I wonder who's joining now. I do know one person who joined years ago, but she's a whacko with about 40 cats. She has many, many personality disorders and screwed with the church and its authority for years. For example, she brought in a note from her physician stating that caffeine was "good" for her give the medication she was on.

When I joined, it wasn't uncommon for whole families to join, or teenagers and other people the church wanted to attract and retain. However, the retention rate, even back in the last 60s and early 70s was pretty dismal.

Is the church only recruiting needy people these days? Why would ANYONE join given the information easily available?

Don't see the family thing happening much any more. Mostly the needy, lonely, carless types....

I've only seen one convert baptism in the last 10+ years living in Utah. It was a girl that had recently married a TBM. I've never seen a full family join together. There's a couple in the ward here that converted together, but that was almost 30 years ago. My TBM parents converted ~40 years ago. I think it was MUCH more common back then. There's a non-member family in the area here that has participated in several church activities. They enjoy the activities, but I doubt that they'll ever be baptized since they've already turned down the missionaries. TBM's think that just being good neighbors will draw people to the church...they'll want to learn more, be baptized, make temple covenants, etc... They fail to realize that, while some may desire the sense of community, most intelligent people recognize the church for what it is.

From my observation in the last 10 or 15 years only very poor, very needy, children or crazy people will join. It's very very rare for a couple to join, even more rare if they've a job or any education at all.

The last normal person I saw join was back in about 1995, but she was still on the fringes because she was a young white working poor person. i've seen several others join since then but they were all uneducated people with lots and lots of problems, mostly mental problems and drug addiction. these were people who needed constant attention, rides to church, rides to see the bishop, rides to the hospital etc. Yes, I was one of the people tasked to pick some of these people up and chauffer them everywhere and anywhere they needed to go. that alone was a damn good reason for them to join the Mormon church. plenty of them still join. Remember how the church gave us constnt instructions to find and teach and baptize fathers of families? that don't happen.

I joined TSCC a little less than ten years ago. I'm not needy or lonely, and I'm extremely well educated and middle class. BUT, I have type I bipolar disorder. I'm high functioning with it but definitely haven't been myself for years until earlier this year.

I hadn't been diagnosed and out of hospital very long when I joined the church, which my friends and family were VERY against but have supported me throughout. I have participated actively in the church (endowment, callings).

I don't think it's a coincidence that I'm feeling the best I have since I was diagnosed, and I'm also on this site and definitely looking to leave TSCC. Now my brain has unfogged and I'm stable, I sure do feel like I was targeted at a point in my life where I was unable to say "no" or understand the full ramifications of my decisions and that I definitely accepted more weirdness uncritically than I should have.

How embarrassing!



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 08/01/2014 04:57PM by safetynotguaranteed.

Welcome, and good luck on your journey out.

Thank you! This board is awesome :)

The last few baptisms we've had are very lonely women converted to the missionaries. Usually they leave when their favorite missies go home. This is a great improvement over the indigent, pretend cripples, and those who are living in handicap housing. I kid you not, we have lots of members who have collections of walkers, canes, and wheelchairs for use on sunday only. You can get church welfare, but it really takes a professional at cheating the system.

emmahailyes Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I kid you not, we have lots of members
> who have collections of walkers, canes, and
> wheelchairs for use on sunday only.

For some reason, "There's Something About Mary" just popped into my head.

I guess there's something about Mormonism.

I read a lot of missionary blogs for a variety of projects I'm sifting out data for. http://preparetoserve.com/missionary-blog-index/

This isn't one of them but I read the missionaries' stories and have informed annecdotal claims from around the globe.

In Europe and Asia:
Most baptisms are single adults and often sound quite lonely.
Some are single moms.
A reasonable percent are spouses/families of less actives.
The occasional older couple joins and these usually are lonely couples whose families are distant.
I have yet to see a report of a married couple joining (with or without kids). So they are rare.
I have yet to see a report of a single father joining.

In the Moridor:
Less Active/Part-member families are a huge resource for dunkings (no matter how quickly they will fall away).
Lonely single people join.
Girl/Boyfriends join.
Full family baptisms happen but not often.

US & Canda outside the Moridor:
Less Active/Part-member families are a huge resource for dunkings (no matter how quickly they will fall away).
Lonely single people join.
A few Girl/Boyfriends join
Rarely do full family baptisms happen

The theme to most baptisms is reactivation efforts and lonely folk. That's your money pit. There are others who join, but most are found this way.

I do not track South America or Central America at this time.

I think that's evidence that the the more cultish aspects the Church takes out, the worse the quality of converts and retention. All the mainstreaming and watering down it has done has really hurt growth.

Real cults typically attract college age smart people.

The broken people and those seeking for shelter from the cold. They stick around long enough to realize the money train and food network is really with the other god fearing churches with strings attached.

