The first mission president of my mission, the Italy Mission, was a man from my own ward, chosen because he was instrumental in bringing Mormonism to Italy. After just 2 years, though, he angered The Brethren, who thought he was too loose and allowed the missionaries to commit too many high-jinks. Harmon Rector became the provisional mission president. He was sharp, exceedingly well-dressed and handsome, with a charming drawl and a lovely wife. He had also burned up the carpet on his brisk walk from convert to general authority. The man was on fire, and destined for Great Mormon Things.

The boring but pliant Levitt Christensen took the helm almost at the same time I showed up in the mission, replacing Rector as the next MP. But Rector remained actively involved, and continued to show up every few months to speak and to conduct interviews, and to be fitted for new, bespoke Italian suits. He interviewed me within a week of the end of my mission, challenging me to be married within 6 months. He was glorious in his new blue suit--an athletic fit 3-button jacket with split vents, and pants riding low on the hip. My 6-month challenge didn't pan out, but I do credit him with a sex-fed rush to marry far too early, at a tender 22 years, a good part of which was spent in poverty.

But it turned out that Rector was a Mormon "leader" like so many other Mormon "leaders," consumed with thoughts of easy wealth, becoming a participant in a Ponzi scheme for which his friend and associate Brad Kitchen received a 51 month prison sentence. His other partner, the infamous Rick Koerber, was indicted on similar charges--mail fraud, wire fraud, securities fraud--but Judge Clark Waddoups tossed the case out on prejudice; Koerber is walking free.

So even my erstwhile personal hero turned out to be made of the same simple stuff that Mormon leaders, going all the way back to Joseph Smif, are made of. Rector, in short, was just one more of a long line of hucksters.

My mission call came early summer 1968, and those were the days when all the missionaries spent a week in the mission home, in downtown Salt Lake. I was there the 2nd week of August.

We were to be set apart as missionaries during that week and we were all very excited to see who would be the exalted man who would lay his hands on us to BECOME MISSIONARIES.

We walked down the street, through the parking garage of the Hotel Utah. We got there and my mom and younger brother were there and she already knew (maybe there was a program?) that I was to be set apart by Hartmann Rector Jr.

He hadn't been a GA very long, but he said some nice words. And since my mom was a seamstress, and did repairs on men’s clothing, she was really taken with his suit (so she told me later).

Somewhere in my couple of boxes of missionary detritus, I have a transcript of it. They sent one to me at the LTM in Provo and one to my parents.

I was sort of sad later to hear of his troubles with the Ponzi scheme. My mom was already gone so I’m glad she didn’t have to hear about it.

I met Hartman Rector in the 70's when he was president of the San Diego, CA mission. He gave an area youth fireside in North San Diego County (Escondido stake) that I attended.

I remember him as seeming like one of those TV preachers -- bit of a southern drawl, full of energy and the burning of the "spirit." Yet also a bit of a huckster, over-selling his product.

Frankly, it doesn't surprise me that he got into flim-flam Ponzi scheme businesses. It fit the personality I saw.

He was in our ward in the Washington DC suburbs. Naval officer, pilot, some sort of attachment to the Pentagon, charismatic as hell, attractive and talented family...

He was my early morning seminary teacher. I made out briefly with one of his daughters.

It was a huge deal when he was called to be a Seventy. One of our own! A convert! No connections to Mormon royalty!

My family moved to SLC about the same time as the Rectors. We had some social things with them a few times, but they were elevated into a higher LDS social plane (one with financial schemers, evidently) and no longer had time for lowly people such as us.

It wasn't until much later, after I got a clearer understanding of the world and the church, that I realized how extreme some of his views were. Had he always been that way and I was too naive to realize it, or had he become radicalized by his close associations with top level Mormons? Oh well.

Meh...I'll give you charismatic, but I don't think Hartman was all that extraordinary to look at. Some also might thought his drawl was charming, but he just oozed snake oil salesman to me, even as a TBM missionary during his GA stint. He was very, very full of himself and clearly loved to hear himself speak.

Ooops...I just assumed old Hartman was dead, but I looked him up and he's just old (92).

Wasn't Rector the GA who more or less endorsed Rod Meldrum's theories about the geography of the BoM? The "heartland" hypothesis?

Yep. Meldrum features a supportive interview with Rector on his "Evidences" DVDs.

Hey Stray Mutt. I was in the D.C. suburbs right after Rector moved on, but I had to deal with one of his converts, an insufferable salesman, who used his connection to Hartman to eventually become a mission pres. himself. Visited Hartman once in salt lake with that converts son. He was busy trying to fix a cuckoo clock.

