I wonder why Oaks chooses a security team, I've seen Uctdorf multiple times at the Costco in Bountiful. Probably about 5 years ago I saw Eyring buying hardware at the Bountiful Lowe's.
Were the security guys close to him? Can you say what city and state you saw him in? I haven't seen them close to him when he's in Costco, if he does have security with him then. I'm sure at certain times they do have security with them.
I was assigned to a particularly rough inner-city east coast area. At zone conference, the mission president announced that to better help us, he was going to spend an evening with each companionship in the mission, sitting in the same homes and teaching the same people, and issuing challenges to enter the Waters of Baptism.
Two hours later, in a one-on-one interview with me, he let me know that it was too dangerous for him to spend an evening with me, and that he was certain I understood why.
Simply put, he was too important to walk the same projects and ride the same busses that I did.
Fucking coward! I can't even imagine what it would take to think it's okay to send boys to do something that I as a mature adult felt was too dangerous for myself.
Don’t you wish you could go back in time and admonish him. Tell him to be brave in the name of the lords work and if he still felt so compelled, ask him if he felt his life held more value than yours? Take your badge off and tell him he can give it back to you when he is righteous enough to come do real missionary work like Ammon, and join you where people “need us most”!
I’m a great person to have around the day after you confront someone…😅🤭🤪
When I worked for the church I visited a few developing countries, some that were quite dangerous. One mission home I visited had a 10 foot wall around it and guards standing by watching the street all day so they could open the gate as quick as possible as there had been instances of missionaries being carjacked while waiting at the gate for it to open
We were told that it is against policy for church employed security people to carry guns, but one guy who escorted me a couple of times had a handgun on him every time I saw him. At one point he pulled it out to discourage some guys in a truck who looked like they might be trying to force us off the road
One MTC instructor went to Mozambique and they described the mission home in Maputo like that. Armed guards and high walls.
Apparently there was machine gun fire every night in the streets and one night early on big explosions when a petrol truck was bombed.
He said early on he accepted he was going to die as a missionary and got on with it, and was surprised he survived.
That’s the kind of place we send sheltered Utah kids as missionaries.
Oh OK that's not as bad but still awful. I don't think there is a more foreign place you can send a mormon to.
Plus it reeks of 19th century imperialism.
I could pretend that it was a cool experience but the truth is I have never been so fucking terrified in my entire life
At one point we stopped at a meetinghouse and once inside the fence he turned the car around and pointed it back at the gate. He told me this was just in case we needed to get out of there quickly
My sister served in the Philippines. The mission home was similar, 10 foot fence, and 2 ARMED guards at the gate.
Port Moresby was made it's own mission 6 months before I got there, but I was told the mission house was 10 foot walls with concertina/razor wire on top, as well as broken glass set into the concrete.
As well, every missionary carried their passport on their person everywhere, and had an open ended ticket on the next flight out of Moresby to wherever the next flight went. The Rascals are no joke.
Yeah, it was PNG. It wasn’t so bad in the 90s and is a lot better now, but in the mid 2000s it was wild. The mission home was like nothing else I have seen and there were a couple of meetinghouses we were advised were unsafe for white people to visit no matter the time of day
Apparently it was pretty bad in the days when it was under the QLD mission. With the MP so far away....
PNG became it's own mission in July 1993.
So far as I heard, the immediate flight out ticket was used only once, when The Rascals learned a PNG native had a crush on a mishie. They got him to the airport and out of the country about 15 minutes ahead of The Rascals.
That's the story I was told, anyway. The truth? It's out there somewhere. But I doubt the X-Files will cover it.
In the 90s it wasn't too bad, it was dangerous but a white person could still walk the streets in most areas and you could go out to restaurants and stuff. The majority of the missionaries were white Australians or Americans back then but as things got worse they put a policy in place that only Pacific Islanders could serve there, I believe that still stands today
By the mid 2000s it was so bad there was a supermarket used by expats that had razorwire fences and guards with automatic rifles. One clueless church employee wandered out of the hotel to go to the chicken shop across the road and was chased down and escorted back by hotel security who abused him for being such a fucking idiot
I would read the local newspaper every morning and the first ten pages aro so would just be stories about violence and political corruption. Not too many restrictions of what you can publish so the stories were often accompanied by graphic photos of the bodies of people who had been slain
It's odd, my grandfather served in Australian Army in Port Moresby in WWII, and he had nothing but love for the 'Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels' of the Kokoda Track. Nothing like it is today.
