Monson was known to cuss a little bit. My mom hear him say Hell when he was frustrated about something. A church security guard said heard Monson say Damn infrustration.

Monson’s daughter said he loved his Pesi. Tom had diabetes so I don’t know if too many Pepsi colas got him.

Tom just let the church roll on it’s own momentum. He wasn’t much of a change agent. He liked to get out. You would see him at basketball games and my sister even ran into him at Little America having breakfast. She said he was super nice and even signed his autograph on the grandkids placemats.

Tom was a people person. He was known to hang around and chat. He really wasn’t into being the big change agent. He wasn’t to into coming off as God’s almighty. He was a normal guy who enjoyed normal things. He seemed to enjoy the church and people and just let things roll. He didn’t have a notebook and a pen and he never bragged “You haven’t seen anything yet!”

In comparison Russ is looking like an old fool. The church has already had to do damage control on his crusade to eliminate the word Mormon.

Imagine that we can now praise a former profit so effortlessly, simply due to the current one being so terrible.

and lord knows, he loved a good widow

I guess a con-man who is grumpy, is worse than a lazy con-man who is affable.

HH =)

Lol. Brilliant.
I have to admit Monsoon was pretty likeable on the surface; but TBH I only think this because I’m comparing him with so many other GAs who are terrible.

I think he had grown weary of the church and was not in very good health. If you really think about it, their church president system is somewhat cruel (yes, they agree to it). I think secretly a few of them hope to pass on before they forever serve the church in an iron lung.

Two very NOT smart things done by Monson:

1- Supporting Prop. 8 (2008) in California and having members contribute financially and by going door-to-door convincing people to support it.

2- Having a "revelation" (2015) about the children with gay parent(s) (with any amount of custodial rights) not being eligible for baptism until 18 years old and then, only if they disavowed the parent(s).


I think Hinckley was the smart one. The most deceptive, yes, but also very smart.

Or is it deceitful? Hmmm... Anyway, he was a liar.

That meddling had Dallin H Oaks all over it. Dallin loves to get openly politically involved in stuff. Dallin was probably running wild while Monson was bird hunting and watching Utah Jazz games.

Monson was handled. Nelson is testing their fences.

I believe there were a lot of stories on this site regarding what a nasty person Monson was. I never met the man, nor do I know if the stories were correct, but I believe there were many.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
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> I believe there were a lot of stories on this site
> regarding what a nasty person Monson was. I never
> met the man, nor do I know if the stories were
> correct, but I believe there were many.

He went through secretaries like crazy. it was well known at COB Monson was hard to work for.

Yes, that's what I thought.

Sometimes a leader who was an incompetent dimwit is remembered fondly when something much worse comes on the scene.

I can’t think of any examples but perhaps that’s what’s going on here.

I think they all get handled a bit when their minds and health go. I think Monson just pretty much let the church run on it's own momentum. he was the boss and no longer had to fullfill assignments. he enjoyed being the boss. he lived the good life and seemed to enjoy more leisure. he was smart.

Heck. If I was prophet I would only speak at general conference and have lot's of online presence thanks to a competent staff. I would have a fabricated robot image of myself and live lavishly unseen on church purchased luxury properties.

I don't know that he was smart, just happy to let things coast along and not wanting to stir things up by reining in Oaks.

Oaks was reined in???


OMG !!!!

No. He let Oaks be Oaks instead of stirring up the quorum by trying to control Oaks.

I think he was immensely pleased with himself and the fact that he made it to the highest position possible in the church career path. Everything else was icing on the cake.

There's a lot of weird stuff in Monson's bio.

For example, did you know that he was called to be a bishop at age 22, in SLC, for a ward that had 1,000 members, including 85 widows? That just seems freakishly bizarre to me. I can maybe see something like that happening in a small branch somewhere near the Arctic circle. But in a 1,000-member ward in Salt Lake City? That's just weird. Some 22-year old kid is going to be asking probing questions about sexual purity to other kids his own age or to men and women old enough to be his parents?

Did you know that he served for 3 years as a mission president, starting at age 31, even though he had never previously served as a missionary?

Did you know that he was called to be an Apostle (skipping all the between stuff that usually happens) almost immediately after finishing his stint as Mission President and after he had just turned 36?

His rise through the ranks is amazing, incredible, unbelievable....especially when you realize that he was not particularly bright and didn't have any particular attributes that can explain the way that he leapfrogged through the system.

Reading between the lines, it looks like he was sponsored, backed and groomed from early on by Gordon B. Hinckley and perhaps others moving in Hinckley's circle. The big question is why? Hinckley and Monson were practically inseparable throughout most of Monson's career. They even managed to be appointed together as Ezra Taft Benson's counselors, and soon took over the actual control of the First Presidency while ETB sat off to one side impotently drooling in his dotage.

I suspect that Monson's "aw shucks, widow Jones" schtick was all show business. He and Hinckley knew that the business of Mormonism was business and they also knew that they had to put on a show for the sheep that involved pretending that they weren't cold calculating businessmen.

Excellent analysis. I believe you've uncovered some real truth in Mormonism.

that after his elevation to apostle status he began acquiring board seats on various corporations, banks, civic organizations, etc. with great gusto. I don't know if he had a record number of board positions, but he appears to have been one of the most enthusiastic participants in that racket before they stopped the practice in the mid 1990s.

Helicopter Tom.

LET'S GO SHOPPING!

there, someone 'had to say it'...

GNPE Wrote:
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> LET'S GO SHOPPING!
>
> there, someone 'had to say it'...

You need to add a few more exclamation points. Monson was really excited when he said that.

