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Thank you.
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Hello and welcome to another episode of Inside Out.
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I'm Jim Bennett and I'm here as always with Ian Wilkes.
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How are you, Ian?
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I'm very good, Jim.
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How are you?
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I'm doing just fine and I'm really excited about our topic today because it's something that's near and dear to both of our hearts.
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We met when we were missionaries long, long ago, far, far away, and want to talk about the missionary program.
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in 2023.
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We both have personal experience here that I think is going to inform this discussion.
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I'm curious, when you talk about the missionary program now, what's your initial reaction to that?
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It's changed almost beyond recognition compared to when you and I were serving, you know, more old-fashioned, if you like, experience of mission work, you know, going back 30 years or so.
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Now it seems to be, well, it is, it's very much online, it's social media.
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I'm seeing a frequent post by local missionaries who post, you know, their Books of Mormon on Facebook Marketplace or a free Book of Mormon, free service.
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You know, we're offering to come out and trim your bush.
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and the Bible, you know, free Bibles, et cetera, et cetera.
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So it's very different.
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I think the, you know, attracting on doors in Scotland or most parts of the world are difficult even at the best of times.
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We lost count how many times President Banks and some general authorities said that we only get five percent six percent success rate with knocking on doors compared to
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five percent that's huge
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it is it is huge we got less than one percent we did but i think looking at my notes uh they were the percentages i think if there's always a danger if they tell the real percentage yeah it it looks like you're completely wasting your time because we spent 10 hours a day right We were out of the flat at 9.30 on the dot.
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You're on your knees at 9.25, right?
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And you were out by 9.30, physically out the flat, et cetera, and you were out there doing what?
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You were knocking on doors in the rain, and you tracked it right through to 12.
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You had half an hour, if you were lucky.
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I had a companion that wanted to work through all lunches, dinner, and P-days.
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That's another conversation.
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It was my trainer.
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Anyway, we tracked it till 12, had half an hour, and they were back pounding the streets.
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And it didn't really get us very fast.
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So as a percentage of time, you're looking at 95% of your time, 93% of your time knocking on doors.
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And if you assign a minute percentage to that, it looks like it's completely futile.
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Why on earth are you out there?
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And then we'd get reminded.
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often that we're out there for us, which is, I get that, you know, we're out there to build our own testimony and strengthen ourselves.
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And that certainly does that.
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That's a big element of this.
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But the church, a primary objective is convert baptisms, right?
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And those methods were not successful, really.
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I think that when I got there, February 87, I think the whole mission of 152 missionaries had baptized nine people.
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And most of those, I think six or seven of those, left within the first few months.
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Yep.
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Well, I remember there was a big push.
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I mean, we were fasting, and the push was for SEM40, SEM standing for Scotland Edinburgh Mission.
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And the Scotland Edinburgh Mission was going to have 40 baptisms in one month.
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And we fasted for that, and we prayed for that in Zone Conference, and I don't think we even got close.
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We may have hit 30.
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I don't think we did.
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And I remember several zone conferences where, essentially, the mission president would come and tell you what a terrible person you were.
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I mean, President Banks would say, you guys are not doing something right.
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I mean, we only had eight baptisms last month.
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Come on, guys.
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I mean, the guilt trip.
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I told my kids, missions largely run on guilt trips.
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You feel guilty.
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I was the kind of missionary...
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I remember once when you were my zone leader, you came up to Thurso, Scotland, which was probably my favorite area, way up there at the top of the British mainland.
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And you paid me one of the greatest compliments any other missionary has paid me.
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And you said, you cannot waste.
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You guys cannot waste.
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Because you have so many neuroses...
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and so much guilt that if you were to just sit around and waste, and that's a verb that I guess people outside of the mission might not realize, the wasters were the missionaries that didn't do anything or that were lousy missionaries.
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But I was such a neurotic.
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I was the kind of missionary that if I woke up at 635, even through no fault of my own, I had obviously done something wrong by not being righteous enough to have set my alarm properly or to whatever else it was.
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And I would spend most of my days carrying around this huge lump of guilt for everything I wasn't doing or wasn't doing enough of.
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And I look back on it now and it just seems ridiculous because I was pounding my head against the wall as much as I possibly could and still, you know, the success rate was...
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Far less than 5%.
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And we wasted, talk about waste, the idea of knocking on doors.
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Even 35 years ago, it was just a ridiculous, ridiculous thing to do.
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And so, fade out, fade in.
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I have twin boys who served missions.
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They were both called to different missions in Argentina.
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One was called the Buenos Aires, and one was called the Naokin, which is down at the bottom of the country.
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And they served for about six months before the COVID lockdowns.
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And the COVID lockdowns, they were assigned to go sit in their missionary flats and do nothing.
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That was the assignment.
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They didn't have Wi-Fi.
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They didn't have cell phones.
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Smartphones didn't have anything.
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You know, they've changed the mission rules so that they can call home once a week, which was a blessing and to some degree a bit of a curse, because when you have two missionaries serving and they're not doing anything at all, and so they call you and they've got nothing else going on, and they want to talk all day.
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I mean, there were several P-Days where we spent...
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literally eight hours talking to both of our sons.
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They didn't call at the same time, so we would spend four hours with one.
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We'd spend four hours with another.
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So we would spend eight hours, literally eight hours, talking to our missionaries who were bored out of their minds.
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And finally, they'd have to go to the church to use the Wi-Fi at the church.
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Early on, they had to go to kind of an internet cafe, and it was very hard to hear, and the Wi-Fi connection wasn't very good.
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These just were very difficult sorts of conversations.
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But the thing that just leapt out at me throughout that whole experience was these vibrant, brilliant, passionate, dedicated young men are wasting a great deal of time.
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And the church is deliberately wasting their time.
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And I remember they came home right before the April 2020 General Conference.
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And I was kind of excited because I thought, okay, President Nelson has said that this General Conference is going to be completely memorable and he is a prophet.
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And so he clearly got kind of an advance warning that this was going to happen, and this conference is going to address COVID.
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It's going to address how the church should deal with COVID and all of that.
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My sons came home kind of in the dead of night, and the conference came, and the whole conference was a birthday party for the First Vision.
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It was the 200th anniversary of the First Vision, and President Nelson had recorded himself walking through the Sacred Grove, reading a proclamation that we adopted as a church in a solemn assembly with the Hosanna shout.
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And I guarantee you that there isn't even an active member of the church that could tell you anything that's in that proclamation.
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It's been completely forgotten.
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The family proclamation still looms over the church.
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as uncanonized scripture that people put on their walls, but this restoration proclamation that was the center of this entire conference, and the other thing that was unveiled, and it was even unveiled as we received this revelation.
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I'm like, okay, what's this revelation?
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The revelation is this logo.
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And it was the new church logo that uses the sculpture of Christ.
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And I just thought, really?
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That's...
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So this is the unforgettable conference in the middle of a worldwide pandemic.
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My sons are coming home from their missions completely adrift, feeling disconnected from the universe.
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And the church offers us an empty proclamation and a logo.
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That was a really difficult, difficult moment for me.
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But the point is that the missionary program, I think it's impossible to to look at the missionary program objectively and not conclude that it is fundamentally broken.
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There are half as many active members of the church in Scotland as there were when we were there, which means whatever it was we were doing not only didn't work, but it did damage.
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You know, the numbers continue to slide.
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And that's the case in most of the world.
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The church can still claim that it's growing because in developing parts of the world and in African nations, the church is growing.
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But in the developed world, in the United States, it's barely treading water.
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South America, it's peaking out maybe a less than 1% growth rate.
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But in Europe, in Asia, in Japan, in Australia, Anywhere else, the church's missionary program is not working, and the church's numbers are imploding.
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I feel very strongly about this because we went through this.
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My sons came back.
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They came home.
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They were sent back out.
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One was sent to Cincinnati, Ohio.
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One was sent to Tampa Bay, Florida.
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And then the one in Tampa Bay got to go back to Argentina while the other one finished his mission in Cincinnati.
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But there were also some really terrible experiences, particularly with one of my sons, that I'm not necessarily comfortable giving the details of publicly because I don't think that's fair to him.
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But it demonstrated that leader roulette, leadership roulette, is very much a thing in mission.
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That your mission can be made or broken, and a new experience is, but it can be made or broken by your mission president.
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And if you've got a mission president that, if you've got a bad mission president, your mission experience is going to be hell.
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And for one of my kids, it really was.
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And so I now look at this and I say, okay, what do we do?
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How do we fix it?
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How do we change it?
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And I've got all kinds of ideas on that that I could ramble on about for hours on end, but I want to get your perspective on today's missionary program.
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I mean, do you agree that the mission program is broken?
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I do.
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I
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do.
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And the reason why I think I agree with that, rather, is the reason why I agree with that, and I'm coming in from a different angle.
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The most important commodity, the most important valuable and most precious commodity is time.
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We're on this planet for a relatively short period of time.
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When we're young, you know, our time, it seems to go slow when you get older, it goes faster.
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But, you know, those time that you spend when you're young in college, you know, career, work, missions, you know, that's an important stage of life.
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And if the church isn't, and it certainly isn't, isn't respecting what is the most invaluable, precious commodity, which is time.
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Think about all the time we put into the callings there.
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And the effort that a young missionary, a commitment a young missionary has to give and sacrifice, and it is a sacrifice, it's quite extraordinary, it really is.
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And so, you know, on our missions, we were, as I listened to you, we were reminded of a few important points.
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And that was, we are...
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knocking on doors, proselyting is not as effective as getting referrals.
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The referral program in Scotland back then was terrible.
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It was like pulling teeth.
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Trying to get referrals from members was excruciatingly painful.
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And there was reasons why the members couldn't or didn't want to provide names of their friends or their family.
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for different reasons.
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They were comfortable.
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They were probably embarrassed.
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They weren't ready.
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In some cases, they didn't even know they were members of the church.
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In other cases, they were afraid of losing a friendship and taking advantage of leveraging that friendship to encourage them or invite them to investigate the church.
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We were also reminded by two mission presence general authorities and a couple of apostles that, okay, you might not be successful in Scotland right now, you might have only had one or two baptisms in the entire mission, but remember, elders, you're laying the seeds for the future generations, that these Conversations that are happening right now, these lessons, albeit many are not joining the church, you're laying the foundation for greater success in 30 years from now, 25, 30 years from now, the church in Scotland will prosper.
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We will have a temple.
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The church membership will double, triple.
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You elders are laying the foundation.
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They might not join in your time.
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Remember that your time is not the Lord's time, but you're laying those foundation for the future and the church will prosper forever.
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in the generations to come.
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The reality is that that is completely opposite.
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The church has failed and continues to fail on a pretty big scale in Scotland.
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I'm convinced now that the church in Scotland is a bit harsh.
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Maybe from a missionary perspective, there's a lost cause and the church is now reorganising, realigning and re-coordinating its resources elsewhere.
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away from Scotland that is not having success in other parts of the world and putting those resources into other countries where they can get quicker, faster gains in order to maintain that progress.
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So I think the church has not given up entirely in countries like Scotland.
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By the way, there's been a couple of buildings I think that have been sold.
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I think the Govan Chapel, I think it's Govan in Glasgow, was sold.
