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Missionaries Today Compared To Decades Ago - Page 3

It's a valid point. But having seen many examples (both success and failure) I don't think that the notion of a mission changing a person for the better is invalid either.

Though it's not a case of p-rn or fornication, consider one of my experiences as a missionary in the mid 1980's. When I was a ZL, we visited a companionship around lunchtime. They were still in bed undressed, unshowered, and playing Nintendo. They each had two months till the end of their service and of course were very embarrased.

Neither of them had had any success (baptisms they could call their own) so far on their missions. We noted that time was short and wouldn't it be great if when they gave their homecoming talk, they could at least be partly honest about it? We also promised them that if they obeyed the rules ungrudgingly until the end, the Lord would bless them with success.

We did check up on them periodically after that but they seemed to have made the change. The week before they went home, they had two baptisms.

So while there were many failures, there were also some successes. I worry that because of fear of failure, nothing gets accomplished and no one's life gets changed. So I worry a lot about what I see as a general trend in the Church to withdraw from possible conflict and become more pharisaical and puritanical and in other ways, more appeasing of evil.

BYU's Student Life and the way the honor code is enforced is another example of this In my humble opinion. At some point, we have got to trust and believe in the principles the Church teaches such as train up a child in teh way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.

Socialism and the welfare state is yet another example of this to which I address on other threads. We are becoming a people who believe that "charity" must be enforced on others. We don't trust and therefore we don't change and don't have real charity and instead have become thieves and robbers.

Edited: bcspace on 20th Jul, 2011 - 7:42pm

Ago Decades Compared Today Missionaries

I am not sure if I agree with that. We're all sinners yes but there should be set standards for those who will be representing not only the Church but Jesus Christ, a failure to do so can only produce mediocre results.

Missionaries Today Compared To Decades Ago Studies Doctrine Mormon

I hope that the Church will never say, "If you don't have "x" amount of baptisms in a certain amount of time, then you will go home in disgrace."
With the new missionary "Preach My Gospel" manual being available to all members, being taught at church to the young and to the old, it will make it easier for a new missionary to learn what is expected, what to teach, then when I was at the MTC. I got my first look at the missionary discussions on the first day of MTC, I was learning the discussions right along with the investigators that I was teaching. That shouldn't happen now. This might be what's being meant as raising the bar, along with raising the standard of moral, of other "major" sins that a missionary might have committed, and being allowed to still become a missionary, teaching the youth what missionaries teach BEFORE they go on missions should improve the skills of missionaries.
Here is a list of my recommendations for a person to do before he/she goes on a mission:
* Read ALL the scriptures
* Go Home/Visit Teaching
* Become familiar with Preach My Gospel
* Start wearing clothes that are mission appropriate (not necessarily church clothes, just modest)
* Start saving

Page 3 Ago Decades Compared Today Missionaries

The church's mission presidents say something like that, not all of them but some of them do that are baptism and numbers hungry. Nothing wrong with bringing in souls but it shouldn't be a contest.

Ago Decades Compared Today Missionaries

Funny you said that because when I was a little girl back in my home country, they used to have awards and even a trophy for the missionaries who baptized the most.