Nonnegotiable

[bluebell]

6 minutes ago, rongo said:

Yeah, that's pretty much what I've found (your statement made me curious). 

Her driving days are over, unless she visits people with the sisters(they're excited to have someone who might be able to later during the day).  Her mission doesn't have many cars.

Where is she serving in England?  My husband served his mission over there.

[The Nehor]

1 minute ago, bluebell said:

It was actually really nice.  Afterwards all the men came over individually to shake our hands and wish him well.  We have a really great stake.  I'm sorry your experience after your mission wasn't great.  I was supposed to report to the high council after mine but somehow I fell through the cracks and never had to.  I was not sad about that.

It was also awkward since before my mission I knew a lot of them and knew the stake president and his family. All that had changed. Same in my home ward. New bishop when the old one was one of the greatest men I ever knew. That is not to be harsh on the new bishop. That bishop’s wife became my mom’s best friend for several years before dying. That was also how I learned how the First Presidency feels about keeping around single bishops.

[rongo]

2 minutes ago, bluebell said:

Where is she serving in England?  My husband served his mission over there.

Germany, Austria, Switzerland (Alpine Mission). The England MTC is her assigned MTC.

[rongo]

17 minutes ago, bluebell said:

If it actually has worked really well and is helping the majority of the missionaries, then why would you hope it stops?

Most we've talked to didn't like it, and much preferred whatever in person MTC they had (many had the while thing on zoom). We've picked all the sisters' brains when they're over to eat.

The Church News propaganda pieces paint an "everything is awesome!" picture about home MTC, where all interviewed missionaries can only gush about how awesome and effective it is, (and what else would the Church News say, really?), but most people prefer in person anything to zoom.

[rongo]

My personal preference would be no MTC, and put more weight on the trainers for language and "how to do it" missionary work. Language acquisition really only takes off in field, and the first month could include more intense language study before work (grammar, vocab, etc.). Ditto with role plays, teaching practice, etc. I think missionaries could profitably go right away and have more mission time. But, there would probably be more depression/anxiety with less "easing into it" like MTC provides. The big plus the Church has touted is that they have fewer leaving the mission completely with home MTC. So, for 2022 youth, it's probably a good thing. 

[Tacenda]

3 hours ago, bluebell said:

I hope your SIL gets better quickly.  That would be heartbreaking to miss a trip getting sick again.  Just so you are aware, the temple has changed a lot of their presentation so that there is very very little close contact.

Thanks, we are on a text thread and a few minutes ago now a BIL from a different couple has just tested positive for covid and has a fever of a 105. Wow!

Oh, and most of them aren't vaxxed and non believers that masks work. And I feel like I'm going into the fire by even going. I was super worried about going in the first place because they play a lot of card games when we go on these vacations. We're actually going to Vegas, for the warmth and doing some cool hikes. They all got appointments for the Vegas temple. And pre-bought tickets to a family Vegas act.

Also, for a planning-before-we-go get together, when I mentioned we could wear masks if anyone is worried about covid, they pretty much laughed that off, this was a few weeks ago.

[Scott Lloyd]

30 minutes ago, bluebell said:

I was wondering about that and not looking forward to being stuck at home all day long or having to drag my son out with me on errands.  Good to know the instructions.

It worked out well for us, because I had retired by then and could easily manage staying home with him. It would not be so easy now that I’ve taken on a new job. 

[bluebell]

23 hours ago, rongo said:

Most we've talked to didn't like it, and much preferred whatever in person MTC they had (many had the while thing on zoom). We've picked all the sisters' brains when they're over to eat.

The Church News propaganda pieces paint an "everything is awesome!" picture about home MTC, where all interviewed missionaries can only gush about how awesome and effective it is, (and what else would the Church News say, really?), but most people prefer in person anything to zoom.

Do you believe the church would continue to do something that wasn't actually working well, even after it didn't have to anymore?  What would be the point of continuing to do the first days at at-home MTC after covid if the positives are just propaganda and not reality for the majority of missionaries?

[rongo]

4 hours ago, bluebell said:

Do you believe the church would continue to do something that wasn't actually working well, even after it didn't have to anymore?  What would be the point of continuing to do the first days at at-home MTC after covid if the positives are just propaganda and not reality for the majority of missionaries?

Yes, I do, but it depends on what we're talking about. I think that for a while now the missionary program has been less about missionary work, and more about trying to stop the hemorrhaging of young adults (i.e., a sort of missionary program -lite that is more of a young adult activities program than what was known as missionary work). Since the worldwide leadership training many years ago when the "hastening devices" (then iPads, later smart phones) were announced, and tracting de-emphasized, almost all missions have implemented things that minimize finding and maximize "downtime" (e.g., there are far more zone and district meetings). Missionaries spend a lot of time at the church; ostensibly, in case there are walk-ins, but in reality, so they aren't out getting anxiety and depression from rejection (a 70 told our stake around this time that it is our responsibility to see that our missionaries never have negative experiences and only have positive ones). 