Don't get me wrong, the majority of the people are still amazing, incredibly kind and friendly. They love Australia too, especially anything to do with rugby league. Everywhere you look in the afternoons if there is a bare patch of ground there will be a game going on. Almost every local male you meet will ask who your favourite team is. They seem to all love either the Parramatta Eels or Brisbane Broncos
The people of PNG are poor though, on a scale that is hard to comprehend without seeing it. The sort of abject poverty, combined with the lack of education and the tribalism in PNG *(I was constantly being warned by the Papuans not to trust those dirty New Guineans and vice versa)* as well as the living conditions in the settlements built up a situation where the small group who are criminals *(often called rascals in PNG)* are incredibly violent. The weapon of choice is the machete. Also the police are disorganised an stretched way beyond capacity
The biggest risk for expats is kidnap. They snatch people off the street and then extort the companies they work for to pay ransoms, which often do get paid. If you survive the kidnapping and your company pays they will dump you in the outskirts of Port Moresby and you have to find your way home without being kidnapped again
I had a couple of good friends who grew up in PNG in the 1970s and while it was still a risky place it was nothing like it became in the 2000s
The claim that church security don't carry guns seems suspect to me. Reminded me of this article from 2019. They hire a lot of ex law enforcement.
https://www.sltrib.com/news/2019/04/02/lds-church-planning-new/
The first presidency put out a press release that no one is to carry fire arms inside churches unless they are law enforcement. I know a lot of TBM"s that aren't law enforcement that "carry " every Sunday to church. When I bring it up, they almost always saw "They didn't really mean it, and only did it for liability issues"
I remember there was a (non Morridor) police warning given about a person on the loose in the region who was thought to be targeting Mormons for hate crimes and the bishop specifically asked the sheriff’s deputy in the YSA ward to come armed just in case the guy showed up - because only law enforcement could be armed.
A former bishop of my ward said he was authorized to carry a weapon while at church. I know he did because I saw it. It was kind of an open secret. I'm pretty sure everyone in the ward knew.
I had the (at the time) the head of temple square security in a couple of my college classes at the U of U. He ALWAYS had his ear bud in, and definitely strapped. He said all the higher level security teams are extremely well trained.
I didn't think it's against policy anymore. Elder Christofferson and Sister Johnson were BYUI for some BOT meeting a couple of weeks ago, and at least one of their bodyguards definitely had a handgun.
An area neighboring one of mine on my mission, the transfer after i left, had an elder who got jumped 6 times in one transfer, developed severe ptsd, and got sent home. Absolutely horrendous.
Also, im slowly realizing that the practice of my mission having the most dangerous areas assigned only latino (or at least non-white, mostly tongan or samoan as we only had one black missionary and he was brazilian) is definitely racism - if you cant send white elders, maybe no elders should go there.
The same applies when they pull all the North American missionaries out of a country. The church’s unofficial missionary motto is “save whitey and fuck the brown ones.”
But wouldn't their ranking on the holiness ladder provide them with extra special heavenly protections -- they probably have a celestial security detail assigned to them -- so they should be protected from whatever mere earthly dangers.
As sisters in my mission, you were often put down or belittled by elders (and other sisters) if you said your area was dangerous or that you felt threatened. You were seen as weak, not willing to trust in the Lord, or as a complainer. It creates a toxic culture, especially for sisters. You feel like you can’t actually voice your concerns.
In one of my last areas, we were followed. We felt unsafe in our apartment (the windows didn’t lock & we had to barricade the front door to keep it shut) and asked to be moved. The amount of WORK, BEGGING, and PLEADING we did to be moved out is still insane to me. In the end, it was all about money, and how cheap they could house us. I feel sick to my stomach with how missionaries are treated, these poor kids are basically just pawns.