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Unfortunately, I think it was turned into a working men's club or a pub.
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That's what I'm hearing, and I don't think that's...
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Glasgow Chapel is a pub now?
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Glasgow.
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I
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think it's one of the buildings there, one of the chapels.
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I think you can Google this.
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I know that the Drum Chapel building was sold.
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It was sold actually 30 years ago.
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It was sold in the early 90s.
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I'm thinking there's
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another one there.
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I'm thinking another more recent in the last two or three years.
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The memory doesn't serve me here, but...
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where a building was sold and it's been used for something else.
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So the church has been in heavy decline in Scotland.
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It's in decline in England, but not at the same rate.
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And I think the church has moved many of its resources away from these countries.
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They've also joined the Irish mission and the Scotland mission, so the Scotland-Irish mission.
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And I think that's down to all these factors in terms of the lack of success.
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We also have a problem where you just haven't got the– certain countries, you haven't got the leadership and you haven't got the time or the resources to commit to the missionary resources where you've got 150 missionaries with all that time and what do they do with the time.
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And then go to your question to contrast those traditional conventional missionary efforts that you and I are familiar with with what we're seeing today.
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We're seeing a barrier to reaching people because people are not comfortable someone knocking on their door late at night, six, seven o'clock in the dark, a complete stranger.
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So we have security related issues.
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There's also countries which have laws that prohibit soliciting and people coming onto your property without invitation.
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So there's those concerns as well, issues.
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And you've got limited referrals.
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And so right now with social media and all the different tools that are available online, you've got young men like your boys, wonderful people, going out and having conversations online.
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It's very different to, you know, notwithstanding the lack of success that you and I experienced in Scotland, we would get into homes at times.
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We would meet extraordinary people.
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You know, most of the time or a lot of the time when they're knocking on the door, the response would be, you know, when we introduced ourselves and who we were and, And it was clear that we were going to talk about religion.
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And we go on topics like, you know, life and death, why we're here, where we're going, and et cetera.
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We'd often hear, you know, when you did, you did.
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When you did, you did.
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That's it.
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You do it better.
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Yeah, we'd hear that a lot.
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And so it was very difficult.
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to make progress in Scotland.
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Notwithstanding, we did talk to people.
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We met some colourful characters.
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Sometimes, if we were lucky, got into the homes and talked.
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We had some profound experiences and met friends.
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I'm still in touch with a couple of people that I've connected with who never joined the church, who I tried to, through other part-member families.
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who I've become close friends with over the years.
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So our experience, albeit we were not successful in terms of numbers of people being baptized, was in many ways very rich, some rewarding, certainly challenging, and a very human experience when we were meeting people physically, face-to-face.
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That's a very different experience than having a conversation with someone online who you can't see You don't know who they are.
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You don't know who this person is on the other side of the internet.
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And I can't imagine how difficult that is for these young people to have an online conversation with someone they can't see, they don't know, and certainly how do they attempt to answer some of the questions.
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One other point I want to throw in there as well, it is a point in respect to the angle that I'm coming in, to this.
00:21:18.067 --> 00:21:20.189
You know, we've called the podcast Inside Out.
00:21:20.269 --> 00:21:22.771
You've got an internal experience with your boys.
00:21:23.432 --> 00:21:26.277
I have an internal slash external experience.
00:21:26.317 --> 00:21:37.451
So in 2013, when I was on the state presidency there, I was going through wrestling with a whole series of doubts, questions, concerns, very legitimate concerns.
00:21:38.372 --> 00:21:47.383
And my boys were being encouraged within our home and certainly at church to prepare us for their mission.
00:21:47.423 --> 00:21:48.664
This is 10 years ago.
00:21:48.704 --> 00:21:51.288
And what do they do to prepare for the missions?
00:21:51.328 --> 00:21:53.893
I think it's totally 2015, actually.
00:21:53.913 --> 00:21:54.994
This is 2015.
00:21:55.635 --> 00:22:02.547
And I was right in the middle of my 2015, right in the middle of my faith or truth crisis.
00:22:03.167 --> 00:22:09.919
And I felt prompted or felt inclined to reach out to a wonderful man called Hans Matzing.
00:22:10.460 --> 00:22:15.915
And Hans, if you're hearing this, you might recall this conversation we had An interesting conversation.
00:22:15.955 --> 00:22:23.326
I was in my office in Calgary and I had messaged Hans, who was a former general authority of the church, who left the church.
00:22:23.365 --> 00:22:25.228
You probably have heard Hans' podcast.
00:22:25.248 --> 00:22:30.694
He's an extraordinary individual, a wonderful, kind, thoughtful individual.
00:22:31.215 --> 00:22:36.303
But I felt the need to call him or to ask him if I could speak to him.
00:22:36.623 --> 00:22:37.324
I needed some advice.
00:22:37.785 --> 00:22:38.705
I'd heard his podcast.
00:22:38.806 --> 00:22:48.808
I thought there's an individual that probably could help me decide if and how I should encourage my boys, my two older boys at that time, to serve missions.
00:22:49.529 --> 00:22:55.497
And because of all the issues that we didn't want our boys going out on a mission, trusting those of their parents.
00:22:56.357 --> 00:22:57.239
Think about that for a moment.
00:22:57.298 --> 00:23:00.061
These are people that we have a great relationship.
00:23:00.522 --> 00:23:01.864
They trust us implicitly.
00:23:01.903 --> 00:23:09.613
They were very much keen, committed to go on missions, partly because they wanted to be obedient or to do the right thing.
00:23:09.633 --> 00:23:15.455
They were being encouraged by parents that they love and respect, and they trusted us that that was the right thing to do for them.
00:23:15.496 --> 00:23:20.001
They said, Mom, Dad, if this is the right thing to do, then we will do that.
00:23:20.423 --> 00:23:34.540
We will honor the church, honor the principles, honor the missionary call from the prophet, honor the parents, and we will go out and devote our two years and live and have a fulfilled, rewarding missionary experience, and we will give our all.
00:23:35.762 --> 00:23:53.093
So we couldn't, in good conscience, send our boys out who are very innocent and know or understand a certain version of the church, a certain narrative, the traditional narrative, which is in the Preach My Gospel manual.
00:23:53.433 --> 00:24:00.786
And by the way, I've had two conversations with mission presidents who said, when I've asked them about these other materials in the essays, do they teach that?
00:24:00.865 --> 00:24:05.067
And twice they've responded and said, Again, two different mission presidents.
00:24:05.449 --> 00:24:10.457
They said that if it's not in the Preach My Gospel official material, then we don't teach it, end quote.
00:24:11.178 --> 00:24:24.940
And so we couldn't in good conscience send our boys out knowing that there were serious issues and then finding out these issues and then having a problem because they're very innocent.
00:24:25.641 --> 00:24:26.261
They trust us.
00:24:27.124 --> 00:24:27.984
They trusted the church.
00:24:28.546 --> 00:24:33.790
And then they find these issues through less active members or online or someone asks them a question online or whatever.
00:24:33.810 --> 00:24:36.313
And then they write home and ask me a question.
00:24:36.353 --> 00:24:37.453
And then I, what do I do?
00:24:37.473 --> 00:24:38.173
Do I lie to them?
00:24:38.213 --> 00:24:39.895
Do I say, you know, keep, stay obedient?
00:24:40.256 --> 00:24:42.317
These questions are not the right questions.
00:24:42.357 --> 00:24:43.598
You're not asking the right questions.
00:24:44.559 --> 00:24:46.602
Put it to the side, deal with it when you come back.
00:24:46.642 --> 00:24:47.863
We're just not like that.
00:24:47.903 --> 00:24:48.702
We couldn't be like that.
00:24:48.723 --> 00:24:49.944
We certainly didn't want to be like that.
00:24:50.525 --> 00:24:54.188
So I needed some advice about what to do with our boys.
00:24:54.288 --> 00:24:55.269
Do we send them on missions?
00:24:55.308 --> 00:24:56.509
Do we continue the path?
00:24:56.529 --> 00:24:59.272
And as they were heading in that direction, to serve missions.
00:24:59.732 --> 00:25:05.818
And like your boys, my boys are just extraordinary people and very trusting of the parents.
00:25:06.358 --> 00:25:15.446
So I, Hans accepted my request or invitation to meet, to have a conversation.
00:25:15.487 --> 00:25:16.087
And I called him.
00:25:16.669 --> 00:25:18.990
We had two conversations on a phone call from Calgary.
00:25:19.691 --> 00:25:22.753
And I explained, you know, my background, my situation, the situation with my boys.
00:25:22.773 --> 00:25:23.994
And I asked him, Hans, what would you do?
00:25:25.215 --> 00:25:25.696
What would you do?
00:25:25.737 --> 00:25:26.396
When would you do it?
00:25:26.477 --> 00:25:26.958
How would you do it?
00:25:27.682 --> 00:25:35.213
And he gave me some excellent advice, which actually was a lifesaver in regards to the boys.
00:25:35.294 --> 00:25:55.133
And the conclusion after that call, and we discussed this as a family later, was not to send our boys on missions, to be completely honest, brutally honest about the issues and concerns at some point, to have that conversation with the boys, which we did later, a few weeks later, having really thought about this and prepared for this.
00:25:56.074 --> 00:26:02.443
And he said some extraordinary things, which I don't want to share here, but profound counsel, wonderful man.
00:26:02.844 --> 00:26:08.573
And basically the message was that think carefully before you send your boys out on missions.
00:26:09.073 --> 00:26:11.036
But going back to the church at the time.
00:26:11.616 --> 00:26:12.878
Yeah, I was still active.
00:26:12.898 --> 00:26:13.901
I was on the...
00:26:14.080 --> 00:26:18.007
Was I still on the state presidency at the time, wrestling with these issues?
00:26:18.467 --> 00:26:19.528
Do we send our boys out?
00:26:20.450 --> 00:26:21.332
Who could I turn to?
00:26:21.352 --> 00:26:22.432
I couldn't turn to my...
00:26:22.978 --> 00:26:30.345
my stake, any member of the state presidency or my bishop, because it would flag up that I have concerns or doubts.
00:26:30.944 --> 00:26:38.152
I couldn't go to family in the UK because they were all active and I didn't want to disrupt those relationships.
00:26:38.231 --> 00:26:40.134
We felt a bit isolated, alone.
00:26:40.574 --> 00:26:48.902
I'd listen to some podcasts, but I couldn't get anything that was specific to my situation, our situation in the family.
00:26:48.922 --> 00:27:30.988
You know, if you've got a problem, you go to your bishop and your trusted bishop will help you and not disclose anything personal and you get you receive a very personal counsel advice which i think is is great um or can be great if the advice is good and so hans was instrumental in our decision not to send the boys on full-time missions um we eventually opened up with the boys explainer our concerns issues and they were incredibly um uh positive and responsive and actually deeply, immensely respectful that we had put them first and their mental well-being and physical well-being first before the church.
00:27:31.868 --> 00:27:47.548
And I, again, there's no way, I couldn't live with myself setting my sons into, you know, to promote and teach things that, some things at least, that I realized at that time either had issues or simply were not true or wasn't the full truth.
00:27:48.348 --> 00:28:00.981
In hindsight, that decision to have that conversation, and eventually, which led to my boys deciding themselves, unilaterally, to decide not to continue to go to church.
