It could be of some interest to know how people in Germany perceived Mormon missionary work in their own country. Of course, I can only speak of my own experiences and feelings but I'm pretty sure that I'm not too special with this.

I truly hope that no one will feel being attacked or made look silly by my remarks. I can assure everybody that I always respected the wholehearted and selfless commitment of the Mormon missionaries.

And please don't measure each of my words too seriously as I never had a chance to learn English appropriately. It's just what is left from my school English.

In my home town Saarbruecken, Mormon missionaries had been quite active for a while in the eighties (or the early nineties? - my memory for time elapsed is quite poor). You could easily identify them from a distance of hundreds of meters by their appearance: white shirts (very often with ties), dark pants, short cut hair. It looked like you were to meet time travellers from the fifties. And they were very young. What possibly should make them look like reputable and respectable adults actually made them look like teenagers in a very strange disguise. Nobody else of their age (maybe of any age with the exception of undertakers) looked like them in Germany. And you couldn't help feeling sorry for them.

That cringe story went on when you couldn't avoid a personal contact. I remember two of them knocking at my door. I lived in an apartment but they had already entered the stairway. When I opened, one of them asked me without any salutations: "Sind Sie auf der Suche nach Gott?" ("Are you searching for God?"). After my quick answer "Nein!", they seemed to be tripped up, were keeping silent for a few seconds and then left the house mumbling something like "Well, then...". What were they expecting, how had they been briefed before coming to Germany? Of my own family including my first grade cousins, I would only call my mother a religious person. And even she (formally a Catholic) would only go to church for funeral masses. Most Germans don't go to church or to any other religious services, not because they have not yet found an appropriate church or belief system but because they are not interested in those things. If you try to bother them with spiritual stuff, they will be very suspicious about you; and that starts with saying "I believe in God" publicly.

To this day, I regret to not have spend some time with these poor guys. It must have been a terrible experience to go from door to door only to have those doors slammed upon your noses metaphorically or even literally.

Some weeks later in a train, I found some small Mormon brochures telling about Joseph Smith, the gold plates etc. To me, that was the weirdest piece of literature since the brothers Grimm. And some people even thought it could be kind of a parody when I showed it to them. What was most strange and embarrassing was the similarity of the iconographic imagery to the Nazi or Communist patterns: people displayed had a complexion that Aryan and where shown in sets that heroic and kitschy that it almost hurt. People would burst into laughter only by looking at those paintings.

I just can't imagine how anybody could believe to be able to have even the slightest success by these means. Not to speak of the special Mormon faith contents that would make look Christian denominations like a paragon of reason and sanity; of course they couldn't help it.

When time went by, I had a feeling that there was a loosing of discipline among the Mormon missionaries. First, they used to be very cautious and stayed together like twins. Some months later, some of them displayed signs of growing frustration
discharging in what I would call a cynical attitude. You could see that from a distance without having to talk to them. I remember seeing one of them sitting on a park bench, drinking beer and whistling at girls.

And they left no traces. Some years ago, I several times tried to visit a local genealogical research center having found the address on one of their web sites. It never was open whenever I tried although I only went there during official opening hours. I tried to make a phone call several times but nobody picked up the phone. I sent an email but never got any response.

What a waste of human labor and, above all, of human lifetime!

Richtig. Der Mormonen sind sehr, wie sagt Mann? . . . peculiar.

wenn ich daran denke der Missionare, Ich bin traurig. Diese Jungs verschwenden ihr Leben. Aber das ist ihr Leben.

I was in the Munich Mission 78-80. Always a neck tie. A pointless exercise in futility. Day after day, knocking on doors. Keine Zeit (no time). Ich bin Katholisch (I am Catholic).

das es seir gutt! (hey i am just guessing)!! :)

remember right, I had 6 people baptized for my efforts. (I'm sorry, if any of you are reading this.) But, I ABSOLUTELY LOVED Germany! The people were great! I think I went to every museum, park, cemetary and castle that I could.

