This is the fifth Sunday so its all adults and teenagers together for lesson. Wards generally identify the subject matter but today the Bishop said this came from the brethren in SLC. It was discussion and video clips. The topic getting young men to serve missions and parents to support that.
First clip was Dusty from last conference talking about how its a priesthood responsibly for young men to serve missions. And how young woman play an important part as well as seniors. He also said they were held in reserve, etc., etc. and that this is the gathering of Israel. Then Bishop opened it for discussions with preplanned questions. Lots of lag time and same old same old pat answers.
Next clip from General Conference. Elder Ballad telling how he made a decision to go on a mission when his parents were out of town and when they got back he said he told them he was going on a mission to Great Britain. His parents were not very active at the time. Then Bishop opened it up for discussion with guided questions. Lots of lull time, same people answering and same pat answers I have heard over the past 50 years. Bishop summarized as did Elder Ballard, it you believe in Jesus, have a testimony the Church is true and you have a testimony of JS you must go on a mission. No kidding.
I had a testimony, I knew Church was true and I believed in Jesus when I was 19. I did not go on a mission but served an apprenticeship and became very successful in the of world of work and have influenced thousands of people. I wanted to get up and say that but the tone of meeting at that point was if you have all 3 you responsibility is to go I quote "not to become a doctor at this point because you will save more people." At this point I got up and left I was so disgusted.
Here was my take away.
1. Top 3 guys in leadership positions did not go on missions but are pushing this.
2. Dusty did not go on a mission but is held in high esteem in Church because he is a heart doctor. (mixed massage here)
3. Go behind your parents back and maybe wishes and submit papers and that is okay. So much for families and family input and discussion.
I did not stick around to see the rest of the presentation but when I left people seemed to be a coma. I know this is wrong but just watching the video clip of Dusty was disturbing. No warmth, no empathy just very evil looking. His message was very cold. Anyone lese feel that when he talked at conference?
As an aside this ward baptized two people and had them confirmed at Church 4 to 6 weeks ago and they have never been back!!!! And the young people in the ward seemed to have disappeared too. I only drop in occasionally so not sure what is happening.

slskipper posted about that same message.

https://www.exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,2439483

It sounds like another disastrous, destructive policy that will ultimately backfire.

These are the last days--for the church.

Thanks for your report. Yes, this is a very disturbing message. The church must really be in a lot of trouble.

The church has a lot of young single adults leaving in Utah. It’s still a Utah church let’s not kid ourselves and more non-members are moving into Utah which will weaken the church’s influence on things. I think the leaders are worried about losing the tight grip on Utah.

Napoleon once said never get in the way of your enemy making a mistake. I’ve seen the church make plenty; especially with the old surgeon at the helm. He’s done crazy stuff I could never make up. Good thing COVID got in the way because I think we would have gotten a even bigger Russ run wild show.

Anyways enjoy the show. Keep enjoying their dumb mistakes.

My folks had the same lesson today, they wanted to sneak out, one of the super righteous neighbors who's always bragging, hes an engineer, has 7 kids, utah pioneer royalty, etc, gave the lesson, but my folks couldn't politely leave like they wanted to, and manners are very important in the maca family.

I see a lot of trouble in life, what does mormonism have to offer is a big question, Nelson's message overall is making temple covenants, he wants everyone to do this, but there's so many unique lives, God hasn't blessed everyone equally, what good is eternal family to someone single, or divorced, a radical feminist, or an lgbtqia person? In my view nelson needs to change the topic and see if a more diverse crowd might come around and go back to church...

The LDS Church was successful because the American Dream sold well in the 19th and 20th centuries. America was this magical place all your dreams could come true so when you were peasant farmers in Denmark or laborers in Britain coming to Zion in America sounded pretty good.

Then Joseph Smith was able to keep growing the church and having Nauvoo on the Mississippi River allowed a large influx of new converts from Europe coming into the Port of New Orleans and up the river. They were only there for 7 years but the church grew a big enough base where Brigham could settle the western desert and not implode.

Brigham continued the growth of the church while maintaining enough isolation where he avoided neighbor clashes the church always managed to get into.

