This is inspired by the what mission did you serve in topic.

One of the things that turned me off to the church was my mission. I served in the Antofagasta, Chile mission from 93-95. The first year I was there it was basically a race to see how many children we could baptize. My second year we had a different president and we had to change tactics. My zone leader was dunking 20-30 a month. I would get between 5-10.

We would go where the kids were and do what they were doing. This usually meant playing soccer in the street or a field somewhere. In between games we would casually talk to them about the church. These were the discussions. The would all commit to getting baptized very easily. They were usually 8-13 years old and were interested in hanging out with us more and using the church courts for soccer. I was always surprised that most of their parents gave consent so easily. I think they saw it as a better pastime than just hanging out in the streets. Anyway, the families never got baptized. It was just the kids and we were lucky if they stayed active for more than a month.

Ward members didn't like it too much. One bishop even locked us out of the chapel one time so we couldn't baptize some kids. We actually broke in and did the baptism on our own but left the lights off. It was kind of eerie seeing them go under with a flashlight in the dark. They looked dead and it brought home the whole death and rebirth symbolism for most of us. It really scared one of the girls who was going to get baptized. We had to talk to her for about a half an hour to calm her down and convince her to go through with it.

Have you ever thought of writing this to the editor of a Salt Lake City newspaper like the Trib?

I've been keeping my mouth shut to keep peace with my family. Now it's pretty clear my wife is divorcing me so I have no reason not to be more honest about things.

I've always assumed stories like this aren't unique. I'm hoping others have things to share.

Wow, that is pretty shady. In my mission (Alabama) it was what was referred to as the "bucket of chicken" baptism. The missionaries would promise people a bucket of KFC chicken and assure them that the church would take care of them if they were baptized. It was a story floating around from before my time, but a good friend who was in the same mission three years before me claims that he was in the mission when it happened.

What years was this?

I was '01-03, by friend was somewhere around '98-99, I don't remember exactly. I was never able to confirm if it actually happened or if it was just mission lore, but I wouldn't put it past missionaries to do such a thing when you need numbers.

Yeah, the local mishies played football on sunday in their ties to hang out with my son and his friends. That made me laugh, I live in Utah county, so here is everyone else going to church at 11 and my kid and his friends playing ball in the park.

I was suprised they would be allowed to do that. He came home with a pamphlet, and the kids told the mishies they lived at some other houses, so they lied. thanks goodness, I do NOT need them knocking at my door!!

Independence Missouri (Independent Misery) did the same stuff. We played basketball with kids in the ghetto and "kiddie dunk" them.

Pool parties where a corner of the pool would be used to baptize anyone interested as a fun part of the activity (Japan mission). When we were moving mission offices we were instructed to destroy any records related to these activities/church endorsed project to prevent any future missionaries from getting ideas.

These kinds of practices need to be publicised. I guess these kinds of things are to be expected considering the attitudes and priorities in the morg.

There's nothing of true value in mormonism to attract converts, so the church has to resort to milk before meat-type lies and worse.

Your story is a barn burner!

shady tactics?..... well only of you count the popular missionary tactic of taking up a spot at the local marketplace and pretending to be 'doing a poll' or 'doing research' on religion... they would go through the motions of asking people about their religious belief, to get them to commit to a missionary visit.

Wow, those were some trusting kids, lol. When I was 8 to 13, I would have been WAY too scared to let a bunch of guys sneak me in a church and dunk me in water, in the dark, lol. I would have been HELLA creeped out...

And then the more they pressured me, the more scared I would get, I'd probably pull away and take off running, lol.

Can 2 missionaries find a willing convert and just go baptise him on their own? What exactly is the protocol and procedure to make it official?

In my mission the requirements were:

1. be at least 8 years old and be mentally capable of making their own decisions

2. receive all six discussions and commit to obeying the word of wisdom, following the law of chastity, and paying tithing

3. not have had an abortion or killed anyone (these situations required mission president interviews)

4. attend at least one sacrament meeting prior to baptism

5. have parental approval if they were minors

6. pass an interview with another priesthood holding male missionary to confirm requirements one through five were done

7. someone from the bishopric had to sign the baptism papers (basically confirming the handoff of responsibility)

The hardest requirement for us was getting the to a sacrament meeting the week before we wanted to baptize them. We were always running all over our sectors waking and rounding up kids before church.