00:28:01.021 --> 00:28:01.903
They stopped going to church.
00:28:02.403 --> 00:28:10.912
It's turned out to be, for us as a family, for them, for me personally and other members of the family, it's certainly for them to be absolutely the right thing to do.
00:28:11.732 --> 00:28:20.481
We've talked about it since, and the boys see missionaries approaching them or trying to contact them online.
00:28:20.521 --> 00:28:33.598
And they've also heard and seen the struggles that current missionaries who are serving across the world today, how they struggle and often keep their concerns and issues to themselves privately.
00:28:34.559 --> 00:28:36.001
There is a worry in mission.
00:28:36.061 --> 00:28:38.125
You know, you talked about missions being driven by guilt.
00:28:38.885 --> 00:28:39.826
I don't think that's true.
00:28:39.886 --> 00:28:40.928
It certainly was in our mission.
00:28:41.068 --> 00:28:42.269
I think that is in most missions.
00:28:43.090 --> 00:28:45.193
That's not the best motivator by any means.
00:28:45.857 --> 00:28:52.566
And I think you've got that same guilt motivation that exists today with the current missionaries.
00:28:53.186 --> 00:29:01.376
I know of several missionaries, too many actually, who are fearful of sharing their thoughts and concerns about gospel topics.
00:29:02.258 --> 00:29:08.445
They've read essays, they've got questions, and they've been instructed and reminded by the mission president to stay quiet.
00:29:08.577 --> 00:29:11.961
true to the, on the covenant path, as we're told.
00:29:12.560 --> 00:29:19.106
And to stay, just focus on the material in the Preach My Gospel, Book of Mormon, Bible.
00:29:19.366 --> 00:29:20.587
Stay away from this other material.
00:29:20.607 --> 00:29:21.568
Stay away from these questions.
00:29:22.069 --> 00:29:24.050
If you have concerns, pray fast.
00:29:24.551 --> 00:29:25.152
Talk to us.
00:29:26.093 --> 00:29:29.977
By the way, if you have concerns, by all means, email and write home.
00:29:31.057 --> 00:29:35.682
And by the way, in case you don't know, we do read your emails through the LDS server.
00:29:35.701 --> 00:29:37.383
And I do know that that has happened.
00:29:37.983 --> 00:29:50.134
I know from From first-hand experience, I won't share the name, but people I know personally really, really well who have shared their experience on a mission.
00:29:50.294 --> 00:29:51.234
Recently, they came home.
00:29:51.275 --> 00:29:52.096
They came home early.
00:29:52.135 --> 00:30:07.730
And the mission present was somewhat destructive in this individual's life and had a profound negative impact on this individual, affected their self-esteem, self-worth.
00:30:08.258 --> 00:30:21.692
And the mission president, in my opinion, understanding and trusting this individual who got sent home, had made that decision a bit wrongly, incorrectly.
00:30:22.054 --> 00:30:23.237
This person shouldn't have gone home.
00:30:23.809 --> 00:30:29.678
And it's had a very negative impact and effect on them as an individual.
00:30:30.419 --> 00:30:34.203
And so there is that leadership roulette, for sure, that happens at the mission president level.
00:30:34.263 --> 00:30:40.833
Mission presidents are under immense pressure, intense pressure, to get the numbers up and to do what they can to use the mission resources.
00:30:41.334 --> 00:30:42.796
But it's failing.
00:30:42.955 --> 00:30:43.938
The online is failing.
00:30:43.998 --> 00:30:45.880
It's failing our people, failing the young missionaries.
00:30:46.461 --> 00:30:48.002
It's not the same experience that they're having.
00:30:48.463 --> 00:30:55.053
There's an immense amount of guilt, mental health-related issues, as I've seen, And they're desperate to find...
00:30:56.035 --> 00:31:00.261
I feel sorry for them because they're under intense pressure to have some success.
00:31:00.602 --> 00:31:02.525
And they're not meeting people.
00:31:03.386 --> 00:31:04.407
They're not getting the referrals.
00:31:05.170 --> 00:31:08.214
The mental health is at risk, many of them.
00:31:08.996 --> 00:31:12.961
And it's completely messing with their life and messing with their mind.
00:31:13.082 --> 00:31:14.565
And I think it's a tragedy.
00:31:15.185 --> 00:31:16.448
And they can't talk.
00:31:16.488 --> 00:31:17.569
They don't feel safe.
00:31:18.273 --> 00:31:28.846
to open up to their companion, who will write to the mission president about his companion, or speak to the APs, or the general leader, or the mission president, because they're now seen as a problem missionary.
00:31:29.367 --> 00:31:30.709
They don't want to be seen as a problem missionary.
00:31:30.729 --> 00:31:43.407
They want to come back as a successful missionary, but they're hiding and covering up these very serious conflicts, which and not very good for your mental health.
00:31:43.708 --> 00:31:49.295
You point out the fact that they're not knocking on doors as much, although my sons still knocked on doors.
00:31:49.315 --> 00:31:50.796
They did what they called, they clapped.
00:31:51.636 --> 00:31:53.960
You couldn't walk up to a door and knock on it.
00:31:54.421 --> 00:31:59.566
You'd stand at the fence and you'd clap your hands to let them know you were there.
00:31:59.586 --> 00:32:02.450
I think that was an Argentinian thing.
00:32:02.950 --> 00:32:11.839
But the knocking on doors, the 1950s sales model is still alive and well.
00:32:12.682 --> 00:32:17.508
Although COVID, I think, forced the church to look at more online things.
00:32:17.567 --> 00:32:19.730
And yes, they're doing more and more things online.
00:32:20.612 --> 00:32:34.549
The problem is the mindset, even if you're doing stuff online, the mindset is still aimed at the kind of door-to-door thinking that we had 35 years ago.
00:32:36.633 --> 00:32:41.963
Because you talk about, oh, you're not allowed to talk about this, you're not allowed to talk about that.
00:32:43.086 --> 00:32:56.964
Well, okay, that works in an environment where there's no internet, and the only way that you can find any disturbing information about the church is from weird little pamphlets that pastors deliver to people.
00:32:57.566 --> 00:33:12.935
You know, you've had that experience, I've had that experience, you're teaching somebody, and then all of a sudden they show up with this pamphlet that their pastor gave them, and I was always quick to say, aha, see, Satan knows that we're having success here and is trying to thwart us.
00:33:14.137 --> 00:33:25.516
And that kind of a mindset is still in place in a world where all of that information is at everybody's fingertips.
00:33:26.636 --> 00:33:34.412
And it comes instantly the minute you spend five minutes on Google asking questions about the church.
00:33:34.451 --> 00:33:35.835
You'll find out about polygamy.
00:33:35.875 --> 00:33:37.436
You'll find out about racism.
00:33:37.477 --> 00:33:44.106
You'll find out about the church's$100 billion that they're stockpiling.
00:33:44.166 --> 00:33:49.494
I mean, you'll find out every piece of information that you're not supposed to talk about.
00:33:49.535 --> 00:34:02.374
And sending these missionaries into those discussions and saying you can't talk about these things, even things, as you point out, that are in the gospel topics essays that the church has actually published.
00:34:02.882 --> 00:34:04.324
They don't know how to talk about them.
00:34:04.984 --> 00:34:10.672
So you're sending these missionaries out and tying their hands behind their back and saying, get to work.
00:34:11.554 --> 00:34:24.492
And it just, I've said this many times to people, is that the church is in the middle of a transition that it's not willing to admit that it's in.
00:34:24.512 --> 00:34:31.342
It applies to missionary work, but I think it applies to just about everything that the church is doing.
00:34:32.161 --> 00:34:52.086
The church is being dragged, kicking and screaming into the information age and refuses to acknowledge the reality of how information is passed and how information is exchanged.
00:34:52.407 --> 00:34:58.074
We keep trying to pretend that what David O.
00:34:58.114 --> 00:35:02.960
McKay did in the 1950s is still something that works.
00:35:03.661 --> 00:35:04.302
And it isn't.
00:35:06.085 --> 00:35:10.630
But the problem is we have not struck upon the thing that does work.
00:35:11.451 --> 00:35:24.688
And so if I were made president of the church, I think half the church would apostatize because they'd be very disturbed that some goofball like me is ascended to that office.
00:35:24.748 --> 00:35:40.601
But were that to happen, and I were in charge of the missionary program, What I would do is I would transform the missionary program into a 100% service mission.
00:35:42.463 --> 00:35:45.007
That is, there'd be some specialization.
00:35:45.146 --> 00:36:11.076
I mean, I think that some missionaries could be called as teaching missionaries or something, but the reality is the way that we are going to influence the world And the way that we are going to get people to look at the church and say, that's something that is valuable, that's something I want to be a part of, is to set the church up as what Jesus called the light on the hill.
00:36:11.115 --> 00:36:24.630
Imagine, for instance, that you're the Red Cross, and you realize that you have a constant stream of volunteers in the form of Mormon missionaries.
00:36:25.186 --> 00:36:29.431
who are going to come, and they're going to essentially work for the Red Cross, and they're not going to proselyte.
00:36:30.193 --> 00:36:34.800
They're just going to work as service missionaries trying to help other people.
00:36:36.722 --> 00:36:38.465
How much good for the church would that do?
00:36:38.505 --> 00:36:44.313
I think it would do so much more, and I think it would lead to more convert baptisms.
00:36:45.034 --> 00:37:05.382
Because, you know, you joined the church not because you were persuaded by some kind of powerful doctrinal thesis or or some kind of Bible bashing argument, you joined the church because you found yourself in a group of people that you admired and that had something you didn't and something you wanted.
00:37:06.623 --> 00:37:15.052
And I would posit that 80, 90% of the people who joined the church, if not higher, do so for the same reasons.
00:37:15.652 --> 00:37:18.695
They don't do so for theological reasons necessarily.
00:37:18.856 --> 00:37:26.902
They do so because The church has demonstrated something to them that is adding something to their life that they did not have.
00:37:27.802 --> 00:37:33.489
And so if we were to send out missionaries and say, you're going to spend two years, essentially, in the Peace Corps.
00:37:34.090 --> 00:37:36.514
You're going to spend two years serving people.
00:37:36.534 --> 00:37:41.159
Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
00:37:41.199 --> 00:37:44.445
You are going to spend two years in Christlike service.
00:37:45.525 --> 00:37:48.489
And everybody will know who you are.
00:37:49.057 --> 00:38:07.135
We may be saying, okay, we'll wear a name tag or we'll do whatever, but everybody will know that you're members of the church, and the church's reputation will be a reputation for a service organization in a way that will start the kinds of conversations that lead to baptisms.
00:38:07.655 --> 00:38:21.304
You don't start those kinds of conversations at a phone call, at a doorstep, wearing a suit, in a country that, in a white shirt, in a country that doesn't dress like that.
00:38:21.523 --> 00:38:22.445
And you're an American.
00:38:22.625 --> 00:38:26.650
And I mean, we have to adapt.
00:38:26.889 --> 00:38:30.052
And that would be how I would do it.
00:38:31.213 --> 00:38:36.559
And the pushback when I talk about that, it's like, well, that's not really a mission, right?
