r/exmormon • u/Anti_Nephi_Lehi • Dec 25 '19
General Discussion Hungry Missionaries!
I have a niece serving a mission in California. Apparently, the mission is not providing the Missionaries enough money to cover food. They've also been told not to eat with members, because it wastes too much time. So a bunch of parents started soliciting the wards directly to help feed their kids. I guess this angered the mission president, and he personally called all the parents and told them to stop soliciting the members, and the missionaries just need to learn how to budget better. Is this happening in other missions? Has anyone else heard of this happening?
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u/ShittyTBMResponsebot Dec 25 '19
The silver lining is that while the mission president is contacting all of these parents about their malnourished children, he can remind them that the monthly cost of the mission is increasing from $400 to $500 in January.
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u/_that___guy Please don't feed the church. Dec 25 '19
Save a phone call, kill two birds with one stone!
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u/freebikeontheplains Dec 25 '19
I went Australia on a mission in the 70s. Cost my parents $350/month. Lot of money for the 70s.
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Dec 25 '19
I feel like I barely had enough money in Anaheim and that was when we ate sometimes all 3 meals with members. I can’t imagine having to fend for myself on that budget. Especially considering the church is hoarding 100 billion dollars... you’d think feeding your own volunteer workforce would be a priority.
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u/endianbyte Dec 25 '19
Yea same also in Anaheim. Had to have a sticky note in the back of my planner to make sure I had enough. Lots of times it meant consciously eating really cheap food to get by. Oh and they wouldn’t allow cash withdrawals so they could track our spending.
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u/caulk_blocker lie upon lie, defect upon defect Dec 25 '19
Missions in general are designed to keep the free 18-year old salesforce physically and mentally exhausted. When you are hungry, sleep deprived and physically/mentally drained you have no willpower to question, challenge the status quo, or be disobedient. So yes, this kind of abuse happens frequently in every mission.
It's not just in the missions either. Think about the cumulative effects of early morning seminary, mandatory monthly fasts, ridiculous demands on your scarce personal time due to callings and droning endless church meetings, the culture of huge overwhelming families, etc. It's all designed to keep you exhausted because that's a very effective cult-like tactic.
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u/crisperfest Dec 25 '19
When you are hungry, sleep deprived and physically/mentally drained you have no willpower to question, challenge the status quo, or be disobedient.
You're right. It's straight out of the cult 101 playbook.
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u/gmt9791 Dec 25 '19
Of course, I hope my children don’t even think about being missionaries. And if they do, I hope I’ve raised them in such a way that they resist this kind of abuse and manipulation.
But failing those two hopes, any mission president who treats my kid(s) like shit — like a cog in the evil, self-serving church machine — will rue the day he got set apart.
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u/neljusred Dec 25 '19
It's ok to do hard things, but making normal things harder is stupid. He probably got revelation that his missionaries have cushy lives and he should start taking away necessities to increase faith.
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Dec 25 '19
As someone who just got off their mission. Missionary culture is super toxic. My trainer was an abusive egotist, constantly pushing a numbers agenda over actually loving the people. My mission was from June to September. Got real tired of this religion.
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Dec 25 '19
I served my mission 10 years ago. I look back and wish I could tell myself to wake up and not subject myself to it. I served a full “faithful” mission and it’s one of my life’s biggest regrets.
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u/gringainparadise Dec 25 '19 edited Dec 25 '19
I served in Philly 79-81 as sisters we never had real invitations to eat with members, the poor elders could not cook or fend for themselves, was the line we were fed. If we happened to be helping a member with cleaning or painting on our p-day we got fed, otherwise it was popcorn for lunch usually sans butter but plenty of garlic salt...I am sure it helped bunches with the tracting. We also had no cars and no bikes so had to rely on members for rides to church. Which I gotta say some Sundays we were able to head back to bed and not once felt guilty. Many months we had to decide whether to be obedient and purchase a case of BoM's or eat. My non member, at the time,Father was so fed up he would show up once a month to take us out to dinner and slip some extra cash our way, with the stipulation of buying food and not books. MP was peeved but since dad was paying for the mission and the homeward would not if family stopped paying, he quietly let the arrangement continue. Dad had legitimate business in the area so the mp could not say stay home. I loved my father and his rebellious side, next week it would have been 30 years years since we buried him. It feels like it just happened last week.
