Friend in Utah who works in the Church Office Building told me the General Authorities are now counseled "do not keep a journal - don't write things down".

Anyone know if this is correct?

I can see them saying that as what is written can be subject to Subpoena and is impossible to disavow later with "I never said/wrote that".

So - anyone know if this is actually true?

I wonder how they are handling Joseph Fielding Smith and his "ANSWERS TO GOSPEL QUESTIONS"? He would actually answer questions he was asked.

Now? The Hinckley obfuscation rules. I don't know if we teach that. I don't know if we believe that. I have not heard that in a long time... out of sight, out of mind?

This is standard legal advice to anyone in a position of power, wealth, public figure or likely to be of legal interest.

I believe it is probably true. The scam is out and these scoundrels are running for cover.

Lawyers are only your friends at that point because they are paid to hear your babble.

Following Joseph Smith.

Had J.S., Jr., kept a journal:

"I saw this lovely young woman, and did lust, and list, and even get lost after her, insomuch that I did dream of streaming eternal messaging and proffering the fine maiden proverbial ceiling principles, I mean, um, s e a l i n g (is that like seal hunting?) sealing wrinkles..."

"I feel like this new townsman, brother Jack Koff, is onto me. He asked about my command of my wand by my hand doing a backstand..."

"One night, I had this dream - I mean vision - of a way to make all members pay [me] (for my services, prophecies, revelations, promises, predictions, predications, pandering, ministering and administering). They will give me, solely, 10%+++ of what they make, throughout their lifetime, and throughout their children's lives, and their children's children... AND they'll work for me (I'll 'call' them = "callings"), while paying, praying, and obeying [me]...

Another benefit of being a corporate sole...

Sir Nelson is 'only answerable to god'...

And even when they claim to have received a revelation, they now,thanks to the fiasco involving the children or gays thing, write the revelations down using a pencil.

They had their whiteboard markers taken away for sniffing.

Oddly most of the previous prophets kept journals. Some journal entries were part of church lessons.

Anyone remember Kimball commanding everyone to keep a journal boasting of his own journals?

Weren't all missionaries commanded to keep a journal?

Oh wait. Mormon Doctrine! Different today from yesterday from tomorrow.

Yup. Don't leave a paper trail.

I can't fathom working for the church. It probably is a hostile work environment. Some people here have written that it was faith-destroying 30-40 years ago.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/23/2020 10:07PM by messygoop.

I believe they are now also required to turn any and all private correspondence over to the church and they all become the sole property of the church. So any letters written to and from a GA belong to the church, including letters written to family members. The church has gone to court in an attempt to prevent the publishing of letters of GAs from even before the time they were required to sign everything over to the church.

That whole 1970's thing of keeping journals now appears to just be a grand exercise to get church members to donate the journals of their Mormon forebears to the church, where they locked them away so that today no one can have access to them. Apparently, they were broadly considered a potential threat, since many Mormons had past relatives who wrote about things like the Council of Fifty, polygamy, etc., things that went against the narrative of the day. Once that was complete, the whole yammering about keeping journals ceased, and now it's the other way around.

Talk about fear based!!!!!!!!!

I've certainly never been a GA, but this reminded me of something that happened several years ago:

I got a letter from church headquarters in SLC. The funny thing is, my first reaction (prior to opening the envelope) was that I wondered if they were calling a church court for me. I was on my way out at the time, but I hadn't done anything worthy of excommunication (probably the "worst" thing I had done was I had just started posting on RFM). To my relief and/or disappointment, my membership was not in jeopardy.

The letter stated that the church was interested in journals, photos, and other historical items from my mission. I have no idea if there was something particular about my mission (I served in Thailand from 1976-1978), or if this was being done on a more wide scale basis. The letter included a phone number, so I called. I told the woman who answered (I believe she was a senior missionary) that I really didn't do a very good job of keeping a journal, and that I didn't think I would have anything that would have been of interest to them. She still seemed interested in me sending what I could, but I politely declined. She assured me that if I changed my mind, they'd be interested in whatever I had.

Did any other former missionaries here get a similar request from the church?

That sure sounds like LDS-101 to "scrape" people, property, places, families, tithing, potential targets, er, connedverts, victims, or connections.

They don't want to remember their lies.

That way they can be imortalized, like ole' Joe, when they've "done their part" (to enrich TMC).

SICK business

Throw them under the bus. BUSTED!

Is this "keep a journal - don't keep a journal" thing like the "I'm a Mormon - I'm not a Mormon" thing.

