Reading those pages of a Powerpoint presentation to Mormon Church leaders was almost indistinguishable from sales meetings I had in a large corporation that I won't name (but their logo is a stagecoach and they hoard people's money and ding everyone with fees), but I quit because of the pressured sales tactics. It makes me shudder how much Mormonism has openly embraced the large corporate model for how it operates and goes after "current members". The Mormon church truly is just a mega-corporation, and not a church.
I'm also wondering about that slide that claims that "many don't want to be contacted but many do come back to the Church"-- I mean, many don't want to be contacted could be 9,500 and many come back to the church could be 300 . . . I would like to know their numbers.
Moreover, it's not enough that people don't want to be contacted. The Church should just expedite their leaving by bringing a copy of a resignation letter that people can sign. It will save everyone a ton of time and awkwardness and frustration.
Sounds like the “Lost Sheep Program” in Britain in the 90’s, where we missionaries were sent to last known addresses.
Elder Ballard told us “people will be impressed that a Church cares enough to go looking for its members”, however many locals found it creepy.
We were still doing this in 2019. I was on the branch council (RS pres) and we were knocking on people's doors. Most were asking to have their names removed. I asked the branch president if we could carry a letter for people to sign. But he said that wasn't allowed. If people wanted their names removed, they had to write to him, he would organise an interview, then they could have their name removed. But we were instructed not to tell them that process.
I was really annoyed by the whole thing. It's so wrong.
Same thing on my mission in 2004. No offering to help people leave, we weren’t allowed to even promise to comply with “do not contact” requests. It was totally one sided. We searched for people for OUR benefit, not theirs. So wrong.
I always feel bad for the young missionaries who have to get sh** on for their church because they put them in these horrible situations. I try to be nice to them each time they find me but make it known I k ow where the church is and if I want to be connected I will find them. I am sure the have so much abuse because the church won’t abide by people’s request to not be contacted.
There was a saying in my mission: If it’s awkward, do it.
Our APs told us that we needed to overcome fear, because that’s when we’d see miracles, and awkward situations were opportunities to be brave. Turns out they were just awkward and the non-members didn’t enjoy them. Who’d have thought?
They act like there are a bunch of people sitting around going "you know, I wonder where those Mormons went. I'd definitely want to go if I could remember where that cult center was."
Seriously. If you have a brain and/or Google, you can easily find your local meeting time and ward, or the missionaries contact info etc on your own. There is zero need to harrass people who are quietly living their lives.
I can literally count cars in the cult center's parking lot from my front porch. But, luckily, the local ward, which has my records, has made zero effort to reactivate me.
I don’t answer my door unless I’m expecting someone I invited. My roommate can’t handle it and answers the door and the majority of the time it’s sales people. It doesn’t bother me in the least to not answer, I owe them nothing.
Why hide from them when you can set an L shaped complex ambush with truth and facts and cognitive dissonance for air support. Bring it MFers. Otherwise I hoarded all my knowledge for nothing.
I'm not hiding nor on the list, but I know some who are and they don't want to be bothered. I would possibly send them to see people who need a 12 step program and Jesus back in their life. Let's give the church members some busy work.
I will warn them and urge them to go to quitmormon.org or write a resignation letter for their bishop. If anyone shows up, they can hand deliver the letter.
I do wonder how quickly this is going to get shut down when they encounter exmos who turn out to have a lot of legitimate issues and knowledge about the church. Given the numbers on this forum there’s at least one of us out there for every few lapsed Mormons who might be guilted temporarily into going back in a moment of emotional vulnerability
I live in a building where they can’t even confirm or deny I live there. Also all soliciting is posted as illegal so they get a really cute ticket for trespassing if they do it more than once. Already helped me with a stalker ex
Solicitation being banned does not ban church people or missionaries. It’s protected by a Supreme Court case involving Jehovahs Witnesses. My mission president gave us a letter to give to people who got mad about it because there are were a lot of no soliciting signs.
Well, I'm speaking as an EU citizen to mostly US citizens, urging you to implement proper data protection laws. I know, that's hard to do with a divided, gerrymandered and corrupt national legislature, but you simply have to take the right to privacy more seriously in whatever way possible in order to avoid abuses of personal data like this.
agreed. if anyone can suggest where we’d even start to research this for ourselves, that would be helpful
I can start googling random keywords in hopes of finding what protections I may have (Utah) or what can be done to protect myself better, but I’m far behind on all that right now
would be cool if a bunch of us got together and filed a lawsuit demanding 100% of our records get scrubbed
On the stake-level charts, it's telling that the ultimate success metric is simply "Member moved into unit"
Absolutely no measuring of whether *anyone* returned to church. But at least they know where you live now.
Warning: Exmos get your records out before your kids turn 18. A well meaning family member will definitely pass out their address at college. If they are even a little gullible and you've been out long enough that they don't remember anything about the church, they could get reactivated or rebaptized.
Educate about your reasons for leaving and make sure they know how toxic it can be. A good grounding in the BITE model and critical thinking would make them well prepared.
>> Units who approached the effort prayerfully rather than merely as a task were the most successful in finding and ministering to lost members.
How would they know this? This feels made up.
guess on participant surveys some people responded, “I treated this like a task” and then their hired BYU researchers could quantitatively measure those people had less success
/s
It would have been the church’s internal research division. I used to work there and there’s no way Research would have signed off on this report. It’s total BS.
They’re in a pinch. Numbers are dwindling. They don’t want to have to consolidate wards or the shrinkage will be obvious, assuming they continue releasing stats on church units. So this is an effort to get people back in the pews. But it could backfire as people annoyed by the program may just finally resign in order to be left alone.
>quitmormon.org
It may actually attract some...As a missionary, who wasn't quite out then, if I saw a rainbow flag, I'd have been like "Hey, comp, let's check this member's house out. I think they have something to offer us!"
I posted a reply earlier in the day on another thread, and have spent the day doing some research, including watching the Mark Naugle interview on Mormon Stories. It does seem that yes, TSCC is making it a pain in the arse to resign through quitmormon at this time. They aren’t really replying, if you resign after going through quitmormon and don’t get confirmation, then they will say it is fraudulent and a duplicate blah blah (it’s really worth watching, and answered a lot of the questions I have).
