I've been following some family-mishie e-mails for the past 4 or 5 years and it sounds like mishies do a lot of things I never did.

Several have written that they run every morning. This would have been inconceivable in my mission because we had to be in suites with white, Seidensticker shirts at all times.

Two Salt Lake families have either picked up their sons in Italy or will be doing so in the next couple of weeks in Japan to "tour" after their missions. This was also impossible in our mission...unless, of course, your father was Neal A. Maxwell; then he and his wife picked up their son Cory and toured Europe at the end of his mission. (Cory was my lazy ZL in Essen. I've always wondered why he made it to ZL for as lazy as he was.)

Now mishies do community service?

And we had to get money from our parents, who, if they didn't send it, essentially meant we couldn't eat.

It just sounds like easing up on the rules may be a necessity to keep the ranks full.

Are paid missions next?

I personally doubt it for several reasons.

I was in the Pennsylvania Harrisburg mission 14 years ago and we had to do many of the things you described.

1) We had to do a minimum of 4 hours of community service every week.

2) We were encouraged to run every morning. My Mission President was an avid jogger in the early morning and encouraged all the missionaries to do so. We often did because it was an excuse to where sweat pants and a t-shirt instead of always having to wear a white dress shirt and tie. The down side was we had to get up much earlier to get our exercise in before doing our morning studies.

3) When I completed my two year mission my parents and brothers came out to get me and we toured through Pennsylvania for about 10 days before we flew back home. Granted it was not as exciting as touring Europe would have been, but I did enjoy Gettysburgh, seeing the Amish people, going to Philadelphia to see where the Constitution of the United States was signed, ect.


We never had cell phones because they were not allowed and I know that LDS missionaries in most missions now use them, but I think that is more of a consequence of changing with the times and the benefits of having a phone with you at all times in case of emergency situations, ect. For us if we needed to call Investigators to tell them we were going to be late for an appointment then we had to use the land line phone in our apartment or borrow the phone of a LDS member family to make the call.

I seriously doubt that the Mormon Church will every pay the LDS missionaries a wage to go on full-time missions. These LDS big-wigs are so stream lined that they give LDS members callings to wash the windows and clean toilets. The G.A.'s always watch the financial bottom line in my opinion.

I agree - no chance for paid missionaries. It was just in October when Monson stated the church needs "many, many more" senior couples. There are many formerly paid positions open for retired TBM folks to pay to do.

I doubt it! The GA's are too cheap!

There' not enough gold in fort Knox that would ever bribe me to be a Mormon missionary, from everything to dangerous living conditions of accidental, and or intentionall hazards (such as disease and death, angering the wrong person in some violent place or unsafe living conditions), to toxic angry soul sucking mission presidents, and the fact that the church is not true and I'm delibrartly misleading people into a poisonous organization....

There is no way they would ever pay missionaries. The mission program is a huge waste of money and the only reason LDS, Inc. keeps it going is because it's not THEIR money.

If you paid missionaries $7/hour, it would cost nearly $15,000 year per missionary, not counting payroll taxes and benefits. That's for a 40 hour week with no over time, and most missionaries work 60 hour weeks. I know that's not a livable wage, but that's the least the church could get away with. For 40,000 missionaries, that comes to $600,000,000 a year. Add in unemployment insurance, liability insurance, travel, medical, housing, training, supplies, etc. and you've got a $1 billion industry going on.

With only 5,000,000 active members, and probably 2,000,000 tithe payers, that comes to $5k per member. Since the median family income is $50k, that basically eats up the entire tithing budget.

Add in the low rate of return on converts, the low retention rate and missions are a big waste of money. The only reason that the LDS, Inc. keeps them going is because it's an in-kind donation from LDS families. They get the support money from the families and all those hours the young missionaries give to them, with no apparent gratitude from the GAs at all.

I tend to doubt that the reason they keep the missionary program is simply because it is an in-kind donation from LDS families. I think the reason they keep it going is the same motivation they have for every thing else they do. Money, you can always trace it back to the money.

If these young men do not serve missions, and thereby get themselves converted and ready for marriage and starting their own families, they lose them. The missionaries that come home and marry in a year or so tend marry in the temple, stay active and committed, and pay their tithing.

In the last conference they once again were seriously urging the young single sisters to serve missions. I believe for a similar reason. Many of them are falling away because they are not getting married as young as they did a generation or 2 ago. So, if they can get them to serve a mission , that means that they must be temple worthy at 21, and paying a full tithe. The mission increases the indoctrination, just as it does with the young men and they are more likely to remain active, whether or not they marry, and the tithing continues to roll in.

Many studies have been done that prove the more invested, time and money wise, a person becomes within any organization, the more likely they are to remain true to it, regardless of even overwhelming doubts they may have about it's truthfulness. I am referring here mainly to cult studies, and the mormon religion is run very much like a cult- same tactics. Maybe I am more skeptical than some, but I think of the morg as just huge corporation: it appears to me that the bottom line is always the money, and you seriously can trace every thing they do to the just that: money.

No, my point was that if the church had to pay for them, they would dump the program. I'm sure they see some value to the program, but they are not paying anything near the true cost. The vast burden of the program is on LDS families for the maintanance costs, and the 6,000 hours of labor that each missionary gives to the church for free.

If the church had to pay even minimum wage and no overtime, it would dump the program as the huge waste of resources it is. They won't even pay janitors any more, so why would they spend $1 billion a year to maintain the ineffective missionary program.

