Online Proselytizing: A Preliminary Report From Provo Missionaries

[Avatar4321]

that's the thing this mission sends home almost as many missionaries as they baptize, which is too bad

 

Well since they shouldnt be baptizing missionaries, then they send home zero correct?

[cdowis]

Well since they shouldnt be baptizing missionaries, then they send home zero correct?

 

This forum is becoming infected with DH  (dry humor)

[Duncan]

Well since they shouldnt be baptizing missionaries, then they send home zero correct?

 

 

ha..............ha...........................ha........................ funnily enough I knew a girl that said in her mission one of the elders somehow didn't have a baptismal date and couldn't recall ever getting baptized so they checked it out and found out he wasn't so he somehow got the priesthood and all that and so the mission had to baptize him!!!

[LoudmouthMormon]

Smac - since these guys are publicly out there, can we have their names?  I'd like to friend them.

 

(The answer might be no, and I can think of some good reasons why, I just thought I'd ask.)

[cdowis]

 I knew a girl that said in her mission one of the elders somehow didn't have a baptismal date and couldn't recall ever getting baptized so they checked it out and found out he wasn't so he somehow got the priesthood and all that and so the mission had to baptize him!!!

 

One day I was checking on my daughter's membership record, and it did not show the baptism date.  Fortunately I had made an entry in my journal so we were able to correct it.

[changed]

 

Smac - since these guys are publicly out there, can we have their names?  I'd like to friend them.

 

(The answer might be no, and I can think of some good reasons why, I just thought I'd ask.)

 

Yea, is there a Mormon Dialog fb page out there I should be linked with?  I'd love to see who all of you are in real life!

[smac97]

Smac - since these guys are publicly out there, can we have their names?  I'd like to friend them.

 

(The answer might be no, and I can think of some good reasons why, I just thought I'd ask.)

Here's the FB page for one of the missionaries who spoke to our ward: https://www.facebook.com/btmorty?fref=ts

Thanks,

-Smac

[Scott Lloyd]

3. The elders said that one big impediment to online missionary work is . . . missionary guilt. That is, missionaries in the field today grew up online and using Facebook for fun. Having grown up hearing stories about missionaries facing adversity (you know the drill: "Why, I remember tracting ten hours a day for two weeks straight, and we only made three contacts..."), the missionaries are sort of resistant to the idea of spending time on Facebook. The specific counsel they have received from the trainer from the Church Missionary Department was: "Get over it."

 

This is interesting.

 

I had a thought the other day. Suppose on-line proselytizing at some future point becomes so pervasive -- and effective -- that it obviates the need to send people away from their homes for a full-time commitment to missionary work. Think what it would be like if the day ever came when member missionary work through more efficient means than what we know today becomes so eminently successful that full-time missions, as we know them, cease to exist.

 

Would there be resistance to change due to the "missionary guilt" described above?

 

We've had missionary work drilled into us for so long, I think there might be a crisis among some Church members, just as there was when the commandment to practice plural marriage was rescinded.

Edited September 26, 2013 by Scott Lloyd

[Calm]

This is interesting.

 

I had a thought the other day. Suppose on-line proselytizing at some future point becomes so pervasive -- and effective -- that it obviates the need to send people away from their homes for a full-time commitment to missionary work. Think what it would be like if the day ever came when member missionary work through more efficient means than what we know today becomes so eminently successful that full-time missions, as we know them, cease to exist.

 

Would there be resistance to change due to the "missionary guilt" described above?

 

We've had missionary work drilled into us for so long, I think there might be a crisis among some Church members, just as there was when the commandment to practice plural marriage was rescinded.

It could be replaced by service missions.  There will always be the need for that.  And if teaching is becoming much more efficient, that could open more hours to giving service...perhaps missions could become 2/3 proselyting and 1/3 service or even 1/2 and 1/2 as service itself opens many doors and may make that 1/2 time much more productive.