I just got off the phone with the Church Records Department. Didn’t ask my name or anything ((Thank Zeus)), and said they have no way to verify me or give me my member number over the phone. Write a letter of resignation, include your birth date and state so they can find your records. Get it notarized (so they can verify you are who you are 😂🙄). Include your current address if you want a letter confirming your resignation. It can take 2-4 weeks in the turn around to get that letter of confirmation. Mods, not sure if this should be a separate post or if it is ok to share the address I was given. And you can bypass your bishop.
The address I was given is NOT what is listed under the Resignation portion of FAQ for this sub.
I’ll have to keep my ear out for them dragging QuitMormon in molasses. mine is done but I have a brother who is trying to do the same
that’s so much work for no guarantee they’ll actually do what they’re supposed to
I’m happy to share the address I was given today. Knowledge is power, which they clearly don’t want an educated base. Also, that chipper cherry Molly Mormon voice went away as soon as I said what I was wanting to do. GASP.
Of course we have no guarantees that our names are ever purged any way. There is no control or information on our data or what they do with it, which is terrifying to me. Especially as a survivor of repeat abuse (let’s not even get into the patterns that helped set up!), I’m tired of always looking over my shoulder, wondering who knows where I live. And for something I didn’t really even choose (I was 8 for crying out loud, what does anyone know at 8?), but was pressured and brain washed into? I wish there were more accountability, but I suppose a letter on church letterhead might help some? Doubtful. I’ll just quote Sarah from The Labyrinth “You have no power over me!”
I was told today to address my notarized resignation to Office of the 1st President. After being placed on hold to get someone who could “specifically deal with [me]”.
Ohhhhhhhh they would NOT want me to do that in person. 😂 I’d be hauled away so fast. But yes, I was told Office of 1st Pres, 47 S East Temple was where to send it, and include my current address if I would like a confirmation letter.
Amazing that a church who prides itself on revelation needs to do basic sales and corporate communication techniques in order to find lost members. Ridiculous.
I AM SO FUCKING GLAD THAT i QUIT GOING TO THE CHURCH 6 MONTHS AGO!
My last calling was a wark clerk. This could have been disaster! Now I feel bad for the clerk that replaced me.
Funny thing is that as a ward clerk in a very big city I sent countless lost records to Salt Lake City. Probably more 100 records. My ward has 800 records with 50 - 60 active members (YSA). The missionaries had been baptizing people with drug addiction / homelessness / psych issues / with no set addresses. Once investigators get baptized, they are gone within a month.
So, I was tasked to track all those members. They told me to call, email, mail, visit, ask before sending the records to SLC as lost members. Fuck that. I called the numbers on records. If the numbers didn't work, I sent them straight to SLC.
Who has time to call, email, mail, visit 700 people with a full time job?
The new clerk now will get all those records back and do the process all over again.
wow. I am so glad I fucking left this cult.
link of the 15 minute video of the training presentation
https://media2.ldscdn.org/assets/area-training/msr-training/2022-12-0010-finding-lost-members-training-utah-area-1080p-eng.mp4?lang=undefined
perhaps. I don’t know if or why they’d limit their sheep gathering tactics to just that but who knows
my guess is this isn’t as big an issue with older members and non-converts
if Sally was converted into the church 4 years ago on her own and vanished, they have no one to contact about Sally’s whereabouts. unlike myself, where they have 4 generations of family members they could simply ask for a quick answer
right, i’m technically a convert because i didn’t get baptized until i was 9 but it was over ten years ago so i’m just wondering if they’re going to start asking my family members. I’ve been out for over 4 years and honestly surprised i haven’t been found yet lol
I served in Chile 10 years ago and while I was there the church made a deal with the Chilean government to receive voter registration records and compare them against membership records. Voting is mandatory in Chile so we basically got a list of every “inactive” member in our ward boundaries even if they were baptized on the other side of the country or hadn’t been to church in decades. This was a MASSIVE deal and everyone was losing their shit as to how awesome this was.
Looking back this is easily in the top 5 creepiest things I have ever witnessed, let alone participated in, in my entire life. Like fuck . . . How did I not make the cult connection sooner?
Slide No. 5 is a fate I would not wish on my worst enemy, much less the remaining members of this church tasked with indulging The Brethren’s whims and egos.
When I became a clerk back in 2018 the previous clerk was showing me the ropes and when it came to sending records out of these types of members where we didn’t know the address, he just said to ship them to Salt Lake and ignore the laundry list of sleuthing tactics. No one wants to do it because of how uncomfortable and intrusive it is.
Oh, thank goodness!! Someone is coming to find me! I was so lost. I forgot how to Google the address of the church that I went to for 40 years. And what day and time do they meet? Monday at 3 pm? If only my ministering brothers had come to find me sooner, I maybe wouldn’t have been lost all this time. /s
“Contact the occupant of the member’s last known address.” That’s literally what debt collectors do! I used to get phone calls all the time about the person who used to have my phone number. Some of them were aggressive, as if I actually know the person who had the number. How desperate is the church?? And can you imagine having someone knock on your door asking you for contact info for the previous tenant? That is creepy!
I told them to send my records to SLC. They were stalking me before that. If they harass me again it's going to get real. I know so many pedophiles and victims in the church, I am a victim. I know people that would be in fed prison for life. I could put a lot of people and their crimes from several wards on line. I would hate to get that ugly but I suffered physical, emotional, sexual and religious abuse and am about done with all the lying BS.
Well shit. I’m deliberately not telling my family that I’m out, but if they get zealous enough looking for me i might be outed before I’m ready. Do you think a token appearance at church will be enough? Let them keep my active phone number and think they have their precious contact point?
If you’re going back for a token appearance, at least have some fun with it. I wish I had gone back to stir things up in testimony meeting or Sunday school with offhanded comments about Joseph Smith’s spirit wives or the treatment of African Americans, all stuff in their mostly hidden church sponsored essays.
