When I was a missionary in the 70's serving in Australia, we were told that only a certain type of BoM was to be used by the missionaries. We had to buy our own BoMs by the case (I believe there were 10 in a case and we paid $3 AUS each for them). They had a gold colored cover that had Egyptian characters on them. No other markings or text were present on the cover. They were supposed to look like the golden plates. Anyone remember them? I found out that they were only produced by a company in Utah or Idaho that was owned by Hartman Rector, who at the time was a member of the 70's. Even then I thought that was a bit of a conflict of interest. Ol' Hartman had a built in profit center with us Missionaries. We sold a few but mostly just gave them away. I look back and shake my head on how all of us young folk were so used and abused. Any thoughts people?

http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m49/clbruno/bom.jpg

That's quite strange that you were only allowed to use this particular style. Definitely sounds like someone was giving your mission president a direct order, or maybe he was "helping out" a friend. That really is bizarre.

As far as my missionary experience: once I figured out that all the much-vaunted "spiritual experiences," that were supposed to be a staple of missionary life, were much HYPED UP, I think I started to relax a little more. But, yes, definitely, the Mormon church USES wherever it can, and young, idealistic, energetic adults, are the most easily accessible and productive source.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/01/2010 07:03PM by Fetal Deity.

Fetal Deity, I think that picture is the one. We were only allowed to use them and they did look cool and attract attention. Put a lot of missionary money in Hartman Rector's pockets.

A cautionary tale from Daymon Smith's new book as recapped by blogger Rock Waterman:

So Church headquarters had a problem with its excess inventory. Before they could even think about printing millions of new missionary editions of the Book of Mormon, they had to get rid of warehouses full of the old ones. They couldn't sell them to the missions, because the missions weren't buying. The missions would accept the books for free, of course, but that would reflect a loss to the Church. They couldn't throw them away or even give them away to members for the same reason.

Hold on a minute. What was that about giving them away to members?

Some hot shot genius in the Marketing Department came up with an idea. What if we could get the members to actually buy all those books from us?

And so was born the Family to Family program. And it was a corker. Here's how it worked.

What you did was purchase a quantity of the books from the Church, then inside the front cover you would place a picture of your family along with a short note containing your testimony of the Book of Mormon and how it had enriched your life and the lives of your family. Those books would then be given to your local missionaries, or sent back to Church headquarters which would send them to foreign missionaries, and you would have a direct hand in bringing the gospel to people you never met. It lent a personal touch to missionary work, and well, you never knew what effect your testimony might have on some far away family in say, France or Minnesota.

The program was a resounding success. The Church promoted the program with an extensive campaign of ads, letters, fliers, and articles in the Ensign and the Church News. Talks were given in conference encouraging the membership to “flood the earth with the Book of Mormon,” and that phrase became the promotional tag line for the program.

By 1990, 6.5 million Books of Mormon were sold to the membership of the church, a total, reports Smith, “that approximates the same number of Mormons on record that year.”


http://puremormonism.blogspot.com/2010/10/how-corporatism-has-undermined-and.html

Wow.

The Corporation is true!

I remember the golden Book of Mormon on my mission. Hartman Rector Jr was my MP

I have a copy of the golden BOM. In fact, I regularly bring it to church with me. My dream of course is to have it with me when they discuss the Anthon Affair and I can say that these are the very characters that were on the manuscript - and then start a conversation about how they are gibberish.

Or be asked to read the "pure and delightsome" verse which this one says is "white and delightsome".

yeah, I know - it will never happen...

I had a zippered cover that went over the the regular leather (or the cheaper imitation) BoM/DC/PGP that was the shiny, reflective gold with the alleged Egyptian characters.

We were actually told to use it to reflect the sun into faces during door approaches to gain attention.

I remember the paperback BofM's, too. We had an option of buying either the regular blue or Egyptian Gold from the mission office for distribution.

This was the late 70's. And HRjr was our GA rep.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/02/2010 09:36PM by jpt.