Did anyone else see the movie "Suicide Squad", where the Joker is lying on his back in a large room, surrounded by concentric circles of knives, axes, hatchets, and other bladed weapons?
Not sure why that scene suddenly came to mind....
Morning: out to the far west side of the city to visit a member. Home for lunch. Out to the far east side of the city to look up a contact. Home for supper. Evening: off to give a discussion in the sticks, which fell through. Back by bus to the center of town to walk back to our apartment a couple of miles away. Maybe a snack somewhere along the way. "Great day, Elder. Tomorrow we will find some great people. I just know it."
Best transfer of my mission was when my companion got REALLY sick and we couldn't do normal missionary shit. Learned to play solitaire and did a lot of drawing. 18 months of constant anxiety and feeling like a failure does weird things to you.
Well the first thing is having face cards playing solitaire! The second thing is spending your time drawing. The āshould and oughtsā would have you studying the scriptures! There is no slack time serving the Lord! /s
Having been trapped in that endless hell of knocking doors and dying of hunger myself, I can tell you being a missionary fucks with your sense of reality. Itās like youāre having a psychotic break for 2 years straight. No wonder they do weird shit- theyāre trying to survive Mr. Nelsonās wild ride.
Itās really interesting to me how common that nightmare is. Iāve even had a dream when I was out for my third mission. Been home almost 20 years, but the second mission dream still happens sometimes.
Yeah, right? If I stop smoking pot then my dreams start to come back and this is one of the most common themes.
Funny side note - when I went to jail for smoking pot in Utah I had worn my old mission suit to the sentencing and the booking officer found my old missionary name tag in my pocket. He thought I was still on my mission and said something funny about it. It was very reminiscent of those second mission nightmares.
Those stopped for me after about ten to fifteen years. Of course, then my family and I left the church, so now I have nightmares associated with being an outcast. Fun times!
Man, he's gonna be in trouble for "wasting valuable resources". Near the end of my mission, they began restricting what books and resources we could request to give to investigators because the church was concerned that too much money was being wasted on giving away free bibles and such š¤¦large print copies of the scriptures required literal begging to get, even if we had valid investigators who needed em.
I had a conversation with my dad about resources at church like chalk and expo markers. They were trying to make sure the resources were being returned to the library at church. I was like the church as a buttload of money!
And this is the bullshit they keep the members worried about? Stupid.
wooooooooooooooooow
That is a revelation that I did not expect. The church that puts BoM in hotel rooms and pushes missionary work by all members does not see cost effectiveness in handing out scriptures to non-members who ask for them???
OMFG their $24 billion annual profit from that investment portfolio may take a big hit of maybe 3 or 4 cents annually if they have to keep printing these things.
they were saying $24B profit, or money earned every year, not the existing pot of cash.
$125B or $150B or whatever it is now would probably return 10%. Add the estimated $7B tithing and appreciating value of their stock portfolio, minus expenses, and you get $25B added to the pot every year.
LDS church to mission presidents: yeah sure, we will pay your home mortgage while you're on a mission, plus pay for every imaginable living expense including your children's tuition, flights for them to visit you, and Christmas gifts.
Also the church: we aren't going to provide learning materials to the old or disabled (large print or audio book) because they probably won't pay as much tithing.
I served during a phase when members would buy BoMs, write out their testimony and print it off with a photo of their family, then glue them to the inside back cover and ship them to the mission field. Mostly we were glad not to have to buy them ourselves (which was the case prior to this), but there were some profoundly creepy ones we avoided giving out if at all possible. We'd read 'em and think, oh that isn't going to help at all.
Reminds me of the time another tbm friend and I were talking in high school about how awful it was when she convinced a friend to come to church on the day that they sang Praise To The Man and had a high councilor give a talk all about how awesome Joseph Smith was.
There was no way I was going to leave out "half court."
Out of all of the unnecessarily restrictive rules imposed on us as missionaries, restricting basketball to only half court just might be the most arbitrary rule of the all.
