D-News Reports 63,500 Missionaries Are Serving

[smac97]

On 8/23/2018 at 11:26 AM, cinepro said:

Or maybe they know something we don't about the rising generation...?

It's really beautiful inside though...

 

Um, that second photo is tagged as being the interior of the Church of Scientology:

http: // image.en.yibada.com/data/images/full / 64609/church-of-scientology.jpg

I took a tour of the MTC expansion and have no recollection of the area in that second photo.

Methinks you're pulling our collective legs.

Thanks,

-Smac

[jkwilliams]

Just now, smac97 said:

Methinks you're pulling our collective legs.

Funny, that doesn't sound like something cinepro would do.

[rockpond]

2 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

The thing is, we were in the La Paz Sheraton at the time. The next day I was freezing in the altiplano in an apartment with no running water and only intermittent electricity.

No running water?  Let's see... in one of my apartments we didn't have a bidet! Oh, and there were a several apartments where we had to convert the living room into a bedroom because there were four missionaries sharing a one-bedroom unit.  The struggle!

In one of the buildings I lived in during my mission, we actually had a full-time doorman.  It was rough. 

[jkwilliams]

Just now, rockpond said:

No running water?  Let's see... in one of my apartments we didn't have a bidet! Oh, and there were a several apartments where we had to convert the living room into a bedroom because there were four missionaries sharing a one-bedroom unit.  The struggle!

In one of the buildings I lived in during my mission, we actually had a full-time doorman.  It was rough. 

If it weren't for that lack of running water, I might never have married my wife. I got to know her because we took a bus to the welfare missionaries' house once a week for a hot shower. I would talk to her and her companion while my companion was in the shower. So, I'm grateful I was forced to spend time with her once a week for 4 months. 

[smac97]

5 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

What happens if you bear your testimony and it isn't confirmed?

Bearing a testimony presupposes a previous spiritual experience.  

Spiritual Experince --> A Measure of Faith --> Bearing of Testimony --> A Greater Measure of Faith

Repeat as needed.

I don't think the Church wants anyone to bear testimony of things they don't believe in yet.  To testify is to share what you have experienced.

5 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

We had an elder in my mission, a former Jehovah's Witness from Bolivia, who started his mission very enthusiastically. I'm not really sure what happened, but by the time he was my zone leader, he wouldn't bear his testimony at all but would say things like, "The church teaches that the Book of Mormon is true. Members of the church believe Spencer W. Kimball is a living prophet."

That's not a testimony, then.  It's just a statement about what others believe.

Thanks,

-Smac

[rockpond]

1 minute ago, jkwilliams said:

If it weren't for that lack of running water, I might never have married my wife. I got to know her because we took a bus to the welfare missionaries' house once a week for a hot shower. I would talk to her and her companion while my companion was in the shower. So, I'm grateful I was forced to spend time with her once a week for 4 months. 

Pretty good silver lining!

[jkwilliams]

Just now, smac97 said:

Bearing a testimony presupposes a previous spiritual experience.  

Spiritual Experince --> A Measure of Faith --> Bearing of Testimony --> A Greater Measure of Faith

Repeat as needed.

I don't think the Church wants anyone to bear testimony of things they don't believe in yet.  To testify is to share what you have experienced.

That's not a testimony, then.  It's just a statement about what others believe.

I know. I just thought it was weird that he was bearing fervent testimony for the first several months of his mission, but by the time he was my zone leader, he wasn't bearing testimony at all. 

[jkwilliams]

2 minutes ago, rockpond said:

Pretty good silver lining!

31 years of marriage and counting. 34 years since we first met. 

[SouthernMo]

11 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Um, that second photo is tagged as being the interior of the Church of Scientology:

http: // image.en.yibada.com/data/images/full / 64609/church-of-scientology.jpg

I took a tour of the MTC expansion and have no recollection of the area in that second photo.

Methinks you're pulling our collective legs.

Thanks,

-Smac

So glad to hear that.

Whew!  My testimony of church spending is weak enough as it is!  I can’t handle shows of wealth like the interior picture above!

[jkwilliams]

Just now, SouthernMo said:

So glad to hear that.

Whew!  My testimony of church spending is weak enough as it is!  I can’t handle shows of wealth like the interior picture above!