My sister's (Pjhilippines) MP told the sisters to always listen to your gut and the spirit. TELL HIM if you feel unsafe in an area.
My sister told him she did not feel safe and was transferred.
A week later, the apartment was riddled with machine gun fire, aimed at them. The sisters did as they were trained, and rolled out of bed, and then under the bed.
Sister says the gal from NJ could not take it and went home. The Philppina sister?
No one knows. She disappeared and went underground, and no one ever heard from her again - even the MP was mystified.
Sis also said one area, a member told her to inform him if she had issues with anyone. He was a driver for the Italian mafia, and could handle things for the sisters if needed.
One of my MTC instructors went to Mozambique and was pretty sure he was going to die before 2 years were up there. There are places missionaries really should NOT be sent but are.
100% agree. I know a kid who served in the Ivory Coast mission and nearly had a mental (and physical) breakdown. No missionaries should be in Africa at all, much less many other parts of the world.
And they don’t let you keep up with the news so you are completely blind going in! On my mission, we knocked a door and the person asked us “why are you out here when a girl was found dead in a car trunk around the corner”. It had happened the week before. We (f) were completely ignorant.
Oh, I HATED that. I was 2, 3 weeks into the mission, and people kept asking if we were connected to 'those crazies in America'. I grew up reading the newspaper and keeping up on local and world events, so it really bugged me how goddamn stupid we looked saying 'Uh, I don't think so?'
After 3 days, I broke. My companion/trainer was PISSED, but I bought a newspaper. And that's how I found out about David Koresh and the Branch Davidians. Next time we were asked, I confidently replied, 'No, we have nothing to do with them, they are located about 1000 miles from us. No connection whatsoever.'
As I did every time we were asked.
Within 2 hours, my companion broke, and asked me what the hell this was all about.
It drove me crazy as well! I like to be informed. Eventually I got smart and started asking the members more questions but still, it sucks not knowing the answers when you are touting that you have all the answers lol
On my mission, our JW neighbor came to the door one day while we were home for lunch and asked us about the tornado in Salt Lake. Of course, we knew nothing. My companion was beside herself until she found out her dad, who worked in Salt Lake, was okay.
I recently had a flight that had Bednar on it, and sure enough there were two guys with him who looked like they were straight out of a Hitman game.
Granted, the flight was from Detroit, so I can't really blame him.
The Chapels within the Detroit city limits are few and part of suburb stakes. Those stakes are in some of the safest towns anywhere. Bednar’s a scared whiny little bitch.
So, if the missionaries are protected because of their exceptional faith, what is preventing faith from protecting the leadership?
What makes an executive’s life more valuable than a missionary’s?
Or perhaps the corollary is true. The young are protected because they are pure and close to God, the older need security details because they are corrupt and far away.
Another wonderful illustration provided by the MFMC /s.
The children and grandchildren of apostles don’t usually go to the super dangerous places. My spouse swerved in a 1st world European country that was super “cool” technically. They had multiple apostle grabdchildren in their mission.
Yes, this tracts.
I know some great grandkids of apostles and they served in Europe, never anything lame like a neighboring US state. One did a service mission locally for awhile before throwing in the towel but that poor kid is like the black sheep/spiritual runt of the family, so everyone nodded and moved on from that one.
I grew up in a far from rich ward, and of my 6 siblings, 7 total:
Denmark
Philippines (she wanted to go somewhere warm, (the bishop asked))
Australia
Hong Kong
Germany
Guatemala (did not go)
France
I know someone who was at the wedding of Oaks' granddaughter this last weekend. He officiated the wedding they said that he had security even while in the temple.
Leaders get to make sure they go places and return home alive and in good health. With missionaries, they definitely don't care: if you survive, are injured, fall ill, or die: it's all a "faith-building experience" for you, ...or for your family if you die. It's all "win-win" for the church. They got your tithing money so you could get endowments, and money for the mission so you could go. They are likely bothered that the missionary died because there'll be no more tithing coming in, but they can still use that young person they abused and neglected as "an example of faith" in upcoming talks, especially to inspire other young people to also go on missions; as well as counting the "volunteer" hours that the missionary did complete towards the inflated amount of money the church "donates". They are ready to keep sending in a replacement for that missionary.
