Anybody here remember this?
It was a musical tour put on by a group of about 30 or so missionaries serving in the England Manchester Mission in the summer of 1980. An LP of the show was released - which I admit I still have somewhere!

All my friends are on missions and every fortnight they write, they tell me all their hardships and the people they teach at night...But of my friends on missions, i know i'm the lucky one cuz here i am in England! working hard but having fun!

Yes I remember. I didn't get there until 83 but we heard all about the mission legends. And the dogs, 7 year olds, and dead people getting baptized to push up the numbers. "the more mud you throw at the wall, the more sticks.'

1 new stake formed and 6 branches/wards were formed when Ivory was president from 1980-1983 in the Manchester mission. If they were dogs and 7 year olds then those must have been some pretty smart. I was there as a missionary and one of those so called 'mud' people that we baptized is now the stake president in the Ashton stake. You weren't there so maybe you should go clean you own walls before you throw any more.....

Yeah, it was so effective. That is why Oldham ward had over 1200 members on the rolls and less than 90 active. But congratulations on your anecdotal success example. House of cards.

The early 80's was a crazy time for baptisms here in the Manchester Mission, I don't know about elsewhere.
On paper it looked really good, but the reality was totally different.
Our ward was having baptisms every week, but 99% of these new members were never seen again, not even showing up at the next Sacrament Meeting to be officially welcomed into the ward.
Also the missionaries occasionally held "secret baptisms" which our BP knew nothing about until the papers landed on his desk after the event.
Another brainstorm of President Ivory's was the Sheep programme ......... even the majority of TBM's I knew thought it was a big joke!

I have their cassette tape

And since we are swapping our anecdotal success stories, here is one for you. One of the missionaries I served with in 83 became the Bishop of Helston ward, figured out the truth and quit in the middle of his term. Read all about it here: http://stevebloor.wordpress.com/2011/12/18/letter-to-ward-members-re-resignation-as-their-bishop/

That was a wonderfully written letter. That is integrity. Steve Bloor deserves a hearty applause for that one!

I'm in the Ashton stake! Rochdale ward...if any of you know it? Absolute shit hole, I've heard it and the Ashton stake as a whole be referred to as the armpit of the Manchester mission.

I was in the EMM 90-92, and spend time in both Rochdale and Middleton.

The area was quite rough in places, but I really enjoyed my stay there.

I had my first mission Christmas at Rochdale, and had three Christmas meals during the day- felt just like the Vicar of Dibley in one of her Christmas specials!

And yes, I remember all the Ambassador stuff but didn't go and see them. I was busy at work and with family stuff. My children were still young and it was difficult to get them into the groove of the church even then. My nevermo hubby kept them interested in non-churchy stuff like visits to Jodrell Bank, Science places and extended non-mo family visits. We spent a lot of time out in the boonies in Wales because Sundays were family first and church was last in the queue for my time in those days. I was almost inactive at the time.

Did I miss something really really good?

Briggy

At the time being TBM I rather enjoyed it, but looking back now I see the whole thing as being quite cheesy.
One of the main recollections I have was how shocked I was when the show started to see missionaries dancing & singing (the opening no was The Rhythm Of Life), & also without their jackets, which at that time was almost unheard of.
There was a mixture of songs from specially written church songs to more well known stuff like You'll Never Walk Alone, Rhythm of Life, & an adapted version of the Osmond's Let Me In, - Let us in, let us in your home today .... etc.

Briggy & Elaine - I am also very close geographically to you & have probably given away too much info as it is! But never mind, I'm getting past caring!

Without their jackets - OMG, the horror

though anyone who has weaseled enough to make it to stake president could be desribed as mud!!

EMM Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> 1 new stake formed and 6 branches/wards were
> formed when Ivory was president from 1980-1983 in
> the Manchester mission. If they were dogs and 7
> year olds then those must have been some pretty
> smart. I was there as a missionary and one of
> those so called 'mud' people that we baptized is
> now the stake president in the Ashton stake. You
> weren't there so maybe you should go clean you own
> walls before you throw any more.....

EMM, how many people did you baptise and how many of them are still active?
Since the new Stake was formed 30 years ago, how's the Church grown since then in the Manchester Mission?
Of the 190,000 UK members across 332 congregations (572 per congregation) how many attend Church on anything like a regular basis? Or if that question is a bit too general, how many congregations in the UK get 572 members out to Church each week?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/11/2013 05:54AM by Stumbling.