They had to have a baptism interview, and it was pretty much what you said. That was in the late 1980s when I was a missionary in Ireland.

However, in the 1960s there had been a program called "baseball baptisms" in Britain and Ireland where missionaries would hold little leagues and tell kids that they had to be baptized to be allowed into the league. I had a home teacher who was involved in this. He served in the early 1960s under President Stephen R. Covey. My home teacher said that they baptized THOUSANDS of kids as a mission this way in Ireland, where I had seen a record of 44 baptisms for the whole mission one month in 1988. He said that then they went back and got 40 or so of their parents. Well, I was hearing about "baseball baptisms" by members and nonmembers alike who were outraged by the program almost 30 years later.

So, I think the baptism interview may have been a result of the things that had gone on in the past. It might also be that in later years some mission presidents simply weren't doing it so that they could inflate their baptism numbers.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/15/2010 11:18AM by Makurosu.

although never authorized, some mishes would succomb to the pressure and do the following:
1) Basketball baptisms: Play and dunk
2) African baptisms: We took advantage of their overwhelming friendliness. We baptized dozens of Kenyan and Ghanans, never to see them again.
3) Graveyard Baptisms: Some mishey's, pressured for baptisms, would fake the baptisms from names off gravestones.
4) Handicap Baptisms: Whether mentally, physically, socially - didn't matter. Some mishes would routinely find mentally ill, handicap, or socially inept folks who needed friends. I find this true in many missions.
5) Groupy Baptisms: There was a very famous couple in our mission, who drew in fans by the hundreds. They were the parents of a very well known musical family. Many a' groupy were baptized as a result. I thought it interesting that the MP would place the best looking mishey's in the mission near and around this couple, who were stationed right in the visitor center. The groupy's would litterly sit at their feet and gawk.
6) Survey Baptisms: we had this survey that we would ask people as they waited for a subway or bus. It was a fake survey, only to get the conversation going.

It was a ridiculous lie, and all the elders were upset by it when we first were introduced to it, usually at the first door. We were told that we had to call it a "questionnaire" because in Ireland if you say you're conducting a "survey" that the results had to be published. And of course, as we all knew, there were no results. We were making it up as we went along in an attempt to segue into a first discussion, and it was easier to get in doors by saying you're conducting questionnaire than it is by saying "Hello, this is Elder Smith and I'm Elder Young. We're representatives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints..." I don't know how it's supposed to go after that, because the door is usually shut by then.

One time, my mission president took away the questionnaire and said we could not use it anymore. It was disastrous. We couldn't get in doors. We couldn't teach. Nobody would listen to us. Then he gave it back, so that we would appreciate this tool we had and quit complaining about it being a dishonest tactic.

My mission in the UK did this as well. I refused to do it. I felt that it underminded my integrity. It felt so wrong and I couldn't believe that I was asked to do something like this as a "missionary of the Lord".

He said that if your priesthood leader commands a thing that is wrong and you follow it, it will be counted to you for righteousness. The sin is on the head of the leader. However, if you disobey - even if you're in the right - it is counted as sin in the eyes of the Lord. He would go on and on about this when I worked in the mission office.

I'm glad you brought up the graveyard baptisms. The mission to the south of us (Viña del Mar, Chile) always had great numbers. A lot of the pressure we felt to produce numbers was to measure up with them. We later heard that some of their "best" missionaries (i.e. those with the best numbers) were doing this.

I don't know if it is true or not, I only heard it as a rumor. Does anyone here familiar have first hand knowledge of the Viña del Mar fiasco from the early 90's?

'77-'78 we would go to parks with our discussions and ask people if they would help us practice our Chinese. Of course this "practice" was our going over the discussions with them. The idea being something we would say would spark an interest in them and lead to a baptism. And darned if I didn't get a couple of baptisms that way. The totally dishonest premise of the whole thing was completely lost on me at the time.

an I simply cannot believe it. How can they get away with stuff like this? Are there no laws against it? What a crock of ***t.

So that's how you guys did it! I served in Chile, too, (Osorno, '92-'94) and we always heard about how the other missions in Chile were doing. Seems like we were always on or near the bottom, compared to the other Chilean missions.