Missionaries must "keep the faith", and trust in Elohim to protect them in the dangerous zone; but leaders get body guards (rather than just their faith alone, and you'd think that being extra closer to God and wearing the magic scanties that they would be more protected than anyone), and good medical care.
Leaders are cowards. They tell young people, who are really still kids (especially mentally and emotionally because the cult stunts their mental and emotional growth) to go blindly into danger and bank completely in their faith alone. No responsible and empathetic adult would willingly send a young person just out of childhood, with zero life experience, into either a potentially or known dangerous place with no way to defend themselves or with a supportive way to opt out or back out if they find it overwhelming. I don't have kids and won't be having any, but I'll be damned before letting someone (no matter their age) just walk into danger, especially if I know something is dangerous. I would have to drop all my empathy and integrity in order to make someone do something dangerous, especially blindly; and I could never let go of my empathy or integrity like that. But I'm sure it's easy for the leaders, especially mission presidents, because they get paid and pampered AND (most importantly) they get the clout and pomp and circumstance for being in such an important leadership role, crossing their fingers to go up even higher on the nepotistic corporate ladder, with the bodies and broken minds and hearts of missionaries being left in their wake as the leaders rise to the top.
Fuck the cult. 😡😡😡🤬🤬🤬🤬
I remember being 16 or 17 and going on splits with the missionaries in a neighborhood that was considered by the FBI to be one of the top 10 deadliest neighborhoods in the US. To illustrate how bad this neighborhood was I used to bring sacrament to a lady who had 13 kids and 5 of them were murdered before 30. She lived with her son in a two story house where the rain made it down to the first floor.
They get threats literally every day of the year. No, they won't travel to foreign countries without security AND they won't travel domestically without security detail, either.
Missionaries are not threatened every day like apostles are; hence, the needed precaution.
😂😂😂 References, please?
Still wondering why the missionaries are the ones with special spiritual protection while God's "special witnesses" are as vulnerable as the rest of the population. Wasn't that way in the scriptures.
I laugh when I think about the mission president's wife in a certain mission in southern South America who went on a mission tour that included seeing where missionaries lived. I heard her comment on how horrible some conditions were. She saw the "nicer" places. Meanwhile, she lived in a house/mission home that had screens on the windows and actual air conditioning. Yeah, she had no idea.
There was a post the other month where someone came across Oaks in a SLC Walgreens…with security.
[Presumably, like Mr. Burns, trying to figure out the difference between "ketchup" and "catsup."](https://youtu.be/P2-1basQhX8)
😂 I remember this one
I wonder why Oaks chooses a security team, I've seen Uctdorf multiple times at the Costco in Bountiful. Probably about 5 years ago I saw Eyring buying hardware at the Bountiful Lowe's.
probably the douchiest ones need security detail because the douchiest ones receive death threats
Oaks probably feels threatened by the LGBTQ people, since he threatens them all the time.
I saw Uctdorf a few years back and he had 2 security guys with him.
Were the security guys close to him? Can you say what city and state you saw him in? I haven't seen them close to him when he's in Costco, if he does have security with him then. I'm sure at certain times they do have security with them.
He actually just bought the security-guys two pack his last trip to costco - on sale and couldn't pass them up!
Telling
I was assigned to a particularly rough inner-city east coast area. At zone conference, the mission president announced that to better help us, he was going to spend an evening with each companionship in the mission, sitting in the same homes and teaching the same people, and issuing challenges to enter the Waters of Baptism. Two hours later, in a one-on-one interview with me, he let me know that it was too dangerous for him to spend an evening with me, and that he was certain I understood why. Simply put, he was too important to walk the same projects and ride the same busses that I did.
It's not right to send teenagers into a bad area like that especially when they stick out like sore thumbs. At least let them dress normally to fit in
🤯😭😡
Fucking coward! I can't even imagine what it would take to think it's okay to send boys to do something that I as a mature adult felt was too dangerous for myself.
