I can understand how someone before the creation of the internet could be tricked into joining, but I meet new converts every once in a while and im just dumbfounded as to how they can believe when a simple google search should discourage any investigator.
Are there new missionary techniques I haven't heard about?

Foolishly and with blinders on.

They are vulnerable. Need friends to talk to because of a family issue, school issue, work issue. And unfortunately at age 16-22 no one is more important than peers. Hopefully since the yr. 2008/2010 they will more likely look up info on the internet even if told not to.

They want to believe. They meet nice people who seem to have ward friendships. So they don't really research it because, hey what harm can come from joining.

For some reason, no matter what stage they are in their lives, they have been hurt, or abandoned. They are wounded emotionally. Then along come these adorable missionaries who seem so sweet, so decent, so accepting. They invite the person to church and those people, too, welcome the person and make them feel so special... just exactly what that wounded heart needs. There is so much emphasis on wholesomeness, not cheating on your spouse or beating your kids (many converts have endured both), and they are just half-drowned in feelings of "What WONDERFUL people these are!"

It feels like being invited with open arms into a lovely, warm room with a crackling fire when you have been stumbling through knee-deep snow and are nearly frozen stiff. You are incapable of rational thought when something like this happens.

I was a 19 year old convert; I was baptized at the end of my freshman year of college. I was in a new town where I knew no one and I was figuring out how to be adult since I was out from under the thumb of my controlling, abusive father for the first time in my life. The Mormon girls in my hall were so welcoming and friendly and eager to share with me the secret to happiness in this life and eternal life in the life to come. I fell for it hook, line, and sinker. It never occured to me to check anything (this was in 1998, so the internet was there). As the years went by, and I became more and more my own person, I realized that I had made a mistake and finally left in 2008.

c48gl Wrote:
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> Are there new missionary techniques I haven't
> heard about?

Well, the newest technique is not to tell the males about ritual circumcision until after they're baptized. Then the bishop springs it on them in an interview. Most of the new members feel deceived and cheated, but hey, they joined the church, didn't they? Gotta love those statistics.

you talking in riddles?

Jesus said it best: When the blind lead the blind, they both fall in the ditch!

Armies of teenage Mobots converting non-critical thinkers. What a joke! This has got to be a long term formula for disaster. But, after all, it's the "fastest growing church in the world"

My father converted in the '70s after some traumatic life events. He was extremely vulnerable, and he and his 2 kids (I wasn't born yet) should have gone into therapy. His younger kid should have gone into child psychiatric care.

Anyway, being that there wasn't an easy way for my dad to find out it was a cult, he joined, mainly thinking it would give his little family structure. Plus, most of his immediate family had joined in the previous 5 years.

Dad was out in 15 years.

If you're looking for answers to the big questions, someone will eventually come along and sell you those answers.

My folks converted in 1966. They had five kids to raise and no clue as to how. The cult came along with answers and they fell for it hook, line and sinker.

Sad really.

Timothy

Wow, anon for this - great answer,that's exactly how I felt! Fortunately, I did go online and find out about the lies, and was thus never converted, but oh, how at one point in my life, I wanted it all to be true. So glad I didn't fall for TSCC...

The new converts in our ward have all been needy in some way or another - a few YW who come from broken homes (and who need rides everywhere), a few lonely people, one family just got baptized. Not sure what their story is since I haven't been to church for the last 6 months, but I do know they were seeking a community to belong to (it said so in the ward emails) - pretty sure it's a single mom and her kids.

Educated, leadership type of converts? Nope.

From my nieces and nephew's mission letters, it looks like these are the kind of people who are being attracted to (deceived into) the church these days:

- People in need of economic support (lots of references to trailer parks and out of work).
- People with cognitive disabiltiies (some references to elderly with dimentia issues).
- People with social needs (multiple references to being in jail so they missed their teaching appointment).
- Young girls/guys who are in love/lust with the missionaries.
- Young girls/guys who are in love/lust with a member.
- Kids just over the age of 8 who have inactive parents, who could really care less whether or not the missionaries dunk their kids.

I really have not seen in the past 4 years in any of my relatives who are serving missions any discussion of people getting baptized who have a high degree of education, social stability, or economic success.

Good luck church.

The whole Mormon "pyramid scheme" is built on voluntary lay leadership. One cannot help but wonder, given the lower quality of present converts, where future priesthood holders possessing leadership ability will be found.

They are probably counting on the kids being born in the church from active members. Hence the push for younger missionary age with the hopes they can at least keep some level of activity as older adults.

Who knows. I don't see the church ever being a vibrant living organization in the future. It has become a corporation in the worst sense of that idea. Beuracracy for business sake at its worst.

I remember one particular Golden Dunk family when I was in high school--the dad was a bloviating drunk, and now I realize how the power trip for a man appealed to him. And his daughter was hot. And the Mormons fawned over them. And they bought it.

During the years I have lived on "mormon hill", I've seen a total of 4 converts. Each one of them was homeless and obviously vulnerable, both emotionally and financially. They were all offered a free stay in a trailer on the property, but each somehow new that they best be baptized or they would be out.

As soon as they had the option of leaving, they were gone, never to be seen in church again. One of them even getting the owners daughter pregnant before leaving. Hasn't been heard from since.

My son and I have to laugh when the TBM landlords gush about how "so and so" is doing so well and will be baptized soon! It's like, huh? You really think this person believes in the bull you are feeding them?

and don't fact check them with Snopes, FactCheck.org, etc. even though it only takes a few seconds.

I don't get it either but for WHATEVER REASON there are MILLIONS of people out there like this who don't bother to verify things, despite it being so easy to do.

Very carefully and cautiously and slowly, like a hunter to its prey.

Just the opposite of what they want. FAST, HURRY, NOW!

M@t