This was always one of the things that bothered me when I was a member and still bothers me now that I am out. Once, again, after a major hurricane, you see Mormons putting on their helping hands shirts, organizing service projects, and social media posts going on about the blessings THEY receive from the service that they are doing.

They never speak of others, or the people they are providing the help to. All they care about is being SEEN doing acts of service and how it makes THEM feel.

There's nothing wrong with acts of service and donating your time to aid others, but for them it is all self serving and about maintaining the appearance of righteousness. Everything is all about appearances with them.

I totally agree! I sat in a F&T meeting years ago and listened to a woman go on and on about how she had helped somebody in a parking lot who was having car trouble. She made a point of letting this person know she was a mormon and that the person should check into her religion. It was nauseating to me to hear the self-serving boasting.

Some mormonish doings are nothing more than faith-affirmation activities. A prime example: baptism for the dead.

Mormons: talk about others (a lot!), so they can talk about themselves.
The 'church' talks about itself [ALL THE TIME], but they don't wan't others to (or they do). If it wasn't so awful, people wouldn't.

I was with a large group of utahns, mostly mormons, on a trip to Mexico. We were asked to bring old clothing to give away for a service project and the people lined up and were very sweet and grateful. It was a great experience except for all the utahns taking video footage of the poor people they were giving free stuff to. Bugged the hell outta me. They were definitely serving themselves making and then posting videos showing how Christlike they are.

When it comes to service projects, where the TBM's put on those "approved" T-shirts, note this:

The T-shirts say: MORMON HELPING HANDS along with the full name of the church.

see https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=zBuXIR4S&id=C42AE8FC002783C8DE9F57913EA48FA68347F4F9&thid=OIP.zBuXIR4SPmvfNgiIMjsTnQHaIG&mediaurl=http%3a%2f%2fwww.lavalane.org%2fross%2fuploaded_images%2fmormon-helping-hands-704317.jpg&exph=454&expw=415&q=mormon+helping+hands+t+shirt&simid=608043711051794815&selectedIndex=0&ajaxhist=0


Who knew?

All along they've been advertising the evil word Mormon. It's been a "VICTORY FOR SATAN" each and every time anyone put on that shirt for a service project!

Note to the new "command of the Lord" from President Nelson: You'd better take the time to burn all those shirts now. They're evil.

Mormons now do two things that disqualify them for true Christianity, whatever the hell that is. For one, they're all about ritual and obedience and obedience to the ritual. All the temple-going and drool-inducing worship services are now all they know. They believe that works will save them, but their "works" amount to nothing at all.

The other thing is their constant need for praise, always taking photos of themselves helping while wearing their yellow smocks, and then putting it all in the Church News to make other Mormons feel all soft and squidgy about their religion. I don't believe in the New Testament, but sort of respect the Christian teachings, and it bothers me to see the missionaries blatantly go against the teachings of Paul et al.

Remember after the hurricane in Haiti, a handful of BYU students rushed in and hammered together a couple of shacks as the Church News photographer shot pictures of it. Everyone was surprised when they up and left after a couple of days' worth of good pics, never to return. I wasn't surprised.

When I lived in Congo, the church sent over a gaggle of doctors who conducted a two-week neonatal thing, then handed out stethoscopes to everyone. That was okay, but the stupid Church News photographer was hovering around taking pictures for the rag. Usually, the church does very little other than proselyting among the desperately poor, before telling them them to pay tithing. The missionaries are aware of how bad this looks, so occasionally they will put on a show by trying to participate in some initiative with the Baptist and Adventist missionaries and other charities to show that they're in the game, too. You know... Like good Christians.

So one time, some charity was going to go into the bush to vaccinate villagers. The Mormons wanted in, and the other participants reluctantly said okay. They are often reluctant because they view the Mormons as generally unqualified. The other missionaries speak Lingala, or at least French, and the Mormons don't bother to learn a language. The other missionaries consist of doctors and other medical personnel, and teachers; the Mormons are retired accountants, attorneys, software developers, and in one weird case, a truck driver. So sometime in late 2007 or early 2008, the church sent over a couple whom I actually happened to know (a retired accountant and his wife), to go into the bush with the others. But the LDS couple dawdled and showed up late, thinking that the others would surely wait for them. But when the Mormons didn't show at the appointed time, the others just proceeded into the bush without them. The Mormons were burned over it, having lost their chance to get some good photo ops. They spent a few days in Kinshasa, before flying back. It is kinda funny to watch, or entertaining, at least. But the church doesn't care much. It's not costing them anything, because the missionaries are paying their own way. But it's awfully disappointing to the neo-Pharisees when they don't get their photo ops for doing nothing.

I've said too much. Sorry.

At my place of work, the missionaries will volunteer one-off shifts from time to time, interacting directly with the public. I don't blame them for wanting to alleviate their boredom, but I do mind that they MUST wear their missionary name tag as part of their uniform. That is volunteering for credit, to be seen, and to be a form of advertisement for the church, not out of care for the public they serve. It's not comparable to corporate volunteer groups either because corporate groups are not there to non-verbally proselytize. I think it's a self-centered and inappropriate thing to do.

Mormons wards are sending emails trying to drum up volunteers to go help the hurricane victims. In some way, good for them to go down there an help a little bit I suppose. I'm not about to go to the F&T to hear a report on what spiritual experience they had helping these demolished area. From what I read their weekend effort did next to nothing as a drop in the ocean. Florida is totally screwed up.

They are asking for more volunteers for the next few weeks. Well have at it mormons. I suppose they could just stay home. I laugh when I hear they the mormons or any other group that shows up must be an answer to the victim's prayer.

No they are not. They are just folks that decided to go down there. There are more than just churches volunteering to clear pathways and clean up the debris.

My neighbor calls it "but enough about you."

Such as, Merry Christmas! But enough about you.

Maybe I'm not communicating it well. Now that I put a label to the behavior I can identify it and laugh at it.

Tssc breeds and breathes narcissism. This behavior is exactly my mother and sister. Every 'good deed' they do is always self-serving in some way. They brag about helping people and would never help someone if they couldn't showcase it to the world somehow. It's for this reason that I kinda hate social media. At least before that era began they could only brag to the world during F&T meeting.

I'm going to suggest that most acts of kindness are not motivated by altruism. Whether it's because one wants to feel better about themselves or if they want to engender an attitude of kindness that may help them somehow I just not sure it is accurate to say that Mormonism is unique in that acts of service can be selfish.

Their 'church' [mis]leaders' arbitrary rules and superstitions KEEP THEM from doing most everyday natural, even healthy, normal things and ways of thinking, that 'other' always seems so, "OTHER." So, a sense of SEPARATENESS is prevalent, underlying all else in ldsCulture.

MOST people will naturally volunteer to help others, in many different ways, but the LDSc has no helping arm(s), and people have to be called, and see if they can work with somebody or help at another church [but mormonism has No Services], so it contracts/ calls it's followers to to JOIN OTHERS and/ or attempts to commandeer the actions and message to say it was "the church" doing it, rather than the good hearts of members. It's really grandstanding, showboating, bragging. FREE PR! Get the shirts!

If mormonism actually "helped", a member should/ could have 30 or 40 shirts, easily. Unlike the rainbow, it is so white and black. Rather than freeing, it's confining. It's all dis-coordinated. Scripted. Discombobulated.

Mormon leaders aren't leading in the efforts.
It's the followers that are expected to 'lead'.
The leaders surely wouldn't follow... or they'd lead!

M@t