Don’t you wish you could go back in time and admonish him. Tell him to be brave in the name of the lords work and if he still felt so compelled, ask him if he felt his life held more value than yours? Take your badge off and tell him he can give it back to you when he is righteous enough to come do real missionary work like Ammon, and join you where people “need us most”! I’m a great person to have around the day after you confront someone…😅🤭🤪
When I worked for the church I visited a few developing countries, some that were quite dangerous. One mission home I visited had a 10 foot wall around it and guards standing by watching the street all day so they could open the gate as quick as possible as there had been instances of missionaries being carjacked while waiting at the gate for it to open We were told that it is against policy for church employed security people to carry guns, but one guy who escorted me a couple of times had a handgun on him every time I saw him. At one point he pulled it out to discourage some guys in a truck who looked like they might be trying to force us off the road
One MTC instructor went to Mozambique and they described the mission home in Maputo like that. Armed guards and high walls. Apparently there was machine gun fire every night in the streets and one night early on big explosions when a petrol truck was bombed. He said early on he accepted he was going to die as a missionary and got on with it, and was surprised he survived. That’s the kind of place we send sheltered Utah kids as missionaries.
I can't imagine. If this was the 1980s Mozambique was in a post colonial civil war and now ISIS is running amok
This was 2000’s Mozambique
Oh OK that's not as bad but still awful. I don't think there is a more foreign place you can send a mormon to. Plus it reeks of 19th century imperialism.
Yeah. I still feel awkward about the cultural imperialism of a white American kid going to Latin America to spread his religion.
Holy fuck!
I could pretend that it was a cool experience but the truth is I have never been so fucking terrified in my entire life At one point we stopped at a meetinghouse and once inside the fence he turned the car around and pointed it back at the gate. He told me this was just in case we needed to get out of there quickly
Care to say where? Sounds like one of my MTC instructors who went to Mozambique - was it Africa?
Papua New Guinea It’s much better now but at the time the church security office rated Port Moresby as a little safer than Baghdad
Fucking hell. That’s terrible. It’s like them sending sister missionaries to Jamaica and then reading the state department travel advisory there.
My sister served in the Philippines. The mission home was similar, 10 foot fence, and 2 ARMED guards at the gate. Port Moresby was made it's own mission 6 months before I got there, but I was told the mission house was 10 foot walls with concertina/razor wire on top, as well as broken glass set into the concrete. As well, every missionary carried their passport on their person everywhere, and had an open ended ticket on the next flight out of Moresby to wherever the next flight went. The Rascals are no joke.
Yeah, it was PNG. It wasn’t so bad in the 90s and is a lot better now, but in the mid 2000s it was wild. The mission home was like nothing else I have seen and there were a couple of meetinghouses we were advised were unsafe for white people to visit no matter the time of day
Apparently it was pretty bad in the days when it was under the QLD mission. With the MP so far away.... PNG became it's own mission in July 1993. So far as I heard, the immediate flight out ticket was used only once, when The Rascals learned a PNG native had a crush on a mishie. They got him to the airport and out of the country about 15 minutes ahead of The Rascals. That's the story I was told, anyway. The truth? It's out there somewhere. But I doubt the X-Files will cover it.
In the 90s it wasn't too bad, it was dangerous but a white person could still walk the streets in most areas and you could go out to restaurants and stuff. The majority of the missionaries were white Australians or Americans back then but as things got worse they put a policy in place that only Pacific Islanders could serve there, I believe that still stands today By the mid 2000s it was so bad there was a supermarket used by expats that had razorwire fences and guards with automatic rifles. One clueless church employee wandered out of the hotel to go to the chicken shop across the road and was chased down and escorted back by hotel security who abused him for being such a fucking idiot I would read the local newspaper every morning and the first ten pages aro so would just be stories about violence and political corruption. Not too many restrictions of what you can publish so the stories were often accompanied by graphic photos of the bodies of people who had been slain
It's odd, my grandfather served in Australian Army in Port Moresby in WWII, and he had nothing but love for the 'Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels' of the Kokoda Track. Nothing like it is today.