The church can be frugal when it wants to be. When I worked in the COB, the carpets were gold colored and very old. I was told they were original to the building (at that time the building was 20 years old). Almost every seam between sections of carpet had split, leaving large gaps where the worn gray carpet pad showed through. Finally, we were told the carpets would be "upgraded" over a weekend, but when we came in on Monday morning, it was the same old, threadbare carpet, but they had stitched the gaps closed with what looked like heavy fishing line. So, instead of gaps every 6 feet or so, we had what looked like Frankenstein's forehead. 

[blueglass]

We had a missionary give a talk in our sacrament meeting this past sunday where he started out talking frankly about how much he disliked his mission, that he felt it was a waste of time and that he hates discussions about religion with people.  What was shocking is that he started out his talk in the present tense, not the past tense that maybe he started out that way and grew to enjoy it by the end of the mission.   He said he's really good at sports and playing futbol, so he was originally excited to go down to brazil and play futbol while on his mission.  While serving he broke his foot and was sent back to the states for recuperation while his foot was in a boot.  He then served for 7months in the NE area where his companion was high functioning autistic but had extreme anxiety in social situations.  His companion did not want to leave the apartment, and they did very little proselyting over 5 months.  He said he felt it was a waste of time, although the companions mother wrote glowing letters about what a great friend /companion he was to her son.   

[jkwilliams]

2 minutes ago, blueglass said:

We had a missionary give a talk in our sacrament meeting this past sunday where he started out talking frankly about how much he disliked his mission, that he felt it was a waste of time and that he hates discussions about religion with people.  What was shocking is that he started out his talk in the present tense, not the past tense that maybe he started out that way and grew to enjoy it by the end of the mission.   He said he's really good at sports and playing futbol, so he was originally excited to go down to brazil and play futbol while on his mission.  While serving he broke his foot and was sent back to the states for recuperation while his foot was in a boot.  He then served for 7months in the NE area where his companion was high functioning autistic but had extreme anxiety in social situations.  His companion did not want to leave the apartment, and they did very little proselyting over 5 months.  He said he felt it was a waste of time, although the companions mother wrote glowing letters about what a great friend /companion he was to her son.   

Another one of my son's friends in Texas shocked me when he decided to go on a mission. My son told me that his parents had agreed to pay for his tuition at Texas A&M if he served a mission. A couple of months later, my son was playing video games and said, "Kyle made it to Mexico City." I asked him how he knew, and he said, "I'm playing against him and his companion." 

[rongo]

5 minutes ago, blueglass said:

We had a missionary give a talk in our sacrament meeting this past sunday where he started out talking frankly about how much he disliked his mission, that he felt it was a waste of time and that he hates discussions about religion with people.  What was shocking is that he started out his talk in the present tense, not the past tense that maybe he started out that way and grew to enjoy it by the end of the mission.   He said he's really good at sports and playing futbol, so he was originally excited to go down to brazil and play futbol while on his mission.  While serving he broke his foot and was sent back to the states for recuperation while his foot was in a boot.  He then served for 7months in the NE area where his companion was high functioning autistic but had extreme anxiety in social situations.  His companion did not want to leave the apartment, and they did very little proselyting over 5 months.  He said he felt it was a waste of time, although the companions mother wrote glowing letters about what a great friend /companion he was to her son.   

What do you think he thought the point of his talk was? I'm not one to insist on only Polyanna feel-good talks, but c'mon! Better to decline the invitation than to just talk about what a waste of time you thought your mission was. 

How was this talk received? Did you like the talk? 

There's frankness, and then there's just a general slacker jerkiness about this, based on this. Maybe it's an unfair representation of the whole talk, I don't know. 

[cinepro]

23 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Bearing a testimony presupposes a previous spiritual experience.  

Spiritual Experince --> A Measure of Faith --> Bearing of Testimony --> A Greater Measure of Faith

Repeat as needed.

I don't think the Church wants anyone to bear testimony of things they don't believe in yet.  To testify is to share what you have experienced.

That's not a testimony, then.  It's just a statement about what others believe.

Thanks,

-Smac

While the math on that might seem rock solid, there are a whole host of other factors at play that should probably be considered. 