00:38:36.619 --> 00:38:40.242
You and I spent time in Thurso.
00:38:40.262 --> 00:38:45.489
I think he's probably passed away by now.
00:38:45.528 --> 00:38:46.630
He'd be in his 90s.
00:38:47.362 --> 00:38:49.003
But there was a couple missionary...
00:38:49.304 --> 00:38:51.367
I don't want to even say their names, because I don't want to...
00:38:53.349 --> 00:38:54.552
Anyway, but...
00:38:55.492 --> 00:38:56.815
I know whom you speak of.
00:38:56.835 --> 00:38:57.876
You know whom I speak.
00:38:57.896 --> 00:39:02.382
There was a couple missionary, and this guy, I remember he went on splits with you.
00:39:02.422 --> 00:39:03.505
He wanted to...
00:39:03.704 --> 00:39:04.626
He didn't want to...
00:39:05.867 --> 00:39:10.193
He was called to be the branch president of that little tiny branch that had three people in it.
00:39:11.335 --> 00:39:12.536
But he didn't want to do that.
00:39:12.597 --> 00:39:14.360
He wanted to be a missionary, right?
00:39:14.400 --> 00:39:15.641
He wanted to knock on doors...
00:39:16.514 --> 00:39:19.617
And he would scream at people on their doorsteps.
00:39:20.577 --> 00:39:25.422
And I remember I finally called the mission president and said, this is not working.
00:39:25.483 --> 00:39:26.503
This guy is scary.
00:39:27.164 --> 00:39:28.385
He's scaring everybody.
00:39:28.425 --> 00:39:34.893
And so President Banks came up to Thurso and sat down in a room.
00:39:35.293 --> 00:39:39.898
And this elderly missionary said, I don't even feel like I'm on a mission.
00:39:41.239 --> 00:39:42.240
He says, why am I here?
00:39:42.280 --> 00:39:43.141
I'm not even on a mission.
00:39:43.746 --> 00:39:48.994
You want me to manage church meetings, and you want me to do all this, but I want to be on a mission.
00:39:49.054 --> 00:39:50.255
I want to convert people.
00:39:51.778 --> 00:39:56.947
And he eventually got pulled from that assignment and was sent somewhere else.
00:39:58.168 --> 00:40:00.152
But, I mean, you have really funny stories.
00:40:00.172 --> 00:40:06.382
I remember you coming back from splits with this guy, and your face was ash and white.
00:40:07.170 --> 00:40:10.835
And you said, oh, let me tell you about my afternoon.
00:40:11.476 --> 00:40:11.675
There were
00:40:12.577 --> 00:40:19.987
a few times I looked like, you know, as white and pale as I did.
00:40:21.610 --> 00:40:24.434
That, interacting with that individual, and he was a good man.
00:40:24.494 --> 00:40:27.898
I think he had a good heart, but his style and approach was scary.
00:40:27.918 --> 00:40:38.711
I lost count how many, I think I was with him for a few hours, maybe the day, and It was pretty intense, and people would tell him who they are, and they would say, look, we're not interested.
00:40:38.751 --> 00:40:40.134
And he was like, what?
00:40:41.135 --> 00:40:42.856
What do you mean you're not interested?
00:40:42.916 --> 00:40:43.717
This is the truth.
00:40:44.438 --> 00:40:45.278
We have the truth.
00:40:46.139 --> 00:40:48.762
And he said, well, yeah, but we go to the Church of Scotland.
00:40:49.123 --> 00:40:50.784
The Church of Scotland is of the devil.
00:40:50.824 --> 00:40:53.668
He would say, it's of the devil.
00:40:53.708 --> 00:40:54.909
This is not the true church.
00:40:55.449 --> 00:40:56.449
We are the true church.
00:40:57.371 --> 00:40:58.371
This is the way forward.
00:40:58.411 --> 00:40:59.813
This is the path to salvation.
00:41:00.226 --> 00:41:02.108
you must accept this message.
00:41:02.668 --> 00:41:07.173
And on one doorstep, this old man and him got in a little bit heated argument.
00:41:07.634 --> 00:41:18.346
And basically he stamped his foot down and with a bright red phrase said, you are going to hell.
00:41:20.809 --> 00:41:21.550
I was speechless.
00:41:21.829 --> 00:41:27.135
And so I said, look, you know, Elder so-and-so, just go to the gate, walk to the gate.
00:41:28.961 --> 00:41:32.746
I did this a few times on the mission with missionaries and some couples.
00:41:32.786 --> 00:41:33.867
It was difficult.
00:41:34.807 --> 00:41:36.369
And so I apologized.
00:41:36.489 --> 00:41:37.831
I said, I'm so sorry.
00:41:37.971 --> 00:41:39.853
I said, he's from America.
00:41:39.893 --> 00:41:41.333
He's from America.
00:41:42.614 --> 00:41:44.717
And I said, he's from this.
00:41:45.097 --> 00:41:47.219
He's got a different take on religion.
00:41:47.260 --> 00:41:48.360
I'm so sorry.
00:41:48.400 --> 00:41:50.202
This person was so upset.
00:41:50.983 --> 00:42:00.925
We had so many of those angry between this individual and people on the door.
00:42:00.985 --> 00:42:02.429
It was very uncomfortable.
00:42:02.449 --> 00:42:05.695
He wasn't cut out for knocking on doors.
00:42:05.755 --> 00:42:06.657
He was very offended.
00:42:06.717 --> 00:42:11.289
He couldn't understand why they weren't opening the doors and accepting the gospel.
00:42:11.329 --> 00:42:14.054
He just couldn't figure out why they weren't feeling the spirit.
00:42:14.114 --> 00:42:37.791
He also told people on the door that they didn't feel the spirit because they were sinning even said to somebody you're probably living with somebody uh out of uh you know out of marriage and therefore you don't have the spirit with you and you go to your church church of scotland you're not going to have the spirit with you and and so it was very offensive for people on the door and and i had to take him aside a few times and have some very strong words with him and i I just couldn't make any progress.
00:42:37.811 --> 00:42:39.893
That was a whole experience in itself, for sure.
00:42:41.235 --> 00:42:45.378
Going to your point there, your really important point, and you stole my thunder, by the way.
00:42:47.061 --> 00:42:47.722
That's okay.
00:42:47.742 --> 00:42:48.061
That's good.
00:42:48.081 --> 00:42:56.851
It was no surprise and no coincidence that just as you were talking earlier, and I've known this for a long, long time.
00:42:56.871 --> 00:42:58.052
I'm not saying I have all the answers.
00:42:58.092 --> 00:42:58.733
I'm not the only one.
00:42:58.753 --> 00:43:00.574
The I didn't come from me, nothing like that.
00:43:00.635 --> 00:43:01.476
I can't take credit for it.
00:43:01.996 --> 00:43:37.539
But the answer is, staring at the leaders in front of the leaders right now under their nose right now is to have all that significant global missionary force and those resources um commit to service projects um where they're not focusing primarily on baptisms or proselyting or trying to you know teach so many lessons in a day etc they're actually out there in civilian dress By the way, civilian dress, sure, keep my name tag on, that's fine, but actively involved in outreach programmes with charities, with organisations.
00:43:38.081 --> 00:43:40.083
Help, you know, food drives, for example.
00:43:40.123 --> 00:43:41.684
Look at the cost of food right now, right?
00:43:42.326 --> 00:43:43.827
The cost of food has gone through the roof.
00:43:43.887 --> 00:43:47.010
Could we not have them organizing a food drive, for goodness sake, right?
00:43:47.030 --> 00:44:01.983
We have an annual state food drive, but couldn't we apply all those mission efforts globally to organizing a food drive or doing more meaningful service projects which are having a direct impact on people's, you know, level of poverty?
00:44:02.023 --> 00:44:03.804
We have energy poverty going on.
00:44:03.824 --> 00:44:05.385
We have food poverty going on.
00:44:06.005 --> 00:44:07.887
We have people who can't afford the water bills.
00:44:08.047 --> 00:44:35.260
120 billion dollars that the church has set on a significant uh resource in the mystery effort by the way uh this happened a couple of times when i visited the uk from canada at one time i was in edinburgh and i was in a with a friend uh staying at b&b an old friend of mine um we prepared a mission together we were heading out into edinburgh from uh they call them to road near the mission um we went into the mission home by the way and we had an interesting conversation that's another Time for another podcast.
00:44:35.561 --> 00:44:39.248
But we stood at the bus stop there, just near Collington Road, where the Mission Home is.
00:44:39.789 --> 00:44:43.597
And we were heading into Edinburgh on the Crimson double-decker buses, right?
00:44:44.760 --> 00:44:49.831
And at the bus stop, there was an outreach poster.
00:44:50.130 --> 00:44:50.572
And it was...
00:44:51.681 --> 00:44:54.945
It was Help the Poor, Feed the Poor.
00:44:55.025 --> 00:45:03.336
I can't remember the exact words, but it was a number of churches, Church of Scotland, the Free Church of Scotland was involved, the Methodist Church.
00:45:03.556 --> 00:45:14.530
It listed about six, seven, maybe eight churches and some other charities that were in Edinburgh that were working together to help the homeless, actually.
00:45:14.550 --> 00:45:16.112
It was the homeless shelters in Edinburgh.
00:45:16.152 --> 00:45:27.184
And I've had some direct experience with homeless people shelters in Edinburgh through a charity, actually, that I owned and operated a number of years ago.
00:45:27.204 --> 00:45:34.496
And so this was a poster at a bus stop talking about the needs that these homeless individuals have.
00:45:35.376 --> 00:45:37.701
And you had all these churches listed.
00:45:38.161 --> 00:45:43.030
And the one thing that just struck me, struck me really hard was, where's our church?
00:45:43.713 --> 00:45:45.135
Where the heck is our church?
00:45:45.195 --> 00:45:48.219
We're a super intelligent church.
00:45:48.601 --> 00:45:49.702
We're very well organized.
00:45:50.123 --> 00:45:54.007
We're coordinated and resourced at almost every level.
00:45:54.668 --> 00:45:55.849
We've got all these resources.
00:45:55.891 --> 00:45:56.692
We have all this money.
00:45:56.711 --> 00:46:05.864
We teach the Christian principles and what Jesus Christ taught to feed the homeless, help the needy.
00:46:06.664 --> 00:46:09.869
Fundamental principles of what Jesus Christ taught.
00:46:10.561 --> 00:46:17.853
Helping people, you know, feeding people, housing people, et cetera, who are homeless, et cetera.
00:46:17.893 --> 00:46:19.175
You couldn't get more basic than that.
00:46:20.057 --> 00:46:21.159
And there we are.
00:46:21.199 --> 00:46:26.708
There we see this poster and the church is not even referenced at all.
00:46:27.150 --> 00:46:30.074
And so I find that an absolute tragedy.
00:46:30.155 --> 00:46:35.003
And I've tried to have these conversations, Jim, with general authorities and I think one apostle.
00:46:35.483 --> 00:46:42.012
And if they can hear this right now, I don't know if they see it, know it, and it's too expensive.
00:46:42.032 --> 00:46:44.114
I think that's a factor without sounding too cynical.
00:46:44.635 --> 00:46:51.445
But this solution, because the missionary program right now is completely broken, totally broken at every level.
