I have been several decades gone from the insanity of Mormonism and grew up far removed from Utah.

Even as a child I could see that the missionaries and their activities were at a remove from the operation of the branch or ward. Missionaries were welcomed and fawned over by those who had recently joined TSCC but once a family or individual was entrenched in activity the missionaries became irrelevant and a nuisance.They would bring "investigators" along for a couple of weeks,baptise them, then missionary and investigator would disappear.

The adolescent girls would flirt but to others they were just a continually changing couple of clueless guys in ill-fitting suits.There was continual grumbling from the adults about the poor quality of the investigators and the fact that people were rushed into baptism then disappeared.

Reading missionary blogs produces this same impression. There is a disconnect between the missionaries and the rank-and -file members. Even with the forced "Feed the Missionaries Programme" it seems that there are two separate agendas. Missionaries complain about ward members not supporting or providing new contacts and I bet the ward members still bitch about the dunk and run converts.

the poor missionaries are driven (externally and internally) to find new members. After all, that's all they are supposed to do with their lives for two years.
And the members have normal lives and missionary work is just an adjunct if that.

Yes, it's very hard to meld the two because, as you say, there is a disconnect.

Most ward members do their best in their busy lives to find someone to have the missionaries teach (though many are hesitant to send a friend to one of the young enthusiastic but foolish rubes), but their list of friends is not limitless, and they don't have the luxury of moving on to the next town, or going "home" like missionaries do. They have to live with these people.

Serious and mature missionaries are constantly in angst over the whole business. Foolish missionaries are eager while in the missionfield and just happy to return home and forget the whole thing.

It also reveals some of the problems within the Mormon organization.

The missionaries have their objectives drilled into them day in and day out. They have numbers that they must report every week. They are told that the best way to get good numbers is to have the ward or branch members involved. The easiest converts are those that the members bring to the missionaries.

The rank and file members have their own objectives. They are trying to make a living, raise children, finish school, mow the lawn and do the laundry. On top of regular life, they have lessons to prepare, temple to attend, visiting and home teaching. If they are in leadership then there is an endless parade of meetings to attend and prepare for.


So yes, there is a huge disconnect in expectations. Members and missionaries are in two different worlds.

The biggest problem is there just aren't very many people who are willing to entertain cultists.

Think of of the friends you cut off because they insisted on trying to sell you Amway or whatever the latest MLM scheme is. Rank and file members understand the cost of turning the missionaries loose on their neighbors and they are reluctant. There are always a few zealots who volunteer for splits with missionaries and who always carry a spare BofM to give away. They are annoying as can be and are tolerated at best and usually avoided.

In short, members have lives. Missionaries don't.

Well, IMHO, the reason why this is so is because since the vast majority of missionaries are younger than 21 years old, they have virtually zero adult life experience from which to draw upon to know any better. And, of course, at any and all missionary meetings, one hears nothing but baptize at all costs from the leadership, so in a way, you can't really blame them.

As an RM, I totally get what you are saying. I recall when arriving at a new area, meeting members at Church and/or dinner appointments, and very much getting the sense of, "oh, brother, here we go again," attitude from the members. Here-today-gone-tomorrow missionaries really are interchangeable when you get right down to it.

Mormonism places a great emphasis on baptism but almost no emphasis on retention. If the Mormon church had a longer induction period then it might have better luck hanging on to new members. There would be fewer but more committed members. And that would place less stress on the active members.

Because they are so numbers oriented, so desirous of 'proof' that the gospel is so shit-hot stuff, the church loved the big numbers put up by 'baseball baptisms' in all its various regional flavors.

And they even took your point of view, but skewed it to justify their actions. It was bragged by Groberg & Kikuchi that if could get thousands baptized, a few hundred would stick and growth would be taking place.

So both your way and there way resulted in a few faithful members added to the church per year, but their way had more pizazz! It allowed for dazzling the members every April with these big numbers.