 

Plus I doubt that technology will become so widespread that it will reach all those who would be interested in the Church for a long time.  The question then would become if there will be any areas where local missionaries can't cover the need for proselyting...say in poor areas of third world countries.

[langbert]

In my opinion, this is only the beginning of the utility of the Internet as a tool for conversion. I've written about this a bit elsewhere:

 

http://mormonartist.net/articles/what-does-a-latter-day-saint-renaissance-look-like/

https://medium.com/thoughts-on-creativity/6ab0aaad0f37

[Laurent]

Brethren and sisters, I find this topic interesting. These fast few days, some "Facebookers" with the title Elder or Sister on their display name added me. I chatted with them, and most of them claimed they are full-time LDS missionaries. The rest claimed they are returned missionaries. The Facebook page We are LDS (previously named LDS Missionary Referral Page) also caught my attention. The page's description claims it is being managed by two full-time LDS missionaries.

 

Anyway, regarding "online missionary work":

 

1. Can "online missionaries" chat with someone who lives in a country where proselytizing is prohibited, like the Islamic kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Israel?

2. Can "online missionaries" on Facebook add someone from their immediately family so they can talk to each other easier and more conveniently? Or are these "LDS missionaries Facebook accounts" are for the sole purpose of proselytizing online?

 

I hope everyone will have a good day!

[Kenngo1969]

These are simply my educated guesses based on what I do know, even if I lack direct information regarding the issues involved.  So, if anyone with more light and knowledge chimes in, I'll defer to him or her.  OK?

 

1.  My answer to this would be, "No."  Proselyting, whether the contact is direct (such as face-to-face) or via electronic means (Internet, Facebook, and so on) would probably be defined, for purposes of governments which prohibit it, would be "contact via whatever means for purposes of religious teaching or conversion).

 

2.  I believe Missionary Facebook accounts are for proselyting purposes only.  I believe "real-time" electronic contact with family and friends is forbidden so that a missionary can concentrate fully on the work to which he or she has been called.

 

My $0.02, actual value $0.0175375150.

[rongo]

I really have a problem with the thought that tracting is “not effective.” I understand the perspective that knocking on doors entails a lot of rejection, and that most people don’t enjoy doing it (most people don’t like being regarded similar to pest control/alarm salesmen, which is how most people think of anyone coming to their door with offers). My father and I both served in essentially the same mission (north German 1968-1970/Germany Hamburg 1994-1996), where we tracted (street contacting/door-to-door) roughly 8-10 hours daily. Despite deep-seated perceptions back then that “member missionary work”/media referrals were much more effective than tracting, I was able to prove that the vast majority of our discussions and baptisms resulted from tracting (I polled the mission anonymously regarding favorite/least favorite finding methods, discussions taught, baptisms, and how investigators and converts were found. Door-to-door ranked dead last on favorite method, but overwhelmingly first on successful finding method. Unbeknownst to me, Elder Holland had just told my mission president that we needed to increase our door-to-door time, so he really liked these findings).

 

Seven of my eight baptisms were from tracting, with one being a part member family (unbaptized son of inactive parents). I much preferred door-to-door to street contacting, but did both. Street displays were effective as far as talking to people (we typically did three hours each Saturday, with a table with Book of Mormons in exotic languages, pictures, etc.).

 

Aside from “raw” effectiveness, there are other factors as well that must be included in discussions of “effectiveness.”

 

1) Wilford Woodruff said that “We learned the Gospel through shoe leather” (Journal of Discourses 14:4). In a real, tangible way, there are life-experiences and learning opportunities tracting affords that cannot be obtained any other way ---- especially in comparison to overwhelmingly social media or “member missionary” – oriented approaches. I don’t buy the argument that things and people have changed so much that they can only be reached via social media and referral and cannot be found through tracting. There are people found and taught every day through missionaries talking to people in neighborhoods who would never have been found any other way.