LET'S GO SHOPPING!!!!!

He was definitely feelin' it more than he ever did when talking about that Jesus character.

Like I say, the name should be: "The Church of the last thing the guy in charge said."

I personally view all of these changes being made by Nelson as sheer desperation. They are a way to keep the TBMs awake and from being bored out of their skulls. You can tell Nelson really gets off on letting the speculation rage, rumor mills swirling, and keeping all the adoring TBM acolytes in suspense.

Agreed.

There is very little he can do. He can't go back to the old doctrines and history, nor can he go much faster in abandoning them. The church is committed to mainstreaming but that will obviously lead to a dead end.

What is there for an ambitious but typically somnolent nanoagenarian to do?

Tommy was totaled sponsored, but not by the Hinkster. They were just linked because of longevity working for the church their entire lives, kindred servants, er spirits!

Monson' pipeline was Harold B Lee and the old west side Pioneer Stake and J. Rueben Clark. Ever wondered where his sons names came from? Clark was often the enforcer behind the McKay Presidency and the Camelot period of insolence post 1951 and the last of the beards and mental health issues of George Albert Smith.

But at that time, sponsoring and removing obstacles for Monson's meteoric rise through the ranks would have needed higher backing than Hinckley was likely able to offer by himself.

I just hadn't delved into it far enough to figure out who. Thanks for pointing me to Harold B. Lee and J. Reuben Clark. It makes sense. It looks to me like Hinckley and Monson were both picked out and sponsored very early on. As "golden boy" projects, they would have had a lot in common and Hinckley, would have likely been tasked by his superiors with some of the tasks related to handling, guiding and bringing Monson up through the ranks.

I'm just curious as to what the connections with Lee and Clark were from the beginning. What did they see in Monson? Was he particularly skilled at squeezing more work and sacrifice out of people he managed?

I don't know if my great grandfather gave us Hinckley and Monson. Gordo liked to quote him as telling Gordo to "stick with the brethren."

My great grandfather Hugh Brown and his cousin Tanner were the architects of the modern Mormon church I believe. They made it into a viable corporation. They were both more liberal in the politics. Funny how much of a right wing lobby Mormonism became after exclusively mainstreaming as a business before a church.

Nelson is very clever when he says the restoration is an ongoing process. That opens the door to adapting the church to modern times. You can see him steering things to almost completely focusing on Jesus Christ.

Right now there is talk of changing the endowment because it’s bottlenecking the temple work. I think you will see that streamlined even more or one endowment counting for more than one name.

The most important part of the temple for the church is temple weddings. They keep the younger people in the church and motivate people to keep recommends so they can go to the temple weddings.

The irony is that they are streamlining at a time when temple attendance is way down. Maybe they are trying to save on electricity. Or they think that a quicker temple ceremony will result in a flood of TBMs eager to participate. . .

Well, there's always the electricity.

It wasn't just rumors. I clearly remember sitting on the stand as a RM at stake conference and a visiting area president told the members to anticipate more changes to the endowment session. I continued on with the church and the uncomfortable temple experience for 5 more years. To my knowledge his "announcement" never came to pass. I don't think he would have made it up and suffer undue embarrassment. He was likely in meetings where the leaders really had plans to speed it up (that's what he had indicated; that the ordinance needed to be shortened).

What happened?

They must have had a lot of unhappy fossils resisting the proposal despite members being told that changes were on their way.

It is my understanding that Joseph Smith had children and for some reason their identity was hidden from members. I don't recall the compilation but it was a conference talk around the early 1900's in which this was mentioned. I used to have a copy but got rid of it long ago. Anyway, Monson had features like Joseph Smith. Because of these posts I'm wondering if there is a specific family relationship that would account for his accent in the ranks? I know he wouldn't have been a son but possibly a grandson?

I need to clarify my post. I mean children Joseph Smith had with women other than Emma.

It's one of those things that would be difficult nowadays to prove one way or another.

Based on Joseph Smith's proclivities and the circumstances of his philandering, it wouldn't surprise me at all if it was true.

And there could be a small group of insiders who knew and kept track over the years.

Meanwhile, many of the actual descendants (if they exist) from Joe's other women would likely not even know themselves. There have been many cases, especially in past generations, where children were adopted and raised by others without ever being told or knowing that they were adopted.

This is a true story:
My co-worker told me what had happened to her sister a few days before Monson was made prophet.
Her sister was a pharmacy tech at a different clinic from where we worked. Monson came in to their pharmacy to pick up a prescription and it wasn't quite ready yet; he had to wait maybe 10 minutes or so before it would be filled. Instead of just quietly waiting , he got very angry and was yelling at the tech.
The tech told my co-worker that it's a good thing that she had a firm testimony of the gospel; otherwise, she would've left the church after that incident. A few days later, he was "sustained" as prophet. Right after that, he went back to the pharmacy and apologized to the tech. He was so soft spoken at the pulpit, but it seems to me that behind the stage, he had a hot temper.

I didn't think they apologized.

People who get accustomed to being in a bubble, where they're surrounded by groveling sycophants who treat them like emperors all the time, anticipating and instantly gratifying their every whim, can irrationally feel threatened and insecure when they realize at some level that they're outside of the bubble.

Emotionally, it's like: "Uh-oh, something's wrong. Why are they ignoring me? Why don't they seem to fear me? Why do they not seem to know how important I am?"

...and then in some cases, this panic actually is verbalized: "Do you know who I am?????" Other times, it comes out as anger and scolding.

I've heard that Packer was pretty awful too whenever he felt like he wasn't getting proper respect and deference. A little 4-star general wannabe.