The act of "bearing testimony" invokes deep psychological reactions that are totally separate from any spiritual factors.  If you stand up and publicly state any belief, your mind goes into overdrive to interpret everything you see to support that belief.

It's not a testimony thing.  It's not a church thing.  It's a human thing. 

Relevant TedX talk:

https://www.ted.com/talks/julia_galef_why_you_think_you_re_right_even_if_you_re_wrong?language=en

Relevant comic:

Edited August 24, 2018 by cinepro

[jkwilliams]

Just now, rongo said:

What do you think he thought the point of his talk was? I'm not one to insist on only Polyanna feel-good talks, but c'mon! Better to decline the invitation than to just talk about what a waste of time you thought your mission was. 

How was this talk received? Did you like the talk? 

There's frankness, and then there's just a general slacker jerkiness about this, based on this. Maybe it's an unfair representation of the whole talk, I don't know. 

Maybe he felt he couldn't get out of it, so he decided just to say what he thought. I don't know. I've mentioned I have a friend who refuses to talk about his mission, even after 30 years. When he returned home, he refused to give a homecoming talk and declined assignments to speak with the high councilors.

[jkwilliams]

1 minute ago, cinepro said:

While the math on that might seem rock solid, there are a whole host of other factors at play that should probably be considered. 

The act of "bearing testimony" invokes deep psychological reactions that are totally separate from any spiritual factors.  If you stand up and publicly state any belief, your mind goes into overdrive to interpret everything you see to support that belief.

It's not a testimony thing.  It's not a church thing.  It's a human thing. 

https://www.ted.com/talks/julia_galef_why_you_think_you_re_right_even_if_you_re_wrong?language=en

I admit I'm a little puzzled by the accounts of missions in which almost everyone had a testimony, and people who bore testimony had definitely had a spiritual witness. I haven't even been in many wards like that. I wonder where I was when all of this was happening. 

[rongo]

Just now, jkwilliams said:

Maybe he felt he couldn't get out of it, so he decided just to say what he thought. I don't know. I've mentioned I have a friend who refuses to talk about his mission, even after 30 years. When he returned home, he refused to give a homecoming talk and declined assignments to speak with the high councilors.

Which is more noble and classy than giving a slacker jerk talk. 

I imagine you're right, and he felt (for whatever reason) that he couldn't get out of it, but the "cool, dude, I hated my mish" vibe about this bugs me. 

[SouthernMo]

14 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

The church can be frugal when it wants to be. When I worked in the COB, the carpets were gold colored and very old. I was told they were original to the building (at that time the building was 20 years old). Almost every seam between sections of carpet had split, leaving large gaps where the worn gray carpet pad showed through. Finally, we were told the carpets would be "upgraded" over a weekend, but when we came in on Monday morning, it was the same old, threadbare carpet, but they had stitched the gaps closed with what looked like heavy fishing line. So, instead of gaps every 6 feet or so, we had what looked like Frankenstein's forehead. 

Oh, yes. It can be quite frugal. The PM group is known to pinch pennies. I know for a fact that one congregation in Wisconsin had so many members attending that they were breaking the fire code in the chapel.  The young men literally met in the member custodial closet. The PM group told them that the branch needed more members to attend before they would consider expanding the building.

Our current building was completed in 1962 (Thanks, Henry D. Moyle!), has regular cockroaches scurry around, both tiny bathrooms do not accommodate wheelchairs, and smell of urine.  The baptismal font has a pool skimmer to get bugs out of the water before baptisms.

The PM group says there is no funds available to do anything about it, except for buy cleaning supplies for the members and send an exterminator twice a year.

The Church wallets aren’t always wide open!

[jkwilliams]

7 minutes ago, rongo said:

Which is more noble and classy than giving a slacker jerk talk. 

I imagine you're right, and he felt (for whatever reason) that he couldn't get out of it, but the "cool, dude, I hated my mish" vibe about this bugs me. 