Small world.

I first seen/heard-of Hartmon Rector in the first half of my two year tour from Hell in New England. Maybe 1970-71, When Paul H. Dunn was the Mission President. These two men were awesome speakers and told grand stories of when they played professional baseball together. I even had one of those obligatory interviews with him after one of these zone conference meetings. It was a long time ago, I don't remember much else, but I do remember the stories that seemed too good to be true.

sunbeep Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I first seen/heard-of Hartmon Rector in the first
> half of my two year tour from Hell in New England.
> Maybe 1970-71, When Paul H. Dunn was the Mission
> President. These two men were awesome speakers and
> told grand stories of when they played
> professional baseball together. I even had one of
> those obligatory interviews with him after one of
> these zone conference meetings. It was a long time
> ago, I don't remember much else, but I do remember
> the stories that seemed too good to be true.

Did you serve in new England under john clarke..i did
If so lets talk

The first year was under the Dunn man, The second year was under Clarke. I will see if I can figger out how to message you.

Hartman Rector is the only higher-up GA type I ever met personally.

He came to Shreveport, Louisiana to speak at a stake conference one time. Or maybe it was an Area meeting or something.

I'm ashamed to say that I encouraged a college friend to join TSCC. This was to be her first stake conference, and after the meeting, we got down there and, I was so eager for her to meet another convert - and one who was top echelon at that.

Well, we got to him and I proudly introduced my friend as a new convert.

He couldn't have been less interested if he had tried.

He just briefly shook both of our hands, and just moved on to shake other low-life's hands.

I guess he felt duty bound to shake the hands of a few commoners before he went to hob-nob with the more important people.

I was really embarrassed, because I had really built my friend up, telling her how special it would be to meet a GA and how great they were, and all that other crap that we all believed back then.

Southern Exmo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> He couldn't have been less interested if he had
> tried.
>
> He just briefly shook both of our hands, and just
> moved on to shake other low-life's hands.
>
> I guess he felt duty bound to shake the hands of a
> few commoners before he went to hob-nob with the
> more important people.

Well, thanks to his power of discernment, he knew neither of you had an investment opportunity for him.

I met Hartmon Rector in the Temple. I was a somewhat secret
exmo and anti-Mormon. However I was low enough under the radar
that I was able to lie my way into a TR.

I attended my brother's Temple-Wedding, which Hartmon Rector
officiated. I shook hands with him right there in the Temple
and none of that super-mojo discernment that you hear about
seemed to have kicked in.

Oh, by the way, my brother's really not sealed for eternity,
because I defiled the temple by being there unworthily.

"17 But if it be defiled I will not come into it, and my glory
shall not be there; for I will not come into unholy temples."
--D&C 97:17

Good work, man.

Hartmon Rector came to our stake conference several years ago. I was in the stake presidency at the time so we all had dinner with him on Saturday night. He told us we all had a hand in creating this earth. He then went around the room and we had to tell what animal we helped create. ???

I claim the naked mole rat.
For obvious reasons. :)

Man that guy really knows how to liven up a party! I wonder how many times he's played that card. I'm sure it always lifts the mood.

I need to hear more about this. Hoe did you and others reply?

I had never heard we had a part in the creation. He went into a long explanation and of course pull in various scriptures to make his point. I knew at the time he was making it all up but the others in the room really bought into his message. The others (stake presidency and wives) all had their animals picked out and quickly joined in and went into great detail of why they selected their animal.

I finally said a dog or cat without any explanation. It was truly an example of how the masses will believe anything these guys think up.

I wish I had said the curelom and cumon for extra points.

I wonder if he was a fan of Betty Eadie--she wrote "Embraced By The Light," a book about her near-death experiences. She also said that we all participated in the creation. I thought it was a cool concept that made sense.

I served in San Diego Mission 1981-83 right after his tenure. He devised a scheme called "Approach to Commitment" in which all the discussions were taught at once en masse. How this played out was the missionaries would round up Mexican fieldworkers, "teach" them, and baptize them en masse right on the spot.

He produced some incredible numbers, but eventually the area SPs got annoyed by all the records of new members that they never even saw once and they whined to SL about it and eventually the program was shut down when Rector got promoted to GA.

I've heard other stories about him from someone who was related to him through marriage for a while.

Rector was/is a certifiable nutjob that even the Mormon suits couldn't quite get a bead on. He was always one step ahead of them and played 'em like a fiddle. Couldn't happen to nicer people.