I know one person who joined. Mid-life crisis after 2nd divorce.

Professional, college educated successful in job in chosen field. American citizen living outside Morridor but within US.

Ten years later this person is unmarried in the church, hard core TBM who is constantly magnifying callings and enduring to the end. CTR ring, monthly temple visits, the whole deal. Totally delusional.

Came to Mo'ism from mild Evangelical Christianity. Said they didn't believe in deathbed come to Jebus moments and was looking for a church where it wasn't just Sunday and it encouraged service. They should have joined the Catholic Church. At least it isn't a cult.

I don't think this person is representative of typical converts.

If this really was God's one true church, it would welcome the poor and downtrodden since they need help and love the most.
After all, those are the people Christ ministered to during his sojourn on earth.

What Mormonism wants, however, is people who are willing to work and fork over their pay to the cult, and who breed lots of future tithe payers.

This right there should tell you that there is something seriously wrong with the Mormon 'church'.
Not to mention that God is NOT a Republican.

Our current family missionary in Japan baptized a family of 3 this week, after one week's discussions. Difficult, because the family are Nepalese, speak no English and very little Japanese. Friends of a Nepalese member. But they obviously felt the Spirit.

In other words, golden!

I have witnessed three baptisms in the past year.

One was an elderly gentleman who joined after his TBM wife passed away and the ward really reached out to him and gave him a social home. I guess being a mormon was better than being alone.

The second was the teenage daughter of an inactive mormon. She heard the discussions when she moved in with her grandparents and could not live with her father.

The third was an alcoholic neighbor that the ward helped to break his addiction and he joined because he felt there was a connection between being sober and the members.

These are all wonderful people. But you kind of see a pattern on who is willing to join the church. You don't see any full-families who have been life long evangelicals jumping into the font together.

There is always some kind of hook (i.e., inactive parent or life issues).

Mormons love to prey upon those with difficulties.

My family takes the 'every member a missionary' thing VERY seriously. Collectively they give out hundreds of BOMs a year. They talk about TSCC constantly. The result is dismal. Two people joined TSCC this year. Both of them had similar stories. Divorced, mid-life crisis, lonely, felt a part of my brother's TBM family. In other words, needed to belong.

My family views these two baptisms as 'proof that the work is moving forward'. What they blatantly ignore is the fact that they testified to literally hundreds of people, who were not interested. Two out of hundreds in the 'one true church'. The Mormon God is not very effective. Oh wait, it's my TBM family. They are not worthy enough or obedient enough or working hard enough. Ok, I'm getting mad now. My TBM family, in spite of being delusional, give EVERYTHING to TSCC and yet I watch them get depressed, shame themselves, and feel guilty because the results aren't there. So sad.

TSCC targets people who are in difficulty or at a transitional point of life. They do not tell the truth about their doctrine, present a happy facade, and rush people to commitment.

Steve Hassan writes that "people do not join cults. Cults recruit people" using deception.

I personally know three converts very well. Two coworkers and my daughter. All three are women with advanced degrees. All three, while very smart, are not deep "what is the meaning of life?" thinkers. Mormonism seems to provide a social structure that they like.

I think my mother got hooked into it while she was having a rough patch in her marriage. The church got her thinking in a different direction and made her feel better about herself.

I agree that people in turmoil are a good target for LDS Inc.

One of my friends joined while in the military overseas. He was lonely and the church was very social and fun back then. He's completely inactive and I don't think he believes it any more.

These days the church just isn't any fun. All the activities are work or indoctrination oriented. It is so serious that I cannot imagine how they are keeping the youth interested outside of guilting them and keeping them so busy they don't have time to contemplate leaving and what life outside of Mormonism might be like.

QUOTE - "Our current family missionary in Japan baptized a family of 3 this week, after one week's discussions. Difficult, because the family are Nepalese, speak no English and very little Japanese. Friends of a Nepalese member. But they obviously felt the Spirit".

I wonder what that poor bewildered family think is going on? "OK, maybe this is a local custom, they want us to have a bath?! Dressed in white?! Just keep smiling dear, we don't want to be rude".

They want middle class families, but the missionaries target people when they are down and out. It's understandable, since happy, prosperous families rarely seek out new religions, but they end up with a lot of wet kittens to care for.

When the families do come, especially in areas with less developed wards and branches, they are overwhelmed with responsibilities. A lot of them burn out or become cynical as they are asked to care for all these sad sack cases, and the missionaries keep bringing more of them in from the cold.

We were told to seek out families, but it was rare they would listen to us and when they did come to church, they were taken aback by the Fellini characters at that populated the branch.

As I've posted about here before, two of my cousins (they are sisters) converted to Mormonism within the last year or so. Both are probably ideal converts--from a middle/upper-middle class family, educated (each has a degree in the hard sciences from a respected university), in their mid-20s. They are only part-white and delightsome, but I'd imagine that the church nowadays probably cares less about their ethnicity or skin color than about their earnings potential.