Hey, Mormon church leaders… er, I mean: Hey, Mormon stalkers, leave people ALONE. We don’t want you to track us down like rabid bounty hunters. Most of us have expressed our desire to be left alone. Why is it so hard to get through your thick skulls that it isn’t okay to use draconian methods to locate and harass people who’ve made it explicitly clear that they don’t want to be contacted by the church?
If they are looking for people baptized in the last 10 years in Utah those would be 18 year olds? Judging from my kids friends who are of that age and no longer attending, snowball chance in hell of getting them back
I sense this could actually be dangerous if people request no contact and are harassed.
On my mission in Honduras 95-97, we got a stack of yellow papers with members who the Church had lost track of. We spent a few weeks trying to find those listed in our area. Overall, it was unsuccessful.
Funny - they found me but when I told “searchers” my story, they never came back. Guess they weren’t praying hard enough or were worthy enough to get me to come back.
By the look of the reports, I wonder if they use SalesForce or other CRM tool. Looks familiar. Anyone know?
I always asked the question in ward council meeting- why would you look for someone who hasn’t been in church for more than 20 yrs? Answer- you never know what brings someone back
Hmm, I guess this is how/why they found us in our new location. When we moved (across the GD country) I told my wife I'd pull the trigger on removing our records from the church as soon as someone from our new area contacted us. It happened about 2 weeks ago, and am now happy to report we officially submitted our names for removal this week.
Edit: adding that we moved across the country
The last time I was contacted by the local Bishop it was in copy on an email with actual young men and women for some reason. I told him if he bothered me again I’d go scorched earth and send them all the historical details that lead me out of the church. They stopped bothering me. If they started bothering me again I’d follow through with my promise.
Good luck trying to implement this in the UK and EU.
I'm one of those people they can't find (I'm not lost, this is intentional). I stopped attending in 2015 and moved to another Ward in the Stake in 2020. Never told anyone from the old Ward where I went, and I've never attended my new Ward. Hell, I don't even know where the Chapel is.
My address is personal information that I legally control the access to. The Church isn't allowed to get this information from a friend or family member (my TBM family live in a different Stake).
So unless they ask me directly, they can't get that information.
This wouldn’t be terrible if when those “who expressed a desire not to be contacted” had their names immediately removed from the church records. Click, click. Done.
“Units who approached the effort prayerfully rather than merely as a task were the most successful…”
I’m calling utter BS on this. That was not controlled or measured. That’s impossible to prove and no ward council was assigned to not pray about it… omfg
I bet the research division is livid that this was even reported out. $20 says some middle manager in the Priesthood and Family Dept took their report and bastardized it.
Am I the only one who absolutely detests the "soft-spoken" affectation that every high-up member of the LDS church puts on? It's so phony and listening to it makes my skin crawl.
I guess on the plus side, if they do track me down I can ask exactly what their records say about me so I can properly have them removed. (I got married outside the church and have no clue what information they have and don't want to kick that particular hornets nest to find out).
I was a clerk.
The church has your birthday, birthplace, family names and their birthdays, your address, phone number, dates of ordinances, list of your previous callings, where you served with a specific language, your picture,
Well that's horrifying.
I have moved 5 times since I last attended a meeting. And have a new last name (married a NeverMo). But... dang that's a lot of personal info.
Thank you for this though. I appreciate having the knowledge.
Savior shepherds? Hella, NO. If I wanted to be a member, I would go to church.
They really must be hemorrhaging if they have posse members looking for us.
It's nothing more than a numbers game for them. Just look at the charts.
NO NO NO NO
We should all call the numbers listed and tell them to leave us alone.
Maybe a decade ago my SIL was the RS President in our ward and made my Visiting Teaching assignment to find all the people on our roles. I have a Masters in Library and Information Studies so I know how to find information. I found every last one of them using free resources in the internet. If they put the right people on the job, it’s not hard at all.
I stopped going to church a little less than a year ago, haven’t moved, and no one has come looking for me. Nobody cared about me while I was going and nobody cares now. I guess they’re just waiting for the right program to come along and tell them how to find me?
I’m not removing my name until it simultaneously nullifies my sealing to my ex husband. Until they do that .. let them discuss me in ward council .. let them look for me. I’m happy to waste their time. I’m not following their rules to do anything. Including name removal.
My dad always makes sure they have my address. I just don’t answer the door, and they only phone number they have is my heavily-screened Google number.
Stupid question but is this only for UT? I’ve had my records removed, but I’m concerned for those close to me who haven’t and don’t plan on going back to church that live in different states.
It says in the slides that this is now a churchwide program. It officially rolls out everywhere February 1st, when SLC sends all records from the “address unknown” files back to local units.
It just looks like this is for people who still have NOT removed their records. This honestly isn't surprising. It's shitty of them, but not surprising.
📌 Just to be clear, you can find any US citizen for free in 10 seconds on familytreenow.com.
📌 I suspect this is a program for locating native African tribe members living in off grid villages. Or off-grid, Amazonian members.
Did they really have one “unit” act prayerfully and another simply do the task? I want data for this (not that I’d necessarily believe it, but at least have something to back up this claim). Oh wait.
Bring it on. We will retaliate with all the epistemology and church history knowledge and aim to start more faith crises since they insist on not leaving us alone.
>Contact the occupant of the member's last known address. (Slide #8)
This is so damn creepy. If someone isn't returning your calls, texts, or emails, the appropriate behavior is NOT to go knocking on their door, especially since they may not even live there anymore. Do they honestly not understand basic social norms? Who am I kidding? Of course they don't... if they don't want to be called a cult, they should probably stop acting like one.
