My uncle called me yesterday, have not spoken with him in many months. He mentioned that one of his granddaughters is serving a mission in a fairly small town in a Colombia.

He said she is having a wonderful experience, that the people are very poor and humble and many are anxious to hear the gospel.

This is what really shocked me: He stated that one of every 60 people in that small town are now mormons, and that there are 10 wards in JUST that town alone. Wow, I wondered how that could possibly be.

Maybe because they do not have access to the internet? I don't know. I have heard of NO stats like that anywhere in years. I know many poor people used to join the church hoping to get welfare help, but from what I have heard, the church has cut the biggest part of that off.

Why would all of these people be joining the church, ANYONE?

I've been to Colombia, and my observation is that it is a terrible place. Not just horribly poor (by the standards of the Americas), but really awful in just LIFE for anyone who is not among the wealthy classes.

My guess would be: Somehow these people getting baptized think that it will, down the road, lead to either them, or their offspring, or their relatives, getting to the U.S. SOMEHOW. Going to BYU...whatever--ANYTHING to get the proper entry documentation and financing (which they have no way of knowing will likely never, ever happen).

From their standpoint, it's probably the apparent best chance at a better life than they ever thought possible.

If I were Colombian, and I was not of the wealthier classes, I would get baptized too. Nothing to lose...and EVERYTHING (maybe!!!) to gain.

From the perspective of most ordinary Colombians: it would be a no-brainer.

Next best possible hope: working for the various organized crime associations--but people who DO, die a lot (and so do their extended families).

I would guess that they are poor, superstitious and don't have access to the Internet or literature that would reveal the truth. It makes me mad that those poor good Mormons will pay tithing on meagre wages and go without while the top 15 live like kings. This is NOT what Christianity should look like.

brandywine Wrote:
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> I would guess that they are poor, superstitious
> and don't have access to the Internet or
> literature that would reveal the truth. It makes
> me mad that those poor good Mormons will pay
> tithing on meagre wages and go without while the
> top 15 live like kings. This is NOT what
> Christianity should look like.

I agree with all of your points, except that even if they KNEW the LDS Church was a crock, I don't think it would have a thing to do with their decision to get baptized (or get members of their family baptized).

I think some of them are religious (and they're mostly Catholic), and so they think a little more baptismal water isn't going to hurt anything--or likely change their core religious beliefs, either.

As Catholics: they have nothing, and they WILL have nothing--for all the rest of their lives.

As Mormons: maybe they (or their children) will have a shot at a beautiful, clean, and SAFE life they only know from fleeting glimpses on TV or on the covers of the tabloids hanging from outside vendors' stalls.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/17/2014 11:20PM by tevai.

You make a good point that makes perfect sense. As a mom I know I would do just about anything to make a good life for my kids.

I know that if I were a third world man I would join any first world organization for the sake of my children if not for me. Hell, I'd join 'em for lunch and an air conditioned room. And I'd join all of them too, Mormons and the rest.

what are the present activity rates?


how about the activity rates for 2 4 6 year converts?

10 wards? Hmmmm 10 bishoprics, primaries, etc etc etc?


ask me why I'm skeptical, Go Ahead

GNPE Wrote:
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>
> ask me why I'm skeptical, Go Ahead

Why are you skeptical, GNPE?

I'm curious too.

About 1% of U.S. are mormon. So there is a town that claims 1 in 60 are mormons. So what?

All that means is that some other town of equal size, only about 1 in 250 are mormons, and it all averages out. Neither town would be all that unusual for being out of the norm.

i don't share the view that they are selling out to the gringos in exchange for a few toys made in china bought at walmart. that shows the arrogance of my fellow american ex-mormons indoctrinated to believe that the rest of the world wishes to be part of the empire. perhaps they were too long in the mormon bubble thinking they were the pinnacle of the world and that belief somehow permeates every day things.

travel a little. get out of nebraska for a change. there's more to life than corporate media and mcdonalds. discover the beauty of this world without borders, politics, or religions.

poor people in colombia and south america en general, are simply taught to believe/worship the christian god in whatever way is possible. don't you think they don't know what the catholics did to the natives in their land? and yet south america is predominantly catholic. why do they keep believing?

in south america, they have the socialist jesus. if they do whatever they can in this life, they'll finally get their reward. and also, for believing and worshipping their god, they get extra blessings in this life too. money is not one of them. not their top 5 anyway. they have family, food, health, friends, a roof, and happiness.

in lands of the north, yes, canada and the united states, we are used to the god who wants money. and will hook you up with blessings in terms of a check or a bonus. want health? you worship the capitalist jesus, drop him a few bucks, he in return will give you the blessing of money to pay for a good doctor.

now please get out of utah for crying out loud.

oh, if you felt offended for calling you a redneck, well, suck it up. i hit a nerve and you know it. man up.

send me money and i'll pray for you. paypal and all major credit cards accepted.

love, darth jesus.