00:46:52.126 --> 00:46:54.971
It's not only affecting people's lives, it's damaging their lives, right?
00:46:55.632 --> 00:46:56.632
It's destructive.
00:46:56.672 --> 00:47:00.579
It actually is destructive on some of the young people's lives and mental health.
00:47:00.639 --> 00:47:09.269
And I know this from seeing situations or individuals' personal lives People have come to me for help as a friend.
00:47:09.289 --> 00:47:17.561
They're struggling and they're leaving and I've left and they've come to me and approached me because the parents who I know have said, you know, go speak to Ian, he might be able to help.
00:47:18.081 --> 00:47:27.335
And so you've got this failed program that's been failing for, you know, a generation and, you know, decades.
00:47:28.476 --> 00:47:58.791
You've got this new missionary proselyting program method of online which is completely failing and why on earth can the capital jail authorities see what's in plain sight a unique and valuable opportunity to put these missionaries and the members to service projects where they will do better work more meaningful and the church's name and the reputation for being kind and offering service free of charge and blessing the lives of all these people.
00:47:58.831 --> 00:48:11.684
And for goodness sake, there's a lot of people that need a lot of help, especially right now with the economy that's happening here in Canada, US, and certainly happening in the UK right now, especially the UK right now with the economic climate that's going on right now.
00:48:12.846 --> 00:48:17.030
Why on earth the church can't wake up and see the opportunity?
00:48:17.530 --> 00:48:21.934
And I think it's because it takes, it's a lot of money.
00:48:22.235 --> 00:48:25.217
I mean, for example, why are the church not opening up the buildings to the homeless?
00:48:26.146 --> 00:48:34.514
Why are they using the buildings to put on ornate objects, ornaments, like Christmas ornaments?
00:48:36.016 --> 00:48:53.155
I'm being specific here on a stake that I know really well that the members came and put all these wonderful Santa Claus, Jesus Christ ornaments up and these other Christmas ornaments and decorations and then invited people from the community to come in and have a look.
00:48:54.217 --> 00:48:58.117
The numbers are incredibly embarrassing, but it doesn't do anything.
00:48:58.277 --> 00:49:03.344
People don't remember that, that you've got some fancy ornament in the house, you brought it to the church.
00:49:04.166 --> 00:49:05.387
The church is completely lost.
00:49:05.547 --> 00:49:08.952
We're devoid of leadership in this area.
00:49:09.452 --> 00:49:14.980
If the apostles can hear this, if you're an apostle of Jesus Christ and you can hear this, do the right thing.
00:49:15.681 --> 00:49:16.481
Be an apostle.
00:49:17.182 --> 00:49:18.905
Be a real apostle, true apostle.
00:49:18.945 --> 00:49:28.110
Do what Christ did and apply all of those resources or many of the resources you've to helping people right now who are in desperate need.
00:49:28.130 --> 00:49:36.141
Individuals who are homeless, who are hungry, and kids, LDS kids even, who go to bed each night hungry.
00:49:36.601 --> 00:49:40.126
Please, for goodness sake, can't you see the opportunity?
00:49:40.226 --> 00:49:42.690
And can't you see the timing is now?
00:49:43.070 --> 00:49:47.597
And if you do that, and you're looking at reward, fine, you'll get the reward.
00:49:48.458 --> 00:49:58.134
The reward can be improved reputation, more baptisms, fine, If that's what you want, if that's what your focus is, I don't doubt you'll get more baptisms.
00:49:58.534 --> 00:50:00.275
But do it because it's the right thing to do.
00:50:00.315 --> 00:50:02.197
Do it because it's the best thing to do.
00:50:02.237 --> 00:50:06.402
And do it because people's lives need saving.
00:50:06.563 --> 00:50:52.268
And you as leaders, as apostles and general authorities, have an opportunity and a spiritual and sacred obligation to follow the fundamentals of Christ and to apply as much of the financial and other uh resources that you have to help these people because it people are desperate for it especially right now and the opportunity is there um and the church needs to is it it just needs to have leadership it just needs to have leadership but as i said before we're doing more work for the dead we're helping the dead more than we are the living and the living are dying and um i've even had a leader say to me look if we can't help them in the living when they die, we'll help them when they're dead.
00:50:52.427 --> 00:51:01.056
I was absolutely appalled at that and took, you know, took exception to that and called this person out for that.
00:51:01.577 --> 00:51:08.925
So I feel very strongly about this as you do, and I'm glad you brought this up because it's a really important, you know, requirement.
00:51:09.045 --> 00:51:25.934
And I think it would, you know, if you want to transform the church, Jim, you want to change the church, I can't think of a better area to improve the church across the entire church structure and program than to commit more resources to helping the needy.
00:51:26.454 --> 00:51:34.264
I think it's a conduit, I think it's a pathway to greater improvement and development of the church across the entire church.
00:51:34.324 --> 00:51:53.846
I think it would be the catalyst that would change the church at every level if they were able to show and demonstrate real apostolism disciple leadership in the way that Christ demonstrated when he was alive.
00:51:53.945 --> 00:51:59.072
He was in the fields, he was in the homes, blessing lives and helping them and feeding them.
00:51:59.172 --> 00:52:14.534
And we're in our office in Salt Lake City and we're looking at numbers and looking at spreadsheets and looking at what we can do to strategize and how we can use the ministry effort on the social media, the technology to get the numbers up.
00:52:14.818 --> 00:52:15.878
The church is lost.
00:52:15.918 --> 00:52:18.882
The leadership are lost on this front, for sure.
00:52:19.164 --> 00:52:22.047
Anyway, I feel very passionate about this, as you can tell.
00:52:22.708 --> 00:52:28.637
Well, and you have said some very brilliant things here, and I think we'll let that be the last word.
00:52:29.697 --> 00:52:31.300
We're coming up at the end of this episode.
00:52:31.840 --> 00:52:39.510
So those of you listening, please make sure that you subscribe to our podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
00:52:40.432 --> 00:52:43.076
And until next time, we'll see you on Inside Out.
00:52:43.195 --> 00:52:44.478
Thank you, Ian.
00:52:44.929 --> 00:52:45.536
Thank you, Jim.
00:00:01.217 --> 00:00:03.709
Thank you.
00:00:35.713 --> 00:00:38.517
Hello and welcome to another episode of Inside Out.
00:00:38.756 --> 00:00:41.581
I'm Jim Bennett and I'm here as always with Ian Wilkes.
00:00:41.661 --> 00:00:42.442
How are you, Ian?
00:00:43.262 --> 00:00:44.183
I'm very good, Jim.
00:00:44.223 --> 00:00:44.543
How are you?
00:00:45.445 --> 00:00:53.774
I'm doing just fine and I'm really excited about our topic today because it's something that's near and dear to both of our hearts.
00:00:55.136 --> 00:01:03.204
We met when we were missionaries long, long ago, far, far away, and want to talk about the missionary program.
00:01:03.810 --> 00:01:04.391
in 2023.
00:01:05.492 --> 00:01:09.299
We both have personal experience here that I think is going to inform this discussion.
00:01:09.319 --> 00:01:17.313
I'm curious, when you talk about the missionary program now, what's your initial reaction to that?
00:01:18.956 --> 00:01:30.191
It's changed almost beyond recognition compared to when you and I were serving, you know, more old-fashioned, if you like, experience of mission work, you know, going back 30 years or so.
00:01:30.512 --> 00:01:35.421
Now it seems to be, well, it is, it's very much online, it's social media.
00:01:35.460 --> 00:01:45.840
I'm seeing a frequent post by local missionaries who post, you know, their Books of Mormon on Facebook Marketplace or a free Book of Mormon, free service.
00:01:46.600 --> 00:01:49.025
You know, we're offering to come out and trim your bush.
00:01:49.378 --> 00:01:52.281
and the Bible, you know, free Bibles, et cetera, et cetera.
00:01:52.441 --> 00:01:54.504
So it's very different.
00:01:54.805 --> 00:02:03.576
I think the, you know, attracting on doors in Scotland or most parts of the world are difficult even at the best of times.
00:02:04.418 --> 00:02:14.859
We lost count how many times President Banks and some general authorities said that we only get five percent six percent success rate with knocking on doors compared to
00:02:14.899 --> 00:02:17.302
five percent that's huge
00:02:17.682 --> 00:02:42.741
it is it is huge we got less than one percent we did but i think looking at my notes uh they were the percentages i think if there's always a danger if they tell the real percentage yeah it it looks like you're completely wasting your time because we spent 10 hours a day right We were out of the flat at 9.30 on the dot.
00:02:42.781 --> 00:02:45.243
You're on your knees at 9.25, right?
00:02:46.186 --> 00:02:51.894
And you were out by 9.30, physically out the flat, et cetera, and you were out there doing what?
00:02:51.913 --> 00:02:56.139
You were knocking on doors in the rain, and you tracked it right through to 12.
00:02:56.199 --> 00:02:58.883
You had half an hour, if you were lucky.
00:02:59.525 --> 00:03:04.431
I had a companion that wanted to work through all lunches, dinner, and P-days.
00:03:04.491 --> 00:03:05.432
That's another conversation.
00:03:06.050 --> 00:03:07.771
It was my trainer.
00:03:08.012 --> 00:03:13.617
Anyway, we tracked it till 12, had half an hour, and they were back pounding the streets.
00:03:14.098 --> 00:03:15.419
And it didn't really get us very fast.
00:03:15.479 --> 00:03:23.367
So as a percentage of time, you're looking at 95% of your time, 93% of your time knocking on doors.
00:03:23.608 --> 00:03:30.014
And if you assign a minute percentage to that, it looks like it's completely futile.
00:03:30.115 --> 00:03:32.116
Why on earth are you out there?
00:03:32.157 --> 00:03:33.237
And then we'd get reminded.
00:03:33.921 --> 00:03:40.551
often that we're out there for us, which is, I get that, you know, we're out there to build our own testimony and strengthen ourselves.
00:03:40.611 --> 00:03:42.033
And that certainly does that.
00:03:42.074 --> 00:03:44.337
That's a big element of this.
00:03:44.377 --> 00:03:49.064
But the church, a primary objective is convert baptisms, right?
00:03:49.806 --> 00:03:53.330
And those methods were not successful, really.
00:03:53.350 --> 00:04:02.765
I think that when I got there, February 87, I think the whole mission of 152 missionaries had baptized nine people.
00:04:03.873 --> 00:04:08.558
And most of those, I think six or seven of those, left within the first few months.
00:04:09.500 --> 00:04:09.719
Yep.
00:04:10.782 --> 00:04:12.783
Well, I remember there was a big push.
00:04:13.144 --> 00:04:21.793
I mean, we were fasting, and the push was for SEM40, SEM standing for Scotland Edinburgh Mission.
00:04:22.774 --> 00:04:26.658
And the Scotland Edinburgh Mission was going to have 40 baptisms in one month.
00:04:27.720 --> 00:04:33.026
And we fasted for that, and we prayed for that in Zone Conference, and I don't think we even got close.
00:04:33.889 --> 00:04:35.050
We may have hit 30.
00:04:35.151 --> 00:04:36.093
I don't think we did.
00:04:36.112 --> 00:04:47.326
And I remember several zone conferences where, essentially, the mission president would come and tell you what a terrible person you were.