I can honestly say, though, that while I'm sure some baptisms in my mission weren't legitimate, it wasn't widely known or talked about.

Kids sure were easy ones to baptize, though, right?

Even if most the dunkees left church soon after, they are another number of the 'fastest growing church' as the morg claims. Like the Tanners' stated: "These poor Third world converts usually don't have access to the internet to learn more, nor a clue how to resign." So they remain a official number.

Searching Truth Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> So that's how you guys did it! I served in Chile,
> too, (Osorno, '92-'94) and we always heard about
> how the other missions in Chile were doing. Seems
> like we were always on or near the bottom,
> compared to the other Chilean missions.
>

Crazy how they stacked us up against each other like that isn't it. I remember seeing Osorno's lower numbers and secretly respecting you guys because I assumed it meant you weren't as shady as us. I still feel bad about some of the crap I did on my mission to get numbers. This thread has been useful to get that baggage out.

Never saw nor heard of any of that anywhere. Not saying it didn't happen, just find it unheard of in my world. I was in Amsterdam/Netherlands, 75 - 77. Had heard of "hamburger baptisms" back in the 60's in England. Invite a bunch of teenagers for burgers around the pool then dunk those that wanted to.

Ron

This stuff should be written up and published. And counter-missionaries can tract a few houses behind the Elders and drop this off.

Catholic missionaries from Italy in Asia would have "rice christians" up until the 1970s. It worked like this: you hand out food to the poor, usually a bowl of rice. While they receive their bowl, a priest pours a drop of water on their forehead and they were baptized into the Mother Church!

Another type of baptism that was common in Antofagasta, Chile (but not nearly as frequent as younger children) was the teenage girl.

A lot of girls would listen to the discussions to spend time with the gringos. Sometimes it was out of curiousity and other times they held a delusion of something more serious (relationships, marriage, immigration).

I steered way clear of that. I put the one teenage girl I did baptize without her family through tons of scrutiny.

A lot of missionaries took advantage of this hormonal interest, some others fell victims. One elder in my district told me of a time he and his companion went by a girls house. Her mother invited them in and the girl was naked inside. They were doing there best to hook an elder. Another guy that went through the MTC with me ended up marrying a girl there. He was afraid to go home and face his family so he actually got a job and lived there with her. He was legend but we were all counseled to not associated with him. I guess the MP didn't want us getting any ideas.

The Committment Pattern:

It always gave me the feeling that I was selling insurance or some worthless MLM product.

The Preach My Gospel manual:
Teaches that we should be *devastated* when people don't keep their committments (see Committment Pattern above)

The six discussion system itself is a shady tactic, because it does not set out the expectations of a person as a member before that person makes commitments to become a member.

1. Pray and ask God if Joseph Smith was a prophet and if the Book of Mormon is true. This is the hook to build the interest.
2. WILL you be baptized by someone holding the "proper priesthood authority" (even though we haven't explained what that is). If the person says yes they have committed to keep the law of chastity, pay tithing, and keep the "word of wisdom" before they even know it.
3. WILL you attend chuch? Now they get the social level up, but it's not too big a commitment. But at this point ideally members get involved and now they too will be "devestated" if the investigator doesn't keep the commitments.
4. Now the big guns start to come out. WILL you keep the law of chastity as explained and word of wisdom. Back at lesson two a person might have said I ain't doin' that--not interested go home. But no--now this person has committed to being baptized and maybe has a new "friend" at church. Saying no is more difficult.
5. Law of tithing. Now we finally in lesson 5 get to what the LDS corporation really wants. You just made intensely personal commitments about what you take into your body, and your intimate life. 10% doesn't seem like a big deal anymore. Again, if this had come up in lesson 1, 2, or 3--hit the road jack.
6. A stop gap to reassure them that this is all normal.

Of course it goes on with the temple and all this. At each stage a person raises their commitment BEFORE new knowledge is given. According to Steve Hassan the Scientologists and other cults do the same trick.

See:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNiTeIVN34Q

If it wasn't for volleyball nights, my parents wouldn't have joined back in the 60's ... and thus, I would not be on this board. DAMN YOU VOLLEYBALL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!