I give Darth a 9.6 on condescension. Good, but not perfect.

+1

So the 15 million people here sin papeles came here because they like meat loaf and want to watch ice hockey?

"they get extra blessings in this life too. money is not one of them. not their top 5 anyway. they have family, food, health, friends, a roof, and happiness."

Uhhhh.....it takes money to get three of the six things you list here.

I know many people in south america thst consider themsekves good catholic/mormon/assembly of god that then visit the l8cal witch doctor when they are sick.

I

Relax,

During the last 7 or 8 years the number of wards and branches in Colombia has declined by 8%.

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1258801,1259786#msg-1259786

I've been looking through random blogs from Columbia and I didn't see any indication of excitement or growth. There were the usual mentions of getting a new investigator, an occasional baptism, falling short of weekly/monthly mission goals for investigators or lessons. One kid mentioned two wards had been combined into one.

My uncle has no reason to lie to me. And I am sure his granddaughter is not lying to him, and she IS LOVING her mission. I would not have believed it either, but that is what he told, me that she said, 10 wards in that one town.

I wanted to question him because it did not sound possible to me, but he does not know I am no longer a member, and I want to keep it that way.

Maybe he or she got it wrong, but if it were not true, why would she be having such a great mission? Maybe the town is a lot bigger than he suggested, able to sustain 10 wards, but still, he did say one out of 60 in that town are mormons now.

He did not mention the retention rate and I have no doubt it is most likely terrible.

It isn't necessarily a case of anyone deliberately lying. Information has been passed along through multiple people and it may have already become distorted and inaccurate by the time it reached the granddaughter - like the game "telephone" or "gossip" many of us have played in the days of our youth.

Isn't there a google maps type page that shows all the wards and stakes in the world?

If in doubt, check and see.

Which mission?

The numbers don't work. There have to be several hundred members for a ward. Cumorah.com is down today, so I don't have the numbers of members per congregation, but many countries in South America are in the 500 to 800 range.

Even at 500, it would mean that the size of the city is 300,000 if one in 60 is LDS. At an incredible 250 per ward, it would still be 150,000. That is not a small town.

Something is grossly wrong with the story. One should know better than to believe Mormon claims.

outsider Wrote:
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Cumorah.com is down
> today, so I don't have the numbers of members per
> congregation, but many countries in South America
> are in the 500 to 800 range.
>
I found a blog by the authors of cumorah.com and Colombia is listed as having 699 members per congragation. That is for both wards and branches, so wards would be expected to have more.

Even using that number, the place needs to be a good sized city of more than 400,000 people.

More Mormon BS, as usual.

This is what I saw in the OP also. I've lived in South America and those numbers don't make sense. The math doesn't even make sense. An average of 300 members per ward times ten wards = 3000 members; one in 60 is Mormon = 180,000 people in the small town, I mean, CITY.

I personally live in a small town. It has 2000 people. We have to drive over an hour to get anywhere that has 180,000 people, and we don't call that a small town, we call it 'going to the city'.

I completely believe the OP that his uncle and her daughter have integrity and are not lying. But this is something I see frequently in TBMs; they don't examine anything for truth. Their BS detector doesn't go off. They trust and accept on faith and even something as clearly obvious as MATH FACTS being wrong doesn't register in their brain.

Don't the vast majority of converts end up leaving though?

and counting her, one of the 60 people in town are Mormon? I'm not impressed.

This is the only type of place they can expect to get significant numbers of converts. It's been that way forever. All churches target the poor and downtrodden. It's like how bacteria attack those with weak immune systems.

Well missionaries never lie. In fact, Mormons as a whole never lie.

Now can I interest you in some magically healing essential oils?...

cumorah.com is back up. It looks like the number of congregations in Columbia peaked in 1997 with 329, and 16 years later it was at 266.

The percent of Columbians who TSCC claims are members is a whopping 0.4%, and with only 20% of that active, then the number of real members is 0.08%.

Yawn.

11% to 25% is the activity rate for Central/South America. They may have a lot of members on the books, but only 11-25% actually show up.

Baptizing in foreign lands serves primarily one purpose: to bolster the faith of the already faithful in the U.S.

So you have second hand information that a small town in Colombia has lotsa concerts?

I would first question if the information is really active or if this is hyperbole.