“So You’re Going on a Mission!” Deprogramming (Part 2) February 4, 2018
Posted by Ubi Dubium in Books, Rants, Responses.Tags: atheism, books, christianity, dating, missionaries, Mormons, religion
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So this will be the last post in this series, I think. It’s been interesting to peer into this world, where devoting two years of young adulthood to being an overworked salesman for a religion (at your own expense) is considered an important Thing To Do.
For anybody just joining us, a while back I found this book at a used booksale:
This is not the official LDS book of rules, this is supposed to be a helpful guide, based on the author’s experiences, and those of many returned missionaries she knew over the years. It was published in 1968, but it’s obvious that some of the advice and tips in it are from many years before that. I’ve been looking at it chapter by chapter, and it’s been interesting to see what’s changed, and what hasn’t. (more…)
“So You’re Going on a Mission!” Deprogramming (part 1) January 14, 2018
Posted by Ubi Dubium in Books, Responses.Tags: books, depression, missionaries, Mormons, religion, stress
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At last we are at the end of this book. (The 1968 guide for Mormon Missionaries, if you remember)
We’ve learned how to be a perfect Mormon robot, selling the product, living with no privacy, working incredibly hard every waking hour, not even thinking about subjects that aren’t approved to think about, and don’t forget to smile!
Now she’s finally going to talk about coming back home.
Chapter 23. The After-Mission Adjustment (more…)
“So You’re Going on a Mission!” Fun with Beans December 30, 2017
Posted by Ubi Dubium in Books, Humor, Responses.Tags: books, christianity, Games, missionaries, Mormons, religion
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We’re nearing the end of this book. (The 1968 guide for Mormon Missionaries, if you missed it.) I’m going to be quoting at length from some sections of this chapter, because it’s just priceless.
Chapter 22, Recreation
Chapter after chapter in this book, there’s been instructions about the correct way to work your butt off. Preach, cook, preach, clean, preach, wash, preach, write letters, preach, keep a journal, preach, and most especially DON’T EVER THINK ABOUT SEX.
Just reading about what these guys are expected to do is exhausting. So finally we get to a chapter about how to rest and unwind. Oh – not so fast now! (more…)
“So You’re Going on a Mission!” Money Money Money October 9, 2017
Posted by Ubi Dubium in Books, Humor, Responses.Tags: books, christianity, missionaries, money, Mormons
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My continuing series about the 1968 guidebook for Mormon Missionaries.
Chapter 19, Money Care.
So after dealing with the all-important consideration of scrapbooks, she finally gets around to lesser considerations, like budgets and spending.
“The money a missionary receives from home each month has usually already been tithed so that the missionary will not need to budget for tithing.” (pg 173)
If that were talking about taxes, I’d understand. But here she is addressing tithing as if it’s a mandatory taxation, and not a voluntary gift made to the church. That’s a lot of control this church has over their members’ finances, do they send bill collectors if you don’t pay up? (more…)
“So You’re Going on a Mission!” Journals October 8, 2017
Posted by Ubi Dubium in Books, Humor, Responses.Tags: books, christianity, journals, missionaries, Mormons, scrapbooks
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(Another installment of the continuing series on the 1968 guidebook for Missionaries I found at a used book sale.)
Chapter 18, Journal Care
“First let’s jump several years into your future. Your mission, “the greatest experience of my life,” is now buried deep beneath diploma, job, bills, and babies. Was it all a dream?” (pg 163)
If going on this mission was a greater life experience than having children, you’re doing it wrong, and probably should not be having children. But on to her topic this chapter, which is about documenting every moment of this two-year recruiting project. (more…)
“So You’re Going on a Mission!” Don’t forget to write! September 22, 2017
Posted by Ubi Dubium in Books, Humor, Responses.Tags: books, christianity, correspondence, missionaries, Mormons
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Continuing my occasional series on the 1968 guidebook for Mormon Missionaries.
