Missionaries public behavior

[Backroads]

The reason I have never been taken in by anti-Mormon crap over the missionaries is mostly because their theories are about stupid stuff. Like how the religion at one time practiced plural marriage, how they didn't allow blacks in the priesthood for a period of time, how they don't permit gays into the religion, how they turned people away who were in a relationship as a significant other and not married to them, how they make you quit coffee and tea and other stuff before you get baptized.

It is all unimportant crap but the people who live their lives by doing those things find other excuses not to be involved.

So true. Now I can see why people might have issues with some of the many dark things of LDS history and doctrine, but there really has to come a point of "it was history" or "it was a policy of a principle that no longer applies". I dare anyone to name a single group in the history of mankind that has a stellar track record.

[lizzy16]

But I left at 22, 23 years old is not older than what is allowed (I know at least one missionary who left at 24). "

There was a missionary here who was 27. He had been through school and was a dentist :) He had an accent and was was reallyy good looking

[Blackmarch]

So true. Now I can see why people might have issues with some of the many dark things of LDS history and doctrine, but there really has to come a point of "it was history" or "it was a policy of a principle that no longer applies". I dare anyone to name a single group in the history of mankind that has a stellar track record.

I even find that most "dark" stuff doesnt turn out to be that dark at all, and the really reprehensible stuff that has occurred wasn't initiated by high leaders.

[theoriginalavatar]

Here's a story for you!! A non-LDS friend of mine emailed me to ask if our missionaries carried laptops with them. I answered NO as far as I know. The only electronics my son is allowed is a camera and a CD player with no earphones. When I asked her "why" she answered that another Non-LDS friend of hers had seen some clean cut looking young men in McDonalds and assumed the were LDS missionaries. They proceded to pull out a laptop and seemed very engrossed in what they were looking at. When she walked by their table she noticed that it was porn.

I assured her that it was highly unlikely that would ever happen. Was I right?Sometimes I prefer to live in a little bubble and so I'm not aware of or don't want to acknowledge all the icky stuff in the world. I've heard all kinds of ugly stories of missionaries breaking rules but this one sounds over the top.

I'm almost completely sure it wouldn't have been LDS missionaries blatantly breaking rules in public like that. I don't want to start any rumors. But at the same time, could this possibly have happened?

I'll say it right now...my comments are not entirely to do with what you are asking/saying, but they are not unrelated either. Sorry to derail this thread just a bit.

I served my mission in the Republic of China. As you may know, Chinese is a tonal language. In other words, the way you say a word determines its meaning. The word that they used for "latter" as in Latter-days sounded very much like the word for "devil." (They have since changed the official Chinese name of the Church, so I'm sure missionaries there do not face that particular issue.) When we said the name of the church we represented, if we were not very careful with our pronunciation, people were immediately under the impression that we worked for the church of the devil.

Another problem arose when we told them that we were "Elders" in the church. The Chinese term for Elder sounds very much like the word for cockroach. Endless laughter ensued (from children especially) when we told everyone that we were cockroaches.

(It gets better...wait! )

When I was serving my mission, that movie with Harrison Ford was popular (Witness, I believe) that had to do with Amish folks. When the people who translate movie names into chinese got ahold of that film, THEY TRANSLATED THE WORD AMISH AS MORMON!

Everyone thought we were Amish. Our words to the contrary were all but useless. Think about it...we ride bicycles, we don't date, we wear dark suits, we tell people in their homes to turn off the televisions and the radios...

So we did our best to "keep up appearances" as to whom we represented, but it seems that forces out of our control were combined against us.