When I received my mission call (January, 1976) the envelope included a form that I was told to sign and forward to my local draft board. At the time, my draft classification was 1A, and the form was a request to change my classification to IV-D (minister of religion). The form was signed by none other than Spencer W. Kimball. Out of curiosity, I took the draft form, and my mission call, and held them up to a light to compare the signatures. The signatures not only matched, they were exactly the same. Every line, every curve, every dot, even every skip of the pen, matched precisely. My discovery didn’t really discourage me. I assumed that President Kimball was very busy, and even if he wasn’t directly involved in my call, that call was still divine and had come from God.

More than halfway through me mission, I was in a meeting where a visiting General Authority (Elder Jacob de Jager of the First Quorum of the Seventy) spoke. Elder de Jager visited the mission regularly, and was very much liked by the missionaries. He had an upbeat, optimistic, enthusiastic way of speaking, and his talks were always sprinkled with humor. During his talk that day, he had a serious, almost somber, moment. He said “I want each of you to know that every one of your mission calls were PERSONALLY signed by President Kimball.”

I knew what he said wasn’t true, but I immediately started to make excuses for him in my mind (which was my modus operandi for spiritual matters in those days). Maybe he had been misinformed, and was just passing on information that he believed to be true. Maybe some of the mission calls are personally signed, and he assumed that all were. Maybe he decided that the ends justified the means, and if he could increase the faith, devotion, and enthusiasm of the missionaries, a fib was justified.

In retrospect, I was justifying (to myself) dishonesty the same way people still justify Paul H. Dunn’s dishonesty.

Personally signed (in huge stacks) with The Sure Sign of The Nail and then they were personally taken by an endowed member of the church to the mail room.

The wikipedia article on the Autopen states:

"...the use of the autopen allows for a small degree of wishful thinking and plausible deniability as to whether a famous autograph is real or reproduced..."

"Plausible deniability" is probably a common term heard within the walls of the church's PR department.

I wonder if Rusty's autopen is lighted.

Like.

I recall Steve Benson relating the story of Ezra T. Benson being too "out of it" to sign anything, but the autopen was there to save the day and make people think the "prophet, seer and revelator" was doing god's work.

Chicken n. Backpacks Wrote:
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> I recall Steve Benson relating the story of Ezra
> T. Benson being too "out of it" to sign anything,
> but the autopen was there to save the day and make
> people think the "prophet, seer and revelator" was
> doing god's work.

Mine was signed well after ETB had made his last public opinion.

This is a great topic because I got punched by the zone leader when our less than spiritual zone meeting erupted into a giant free for all melee. I stated that there was no way that any profit had enough time to run the church and sign every missionary papers. No way! Even a Senior couple who happened to work for Boeing for 30 some years agreed! So this asshole ZL head-butted me in the chest and the DL jumped on his back. I got punched several times from the maniac. And a bunch of bored elders started bumping others just to rile everything up. It went on for several minutes. One clueless nerdy elder raised his arm to square and commanded order to resume. No, it was the magnificent DL and I kickin the living daylights out of the ZL! He suffered a broken nose and went to the ER.


I guess that I am still butt-hurt about it all these years because I had to "beg" for everyone's forgiveness for inviting the spirit of contention at a zone mtg. The DL was with me and got transferred to another mission! Damn, he was a good guy all around.

And my mission president propagated the great lie that every apostle met and spoke with savior in the temple and that for anyone of us [piss ants] to question it was a fool and ought to be ashamed for even asking or doubting its veracity.

Oh, lordy, I wish I had been there to witness that! Sounds like your ZL had issues. I wonder where he is now.

Quorum of the Twelve. . .

Brother Of Jerry Wrote:
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> Oh, lordy, I wish I had been there to witness
> that! Sounds like your ZL had issues. I wonder
> where he is now.

I don't know where he is now. I lost my missionary journal and I kept a separate address book for people I liked; even admired. He was never included. I loathed him.

At the time, he had suffered a personal tragedy. He lost a sibling in a motorcycle accident. He probably needed counseling or should have returned home for the funeral.

He was out of control and full of rage. We had some five incidences that were abnormal for the missionary experience.

1. Fight over ETB and his autopen
2. Came over to my apartment, kicked in door and attacked my companion for being too sick to proselytize. Had zero stats for the week.
3. Started fight about people joining the church to play basketball. Another fight/wrestling match.
4. Playing Skip-bo (a playing cards game) and I was attacked.
5. Had the gall to criticize a member's cooking during a dinner.
6. He was my ZL for a 2nd time, we had another melee while watching the movie "Star Wars."

“the autopen was there to save the day”

Rusty: I liked it so much, I bought the company!

How many of you got your License to Preach, signed by the first presidency?

Since David O. McKay was out of town that week, I figure he must have signed mine ahead of time...

https://drive.google.com/file/d/15YaHC2ilyx0HBsgPcyVjwRrt_kQR5Mkf/view?usp=sharing

I think that means you are related to EB.

Yes. Me and how many other descendants of prophets?

In Mormonism families are so large that you have to carry a signed document proving your identity if you are an insider. At this point EOD's claims are better documented than yours!