Ich ließ 6 Leute für meine Bemühungen taufen. (Ich bin traurig, wenn irgendwelche von Ihnen dieses lesen) Aber, ICH LIEBTE ABSOLUT Deutschland! Die Leute waren toll! Ich denke, dass ich zu jedem Museum, zu Park, zu Kirchhof und zu Schloss ging, das ich könnte. Ich vermisse es.

Hauptsach' gudd gess :-) Do I remember that correctly? I spent some time during my summer holidays, as a teen, staying with relatives in the area, and that just came back to me. Lovely place!

And it's brought back stuff I haven't thought of in absolute ages. The way I remember it- this is about ten years ago- the missionaries used to hang out at the bottom of Banhoffstrasse (?), where it narrows and everyone has to pass to get to the market place. My cousins and I would go out of our way to evade them. They just stopped us every single time we walked past- all of us are never-mos, and I'm the only former (very recent) investigator. It just made me giggle to remember my favourite cousin, after we nearly got caught again. I was complaining about those guys bashing Jesus, and did we look like we needed saving?

She's German and very blunt even when speaking English, so she said something like: "Cee, don't be stupid, they're guys, and we're pretty. But there are lots of cute guys around who don't bore you to death with Jesus, before you get to snog them."

We were seventeen, and going by the pictures, she was right- we were cute, and I remember that summer, and the German boys we met fondly. Definitely no talk about Jesus from them. I know I'm gushing, but I've had a soft spot for German guys ever since that summer. The ones I met were just real gentlemen, and somehow still managed to look "hot" and "wild".
Oh, and Karlsberg Urpils, and Mixery, and my aunt's "Dibelabbes (sp?)". And "Dorffests"! (Sorry, we don't seem to get that sort of community spirit in the UK anymore, so to me, it was just fantastic to see whole villages come together over food and beer, and have a good time.)

I have so many great memories of that summer that I'm actually feeling rather sorry now for the missionaries. Saarbrucken and the surrounding villages are wonderful, especially in summer when everyone is coming together over beer and "schwenken". Those were great experiences, and I still know the words to so many "Schlagers" for listening to them over again at Dorffests. It's a sad thought that those young missionaries may have missed out on all that. I feel like I got to see a bit of the "real" side of it, and how friendly and welcoming people were, and I do feel sad that they didn't get to see that.

Sorry for the trip down memory lane. It was a great summer- in case you couldn't tell! I should go back and visit my cousins soon. In case anyone reading this has a chance, and for fear of sounding like the tourist board: Go and visit. Go in summer, go to a Dorffest, have a few beers - you'll have a smashing time.

Next Sunday is FT meeting. Last Sunday the bishop read to the congregation a letter from the stake president and elder Uchtdorf, describing how, since the re-dedication of Germany to missionary work (done by Uchtdorf not so long ago) church leaders have noticed a new growing interest for the church in Germany. Thus they are encouraging every member to fast this coming Sunday for this growth, and for inspiration to bring more contacts and friends to the church, with the goal to have at least one convert baptism in each ward until the end of the year (this year, that is in the next 31 days... ha! ha! ha! ha!). The bishop went blah blah blah about this great opportunity etc. etc. for several minutes. It was hard to keep my head from shaking and keep myself to burst out laughing.

I am truly torn about this. My german Step-dad DID let these guys in and converted as did I. But when my mom refuse to comitt that early (you know, after only a few lessons) their marriage went down-hill and they divorced. It was SO hard on me, especially being a teenager. Dad married the BP's 18 year-old daugher.
It happened after the missionaries went back to the US.
I told the one who babtized im in a letter. He answered with a 'torn heart', according to him. He said he cried when he got my letter and apologized over and over.
So, as you can see, I have a dillema. I know they didn't mean for that to happen, but it did for my family and theThousands of families who are torn up over Mormonism.
I know it sounds crazy, but I do feel sorry for the mishies.as the just don't know any better (as I haven't for so long) I do always wave and smile at them when I see them and silently pray for them to get out of that cult and not waste their time and funds anymore.