Chapter 17, Letter Care
So as I’ve mentioned before, these missionaries are thrown into a strange place, cut off from family and friends, and expected to sell religion door-to-door for many hours a week, and also expected to study, practice their presentations, go to church, and maintain perfect clothes and grooming, clean quarters, impeccable table manners, do all their own shopping, cooking, cleaning and laundry, as well as possibly needing to learn a foreign language on top of that. And the added stress of being assigned to spend 24 hours a day with a stranger.
You’d think that would be enough to expect from these kids. Oh no, we have to dump another expectation on top of the already impossible standards they are expected to meet. They have to write home. Every single week, on their one day off, the day when they are supposed to do all their shopping and laundry and any other errands, they need to add this too. (more…)
“So You’re Going on a Mission!” Communicating August 9, 2017
Posted by Ubi Dubium in Books, Humor, Responses.Tags: books, christianity, communication, etiquette, Mormons, religion
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Continuing with my chapter-by-chapter review of the 1968 guidebook for prospective Mormon missionaries. I’ve been away from this series for a long time, let’s get back to it. Chapter 16: Conversation Care.
So far, there has been a lot of bad advice in this book, a lot of condescension, and quite a few amusingly outdated attitudes. But finally we’ve come to a chapter where our author actually has mostly good advice for these kids! Apparently she has enough experience with talking to people that she knows her stuff here. Mostly.
Her advice includes:
- Paying attention to first impressions.
- Avoiding bad grammar, slang, and pretentious vocabulary.
- Maintaining a tone of voice that is not harsh, loud, or monotonous.
- Avoiding profanity.
- Listening more than you talk, and not monopolizing a conversation.
- Avoiding off-color stories, and long boring personal stories.
- Avoiding gossiping or bragging.
- Avoiding responding to insults to your home country in kind.
- Not fidgeting or chewing gum.
- Looking to the people around you for cues as to appropriate formality in speech.
- Not embarrassing someone for not remembering your name.
This is all good stuff, and should be observed by anyone who is trying to persuade people through conversation.
However, sometimes her good advice comes crashing back down into preachiness:
“Keep an open mind and never be afraid to listen to another version of truth. Learn to say, “I think” or “It seems to me” except, of course, when it comes to talking about the gospel and bearing your testimony; then you always say “I know.” (pg 147)
And she concludes with a complicated discussion about making introductions, and whose name you should mention first. I remember seeing similar sets of rules for this when I was a child, and I don’t remember ever having occasion to use them. Here’s her rules:
“Rule I: Introduce the younger person to the older. This means you say the older person’s name first…
Rule II: Introduce the male to the female. This means you say the female’s name first…
Rule III: Introduce the less important person to the more important. This means you say the more important person’s name first.” (pg 149)
And then this:
“Unfortunately there will be a few times when these rules will have to be broken. Perhaps you’ll need to introduce an elderly man to an important man, or an important man to a woman. In such cases, rule breaking is based on respect. The very old person’s name is said first to show respect for old age, and the person holding an important church or civic position is mentioned first to show respect for a man of his stature and office.” (pg 150)
I’m still confused. What if you need to introduce a fairly important person to a rather old person? Or an important woman to an elderly man? (Oh, silly me! This is Mormonism, there is no such thing as an important woman!)
But my real problem with these rules is that it forces the person making the introductions to make value judgments about people, and letting them know how you judged them. You have to evaluate whether a person is more important than the other person is old, or whether someone’s importance or age places them ahead of women in introductions. I hate this whole thing! By the simple act of helping people get to know each other, you might inadvertently offend somebody! And you sometimes have to make these snap judgement on the spot, too. And there are things that you might have wanted to consider, such as which person you know better, or which person you arrived with, or who you are currently talking to, and none of these are allowed to be considered in this artificial system. Let’s just have nametags and be done with it.
“So You’re Going on a Mission!” Missionaries Behaving Badly October 20, 2016
Posted by Ubi Dubium in Books, Humor, Responses.Tags: books, christianity, Holidays, missionaries, Mormons, religion, shenanigans
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Continuing with my chapter-by-chapter review of the 1968 guidebook for prospective missionaries:
Chapter 15. Skeletons in Missionary Closets
(Content advisory: animal cruelty)
A whole chapter on misbehavior! Let’s see where this goes.