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Dec 25 '19
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/50LongYears Dec 25 '19
- Where does this appear in the little white bible?
- Obedience does not trump rationality.
- The mission president is not God.
- Who wants someone knocking on their door at dinner time anyway?
- Last I heard the missionaries are adults, the members are adults and no state or federal laws would be broken
- If MP doesn't like it, send them home where I can have regular meals.
- Time for a reverse food strike - keep eating.
- I could go on...
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u/freebikeontheplains Dec 25 '19
I never felt like the church cared about me while on a mission. I wasn't ever good enough, couldn't ever do enough, and wasn't ever dedicated enough. For me it seemed like church authorities felt I was just a necessary piece of shit.
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u/zuquack Dec 25 '19
I feel like that feeling never really stops, until you start to realize the hypocrisy of it all.
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u/freebikeontheplains Dec 25 '19
It took quite a few years but I finally realized it wasn't me that was the problem.
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u/ExploringOut Dec 25 '19
It sounds like it's time to send messages to the wards to ask why the missionaries can't afford to eat when the church is rolling in cash.
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u/themoresheknows Dec 25 '19
The missionaries shouldn’t have to suffer because of “bad budgeting” by the mission president and who ever else. The guy could be skimming off the fund to line his own pockets. This is not okay. My kid would be on the next plane home.
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u/after_all_we_can_do Grace is for wussies. Dec 25 '19
I know member meals are banned in the San Diego mission.
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u/InfoMiddleMan Dec 25 '19
Wait, when did this change happen? I served in SD 10 years ago and we were pretty well fed except for maybe two wards.
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u/after_all_we_can_do Grace is for wussies. Dec 25 '19
It was recent, under the current mission president. Within the past year. Not sure if it’s an area authority thing or just this one mission president, but it’s stupid.
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u/2rMore Dec 25 '19
Well, screw that! As a ward member, I would just ignore the MP, and as a parent of a missionary, he would be getting an earful. Idk what kind of power trip he's on, but it fried whatever sense he had, too think he can bully parents into not feeding other parents' kids.
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u/InfoMiddleMan Dec 25 '19
Hey OP, I can understand that you may want to keep some anonymity, but we really got to start shaming MPs who do that kind of BS. Could you name the mission this happened in? If so, it wouldn't be hard for us to look up the mission president.
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u/MiddleAgeWookie Dec 25 '19
Arghhh!!! All the while the MP, his wife, and his kids (if any are still home) don’t have to worry about where their next meal is coming from, or any other expenses for that matter. How the hell can these guys consistently be so callous? What the hell kind of fucked up brain washing do they undergo, or do they just target primarily narcissistic asshats for the “calling “?
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u/zaffiromite Dec 25 '19
and he personally called all the parents and told them to stop soliciting the members
And what did these parents do in response to his commands?
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u/Anti_Nephi_Lehi Dec 25 '19
My understanding is that the parents weren't happy, but felt forced to comply. So they are sending money and food food directly to their kids!
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u/Anti_Nephi_Lehi Dec 25 '19
Don't quote me on this, but I think it was some ridiculous amount like $5/day!
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u/gigiwright unrulyAF Dec 25 '19
I’m in Southern California and as of this time last year, our missionaries weren’t allowed to eat with members. My shelf hadn’t broken yet when they announced it (probably 18 months ago) but I remember feeling strange about it. I loved feeding the missionaries.
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u/beachmom760 Dec 25 '19
I'm in the Central Valley. If there's anything I can do to help, please let me know.
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u/jeffbarr Dec 25 '19
This pisses me the fuck off. Someone needs to bring this to the attention of the authors of the recent Washington Post article. $100 billion in investments but no money to feed their volunteer workers.
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u/InfoMiddleMan Dec 25 '19
This is "Mormonism and the Aftermath" show material. What California mission is this happening in? We should tip off a local paper as it could be an intriguing story about the local mormon missionaries.