I would say the base Brigham built in Utah is still the backbone of the modern church.

I'm not sure the pretty young things recruited for Joseph were laborers.

he did put them to work on a job that required some heavy breathing. :0

I despise the church. They have sold/embraced the notion that their organization was so broke that members need to pay everything for themselves (socials, ward dinners, scouts/girls camp to missions).

The church needs to pay them or at least reimburse the young people IF they decide to serve a church mission.

The church has the MONEY. Let them pay up if they want missionaries.

It cost my family 8,400 to serve a mission in the 1990s. It was easily over 10K with clothing requirements 2 suits, raincoats, 3 pairs of shoes, about 12 white shirts, 6 ties and 8 pants. Then there's the usual toiletries, grooming and health care. You bring your own scriptures (probably a tablet/laptop with all the church apps) a planner, missionary journal, a cheap camera. A bike will cost another grand).

All of this is a big waste of time and money!

After a 2 yr mission, I returned 2 years behind my cohorts in my studies, could only afford to take partial classes, lost my catalog rights and found out that a LDS mission on a job application IMPRESSED NO ONE!!!

There's an easy way to get out of going on a mission - fail the interview.

The church is doubling down on selling a product that nobody wants because upper management has lost its mind.

Upper management are ancient. Half the people past 85 years have dementia. It's called old age and I'm thinking it would be a good idea to have an age ceiling on who can hold public office and the church needs to look into it as well.

I never got asked by the bishop why I chose not to go on a mission. Dad may have told him to lay off and don't bother me.

That is disturbing. Serving isn't right for everyone. I've met some awesome missionaries who seemed genuinely happy to serve and others who where sooo obviously faking it.

When you said Russell Nelson came off as cold,I've noticed that too. Monson seemed warmer IMO. Either way, it's wrong to pressure people that way.

Anywhere in the lesson did they say women should only marry returned missionaries?

I can't even number the missionaries that only went to

1. Uphold family honor
2. Be able to laid errr married.
3. Get a good job
4. Not get tossed out of their own family

The church leadership think sending the young adults on missions will keep them in the church. This big push is nothing new. What it will result in is more young adults leaving to avoid the pressure, more missionaries ending up going home early or becoming discipline problems. The worst missionaries are the ones who went out due to family or peer pressure and have no belief in the cause. The end results are always bad. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink. You can’t force anyone to believe, they will just put on a show for you and do what they want but Shakespeare did say all the world is a stage. That’s very true in the LDS church. It’s one big show.

In speaking with some mormons last month through work they were saying that their last conference saw a big call for all youngsters to go on a Mission, so they are expecting a huge increase in kids wanting /being inspired to go out.

I thought that might be wishful thinking having seen the comments here!

Sadly i suspect it will do little else then result in a shorterm increase in pressure from parents and be the cause of many arguments before normal service resumes.

I remember when they lowered the ages for missionaries to be called a few years back, there was a huge uptick in missionaries. Then the pandemic hit. It would be interesting to know what the numbers are at present.

As with any church missionary service, this might be more about gluing the younger people to the church than in finding new converts.

They're trying to make Holland look a little less silly with his projection of huge numbers of missionaries.

I wonder if there are also other factors that concern them. They probably think they need a strong "coming of age" ritual. The mission has served this purpose. They go out into the world and return as a man, yada yada. The ritual can make them more invested in the church and yield strong leaders. Of course, it also yields a lot of people who leave.

Maybe they see that some young men with not a lot going for them are ripe recruitment grounds for extremist groups.
Maybe they want to get young men out of mom's basement away from nonstop gaming and gun fetish social media during those vulnerable years. Maybe they want to provide a goal and way to be valued using a mission? The last thing they need is to have more Captain Moroni type warriors out there rioting. Could this have also been a factor in their direction to put more pressure to go on a mission?

Of course their primary motive is to have free salesmen out pushing their product.

It's quite simply the perpetuation of the scam started by Joseph Smith and Co; then, passed down from one "First Presidency" to the next; Russ and the boys are currently in charge of keeping that old scam alive and they seem to be doing their best to fail--if only.