“While fulfilling a mission is a great privilege, it is also a great responsibility. Everything you say or do is being recorded in somebody’s mind for good or ill.” (pg 136)
So we start right out with setting an impossible standard that 19-year-old boys really can’t be expected to live up to. And then?
“A tactful missionary will not step over his bounds; he will respect other people’s beliefs rather than argue with them; he will not laugh at quaint or unusual mannerisms or customs but will view them so sympathetically as to adopt them as his own, at least during his mission; he will not criticize the people, the bus system, the food, the toilet tissue which might bear a strong resemblance to either wax paper or sandpaper, nor the beds which he suspects were invented for medieval torture chambers. Rather, he will admire what these people do have, realizing that all persons are entitled to hold good opinions of themselves and their country, and that they are happy the way they live and are proud of their backgrounds and country just as we are of ours.” (pp 136-137)
Right. Respect their beliefs, then tell them that they are completely wrong about everything they think about religion and have to change to what you think. Good plan.
So, as this author usually does, she harps on manners. She gives us a couple of examples on the necessity of thanking people. The first story I think really shows how outdated this book has become: A missionary had to be hospitalized, and of course didn’t have the money to pay for it. A local Mormon paid for his treatment, and the missionary never bothered to thank him. The author says about the Mormon: “She told herself to forget it since it wasn’t a matter of great consequence…” Nowadays, there’s no way that a hospital bill could be considered a matter of no consequence, it would be a huge financial outlay and a really big deal.
The second story also includes somebody being extremely rude, but I don’t think I agree with the author as to who the rude people were.
“One mission president and his wife decided to surprise their missionaries with a big Christmas dinner. Turkey was scarce in this distant land…. His wife worked in the kitchen for days making all the trimmings to go with the turkey, but they both felt rewarded just anticipating the eyes that would sparkle and the mouths that would water as the door of the dining room was opened at the climactic moment to show the festive table. On Christmas morning the missionaries all arrived for a brief meeting following which the mission president happily announced that they were all to stay for dinner. Just as he was opening the door into the beautifully decorated dining room, two elders blurted out “Do we have to stay? We were going to hit a flick.” (Go to a show.) With spirits somewhat dampened the mission president said “I think maybe you’ll want to stay when you see what we have planned for you.” Without so much as a single word of thanks, these same two elders complained to their mission president the following day that they got cheated out of their day off…and they had to go over to his house and eat that Christmas dinner!” (pp 137-8)
Somebody was rude here, but it wasn’t the missionaries. This mission president didn’t think that any of the 180 missionaries in attendance would have already made plans for christmas Day. Perhaps they were already invited to eat with local friends, perhaps that was the one day in the whole year that they allowed themselves the luxury of a movie and already had tickets, perhaps they had spent the previous week being invited to christmas dinners at other houses, and stuffing themselves each night. This mission president just assumed that his idea of what a perfect christmas dinner should be would take precedence over the plans of all these other people, and that they should just drop everything they had on their schedule to stay for his dinner. It’s pretty clear that while these youngsters are expected to take on the responsibilities of an adult, in no other way is the hierarchy treating them like adults.
Now we come to a long section on “don’ts”, and bad examples.
“For instance, two elders in a playful manner placed a rubber band around a dog’s mouth, but they inadvertently forgot to take the elastic off when they went into the house for supper. For five days the poodle wouldn’t eat and the landlady couldn’t imagine what was wrong (the rubber band had worked down into the fur and couldn’t be seen). Finally she took the dog to a veterinarian who had to perform a minor operation in order to cut the elastic which had become embedded in the animal’s flesh.” (pg 138)
Playful manner? Really?
“In one of the foreign missions, a group of elders found some old American Remington and Winchester rifles. So great was their excitement at this unexpected discovery that it blurred their judgment and consideration for others: they climbed on top of the church and began shooting at stray cats. People throughout the neighborhood began saying “What’s the matter with those Mormons?” Then they began referring to the elders as ‘Latter-day Cat Haters.’ “(pg 138)
So remember, missionaries, don’t be cruel to animals because it makes Mormons look bad.