The true value to the church is the socialization of its young men. The fact that they get it for free makes it worthwhile.

The Missionary Program would never be cost effective, even if TSCC could afford to pay the costs, because of its poor performance measured in terms of convert growth. The true value to TSCC of the missionary program is that it inculcates LOYALTY to the organization. Some may lose their testimony and leave afterward, but for others it CREATES a testimony that the church is true. Add that to marriage within a year of return, and the person is locked in for life, paying tithes and producing a brood of future tithe-paying children. It keeps some (not all) within the fold.

In addition, the program operates at little cost to TSCC. I think they cover medical expenses while serving, and provide air fare to the destination and back. Also, there are expenses in operating the MTCs. Whether these expenses are funded by the $400/month payments made by the family and missionary, or whether they have to dig into general church funds, is a mystery, since TSCC does not reveal finances. It may be that all of this is funded by the $400/month, since missionaries receive only about $140/month for food.

The point is that the program does NOT really grow the church in terms of long-lasting converts, but it may grow the church in terms of locking in wavering young men into a lifetime of church service and tithing. The major source of new members in the USA is from births to member families, not from converts. And the program operates either at no cost to TSCC, or at fairly nominal cost.

The senior missionary program is even more of a win-win situation, since the seniors provide their own housing and living costs.

Never that's not how cults work. Why do you think they teach kids to sing Give Said The Little Stream? It's give to the cult not the other way around.

Oh and John is this your first post using your real name? I'll have to try that sometime. I wish you and wife would post more often.

I doubt it. It might make some wonder why TSCC has their firecrackers while they are whitewashing a fence.

Pay the mishies? Bwhahahahaha! Wiping the tears away from laughing...

Not a chance in hell.

I can't even imagine that they would pay the mishies when the mishies are paying for their own missions. Not even just free labor, but labor that pays its own way. Missionaries are being milked for everything they can get, and seniors are actually falling for it to the tune of paying 1600 bucks a month to serve the church in what would normally be wellpaid professional positions.

The missionaries are rewarded by being belittled and made to feel guilty for never doing enough.

I cannot tell you how many stories I have heard about young missionaries not even having enough money to feed themselves, because the church recently started rapidly cutting down on what they could spend. this one couple had to go get their son, because they tied to send him money for food, and he got yelled at for accepting extra money, thanks to his rat-out companion!

A lot of wards expect the wives to "feed the missionaries".

I remember when I was still attending, I would show up to Relief Society. There would usually be at least 25 of us there at any given day. Once a month, they would pass a clip board around with a calendar on it. The women were all expected to write their name, phone number and address on an empty square in the box (choose any day of the month, or the same day every week) to cook dinner for the missionaries.

I would often get dirty looks, because I could never do it. I don't have any kids and my man works from 2pm to 12:30 am. So I am home alone at night. We only had male missionaries, so it was a no-go for me.

The missionaries would come to my door all the time, just to talk. But I never let them in, because... Well, I couldn't! lol. Yes, my man (non-active Catholic) had=s days off, but he mostly just wants to lay around in his birthday suit and relax with a few beers on those days. Don't think the mishies would have liked that :)

They need to just let these poor guys eat, darn it. For crying out loud, they work so hard, they need a good hearty meal. One night, when my husband was off, I finally did invite the missionaries over. After feeding them, we discussed the food/money situation they were in.

I told them, "Go to the 99cent store. Not the Dollar Tree, because it doesn't' carry nearly as much. But specifically, the "99cent store". They have every kind of living/house hold item you can imagine, every toiletry, every snack and non-perishable, even fresh produce, and frozen foods."

They were VERY grateful for the tip.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/08/2010 03:48AM by melissa3839.

Reading these posts is like filling my arsenal with more ammo for later use at opportune (or inopportune) times. I used to love the missionaries and feed them all the time. When I see them in my neighborhood my heart still goes out to them.

Missionaries definitely deserve some pity. I can't imagine that most are there out of any real desire to "serve". I went on a mission because I was guilt-ed into believing that I was throwing blessings back at the lord if I did not. My parents, my bishop, my seminary teacher all pounded that message that not going on a mission was WRONG. Most of these guys wish they were home and in school.

Our ward has been instructed that feeding the missionaries should include having someone into our homes for them to teach. There are very few dinner appts for these guys because of that "rule". My TBM wife has purchased groceries for them b/c they have no $ and no food in their apt.

I know of a member in community who provides groceries or gift cards (to fast food places or markets) because she and her empty nester husband (both members) are not allowed to host missionaries for dinner unless there is someone rounded up for them to teach. Since they themselves don't actively proselytize (and seem to respect other people's beliefs), they almost never have the missionaries home for dinner.

Paying them as employees would create potentially massive liability. Paying them as independent contractors would also create legal isues. Organizations have obligations to people they pay that they simply do not have to unpaid volunteers.

In many countries having nice clothes, a place to stay & food to eat is great compensation. So when a person joins the church & then gets a ward to support them for the duration of a mission, that person has what might be considered employment in many ways relative to their culture. In fact missionary "work"
despite all its draw backs may be a pleasant alternative to some other forms of drudgery for many people.

Missionary service may not seem like real employument so much to american culture that is centered on GAINFUL employment instead of subsistence employment.

If the mish can then qualify for the LDS INC perp ed fund to get an education then they scored a real home run.