I use a Bic myself.

Why?

Just Bicause.

LOL! On ball point.

I'm cheap.

You wouldn't understand. It's a God thing.

God Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'm cheap.
>
> You wouldn't understand. It's a God thing.

A BIC pen makes a good weapon.

Younger folks won't remember the ads when they came out. Put the pen in the barrel of a rifle, loaded the thing with a blank cartridge so it would shoot but no bullet. The BIC pen was the bullet. They shot it into a wooden block target, took it out and it "STILL WRITES".

Was a good commercial and the pens did well.

And I don't need a pen with a light in it like Rusty. I provide my own light. I just put pen to paper and utter, "Let there be light." It is good. And it's good to be God.

Now send me money. I'm running low on Bics.

There's nothing ambicuous about that!

My experience was with the Hinckley right-on-TV-public-lie. My wife and I got stationed in Rome, and the mission president invited us over a lot, like to watch some church thingie or just to eat with them. We felt pretty special. He had a new VHS tape of the 60 Minutes interview with Hinckley, and when they got to the part where Wallace asked Hinckley about the doctrine of becoming like God, Hinckley was in a tight spot, so he lied. He said, "I don't know that we teach that." I looked across at the MP, and he looked at me and just kind of shrugged. Later on, members grilled Hinckley about what he said, and he made some lame thing about not sharing everything with the press so as to not make us look crazy. Too late for that.

Did you serve in Southeast Asia? de Jager was the Area President and lived in the mission I served in from 79-81. When he was moved on to another assignment my companion and I inherited the apartment he and his wife lived in along with all of their furniture. Nicest digs in the mission!

Yeah, I was in Thailand from 76-78.

Hong Kong here. We had frequent de Jager time and then he was replaced by Marion Hanks.
One of my "aha moments" was when Hanks answered a doctrinal question I had with an "I don't know." Definitely made me go "hmmmm."

My First: Witness stmnt of 8 in the BoM; originally said that Joey was the AUTHOR of the Bom, 'revised', currently says that he was the Translator; MUCH MORE PALATABLE!!

BUT: Did all eight assent to the change????

ChurchCo: We don't know.

I must have been about 14 when I first heard the Gene Cook (of the Seventy) story about sitting next to Mick Jagger on a plane, and Jagger stating how he wanted to influence youth to have sex. I didn't consciously think that Cook was lying, but I did think that it was strange. Why would Mick Jagger care about that?

http://www.moroni10.com/cook_meets_jagger.html

Moves Like Jagger Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I must have been about 14 when I first heard the
> Gene Cook (of the Seventy) story about sitting
> next to Mick Jagger on a plane, and Jagger stating
> how he wanted to influence youth to have sex. I
> didn't consciously think that Cook was lying, but
> I did think that it was strange. Why would Mick
> Jagger care about that?
>
> http://www.moroni10.com/cook_meets_jagger.html

What's not to believe if you are pretty religious. So many religious types spend way too much time worrying about what "other people" are doing behind closed doors. Or even in semi-public... like Dancing!

True, I guess that it lacked decorum. Even if a version of this did happen (a Mormon on website hypothesized that it was a Mick Jagger imposter haha), it's rude and unnecessary to call out the person by name. How about referring to him as a "popular musician," or something similar.

My secret decoder ring was signed by Little Orphan Annie herself.

About "lying for the Lord"
IT IS STILL IN VIOLATION OF THE COMMANDMENT
Thou shall not bear false witness
it doesn't matter WHY!
it does matter WHAT!!
lying is lying is lying is lying

Here I would differ with you, good sir.

This commandment regarding the bearing of false witness, i.e., lying, is stated twice, once in Exodus and once in Deuteronomy, and is done so very explicitly:

Exodus 20:16 Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

So, does this mean they could bear false witness (lie) about non-neighbors?


These were tribal people, rather small in number, so the need to stick together was great, if they were to survive the frictions of passing through other groups/cultures. It behooved them to be good to one another.

But I read it as leaving them free to lie, fib, and maybe even cheat a little. They just couldn't 'steal'.

Truly religious people seem to know the value of a well-placed lie, as in lying for the Lord. The famous "I don't know that we teach that" being the stellar model.

I think the ghawds a society invents reflect the society.

I prefer a gel writing instrument, whatthinks the board about THAT?

It wasn't a GA, but my MP — Nelo Rhoton — lied to me about lying to my parents about my medical situation. He had told me he had talked to my parents and they had said they wanted me to remain on my mission. When I talked to my parents they said they had told him my condition sounded serious enough to send me home but that he had insisted I was fine and that I should stay. When I confronted Rhoton about it he got red-faced and and stammered and shooed me out of his office saying he didn't have time to talk about it.

Fast forward a dozen years and Rhoton is convicted of fraud and ,IIRC, misappropriating his clients' money. And if what I was told is correct, he was either hit by a car or stepped in front of a car on the way to his sentencing.

Yeah, I encountered some fairly minor stuff like that, along with bald-faced denials of doctrines I knew used to be preached openly. And I made rationalizations too. But what really got me wasn't the Lying for the Lord, it was the Lying for Themselves.