One lovely member lady actually said to a mission president’s wife “Please don’t send us any more missionaries – wait a few years until the town can forget the last two!’ ” (pg 138-9)
“An elder or sister who is living up to the ideals of missionary work will never do any of the following…”
15. Feel that just because a method works it is right. For instance, one elder resorted to many different tactics to gain entrance to people’s homes. When a lady opened her door, he would throw his hat in and then have to go in to get it. Or, he’d walk in without making any comment and then say, “I’ll get the table ready while you get your Bible.” …
18. Be impatient with those not ready to accept baptism. One elder actually pounded the table and said to an investigator, “You are ungrateful. You should be thankful that you have been called. You must join now when the call is upon you.” The woman was offended and has not joined to this day.” (pp 139-40)
So at least there are limits on sneakiness in getting your foot in the door to preach at people. Bait and switch is OK (as seen in a prior chapter), and cornering your seatmate on a plane, but not overt rudeness.
Next section is back to basics on manners, this time regarding relations with the landlord. Don’t be noisy, don’t leave a mess when you move out, pay your bills, etc. All really good advice.
And finally a long section on relations with Mormons who live in the area the missionary is working in. Mostly it boils down to “yes visit them, but remember to behave like a guest, and don’t take advantage of their hospitality.” I also think this section is more of a cautionary tale for Mormons living in areas where there are missionaries active.
“On her arrival, one mission president’s wife who sincerely wanted to be like a mother to all the missionaries living in the mission home made the statement ‘I want you to know that this is now your home,’ but it wasn’t long before she had to put little signs all over the house such as the one on the refrigerator which said “Keep out. For family use only.” (pp 142-3)
That was her mistake. If you tell a bunch of 19-year-olds to “make themselves at home”, then you should not be surprised if they put their feet on the furniture, eat all the food in in the fridge, leave dirty dishes in the sink, and borrow your stuff without asking.
I found this chapter somewhat refreshing. All through this book there’s been this impossibly high standard set for the missionaries, that they have to be perfect every moment, always smiling, always polite, and must never slack off or relax too much, or stop thinking about pushing their religion on everybody. Do the missionaries actually live up to this expectation? From reading all of the “don’t let this happen” examples in this chapter, it’s pretty clear that a lot of them don’t.
“So You’re Going on a Mission!” Sell the product September 14, 2016
Posted by Ubi Dubium in Books, Humor, Responses.Tags: books, christianity, Evangelists, missionaries, Mormons, religion, self-help, stupidity
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Continuing the series on the 1968 guidebook for prospective missionaries:
Chapter 13, Proselyting Care
(I still continue to find it very weird that this book says “proselyting” instead of “proselytizing” as most people do.)
So, we’ve been through chapters of advice on manners and laundry and packing and cooking, and all kinds of things that missionaries need to do, but we have finally come to the loooong chapter about the primary activity that the missionaries are supposed to do: sell the product.
Now, if you remember, right at the start the guidebook said it was not going address details of theology. So this chapter is about motivation and salesmanship. And as usual, there’s a mix of actual practical advice (like learn from people that have already been doing this, or be patient, or tolerant of a less motivated companion,) but also some really over-the-top instructions.
So what helpful advice does our guidebook have? It starts out this way:
“If you want to have a successful mission you must start out successfully. The magic formula is successful W O R K. Just as it is true that no one has yet devised a method for getting wheat out of straw except by threshing it, so it is true that no one has yet devised a method for baptizing people into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints without meeting with them and converting them. Such a supreme accomplishment is impossible for a missionary who is easygoing or lazy, sitting in his room all or part of the day, or indulging in too much social activity. The Lord has never said his work would be easy; he has promised that if you work, you’ll be happy doing what you came to do, while if you don’t, you’ll be nothing but miserable.” (pg 113)
So, right off the focus is work ethic, work makes you happy, don’t goof off. Relaxing too much will make you unhappy. What else does our author have to say about this work?