I saw The Ambassadors at the town hall. I remember them singing "I'll Send You a Rainbow" - I hated that song. They also sang about how glad they were to be in England - the "gem set in the sea".

It was only through reading this Board that I realised that Utah mormons thought they were more worthy because they had been born there rather than out in the mission field.

I remember The Ambassadors forming a human pyramid, and singing "The Rhythm of Life. There was a nice lady who reminded me of Kiri Te Kanawa.

I was only young. My Dad bought their record. I think I got an ice-cream.

Didn't a load of BYU ballroom dancers stay at Manchester Stake a few years ago and put on shows for the public?

Kendal Mint Cake Wrote:
------------------------------------------------------- There
> was a nice lady who reminded me of Kiri Te Kanawa.
>
>
>
Sister Reid, the Reids were a missionary couple from New Zealand, & she was the only lady in the whole cast.

Kendal Mint Cake Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Didn't a load of BYU ballroom dancers stay at Manchester Stake a few years ago and put on shows for the public?

If it was around May, they might have been on their way to the annual Blackpool Dance Festival.

i remember the ambassadors, and the reids. i grew up in barrow-in-furness and they were the missionary couple there for a while so we spent a lot of time with them.

i vaguley remember going to kendal town hall to see them.

i live in the manchester stake now and am pretty much under the radar, though it would be good to meet with other doubters

I went to see them at blackpool winter gardens!

I was in the mission to the south of Manchester but we heard all about it. Somebody even had an audio tape of the songs that we would copy from each other. We were green with envy that a mission so close to us got to do something so unorthodox. We were a by-the-book-40-hours-tracting-a-week-minimum mission and looked at our mission neighbor to the north with some envy.

Someone needs to find the original music by the young amabassadors and post it.

Was the music really that good?

I accompanied the Grandland Singers for 3 years - they were very similar to the Y.A., but were based in Southern California. Toured the U.S. and parts of Canada, but never went overseas. Fun experiences performing. Heard of them?

I served in a neighbouring mission and we heard was why can't you be more like those Manchester missionaries. I think they brought a couple of your Elders down to our mission to show us how you "did it". We all had to use that "we'll build you a rainbow video" and once they shed a tear at the sad story immediately challenge them to baptism. We had a hard time with it but we all had bootleg copies of the musical on out tape recorders.

I remember the singer of "I'll send you a Rainbow" Jaimeson DAvis, I believe he's till TMB and lives on the US east coast somewhere. I still have the LP of it some where. Then after that the songs were used in the film tapes the missionaries played to all investigators. I was raised in the Manchester Stake, times have certainly changed.

Some of the musically gifted missionaries were made into a musical group that performed at various places in the MAC. I don't remember it being successful.

We also used the "I will build you a rainbow" film strip for investigators which had been translated into Spanish. Mostly the Argentines were curious about US homes, grass yards, etc.

ELM 84-85. I had a friend serving in the EMM at the same time, and another serving in LSSM. All of the wards were 80-90% inactive, especially the Hyde Park ward. We also had the gravestone baptisms, Basketball Baptisms, etc. It's all rubbish in the in gov'.

I was 9 at the time and lived every minute of it, they were great, the feed my sheep programme was good to, handing out books of Mormons to everyone, I remember all my teachers at school got one, my own teacher one day went into our shop and told my mum how nearly he was converted because I would go into school each day and tell him of diff things going on in church, wether you want to have a go at the EMM Ivory time or not, all I can say is whatever incentive is out there doesn't matter, it's all about spending the gospel and letting ppl know about us, wether that's through an inventive or not it shouldn't matter.
If someone has the ambassadors on cd I would love to hear from you
A great time I wish I could go back to

Although naive at the time, I'm still sorry for my part in baptizing 18 Brits during my mission. Fortunately, most of them immediately became inactive. I called up the best one a few years ago to tell her it was bunk...her reply: "I know that, I only went along with it to make you feel good" :)

Mormonism is an American scam and I'm really sorry I helped foist it on the good people of Manchester and Liverpool. Fortunately, from what I'm told, the number of church units (wards & branches) in the UK has decreased since 1983.

Heber C Kimball lied his butt off about polygamy, denying it publicly while having 4 wives of his own at home. Sorry.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/26/2015 11:19AM by onendagus.