Update on missionaries

[Jeanne]

As a non-mormon, a question for all of you.  Seems like a lot of missionaries going out...but still a decline if I have read correctly.  Why not let or make more accessible the idea that middle age adults...still single or active divorced..go on those missions??

Edited to add:  I know that perhaps many might have young families etc..But some are so bored and need some sort of direction.  If they wanted to go..can they?

Edited November 10, 2016 by Jeanne

[JulieM]

3 hours ago, stemelbow said:

Also, as noted by my SP, missionaries coming home early is a big problem in the Church these days.  So it's a question if missions are necessarily good for the young men and women in the church.  We used to assume that's where members become strong.  Going forward I'm curious if it's an avenue wherein more and more members leave the church or become a part of the disaffected members group. 

I agree.  A friend of mine has just recently had her son come home early from his mission.  He was having stomach and digestive problems so they've publicly told everyone it was for health reasons, but she's confided in me that she thinks his stomach problems are caused by stress because he no longer believes and was in agony out on his mission trying to fake it.  He won't be going back out (what he says and she reluctantly agrees even though he's meeting with the Bishop, he had no answers that are helping him I guess).

And where did her son learn about the true church history?  From the non members he was trying to convert.  He had never heard most of what some call "troubling details about church history" before his mission.

[Rain]

1 hour ago, Jeanne said:

As a non-mormon, a question for all of you.  Seems like a lot of missionaries going out...but still a decline if I have read correctly.  Why not let or make more accessible the idea that middle age adults...still single or active divorced..go on those missions??

Edited to add:  I know that perhaps many might have young families etc..But some are so bored and need some sort of direction.  If they wanted to go..can they?

Women can go at any age over 19 as long as they don't have children to take care of.  It is just men that have those restrictions.  

[Jeanne]

51 minutes ago, Rain said:

Women can go at any age over 19 as long as they don't have children to take care of.  It is just men that have those restrictions.  

Thanks.  I knew about the women but wasn't sure about the men.  Wouldn't it be something if they could meet a sweetheart on a mission.  Kind of beats going to single adult wards..maybe.

[Tacenda]

On 11/10/2016 at 11:42 AM, JulieM said:

I agree.  A friend of mine has just recently had her son come home early from his mission.  He was having stomach and digestive problems so they've publicly told everyone it was for health reasons, but she's confided in me that she thinks his stomach problems are caused by stress because he no longer believes and was in agony out on his mission trying to fake it.  He won't be going back out (what he says and she reluctantly agrees even though he's meeting with the Bishop, he had no answers that are helping him I guess).

And where did her son learn about the true church history?  From the non members he was trying to convert.  He had never heard most of what some call "troubling details about church history" before his mission.

When are they (church leaders) going to learn, the MTC isn't doing a good enough job, I guess the church just wants to prepare them while they are in seminary now, a little too late for the missionaries in the field now.

My sister in law and brother in law are serving in a temple in England at present and before they went on their mission I had to explain why I wasn't able to attend the temple for her son's wedding ceremony. And told her I had issues with Joseph Smith's polygamy and had a faith crisis, and don't know what is true anymore. And she told me she had only heard about the sealing to Helen Mar Kimball, and that it was only a sealing not a marriage. She is over 60 years old. How is this right, that these missionaries don't know their church's history and yet they are trying to sell it to non members? They don't know their product!

[Calm]

2 hours ago, Tacenda said:

How is this right, that these missionaries don't know their church's history and yet they are trying to sell it to non members? They don't know their product!

How absolutely disrespectful it is to trivialize your loved ones's (I am assuming you actually care for them) desire to share what they believe is a wonderful gift from God by treating them like salesmen.

[Rain]

4 hours ago, Tacenda said:

When are they (church leaders) going to learn, the MTC isn't doing a good enough job, I guess the church just wants to prepare them while they are in seminary now, a little too late for the missionaries in the field now.

My sister in law and brother in law are serving in a temple in England at present and before they went on their mission I had to explain why I wasn't able to attend the temple for her son's wedding ceremony. And told her I had issues with Joseph Smith's polygamy and had a faith crisis, and don't know what is true anymore. And she told me she had only heard about the sealing to Helen Mar Kimball, and that it was only a sealing not a marriage. She is over 60 years old. How is this right, that these missionaries don't know their church's history and yet they are trying to sell it to non members? They don't know their product!

How many churches do you know that teach their church's history? I once did a survey on a non LDS message board and many people answered that question. Except for LDS members I only had 1 or 2 that said their church did teach history. Some were even confused as to why I would ask the question.  

This is a relatively new thing. Things progress from new problem to new problem. I first remember people saying we didn't believe in Christ at all. While on my mission it became, "well not the same Christ". There may have been something in between then and now. Now the problem for missionaries is history.

As we start to teach the history more in depth to our missionaries and the missionaries learn to deal with it with investigators it will become something else.  And for awhile it may feel like we have retreated in the battle, but as long as we have the Lord as our leader things will be OK in the end. 

 

Edited November 13, 2016 by Rain

[canard78]

On 12/09/2016 at 9:54 PM, stemelbow said:

I'm trying to figure out how to apply your idea of seasonality.  Should we expect a low every September?  What season is our best in terms of number of missionaries?  Either way it seems true that less of our young men are choosing to go on missions these days, then they have for the past, 20 years or so, or less are worthy to go.  seems like a big deal.

...fewer...

That's all

[James Tunney]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

How absolutely disrespectful it is to trivialize your loved ones's (I am assuming you actually care for them) desire to share what they believe is a wonderful gift from God by treating them like salesmen.

Did you go on a mission? When I was on my mission, the whole point was to get people to commit to something like salespersons do. We would look for new contacts like salespersons do. We would report on our efforts to higher ups like salespersons do. We would have sales conferences called zone conferences, etc. etc. My mission presidents were ..... businessmen .... surprisingly

So is it somehow derrogatory to call it what it is? 

[Tacenda]

3 hours ago, Calm said:

How absolutely disrespectful it is to trivialize your loved ones's (I am assuming you actually care for them) desire to share what they believe is a wonderful gift from God by treating them like salesmen.

 

Calm, have you ever heard this question for those searching out information about the church or anti Mormon information?

 

"If you want to know about the church, you should go to its source.  If you wanted to know about a Ford, would you talk to a Chevy dealer?"

 

I guess I put this thought process together. I wasn't trying to be disrespectful. And believe missionaries are trained to do a job as in getting people interested in joining the church. If they don't have the information about the church, and don't know as much as non members, how can that be good? It only affects negatively on the missionary and how that missionary feels they were not teaching the correct history narrative. 

 

 

Below is a youtube of Richard Bushman explaining how the church's narrative was wrong. 

 

 

Questioner: In your view do you see room within Mormonism for
several different narratives--multiple narratives of a religious
experience or do you think that in order for the Church to
remain strong they would have to hold to that dominant
[orthodox] narrative?

Richard Bushman: I think that for the Church to remain strong it
has to reconstruct its narrative. The dominant narrative is not
true; it can't be sustained. The Church has to absorb all this
new information or it will be on very shaky grounds and that's
what it is trying to do and it will be a strain for a lot of
people, older people especially. But I think it has to change.