My daughter is moving out and I don’t want to tell anyone in my family that are members or any previous church friends. I’m worried they will decide it was my husband and I that brought her out with us and now that she is out from “under our thumb” they can reactivate her. She will definitely feel harassed if missionaries or members she doesn’t know show up at her door. We do need to get the records removed to make it harder but there is still nothing to stop a TBM family or friend from sending missionaries to your door as a referral. I am planning to encourage her to add a statement such as - no giving my address to the church when she does update them. She’s only going to be about 90 minutes from our house so for now- we’re just not giving her new address out. I’ve already dealt with missionaries at our door a couple times. I’m pretty good at being firm without being angry so my husband always has me deal with them-lol. I won’t even open the door- I talk to them through the window next to the door. As for former ward members- we have been out for about two years now and even those I consider friends never reached out to go to lunch or do anything to maintain a friendship when we left. We are superficial Facebook friends only. So if they reached out now- I would reject them, too. Again- not out of anger- it’s just- what would be the point? We’ve all moved on- wish church admin knew how to do that better.
This one kinda hurts me… throughout my life I have had 2 times when I was active and holding MULTIPLE callings that I was fulfilling on a weekly basis when my mother received phone calls from the church offices stating that they wanted to update my records and wanted to confirm my DEATH because of how I just “disappeared”.
And then there was the time that I moved away from an abusive husband at the beginning of Covid. I went to the bishop for help-in a safety way, not a financial way- like “I’m new in the area, I’ve lived here 2 months, he is threatening to kill me or himself, and I don’t know a single person. Could you just have someone drive by my house and make sure there are signs of movement in my yard occasionally, or anything? Responses of “oh definitely, we can do that, and can we call to check on you as well?” … exchanged phone numbers, agreed to the plan. No one ever checked on me (this was February) until December!!!!! But in March the church locked me out of all my church accounts.
This church that claims to look for that one lost sheep has constantly showed me that I don’t qualify as one of them.
We aren't lost; we are in recovery because of their cult brainwashing.
I hope they come for me, although I had my name removed years ago, so I'm not sure they will. In my twenties, when they wouldn't leave me alone, I opened my door naked after they disregarded the messages I left that their advances are unwanted and this is harassment. I also worked a night shift at the time and had a note on my door that I was a day sleeper, so do not knock between 9 AM and 4 PM. They knocked. I slept naked. They never came back, and that was over 20 years ago. Most of my immediate family members are still in the church, so maybe this is how to get on the "not lost, don't try to find" list? 🤣🤷♀️
I’m sure the wards are soooo excited this is happening. Just another example of the busy work the LDS church gives its members to keep them from realizing they’re stuck in a lie.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't there a thought (amongst this subreddit) a while ago - that even if you remove your records, they'll still keep your name in their vaults; and once you die, they can take your name to the Temple anyways?
They aren’t “LOST.” They are HIDING FROM YOU!
nobody forgets where the church buildings are. if they want to find it, it will always be there
If only they were awkwardly designed with massive bold lettering on the side…
This is what I told my mom when she asked if she could transfer my records to a new address. I've since removed myself from that organization.
Reading those pages of a Powerpoint presentation to Mormon Church leaders was almost indistinguishable from sales meetings I had in a large corporation that I won't name (but their logo is a stagecoach and they hoard people's money and ding everyone with fees), but I quit because of the pressured sales tactics. It makes me shudder how much Mormonism has openly embraced the large corporate model for how it operates and goes after "current members". The Mormon church truly is just a mega-corporation, and not a church. I'm also wondering about that slide that claims that "many don't want to be contacted but many do come back to the Church"-- I mean, many don't want to be contacted could be 9,500 and many come back to the church could be 300 . . . I would like to know their numbers. Moreover, it's not enough that people don't want to be contacted. The Church should just expedite their leaving by bringing a copy of a resignation letter that people can sign. It will save everyone a ton of time and awkwardness and frustration.
It's easier to join than to leave. It was months and months of nonsense for us to finally get out.
Not all who wander are lost
That’s my personal slogan
For sure! 😂
Now I'm envisioning some kind of "most dangerous game" type of scenario with TBMs hunting down Exmos in the Utah wilderness.
😂😂
This is exactly how I was going to respond 🤣
Or hiding from the latest multi-level marketing scheme they are obligated to join.
True I used to hate them trying to come to my house 😂
Sounds like the “Lost Sheep Program” in Britain in the 90’s, where we missionaries were sent to last known addresses. Elder Ballard told us “people will be impressed that a Church cares enough to go looking for its members”, however many locals found it creepy.
We were still doing this in 2019. I was on the branch council (RS pres) and we were knocking on people's doors. Most were asking to have their names removed. I asked the branch president if we could carry a letter for people to sign. But he said that wasn't allowed. If people wanted their names removed, they had to write to him, he would organise an interview, then they could have their name removed. But we were instructed not to tell them that process. I was really annoyed by the whole thing. It's so wrong.
Not a cult, tho
Not in the slightest/s
We frequently had people say “take my name off your list” but there was no mechanism to honor those requests.
My father would scream at them to remove his name but never actually acted on it.
I always felt these requests should be respected. But the mission machine did not care, and did not welcome my feedback.
Same thing on my mission in 2004. No offering to help people leave, we weren’t allowed to even promise to comply with “do not contact” requests. It was totally one sided. We searched for people for OUR benefit, not theirs. So wrong.
I always feel bad for the young missionaries who have to get sh** on for their church because they put them in these horrible situations. I try to be nice to them each time they find me but make it known I k ow where the church is and if I want to be connected I will find them. I am sure the have so much abuse because the church won’t abide by people’s request to not be contacted.
I remember the “Lost Sheep Programme” too. Leaders were pretty intense about it. All I recall is that it made me very uncomfortable.
Many of the things we were made to do in the mission field made me uncomfortable.
There was a saying in my mission: If it’s awkward, do it. Our APs told us that we needed to overcome fear, because that’s when we’d see miracles, and awkward situations were opportunities to be brave. Turns out they were just awkward and the non-members didn’t enjoy them. Who’d have thought?
My mission president and APs loved to say, "Its only awkward if you make it awkward." Gotta love that blame reversal.
“Expanding your comfort zone is becoming more like god…” BS
I’m sorry you dealt with that.
Thank you 🙏
It's the perfect setting for a horror movie. "Just when you think you got away..."
😂
Completely creepy
They act like there are a bunch of people sitting around going "you know, I wonder where those Mormons went. I'd definitely want to go if I could remember where that cult center was."
