How do they chose where missionaries serve?
Is there greater status to serve a mission overseas?

Also, I live in Georgia and in the last 3 or 4 months I have seen African American Missionaries for the first time! Always partnered with a white missionary. I guess they are trying to appeal to a certain demographic.

Also, do they expect dirt poor folks in third world countries to tithe 10 percent? If they make a couple hundred a year, that doesn't add up to much...

unless you have connections. In that case you are more likely to end up in Europe. Elizabeth Smart is in Paris for example.

Of course they want the 10%. It also goes further over there, I imagine. But mostly it shows obedience.

I've always wondered that, as well. Mr. Romney was in Paris. He claims he never had any $ and had to live in a tiny apt.

living in a tin shack in Columbia or Kenya.

There is more than one major Church operation center. At a minimum there are two. Everything Steve Benson says is irrefutable and true. Still the Church has made progress. Would you like to know how and where? Dismiss my claim if you wish. I am not prepared to cite sources.

The Church Office Building or (C.O.B.) as the current workers refer to it is what Steve claims. I now direct you to the Riverton Office Building, or R.O.B. as it were.

The second building that nobody seems to know about, is the Riverton Office Building. It was a facility that Intel built with the intent of expansion. Intel withdrew from the facility and went to California. Want a map? Google Map 3740 West 13400 South.

This is where the vast majority of TSCC technology is handled. Where do you go on a mission? Wherever the algorhythm says you are needed.

It is not not where you should go. It is where you should not go. The algorithm checks you against potential liabilities. Diabetic? You're going state side or to Europe. Have other conditions? If it violates the Americans With Disabilities Act (1991) expect to be accommodated.

I'd give more detail if I could.

All that matters is that the mission screening process is not where you should go. It is where you should not go. It's a screening process and a computer in Riverton does it. Then it is rubber stamped by the prophet and you get a letter.

In the name of the Riverton Office Building, Amen.

Atleast it has just as much of it as "the prophet", that's for sure. Maybe in the future they could replace the prophet with a robot.

Well, if you're an illegal immigrant, you will be sent somewhere in the U.S., of course. I've heard they bus illegals across the country since they can't legally fly anywhere. Lying for the Lord at its best.

they put your name on a rock, drop it in a hat...

Everyone is supposed to pay tithing, no matter what their income. Many an inspiring story has been ginned up by church members to paint the romantic picture of how a certain impoverished person paid their only dime to tithing and then Great Things happened. Great Things, I tell you.

I lived in Central Africa for a couple of years, and there they had "tithing gardens" for the members. I'm not sure how it worked, but where I was there was plenty of room on the parcel of land where the chapel was, and some members also farmed an area between the church parcel and a neighboring UN compound. I don't know whether they were supposed to sell the produce and pay tithing from it or what. But these were church member families in which--I kid you not--the men ate one day, and the women ate the next. That's just how poor they are. They only have one meal per day as a rule, any way, but some are so poor that they ate only every other day, alternating by boy or girl, man or woman. Pretty sad. And what a diet it was: Fufu (corn and manioc meal cooked into a dumpling), ngai-ngai or pondu (sorrel or manioc greens, respectively), maybe a boiled egg (for protein) and maybe fried plantain (those enormous bananas that you have to fry, boil, or grill). Sometimes, very rarely, they'd have a fish or some chicken; mostly it's just starch.

But as for tithing, they HAVE to pay tithing. To Mormons, this is not negotiable at all, no matter what one's standing in the world. I don't think they are taking enormous advantage of them, though, because we're talking in terms of a few dollars per month country-wide. But they were imposing something on them that need not be imposed. Not only could the LDS church do without their tithing, but they could be keeping the whole of Africa in maize, manioc, fish, and greens if they wanted to. They just don't. Someone's got malls to build.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/13/2011 11:57PM by cludgie.

I don't know if they to it anymore, but they used to send kids from certain families to only certain places of their ancestry. All Hubers and Gubners went to Germany--all of them. Also, all Cardons and Malans (descendants of the two French-Italian families converted by Lorenzo Snow) went to Italy--pretty much all of them--I knew one Cardon who went to Germany, and later he became a mission president there.(In fact, I've known like four or five Cardons who became mission presidents. They are a wealthy family, and their habit is to choose mission presidents from wealthy families who have contributed a lot of money much like the president appoints ambassadors from wealthy families who contributed much money to the campaign.)

Wealthy and well-placed Mormons can sometimes choose where their kid will go just by putting the word in someone's ear, but not all of them are arrogant enough to presume that. There are some pretty wealthy Mormons with both feet on the ground and who aren't full of themselves. (The best example of humility among millionaires that I've seen is that of a hugely wealthy family that made their money by founding and selling a very well-known computer hard drive company.)

One thing that they used to do that I'm pretty sure they no longer do is ask the missionary where he or she would like to serve. On my interview sheet there was a box for that. I said, "Italy!," and that's where they sent me. But I've known guys who learned Chinese as children and then were sent to some stateside Spanish-speaking place.

Most, but not all, non-US/non-Canadian missionaries tend to stay in their own countries, although often in another mission than the one they were raised in. Now that the European missions are closing up, this will leave missionaries from Germany, France, Spain, and Italy with fewer options than before.