Under this, I think that keeping home MTC as part of the program has more to do with perceived benefits in helping young adults transition into the field than it has to do with effective training of missionaries. So, if the "working well" part is "keeping them from wanting to go home or having mental health issues," that is a different question from "effectively preparing them to find, teach, and baptize people." I think we all know that baptisms are w-a-y down, despite being told often that we are teaching and baptizing more than ever before under these new programs. 

I personally don't think the coddling baked into the new missionary program prevents depression, anxiety, and early returns --- I think they make it worse.

[bluebell]

38 minutes ago, rongo said:

 

I personally don't think the coddling baked into the new missionary program prevents depression, anxiety, and early returns --- I think they make it worse.

So you think more missionaries are going home now than were going home before these changes were made?  If yes, then why would the church continue to do something that is having the opposite effect than what it wants?

I've never heard about missionaries spending time at the church in case of walk ins.  Is that in specific areas?  They aren't doing it here in my area or in my parents area (they live in a different state than I do).

[rongo]

10 minutes ago, bluebell said:

So you think more missionaries are going home now than were going home before these changes were made? 

I do.

10 minutes ago, bluebell said:

If yes, then why would the church continue to do something that is having the opposite effect than what it wants?

Because there are a number of contributing factors; it's not just one single thing (Covid restrictions, the nature of 2022 missionary work and mission life, the nature of Millennial/GenAlpha, etc.). Inertia and institutional momentum is hard to overcome, perhaps nowhere as much as in the Missionary Department. Plus, after the years of touting and insisting that things are better than ever, these changes are awesome, etc. it would be hard to starkly acknowledge that they were wrong by retrenching or reverting (even only in certain areas). 

10 minutes ago, bluebell said:

I've never heard about missionaries spending time at the church in case of walk ins.  Is that in specific areas?  They aren't doing it here in my area or in my parents area (they live in a different state than I do).

This has been piloted (our mission was one of them). Even after the pilot, if you go to the church at any given time of any given day, you see cars with bike racks on the back, and you go in and they are playing around on the piano or "planning" on their phones. This is by design.

Edited February 7, 2022 by rongo

[bluebell]

19 minutes ago, rongo said:

I do.

Because there are a number of contributing factors; it's not just one single thing (Covid restrictions, the nature of 2022 missionary work and mission life, the nature of Millennial/GenAlpha, etc.). Inertia and institutional momentum is hard to overcome, perhaps nowhere as much as in the Missionary Department. Plus, after the years of touting and insisting that things are better than ever, these changes are awesome, etc. it would be hard to starkly acknowledge that they were wrong by retrenching or reverting (even only in certain areas). 

This has been piloted (our mission was one of them). Even after the pilot, if you go to the church at any given time of any given day, you see cars with bike racks on the back, and you go in and they are playing around on the piano or "planning" on their phones. This is by design.

Where's the data so we can know that it's worse now than it was before?  I'm not sure where that idea is coming from.  Do you have an inside source?

[Hamba Tuhan]

20 minutes ago, bluebell said:

I've never heard about missionaries spending time at the church in case of walk ins.  Is that in specific areas?  They aren't doing it here in my area or in my parents area (they live in a different state than I do).

They aren't doing it in my area, either, and never have. In fact, the only person I've ever heard this from is @rongo.

And the reality is that our mission is currently seeing historically high levels of success. Our stake had convert baptisms in the double digits last year (despite the pandemic and being locked down for months), every one of whom is still active. (One of the converts in my ward helped bring her less-active friend back to church, and now the latter will be starting mission prep this week. Exciting!)

I've seen zero desire from missionaries to be stuck in their flats contacting people online, but they've bucked up and done it anyway during these difficult times, and their experience is that, done well, it works. I had one of our recently returned missionaries come and speak to my mission prep class a few months ago about her 'conversion' to online proselyting and the success that resulted from her efforts once she got over her resistance to the idea (based, she said, on her mental preconceptions of what missionary work should be).

[Hamba Tuhan]

21 minutes ago, rongo said:

Inertia and institutional momentum is hard to overcome ...

This from the man who repeatedly insists that unless missionary work resembles door-to-door contacting in a German winter 30 years ago, it's wrong ...

[bluebell]

Just now, Hamba Tuhan said:

They aren't doing it in my area, either, and never have. In fact, the only person I've ever heard this from is @rongo.