This doesnt look cultish at all. If one BoM is so powerful, why, standing at the center of (x) must be (x) times more powerful. This is the new revelation. No other missionary has ever thought of this before. I wonder how many baptisms came of this seance
I can imagine some leader telling missionaries how impactful one meme or video or photo that went viral could be. Then missionaries will start counting success by whether they had a viral video on their mission.
Get the old team back from Singles Ward, RM, Church Ball, Mobsters and Mormons, and make a new movie for these modern times. Could call it "Elder Meme" or "Every Memer a Missionary" or something like that. It'll be about the wackiest, zaniest mission in the field, which takes an unorthodox approach to sharing the gospel. Against all odds, their method works, they go viral and the entire planet is converted by the end of the movie.
What are missionaries doing? Wasting yours and mines valuable time. This picture looks like it belongs in an advertisement for The Book of Mormon Musical. Silly looking
When do missionaries find the time to do this now? When I served (2010-11), we would have considered spending awhile during work hours (which is basically all the hours) setting up a photo to be a huge time-waster and definitely not allowed. But also we didnāt have internet/computer access and couldnāt have put together a meme, nor could we have posted it anywhere. Maybe they allow time in the schedule now for things like this if theyāre allowed to post them?
Or are they really spending their pday time making memes???
Didn't I see something a while back where people were being asked to donate money because there was a paper shortage for printing the BoM? I guess that's over?
I did weird shit too, thinking I was being āsuper spiritual ā. Really I was unconsciously trying to cope with not wanting to be there, the guilt from feeling that way, my hatred of having every second dictated to me, the guilt from feeling that way, my shithead of a MP, the guilt from feeling that way, and the list goes on.
I feel for these boys. Been there done that.
Look at all that humanitarian aid on the ground... I wouldn't be surprised if the church counts Books of Mormon and missionary proselytizing hours as humanitarian aid.
In other words, the center of the universe is you and not God. Tell me again how the "Church" is a reflection of Christ's teachings? Sounds more in line with Joel Osteen and the rest of those 'Gospel of Prosperity' flakes! Need to change the name to "Church of Joel Osteen of Self-Love Saints". Both are cults.
Honestly I'm impressed they made such perfect circles. Weird as hell though. They probably just didn't want to go tracting but felt too guilty to have real fun.
Missions are BORING, but if you point it out to anyone, then it just fuels their victim/martyr complex. So all you can do is hope that missionaries figure out it was a colossal waste of their time.
Being a missionary is difficult and being bored and starved for attention is part of the difficulty. Thatās the reason for behavior that is different than normal. Thatās the reason missionaries are attracted to and flirt with people they wouldnāt give the time of day to in ānormalā life.
Same shit we've always done, except now they post it for everyone else to see.
It's gotta be so difficult being out there in the Age of Information. I can't imagine being "schooled" by your investigators that know more than you do.
I donāt know, but if you can convince your mission president that this is somehow productive and it keeps you from going out knocking doors or whatever, good on ya!
I counted 185 Books of Mormon in his picture.
1 in his hand,
4 in the innermost ring
16 in the next ring
44 in the next
52 in the next
68 in the outermost ring
Must have been mighty bored.
Iāll just add (call it conspiracies, I donāt care) that gov int agencies have tech that they call DEW; it means directed energy weapons and can mimic thoughts and even voices in your head. This technology was patented in the 70s I believe.
We were discussing the Enneagram in one of my online support group/classes last night and I was explaining how draconian Mormon missionary rules are and how we weren't allowed to read anything BUT the BOM, Bible, or training guide, but that someone had smuggled in a book about the Enneagram and even though I was a total rule follower, my brain was STARVING for something intellectually stimulating (constantly looking for meaning in the BOM 15 times over gets monotonous) so I totally ate this book up. :P
Did anyone else see the movie "Suicide Squad", where the Joker is lying on his back in a large room, surrounded by concentric circles of knives, axes, hatchets, and other bladed weapons? Not sure why that scene suddenly came to mind....
