If anyone here has ever been down to the south pacific isles of Tonga Fiji Samoa Tahiti you will know exactly what im talkin about.In the polynesian culture questioning your religious leaders is seen as TABOO!! General Authorities are treated like Hollywood film stars! Fuck!! i get frustrated everytime i see this happening. Fuck!!!

I've always wondered at the success Mormonism had in Polynesia. I guess it's tempting to believe your ancestors have a very special and vaulted place in Mormon belief system. Mormonism got lucky with a culture that would embrace it so willingly and, dare I say, naively? I've been to parts of Polynesia and enjoyed the spirit of the people but was also sad to see how entrenches Mormonism is.

I can only imagine how frustrating this must be. Sorry for you in this situation. At least I was never a missionary there and responsible for bringing anyone into the faith.

The author James Michener observed that the Mormons were so successful in Polynesia because they coul "guarantee" the Polynesians that they were not Negro. Look it up.

Most of the Church members in Brisbane are Polynesian as well. I'm sure the Church would be shrinking big time in Oz if not for Islanders moving in. They do go big on the obedience too. Used to like sitting outside their services tho to hear them sing leave the European wards for dead musically.

"Most of the Church members in Brisbane are Polynesian as well. I'm sure the Church would be shrinking big time in Oz if not for Islanders moving in."

Several Aussies have stated that same thing over the last few years, and it continues to boggle my mind. I did my mission in Brisbane 1974-76. I was in the Chermside (Rode Road) ward, Gaythorne (now Enoggera) ward, Ipswich ward, and the Isle of Capri branch on the Gold Coast (my flat was in Burleigh Heads.) While I was there, the membership was probably 90% British-descended Aussies, 5% islanders (usually a few Maoris, Kiwis, Filipinos, etc.) and an occasional European such as a French, Slavic, Italian, etc.

I wonder what's happened to all the British-descended members when I was there? Do you have any contact with any Brisbane members who would have been active in the mid-'70s?

It's good to hear that a poly left. I hear it is harder to leave mormonism being poly because of the cultural/family ties to the TSCC. Some of my best friends growing up are Tongan. Stay strong! More will leave. I just would hate to see the poly youth of slc go to gangs. They need to stay strong to their culture. Every Tongan i've ever met would give me the shirt off their back. I love polys. If any poly ever asked me for help I'd drop what I was doing to help them.

TSCC provides status and importance for poly men, where they wouldn have none otherwise. TSCC gives them a voice, a position, and a status - that ties in well with the poly culture. Not everyone in the poly culture can be a king, but everyone in the poly-TSCC culture can be somebody in the mormon church. This is why it is so enticing. TSCC's structure struck a cultural chord with the poly's culture - which is why I believe it has been successful - despite the fact that the mormons established themselves early on beating out the Baptist, 7th days, JW's, etc. Early bird got the worm.

Poly's sidestep the fact that this highly racist church regards them as filthy, dark, loathesome, and below the white leaders. Is their a poly in the 12? There should be. Poly's support those great white bastards w/ 100% zeal. Go figure.

"Poly's sidestep the fact that this highly racist church regards them as filthy, dark, loathesome, and below the white leaders."

The church has taught that Polyneians are better than American Indians.

“The Lord … directed their course away from this continent [America] to their [the Polynesian ancestors’] island homes, that they might not be left to be preyed upon and destroyed by the more wicked part of the House of Israel whose descendants still roam upon this continent in a fallen and degraded state. … This is the secret of the overruling hand of providence which has been over you all from that time until you received the gospel through the preaching of the elders, and until the present time. …

“And we repeat, the reason that few of the islands of the sea have been more highly favored and blessed in the Lord than those of your brethren of this continent is because of the worthiness of your forefathers who were led away and separated from their brethren of this continent, and because of the blessing of the Lord which has attended you, their children, from that time to the present.”
http://lds.org/new-era/1981/06/maori-traditions-and-the-mormon-church?lang=eng

My bad...I grew up in a ward of mostly poly's and they were taught by their white instructors that they were lamanites through and through. It's interesting that in 1981, shortly after the announcement that the ban on blacks getting the penishood, that the church came out with these quotes. I assume this is an attempt at damage control knowing that the poly's needed some soothing. While their forefathers (more recent forefathers that is) were valiant, the earlier forefathers were wicked, fallen, degraded, cursed, and loathesome. Seems like the Lawd should've have un-cursed them and given them white skin if he really meant it. I guess an island paradise would do though.

It is really twisted isn't it? Hagoth was a Nephite ship builder and the people he took were not Lamanites. I could never understand by using the Book of Mormon how they got their non-white skin color.

vai Sikahema, former Philadelphia Eagle and whatever else, now a local news commentator, is on the short list for GA.

I don't think there's any great reason why so many Polynesians are Mormon. The Mormon missionaries got there at roughly the same time as the other Christian missionaries, so they had a sort of even playing field for conversions.

In Tahiti, there were several islands that were almost exclusively Mormon, but on neighboring islands there were almost none. It just depended on where the original missionaries landed.

oh, and the Reorganized LDS had a big presence in Tahiti too. The Mormons got there so early that the schism that happened in America happened there too.