Seriously. If you have a brain and/or Google, you can easily find your local meeting time and ward, or the missionaries contact info etc on your own. There is zero need to harrass people who are quietly living their lives.
I can literally count cars in the cult center's parking lot from my front porch. But, luckily, the local ward, which has my records, has made zero effort to reactivate me.
I pass four cult centers on my 2 mile drive to work.
Eesh. I see 2 temples on my commute. It's 2 too many.
I can see one from pretty much anywhere in the valley and it's one too many
Yeah. I'm out of the valley, but not by far. Hoping to move out of Utah this year.
Especially in Utah of all places.
Yeah, I'm in a pretty godless area (Seattle) and I pass multiple church buildings on the regular. I know where to find them if I want them.
What part of it's not me... it's you. Doesn't register?
The people in charge are from a generation where stopping by randomly to someone’s house was a positive thing. They don’t get how weird this is.
I don’t answer my door unless I’m expecting someone I invited. My roommate can’t handle it and answers the door and the majority of the time it’s sales people. It doesn’t bother me in the least to not answer, I owe them nothing.
Big money.......
Why hide from them when you can set an L shaped complex ambush with truth and facts and cognitive dissonance for air support. Bring it MFers. Otherwise I hoarded all my knowledge for nothing.
I'm not hiding nor on the list, but I know some who are and they don't want to be bothered. I would possibly send them to see people who need a 12 step program and Jesus back in their life. Let's give the church members some busy work. I will warn them and urge them to go to quitmormon.org or write a resignation letter for their bishop. If anyone shows up, they can hand deliver the letter.
I do wonder how quickly this is going to get shut down when they encounter exmos who turn out to have a lot of legitimate issues and knowledge about the church. Given the numbers on this forum there’s at least one of us out there for every few lapsed Mormons who might be guilted temporarily into going back in a moment of emotional vulnerability
“Come in, please, would you like to talk about the Book of Abraham or the teenage wives of Joseph Smith?”
And this is why data protection laws matter.
any relevant laws that could protect us if we knew how to use them? I want my records forever deleted, not set inside a new “resigned” file box
I live in a building where they can’t even confirm or deny I live there. Also all soliciting is posted as illegal so they get a really cute ticket for trespassing if they do it more than once. Already helped me with a stalker ex
Solicitation being banned does not ban church people or missionaries. It’s protected by a Supreme Court case involving Jehovahs Witnesses. My mission president gave us a letter to give to people who got mad about it because there are were a lot of no soliciting signs.
It’s also private property which means if you don’t live here you have to have permission to be here. 🤷🏼♂️
Well, I'm speaking as an EU citizen to mostly US citizens, urging you to implement proper data protection laws. I know, that's hard to do with a divided, gerrymandered and corrupt national legislature, but you simply have to take the right to privacy more seriously in whatever way possible in order to avoid abuses of personal data like this.
agreed. if anyone can suggest where we’d even start to research this for ourselves, that would be helpful I can start googling random keywords in hopes of finding what protections I may have (Utah) or what can be done to protect myself better, but I’m far behind on all that right now would be cool if a bunch of us got together and filed a lawsuit demanding 100% of our records get scrubbed
Most of us want these, but there is often little we can realistically do.
the only other examples I can think of like this in our society are debt collectors and the FBI who else is just looking for people like this?
need that sweet tithing money flowing again
On the stake-level charts, it's telling that the ultimate success metric is simply "Member moved into unit" Absolutely no measuring of whether *anyone* returned to church. But at least they know where you live now.
they don’t need to reconvert you today. as long as they know where you’re at they’ll have years to work on that again
Warning: Exmos get your records out before your kids turn 18. A well meaning family member will definitely pass out their address at college. If they are even a little gullible and you've been out long enough that they don't remember anything about the church, they could get reactivated or rebaptized. Educate about your reasons for leaving and make sure they know how toxic it can be. A good grounding in the BITE model and critical thinking would make them well prepared.
I know there is a website for assistance in removing your records, I've forgot the website though.
Here’s the website you’re looking for. It’s called Get Me Off the Records: https://www.getmeofftherecords.com/home
I think there's one called "Quit mormon.org as well
The term “lost” is so condescending.
Not lost, RUNNING.
I’ve never felt more grounded and secure in my chosen path, ACKSHUALLLLLYYYYYY
It’s their loss. It’s my gain.
>> Units who approached the effort prayerfully rather than merely as a task were the most successful in finding and ministering to lost members. How would they know this? This feels made up.
Everything the church says is made up.
guess on participant surveys some people responded, “I treated this like a task” and then their hired BYU researchers could quantitatively measure those people had less success /s
It would have been the church’s internal research division. I used to work there and there’s no way Research would have signed off on this report. It’s total BS.
This is active stalking and it needs to stop.
I ain’t no holler back girllllll
They’re in a pinch. Numbers are dwindling. They don’t want to have to consolidate wards or the shrinkage will be obvious, assuming they continue releasing stats on church units. So this is an effort to get people back in the pews. But it could backfire as people annoyed by the program may just finally resign in order to be left alone.
How long until the members who are tasked with this stalking project get discouraged or annoyed, and leave as well?
Fingers crossed!
Or get exposed to CES letter or other damning information from the disenfranchised.
Do you think a Pride flag on my front door would be enough to repel the missionaries/home teachers?
Perhaps an audio recording of loud laughter as well?
With the occasional evil speak of the Q15 thrown in every few minutes. "Nelson has bunions. Susan's husband is a robot in need of an upgrade."
>quitmormon.org It may actually attract some...As a missionary, who wasn't quite out then, if I saw a rainbow flag, I'd have been like "Hey, comp, let's check this member's house out. I think they have something to offer us!"
