What a stupid name. Teaching adult investigators and holding up pictures for them to look at (1980S). On my mission we "taught" someone and I was flipping the pictures and he really had an issue with it "you're treating like a child" he rightly said. Wow, but I'd never even thought about that, but hey I was 19 or 20 and this was part of the divine missionary method. I was unthinkingly doing what we were told to do.

Flanolografos are what we had! Flannel boards, that folded up like an umbrella, and we'd but pictures of JS and Jehovah and Elohim ("Not just one ghawd, but two!!).

We had a set of figures for each of the six lessons. Much more elemental, childish, than flip charts, but more exacting to use.

I had a wonderful mission!

How else would you dramatically explain the great apostacy if you didn't make the flannel church fall when you pulled out the foundation of apostles?

Edgar Bergen had Charlie McCarthy, but we were our own dummies...

Hahahaha. I wish Aristotle was alive to hear that one. How the hell do you do this?

Buy me lunch and I'll tell you!

Everything about the church is child-level insulting.

I guess if they show investigators picture-books and they don't start laughing, then maybe there's a chance they could believe the other layers of child fable BS that follow. :-)

Don't the missionaries have iPads now? Do they show pictures on those during discussions?

OK, assuming that they ever have discussions with investigators these days...

You're kidding? Were these images or 3D figures (though I hope they were 3D figues that you moved around)? I can't imagine how these worked.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreat ! Now I'm having a vision of missionaries playing with LDS action figures in front of investigators.

Sounds like a good name for a BYU glee club.

Oh God! Les Discussions!

Horrid note book!

Most of our adult investigators thought using the flip chart was "childish". We were showing grown people paintings, like Adam and Eve, walking hand and hand in the Garden of Eden, with a Tiger eating grass. I remember the picture we had in the flip chart of life in the Millennial: especially the sexy tanned woman with the "80s" hairdue with the frosted tips and her red fingernails that looked like she just stepped out of a hair and nail salon. Got comments on that. Somehow her frosted-tip hair and red lipstick and red nails didn't "go" with her white robe that covered her from neck to foot.

Of course, the paintings by Arnold Friberg were in the flip chart, and you should have seen the L@@KS of the people we were teaching when they saw that the Nephites were all Bodybuilders.


Today, I CANNOT BELIEVE that I showed educated adults those photo and paintings! We had investigators who said "Please...don't use the pictures guys...ok?" SO EMBARRASSING.

When we were investigating, the mishies used the flip charts, but also a small slide-projector and cassette tape.

It took strips of negative film that you fed through the thing. Then played the cassette tape which was the sound track to the slide show. You would hear a "BEEEEPP" when you had to move to the next slide by turning the knob on the side of the projector.

I vividly remember Man's search for happiness that way.

I fondly(?) remember a filmstrip which showed Central American ruins that were claimed as true evidence of the BOM. That was to motivate everyone read the dang book.

Oh yeah... that sort of rings a bell..

haha so funny.. show a picture of the ruines of an ancient civilisation --> see the church is true..

I had three main complaints about the Flip Chart:

1) The black binder they put the photos in was CHEAP and fell apart after a few months, so you had to buy your own replacement binders. True, not much money (even then) but still shows how "cheap" the Church was (and is) when it comes to missionaries.

2) Many of the paintings were for children, and we were teaching adults, and most of the adults thought that many of the paintings were "stupid" and "childish" such as the body-builder Nephites or Eve's feathered-cut blonde hair, or the Tiger eating grass, etc.

3) We, as missionaries, were expected to BUY our copies of The Book of Mormon for our investigators. True, didn't cost much (I think one dollar per copy) but c'mon: this was a Church that had, even then BILLIONS of dollars in cash reserves, and they expected poor missionaries to BUY our own copies of the BOM!!!

4) The Flip Chart showed white people. God white. Jesus white. Adam and Eve white. All the prophets white. Got comments on that.

5) Showing evolution believers a white Adam and Eve, with a tiger eating grass, and a white Noah, all white people in our flip chart, brought questions such as: "So, does your Church accept evolution?" and "Do you guys REALLY believe all that stuff?" and "Why aren't there any people of color in your Church?"

6) AGGRAVATING: we had to memorize the Discussions, and we taught in "concepts" but the pictures in the flip chart was NOT "one picture per concept" but sometimes we had to use 2 to 4 pictures per "concept" and other times we had to use one picture to teach 2 or more concepts. CONFUSING. Only those with the greatest memories would get it right. Tripped us up time and time again.

But NO, the Discussions/flip chart in my mission DID NOT WORK. The only people who were baptized were people who had "alterior" motives: usually a young man wanting a young sexy Mormon woman, or a non-Member husband wanting to get his Mormon wife and relatives "off his back" about being baptized. Other missionaries baptized a LOT of street people: homeless, crazy, etc. Anything for the "Numbers". Wow! What a waste of time.

I was shown a movie introducing me to the Mormon church. I had already picked up certain things from my convert Mormon friend. We were both taking a high school class together in world religions. The teacher okayed her bringing in this film, which she likely got through the missionaries. The movie was a mixture of sentimentalized drawings and paintings, and live footage.

For the bit about Joseph Smith being a modern prophet, I was skeptical. When we got to the part about the brass breast plate and the Urim and Thummin, I was thinking, WTH? And by the time the movie got to the part about the angel taking the golden plates away, I had to stifle my laughter. How convenient that those golden plates were no longer available for inspection!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/08/2017 05:48AM by summer.

OT, but funny that I just remembered: the JW's showed up at the family farm years ago on a fine spring day, and showed my brother that typical J'dub picture of a happy couple in a beautiful green landscape with blue skies, puffy white clouds and blossoming trees...you know the type of painting...and asked my brother if he would like to live in a world like that.

Anyway, my brother swept his arm toward the beautiful green landscape with blue skies, puffy white clouds and blossoming trees and said "Well....?"

They really had no answer...

And today's missionaries can do one better than flipcharts. They can hold up a pair of depends and explain how god uses an invalid to run his church.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/09/2017 07:48PM by messygoop.

I was in Canada showing filmstrips like 'Mans Search forapenis'. I used to mimic the beep to advance the filmstrip..sometimes it worked. Imagine my surprise when showing a filstrip on Aaronic preisthood with young boys passing the sacrement.. there I was holding a tray with a big sh#t eatin grin. I remebered living in provo byu motion pic studio was always looking for free local talent...