So I always said that if the missionaries ever came by the house I’d just go about whatever I was doing before they came by. Give them a little view into what normal people do who aren’t conscripted into service by myth and superstition. Well Friday afternoon I got the chance to do just that.

About 5:00 I was out in my driveway doing some work on my cars and I notice three sister missionaries and a clean-cut, white shirt and tie guy in his thirties walking up my driveway. Since it was the sisters I popped my head in the door and invited my wife out to join the conversation.

I continued to work on the car and even invited them to help out. We talked about my cars for a good while. Then they went into the typical BRT format. So where are you from? How did you meet? Etc. Then they asked if there was any service that they could do for us. All our kids are teenagers or close to it and reasonably healthy and able. So my lovely bride suggested that they go help another family in the ward who lives not too far away and has three kids under 6, one of whom is sick. A brilliant response that I would never have thought up on the spot like that.

The weirdest part about the whole thing was the dude from Salt Lake. He identified himself as a church employee who was just observing how some of the changes in the missionary program were working out. That was his story at least. But I’m suspicious. Having a COB employee stop by the house may be common in Utah but it isn’t in Georgia. I’ve never had that happen before even when I was a member. The next thing that adds suspicion was that he seemed to be trying to pull me away from the conversation the girls were having. He never actually asked “Do you mind if you and I talk over here for a second?” I would have gladly if he’d have just asked. But he didn’t. So I just kept working on the car and doing what I was doing.

The really suspicious thing for me was this "just happened to be in the neighborhood" visit came 64 days after the COB had read my resignation email and sent me the “urge you to reconsider…ecclesiastical matter” letter.

So what do y’all think? Was this guy really a COB employee observing the missionaries? Or was he out checking on recent apostates? I’m under no delusion that my membership was important enough to send a guy out from COB to check on me. Just thought the timing was far too coincidental.

In other news:
My confirmation that my name had been removed came on Saturday. It was dated exactly 60 days from the day they read my resignation email.

He knew our first names, so definitely not a just in the neighborhood thing. He only gave us his first name, not "Brother So and So". It was all so contrived.

Good catch. I didn't even think twice about him using our first names rather than "brother" and "sister".

The whole thing sends the creepazoid factor off the charts.

;o)

Now that you're formally out, if they come around again and you don't want to play around, just threaten them with a visit from your attorney.

If I were to do that they’d just use the fact that I wanted them to leave as evidence that I was beguiled by Satan. I’d rather them leave scratching their heads, ”But he seems like such a nice guy. I expected apostates to be mean and nasty.”

I vote for spying. Do you have family that might instigate a missionary visit? I believe I had that last year.

Sometime just after my son moved in with me and his mom transferred his membership records to the ward (over a year ago in Dec 2011), we had the first visit from missionaries since moving into my house a few years earlier. However, I wasn't at home. I was in the hospital (surgery from a cycling accident). The elders came by and according to my son seemed particularly interested in talking with him. He told them that I was in the hospital and that they could come back when I was out. They never suggested seeing me at the hospital, but they did return for several more visits, bringing members with them to answer my difficult questions. Eventually they gave up when my son told them that he had no desire to go back to church either.

Then last summer, I was back in UT visiting with my younger children for almost two weeks, and my son gets another visit from the missionaries; this time sisters. When I returned, they dropped by but wouldn't come in the house since there are no women here. My son later told me that they had come in the first time briefly.

I think my ex-wife kept sending the missionaries, on specific dates when she knew I wouldn't be around to interfere with their attempts to re-activate my son.

Jesus Smith Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Do you have family that might instigate a missionary visit?

I haven’t attended for about 18 months and my daughter and I recently resigned. My wife and the other three kids are still on the records but they haven’t attended a Sunday meeting for quite some time either.

You are much nicer than I am. I tell them flat out, "I'm not interested in your crazy cult BS. Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time."

Outcast Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time."