00:04:47.346 --> 00:04:51.851
I mean, President Banks would say, you guys are not doing something right.
00:04:51.951 --> 00:04:53.915
I mean, we only had eight baptisms last month.
00:04:55.115 --> 00:04:55.916
Come on, guys.
00:04:55.937 --> 00:04:57.418
I mean, the guilt trip.
00:04:57.699 --> 00:05:03.165
I told my kids, missions largely run on guilt trips.
00:05:03.970 --> 00:05:05.752
You feel guilty.
00:05:05.771 --> 00:05:07.334
I was the kind of missionary...
00:05:07.434 --> 00:05:16.764
I remember once when you were my zone leader, you came up to Thurso, Scotland, which was probably my favorite area, way up there at the top of the British mainland.
00:05:16.805 --> 00:05:22.651
And you paid me one of the greatest compliments any other missionary has paid me.
00:05:23.713 --> 00:05:26.096
And you said, you cannot waste.
00:05:27.637 --> 00:05:29.199
You guys cannot waste.
00:05:30.682 --> 00:05:33.526
Because you have so many neuroses...
00:05:33.985 --> 00:05:47.244
and so much guilt that if you were to just sit around and waste, and that's a verb that I guess people outside of the mission might not realize, the wasters were the missionaries that didn't do anything or that were lousy missionaries.
00:05:48.365 --> 00:05:51.410
But I was such a neurotic.
00:05:51.970 --> 00:06:05.636
I was the kind of missionary that if I woke up at 635, even through no fault of my own, I had obviously done something wrong by not being righteous enough to have set my alarm properly or to whatever else it was.
00:06:05.675 --> 00:06:17.454
And I would spend most of my days carrying around this huge lump of guilt for everything I wasn't doing or wasn't doing enough of.
00:06:17.473 --> 00:06:30.132
And I look back on it now and it just seems ridiculous because I was pounding my head against the wall as much as I possibly could and still, you know, the success rate was...
00:06:30.817 --> 00:06:32.000
Far less than 5%.
00:06:32.459 --> 00:06:39.048
And we wasted, talk about waste, the idea of knocking on doors.
00:06:40.050 --> 00:06:45.557
Even 35 years ago, it was just a ridiculous, ridiculous thing to do.
00:06:45.598 --> 00:06:49.343
And so, fade out, fade in.
00:06:49.362 --> 00:06:53.769
I have twin boys who served missions.
00:06:53.829 --> 00:06:57.593
They were both called to different missions in Argentina.
00:06:58.466 --> 00:07:03.151
One was called the Buenos Aires, and one was called the Naokin, which is down at the bottom of the country.
00:07:04.132 --> 00:07:09.720
And they served for about six months before the COVID lockdowns.
00:07:10.802 --> 00:07:17.129
And the COVID lockdowns, they were assigned to go sit in their missionary flats and do nothing.
00:07:18.211 --> 00:07:19.232
That was the assignment.
00:07:19.713 --> 00:07:21.214
They didn't have Wi-Fi.
00:07:21.235 --> 00:07:23.978
They didn't have cell phones.
00:07:25.699 --> 00:07:26.901
Smartphones didn't have anything.
00:07:27.490 --> 00:07:52.214
You know, they've changed the mission rules so that they can call home once a week, which was a blessing and to some degree a bit of a curse, because when you have two missionaries serving and they're not doing anything at all, and so they call you and they've got nothing else going on, and they want to talk all day.
00:07:52.235 --> 00:07:55.177
I mean, there were several P-Days where we spent...
00:07:56.257 --> 00:07:59.461
literally eight hours talking to both of our sons.
00:07:59.762 --> 00:08:02.805
They didn't call at the same time, so we would spend four hours with one.
00:08:02.846 --> 00:08:04.947
We'd spend four hours with another.
00:08:04.987 --> 00:08:13.497
So we would spend eight hours, literally eight hours, talking to our missionaries who were bored out of their minds.
00:08:14.639 --> 00:08:21.668
And finally, they'd have to go to the church to use the Wi-Fi at the church.
00:08:21.947 --> 00:08:31.211
Early on, they had to go to kind of an internet cafe, and it was very hard to hear, and the Wi-Fi connection wasn't very good.
00:08:31.250 --> 00:08:34.035
These just were very difficult sorts of conversations.
00:08:34.657 --> 00:08:51.288
But the thing that just leapt out at me throughout that whole experience was these vibrant, brilliant, passionate, dedicated young men are wasting a great deal of time.
00:08:51.328 --> 00:08:54.913
And the church is deliberately wasting their time.
00:08:54.952 --> 00:09:04.142
And I remember they came home right before the April 2020 General Conference.
00:09:05.222 --> 00:09:15.833
And I was kind of excited because I thought, okay, President Nelson has said that this General Conference is going to be completely memorable and he is a prophet.
00:09:16.450 --> 00:09:26.423
And so he clearly got kind of an advance warning that this was going to happen, and this conference is going to address COVID.
00:09:26.523 --> 00:09:29.486
It's going to address how the church should deal with COVID and all of that.
00:09:30.828 --> 00:09:43.645
My sons came home kind of in the dead of night, and the conference came, and the whole conference was a birthday party for the First Vision.
00:09:44.450 --> 00:09:59.110
It was the 200th anniversary of the First Vision, and President Nelson had recorded himself walking through the Sacred Grove, reading a proclamation that we adopted as a church in a solemn assembly with the Hosanna shout.
00:10:00.111 --> 00:10:07.782
And I guarantee you that there isn't even an active member of the church that could tell you anything that's in that proclamation.
00:10:07.981 --> 00:10:09.605
It's been completely forgotten.
00:10:10.245 --> 00:10:13.210
The family proclamation still looms over the church.
00:10:14.754 --> 00:10:28.434
as uncanonized scripture that people put on their walls, but this restoration proclamation that was the center of this entire conference, and the other thing that was unveiled, and it was even unveiled as we received this revelation.
00:10:28.774 --> 00:10:30.017
I'm like, okay, what's this revelation?
00:10:30.658 --> 00:10:33.381
The revelation is this logo.
00:10:34.583 --> 00:10:39.211
And it was the new church logo that uses the sculpture of Christ.
00:10:40.974 --> 00:10:42.917
And I just thought, really?
00:10:42.937 --> 00:10:43.238
That's...
00:10:44.033 --> 00:10:48.500
So this is the unforgettable conference in the middle of a worldwide pandemic.
00:10:49.061 --> 00:10:54.408
My sons are coming home from their missions completely adrift, feeling disconnected from the universe.
00:10:55.570 --> 00:11:00.517
And the church offers us an empty proclamation and a logo.
00:11:01.960 --> 00:11:05.104
That was a really difficult, difficult moment for me.
00:11:05.144 --> 00:11:18.363
But the point is that the missionary program, I think it's impossible to to look at the missionary program objectively and not conclude that it is fundamentally broken.
00:11:19.365 --> 00:11:30.822
There are half as many active members of the church in Scotland as there were when we were there, which means whatever it was we were doing not only didn't work, but it did damage.
00:11:31.764 --> 00:11:34.769
You know, the numbers continue to slide.
00:11:35.426 --> 00:11:38.690
And that's the case in most of the world.
00:11:38.750 --> 00:11:47.259
The church can still claim that it's growing because in developing parts of the world and in African nations, the church is growing.
00:11:47.899 --> 00:11:52.504
But in the developed world, in the United States, it's barely treading water.
00:11:52.985 --> 00:11:58.691
South America, it's peaking out maybe a less than 1% growth rate.
00:11:59.772 --> 00:12:13.524
But in Europe, in Asia, in Japan, in Australia, Anywhere else, the church's missionary program is not working, and the church's numbers are imploding.
00:12:14.184 --> 00:12:17.028
I feel very strongly about this because we went through this.
00:12:17.229 --> 00:12:18.450
My sons came back.
00:12:19.851 --> 00:12:20.513
They came home.
00:12:20.552 --> 00:12:22.875
They were sent back out.
00:12:23.296 --> 00:12:25.458
One was sent to Cincinnati, Ohio.
00:12:25.479 --> 00:12:27.761
One was sent to Tampa Bay, Florida.
00:12:28.546 --> 00:12:35.552
And then the one in Tampa Bay got to go back to Argentina while the other one finished his mission in Cincinnati.
00:12:36.514 --> 00:12:50.246
But there were also some really terrible experiences, particularly with one of my sons, that I'm not necessarily comfortable giving the details of publicly because I don't think that's fair to him.
00:12:50.726 --> 00:13:00.735
But it demonstrated that leader roulette, leadership roulette, is very much a thing in mission.
00:13:00.836 --> 00:13:07.043
That your mission can be made or broken, and a new experience is, but it can be made or broken by your mission president.
00:13:07.144 --> 00:13:16.955
And if you've got a mission president that, if you've got a bad mission president, your mission experience is going to be hell.
00:13:17.916 --> 00:13:20.379
And for one of my kids, it really was.
00:13:21.039 --> 00:13:25.846
And so I now look at this and I say, okay, what do we do?
00:13:26.785 --> 00:13:27.767
How do we fix it?
00:13:27.866 --> 00:13:28.928
How do we change it?
00:13:29.048 --> 00:13:39.381
And I've got all kinds of ideas on that that I could ramble on about for hours on end, but I want to get your perspective on today's missionary program.
00:13:40.003 --> 00:13:42.206
I mean, do you agree that the mission program is broken?
00:13:42.927 --> 00:13:43.167
I do.
00:13:43.187 --> 00:13:43.206
I
00:13:44.347 --> 00:13:44.389
do.
00:13:44.408 --> 00:13:51.638
And the reason why I think I agree with that, rather, is the reason why I agree with that, and I'm coming in from a different angle.
00:13:52.698 --> 00:13:57.741
The most important commodity, the most important valuable and most precious commodity is time.
00:13:59.683 --> 00:14:02.368
We're on this planet for a relatively short period of time.
00:14:03.389 --> 00:14:09.417
When we're young, you know, our time, it seems to go slow when you get older, it goes faster.
00:14:09.498 --> 00:14:19.431
But, you know, those time that you spend when you're young in college, you know, career, work, missions, you know, that's an important stage of life.
00:14:19.530 --> 00:14:27.832
And if the church isn't, and it certainly isn't, isn't respecting what is the most invaluable, precious commodity, which is time.
00:14:27.873 --> 00:14:31.157
Think about all the time we put into the callings there.
00:14:32.057 --> 00:14:40.745
And the effort that a young missionary, a commitment a young missionary has to give and sacrifice, and it is a sacrifice, it's quite extraordinary, it really is.
00:14:41.527 --> 00:14:49.774
And so, you know, on our missions, we were, as I listened to you, we were reminded of a few important points.
00:14:49.855 --> 00:14:51.557
And that was, we are...
00:14:52.642 --> 00:14:57.167
knocking on doors, proselyting is not as effective as getting referrals.
00:14:58.107 --> 00:15:01.912
The referral program in Scotland back then was terrible.
00:15:02.493 --> 00:15:04.696
It was like pulling teeth.
00:15:04.735 --> 00:15:07.678
Trying to get referrals from members was excruciatingly painful.