(One of coolest things I saw when I was a high councilman in Italy was two Italian missionaries returning home from France, and the MP had even put them together for several months as companions. They were quite possibly the only Italian companion pair ever, and no doubt that flummoxed the French a bit.)

The Cannons went to Germany, the Kimballs to England......

Jesus H. effing christ. That really makes me angry that the church would treat members that way, I don't care where they are from, and all while being a Fortune 500 earning corporation. How heartless and cold.

in my case for example. i studied chinese before going on a mission and on my app i said that i speak chinese and love chinese culture. my wish to get sent to Taiwan was granted. other folks i knew who studied chinese got sent to Taiwan as well.
on the other hand my brother had studied german and really wanted to go to Germany, but he was sent to the NY/NJ mission.

I had a cousin who went through the exact same situation - spent most of high school studying German, got really good at it, desperately wanted to go to Germany and was fairly certain he would, and ended up spending the next two years in exotic...New Jersey.

this was back in the 70s, so I figured I'd be joining the mass baptism craze in Mexico or South America. I went to Central Canada. Think of Fargo, and go a couple hundred miles north.

does anybody know if David Archaletta ever served on mission? I haven't heard either way.

David Archuletta falls under the "celebrities don't have to sacrifice for missionary service" rule. So no, he hasn't served a mission.

I was Mormon and attended BYU a year ago in Freshmen housing and got my mission call a little over a year ago, along with all of the guys in my hall. What I noticed at BYU was that the mission calls seemed to come in waves. There were 5 people who got their calls mid February, and 4/5 were sent to Canada speaking Mandarin. The last guy was sent to New York speaking Mandarin. Then the next set of guys about 3 weeks later or so (I remember it was delayed because of General Conference) were sent to Eastern Europe. 3 were sent to France, 1 to Italy, 1 to Germany, and 1 Czech Repub. Then there were 4 guys in January who were all sent to the very tip of South America, 3 sent to Central America at the same time, etc etc.

This is just my experience though, so I may be completely off on my assumption.

Three of the four countries you named as being part of 'Eastern Europe' are actually in Western Europe, and the fourth is only barely in Eastern Europe.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/14/2011 10:45AM by coyote.

If I may ask, when did you leave TSCC? Just curious if you left prior to your mission, and did you see many BYU classmates going AWOL? Thanks.

When I was in the MTC a GA told us how they made missionary calls.

Each application was displayed to the missionary committee (Apostles) via an over head projector (late '90s) at their weekly meeting. They would all get inspiration after viewing the prospective missionary's picture for a few seconds and jebus would whisper in their ear "frankfurt". Viola! Off to Germany I went!

I thought this was wonderful! I really was needed in Germany!

I was more than a little disappointed when my wife's cousins, whose father owned factories in China and did a lot of business there and was well connected to the mormon elite, all got mission calls to chinese speaking missions. "What are the odds!?" I thought.

Now, of course, I realize that they are much more pragmatic and much less spiritual about their mission calls: They see a need, they fill it. And if a buddy of the elite has a special request, they get top choice. Everyone else can suck it.

Somebody has their head in a dark place, but it isn't a hat.

When our son applied to go on his mission, we made sure to put all over the application that he had to take Dexedrine for ADD.

They assigned him to a Central American country where the mere possession of Dexedrine (whether prescribed or not) is a crime.

When I called the mission people in SLC and asked how we were supposed to keep our son supplied with this illegal substance while on his mission, they had to re-convene and get re-inspired. They sent him to a stateside mission instead.

I've been a bit cynical about the "inspiration" bit ever since.

Along with what MIB said about where you should not go, I've always assumed it's just a matter of filling spaces where they're needed. After a missionary goes home, there's a space to fill in that mission.

I knew one guy who couldn't go to the country where his parents were born, because if he did, they'd draft him into the army for 2 years. So they had to make sure he didn't get sent there.

But I've often seen, for example, French-speaking missionaries being sent to a country where French is spoken. But that doesn't always work. They assume their French, Spanish, etc. will be utilized, only to be sent to some random area in the States.

I have said this before and - no doubt - will say it again.

I have no confidence that there is much logic behind many missionary placings - there seems to be zero inspiration.

Like the 1/2 italian British kid who got sent to Greece

or the kid who was fluent in spanish, who got sent to belgium in the dutch speaking area.

Other people have tried to reconcile these with comments like
'if a person has an apptitude to learn spanish, he can also learn dutch'
or
(from a US resident) 'Greek is pretty much like Italian'

but, basically it seems to me they just say 'let's just throw common sense outta the window and throw darts at a map'

EssexExMo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>but, basically it seems to me they just say 'let's
> just throw common sense outta the window and throw
> darts at a map'


LOL This is what I've often pictured.

The only clear logic that I saw was that all missionaries (this was back in the 70's) were given a language aptitude test. If you scored well on that (I did) the chances of going to a foreign mission were higher. Other than that, I have no clue.

Ron

What? No magic 8 ball involved?

I have a friend (1980's) who told his bishop he would like to serve in Australia. Unfortunately his Bishop didn't know the difference between Australia and Austria. After three months in Austria, he got a letter from his Bishop asking how he liked the kangaroos! No shit!