Posted by:
nomonomo
(
)
Date: January 14, 2017 02:59PM
I would imagine heavy pressure and groupthink would keep them from coming home. Even if it's an option, it probably isn't encouraged.
I can't imagine any young person not wanting to attend their parent's funeral...
For example, when my mom died, three of her four children were on active duty in the military, including me. The DoD instantly put us on emergency leave and got us home, largely on their dime.
I got back to the barracks about midnight, and the Sergeant on duty had the bad news and took me aside to tell me about it and my options. At that point, my mom was in the hospital, but wasn't expected to last long. Virtually any scheduled military flight was at my disposal, subsidized/discounted airline tickets, and thousands of dollars in cash loans were available if I needed them. Between the Red Cross and the Army, it was easy and nearly automatic! Before the sun rose I was on a medical flight, and by ten the next morning I was at my mom's bedside in the hospital, and the only expense to me was the gas I used to drive to the Air Force Base to catch the flight.
They got all three of us there in less than 24 hours, before she passed, and I was the easy one. One of my brothers was halfway around the world on an aircraft carrier! They put him on a plane and catapulted it off to somewhere that he could make similar connections home.
The difference between the Morg and the DoD is attitude. The Morg also deploys young people all over the world, and certainly has the infrastructure and resources to get people home. It'd be no different than delivering and retrieving missionaries upon arrival and departure. It's not a frequent occurrence, so it wouldn't even add up to much, certainly not in comparison to the positive PR they could get by doing the right thing (i.e. they could have RMs proudly telling stories like mine).
The Morg would rather make some bizarre impression upon the missionaries, given their "sacrifice," imply that doing the Lard's work is more important than grieving, etc. and I'm sure it's only a coincidence that they save a few shekels too. ;)
Honestly, what young man or woman wouldn't want to be with their family at such a time, to grieve in a natural way, rather than handing out BoMs. The fact that it's false just adds insult to injury. With thousands of missionaries at work, no one would notice if Elder (John) Doe was gone for a few days. On the other hand, there's a million to one chance that a prospect in his mission field might sober up long enough to get baptized that day.
Yep, it's attitude: the Morg could (and should) make it happen. They choose not to.