Danke Schoen fuer Dein gutes Herz! Und Ja! Wir sollen auch unsere Feinde lieben und ihnen gut tun!
Frohen Advent und Frohe Weihnachten!

Oh, I have been to Saarbrücken once! :)

Very nice area. And I loved visiting neighboring towns as well. Beautiful places: Saarburg, Cochem (and the castle), Trier etc. It was summer, and sunny, and it was nice to see all the vineyards on the hills and taste the great white wine! I spent my birthday there, and it was great. I had great Riesling wine in a cute restaurant in a very old square in Cochem.

(I was alreay an ex-mormon by then,thank goodness.)

While I was there, no Mormons in sight. Great!

(Erstens soll man etwas wichtiges wissen: Deutschland ist mein zweites Zuhause.)

Some of the time I lived in Germany I was in the American military. Back then there were military stakes in Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Munich, and Kaiserslautern, so there was a ton of American military Mormons. It was kind of fun, really. Anyway, I did see some American military get baptized, several illegal aliens from Ghana and Nigeria, and one Italian (taught in my home) who never came to church before or after his baptism. I was in a regular German ward for a while and also was a high counselor in a German stake for a couple of years. But I never saw a German get baptized.

But one thing I can say: If I ever had to stay Mormon, I'd want to be a German Mormon. The church experience in a German ward was far nicer than in any American ward I was ever in. They sing well and they do stuff together, and they ignore a lot of the nitnoy crap rules that you find in the states. Their habits regarding church funds were handled totally differently, and they blew off a lot of the US rules just out of pure pragmatism. I'd love to know if Germans are quitting the LDS church like the Americans are. And as far as Guy Smiley Uchtdorf claiming renewed success in Germany, I think that's got to be another corporate Mormon lie. I think that today there are only two missions left that serve all European German speakers (Germans, Swiss, and Austrians). Am I wrong or right on that? (No, I'm not going to bother looking it up. Screw that.)

I always wondered how it was in a German ward. I attended a military ward, and we were treated terribly. It was simply humiliating. I was enlisted, and the officers' wives would wear their husbands' ranks at church, and as soon as I said I was enlisted, they would literally turn up their noses and walk away. We would see them on base and say hi, and they would turn the other way and ignore us. It wasn't long before nobody would speak to us. It didn't occur to us that we had been shunned even by the enlisted memebers because (due to my job) I couldn't regularly attend church, so they thought we were less-active and didn't want to catch the "less-active disease". We were shunned like pariahs. Real Christian-like...even as a TBM I knew something was seriously amiss. I've hated going to church since then. Just another confirmation that friendship and love is conditional in this cult.

First, you'll remember that all leadership in military wards and stakes were officers. A stake president would probably be a field-grade officer, although his counselors might be company grade. High councilmen would normally all be officers. Bishops, officers. Counselors, sometimes enlisted, but rarely. I thought it was funny once when a woman complained publicly about the phenomenon, and the church responded, "We have no such policy! Look around you!" Looking around us was exactly what we were doing, but you know how sheeple are. They would just say, Oh, look Staff Sergeant so-and-so IS a Sunday school president, so..." But we did have a great circle of friends, regardless. I did once see a captain in Berlin get into trouble once by his commander because he was "associating" with an enlisted man and his family; the enlisted man was his home teaching companion. A lot of this attitude was fostered by the military itself.

I've served several years in real German church organizations as a civilian with no attachment to the military, and in Italian church organizations also as a civilian. Each one is radically different from any American Mormon church you might attend, but for different reasons. Personally, I liked our German stake because the singing was great and we had a paid, professional organist! I didn't even know it was possible among Mormons, but Germans thumb their noses at a lot of the rules that make no sense to them.