Who knows? I respect that more than the guys who were terrible missionaries but act as if they were super-righteous when they return home. We had a guy in my mission who had been sent to one of the "punishment" areas (the ones out in the middle of nowhere without phones so he couldn't annoy the mission president). When I later served in that town (new MP, so not a punishment), the landlady and the branch members confirmed the rumors everyone had heard about his drinking and sleeping around. When the mission extension happened, he was staying at our house, and he tearfully told the mission president he was going to make up for lost time and stay the extra 6 months. A month later, I was told to rush through his exit papers, as he had decided his family needed him at home. When he arrived to go home, one of the office elders asked him why he was going home, and he said, "I decided I like dark meat too much." He told of meeting a Bolivian girl on the train and ending up in bed with her the next night, so he figured he'd better cut his losses and go home. A few years later, I read a story in the Ensign about a miraculous healing performed by two missionaries in Bolivia, and I wondered why I'd never heard that story before. I looked at the author and discovered it was Elder "Dark Meat."

Edited August 24, 2018 by jkwilliams

[blueglass]

12 minutes ago, rongo said:

What do you think he thought the point of his talk was? I'm not one to insist on only Polyanna feel-good talks, but c'mon! Better to decline the invitation than to just talk about what a waste of time you thought your mission was. 

How was this talk received? Did you like the talk? 

There's frankness, and then there's just a general slacker jerkiness about this, based on this. Maybe it's an unfair representation of the whole talk, I don't know. 

The end of the talk was a little better where he asked the members what kind of devotion they held to the gospel.  He asked 2 questions, are you the kind of member that reads the scriptures with your family only 2 or 3 days a week?  Do you go to a ministry visit and cut your visit short to go see a Padres game on television?  He said that we need to be truly devoted to the Lord to receive blessings rather than going through the motions.   Then he gave his testimony of the atonement of jesus christ by giving an example about his bald head.  He said he is really devoted to keeping his hair as short as possible.  Recently he decided to try to use Nair on his head to remove the hair for longer term.  He said he got chemical burns on his head and that it really hurt.  He then ended his talk explaining that that's what the atonement is for, that we can trust in the savior because he knows what Nair on your head feel like.  

Others in the congregation loved the talk.  They were on the edge of their seats and a lot of people came up to talk to him.  He's a pretty good looking, athletic kid.  He said he has no idea what to do next now that his mission is over and he's "trying to figure things out".

Edited August 24, 2018 by blueglass

[jkwilliams]

1 minute ago, blueglass said:

The end of the talk was a little better where he asked the members what kind of devotion they held to the gospel.  He asked 3 questions, are you the kind of member that reads the scriptures with you family only 2 or 3 days a week?  Do you go to a ministry visit and cut your visit short to go see a Padres game on television?  He said that we need to be truly devoted to the Lord to receive blessings rather than going through the motions.   Then he gave his testimony of the atonement of jesus christ by giving an example about his bald head.  He said he is really devoted to keeping his hair as short as possible.  Recently he decided to try to use Nair on his head to remove the hair for longer term.  He said he got chemical burns on his head and that it really hurt.  He then ended his talk explaining that that's what the atonement is for, that we can trust in the savior because he knows what Nair on your head feel like.  

Others in the congregation loved the talk.  They were on the edge of their seats and a lot of people came up to talk to him.  He's a pretty good looking, athletic kid.  He said he has no idea what to do next now that his mission is over and he's "trying to figure things out".

That must have been a really strange sacrament meeting. 

[smac97]

7 minutes ago, cinepro said:

While the math on that might seem rock solid, there are a whole host of other factors at play that should probably be considered. 

The act of "bearing testimony" invokes deep psychological reactions that are totally separate from any spiritual factors. 

It can I suppose.  I'm not sure it must, though.

7 minutes ago, cinepro said:

If you stand up and publicly state any belief, your mind goes into overdrive to interpret everything you see to support that belief.

But I think the concept of "testimony" under discussion is a bit different.

I can publicly state my beliefs and opinions about a street-widening project in Provo, or the Mueller investigation, or whether Star Wars really merits the accolades it receives versus just coasting on nostalgia.  These things are matters of opinion, and conclusions based thereon.

In contrast, to bear a testimony in Sacrament Meeting is - or should be - to testify of what I have experienced in terms of faith in Jesus Christ.  At its core, my testimony is that the Spirit has testified of Jesus Christ to me.  It is something that has been given to me from God.

By way of example, consider the general categories of witnesses that can be called to testify in a legal dispute.  One set is "percipient" witnesses (aka "fact witnesses"), who testify about what they have personally experienced.  The other is "expert" witnesses who are asked to testify "because of special knowledge or proficiency in a particular field that is relevant to the case."

