calling. We wrote on our own time, typically at home -- never once at the Church Office Building (to say nothing of a room in that building once used for storing cleaning materials), nor even in the Salt Lake Valley -- and then we met two Sunday mornings per month (in a small seminar room in a building on the BYU campus) to critique each other's written work.

While I didn't serve on the committee that compiles the priesthood/Relief Society manuals, I know at least one person who was involved in one of them. He is a rather prominent retired BYU professor with an Ivy League Ph.D. His pattern of work was the same as mine. I rather doubt the details of the story you've been given. They don't ring authentic to me.

[Baurak Ale]

Hermetically Sealed

[Cowpie]

No one seems to of answered my question about writting to the Prophet we are actually not suppose to write to the Prophet? But if that is the case why does he and his councilors address letters they recieve sometimes at general conference?

It's okay to write them if you have a faith promoting story, but you're not supposed to ask them questions.

More substance and less noise please. -mods

[Kollow]

I have never been to Salt Lake but I understand the Bretheren get around in secret tunnels on golf carts linking church buildings

There are tunnels all over SLC, one goes from the city and county building to the library and there are extensive tunnels underneath The Gateway. Its more of an engineering thing than a secret passageway. Iv'e been through both and it's not as fantastic as you would think.