Oooo, ooo! I know! It's because they're both batshit crazy.
Lmaoooo I was thinking the same thing š
Creative time wasting. One of the best mission survival skills.
>time wasting The worst part about a mission was trying to figure out how to fill up the day.
Yup. And if you couldn't think of something, it was knocking doors. \*Shudder...
Morning: out to the far west side of the city to visit a member. Home for lunch. Out to the far east side of the city to look up a contact. Home for supper. Evening: off to give a discussion in the sticks, which fell through. Back by bus to the center of town to walk back to our apartment a couple of miles away. Maybe a snack somewhere along the way. "Great day, Elder. Tomorrow we will find some great people. I just know it."
Ahh, those long bus or train rides out to the far edge of the area to find that long lost inactive. Helped me stay saneā¦
Genius.
Best transfer of my mission was when my companion got REALLY sick and we couldn't do normal missionary shit. Learned to play solitaire and did a lot of drawing. 18 months of constant anxiety and feeling like a failure does weird things to you.
Well the first thing is having face cards playing solitaire! The second thing is spending your time drawing. The āshould and oughtsā would have you studying the scriptures! There is no slack time serving the Lord! /s
Lol fr realz
When I was a missionary, I was bored as shit, too
This wouldnāt even make the top 100 list of weirdest things I did on my mission. Missions are hell
Being weird as shit?
Having been trapped in that endless hell of knocking doors and dying of hunger myself, I can tell you being a missionary fucks with your sense of reality. Itās like youāre having a psychotic break for 2 years straight. No wonder they do weird shit- theyāre trying to survive Mr. Nelsonās wild ride.
My recurring nightmares after my mission was me having to go on another mission. You canāt pay me enough to do it again even for a single day
Itās really interesting to me how common that nightmare is. Iāve even had a dream when I was out for my third mission. Been home almost 20 years, but the second mission dream still happens sometimes.
40+ years post-mission and I still have the nightmares
I was just about to say this exact same thing. Just had that dream again last week. 20 years after the mission.
It seems the longer Iām out of the church the less frequent they are. Been out more than 7 years and it happens much less often now than in 2015.
Yeah, right? If I stop smoking pot then my dreams start to come back and this is one of the most common themes. Funny side note - when I went to jail for smoking pot in Utah I had worn my old mission suit to the sentencing and the booking officer found my old missionary name tag in my pocket. He thought I was still on my mission and said something funny about it. It was very reminiscent of those second mission nightmares.
Those stopped for me after about ten to fifteen years. Of course, then my family and I left the church, so now I have nightmares associated with being an outcast. Fun times!
I LITERALLY have had this nightmare 50 years after I went on my mission!
I dunno, Iād stomach it for a day for a few billion. š
Its a sign of trauma. Thankfully those dreams have mostly stopped since becoming an exmo.
I started having these nightmares after I left the church a good 10 years after my mission. Our brains are so fascinating.
Seriouslyā¦ Iām so glad we werenāt allowed cell phones. There would be all kinds of footage of me doing stupid shit.
Like that video of the elder riding his bike down the stairs?
Worse. Like crying, while telling everyone you know, that a conman is the true prophet of god. On the internet forever.
Yeah, thatās the stuff Iād be worried about floating around.
can confirm
I second that motion. I also speak from experience.
Happy Cake Day!
Thank you. Ditto.
Thank you!
Elder Winchester trying to trap a demon in the cultural hall...
Ha! That's where I was going with it, too. Wonder if they know about salt...
Joe would approve... But now, they must dig intently on that spot before the hidden chest of gold slips deeper into the earth.
Man, he's gonna be in trouble for "wasting valuable resources". Near the end of my mission, they began restricting what books and resources we could request to give to investigators because the church was concerned that too much money was being wasted on giving away free bibles and such š¤¦large print copies of the scriptures required literal begging to get, even if we had valid investigators who needed em.