As a young naive missionary these stories kind of rocked my view of what the church was about. Rector and his boot-licking toadies obviously ran up meaningless numbers and got rewarded by the system for their "work". This was the first big item that went up on my shelf. Eventually, I puzzled together that LDS, Inc. was a fraud to its very core.

BTW, I would LOVE to hear from someone who served under HR. So much of what I heard was missionary lore. I served with missionaries who were trained by HR missionaries, but I never met any.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/22/2016 10:41AM by mrtranquility.

"He produced some incredible numbers, but eventually the area SPs got annoyed by all the records of new members that they never even saw once and they whined to SL about it and eventually the program was shut down when Rector got promoted to GA."

Actually, Rector was made a GA in 1968. He was the MP in AL-FL when I was about 15-17 years old, around 1970-73. He was already an Assistant to the Q12, as the Seventies were then called. When I went through the SL Mission Home in 1974, he was one of the GA trainers who spoke to my group.

His scheme for quickie baptisms was similar to the baseball baptisms of the 1950s and '60s which had been discontinued and condemned. Problem is, MPs are under so much pressure by the Q12 to produce big baptism numbers that they continue to come up with these underhanded schemes to pump up the numbers.

During my mission in Australia, GA David B. Haight spoke at a mission conference and scolded us for low baptism numbers. He said that in Mexico, they were baptizing hundreds of people every month, and that we should be doing the same. I knew very well that you can't compare baptism numbers in 3rd-world areas like Mexico with a 1st-world, industrialized nation like Australia. I worked hard pretty much for my entire mission, and I had six baptisms. I was 3rd highest in the mission during my time there. So I knew that Haight was full of crap. He was just trying to make us feel guilty and make us knock on more doors.

randyj Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I worked
> hard pretty much for my entire mission, and I had
> six baptisms. I was 3rd highest in the mission
> during my time there. So I knew that Haight was
> full of crap. He was just trying to make us feel
> guilty and make us knock on more doors.

I had 4 baptisms in France ('79-'80), and was treated like a hero, since the average was 1.

Then when I got home, and people used to the Mexico/SA missionaries asked me how many I had, and found out...they'd say, "Um, really? Only 4? Over two years?"

Now I can laugh at it :)

"Then when I got home, and people used to the Mexico/SA missionaries asked me how many I had, and found out...they'd say, "Um, really? Only 4? Over two years?"

I knew that Haight was full of crap because my home teaching companion when I was 16-17 years old had done his mission in Mexico, and he told me stories of baptizing dozens of people, but few remained active. He told me that he had gone back to Mexico after his mission to visit, and none of his converts were still around.

I can honestly say that I worked very hard to get my six baptisms. We had one other missionary who got 17, but he was a wildly nutty charismatic dude who talked a lot of people into joining, but most of them fell away afterwards. I replaced him in one area after he was transferred. My ZL told me to be careful when talking to people because the previous missionary had pissed off more people in the area than he had befriended.

"a scheme called "Approach to Commitment" in which all the discussions were taught at once en masse. How this played out was the missionaries would round up Mexican fieldworkers, "teach" them, and baptize them en masse right on the spot."

I visualize the missionaries teaching the fieldworkers a lesson like this:

"There once was a young man named Jose Smith to whom God gave a BOOK MADE OF PURE GOLD. Jose wrote down all the words onto paper and then threw the golden book into a pond to hide it. It has never been found. Now, we're not sure which pond he threw it into, but it was described as being very much like this pond right over here. [15 seconds later]. I baptize thee, Juan, Alberto, Jose, Pedro and Carlito, in the name of ......

If it is the same Rector I'm thinking about, he spoke at some camp in Arkansas or Missouri to a bunch of scouts. I remember stories of nuclear bomb testing in the Pacific back in the WWII days. Not sure if that is the dude. They had all the sailors line up on deck to witness the power of nuclear bombs from a distance.

Regarding his ponzi scheming... Sounds like he may have only made it to sapphire level.

Yea, when in the Fl, Al, mission my Dad became great friends with him in Tallahassee, I was staying with my grandparents in small north Fl town, Dad brought Hartman to there house to try and convert my grandmother, he couldn't pull it off. I was at top of stairs listening, man he poured it on. I joined 2 or 3 years later.

She and her hubby lived in the Ozark/Enterprise/Fort Rucker area for years. He was an army major and helicopter pilot. He was a long-time bishop and later SP in the area, and then became a regional representative. He worked under Rector for awhile, until Rector was replaced by Spencer Osborn.