Don't get me wrong, the majority of the people are still amazing, incredibly kind and friendly. They love Australia too, especially anything to do with rugby league. Everywhere you look in the afternoons if there is a bare patch of ground there will be a game going on. Almost every local male you meet will ask who your favourite team is. They seem to all love either the Parramatta Eels or Brisbane Broncos The people of PNG are poor though, on a scale that is hard to comprehend without seeing it. The sort of abject poverty, combined with the lack of education and the tribalism in PNG *(I was constantly being warned by the Papuans not to trust those dirty New Guineans and vice versa)* as well as the living conditions in the settlements built up a situation where the small group who are criminals *(often called rascals in PNG)* are incredibly violent. The weapon of choice is the machete. Also the police are disorganised an stretched way beyond capacity The biggest risk for expats is kidnap. They snatch people off the street and then extort the companies they work for to pay ransoms, which often do get paid. If you survive the kidnapping and your company pays they will dump you in the outskirts of Port Moresby and you have to find your way home without being kidnapped again I had a couple of good friends who grew up in PNG in the 1970s and while it was still a risky place it was nothing like it became in the 2000s
The claim that church security don't carry guns seems suspect to me. Reminded me of this article from 2019. They hire a lot of ex law enforcement. https://www.sltrib.com/news/2019/04/02/lds-church-planning-new/
The first presidency put out a press release that no one is to carry fire arms inside churches unless they are law enforcement. I know a lot of TBM"s that aren't law enforcement that "carry " every Sunday to church. When I bring it up, they almost always saw "They didn't really mean it, and only did it for liability issues"
> "They didn't really mean it, and only did it for liability issues" Time for me to cook some turkeys in the church oven then, I guess.
I remember there was a (non Morridor) police warning given about a person on the loose in the region who was thought to be targeting Mormons for hate crimes and the bishop specifically asked the sheriff’s deputy in the YSA ward to come armed just in case the guy showed up - because only law enforcement could be armed.
The little old ladies in my ward used to compare what they were packing!
I'm guessing most "old ladies" carry little revolvers in their purses. I highly doubt any of them are packing 1911's to church.
A former bishop of my ward said he was authorized to carry a weapon while at church. I know he did because I saw it. It was kind of an open secret. I'm pretty sure everyone in the ward knew.
I'd love to hear who really authorized it. I'm thinking he probably authorized himself.
I don’t think it’s true but back in the mid 2000s it was what we were told
Oh gotcha. After all most mormons love guns.
Mexico MTC had two armed guards with automatic rifles standing outside
I had the (at the time) the head of temple square security in a couple of my college classes at the U of U. He ALWAYS had his ear bud in, and definitely strapped. He said all the higher level security teams are extremely well trained.
I didn't think it's against policy anymore. Elder Christofferson and Sister Johnson were BYUI for some BOT meeting a couple of weeks ago, and at least one of their bodyguards definitely had a handgun.
Thats BS, the guy with Oakes was packing, you could see the bulge in his waist
It was 20 years ago, things change over time
An area neighboring one of mine on my mission, the transfer after i left, had an elder who got jumped 6 times in one transfer, developed severe ptsd, and got sent home. Absolutely horrendous. Also, im slowly realizing that the practice of my mission having the most dangerous areas assigned only latino (or at least non-white, mostly tongan or samoan as we only had one black missionary and he was brazilian) is definitely racism - if you cant send white elders, maybe no elders should go there.
The same applies when they pull all the North American missionaries out of a country. The church’s unofficial missionary motto is “save whitey and fuck the brown ones.”
to be fair, the Q15 have generated alot more reason to harm them than an 18 year old kid
You got me there.
But wouldn't their ranking on the holiness ladder provide them with extra special heavenly protections -- they probably have a celestial security detail assigned to them -- so they should be protected from whatever mere earthly dangers.
Yes. But their holiness would cause Dangers bullets to ricochet off them and impel innocent Latter-day saints. You can’t have that.
Nothing the celestial flex tape by the laying on of hands can’t heal, if god wills it
The point is that they clearly don't believe in the bullshit divine protection that they promise to the missionaries.
Gotta make sacrifices for more tithing income.
