My wife mentioned to me in casual conversation yesterday that ward members were being asked to volunteer for "herding cattle"? Apparently there is a church owned ranch in Utah, and they are requesting members who live a suburban life style drive themselves to the church ranch to herd cattle; horses and some training included.

I have never heard of this one, anybody else aware of this? Is the church heading to new lows of being cheap and endangering its willing members?

Maybe LD$ Inc. should spend some of that $100,000,000,000 slush fund to hire some real drovers.

Maybe LDS Inc. is just testing to see if cow herding can become a new faith building activity. Maybe they'll start dude ranch type retreats hoping for an inspirational City Slickers type faith promoting experience.

Haha, you beat me to it! I was also reminded of City Slickers.

The Morg hasn’t figured out that they don’t want volunteers when they can get people to PAY for the experience!! What are they thinking?

So very true. Like missions.

New program – "Especially For Utes"

"my cousin vinny" jokes are not allowed !

Nor Andy Sipowitcz ones.

members' tithing $ hard at work...

next (if not already):

members assigned to do janitorial labor at the COB followed by laboring 'for the blessings' at ChurchCo owned businesses like the UP railroad etc. (not sure if they still hold UP stock)

An assignment to be an engineer on the Big Boy locomotive!? Sign me up!

Sadly, I don't think TSCC has that kind of influence with UPRR, and if they did, it would an "opportunity to serve" by spraying RoundUp on some weed-filled branch line outside of Tooele.

P.S. My favorite "WTF!?" opportunity to serve is when they were looking for a geologist as a senior mission. Yeah, Jesus needs me or a rock doctor...

I thought you might like this one (service project). My over ambitious ym leader thought the town's mounted railcar- a caboose was looking ratty. He approached the city council and got the go ahead to volunteer the youth to repaint the wood sided caboose. I think the city paid for cheap paint and some wood paneling.

The guy had NO idea what the hell he was doing. Instead of patching and repairing minor wood rot. He had the ym/scouts strip the wooden caboose down to the frame. In true Mormon arrogance, he hauled away everything without measuring anything.

So the town got a lopsided, warped half-assed caboose. He joked that all it needed was another glob of wood glue. Boards were crooked and not true at corners. They ran out of siding so the part where the top windows (cupola) was patched over with plywood. No thought was given to buying enough paint so it was dark brown on one side and chocolate tan on the other. The local railroad historical society would have advised them to paint it caboose red.

There was no thought about painting the lettering so the YM advisor told us that he went to True Value Hardware to buy the railroad initials SP for Southern Pacific. The same gold metal house letters that you might nail onto your mailbox. So ugly and tacky.

The repair job done by the local Mormon young men lasted 2 years before the whole mess collapsed on one side. Needless to say the town and railroad group raised money to do it right by hiring a professional restoration contractor.

Yikes. What a sad but funny tale.

Let's hope Mormon service projects never volunteer to help restore frescoes or art! Botched repairs are sadly hilarious.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/jun/24/monkey-christ-worst-art-repairs-of-all-time

>> P.S. My favorite "WTF!?" opportunity to serve is when they were looking for a geologist as a senior mission. Yeah, Jesus needs me or a rock doctor...

I always assumed that the geologist was needed for an oil exploration project. It's not like the Mormon church authorities are interested in artifacts to confirm the "truth" of the Book of Mormon, now are they?

For some reason I began to wonder what you’d get if you tried to breed, i.e. create, a ‘mormon cattle dog’.

Interesting idea, isn’t it?

I think it would be a Husky Chihuahua. It carries a BoM around its neck for anyone that is in need of the word, and the Chihuahua side provides the constant chirp barking about how good the BoM and all the stuff it does for you by way of real life 'testimonial'.

A mormon cattle dog would go around the neighborhood early on Sunday morning running and barking, rounding up all the lazy mormons that aren't getting ready for church....and get them to the church on time.....well at least mormon standard time.

It would be able to sniff out members that engage in self gratification and "point" at them when the bishop walks by.

It would nip the heels of any priest that dared to make a mistake while offering the sacrament prayer.

It would lay outside the building under the "visitors welcome" sign and growl and bark suspiciously at any non-mormon that tried to enter the building.

It would stand by and protect any bishop, scoutmaster, etc., accused of abusing children.

Everyday it would poop on the doorsteps of all those that didn't pay a full tithe that month until they paid in full.

Its fleas would be missionaries, carrying the gospel, infecting everyone they bite with it.

It would do tricks for the left over sacrament bread.

There really isn't much it couldn't do.

... except reproduce, without having gone on a mission and then been married in the temple ...

No reproduction for sure.....the church doesn't allow doggie style and that's all dogs can do!

If you could train them to do the missionary position, then there might be a chance.

Yes...

Only "Natural Acts" are permitted by a natural ghawd, in a natural world.

>> Only "Natural Acts" are permitted by a natural ghawd, in a natural world. <<

That would be the natural world where the natural man is an enemy of said natural ghawd...no?

>> some training included <<

What could possibly go wrong?

Kirton McKonkie is working on an EXTENSIVE WAIVER that MUST be signed.

Don't they have cowboys down in Florida on the GIANT farm? Just fly those guys in. They are already trained.

or use the missionaries.

or a group of seventies.

other people have jobs.