And the reality is that our mission is currently seeing historically high levels of success. Our stake had convert baptisms in the double digits last year (despite the pandemic and being locked down for months), every one of whom is still active. (One of the converts in my ward helped bring her less-active friend back to church, and now the latter will be starting mission prep this week. Exciting!)

I've seen zero desire from missionaries to be stuck in their flats contacting people online, but they've bucked up and done it anyway during these difficult times, and their experience is that, done well, it works. I had one of our recently returned missionaries come and speak to my mission prep class a few months ago about her 'conversion' to online proselyting and the success that resulted from her efforts once she got over her resistance to the idea (based, she said, on her mental preconceptions of what missionary work should be).

When we were at the high council meeting yesterday they had a returning missionary reporting before my son's turn, and he said the same thing.  That he was amazed at how well missionary work was going using social media because he didn't think it was going to work at all.  He had transferred from Brazil (where he was having a lot of success) to a montana mission when covid happened, and the change was a bit hard for him.  He was asked to share an experience from his mission that had the biggest impact on him and he chose to share one that focused on finding contacts through Facebook.

My parents just happen to live in the same mission that he was sent to (small world), and though it's a small town of 6,000 people, their missionaries are teaching and baptizing like crazy.  More now than they have in quite a few years.  Their ward had three convert baptisms in the last two months.  And so far they are staying active.

Change is hard for people, and I think it's easy to get stuck in the "if it was good enough for me...." mentality. 

[Hamba Tuhan]

3 hours ago, bluebell said:

He had transferred from Brazil (where he was having a lot of success) to a montana mission when covid happened, and the change was a bit hard for him.

Love your whole post! But I want to comment on this point.

In many ways, we've put our young missionaries through the wringer over the past two years. We have an Elder in our ward who desperately hoped to serve in Japan. Receiving a call to serve there thrilled him. He then completed his MTC training in Provo and spent only one month in Japan before being sent home because of Covid. He was eventually reassigned to our mission, and he has been in our ward for about eight months now.

During this time, he has had a series of short-term companions, many of them waiting for border restrictions to ease before they could travel to their assigned missions. His last companion was our first international missionary for a long time. His current companion appears to have a mild intellectually disability. During his time in our ward, he has faced a bewildering array of ever-shifting public health restrictions. He has been locked down more than once, including because of close exposure to active Covid cases. Two weeks ago in our missionary coordination meeting, he let us know that every single appointment the previous week had cancelled because people were in isolation/quarantine because of the rapid spread of Omicron in our community. Where possible, they just shifted appointments to online, but in many cases people were just too sick to engage.

Nothing I experienced as a full-time missionary comes even close to this. Nothing.

I took this Elder and his previous companion caving on the P-day right after Christmas. Whilst eating lunch, this Elder explained that literally no aspect of his mission has gone 'according to plan' but that he's just tried his best to be a good missionary. Indeed he has. And he has helped bring two new members into the Restored Church and our ward in the process.

The idea that we have somehow been 'coddling' our missionaries makes me indignant. We have been asking them to do amazing things. God bless them for their resilience, dedication and goodness! And God bless your son for his desire to serve!

All but one of my mission prep students from last year is now serving or has her/his call. (The other one showed up at my house unannounced Tuesday night, and I still have hope for him.) At the beginning of the year, many of them were unsure whether they should wait for the craziness to calm down. In the end, they've all decided to just embrace the craziness head-on in faith. I love every one of them!

Edited February 8, 2022 by Hamba Tuhan

[rongo]

12 hours ago, bluebell said:

Where's the data so we can know that it's worse now than it was before?  I'm not sure where that idea is coming from.  Do you have an inside source?

https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/april-2021-general-conference-statistical-report

We dropped to 125,000 baptisms as of the last accounting. While one could point to the Covid years, this runs counter to the narrative that we are teaching and baptizing more than ever before with fewer missionaries, using smart phones. We literally haven't been.

12 hours ago, bluebell said:

My parents just happen to live in the same mission that he was sent to (small world), and though it's a small town of 6,000 people, their missionaries are teaching and baptizing like crazy. 

Maybe rural Montana and Hamba's Malaysia are producing all of these baptisms.  I know that the Czech/Slovak mission had zero baptisms in 2020 (my parents were the office couple, and they had a front row seat for a 100% emphasis on missionaries' mental health, and a 0% emphasis on missionary work. The results weren't a surprise at all. Missionaries were told to not worry about learning the language, just focus on keeping depression and anxiety at bay. Not surprisingly, this led to the problems that they were trying to avoid). I know of many other missions, anecdotally. I've shared before about our friend's reassignment to West Virginia, where they weren't allowed to meet with people **or** use social media. Companion study, board games, and working out were all they could do for a year, and West Virginia was not a Covid hotbed or inclined towards heavy restrictions. It was solely the orientation of the mission president. 

