I saw 2 pairs of missionaries at McDonald's yesterday. Two of them were spending time on their smart phones while the other two seemed a bit left out. I wonder? Is the senior companion in charge of the phone? Do they share one between them so that there can be no trouble looking at the news or other forbidden information?

It's just for profit miscommunication and non-member misinformation, and not for fun and games, not for communication and information, and surely not for sharing! Think bribery. Trickery. Lying (for the phone).

Emergencies?
Girlfriends?
Ex-mormonism
Journeys

Can state missionaries just get their own damn phones and plans and pay online automatically outside of the church control? If prisoners can do it, I'm sure missionaries can too. You just need a companion who isn't a prick.

Phazer Wrote:
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> Can state missionaries just get their own damn
> phones and plans and pay online automatically
> outside of the church control? If prisoners can do
> it, I'm sure missionaries can too. You just need
> a companion who isn't a prick.

Amen to that.

I had a long distance phone card for emergencies. Sometimes, I called home for my own peace of mind. I was surrounded by backstabbing missionary rats.

Missionaries today sure are spoilt. When I was a missionary in Switzerland back in the 80s most apartments didn't even have landline phones. If we wanted to make a call we had to go to the post office or phone booth. If anyone wanted to get in touch with us they had to knock on our door. It was actually kind of nice. I was in a remote part of the mission, a long train ride from the mission home. Too bad I didn't spend my time goofing off.

As far as the senior companion having the phone...sounds right. The Mormon church loves hierarchy. The junior companion will probably have to wait a few months till he/she is elevated to senior companion before they can touch the phone, or wait for permission from the senior companion.

Swiss Miss Wrote:
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> Missionaries today sure are spoilt. When I was a
> missionary in Switzerland back in the 80s most
> apartments didn't even have landline phones. If we
> wanted to make a call we had to go to the post
> office or phone booth. If anyone wanted to get in
> touch with us they had to knock on our door. It
> was actually kind of nice. I was in a remote part
> of the mission, a long train ride from the mission
> home. Too bad I didn't spend my time goofing off.
>
> As far as the senior companion having the
> phone...sounds right. The Mormon church loves
> hierarchy. The junior companion will probably have
> to wait a few months till he/she is elevated to
> senior companion before they can touch the phone,
> or wait for permission from the senior companion.

One senior companion wouldn't let me as a "junior" companion touch or even see the Area Book (a big binder that contained data such as maps, records of current/previous investigators, baptisms and ward/branch membership rosters).

I doubt many missionaries, except the senior ones, have access to smartphones. Even then it is risky. LDS inc. can keep tabs on their missionaries and have instant access to them, but on the downside they are being given some freedom, will be distracted by the internet, messages, and so on. I bet the phones are inspected by the MP or have restrictions built into them.
But you’re right, just like in prison (great analogy for missionary life!) with the right companion, as a missionary you could quite easily buy a smartphone and not tell anyone about it. I hope so.

I am glad that I never had a cell phone. There was already too much perceived spying and big brother watching when I served 30 years ago. Sometimes, my companion and I had to take care of something that couldn't wait until our day of preparation, so we might leave the apartment at 9:00 instead of the mandated 10 am. Well that got us into trouble because we weren't answering the phone so the district or zone leader would race over to "make sure that we were okay." In reality, they were spying on us. Later, we would have a joint interview by the mission president and have to explain why we were leaving early. I think 9:00 am was personal scripture study and 9:30 was companionship missionary guide study.

And we had answering machines to screen calls. Sometimes, there would be wild ones. "Elder Goop and Elder Smith, this is Elder Anderson. It's 7pm. I know you're home so get off your butts and get working. Otherwise, I will come over to kick your ass. Just kidding, but next time. Pick up your damn phone when I call. Jesus loves you. Bye!"

One final note. The mission paid for a phone line. It was up to you (the missionary) to pay for a phone and an answering machine. I personally had to buy my own phone and machine. I had one companion that threatened to beat me up for "stealing" the apartment phone when being transferred to a different area. We had at least one fight in the mission between a companionship that could not agree to whose phone they would use. So they duked it out with one receiving a black eye.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/04/2019 10:11AM by messygoop.

You didn't have to leave your apartment till 10 AM??? In my mission we had to be out the door and on our way to tracting at 9AM, which seemed like an awfully early time to start knocking on doors.

The rule was also to knock on the last door at 9 PM, which seemed rather a late time to be pounding on a stranger's door. I was a good Morgbot though and followed the rules. I've been so blessed because of it (sarcasm).

Swiss Miss Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You didn't have to leave your apartment till 10
> AM??? In my mission we had to be out the door and
> on our way to tracting at 9AM, which seemed like
> an awfully early time to start knocking on doors.
>
>
> The rule was also to knock on the last door at 9
> PM, which seemed rather a late time to be pounding
> on a stranger's door. I was a good Morgbot though
> and followed the rules. I've been so blessed
> because of it (sarcasm).

We had to be in our apartment at 10 pm. We had to prove to our district and zone leaders that we had 9 or 9:30 pm appointments by showing our blue planners. I didn't like being out beyond 8:30 pm in some of the neighborhoods. Aside from cat calls, dogs in the streets, a lot of near misses with cars, I worried about being hit from tossed bottles.

As I got closer to going home, we moved some of our "afternoon teaching discussions" into the evening slots. My co-senior companion (we were both out at the same time) didn't mind being in the apartment at 8 pm. He got hit in the head with a bbq-ed chicken. lol

We just didn't answer any knocks on the door or phone calls until after 10pm. We were supposed to be asleep by 10:30 pm.

I asked a recent pair of missionaries in my wife's ward about their phones. According to the Redneck Missionary (self-appellation by himself), whose technical knowledge was questionable, they were required to install a church app that restricted what they could do on their phones and tracked what sites they visited online.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/04/2019 10:13AM by GregS.

Thanks for confirming, exactly what I suspected.

Wow. I'll bet the phones also have those apps that can track their location. Big brother is indeed watching!

actually, in high-risk places (who knows?), I think this is a good idea...


'Mentality' is that mish's aren't supposed to go to movies, visit bordellos, goof off at the park, isn't it?

...nor watch porn, or call home whenever they need to talk to someone.

18 - 20 year olds shouldn't be on their own in high-risk areas. A tracking app on a smartphone won't save them if someone mugs them or pulls out a gun and shoots them.

If the Mormon church were really true, and the "prophet" actually received revelation, there would be an app on a smartphone that would alert the missionary/mission president about pending danger. That would be useful.

> If the Mormon church were
> really true, and the "prophet"
> actually received revelation,
> there would be an app on a
> smartphone that would alert
> the missionary/mission
> president about pending danger.
> That would be useful.


Well, if you're gonna get all dreamy-eyed on us, how about giving each new priest, when he's ordained, a check made out to a stockbroker for $5,000 and a list of stocks to invest in, so that when the kid gets his mission call, his mission is paid for and he gives back $10,000 to the church!

Can you think of any reason a real ghawd would have any problem handling this chore?

Yeah, I know, it would be an unassailable truth/proof and then we wouldn't need faith. ...Which means that when an afossil bears his testimony, ghawd knows that only a tiny percentage of the world's population believes what he has to say, so faith is still required.