 

2) There is a cumulative “branding/presence” component that is missing when tracting is massively discouraged or prohibited. The effect of seeing missionaries walking, talking to people, riding their bikes, etc. bears fruit, even when the effects are not readily known. In my town, people refer to the missionaries as the “Schwinn twins.” Even when people don’t let the missionaries in, they see them around and often let them in after years of seeing them around and having turned them down several times.

 

3) It seems clear to me that many of the recent changes are geared towards using missions as an extension of the youth program in an effort to staunch the hemorrhaging of youth going missing in the late high school – YSA years. Lowering of age, loosening of dress code, loosening of work ethic (“It’s not missionary work, it’s missionary fun!”), encouragement of e-missionary work (waving a white flag at electronics withdrawal for electronics-addicted youth), chapel tours (a “legalization,” in my mind, of the reality of missionaries hanging around the buildings a lot, playing piano, etc. They’re there a lot, anyway, but now they’re waiting for walk-ins for “chapel tours”), disparagement of tracting (at the training broadcast), etc. It’s easier to go, be, and stay on a mission, and a lot of the “hard,” stretching aspects have been softened or eliminated.

 

4) I worry about the cavalier “Get over it” attitude about “missionary guilt” when spending lots of time doing e-missionary work. Like the elder Duncan has told about, who wanted more from his mission than chapel tours, Twitter/Facebook, and indexing, my kids can’t wait to have their own mission experiences, having heard mine. This e-missionary work bears no resemblance to the experiences that are a major part of who I am, and my mature testimony. My question is will missionaries who want to do old-fashioned “hard work” missionary work be stigmatized or sanctioned in the mission field – will they be allowed to, or prohibited (“we don’t need to work harder, we need to work smarter,” “you want to do romanticized, ineffective, old-fashioned stuff, but this is focus-group tested and studied, and it’s more effective”)?

 

5) The two anecdotes smac shared, and this month’s New Era showcase investigators who have been solely taught on Facebook. I don’t think there’s any substitute for sitting, in person, and teaching someone. I am skeptical about retention rates among e-converts being better than our already poor retention rates (admittedly, there is supposed to be coordination between e-missionaries and missions and local units). I just can’t get excited and “catch the wave” of thinking e-teaching is flippin’ awesome!

[mfbukowski]

Brethren and sisters, I find this topic interesting. These fast few days, some "Facebookers" with the title Elder or Sister on their display name added me. I chatted with them, and most of them claimed they are full-time LDS missionaries. The rest claimed they are returned missionaries. The Facebook page We are LDS (previously named LDS Missionary Referral Page) also caught my attention. The page's description claims it is being managed by two full-time LDS missionaries.

 

Anyway, regarding "online missionary work":

 

1. Can "online missionaries" chat with someone who lives in a country where proselytizing is prohibited, like the Islamic kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Israel?

2. Can "online missionaries" on Facebook add someone from their immediately family so they can talk to each other easier and more conveniently? Or are these "LDS missionaries Facebook accounts" are for the sole purpose of proselytizing online?

 

I hope everyone will have a good day!

Love your siggy, and welcome.

[mfbukowski]

When we figure out how to baptize someone online, THAT's when I'll be impressed! 

 

But it is all pretty cool!

[cdowis]

When we figure out how to baptize someone online, THAT's when I'll be impressed! 

 

But it is all pretty cool!

 

I suspect that it will somehow involve google streetview and youtube.

[omni]

I really have a problem with the thought that tracting is “not effective.” I understand the perspective that knocking on doors entails a lot of rejection, and that most people don’t enjoy doing it (most people don’t like being regarded similar to pest control/alarm salesmen, which is how most people think of anyone coming to their door with offers). My father and I both served in essentially the same mission (north German 1968-1970/Germany Hamburg 1994-1996), where we tracted (street contacting/door-to-door) roughly 8-10 hours daily. Despite deep-seated perceptions back then that “member missionary work”/media referrals were much more effective than tracting, I was able to prove that the vast majority of our discussions and baptisms resulted from tracting (I polled the mission anonymously regarding favorite/least favorite finding methods, discussions taught, baptisms, and how investigators and converts were found. Door-to-door ranked dead last on favorite method, but overwhelmingly first on successful finding method. Unbeknownst to me, Elder Holland had just told my mission president that we needed to increase our door-to-door time, so he really liked these findings).