I think we supposed to be more like a "percipient witness" than an "expert witness."  We should testify of what we have learned through study and which has been confirmed by the Spirit.

Thanks,

-Smac

[cinepro]

16 minutes ago, smac97 said:

It can I suppose.  I'm not sure it must, though.

But I think the concept of "testimony" under discussion is a bit different.

I can publicly state my beliefs and opinions about a street-widening project in Provo, or the Mueller investigation, or whether Star Wars really merits the accolades it receives versus just coasting on nostalgia.  These things are matters of opinion, and conclusions based thereon.

In contrast, to bear a testimony in Sacrament Meeting is - or should be - to testify of what I have experienced in terms of faith in Jesus Christ.  At its core, my testimony is that the Spirit has testified of Jesus Christ to me.  It is something that has been given to me from God.

By way of example, consider the general categories of witnesses that can be called to testify in a legal dispute.  One set is "percipient" witnesses (aka "fact witnesses"), who testify about what they have personally experienced.  The other is "expert" witnesses who are asked to testify "because of special knowledge or proficiency in a particular field that is relevant to the case."

I think we supposed to be more like a "percipient witness" than an "expert witness."  We should testify of what we have learned through study and which has been confirmed by the Spirit.

Thanks,

-Smac

In cases of perceived "fact", the psychological effects are amplified, not diminished, compared to "opinion."

Once you say "I know (such and such)", you've locked your mental machinery into place and your brain will work overtime to collect data that supports that statement, and diminish or reinterpret (or ignore) data that contradicts is.

And a testimony is a statement of opinion worded as a statement of fact.    No one says "I have had strong feelings that I interpret to be the supernatural influence of what we believe is God, and based on these strong feelings I am confident but not certain that the claims of the CoJCoLdS are true." 

We just use shorthand to present it as if it were knowledge, because if we were clear about the number of assumptions going into that line of reasoning, it would be obvious how tenuous that "knowledge" actually is.

[Tacenda]

14 hours ago, california boy said:

Yes, I knew I was gay since I was 12 years old.  I had so much guilt that I thought if only I did everything God asked me to do to the best of my ablility, God would take this burden from.me.  So I was the kid that was the deacons, teacher, priest, president.  Never drank alcohol even when other church friends did. You get the picture.  This feeling of shame was so deep, I couldn't and didn't tell anyone.  Going on a mission was part of this, in my mind, redemption process that never happened.  I thought that as evil as I was, if I served a mission, when I stood before God and He condemned me for being gay, I could at least say, yes, but I gave two years of service to You.  

You have to remember this is the time when everyone was following Spencer W. Kimball's pronouncements about gays in HIs Miracle of Forgiveness.  It was a book widely read at the time, including by me.  Imagine how many times I read this line in bold.

Note his definition of homosexuality in bold.   This perversion is defined as “sexual desire for those of the same sex or sexual relations between individuals of the same sex

That was me listening to an apostle of God telling me how evil and what a horrible person I was and if I only bloodied my knuckles enough, I too could become straight.  

 

My last effort to purge this vile nature I had been cursed with by God was to marry because church leaders promised that if I did I would no longer be gay, which is how I ended up being married.

This is the book my father gave me to read when I finally revealed my deep dark secret to my family.  Of course, I had already read it.  Fortunately, by then I no longer believed that the prophet and apostles speak for God.  What I did know is there clearly was no place in the church for me.

Probably more than you wanted to know.  But sometimes context is important.  This was my life, not some story told in a book written by an apostle.  This book is still available on Amazon.

 

CB I'm so very grateful you are alive after living through all of that. I worked with someone today and she told me her brother committed suicide back in the eighties, and he was gay.

I know these messages that SWK and BKP (Boyd K. Packer), didn't help. In fact I could almost say with certainty, but won't, that these messages contributed to gays feeling as you have and taking their lives.

I'm grateful the sun has shone on this mindset and the harm it can cause. 

[blueglass]

21 hours ago, jkwilliams said:

That must have been a really strange sacrament meeting. 

It was strange.  I thought the talk needed some work.

Edited August 25, 2018 by blueglass
not uplifting