00:15:08.299 --> 00:15:15.807
And there was reasons why the members couldn't or didn't want to provide names of their friends or their family.
00:15:17.793 --> 00:15:18.414
for different reasons.
00:15:18.495 --> 00:15:19.495
They were comfortable.
00:15:19.535 --> 00:15:20.677
They were probably embarrassed.
00:15:20.736 --> 00:15:21.577
They weren't ready.
00:15:21.597 --> 00:15:24.900
In some cases, they didn't even know they were members of the church.
00:15:25.422 --> 00:15:38.975
In other cases, they were afraid of losing a friendship and taking advantage of leveraging that friendship to encourage them or invite them to investigate the church.
00:15:39.496 --> 00:16:08.447
We were also reminded by two mission presence general authorities and a couple of apostles that, okay, you might not be successful in Scotland right now, you might have only had one or two baptisms in the entire mission, but remember, elders, you're laying the seeds for the future generations, that these Conversations that are happening right now, these lessons, albeit many are not joining the church, you're laying the foundation for greater success in 30 years from now, 25, 30 years from now, the church in Scotland will prosper.
00:16:08.488 --> 00:16:10.091
We will have a temple.
00:16:10.130 --> 00:16:12.153
The church membership will double, triple.
00:16:12.634 --> 00:16:14.596
You elders are laying the foundation.
00:16:14.937 --> 00:16:17.181
They might not join in your time.
00:16:17.341 --> 00:16:23.230
Remember that your time is not the Lord's time, but you're laying those foundation for the future and the church will prosper forever.
00:16:23.330 --> 00:16:24.792
in the generations to come.
00:16:24.812 --> 00:16:27.134
The reality is that that is completely opposite.
00:16:27.173 --> 00:16:34.942
The church has failed and continues to fail on a pretty big scale in Scotland.
00:16:35.243 --> 00:16:41.490
I'm convinced now that the church in Scotland is a bit harsh.
00:16:41.509 --> 00:16:51.861
Maybe from a missionary perspective, there's a lost cause and the church is now reorganising, realigning and re-coordinating its resources elsewhere.
00:16:52.354 --> 00:17:03.909
away from Scotland that is not having success in other parts of the world and putting those resources into other countries where they can get quicker, faster gains in order to maintain that progress.
00:17:05.211 --> 00:17:09.557
So I think the church has not given up entirely in countries like Scotland.
00:17:09.657 --> 00:17:12.121
By the way, there's been a couple of buildings I think that have been sold.
00:17:12.481 --> 00:17:16.988
I think the Govan Chapel, I think it's Govan in Glasgow, was sold.
00:17:17.888 --> 00:17:21.374
Unfortunately, I think it was turned into a working men's club or a pub.
00:17:21.890 --> 00:17:24.674
That's what I'm hearing, and I don't think that's...
00:17:24.795 --> 00:17:27.078
Glasgow Chapel is a pub now?
00:17:27.159 --> 00:17:27.680
Glasgow.
00:17:27.700 --> 00:17:27.720
I
00:17:27.759 --> 00:17:29.583
think it's one of the buildings there, one of the chapels.
00:17:29.643 --> 00:17:30.924
I think you can Google this.
00:17:31.085 --> 00:17:35.553
I know that the Drum Chapel building was sold.
00:17:36.354 --> 00:17:39.199
It was sold actually 30 years ago.
00:17:39.278 --> 00:17:40.721
It was sold in the early 90s.
00:17:40.862 --> 00:17:41.803
I'm thinking there's
00:17:41.844 --> 00:17:42.464
another one there.
00:17:42.525 --> 00:17:44.969
I'm thinking another more recent in the last two or three years.
00:17:46.510 --> 00:17:47.792
The memory doesn't serve me here, but...
00:17:48.258 --> 00:17:51.041
where a building was sold and it's been used for something else.
00:17:51.301 --> 00:17:53.986
So the church has been in heavy decline in Scotland.
00:17:54.066 --> 00:17:57.529
It's in decline in England, but not at the same rate.
00:17:58.731 --> 00:18:05.300
And I think the church has moved many of its resources away from these countries.
00:18:05.320 --> 00:18:10.106
They've also joined the Irish mission and the Scotland mission, so the Scotland-Irish mission.
00:18:10.627 --> 00:18:15.013
And I think that's down to all these factors in terms of the lack of success.
00:18:15.755 --> 00:18:29.273
We also have a problem where you just haven't got the– certain countries, you haven't got the leadership and you haven't got the time or the resources to commit to the missionary resources where you've got 150 missionaries with all that time and what do they do with the time.
00:18:29.753 --> 00:18:39.065
And then go to your question to contrast those traditional conventional missionary efforts that you and I are familiar with with what we're seeing today.
00:18:39.105 --> 00:18:53.041
We're seeing a barrier to reaching people because people are not comfortable someone knocking on their door late at night, six, seven o'clock in the dark, a complete stranger.
00:18:53.082 --> 00:18:54.544
So we have security related issues.
00:18:54.884 --> 00:19:02.875
There's also countries which have laws that prohibit soliciting and people coming onto your property without invitation.
00:19:02.915 --> 00:19:04.519
So there's those concerns as well, issues.
00:19:05.480 --> 00:19:08.644
And you've got limited referrals.
00:19:08.744 --> 00:19:22.655
And so right now with social media and all the different tools that are available online, you've got young men like your boys, wonderful people, going out and having conversations online.
00:19:22.875 --> 00:19:31.146
It's very different to, you know, notwithstanding the lack of success that you and I experienced in Scotland, we would get into homes at times.
00:19:31.748 --> 00:19:33.250
We would meet extraordinary people.
00:19:33.509 --> 00:19:41.857
You know, most of the time or a lot of the time when they're knocking on the door, the response would be, you know, when we introduced ourselves and who we were and, And it was clear that we were going to talk about religion.
00:19:41.877 --> 00:19:46.528
And we go on topics like, you know, life and death, why we're here, where we're going, and et cetera.
00:19:46.969 --> 00:19:50.415
We'd often hear, you know, when you did, you did.
00:19:51.878 --> 00:19:53.142
When you did, you did.
00:19:53.583 --> 00:19:54.023
That's it.
00:19:54.223 --> 00:19:55.346
You do it better.
00:19:56.209 --> 00:19:57.431
Yeah, we'd hear that a lot.
00:19:57.491 --> 00:19:58.594
And so it was very difficult.
00:19:58.882 --> 00:20:01.125
to make progress in Scotland.
00:20:01.204 --> 00:20:03.426
Notwithstanding, we did talk to people.
00:20:03.488 --> 00:20:05.109
We met some colourful characters.
00:20:05.730 --> 00:20:08.032
Sometimes, if we were lucky, got into the homes and talked.
00:20:08.574 --> 00:20:12.077
We had some profound experiences and met friends.
00:20:12.298 --> 00:20:21.910
I'm still in touch with a couple of people that I've connected with who never joined the church, who I tried to, through other part-member families.
00:20:22.625 --> 00:20:25.891
who I've become close friends with over the years.
00:20:26.751 --> 00:20:44.519
So our experience, albeit we were not successful in terms of numbers of people being baptized, was in many ways very rich, some rewarding, certainly challenging, and a very human experience when we were meeting people physically, face-to-face.
00:20:45.501 --> 00:20:52.256
That's a very different experience than having a conversation with someone online who you can't see You don't know who they are.
00:20:52.276 --> 00:20:55.380
You don't know who this person is on the other side of the internet.
00:20:56.301 --> 00:21:09.342
And I can't imagine how difficult that is for these young people to have an online conversation with someone they can't see, they don't know, and certainly how do they attempt to answer some of the questions.
00:21:09.803 --> 00:21:18.006
One other point I want to throw in there as well, it is a point in respect to the angle that I'm coming in, to this.
00:21:18.067 --> 00:21:20.189
You know, we've called the podcast Inside Out.
00:21:20.269 --> 00:21:22.771
You've got an internal experience with your boys.
00:21:23.432 --> 00:21:26.277
I have an internal slash external experience.
00:21:26.317 --> 00:21:37.451
So in 2013, when I was on the state presidency there, I was going through wrestling with a whole series of doubts, questions, concerns, very legitimate concerns.
00:21:38.372 --> 00:21:47.383
And my boys were being encouraged within our home and certainly at church to prepare us for their mission.
00:21:47.423 --> 00:21:48.664
This is 10 years ago.
00:21:48.704 --> 00:21:51.288
And what do they do to prepare for the missions?
00:21:51.328 --> 00:21:53.893
I think it's totally 2015, actually.
00:21:53.913 --> 00:21:54.994
This is 2015.
00:21:55.635 --> 00:22:02.547
And I was right in the middle of my 2015, right in the middle of my faith or truth crisis.
00:22:03.167 --> 00:22:09.919
And I felt prompted or felt inclined to reach out to a wonderful man called Hans Matzing.
00:22:10.460 --> 00:22:15.915
And Hans, if you're hearing this, you might recall this conversation we had An interesting conversation.
00:22:15.955 --> 00:22:23.326
I was in my office in Calgary and I had messaged Hans, who was a former general authority of the church, who left the church.
00:22:23.365 --> 00:22:25.228
You probably have heard Hans' podcast.
00:22:25.248 --> 00:22:30.694
He's an extraordinary individual, a wonderful, kind, thoughtful individual.
00:22:31.215 --> 00:22:36.303
But I felt the need to call him or to ask him if I could speak to him.
00:22:36.623 --> 00:22:37.324
I needed some advice.
00:22:37.785 --> 00:22:38.705
I'd heard his podcast.
00:22:38.806 --> 00:22:48.808
I thought there's an individual that probably could help me decide if and how I should encourage my boys, my two older boys at that time, to serve missions.
00:22:49.529 --> 00:22:55.497
And because of all the issues that we didn't want our boys going out on a mission, trusting those of their parents.
00:22:56.357 --> 00:22:57.239
Think about that for a moment.
00:22:57.298 --> 00:23:00.061
These are people that we have a great relationship.
00:23:00.522 --> 00:23:01.864
They trust us implicitly.
00:23:01.903 --> 00:23:09.613
They were very much keen, committed to go on missions, partly because they wanted to be obedient or to do the right thing.
00:23:09.633 --> 00:23:15.455
They were being encouraged by parents that they love and respect, and they trusted us that that was the right thing to do for them.
00:23:15.496 --> 00:23:20.001
They said, Mom, Dad, if this is the right thing to do, then we will do that.
00:23:20.423 --> 00:23:34.540
We will honor the church, honor the principles, honor the missionary call from the prophet, honor the parents, and we will go out and devote our two years and live and have a fulfilled, rewarding missionary experience, and we will give our all.
00:23:35.762 --> 00:23:53.093
So we couldn't, in good conscience, send our boys out who are very innocent and know or understand a certain version of the church, a certain narrative, the traditional narrative, which is in the Preach My Gospel manual.
00:23:53.433 --> 00:24:00.786
And by the way, I've had two conversations with mission presidents who said, when I've asked them about these other materials in the essays, do they teach that?
00:24:00.865 --> 00:24:05.067
And twice they've responded and said, Again, two different mission presidents.