 

Seven of my eight baptisms were from tracting, with one being a part member family (unbaptized son of inactive parents). I much preferred door-to-door to street contacting, but did both. Street displays were effective as far as talking to people (we typically did three hours each Saturday, with a table with Book of Mormons in exotic languages, pictures, etc.).

 

Aside from “raw” effectiveness, there are other factors as well that must be included in discussions of “effectiveness.”

 

1) Wilford Woodruff said that “We learned the Gospel through shoe leather” (Journal of Discourses 14:4). In a real, tangible way, there are life-experiences and learning opportunities tracting affords that cannot be obtained any other way ---- especially in comparison to overwhelmingly social media or “member missionary” – oriented approaches. I don’t buy the argument that things and people have changed so much that they can only be reached via social media and referral and cannot be found through tracting. There are people found and taught every day through missionaries talking to people in neighborhoods who would never have been found any other way.

 

2) There is a cumulative “branding/presence” component that is missing when tracting is massively discouraged or prohibited. The effect of seeing missionaries walking, talking to people, riding their bikes, etc. bears fruit, even when the effects are not readily known. In my town, people refer to the missionaries as the “Schwinn twins.” Even when people don’t let the missionaries in, they see them around and often let them in after years of seeing them around and having turned them down several times.

 

3) It seems clear to me that many of the recent changes are geared towards using missions as an extension of the youth program in an effort to staunch the hemorrhaging of youth going missing in the late high school – YSA years. Lowering of age, loosening of dress code, loosening of work ethic (“It’s not missionary work, it’s missionary fun!”), encouragement of e-missionary work (waving a white flag at electronics withdrawal for electronics-addicted youth), chapel tours (a “legalization,” in my mind, of the reality of missionaries hanging around the buildings a lot, playing piano, etc. They’re there a lot, anyway, but now they’re waiting for walk-ins for “chapel tours”), disparagement of tracting (at the training broadcast), etc. It’s easier to go, be, and stay on a mission, and a lot of the “hard,” stretching aspects have been softened or eliminated.

 

4) I worry about the cavalier “Get over it” attitude about “missionary guilt” when spending lots of time doing e-missionary work. Like the elder Duncan has told about, who wanted more from his mission than chapel tours, Twitter/Facebook, and indexing, my kids can’t wait to have their own mission experiences, having heard mine. This e-missionary work bears no resemblance to the experiences that are a major part of who I am, and my mature testimony. My question is will missionaries who want to do old-fashioned “hard work” missionary work be stigmatized or sanctioned in the mission field – will they be allowed to, or prohibited (“we don’t need to work harder, we need to work smarter,” “you want to do romanticized, ineffective, old-fashioned stuff, but this is focus-group tested and studied, and it’s more effective”)?

 

5) The two anecdotes smac shared, and this month’s New Era showcase investigators who have been solely taught on Facebook. I don’t think there’s any substitute for sitting, in person, and teaching someone. I am skeptical about retention rates among e-converts being better than our already poor retention rates (admittedly, there is supposed to be coordination between e-missionaries and missions and local units). I just can’t get excited and “catch the wave” of thinking e-teaching is flippin’ awesome!

Rongo,

I too served in a low-baptizing European mission. I remember always being taught that the most effective way to find converts was through the members. As I'm sure you're aware, in a mission with lots of missionaries and few members--this is easier said than done. Most of our converts were from good ol' fashioned tracting, but I believe those converts with the highest retention rates were found through members. Having a built-in friend or family member can sometimes make all the difference.

