I wonder if any other missionary has experienced anything similar to the following? To cut a long story short, taught a guy in Northern Ireland about 10yrs ago that had murdered someone some time ago when he was part of the IRA. He repented and eagerly accepted all lessons, particularly feeling an alignment to the chapters in the BoM that talk about laying down weapons of war. In his early years he had fallen in with the wrong people and found himself fighting what he felt was a legitimate war to protect his country. It was clear he was now genuinely repentant and massively regretted everything.

Anyway he was interviewed by MP who referred things to SLC. Within a few days the message came back that we were not to baptize this guy, that we could tell him to live a good life and he may get the chance for baptism in the next life (by proxy I guess) but not now. We were pretty blown away by this. Especially as the very chapters in the BoM talk about the profound change of heart of people that had probably done similar and maybe even worse things in some instances and yet were completely forgiven.

The church lawyer (whether this whole scenario even reached 1st presidency or just stayed with legal is one question I have) was apparently very concerned with the situation and we were to destroy all records on this guy and were emergency moved hundreds of miles away the next morning. Even though in reality we were very safe.

Whilst it was of course abhorant that our investigator had murdered someone, we still felt very sorry for him. Even as TBM it kind of seemed like the church was more interested in protecting it's own interests than offering salvation to someone who appeared to have a genuine and heartfelt desire to be forgiven (certainly relaying the information he shared could have put his own life in danger).

Whatever you say about the legitimacy of him serving a prison sentence as part of his repentance process, I still think about this guy quite a bit and wonder if any other missionaries had similar experiences or if anyone has any thoughts on this?

About as close as I came to something like that was when we were teaching a humble, not so healthy, uber intelligent (spoke five languages), older Dutch bub. When he was interviewed by the ZLs, he divulged that he was a former NSB (Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging) which was a group that ratted Dutch Jews out during WW2.

There was a great discussion about that, but, in the end, he was baptised. I remember him crying some time later as he had been ordained a priest and he was allowed to bless the sacrament.

Ron

and that is one reason biblical christians do not accept them.

Mormons are "Joseph Christians" they believe in a Jesus as described by Joe Smith and not the bible.

Yeah that is how I always felt about it. I never could understand how we taught that Christ took on all the sins of the world, even the sins of all creation, and then we turned around and said "well maybe not everyone's sins."

I used to ask how could Moses slay an Egyptian and become a great prophet? If Moses were born in our day they wouldn't even baptize him.

... yep, this is her:

http://www.crazy4cinema.com/Review/FilmsH/f_heavenly_creatures.html

Juliet Hulme (AKA: the well-known mystery author Anne Perry).

She lied on her baptismal interview and later exposed as the once Juliet Hulme teenager guilty of a horendous murder of her best friend's mother.

Now get this -- in her NEW LIFE as Anne Perry she has made a fortune writing about her subject of choice: MURDER.

Fancy the thought that the cover page article of this "choice Sister" forgot to mention any of this -- but she IS a role model. Oh, and they forgot to mention that she has lived with her female friend for decades (she had a sexual relationship with her teenage best friend).

I could never bring myself to buy any of her books, I hear they are pretty good -- but it is against my "athiestic" morals to continue to support a murder in her "hobby" of murder and mayhem.

Any of you Brits out there know about her current status in the church?

... one of my investigators (in California) who was "golden" in every way was "guilty" of abortion and went through the "talk to the Stake President" thing, etc. before baptism.

She was DENIED baptism. She was devastated, and she said she had never told anyone about it before. I wish I knew what happened to her after that -- she was really really hurt.

She, as it turned out, made a lucky escape. It was horrendous for her at the time.

Just one of the many little cracks that formed in my early testimony.

That's crazy Weeder. I have a very close member of the family who had an abortion when less active and got a brief disfellowship but is now very much TBM, married in temple, kids, big stake calling etc. Where's the consistency in that?

I've read a number of her Thomas Pitt mysteries. It's true that they're quite good. That particular series has a lot of immersive, accurate, historical detail about the Victorian era. Her female protagonist, Charlotte Ellison (Pitt's eventual wife) is highly intelligent, cultured, and sympathetic. I did feel that the series got increasingly dark as I progressed forward, and I eventually abandoned it.

A 2006 article about her in the New Zealand Herald claims that she is still "involved with the Mormon community."

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10371147

Just off the cuff that sounds like it would have been politically embarassing/problematic.

Just goes to show what a farce the whole thing is. If they were real Christians all their actions would reflect the most foundational belief of Christianity, that salvation/redemption is available to ALL, and most especially those who are in most need of it.

