Ten years on from my baptism, I just learned that one of the two elders who taught me, BYU educated, sealed, etc, has left - as have his parents and some of his twelve siblings!

If the church cannot hang on to this sweet, sincere, Utah born and bred family I sincerely now believe they cannot hang on to anybody in the next 15-20 years.

Out of the five major players in my baptism, two are out, one is jack mo or out (hard to tell), one is completely unknown and the other is closeted. I am, of course, no longer a TBM.

Interesting times.

They can live better lives of peace and freedom.

That is surprising to me, but then again, these are different times than even when I resigned more than twelve years ago.

I'm positive that a significant number of missionaries I knew (and I had met most of those in many zones) had doubts, questions, misgivings, and weren't enjoying their missions all that much. Could have had something to do with a singularly uninspired and joyless MP but it was more than that. They were meeting ordinary folks (aka nevermos) who were perfectly happy not being Mormon, with no desire at all to convert and life was going well for them. Many mishies seemed very discouraged. Not hard when the missionary life was foisted upon some who really didn't want to be there but it's an expected rite of passage at least for the males. Quite often they seemed to either never think about not going or didn't know how to say no, instead thinking that there was just no question but that they had to do it. I was shocked to discover how many were bribed by parents, with new cars, holidays, other goodies, if they would "return with honour".

I've been hoping for ages that I would recognize one of "my" mishies here at RfM. It's hard to believe, or accept, that after all every single one of them was/is still a faithful member.

I used to feel that they never kept in touch because I proved to be a terrible "convert" in that I didn't stick. After reading about missions here I realized finally that it's more about most missionaries going through their two years by rote, many not really caring about the people, even those they baptize. Very strange mindset to me, to just not care about those whose lives you may have turned upside down, one way or the other. And to make it quite obvious that you didn't really care, at the time or going forward.

So, it's a bit of a mix-up for me - not surprising that RMs would leave Mormonism and not all that surprising if they stay. I would have liked to know that they were sincere though but especially to know that things back in Utah (where most came from to this area) worked out well for them. I cared about them even if they were only marking time.

I don't think it's necessarily because the missionaries were shallow and lacked depth of feeling, although some of them are and do. It is/was a rite of passage for many of them, and that included the roteness of it all, ie, going along for the ride for the sake of their parents &/or familial pressure.

Then they come home and are expected to marry right away! No time to hesitate. They are married in short order and start pumping out babies as soon as their nuptials allow them. That's more of the same pressure that was on them to go on missions. Now it's time to make children. The providing for them is an afterthought.

Then they're expected to get GOOD educations and become excellent providers. If they weren't so backwards about it all, it might work better yet were they to wait to start their families. But that isn't TSCC way. Religion first. Family second. Career third.

Converts from their mission? Barely an afterthought as their plates get overloaded with these new responsibilities many of them are simply not prepared to take on when they do. It has to be overwhelming.

I think that the church's biggest source of members and fututre leaders comes from its youth. Women in the church want to merry RMs. The men want to do whatever it takes to win the favor of the women. This paradigm is like a funnel for the church.

I grew up outside of Utah. In my highschool, my male friends and I were in a semi-nerd social group. But we often had more attractives dates and more dates in general than most of the football jocks did. Even the mormon girls in the cheer leading squads tended to date church members more, because they knew that ultimately, they wanted to merry a church member. Non-members seemed to be limited to dating just those who they went to school with. Even as somewhat of a nerd at school, I had as many or more female friends than the average guy did at school, even if many of these girls attended highschool in a different city. On weekends, groups of friends in the church (both the girls and guys) would get together and go to a church dance or other church activity together, sometimes driving an hour to get there. We all met and dated others well outside of our social group at school and the quality of people you meet this way seemed to be higher. Compared to the other kids at school, our social network was off the scale, including sometimes friends in other parts of the country that we met at "Especially for Youth" (a church summer camp held at BYU in Provo) in the summer, and often stayed friends with.

Until there is a replacement for this kind of social networking for kids that involves more than just online friends, like the mormon church has set up, it seems like the church will always be able to have a significant sized group of young people to groom for future church leadership and overall membership. Oh yeah, and my male friends and I all went on missions, and most of the women we knew married RMs. Some of us end up leaving the church. Some stick with it whether or not it makes them happy. My point is that even when one RM leaves the church, the church's formula seems to work for them. And this is why.

As I see my friends' kids going on missions now, I can see that they don't go because the church is true. Their families expect them to go, and these young men don't think they'll have much of a chance of finding a good wife if they don't go. A lot of the other missionaries in my mission didn't want to be there. They were just doing their time, some of them like it's more of a sentence for some crime than actually wanting to be there.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/08/2018 11:45PM by azsteve.

Or some town with a lot of Utah transplants. Because in most other places in the US there would be just a handful of students in a high school (1-2%) who are Mormon.

Does he know that you are out? If not, he would probably be happy to hear that. I know an exmo who said he had lots of sleepless nights, especially at first, thinking about some of the people he baptized on his mission. He said he really did baptize some who needed some direction in life or some friends and he didn't feel so bad about those people. However, he baptized a woman whose marriage didn't survive it and that was hard.