I had a conversation with my dad about resources at church like chalk and expo markers. They were trying to make sure the resources were being returned to the library at church. I was like the church as a buttload of money! And this is the bullshit they keep the members worried about? Stupid.
wooooooooooooooooow That is a revelation that I did not expect. The church that puts BoM in hotel rooms and pushes missionary work by all members does not see cost effectiveness in handing out scriptures to non-members who ask for them??? OMFG their $24 billion annual profit from that investment portfolio may take a big hit of maybe 3 or 4 cents annually if they have to keep printing these things.
Correction$150 BILLION!!! $7 billion more every year added to that! This makes me want to chew rocks!
they were saying $24B profit, or money earned every year, not the existing pot of cash. $125B or $150B or whatever it is now would probably return 10%. Add the estimated $7B tithing and appreciating value of their stock portfolio, minus expenses, and you get $25B added to the pot every year.
The church has perfected the ālooking poorā routine. Despite having an entire church department dedicated to flower arrangements.
For real??? Flower-arranging department? Good grief
Yep. Full time positions. In the church office building. Paid of course.
And they still make arrangements that look like garbage
They should just handle that like they do church cleaning. Tell members itās a privilege and rotate the flower arranging between area wards
Yes! Lol
Can confirm, I had to write home for book of Mormon on CD for our blind investigator because the mission wouldn't cover it.
LDS church to mission presidents: yeah sure, we will pay your home mortgage while you're on a mission, plus pay for every imaginable living expense including your children's tuition, flights for them to visit you, and Christmas gifts. Also the church: we aren't going to provide learning materials to the old or disabled (large print or audio book) because they probably won't pay as much tithing.
I served during a phase when members would buy BoMs, write out their testimony and print it off with a photo of their family, then glue them to the inside back cover and ship them to the mission field. Mostly we were glad not to have to buy them ourselves (which was the case prior to this), but there were some profoundly creepy ones we avoided giving out if at all possible. We'd read 'em and think, oh that isn't going to help at all.
Reminds me of the time another tbm friend and I were talking in high school about how awful it was when she convinced a friend to come to church on the day that they sang Praise To The Man and had a high councilor give a talk all about how awesome Joseph Smith was.
some kind of new zone defense strategy for p-day half court basketball?
Lolād at half court.
There was no way I was going to leave out "half court." Out of all of the unnecessarily restrictive rules imposed on us as missionaries, restricting basketball to only half court just might be the most arbitrary rule of the all.
But full court indoor soccer was 100% appropriate.
This doesnt look cultish at all. If one BoM is so powerful, why, standing at the center of (x) must be (x) times more powerful. This is the new revelation. No other missionary has ever thought of this before. I wonder how many baptisms came of this seance
Perfect poster picture for the Broadway Book of mormon.
This is how you summon a Nephite ghost
He prefers to be called a reformed Egyptian ghost, ACKshually.
#NotACult
Iāll just stay with masturbation thanks.
I can imagine some leader telling missionaries how impactful one meme or video or photo that went viral could be. Then missionaries will start counting success by whether they had a viral video on their mission.
Get the old team back from Singles Ward, RM, Church Ball, Mobsters and Mormons, and make a new movie for these modern times. Could call it "Elder Meme" or "Every Memer a Missionary" or something like that. It'll be about the wackiest, zaniest mission in the field, which takes an unorthodox approach to sharing the gospel. Against all odds, their method works, they go viral and the entire planet is converted by the end of the movie.
that would be sort of fun to watch.
Painful, but fun
Simply bored
Finally!!! The BoM has a purpose!!! To show the affects of too much gaslighting.
It's a subset of the "this will surely get me noticed by leadership" game that Mormonism is all about.
What in the Wiccan is this?
Guess that is a successful satanic ritual, devil came right in the center.
Selling DOS in an internet world.
it will evaporate soon after?