No. It's "Do as I say, not as I do". It's one rule for the bosses and another for the serfs.

There was a time, I think in the late 1970s or 1980s, when an apostle--Packer comes to mind--said in conference that members should only include faith-promoting things in their journals.

Yes. It's like a two-way mirror.

We don't have any faults, except in the faults, and the vaults.

Journals, to them, equal liability.

Also means history.
Something they're trying to forget (and they wish the world, born & unborn, would too).

Also means shaking hands when they could just be shaking in their boots. They're tired of shakes, unless they come with frieds.

It's about control.
Contain the leaders.
Capture the followers. Don't say anything...

Watch what you say (not you said you said) - or write down, or video - not what you do.

If you listen to Mormon Stories this has come up a couple of times but the Sharon Caldwell Montez interviews on the history of B.H. Roberts explains "why" this caused a problem. Roberts being a devout Mormon and apologist up until the early 1920's kept papers, letters, etc... However he had determined that there was no way that the BoM could be historical or even revelatory because of the scientific and later he found out that J.S. plagiarized much of it from "View of the Hebrews" and the mistranslation of the 1795 KJV and other sources (Methodist preachers mostly, but also Adam Clarke's "Bible Commentary" was used for the Joseph Smith Translation.

Anyway, yeah, they're told not to keep journals because look how much the past Journal of Discourses, interviews and journals have caused so much problems for the church and it's foundation claims.

dydimus Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If you listen to Mormon Stories this has come up a
> couple of times but the Sharon Caldwell Montez
> interviews on the history of B.H. Roberts explains
> "why" this caused a problem. Roberts being a
> devout Mormon and apologist up until the early
> 1920's kept papers, letters, etc... However he
> had determined that there was no way that the BoM
> could be historical or even revelatory because of
> the scientific and later he found out that J.S.
> plagiarized much of it from "View of the Hebrews"
> and the mistranslation of the 1795 KJV and other
> sources (Methodist preachers mostly, but also Adam
> Clarke's "Bible Commentary" was used for the
> Joseph Smith Translation.
>
> Anyway, yeah, they're told not to keep journals
> because look how much the past Journal of
> Discourses, interviews and journals have caused so
> much problems for the church and it's foundation
> claims.

Didn't the church try to claim all of BH Roberts papers and personal letters because he was a GA and because he had provided copies (not the originals) of his research to the church? If I remember correctly, the family of BH Roberts had a hard time getting his stuff published because the church kept suing potential publishers. If my memory is correct, it was a publishing company in Illinois that eventually published it, but not until after years of the church trying to put a halt to it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/02/2020 03:12AM by alsd.

Yes.

University of Illinois Press, 1985. The forward, which is magnificent, was penned by Sterling McMurrin, whom JFS and Harold Lee tried to excommunicate.

That's what Sharon was talking about, I think it was his grandson who had possession of his later papers, journals, etc... Roberts was well regarded at first because he could use science and present "alternative" facts (many of his papers, conclusions are still used by LDS inc and the apologists) like wheels were found on toys used by Amerindians (but they never had beast of burdens like horses, oxes, cattle to pull wagons or chariots or carts), but it was after the five question letters that Talmage turned over to him to research that lead him into discovering View of the Hebrews, lack of Language roots, etc... What got John Dehlin and me also is that they have been covering this up since the secret meetings of the 1920's (I guess the real presentations on the errors, false history, etc.. was in 1922). I've seen so much changes in just my life time on the teachings, actions (inactions) and the straight out lies of "We never taught that" by Gordon Hinkley and then later by all that followed that I knew that the Never changing/Everlasting gospel was either never true, or the Corporation was in apostasy since Brigham Young. There's no logical, sane way to see it except that LDS inc and all of the GA's, CES and others who hid truths and lied about history and facts were and are complicit in the fraud that has destroyed and hurt so many families, friendships and lives.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/02/2020 03:47AM by dydimus.

Roberts also wrote the Comprehensive History of the Church, which is over 3,000 pages and was the definitive work until the Q15 decided to suppress it as well.

Roberts was the great anomaly: someone who believed in Mormonism but was confident that history and science would vindicate the religion. Studies of the BoM represented the deflation of his confidence because of the way the Q15 ignored it. McMurrin says that there are no examples of Roberts' ever bearing his testimony of the BoM after that date. Rather, he based his faith on the D&C.

He probably endured some dark nights of the soul.

Maybe the old men saying this were once young boys that were forced to journal and rebelled against and never liked it.