It's all about image.

This is one aspect of Mormonism that makes it not Christian in my mind. The idea of Christianity (as I understand it) is that Jesus died on the cross to save ALL mankind from ALL their sins. I don't recall any list of sins that were SO bad that Jesus would not forgive the person or would withhold his divine forgiveness (not that I believe this idea).

I think the concept of forgiveness is important and not very well understood in our society. Christian minister (those on TV anyway - and Mormons) talk a lot about forgiveness but they don't follow through with what they teach. I think they are too much into the control that guilt provides, and real forgiveness relieves guilt, thereby removing the controlling influence over a person who feels guilty and ashamed.

"issues" that people over me determined precluded baptism. Seems to happen with some regularity.

That is one of my main reasons for leaving the TSCC. "We are all God's children; all brothers and sisters," they say,and then comes time for action and the REAL story comes out:
"EXcept GLBT folks, black folks, apostate folks, "really bad sinners", etc. etc. etc."

It's over their head.
There's no statute of limitation on murder.
The liability of taking on an ex-murderer is enormous.

The Lamanites don't really apply to this. They would have been an organized army under the authority of their king, waging war under his rules of engagement.

The ex-IRA guy was a civil criminal, a terrorist.
The elders should have turned his ass in.

The church was wise to run.

From the British perspective, the US founding fathers were considered exactly the same way. They were criminals. The only difference is: "to the victor goes the spoils."

Strange coincidence, weeder, I posted about Anne Perry on another post yesterday.

I agree with the Mormon church on this one too. The Catholic church and Mormons have been much too forgiving of child molesters relieving them of guilt and letting them go free among the congregation without disclosing the danger they posed. It would be exceptionally reckless to start doing that with murderers too. Anne Perry as an example, should she be teaching young women--after she was in an obsessed teenage relationship that lead her to help murder the girls mother?

"Jesus can forgive," as the song goes, "but daddies don't forget." Christ can forgive them in heaven all he wants. I don't forgive rapists and murderers. Call me intolerant....

I was in Ireland (including N. Ireland) from 1996-1998, sounds like very shortly before you were there. I taught a couple of people I suspected of being in the IRA, and I always wondered how that scenario would have played out. Guess now I know. I was lucky enough though not to have much luck with baptisms!

A few years back an older couple from an other ward reported in our sacrament meeting on their mission in Houston Texas. The sister reported that just before they came home from their mission that one day she was working alone in the mission home. A Mexican guy came in and asked to have somebody teach him about the church as he had a member girl friend who would not marry him unless he was a member. During the conversation the guy confused to this sister that he had killed as a hit man over 25 or more people back and forth across the border with Mexican in drug wars. He told her he could not be sure of the number cause he was high a lot of time. She didn't enjoy his dark persona, but never-the-less had him come back to meet with the mission president. The MP contacted the First Presidency (Hinckley) to see what they wanted to do. The FP gave the OK to have the missionaries teach him the discussions to see if he was really interested in baptism. I almost feel out of the pew. This story really bothered me. As a follow up I phoned the sister a few days to make sure I heard her story correctly. She reconfirmed it and gave me the name of the MP (A Dr. Sorenson from Utah). I phoned him to confirm the story. He confirmed it and said the issue comes up from time to time because of all the Mexicans going back and forth from Houston to Mexico. He said some times the FP says no, but that in this case they said go ahead and teach the guy. I asked if the guy did get baptized, but Sorenson didn't know cause they had redistricted the mission and he had not followed the event.
I next phoned the FPs office to ask about the story and got some young PR kid who said he would check into the story along with that I had also ask him about the Hulme-Perry story as well. I had understood from the scriptures, JS and others that their was no forgiveness thru baptism for murders and that even temple work was not to be done for such people. This story seem to be a two face from Hinckley and his 2 counselors. The PR kid got back to me that the FP refused to talk about the event. The next ward conference I voted against sustaining the FP. After the meeting the Bishop and SP met with me and I told them of why I could not and would not sustain the FP cause of this story. The Bishop knew the story cause he had been at the couples report when the sister told the story. The SP said he would follow thru to SLC. I never heard back, but at the next temple recommend interview the SP confessed he never followed thru to SLC on my concerns. To get my recommend in spite of my refusal to sustain the FP for their unrighteousness we agreed that I would just need to acknowledge they did in fact hold the position of FP and let it go at that. I have refused to give the FP (Hinckley and then Monson) a vote of confidence since then. They truly are one eyed jacks , but I have seen the other side of their face!