I'm also skeptical of the new social media push. While I believe it's a good idea to incorporate it into the work, I can't see it ever completely replacing tracting. I mean I spent a significant portion of my week knocking doors and can't imagine the missionaries being able to effectively spend more than a few hours a week on Faceook. Maybe I'm just getting old...

[rongo]

omni:

 

Where and when did you serve?

 

Everybody's mission is special to them, and I don't want to take anything away from a stateside mission, but I wish everyone could have the experience of a European mission.

 

You're right --- I think the e-missionary program is more of a North America thing. It won't work at all in other places --- missionaries will still have to do a lot of "shoe leather" missionary work outside of NA.

[Laurent]

Love your siggy, and welcome.

Thank you for loving my siggy, bro.

[Hamba Tuhan]

Perhaps an interesting addition to this discussion:

 

As we were getting our ipads on Thursday the leaders who had their ipads already within the first  hour had taught four lessons via chat. That is usually how much we teach in one day, on a good day! Accomplished in an hour. but they were not only teaching people in their area they were teaching people in Europe, Astonia, Russia. One of our zone leaders taught a girl in Russia via skype last week.

...

Something else the missionary department told us is that they have found that most people are online from like nine pm to 12 pm. So how will we teach those people if we are asleep? well bro Donaldson said this. " We will have to get the help of the missionaries on the other side of the world, Missionaries in japan and Europe will have to teach our people and help us out here while we sleep and then in return we will help out with their people over there while they sleep." in fact during that meeting he got a call from a mission president in japan about that exact topic.

...

And bro Donaldson specifically told us to embrace this change whole-heartedly because he knew at first it would be weird to have this much freedom, to be able to talk to our family and eventually teach with them.

...

Just in these past few days i have gotten over 20 online referrals and that is nothing compared to some other Elders. This week some Elder got over 50 referrals mostly for people in different countries. It is crazy.

Edited October 17, 2013 by Hamba Tuhan

[rongo]

As we were getting our ipads on Thursday the leaders who had their ipads already within the first  hour had taught four lessons via chat. 

And "flippin' awesome!" lessons they were, too, I'm sure. 

 

I guess chatting about the gospel online is better than nothing, but isn't in person better than online, every time? Is there an effort to try to still set up in person appointments?

[Abu_Casey]

That's interesting about the ipads. I've been pretty skeptical about this whole social networking + ipads approach to missionary work, but the 24 hour hour aspect is pretty cool. It does seem like there's a nice synergy between the overseas missionaries and follow-up meetings. There's got to be a device that's less expensive (and, frankly, conspicuous) than an ipad.

[Hamba Tuhan]

I guess chatting about the gospel online is better than nothing, but isn't in person better than online, every time? Is there an effort to try to still set up in person appointments?

I served my mission in a cold, dark corner of the US where the sun started setting around 3:30pm in the middle of winter. After that, absolutely no one would open their doors to strangers. We tried, of course, because that's what one does, but I would have loved to have something actually productive to do on winter nights, like chat with non-members in Japan about the gospel. Personally, I'm envious. And I'm grateful that the Missionary Department is apparently encouraging missionaries to jump in with both feet despite the fact that some members seem to be reluctant to embrace changes even when announced by prophets.

[Hamba Tuhan]

There's got to be a device that's less expensive (and, frankly, conspicuous) than an ipad.

I have no clue where to find it again, but many weeks ago I read a blog post from a member in America who'd attended a fireside given by a member of the Missionary Department. The speaker had said the Church had chosen to go with ipads because Apple had agreed to manufacure them specifically for the Church at a good price, all set up with missionary-specific apps. Apparently, at this point in time area books and planners sync with the mission office, and the plan is that eventually the WML (and maybe bishopric members?) will also have access. I'm looking forward to everything that is to come.

[Avatar4321]

Perhaps an interesting addition to this discussion:

 

That is amazing. I would love to hear if other Elders are having similiar experiences. Is there any way for us to help?