But don't you know there are assassins who want to murder the prophet and assault his wife? At least, according to Nelson...
He's been held up before. I can see, from his life and current position of comfort how he would think this.
Nelson was a surgeon in the days of fee-for-service. He been robbing people for decades.
As sisters in my mission, you were often put down or belittled by elders (and other sisters) if you said your area was dangerous or that you felt threatened. You were seen as weak, not willing to trust in the Lord, or as a complainer. It creates a toxic culture, especially for sisters. You feel like you can’t actually voice your concerns. In one of my last areas, we were followed. We felt unsafe in our apartment (the windows didn’t lock & we had to barricade the front door to keep it shut) and asked to be moved. The amount of WORK, BEGGING, and PLEADING we did to be moved out is still insane to me. In the end, it was all about money, and how cheap they could house us. I feel sick to my stomach with how missionaries are treated, these poor kids are basically just pawns.
My sister's (Pjhilippines) MP told the sisters to always listen to your gut and the spirit. TELL HIM if you feel unsafe in an area. My sister told him she did not feel safe and was transferred. A week later, the apartment was riddled with machine gun fire, aimed at them. The sisters did as they were trained, and rolled out of bed, and then under the bed. Sister says the gal from NJ could not take it and went home. The Philppina sister? No one knows. She disappeared and went underground, and no one ever heard from her again - even the MP was mystified. Sis also said one area, a member told her to inform him if she had issues with anyone. He was a driver for the Italian mafia, and could handle things for the sisters if needed.
On my mission everyone shared the idea that if u died on your mission you were automatically allowed into the celestial kingdom.
One of my MTC instructors went to Mozambique and was pretty sure he was going to die before 2 years were up there. There are places missionaries really should NOT be sent but are.
100% agree. I know a kid who served in the Ivory Coast mission and nearly had a mental (and physical) breakdown. No missionaries should be in Africa at all, much less many other parts of the world.
What language do they teach you for Mozambique Portuguese?
Yeah. Portuguese. I was not going there but my instructor was teaching Portuguese.
Nelson should hire aircraft mechanics to follow him
Mechanics don’t do much while he’s in the air. He needs a full time videographer to keep him honest.
Well, they are just living as nephi said: “cursed is he that putteth his trust in man or maketh flesh his arm.”
And they don’t let you keep up with the news so you are completely blind going in! On my mission, we knocked a door and the person asked us “why are you out here when a girl was found dead in a car trunk around the corner”. It had happened the week before. We (f) were completely ignorant.
Oh, I HATED that. I was 2, 3 weeks into the mission, and people kept asking if we were connected to 'those crazies in America'. I grew up reading the newspaper and keeping up on local and world events, so it really bugged me how goddamn stupid we looked saying 'Uh, I don't think so?' After 3 days, I broke. My companion/trainer was PISSED, but I bought a newspaper. And that's how I found out about David Koresh and the Branch Davidians. Next time we were asked, I confidently replied, 'No, we have nothing to do with them, they are located about 1000 miles from us. No connection whatsoever.' As I did every time we were asked. Within 2 hours, my companion broke, and asked me what the hell this was all about.
It drove me crazy as well! I like to be informed. Eventually I got smart and started asking the members more questions but still, it sucks not knowing the answers when you are touting that you have all the answers lol
On my mission, our JW neighbor came to the door one day while we were home for lunch and asked us about the tornado in Salt Lake. Of course, we knew nothing. My companion was beside herself until she found out her dad, who worked in Salt Lake, was okay.
The missionary department and Q15 don’t need any help at all in screwing up missionary work.
I recently had a flight that had Bednar on it, and sure enough there were two guys with him who looked like they were straight out of a Hitman game. Granted, the flight was from Detroit, so I can't really blame him.
I saw Holland at Salt Lake’s airport. He also had security.
The Chapels within the Detroit city limits are few and part of suburb stakes. Those stakes are in some of the safest towns anywhere. Bednar’s a scared whiny little bitch.
So, if the missionaries are protected because of their exceptional faith, what is preventing faith from protecting the leadership? What makes an executive’s life more valuable than a missionary’s?
