There have been many coup d’états (or is it “coups d’etat”?) in Thailand, but one of the more significant ones occurred while I was serving my mission there in 1976. I literally woke up one morning in a constitutional democracy, and went to bed that night in a military dictatorship. The country was immediately put under martial law. Police officers could jail anyone, at the officer’s discretion, for up to six months without any charges being filed (much less legal representation or a trial). There had even been some on-the-spot executions. All media (TV, radio, newspapers, books, etc.) were tightly controlled by a government censorship committee.

The powers that be in SLC responded to this situation by not sending new missionaries to Thailand. No new Elders arrived for a couple of months, and they stopped sending Sisters for several months. I suppose it was too dangerous of a place to send missionaries, but not dangerous enough to bring the missionaries who were already there home.

At the time of the coup, there were Thailand-bound missionaries in the MTC, and others who had received a mission call to Thailand who had not yet reported to the MTC. All of those Elders and Sisters got their calls changed to different missions. If mission calls are inspired, WTF happened? Why would God extend a mission calls to people he knew would never serve there? Did the same god that knew that 116 pages would be lost more than 2000 years in the future not be able to figure out how political instability would play out over the next couple of months?

Hopefully, this type of logic will eventually filter down to TBMs as more and more missionaries are put in 'dangerous' situations.

In fact, that is how learning takes place. How many lives, thefts, rapes, etc. need to take place? Who can guess?

As more and more 'problems' occur eventually more people become 'aware' that 'something is not right' and take action.

It is too bad your parents, etc. 'allowed' you to be kept in a
'dangerous' place.

Computers have been making missionary assignments since 1970, with only occasional intervention by GA's:

http://www1.todayinmormonhistory.com/2014/06/35-years-ago-today-jun-2-1979.html

Another issue I observed in Finland was that individuals were sent there that had no clue on how to learn a foreign language. A few were sent back stateside as it was clear they would never learn. Some spent their missions learning only enough to have a door approach and were unable to have a normal conversation in Finnish. It seemed such a waste and clearly there was no inspiration in those calls. It was certainly a shelf item for me.

I saw some of that on my mission, too. I had one companion who was was extremely diligent and very intelligent, but he just got nowhere when it came to the language. When I found out that he had been reprimanded by our mission president for his lack of progress, I went to the MP to defend my companion. I told the president how my companion used every spare minute to study the language, but the MP just dismissed me with a snarky comment.

Not too long ago, I spoke with that former companion for the first time in many years. He held no bitterness toward the mission president, but he still felt confused as to why he was called to that mission.