That would have been really funny, espcially since I was actually wearing a Monty Python T-shirt.

If it was in fact a ruse so this plant would speak to you, that is actually quite impressive.

For LDS Inc to go to the expense of mailing this guy to Georgia, under false pretenses, in the hopes of making you LDS again, perhaps indicates that the hemmoraging exodus is far larger than is suspected.

<He identified himself as a church employee>

How do you know that he was not from the Area staff.... I think that they are located in Atlanta. He could have been either the Mission president or one of his counselors, or maybe on the staff of the Area Presidency. I think that any of those are much more likely than someone being shipped out from Salt Lake, and all that you said that the man said was that he was a church employee, not that he was from SLC (unless I missed it).

When I lived out that direction about 20 years ago, the Area Presidency in Atlanta sent out a directive that no resignations were allowed, and were to be ignored. Of course, this was prior to the court cases referenced on this site.

skeptic Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> How do you know that he was not from the Area staff....

We chit-chatted about his commute from Pleasant Grove to the COB.

The man said he had flown in from Utah to observe how the new missionary program changes were going. He identified himself as "Tim". I kept thinking of him as Tim the Enchanter.

"There are some who call me.......Tim?

I think it easily could be a COB employee. I am sure there are a lot of logistics to work out on the new and improved missionary program.. I would also bet that the sisters did not drop in by chance and that he was in on what ever briefing the girls got but I don' think he was there to see you specifically.

Since my wife is still on the records I can't help but speculate how the conversation would have been different if I had not invited her out.
Perhaps they didn't know if she was aware I had resigned and didn't want to bring it up in front of her.
Perhaps they didn't know I had resigned at all.
Just body language and the way their questions were phrased I suspect that "Tim" knew but the girls didn't.

and there is no chance this was an accidental encounter. They all showed up in a car that "Tim" was driving adn addresse us by name. I'll have to ask the friend down the road if they stopped by to "be of service".

I thought missionaries came in pairs. Maybe they are testing sending the out in 3s because so many lovely sisters have recently volunteered to serve.

The guy was just observing to be sure the big group didn't intimidate you. You passed :)

If there is an odd number of elders or sisters in a mission they have to make a group of three. It happens more frequently with sisters than elders just because there are fewer if them.

Here's my thought: Maybe your area in Georgia is currently sending in a lot of resignations. So they send a COB employee out to spend a couple of days there, maybe a couple in a "problem" area of Florida then a quick flying stop in another high resignation area of Dallas, then home to report to the COB suits. My guess is that they sent out a half dozen of these guys to investigate high resignation areas and see if they could actually talk to recently resigned members, fake-casually, to see what the heck was up and how to stop it. It was research and it speaks well of where you live that they'd think it was worth researching the high number of resignations in your area. Sounds like you handled it well. If it kept happening, you'd be justified in throwing the missionaries out but I always favor killing them with the same kindness they try killing us with. I think it messes with their minds the most. Plus, I hate proving Mormons right on any level, so falling into the angry apostate category is a last resort for me. I much prefer being so nice to them that they suspect I'm trying to convert them out of the church and run for their lives. At the very least, it messes with their self-inflicted truth.

Now this is a totally plausible theory in a bizarre, vast conspiracy kind of way. Given that Mormons are so paranoid, I'm buying it (for lack of any other reasonable explanation).

And I just want to point out to all the COB employees reading this thread (and we know you do), YOU GUYS ARE SO WEIRD!!!

;o)

Given that Mormonism is a corporation, rather than a religious organization, it make sense that they'd follow corporate procedures, which is to say that if their product if failing in certain areas, they'd send out someone to figure out why.

peregrine Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> In other news:
> My confirmation that my name had been removed came on Saturday. It was dated exactly 60 days from the day they read my resignation email.

Congratulations! Sounds like a reason for a dinner get-together. What do you think?

What was the email address you sent your resignation to?