8 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

The idea that we have somehow been 'coddling' our missionaries makes me indignant. 

In a lot of ways, Malaysia would be very different from the U.S. There are still no American missionaries there, right? The coddling is primarily among North American and European missionaries, not natives, in my view. Natives are already not coddled by virtue of their own situations. 

For all of your stories, Malaysia still hasn't shown real growth. It still struggles mightily with priesthood leadership (our landlady at a previous house moved back to Malaysia, and was immediately made a RS president in her branch. She said the priesthood leadership situation is critical, and that cultural adultery is a huge factor disqualifying most men --- including her ex-husband).

https://www.cumorah.com/countries/viewReports/22/Malaysia

[Hamba Tuhan]

25 minutes ago, rongo said:

The coddling is primarily among North American and European missionaries, not natives, in my view. Natives are already not coddled by virtue of their own situations. 

Natives???

Quote

For all of your stories, Malaysia still hasn't shown real growth.

I don't live in Malaysia. I never have.

[Navidad]

On 1/27/2022 at 11:34 AM, teddyaware said:

Are baptism, the gift of the Holy Ghost, the ordinances of the temple, and the establishment of Zion non-essential to our salvation because they are appendages?

Hi if you are asking me, my answer would be yes - each of those are non-essential to salvation, but they are not non-essential to our Christian life, especially the first two. I know nothing about the last two. My faith has ordinances, but none of them have anything to do with salvation.

[rongo]

4 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Natives???

As opposed to "foreigners" (like Americans, for example).

4 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

I don't live in Malaysia. I never have.

And you never tell us where you live. Not Indonesia, and not Malaysia (despite a Malay user name). I don't know. Singapore? The Philippines? Papua New Guinea? 

Edited February 8, 2022 by rongo

[bluebell]

4 hours ago, rongo said:

https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/april-2021-general-conference-statistical-report

We dropped to 125,000 baptisms as of the last accounting. While one could point to the Covid years, this runs counter to the narrative that we are teaching and baptizing more than ever before with fewer missionaries, using smart phones. We literally haven't been.

I'm sincerely not sure where you are getting this narrative.  Where have they been telling us that overall they are teaching and baptizing more than ever before?  I know that's true for some areas (I've personally seen it) but I haven't been hearing that it's true for every area.  Can you share that source?

[Calm]

5 hours ago, rongo said:

And you never tell us where you live. Not Indonesia, and not Malaysia (despite a Malay user name). I don't know. Singapore? The Philippines? Papua New Guinea? 

And there is a good reason as his job could be risked if it were known as he has given enough context that if location were known, he could be identified.  You may want to know, but I don’t think it’s worth it or the least necessary.

[Hamba Tuhan]

9 hours ago, rongo said:

As opposed to "foreigners" (like Americans, for example).

So that would mean that, in America, you would refer to American missionaries as 'natives', right?

But now I'm really confused. Earlier you wrote the following:

11 hours ago, rongo said:

The coddling is primarily among North American and European missionaries, not natives, in my view. Natives are already not coddled by virtue of their own situations. 

You appear to be stating that North American and European missionaries are coddled when the serve as foreigners (i.e., outside their nations of origin), but when they serve as natives in their homelands, they aren't.

And how exactly does this work since you also wrote that coddling is 'baked into the new missionary program'. How exactly does something that is baked into the program distinguish between 'native' and 'foreign' missionaries? If a native missionary is serving with a foreign companion, what structures ensure that only one of them is coddled whilst the other one isn't?

[James 1 5]

9 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

So that would mean that, in America, you would refer to American missionaries as 'natives', right?

But now I'm really confused. Earlier you wrote the following:

You appear to be stating that North American and European missionaries are coddled when the serve as foreigners (i.e., outside their nations of origin), but when they serve as natives in their homelands, they aren't.

And how exactly does this work since you also wrote that coddling is 'baked into the new missionary program'. How exactly does something that is baked into the program distinguish between 'native' and 'foreign' missionaries? If a native missionary is serving with a foreign companion, what structures ensure that only one of them is coddled whilst the other one isn't?

Like one getting cookies while the other one doesn't get any?  Yeah I've seen that happen before.  WALLS will just come up to prevent one from getting some while the other one does.

This was an attempt to be funny.

[Peacefully]

On 2/6/2022 at 9:47 AM, bluebell said:

He did.  Nashville Tennessee mission, spanish speaking.  He starts home mtc Feb. 21st and then goes to the Mexico MTC a week and a half or so after that.  Then to Nashville in the beginning of April.

I’m out of rep points. Congrats:)