Posted by:
Tyson Dunn (not logged in)
(
)
Date: January 23, 2020 12:14PM
When I served my mission, one of my companions was a complete ass. He would ring doorbells on apartment buildings, and yell into the intercom, "The door, lady, please!" as if he were a deliveryman with a heavy package, just to worm his way into the building. He'd bang on doors, leave illiterate messages on whiteboards, etc. He was intimidating in stature compared to the average local, and he knew it, and he'd use it to force Book of Mormons on people. It was always an embarrassment, but at the time, I could do nothing about it.
When I was a Ward Mission Leader after my mission, however, I had more than one occasion to set the local missionaries straight, including when the bishop had to tell them off at a ward council meeting. The bishop tried to explain to them that the upper leadership's "new" plan to cold call people was the stupidest damn thing he'd ever heard of. We were in the Philadelphia area, and at the time, Philadelphians had the statistically worst response to cold calling anywhere in the US. (Just look at our sports fans. :) ) The elder essentially called him a heretic, and the bishop told him to get the hell out of his house. I don't think that elder was around much after that.
When I was in Utah after my mission, a colleague and I had invited a non-member colleague to the open house of the Mount Timpanogos Temple. After a nicer older missionary asked us about our experience afterwards, a doltish ass of an elder decided he would chase us down asking the exact same damn questions. It took the shine off the senior missionary's inquiries and made us all look like asses. I called the Provo Mission afterwards and chewed out whatever random elder it was I got on the phone, who told me that mine wasn't the only complaint.
I can't go into all details, but I've sparred with mission presidents and actually gotten my brother reassigned back to his mission after his president decided he was too much of a problem and tried to send him home (long story). FWIW, he later had my brother and about a dozen other "problem" elders moved into the neighboring mission after finagling a boundary shift.
So these twerps are small potatoes, and at more than a decade and a half out of the LDS Church, I don't care if their feefees get hurt when the big bad ex-member calls their shenanigans out.
Tyson (grrr!)