On a side note we recently had missionaries come to our door (twice in 2 hours when they were already told we weren't interested) and they had a 3rd man with them. Didn't think much of it until now. I'm wondering if it was perhaps he was an observing party? I sent them on their way before anything was really said.

kabbima Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What was the email address you sent your
> resignation to?

msr-confrec@ldschurch.org

I got my "urge you to reconsider" letter 4 days later and final confirmation letter 64 days after that.

Awesome thank you! I'm not surprised they drug their feet!

Compared to some of the other horror stories I've heard, I actually thought this was rather fast.

Jeeze Louise, sometimes the paranoia we create for ourselves get's over the top. First off, unless you have "good reason" to believe otherwise or there is some inherent risk associated with an encounter, when a person introduces themselves to you, it's good policy to just accept what they are telling you. He apparently put up little pretenses about his identity.

Is it possible that there is a coincidence between this visit and the timing of your resignation? Absolutely! Is it Gestapo tactics? Most likely not!! First off, who are you, that the Church would go to the expense and effort of doing secret police work on you in this fashion? What would the Church have to gain by doing such a thing? Even more important, eve if we assume that there were possible gains, what would be the risk to the Church to start behaving in this way(Gestapo policing)?? It would be a huge risk to the Church to start doing this.

So....if you're going to try and read into it like this, what other possibile explanations can we concieve of? I have a pretty good business background, and I tend to see a lot of the Church's behavior through that lense. Everybody knows that Church's in general are struggling to maintain membership growth, and Mormonism is no exception. If I were in the Church's position, I would start doing some research on this problem to see what I could learn. In this case I would spend the money to send COB employees into the field to meet with people who have left recently, simply to find out all I could about these people. Demographics, issues, attitudes (could they ever come back), etc. I would identify at least a dozen data points that could be analyzed, in order to see how the problem could be resolved on an aggregate scale. In other words, the Church isn't interested in YOU personally, rather they are interested in large numbers, and you were simply included in the sample that is being collected to measure the larger population of dissaffected Mormons!

Here is what this would mean. Mormonism will be making some drastic changes to it's product over the next several years. If they following any kind of common methodology for product/market improvement, then they currently have adopted some kind of formal problem statement, accepted the need to change (even more things), and are currently in the measure and analyze stage. Guessing out loud, we will probably see more experimental behavior like this, and other things (the I'm a Mormon campaign) over the next five to ten years, as they gather information and test new ideas. The Mormon identity will appear more confused during that time. After that, ie, after they have gathered data and tested ideas, you will see Mormonism start to focus into a narrower and better defined identity. That identity will be different in many way's from the Mormonism we are all familiar with. My personal guess is that the theology will become less important, and Joseph Smith, The Book of Mormon, etc, will all become idealized artifacts of Mormon heritage with little importance in Mormon lifestyle and practice.

I should have read all the comments. I didn't notice Ca Girl's comments till now, and realized she was able to say it succinctly in less words.

Agree on all of this and especially your last paragraph Erick (and CA Girl). They actually started this process at least 20 years ago under Hinkley. He knew PR and he understood business well enough to know when it was time to update the product.

Within a generation for example, most new members have no idea of the temple blood oaths removed in the '90's. In another decade or so, they will start denying they ever existed at all and it's all only an angry, anti-mormon story.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/11/2013 01:55PM by iflewover.

For the record; I don't think I'm the least bit paranoid. I just thought the encounter was interesting and wanted to get y'all's perspective on it.
I also am under no delusion that Tim was shipped from Salt Lake just to spy on me.
I tend to accept the conclusions you and others have posted here, that like any business they are simply doing some investigating into the aspects of their business where profits are down. I was just one of those data points.

As far as accepting somebody on their word goes; Don't drive up to my house, at the end of a long road, and say you “just happened to be in the area”. Not true. You obviously made a special trip to see my family.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/11/2013 12:54PM by peregrine.