- RLD on Weekly Calls as a Safeguard Against Mission Abuses: “Mission presidents make a huge difference. My first was a doctor, and it was clear that his top priority was the spiritual growth and well-being of the missionaries. The second was a business executive, and his focus was on results (though not in a bad way). My wife’s mission president had a military background. I don’t know if she would have been able to finish her mission if she’d had my first mission president–her mission was when she had to confront that her anxiety was a Problem and not something she could white-knuckle through–but she would not have come home feeling like a failure. (This was quite a while ago, and the Church has gotten much better about this.) More recently, my stake president’s son had one of the problem mission presidents. If they didn’t meet their baptismal goals, they had to explain to their district why that was. The expected answer was some way they had been less than completely obedient or diligent. You’d think the mission president had never heard of agency. The calls home help, but the lower missionary age makes it even more important that mission presidents stay on track. Missionaries now have had almost no exposure to the adult world before serving. I’m not surprised it was a sister who also saw through the baloney on your mission: I presume she was 21+, and that makes a difference. I recall once we were working with the sisters in our area when one of them had to take a call from the mission office. As we were trying to rearrange the phone cords to allow her to take the call without entering our apartment even for a moment, she rolled her eyes a bit and said “tell them we’re dealing with a Law of Moses problem.” That took some of the air out of my rule-following zealotry, which was a very good thing.” Jan 8, 16:25
- on Your Reactions to Church Yesterday, 1/4: “Our testimony meeting started with a young woman observing that the iron rod was meant to help people who couldn’t see clearly, so maybe we can choose to hold onto it tightly even if we don’t feel like we have a strong testimony. That was a profound insight.” Jan 8, 16:09
- on Weekly Calls as a Safeguard Against Mission Abuses: “Unfortunately, mission presidents can go pretty far off the reservation. Just look at the scandal with Philander Smart, former mission president for the Costa Rica San Jose Mission back in 2014. He groomed and likely sexually assaulted several of the sister missionaries placed under his care. Just pure evil.” Jan 8, 16:07
- on Weekly Calls as a Safeguard Against Mission Abuses: “Ben: Interesting, didn’t know that. Dr. Cocoa & REC 911: That’s another variable, I suspect this happened more in the past. My family’s experiences were during the 2000s, so already they’re kind of dated. ji: I’m fine with baptism, contacting, and teaching goals, the issue is how it’s framed if it isn’t achieved. JC: I wasn’t aware of that, interesting.” Jan 8, 12:57
- on Weekly Calls as a Safeguard Against Mission Abuses: “It took some phone calls home to stop the mission president who abused female missionaries in the Puerto Rico San Jose Mission in 2014. He was excommunicated.” Jan 8, 12:30
- on Weekly Calls as a Safeguard Against Mission Abuses: “It is still happening. The Tallahassee Florida Mission president has imposed a “goal” of a baptism per week for each companionship, or 52 per year per companionship. Of course, this means every single missionary in the whole mission is a failure. I do not understand why a mission president would do this. I named the real mission because I believe in honest dialogue. The mission president should not be embarrassed by his own decrees. If I am misunderstanding, I hope someone will correct me.” Jan 8, 10:12
- on Weekly Calls as a Safeguard Against Mission Abuses: “The church is not a cult, but the members/leaders take sections of the church, such as missions, and turn them into cults. My first mission pres was a sports fanatic which in itself is not a big deal except for the fact he ran the mission like Bobby Knight would. (minus the throwing of chairs) His favorite pastime in all our meetings was to do what he called stand-up-sit downs. He would ask if anyone in the crowd happen to break a random rule that he picked since the last time we met. If you were crazy enough to stand up, he would “bobby knight” you in front of everyone until he told you to sit down. At one mission conference, the APs told me that pres wanted to talk to me in room 14. I had recently broke a mission rule that the pres was made aware of. I got in the room and he started going all bobby knight on me as usual. It was just me and him. This was before the conference started. I stood up right when he started to go off and told him that I was not going to stand here and take this unless he was willing to calm down and speak to me like an adult, then I walked out of the room. Later in the conference he got back at me by going bobby on me in front of the entire mission, for several minutes. On another occasion I got his wrath so bad that his wife came up to me after the meeting and apologize to me. Missions are cult-like in almost every way. I dont think the brethren want it this way, I think the leaders below them want to please the brethren with #’s. That’s my guess. And the people picked to lead missions are all (for the most part) uber successful biz execs that are results driven. Hence the problems IMO. I served in the early 80’s.” Jan 8, 09:16
- on Mormon Studies Books in 2026: “I’m glad you enjoy it, RL. The Deseret Alphabet and C. C. A. Christensen are probably the ones I’m most excited about (other than my own book, of course).” Jan 8, 08:25
- on Weekly Calls as a Safeguard Against Mission Abuses: ““And yet, less savory things do happen. While these instances are often blown out of proportion by critics, pretending they don’t exist creates its own set of problems.” Amen. However, it seems there are many among the faithful who “pretend they don’t exist” whenever someone else, even another among the faithful, raises the reality of the less savory happening. And they do so thinking that they are doing a hero’s work of protecting the faith. I believe open and honest dialogue is healthy for any organization.” Jan 8, 07:03
- on Weekly Calls as a Safeguard Against Mission Abuses: “Just 5-10%, eh? Drawing from my own rather large family as the population, I’d estimate it was more like 20-30% in the 90s and early 00s. But of course, perhaps my family has its own issues.” Jan 8, 06:34