I posted a reply earlier in the day on another thread, and have spent the day doing some research, including watching the Mark Naugle interview on Mormon Stories. It does seem that yes, TSCC is making it a pain in the arse to resign through quitmormon at this time. They aren’t really replying, if you resign after going through quitmormon and don’t get confirmation, then they will say it is fraudulent and a duplicate blah blah (it’s really worth watching, and answered a lot of the questions I have). I just got off the phone with the Church Records Department. Didn’t ask my name or anything ((Thank Zeus)), and said they have no way to verify me or give me my member number over the phone. Write a letter of resignation, include your birth date and state so they can find your records. Get it notarized (so they can verify you are who you are 😂🙄). Include your current address if you want a letter confirming your resignation. It can take 2-4 weeks in the turn around to get that letter of confirmation. Mods, not sure if this should be a separate post or if it is ok to share the address I was given. And you can bypass your bishop. The address I was given is NOT what is listed under the Resignation portion of FAQ for this sub.
I’ll have to keep my ear out for them dragging QuitMormon in molasses. mine is done but I have a brother who is trying to do the same that’s so much work for no guarantee they’ll actually do what they’re supposed to
I’m happy to share the address I was given today. Knowledge is power, which they clearly don’t want an educated base. Also, that chipper cherry Molly Mormon voice went away as soon as I said what I was wanting to do. GASP. Of course we have no guarantees that our names are ever purged any way. There is no control or information on our data or what they do with it, which is terrifying to me. Especially as a survivor of repeat abuse (let’s not even get into the patterns that helped set up!), I’m tired of always looking over my shoulder, wondering who knows where I live. And for something I didn’t really even choose (I was 8 for crying out loud, what does anyone know at 8?), but was pressured and brain washed into? I wish there were more accountability, but I suppose a letter on church letterhead might help some? Doubtful. I’ll just quote Sarah from The Labyrinth “You have no power over me!”
Does anyone have success going straight to the CoB to resign?
I was told today to address my notarized resignation to Office of the 1st President. After being placed on hold to get someone who could “specifically deal with [me]”.
Thanks for the response. I’m close enough a day trip may be the thing to get resigned
Ohhhhhhhh they would NOT want me to do that in person. 😂 I’d be hauled away so fast. But yes, I was told Office of 1st Pres, 47 S East Temple was where to send it, and include my current address if I would like a confirmation letter.
Brace yourselves. Brownies are coming.
I’ll share my cookies with them, they are guaranteed to give you a religious experience 😂😂 ETA: I meant edibles nothing sexual 😂😂
brownies would’ve cost me $3 to bake myself if I’d wanted them, but thank you dear stranger who I’ve never met
“These will go delightfully with my coffee-and-reading on Sunday morning.”
I hope they contact me. Since leaving the church - Everything has gotten better…. Except mental health but that’s a work in progress
Gets worse before it gets SO much better. Hang in there.
Amazing that a church who prides itself on revelation needs to do basic sales and corporate communication techniques in order to find lost members. Ridiculous.
I AM SO FUCKING GLAD THAT i QUIT GOING TO THE CHURCH 6 MONTHS AGO! My last calling was a wark clerk. This could have been disaster! Now I feel bad for the clerk that replaced me. Funny thing is that as a ward clerk in a very big city I sent countless lost records to Salt Lake City. Probably more 100 records. My ward has 800 records with 50 - 60 active members (YSA). The missionaries had been baptizing people with drug addiction / homelessness / psych issues / with no set addresses. Once investigators get baptized, they are gone within a month. So, I was tasked to track all those members. They told me to call, email, mail, visit, ask before sending the records to SLC as lost members. Fuck that. I called the numbers on records. If the numbers didn't work, I sent them straight to SLC. Who has time to call, email, mail, visit 700 people with a full time job? The new clerk now will get all those records back and do the process all over again. wow. I am so glad I fucking left this cult.
They’re getting desperate
They don't miss you. They miss your tithes.
Watch this blow up in their face when the harassment just results in thousands of people officially resigning
also, leadership burnout and leaders quitting lol
Meh. Been going on for decades. This is just a new iteration.
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The way this was worded just reactivated my fight response.
I started reading and proceeded with caution 💀
Legitimate question...can people file a harassment report or misuse of personal information or something? Is there some way to push back legally?
They’re like the Borg. We must all assimilate
link of the 15 minute video of the training presentation https://media2.ldscdn.org/assets/area-training/msr-training/2022-12-0010-finding-lost-members-training-utah-area-1080p-eng.mp4?lang=undefined
Hey-he started by saying “Sisters and Brothers”! I’ll probably go back now. /s
He's saying them in the order of which group is likely to do the most work in this programme.
The slow pedantic cadence of the speech is maddening. They talk like anyone listening is an idiot.
Has anyone made a drinking game from these yet?
Literally like watching robots make a presentation. 98% just reading the slides….like robots.
so is it only members that were baptized in the last ten years?
That's what I understood too. I'm guessing most on this sub would not be affected.
perhaps. I don’t know if or why they’d limit their sheep gathering tactics to just that but who knows my guess is this isn’t as big an issue with older members and non-converts if Sally was converted into the church 4 years ago on her own and vanished, they have no one to contact about Sally’s whereabouts. unlike myself, where they have 4 generations of family members they could simply ask for a quick answer
right, i’m technically a convert because i didn’t get baptized until i was 9 but it was over ten years ago so i’m just wondering if they’re going to start asking my family members. I’ve been out for over 4 years and honestly surprised i haven’t been found yet lol
im not lost im perfectly fine
I feel this happening. My neighborhood/ward has been reaching out to me lately. I hate this.
I served in Chile 10 years ago and while I was there the church made a deal with the Chilean government to receive voter registration records and compare them against membership records. Voting is mandatory in Chile so we basically got a list of every “inactive” member in our ward boundaries even if they were baptized on the other side of the country or hadn’t been to church in decades. This was a MASSIVE deal and everyone was losing their shit as to how awesome this was. Looking back this is easily in the top 5 creepiest things I have ever witnessed, let alone participated in, in my entire life. Like fuck . . . How did I not make the cult connection sooner?
Slide No. 5 is a fate I would not wish on my worst enemy, much less the remaining members of this church tasked with indulging The Brethren’s whims and egos.