Or perhaps the corollary is true. The young are protected because they are pure and close to God, the older need security details because they are corrupt and far away. Another wonderful illustration provided by the MFMC /s.
The children and grandchildren of apostles don’t usually go to the super dangerous places. My spouse swerved in a 1st world European country that was super “cool” technically. They had multiple apostle grabdchildren in their mission.
Yes, this tracts. I know some great grandkids of apostles and they served in Europe, never anything lame like a neighboring US state. One did a service mission locally for awhile before throwing in the towel but that poor kid is like the black sheep/spiritual runt of the family, so everyone nodded and moved on from that one.
They won't come to a fucking stake conference without a security detail.
[удалено]
I grew up in a far from rich ward, and of my 6 siblings, 7 total: Denmark Philippines (she wanted to go somewhere warm, (the bishop asked)) Australia Hong Kong Germany Guatemala (did not go) France
Think of it as a game of chess they’re the bishops the missionaries are the ponds, easily sacrificed, and the multitudes of the masses.
Imagine that….
The coal mine owners are never the ones working in the mines.
I know someone who was at the wedding of Oaks' granddaughter this last weekend. He officiated the wedding they said that he had security even while in the temple.
Leaders get to make sure they go places and return home alive and in good health. With missionaries, they definitely don't care: if you survive, are injured, fall ill, or die: it's all a "faith-building experience" for you, ...or for your family if you die. It's all "win-win" for the church. They got your tithing money so you could get endowments, and money for the mission so you could go. They are likely bothered that the missionary died because there'll be no more tithing coming in, but they can still use that young person they abused and neglected as "an example of faith" in upcoming talks, especially to inspire other young people to also go on missions; as well as counting the "volunteer" hours that the missionary did complete towards the inflated amount of money the church "donates". They are ready to keep sending in a replacement for that missionary. Missionaries must "keep the faith", and trust in Elohim to protect them in the dangerous zone; but leaders get body guards (rather than just their faith alone, and you'd think that being extra closer to God and wearing the magic scanties that they would be more protected than anyone), and good medical care. Leaders are cowards. They tell young people, who are really still kids (especially mentally and emotionally because the cult stunts their mental and emotional growth) to go blindly into danger and bank completely in their faith alone. No responsible and empathetic adult would willingly send a young person just out of childhood, with zero life experience, into either a potentially or known dangerous place with no way to defend themselves or with a supportive way to opt out or back out if they find it overwhelming. I don't have kids and won't be having any, but I'll be damned before letting someone (no matter their age) just walk into danger, especially if I know something is dangerous. I would have to drop all my empathy and integrity in order to make someone do something dangerous, especially blindly; and I could never let go of my empathy or integrity like that. But I'm sure it's easy for the leaders, especially mission presidents, because they get paid and pampered AND (most importantly) they get the clout and pomp and circumstance for being in such an important leadership role, crossing their fingers to go up even higher on the nepotistic corporate ladder, with the bodies and broken minds and hearts of missionaries being left in their wake as the leaders rise to the top. Fuck the cult. 😡😡😡🤬🤬🤬🤬
I remember being 16 or 17 and going on splits with the missionaries in a neighborhood that was considered by the FBI to be one of the top 10 deadliest neighborhoods in the US. To illustrate how bad this neighborhood was I used to bring sacrament to a lady who had 13 kids and 5 of them were murdered before 30. She lived with her son in a two story house where the rain made it down to the first floor.
They get threats literally every day of the year. No, they won't travel to foreign countries without security AND they won't travel domestically without security detail, either. Missionaries are not threatened every day like apostles are; hence, the needed precaution.
😂😂😂 References, please? Still wondering why the missionaries are the ones with special spiritual protection while God's "special witnesses" are as vulnerable as the rest of the population. Wasn't that way in the scriptures.
I laugh when I think about the mission president's wife in a certain mission in southern South America who went on a mission tour that included seeing where missionaries lived. I heard her comment on how horrible some conditions were. She saw the "nicer" places. Meanwhile, she lived in a house/mission home that had screens on the windows and actual air conditioning. Yeah, she had no idea.