>> or use the missionaries. <<

That would be awesome! Can you imagine being called to "The Cattle Drive Mission"?

That would be like City Slickers on teen age hormones!

The missionaries would probably learn more on a cattle mission than on a Facebook mission.
Yes, the insurance would go up for untrained missionaries to work with cattle imagine all those work injuries. Thanks for posting I find it so interesting to learn about the new service projects.

And they could use tobacco for treating sick cattle too!

I can't think of a dumber idea. Million dollar steer to be roughed up by wanna be cowboys thinking they can herd/drive cattle.

Years ago my stake was told that its assigned pear farm was one of three in existence. It was a *top* priority for the church's welfare service.

Yet, they demanded all these know-nothing members to come out and use their expertise in pruning trees. Yeah right! Every member had his/her own ideas on how much to cut.

So here was this elderly couple with their mega chain-saws. They went down the rows behind the rest of the ward. This couple sawed off every fruit producing branch- they turned every pear tree into Sagaro cactus.

The paid farm manager finally caught up to them and ordered them to leave.

In the end, they replaced the pears with apple trees. Before the first harvest of apples, they bulldozed them. Today the orchard is a beautiful vineyard making delightful wines.

Money well spent.

OMG, this is fucking hilarious! Serves them right.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/28/2022 03:00AM by Bite Me.

Experience herding cats is a plus.

Experience staying with the 99 and shunning the 1 is a plus... Even guarantees you a supervisor role.

Couldn't agree more.

tailspin idea, little to be gained here, HUGE negatives, actual & potential.


Where will the guy(s) be who proposed this idea be when someone is seriously injured or killed (ChurchCo won't pay bc it's 'voluntary') ?

Perhaps if you pass the herding cattle test you can be an usher at general conference.

Hiring cowboys is too expensive for a Church with "rainy day" funds over 100 billion.

The church has bought SOOOO MUCH SH!T everywhere that now they are stuck like other business not having enough people to do everything.

The church is used to having endless volunteers and not having to pay for labor. People who roll up their sleeves are in high demand.

They expect members to be gardeners, janitors, and multiple other trades. Back in BY days, my relatives worked in church owned businesses but eked out a meager wage to raise their 50 kids and stay at home wife. People don't have time, energy or money to work their two jobs AND do job after job free for the church.

Funny how at the top of the church, they have plenty of earnings. At the bottom, there is a labor shortage. I say they should be taxed to the gills. The wealthy "corporations" that have a side hustle of selling religion should pay fair taxes.

Damn right.

"No one wants to work anymore." lol

Every year there is a cattle drive down Logan Canyon, Utah. Hubby and I have parked off the road and watched them. Not only does the cowboy/cowgirl need a lot of experience so does the horse.They go up and down steep inclines at a pretty fast pace. The dogs are irritating to the cattle. Not something for a newbie.

Are the cattle members who want to leave?

?

They should herd the cattle with Book of Mormon snakes!

They should chop off the arms of members who try to steal from them.

He wasn't that active, but he had a farm and knew how to farm for them and they used him.

He volunteered all of us to hoe beets on the stake farm. I refused. He wasn't very happy about it, but didn't make me do it. I'd hoed enough beets in my life that I didn't think I needed to do it for the church.

I certainly don't think amateurs should be herding cattle, but there are a lot of ranchers in Utah. I assume they could find some with experience.

Yee Haw

I want to ride with Saints and herd some beef! Where do I sign up?

I know, right!!

Camping under the stars; Laurels serving you dinner cooked by the MIAmaid, with the Beehives set to clean up afterward...  

Getting up the next morning and downing that first cup of Postum Cookie brewed up for you galoots, after trying to find an unoccupied portapotty in order to perform your morning ablutions.

Based on all the Westerns I've watched, I don't think there's any lunch service . . .  Maybe they'll assign local RS units to bring out sandwiches, and stuff?

Remember, with faith, nothing is impossible, because ghawd would never ask you to do something that you were incapable of doing!  You're never tested above your 'break' limit.  

What a nice ghawd!

This is the most insane, yet hilarious thing I have ever heard of!!! WTF??

Ironic that you can't use the kitchen because of liability but they can pay the insurance for this.

Ha ha! Yes. They want free labor. They don't want free members.

Sounds like a gross safety violation, or one waiting to happen.

EXACTLY. Anyone that has been around this type of thing knows it is very dangerous work. Most people that do it for a living grow up with it and have a lot of training. It's just a really bad idea and shows how damn cheap they are. Hell, it's not like they don't have the money to pay professionals.

BTW, if you ever want to discuss the current situation in Ukraine drop me a line. I would like to pick your brain :)

Susan I/S Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

>
> BTW, if you ever want to discuss the current
> situation in Ukraine drop me a line. I would like
> to pick your brain :)


I want input on the current situation in Mother Russia...

Does anyone NOT on the government payroll support Putin and his goals in this war?

I can no longer remember if I have your E-mail, or if you're on FB.

This was done in the UK. Members were invited to volunteer on the LDS Church Farm. It was fun.

Aren't the church ranches also using senior "service" missionaries? Isn't it basically the same thing, except the length of service?