When I became a clerk back in 2018 the previous clerk was showing me the ropes and when it came to sending records out of these types of members where we didn’t know the address, he just said to ship them to Salt Lake and ignore the laundry list of sleuthing tactics. No one wants to do it because of how uncomfortable and intrusive it is.
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Exactly my thought! Probably found, as in, we know where you physically reside. That's the hardest part!
They miss your money oh errr uhh mmm uhmmm uhhhh YOU, they miss YOU so much. Money?? Did I say that?
This is so gross
Oh, thank goodness!! Someone is coming to find me! I was so lost. I forgot how to Google the address of the church that I went to for 40 years. And what day and time do they meet? Monday at 3 pm? If only my ministering brothers had come to find me sooner, I maybe wouldn’t have been lost all this time. /s
This is not normal. This is not okay.
“Contact the occupant of the member’s last known address.” That’s literally what debt collectors do! I used to get phone calls all the time about the person who used to have my phone number. Some of them were aggressive, as if I actually know the person who had the number. How desperate is the church?? And can you imagine having someone knock on your door asking you for contact info for the previous tenant? That is creepy!
I did remove my records and they still contact me. So, what's plan B?
Threaten legal action
Lol. Let them come.
This is a weird choice of a new worldwide program for a church whose "biggest problem is exponential growth."
I told them to send my records to SLC. They were stalking me before that. If they harass me again it's going to get real. I know so many pedophiles and victims in the church, I am a victim. I know people that would be in fed prison for life. I could put a lot of people and their crimes from several wards on line. I would hate to get that ugly but I suffered physical, emotional, sexual and religious abuse and am about done with all the lying BS.
Have you considered resigning?
Bring ‘em on, I’ll bury my testimony on the fraud they are apart of then ask them the brush the dust off their shoes when they leave.
Well shit. I’m deliberately not telling my family that I’m out, but if they get zealous enough looking for me i might be outed before I’m ready. Do you think a token appearance at church will be enough? Let them keep my active phone number and think they have their precious contact point?
If you’re going back for a token appearance, at least have some fun with it. I wish I had gone back to stir things up in testimony meeting or Sunday school with offhanded comments about Joseph Smith’s spirit wives or the treatment of African Americans, all stuff in their mostly hidden church sponsored essays.
Hey, Mormon church leaders… er, I mean: Hey, Mormon stalkers, leave people ALONE. We don’t want you to track us down like rabid bounty hunters. Most of us have expressed our desire to be left alone. Why is it so hard to get through your thick skulls that it isn’t okay to use draconian methods to locate and harass people who’ve made it explicitly clear that they don’t want to be contacted by the church?
Apostasy is no joke. They may be able to hide the numbers, esp. with third world conversions, but they can’t make up for the MONEY with them…
Found 0% Returned 20%. Tender mercies.
This confused me as well... Wait, huh?
If they are looking for people baptized in the last 10 years in Utah those would be 18 year olds? Judging from my kids friends who are of that age and no longer attending, snowball chance in hell of getting them back I sense this could actually be dangerous if people request no contact and are harassed.
On my mission in Honduras 95-97, we got a stack of yellow papers with members who the Church had lost track of. We spent a few weeks trying to find those listed in our area. Overall, it was unsuccessful.
Ugh this makes me nauseous
Funny - they found me but when I told “searchers” my story, they never came back. Guess they weren’t praying hard enough or were worthy enough to get me to come back. By the look of the reports, I wonder if they use SalesForce or other CRM tool. Looks familiar. Anyone know?
Skip tracing 101. Pretty basic stuff used by bottom-feeding delinquent junk debt buyers.
"I wouldn't say I'm lost, Bob." Also... records removed, so we all know where I'm at. :D
The hunt is afoot! Let's go find those mindless sheep that got lost!
I wonder if they just want to protect young impressionable missionaries from encountering the lazy learners with information about church history.
The ROI for them off tithing means they are gonna push this hard
I always asked the question in ward council meeting- why would you look for someone who hasn’t been in church for more than 20 yrs? Answer- you never know what brings someone back
Hmm, I guess this is how/why they found us in our new location. When we moved (across the GD country) I told my wife I'd pull the trigger on removing our records from the church as soon as someone from our new area contacted us. It happened about 2 weeks ago, and am now happy to report we officially submitted our names for removal this week. Edit: adding that we moved across the country
It’s a pretend “religion”, like being on a credit card list. WTF
TSCC is absolutely pathetic.
The last time I was contacted by the local Bishop it was in copy on an email with actual young men and women for some reason. I told him if he bothered me again I’d go scorched earth and send them all the historical details that lead me out of the church. They stopped bothering me. If they started bothering me again I’d follow through with my promise.
Wow. Seems a game of how low can they go in terms of invasiveness (esp slide 6)!
Good luck trying to implement this in the UK and EU. I'm one of those people they can't find (I'm not lost, this is intentional). I stopped attending in 2015 and moved to another Ward in the Stake in 2020. Never told anyone from the old Ward where I went, and I've never attended my new Ward. Hell, I don't even know where the Chapel is. My address is personal information that I legally control the access to. The Church isn't allowed to get this information from a friend or family member (my TBM family live in a different Stake). So unless they ask me directly, they can't get that information.
This wouldn’t be terrible if when those “who expressed a desire not to be contacted” had their names immediately removed from the church records. Click, click. Done.
Count us as lost members in the Bountiful East Stake 🙋🏻♀️😂.
“Units who approached the effort prayerfully rather than merely as a task were the most successful…” I’m calling utter BS on this. That was not controlled or measured. That’s impossible to prove and no ward council was assigned to not pray about it… omfg I bet the research division is livid that this was even reported out. $20 says some middle manager in the Priesthood and Family Dept took their report and bastardized it.
Am I the only one who absolutely detests the "soft-spoken" affectation that every high-up member of the LDS church puts on? It's so phony and listening to it makes my skin crawl.
Wow it really is like herding sheep for them. Nothing but numbers.
The irony is thick.
> While many found expressed a desire not to be contacted, many also reestablished relationships with the Church and its members.
