A college-age Mormon co-worker who grew up in upstate New York and now here in Utah made a remark to other Mormon co-workers as I was walking in: "Yeah, in upstate New York missionaries beat people to death on, like, a regular basis." I give her a weird look and say "Really? A regular basis?" She backtracks a little and says "Well, maybe not regularly, but it's not unheard of in upstate New York and in the city."
I said it was a little strange that that sort of thing wouldn't be extensively covered by local Utah news outlets, since that is most likely where the missionaries were from, and even if they were not, it would be of great interest to Utah Mormons.
Now I didn't know for sure if missionaries get beaten to death, even if "a regular basis" is every 10-15 years or something, but I had to look it up.
The last time a missionary was intentionally killed was 2006 in Virginia. The vast majority of missionaries who were murdered in the 1900s were in foreign countries, and the last time a missionary was reportedly killed anywhere in the state of New York was...never.
I hate unsubstantiated rumors of all kinds, but I hate missionary rumors most of all because it should be so obvious that the same stories are being recycled over and over in different times and places (like mishies messing with Ouija boards/occult practices, a visiting apostle sending half the mission home for secret disobedience, and the dozens of others people have mentioned). And rumors about missionaries getting killed: total persecution complex, or possibly the attempts of RMs or Mormons from the eastern US to brag about how exciting and dangerous it was to serve the Lord.
I really kind of hope that co-worker brings it up again so I can share my findings because I'm not the kind of guy to say "Hey, remember all those things you said last week? They were wrong."
Oh well. Just doing my best to coexist with these people.

I've lived in NYS for the past 30 years. Both downstate and upstate. Have not heard of such reports before. Please ask your friend to provide news sources, if in fact they exist.

I think missionaries are victims of petty crime and only report a fraction of it because they feel ashamed or embarrassed.

I apparently never had anything worth stealing. Getting robbed would have gotten me out of tracting for an afternoon, filing police reports and whatnot. That would have totally been worth it.

The Three Nephites regularly hitchhike in Utah, usually around Gunnison. They like hanging out in the library at Snow College

The Church of Jesus Christ of the Persecution Complex would never stop telling stories of murdered missionaries if they were even half way true.

Smudge Wrote:
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"Yeah, in upstate New York missionaries beat people to death on, like, a regular basis."


You meant missionaries get beat up regularly, or the other way around?

XD Yes, I meant the other way around. That, or I meant they annoy people to death.

You should reply that "Mormon missionaries rape underage children regularly". That is a far more accurate statement than the one your co-worker made.

Did Alex Jones join the LDS church?

This might help you refute such nonsense:

https://momonamission2017.wordpress.com/

From the page:

"Elder M. Russell Ballard indicated that of the 447,969 missionaries who have served since the days of Joseph Smith, only 525… about 1/10 of 1 percent—have lost their lives through accident, illness, or other causes while serving."

However, it looks like being on a mission with Mittens Romney is pretty risky...

https://www.familysearch.org/photos/artifacts/44831161?p=15813887&returnLabel=Leola%20Seely%20(KWZ2-ZJP)&returnUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.familysearch.org%2Ftree%2Fperson%2Fmemories%2FKWZ2-ZJP&tagId=32551618



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/20/2018 04:29PM by ificouldhietokolob.

?????

...it was church sources refuting the notion that missionaries regularly get beaten to death in NY. Something a mormon might actually accept.

The mittens story was just an added bonus -- mittens, while driving in France on his mission, got in an accident where his MP's wife was killed. I wouldn't ride in a car he was driving...!

The link didn't work before, so I wasn't sure what you were referring to. Thanks for the clarification.

Oh! Yeah, a working link sure helps :)

First mittens, then Laura Bush (although chronologically I think the Laura Bush one happened first), then Ted “ bury my mistresses heart at Chappaquiddick’ Kennedy.

What is it With these whacky politicians and their ilk, and their deadly driving?

Sources:
Teds amoral driving incident (amoral is too kind actually)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chappaquiddick_incident

Laura Bush (who I have no qualms with other than marrying a boor and a boob. This seems like it was genuinely just a tragic accident)

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/laura-bush-car-accident/

And for a macabre albeit funny bonus:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9hnN5oF-WUc



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/21/2018 04:40PM by midwestanon.

ificouldhietokolob Wrote:
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> > I wouldn't ride in a car he was driving...!


...or even on top.

Hahahahahaha! You dog!