“Are you a cheerful happy friendly person who can smile and keep a song in your heart even though slapped down periodically by discouragement? … Remember a cheerful person is not one who has no problem; rather he is one who has made a habit not to wear his problems on his face nor reveal them in his tone of voice.” (pg 114)
“Can you jump in with both feet and forget yourself, your clothes, dates, friends at home, and personal pleasures, devoting yourself to your one purpose of fulfilling and honorable forceful mission?” (pg 114)
“HINT: If you don’t get going and do your job well, the whole district suffers.” (pg 115)
“Can you work as though the success of the whole mission depended on you but pray and have faith as though it all depended on the Lord?” (pg 115)
“Missionary work is a team effort from the mission president down to the greenest missionary. Success within the team rests solidly on respect for authority. … Obey their rules. Keep them whether you think they are important or not — even little ones.” (pg 115)
This is sounding more and more like a creepy cult. Don’t show how you feel, smile all the time, forget your own life, obey authority, and everybody else is depending on your doing this. Yeesh.
And you know how impossibly upbeat and smiley Mormon missionaries always are?
“Hallmarks of success as listed in the handbook of the Central Atlantic States Mission are:
- Be affirmative in your thinking and speech. Avoid negative words and phrases: “if,” “I hope,” “I’ll try,” and “I’ll do my best.” Say instead “I’ll do it.”
- Smile.
- Look people in the eye.
- Be enthusiastic.”
What about relaxation?
“…in order to be happy and productive in one’s work he must not do it all the time. Because this is true, missionaries are given time off each week to enjoy a change of pace. … This does not mean, however, that you should ever pass up an opportunity to present the gospel message. …. Every time you need toothpaste, purchase it at a different store and then, even though it is your diversion day, ask the Golden Questions.” (pg 116)
So a missionary needs to relax, but at the same time he’s never supposed to totally relax.
Some other great bits:
Humility:
“Just because you have been ordained to teach the gospel doesn’t qualify you to tell people how to solve all their daily problems. In the mission field as at home humility is always the supreme Christian virtue” (pg 114)
So knock on people’s doors, tell them their religion is completely wrong, tell them that they have to stop believing what they believe and start believing what you believe, but be humble!
Success:
“As Henry Ford preached all his life, ‘Whether a man says he can or he can’t, that man is right.’ “(pg 117)
Right. Which is why you meet so many people who can fly.
Time management:
“If you take your clothes to a laundromat, memorize and review scriptures while your clothes are washing.” (pg 118)
“You can waste time reading cheap books, going to shows, getting together too often with other elders to eat or visit, going sightseeing every few days, socializing regularly at certain members’ homes, staying in your apartment for hours at a time performing accumulated trivial tasks, or shopping around every spare moment looking at cameras, tape recorders, radios, etc. But again, what have you gained?” (pg 120)
Living your real life, that’s what you’ve gained, instead of wasting it trying to sell dogma.
Discouragement:
“It has been said that even the most miserable-looking crow has a hunch he’ll look like a peacock and sing like a nightingale some day.” (pg 121)
“Discouragement is Satan’s most useful tool. He uses it to pry inside your consciousness. Once inside and in control, he can use you in whatever way pleases him.” (pg 120)
Satan? This is the first mention I’ve heard of Satan in this book; I wasn’t aware that Mormons made a big deal out of the Satan thing.
“Have you ever stopped to think that even Christ didn’t convert everyone?” (pg 121)
Because apparently there are some things that are just too difficult for an omnipotent god.
“The Lord knows which people are ready to accept the gospel, because it is up to you to find them.” (pg 122)
Because even though you pray to god and ask him to tell you things, he’s not going to tell you anything that’s actually useful.
But, to be fair, there was one part in this chapter that I really did like, an example about quarry workers:
“When someone asked the first worker what he was doing he answered, “I’m cutting stone.” The second worker when asked the same question said, “I’m carving a lintel.” The third quarry worker replied, “I’m building a cathedral.” (pg 117)
That’s a good example about perspective, which I might apply to help with motivation in tasks that are a small part of a worthwhile endeavor. Unlike preaching.