Interestingly, though, one of them appears to not be very gung-ho anymore about their new faith; I suspect she and her fiancé may even be having thoughts of leaving. (They are even getting married at a winery, of all places.) The other sister is super-TBM, though, as is her boyfriend. Odd.

I'd say the one marrying in the winery if definitely on the way out somehow lol.

Immigrants

Elder in Tennessee writes about a new convert:


Dyersburg, Tennessee

"ok, crazy story now, remember that baptism I had, well... the person we baptized is a loon, he is crazy, he has hyper religious delusional disorder, so he does nothing but reads the bible and the book of mormon, he watches no tv, he doesn't go outside except to preach to people that he has been baptized into the true church, heck, he tells this to baptist pastors, a little extreme so far right? but that's just the beginning, he says that the great and spacious building is the church building because the members uses phones, and Ipads, and the worst part is, he said that Joseph Smith died because he was a sinner, and that Thomas S. Monson is a pastor, not a prophet, and that a prophet should be telling people that they should tell people to sell everything that they own, and teach people every day, and go to church every day, and not to tell people to get out of debt. Me and my companion had quite the conversation with him after he said that, the prophet receives revelation for the benefit for all of us, but he just won't see that. the next insane thing, yesterday, he came to church dressed up like a jew, wearing a cross, nothing weird yet, but then as the sacrament is being blessed, he gets down on his knees, and then at the end of the blessing, he gets off his knees, he takes the bread, but then he declines the water, and he drinks his water bottle, I asked my companion: "Did he just bless his own water?!?" but then as the talks were going, he claps his hands, stands up, and then he gets down on his knees again, and he seems like he's praying, and then he raises the bible and the book of mormon, we had to take him out side to talk to him, and we had to have the branch presidency talk with him, he is scaring me."

That was a delightful read, thank you for posting it.

I know the mishies are immature and sheltered, but this is embarrassingly ignorant. And just think, LDS wants more just like him to be its public face.

Maybe his next convert will be a nun wearing a yarmulke.

So they are down to converting loners and loonies? Sad, but predictable. I was a genetic Mormon. Both sides had pioneers. I drifted along for most of my life, but finally determined it a cult and abandoned it, handcart ancestors be-damned. This is the 21st century. I am 63 years old, but refuse to be set in my ways. Mormonism has dogged me all my life but now I find myself a new skeptic, liberal, acceptor of gays, sort of a socialist. My TBM family attributes it to mental instability. That's just what TBM's do.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/01/2014 08:26PM by rationalist01.

I was an early teen convert. I came from a broken, dysfunctional home. I was physically (but not sexually), verbally, and emotionally abused by an older sibling after my father was no longer in the picture. My Mormon friend had a wonderful family and home life...I converted to that more than the church.

When I served a mission a just few years later, I quickly realized that even then (1970s) the church primarily converted societal misfits such as myself. Some were misfits because of circumstance, as was my case, and others were misfits in that they had mental, emotional or developmental issues, which placed them on the fringes of society.

I observed that, in a "it takes a village" sort of way, these misfits were cared for by people in the church who would under other circumstances have nothing to do with them. Some, like myself, could overcome their environmental disadvantages with the help received, while others would have to be nursed along by the church forever.

Those first generational misfits did not necessarily serve to strengthen the church, but their children were often helped by the church "village" in the same way that I was and became productive members of the church and society.

Some of them do manage to get to a point of contributing as much as they take.

When my wife and I jointly decided to leave the church when our house of faith evolved into nothing more than one gigantic shelf on which to store our growing doctrinal concerns, we left with at least an appreciation for the fact that the church served as a refuge for me during a critical point in my life. And it was also where we met. So some good did come from it for us.

I realize that, for many people, the multitude of intentional and unintended cruelties of the church and its practices leaves them with extremely harsh and bitter feelings towards the church. I don't judge them nor blame them. But for me, leaving was more of a "Too bad it's just a bunch of made up crap and hidden perversity, because I kinda liked what they pretended to be all about."

Morons...
from Moron to Mormon in one easy dunk.

safetynotguaranteed - Please don't feel embarrassed. You have/had a mental illness. You have a much better reason for joining that most who are not forced into it from birth.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/01/2014 10:59PM by verilyverily.

My brother-in-law loves to tell the story of a woman from his work joining the church about a year ago. She is college educated and intelligent. He claims she looked at all the "anti" information and still joined. Supposedly her family sends her weekly emails about the real history of Mormonism, yet she is so converted to the "truth" that it doesn't matter.

When you dig a little deeper into the story you find that she was dating a Mormon fellow. I think that had more to do with the conversion than anything else. Of course, when I voice that, I'm just being a cynical apostate.