One tenth of one per cent is still entirely too high.

ificouldhietokolob Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> This might help you refute such nonsense:
>
> https://momonamission2017.wordpress.com/
>
> From the page:
>
> "Elder M. Russell Ballard indicated that of the
> 447,969 missionaries who have served since the
> days of Joseph Smith, only 525… about 1/10 of 1
> percent—have lost their lives through accident,
> illness, or other causes while serving."
>
> However, it looks like being on a mission with
> Mittens Romney is pretty risky...
>
> https://www.familysearch.org/photos/artifacts/4483
> 1161?p=15813887&returnLabel=Leola%20Seely%20(KWZ2-
> ZJP)&returnUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.familysearch.org%
> 2Ftree%2Fperson%2Fmemories%2FKWZ2-ZJP&tagId=325516
> 18

scmd1 Wrote:
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> One tenth of one per cent is still entirely too
> high.

Oh, I agree.
But that number does effectively refute the notion that missionaries are regularly being beaten to death in NY.
In fact, the church's own records show 0 missionary deaths in NY state since 1900 (before that, things are sketchy).

That rate also doesn't take into account the large number of missionaries who get very sick, get parasites, get lousy medical treatment, are told they're sick because they don't have enough faith, etc. Missionaries are treated like crap. I think the church is fortunate more don't die -- both from illness and from being in dangerous situations.

But they're not being regularly beaten to death in NY :)

...hey, here's a shocker.

"Regular people get regularly beaten to death in NY."

...had a few run-ins myself, in Battery Park, Village, and subways late at night.

LDS Missionaries don't have a corner on this market......

The co worker should have said that missionaries encounter threats of violence occasionally, And have been known to be attacked by scary people. Especially in the South. Disagreeing with the wrong red-neck-primitive-baptist could get primitive. (if you know what I mean)

I hope no one was forced to squeal like a pig!

When I was a missionary, some guy stole my umbrella and smiled at me while he was doing it.

I was inside the church looking out the window and my umbrella was propped up against the wall just outside the window. Some guy just walked up to the window, smiled at me, picked up the umbrella and walked away before I could do anything.

I was bummed because it was raining like crazy 30 minutes later when I had to head out. I like to think that his hair got caught on the umbrella parts as he opened it and really hurt.

I don't recall ever getting beaten to death as a missionary. I think I would remember if that had happened. I did see one guy who did beat me to death...I mean he died before I did/will. (Actually, two guys beat me to death in that fashion, but at different times.)

What were we talking about? (Forgive me, I haven't had my coffee yet.)

Wally Prince Wrote:
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> I don't recall ever getting beaten to death as a
> missionary. I think I would remember if that had
> happened.

Are you sure? Memories aren't that reliable sometimes...:)

Yeah! Getting beaten to death would definitely be the kind of memory you'd want to repress! If in fact you were at some point in your life beaten to death, and you're repressing the memory, it could have some negative effects. You should definitely seek radio consoling.

Hayley Joel Osment: "I see posts that other people can't see..."

I saw some missionaries the last time I was in NYC (Harlem). They were just fine.

When Mormons first started setting up missions in Bulgaria, Russia, and the Ukraine, missionaries did get routinely robbed and physically attacked. I was working a job then where I had access to State Department reports, and all I had to do to search was type in "Mormon missionaries," and it would cough up the latest reports on missionary attacks being reported to the US embassies in those parts of the world. There were also frequent attacks in Papua New Guinea.

When I was teaching at university, a faculty member in the office next to mine was on the university committee that dealt with student deaths. They did things like contact the family, send flowers, Stuff like that. They generally were not involved in investigations.

This was a moderate size school (small by Utah standards, about 14,000 students). I would say on average there were 2 or 3 deaths a year out of that many students. All sorts of causes: car accidents, drug overdose, suicide, congenital birth defect of some sort, one rape/murder, industrial accidents, aviation students crashing (I'd say one every 7 years for that), robbery gone bad.

Given what I saw there, I'd expect as a normal death toll from 75,000 missionaries, somewhere around 10 a year. People die. Even 20 year olds die, though not many. I'm curious to know what the overall mortality rate for missionaries is compared to the average Midwestern university. I suspect they are about the same.

I think what she meant was that missionaries regularly get robbed of their nice, expensive bikes. Ya. I do that. I can translate stuff like that!

I served a mission in New York. My first area was all welfare projects and pretty rough. Never had any real bad run ins. We would have people ask if we worked for the government or if we were gay. We carried $25 mug money. Never had to use it. Got flashed tits a few times and had girls ask us to take them home and they would make us feel alright. Of course they wanted to get paid for it.