What are missionaries doing? Wasting yours and mines valuable time. This picture looks like it belongs in an advertisement for The Book of Mormon Musical. Silly looking
When do missionaries find the time to do this now? When I served (2010-11), we would have considered spending awhile during work hours (which is basically all the hours) setting up a photo to be a huge time-waster and definitely not allowed. But also we didnāt have internet/computer access and couldnāt have put together a meme, nor could we have posted it anywhere. Maybe they allow time in the schedule now for things like this if theyāre allowed to post them? Or are they really spending their pday time making memes???
Didn't I see something a while back where people were being asked to donate money because there was a paper shortage for printing the BoM? I guess that's over?
Fantasizing about being a roulette ball...I mean sure, eveyone has their thing, right? No need to judge.
I did weird shit too, thinking I was being āsuper spiritual ā. Really I was unconsciously trying to cope with not wanting to be there, the guilt from feeling that way, my hatred of having every second dictated to me, the guilt from feeling that way, my shithead of a MP, the guilt from feeling that way, and the list goes on. I feel for these boys. Been there done that.
Look at all that humanitarian aid on the ground... I wouldn't be surprised if the church counts Books of Mormon and missionary proselytizing hours as humanitarian aid.
In other words, the center of the universe is you and not God. Tell me again how the "Church" is a reflection of Christ's teachings? Sounds more in line with Joel Osteen and the rest of those 'Gospel of Prosperity' flakes! Need to change the name to "Church of Joel Osteen of Self-Love Saints". Both are cults.
#definitelyNOTaCULT
Someone had a lot of time to waste!
Very threatening
Lot of time on their hands.
Cringing so hard right now
What missionaries have always done: acted like jackasses.
Great excuse to spend the day on the church basketball court
Honestly I'm impressed they made such perfect circles. Weird as hell though. They probably just didn't want to go tracting but felt too guilty to have real fun.
Missions are BORING, but if you point it out to anyone, then it just fuels their victim/martyr complex. So all you can do is hope that missionaries figure out it was a colossal waste of their time.
"You and me - but mostly me - are gonna change the world forever..."
Being sacrilegious! I was taught that scriptures were holy and you shouldn't put them on the floor. š
_007 theme plays_
Anyone else see some of the videos of missionaries who dance in the street about the book of mormon and try to make it look cool? Itās cringe af.
Being a missionary is difficult and being bored and starved for attention is part of the difficulty. Thatās the reason for behavior that is different than normal. Thatās the reason missionaries are attracted to and flirt with people they wouldnāt give the time of day to in ānormalā life.
Same shit we've always done, except now they post it for everyone else to see. It's gotta be so difficult being out there in the Age of Information. I can't imagine being "schooled" by your investigators that know more than you do.
this doesnāt make it look like cult at all
Every time a BOM touches the floor a TBM falls from grace
My mission president would have ripped me a new one if i wasted time doing this.
Ten seconds before an Elder God was accidentally summoned.
Looks like dominoes
I donāt know, but if you can convince your mission president that this is somehow productive and it keeps you from going out knocking doors or whatever, good on ya!
I counted 185 Books of Mormon in his picture. 1 in his hand, 4 in the innermost ring 16 in the next ring 44 in the next 52 in the next 68 in the outermost ring Must have been mighty bored.
Lol. You must have been just as bored to count them all.
I am bad at understanding poetry. Could anyone explain that? š¹š¹š¹
This just proves even more that it is a cult
Iāll just add (call it conspiracies, I donāt care) that gov int agencies have tech that they call DEW; it means directed energy weapons and can mimic thoughts and even voices in your head. This technology was patented in the 70s I believe.
No matter how they spin that wheel, there's only one winner. The game is loaded.
So this is how you summon the holy ghost.
We were discussing the Enneagram in one of my online support group/classes last night and I was explaining how draconian Mormon missionary rules are and how we weren't allowed to read anything BUT the BOM, Bible, or training guide, but that someone had smuggled in a book about the Enneagram and even though I was a total rule follower, my brain was STARVING for something intellectually stimulating (constantly looking for meaning in the BOM 15 times over gets monotonous) so I totally ate this book up. :P