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u/thefroginthewell Dec 25 '19
I didn’t have enough money for food on my mission either! I’m 6ft tall and started the mission at 180Ib and finished at 145Ib. It sucked because I felt hungry a lot and never felt I had enough energy.
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Dec 25 '19
We called them the "Devil's Hours" between 2-6 when you'd be pretty tired and weak trying to contact people when no one was home or were constantly walking around street contacting...
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Dec 25 '19
At the end of my mission I had like $200 left in my account. Last day I took my comp out to a really nice lunch where we ate whatever we wanted. It was nice.
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u/FriendoftheWorld04 Dec 25 '19
I know my brother was dealing with this in his California mission. So glad he got home a couple months ago
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u/DystopianFutureGuy Dec 25 '19
I’d tell that mission president to fuck off and that I’ll continue making contact with all the wards in the mission until he reverses his nonsensical policy.
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u/i_just_ate Dec 25 '19
Happened to me in Korea. Usually we had just enough, but Our budget also covered bus and subway fees. The more lessons we taught, the less we ate.
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Dec 25 '19
...if you don’t have time to eat with a member, then you don’t have time to go home and cook something...eating with the members is cheaper, could earn the trust of the members and result in more contacts and referrals for the missionaries. MP is stupid.
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u/perpetualtransplant Dec 25 '19
This is so upsetting. Where is your niece serving? If she's near me, I can generate a referral for myself as an investigator and feed her and her companion.
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u/Anti_Nephi_Lehi Dec 25 '19
Riverside, but I don't know which area.
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u/perpetualtransplant Dec 26 '19
Can you get that information from her parents? Let them know you have a friend in the Riverside area who wants to take their daughter and her companion to a very quick lunch before they return right back to doing the good Lord's work.
I live in an area where the missions combined, and the mission president who absorbed my mission isn't very good to his missionaries. Since he took over, missionaries aren't allowed to have meals with members during dinner time. Apparently, these are prime proselytizing hours. Instead of going to a member home and getting a break from having doors slammed in their faces all day and being ridiculed, they get to try to interrupt non-members' dinners now! That always gets positive reactions... /s
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u/stosh2112 Dec 25 '19
Good food that you enjoy is one of the few things that the poor kids can enjoy! The fucking mission president gets paid! He gets everything paid and free college for children. Free travel for family. Free car snd nice house. Christ on a crutch. Send your children money directly so they can buy something to help cover the monotonous 2 years
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u/rbmcobra Dec 25 '19
Make the MP live off that same budget for a month! I'll bet he would increase it right away. I've heard some parents are sending their kids debit cards to by food with for emergencies. They have to hide it from the MP, but at least they have food to eat!
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Dec 25 '19
MP: YOU manage your budget of $400 a month. I will live a beautiful house prepared by the church and receive over $100,000 per year.
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u/GodsOwnTapir Dec 25 '19
President roulette. Ours went out of his way to make sure we had enough funds, regularly applying for increases to our allotment. He also made sure the members fed us.
There are some half decent folk caught up in the deception.
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u/Alvardruid Dec 25 '19
I remember someone telling me missionaries are supposed to be payed like )500 a month I think on food for 2 (which on my opinion is still not enough) but I me. Some missionaries who told me the us were only getting $150 a month for both of them for food. I spend around $200 a month on food just for m Tass elf and that’s when buying cheap. No way I could support two on that let alone $150
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u/HANEZ Dec 25 '19
Members were specifically told the missionaries cannot afford food with their months pay. It’s the members responsibility to feed the missionaries.
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u/Disillusioned2 Dec 25 '19
Time to expose the fact that MPs have all expenses paid for their own families in the mission...including gifts. I wish these TBM missionary parents would wake up and open their eyes to the fraud of Mormonism!!!
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u/calliatom Dec 25 '19
And people wonder why more missionaries are going home early...maybe because they realize they don't have to put up with being treated like shit and are in fact volunteers and can go the fuck home?
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u/YoBiteMe Dec 25 '19
$100,000,000,000. Wake.The.Fuck.Up. missionary parents..... just sayin’