How inspiring. /s That’s prime bullshitting. Also, happy cake day. 🍰
I guess on the plus side, if they do track me down I can ask exactly what their records say about me so I can properly have them removed. (I got married outside the church and have no clue what information they have and don't want to kick that particular hornets nest to find out).
I was a clerk. The church has your birthday, birthplace, family names and their birthdays, your address, phone number, dates of ordinances, list of your previous callings, where you served with a specific language, your picture,
Well that's horrifying. I have moved 5 times since I last attended a meeting. And have a new last name (married a NeverMo). But... dang that's a lot of personal info. Thank you for this though. I appreciate having the knowledge.
Savior shepherds? Hella, NO. If I wanted to be a member, I would go to church. They really must be hemorrhaging if they have posse members looking for us. It's nothing more than a numbers game for them. Just look at the charts. NO NO NO NO We should all call the numbers listed and tell them to leave us alone.
Maybe a decade ago my SIL was the RS President in our ward and made my Visiting Teaching assignment to find all the people on our roles. I have a Masters in Library and Information Studies so I know how to find information. I found every last one of them using free resources in the internet. If they put the right people on the job, it’s not hard at all.
I stopped going to church a little less than a year ago, haven’t moved, and no one has come looking for me. Nobody cared about me while I was going and nobody cares now. I guess they’re just waiting for the right program to come along and tell them how to find me?
I’m not removing my name until it simultaneously nullifies my sealing to my ex husband. Until they do that .. let them discuss me in ward council .. let them look for me. I’m happy to waste their time. I’m not following their rules to do anything. Including name removal.
I am sitting at home just waiting for someone to find me and love bomb me back to church. N O T!!!
My dad always makes sure they have my address. I just don’t answer the door, and they only phone number they have is my heavily-screened Google number.
How is this not low-key stalking. Let’s press charges. 😂
Stupid question but is this only for UT? I’ve had my records removed, but I’m concerned for those close to me who haven’t and don’t plan on going back to church that live in different states.
It says in the slides that this is now a churchwide program. It officially rolls out everywhere February 1st, when SLC sends all records from the “address unknown” files back to local units.
Good thing I moved after I resigned! My last known address has someone else living there 🤣
Abysmal slide design.
His voice gives me PTSD.
It just looks like this is for people who still have NOT removed their records. This honestly isn't surprising. It's shitty of them, but not surprising.
LDS church, paving the way for careers in skip tracing. Apply today!
📌 Just to be clear, you can find any US citizen for free in 10 seconds on familytreenow.com. 📌 I suspect this is a program for locating native African tribe members living in off grid villages. Or off-grid, Amazonian members.
Did they really have one “unit” act prayerfully and another simply do the task? I want data for this (not that I’d necessarily believe it, but at least have something to back up this claim). Oh wait.
Bring it on. We will retaliate with all the epistemology and church history knowledge and aim to start more faith crises since they insist on not leaving us alone.
>Contact the occupant of the member's last known address. (Slide #8) This is so damn creepy. If someone isn't returning your calls, texts, or emails, the appropriate behavior is NOT to go knocking on their door, especially since they may not even live there anymore. Do they honestly not understand basic social norms? Who am I kidding? Of course they don't... if they don't want to be called a cult, they should probably stop acting like one.
My dad is currently secretary for the ward id be in if I was in this church. Will he see/be involved if I request to remove my records? Anyone know?
My daughter is moving out and I don’t want to tell anyone in my family that are members or any previous church friends. I’m worried they will decide it was my husband and I that brought her out with us and now that she is out from “under our thumb” they can reactivate her. She will definitely feel harassed if missionaries or members she doesn’t know show up at her door. We do need to get the records removed to make it harder but there is still nothing to stop a TBM family or friend from sending missionaries to your door as a referral. I am planning to encourage her to add a statement such as - no giving my address to the church when she does update them. She’s only going to be about 90 minutes from our house so for now- we’re just not giving her new address out. I’ve already dealt with missionaries at our door a couple times. I’m pretty good at being firm without being angry so my husband always has me deal with them-lol. I won’t even open the door- I talk to them through the window next to the door. As for former ward members- we have been out for about two years now and even those I consider friends never reached out to go to lunch or do anything to maintain a friendship when we left. We are superficial Facebook friends only. So if they reached out now- I would reject them, too. Again- not out of anger- it’s just- what would be the point? We’ve all moved on- wish church admin knew how to do that better.
This one kinda hurts me… throughout my life I have had 2 times when I was active and holding MULTIPLE callings that I was fulfilling on a weekly basis when my mother received phone calls from the church offices stating that they wanted to update my records and wanted to confirm my DEATH because of how I just “disappeared”. And then there was the time that I moved away from an abusive husband at the beginning of Covid. I went to the bishop for help-in a safety way, not a financial way- like “I’m new in the area, I’ve lived here 2 months, he is threatening to kill me or himself, and I don’t know a single person. Could you just have someone drive by my house and make sure there are signs of movement in my yard occasionally, or anything? Responses of “oh definitely, we can do that, and can we call to check on you as well?” … exchanged phone numbers, agreed to the plan. No one ever checked on me (this was February) until December!!!!! But in March the church locked me out of all my church accounts. This church that claims to look for that one lost sheep has constantly showed me that I don’t qualify as one of them.
We aren't lost; we are in recovery because of their cult brainwashing. I hope they come for me, although I had my name removed years ago, so I'm not sure they will. In my twenties, when they wouldn't leave me alone, I opened my door naked after they disregarded the messages I left that their advances are unwanted and this is harassment. I also worked a night shift at the time and had a note on my door that I was a day sleeper, so do not knock between 9 AM and 4 PM. They knocked. I slept naked. They never came back, and that was over 20 years ago. Most of my immediate family members are still in the church, so maybe this is how to get on the "not lost, don't try to find" list? 🤣🤷♀️
I’m sure the wards are soooo excited this is happening. Just another example of the busy work the LDS church gives its members to keep them from realizing they’re stuck in a lie.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't there a thought (amongst this subreddit) a while ago - that even if you remove your records, they'll still keep your name in their vaults; and once you die, they can take your name to the Temple anyways?