00:24:05.449 --> 00:24:10.457
They said that if it's not in the Preach My Gospel official material, then we don't teach it, end quote.
00:24:11.178 --> 00:24:24.940
And so we couldn't in good conscience send our boys out knowing that there were serious issues and then finding out these issues and then having a problem because they're very innocent.
00:24:25.641 --> 00:24:26.261
They trust us.
00:24:27.124 --> 00:24:27.984
They trusted the church.
00:24:28.546 --> 00:24:33.790
And then they find these issues through less active members or online or someone asks them a question online or whatever.
00:24:33.810 --> 00:24:36.313
And then they write home and ask me a question.
00:24:36.353 --> 00:24:37.453
And then I, what do I do?
00:24:37.473 --> 00:24:38.173
Do I lie to them?
00:24:38.213 --> 00:24:39.895
Do I say, you know, keep, stay obedient?
00:24:40.256 --> 00:24:42.317
These questions are not the right questions.
00:24:42.357 --> 00:24:43.598
You're not asking the right questions.
00:24:44.559 --> 00:24:46.602
Put it to the side, deal with it when you come back.
00:24:46.642 --> 00:24:47.863
We're just not like that.
00:24:47.903 --> 00:24:48.702
We couldn't be like that.
00:24:48.723 --> 00:24:49.944
We certainly didn't want to be like that.
00:24:50.525 --> 00:24:54.188
So I needed some advice about what to do with our boys.
00:24:54.288 --> 00:24:55.269
Do we send them on missions?
00:24:55.308 --> 00:24:56.509
Do we continue the path?
00:24:56.529 --> 00:24:59.272
And as they were heading in that direction, to serve missions.
00:24:59.732 --> 00:25:05.818
And like your boys, my boys are just extraordinary people and very trusting of the parents.
00:25:06.358 --> 00:25:15.446
So I, Hans accepted my request or invitation to meet, to have a conversation.
00:25:15.487 --> 00:25:16.087
And I called him.
00:25:16.669 --> 00:25:18.990
We had two conversations on a phone call from Calgary.
00:25:19.691 --> 00:25:22.753
And I explained, you know, my background, my situation, the situation with my boys.
00:25:22.773 --> 00:25:23.994
And I asked him, Hans, what would you do?
00:25:25.215 --> 00:25:25.696
What would you do?
00:25:25.737 --> 00:25:26.396
When would you do it?
00:25:26.477 --> 00:25:26.958
How would you do it?
00:25:27.682 --> 00:25:35.213
And he gave me some excellent advice, which actually was a lifesaver in regards to the boys.
00:25:35.294 --> 00:25:55.133
And the conclusion after that call, and we discussed this as a family later, was not to send our boys on missions, to be completely honest, brutally honest about the issues and concerns at some point, to have that conversation with the boys, which we did later, a few weeks later, having really thought about this and prepared for this.
00:25:56.074 --> 00:26:02.443
And he said some extraordinary things, which I don't want to share here, but profound counsel, wonderful man.
00:26:02.844 --> 00:26:08.573
And basically the message was that think carefully before you send your boys out on missions.
00:26:09.073 --> 00:26:11.036
But going back to the church at the time.
00:26:11.616 --> 00:26:12.878
Yeah, I was still active.
00:26:12.898 --> 00:26:13.901
I was on the...
00:26:14.080 --> 00:26:18.007
Was I still on the state presidency at the time, wrestling with these issues?
00:26:18.467 --> 00:26:19.528
Do we send our boys out?
00:26:20.450 --> 00:26:21.332
Who could I turn to?
00:26:21.352 --> 00:26:22.432
I couldn't turn to my...
00:26:22.978 --> 00:26:30.345
my stake, any member of the state presidency or my bishop, because it would flag up that I have concerns or doubts.
00:26:30.944 --> 00:26:38.152
I couldn't go to family in the UK because they were all active and I didn't want to disrupt those relationships.
00:26:38.231 --> 00:26:40.134
We felt a bit isolated, alone.
00:26:40.574 --> 00:26:48.902
I'd listen to some podcasts, but I couldn't get anything that was specific to my situation, our situation in the family.
00:26:48.922 --> 00:27:30.988
You know, if you've got a problem, you go to your bishop and your trusted bishop will help you and not disclose anything personal and you get you receive a very personal counsel advice which i think is is great um or can be great if the advice is good and so hans was instrumental in our decision not to send the boys on full-time missions um we eventually opened up with the boys explainer our concerns issues and they were incredibly um uh positive and responsive and actually deeply, immensely respectful that we had put them first and their mental well-being and physical well-being first before the church.
00:27:31.868 --> 00:27:47.548
And I, again, there's no way, I couldn't live with myself setting my sons into, you know, to promote and teach things that, some things at least, that I realized at that time either had issues or simply were not true or wasn't the full truth.
00:27:48.348 --> 00:28:00.981
In hindsight, that decision to have that conversation, and eventually, which led to my boys deciding themselves, unilaterally, to decide not to continue to go to church.
00:28:01.021 --> 00:28:01.903
They stopped going to church.
00:28:02.403 --> 00:28:10.912
It's turned out to be, for us as a family, for them, for me personally and other members of the family, it's certainly for them to be absolutely the right thing to do.
00:28:11.732 --> 00:28:20.481
We've talked about it since, and the boys see missionaries approaching them or trying to contact them online.
00:28:20.521 --> 00:28:33.598
And they've also heard and seen the struggles that current missionaries who are serving across the world today, how they struggle and often keep their concerns and issues to themselves privately.
00:28:34.559 --> 00:28:36.001
There is a worry in mission.
00:28:36.061 --> 00:28:38.125
You know, you talked about missions being driven by guilt.
00:28:38.885 --> 00:28:39.826
I don't think that's true.
00:28:39.886 --> 00:28:40.928
It certainly was in our mission.
00:28:41.068 --> 00:28:42.269
I think that is in most missions.
00:28:43.090 --> 00:28:45.193
That's not the best motivator by any means.
00:28:45.857 --> 00:28:52.566
And I think you've got that same guilt motivation that exists today with the current missionaries.
00:28:53.186 --> 00:29:01.376
I know of several missionaries, too many actually, who are fearful of sharing their thoughts and concerns about gospel topics.
00:29:02.258 --> 00:29:08.445
They've read essays, they've got questions, and they've been instructed and reminded by the mission president to stay quiet.
00:29:08.577 --> 00:29:11.961
true to the, on the covenant path, as we're told.
00:29:12.560 --> 00:29:19.106
And to stay, just focus on the material in the Preach My Gospel, Book of Mormon, Bible.
00:29:19.366 --> 00:29:20.587
Stay away from this other material.
00:29:20.607 --> 00:29:21.568
Stay away from these questions.
00:29:22.069 --> 00:29:24.050
If you have concerns, pray fast.
00:29:24.551 --> 00:29:25.152
Talk to us.
00:29:26.093 --> 00:29:29.977
By the way, if you have concerns, by all means, email and write home.
00:29:31.057 --> 00:29:35.682
And by the way, in case you don't know, we do read your emails through the LDS server.
00:29:35.701 --> 00:29:37.383
And I do know that that has happened.
00:29:37.983 --> 00:29:50.134
I know from From first-hand experience, I won't share the name, but people I know personally really, really well who have shared their experience on a mission.
00:29:50.294 --> 00:29:51.234
Recently, they came home.
00:29:51.275 --> 00:29:52.096
They came home early.
00:29:52.135 --> 00:30:07.730
And the mission present was somewhat destructive in this individual's life and had a profound negative impact on this individual, affected their self-esteem, self-worth.
00:30:08.258 --> 00:30:21.692
And the mission president, in my opinion, understanding and trusting this individual who got sent home, had made that decision a bit wrongly, incorrectly.
00:30:22.054 --> 00:30:23.237
This person shouldn't have gone home.
00:30:23.809 --> 00:30:29.678
And it's had a very negative impact and effect on them as an individual.
00:30:30.419 --> 00:30:34.203
And so there is that leadership roulette, for sure, that happens at the mission president level.
00:30:34.263 --> 00:30:40.833
Mission presidents are under immense pressure, intense pressure, to get the numbers up and to do what they can to use the mission resources.
00:30:41.334 --> 00:30:42.796
But it's failing.
00:30:42.955 --> 00:30:43.938
The online is failing.
00:30:43.998 --> 00:30:45.880
It's failing our people, failing the young missionaries.
00:30:46.461 --> 00:30:48.002
It's not the same experience that they're having.
00:30:48.463 --> 00:30:55.053
There's an immense amount of guilt, mental health-related issues, as I've seen, And they're desperate to find...
00:30:56.035 --> 00:31:00.261
I feel sorry for them because they're under intense pressure to have some success.
00:31:00.602 --> 00:31:02.525
And they're not meeting people.
00:31:03.386 --> 00:31:04.407
They're not getting the referrals.
00:31:05.170 --> 00:31:08.214
The mental health is at risk, many of them.
00:31:08.996 --> 00:31:12.961
And it's completely messing with their life and messing with their mind.
00:31:13.082 --> 00:31:14.565
And I think it's a tragedy.
00:31:15.185 --> 00:31:16.448
And they can't talk.
00:31:16.488 --> 00:31:17.569
They don't feel safe.
00:31:18.273 --> 00:31:28.846
to open up to their companion, who will write to the mission president about his companion, or speak to the APs, or the general leader, or the mission president, because they're now seen as a problem missionary.
00:31:29.367 --> 00:31:30.709
They don't want to be seen as a problem missionary.
00:31:30.729 --> 00:31:43.407
They want to come back as a successful missionary, but they're hiding and covering up these very serious conflicts, which and not very good for your mental health.
00:31:43.708 --> 00:31:49.295
You point out the fact that they're not knocking on doors as much, although my sons still knocked on doors.
00:31:49.315 --> 00:31:50.796
They did what they called, they clapped.
00:31:51.636 --> 00:31:53.960
You couldn't walk up to a door and knock on it.
00:31:54.421 --> 00:31:59.566
You'd stand at the fence and you'd clap your hands to let them know you were there.
00:31:59.586 --> 00:32:02.450
I think that was an Argentinian thing.
00:32:02.950 --> 00:32:11.839
But the knocking on doors, the 1950s sales model is still alive and well.
00:32:12.682 --> 00:32:17.508
Although COVID, I think, forced the church to look at more online things.
00:32:17.567 --> 00:32:19.730
And yes, they're doing more and more things online.
00:32:20.612 --> 00:32:34.549
The problem is the mindset, even if you're doing stuff online, the mindset is still aimed at the kind of door-to-door thinking that we had 35 years ago.
00:32:36.633 --> 00:32:41.963
Because you talk about, oh, you're not allowed to talk about this, you're not allowed to talk about that.
00:32:43.086 --> 00:32:56.964
Well, okay, that works in an environment where there's no internet, and the only way that you can find any disturbing information about the church is from weird little pamphlets that pastors deliver to people.
00:32:57.566 --> 00:33:12.935
You know, you've had that experience, I've had that experience, you're teaching somebody, and then all of a sudden they show up with this pamphlet that their pastor gave them, and I was always quick to say, aha, see, Satan knows that we're having success here and is trying to thwart us.
00:33:14.137 --> 00:33:25.516
And that kind of a mindset is still in place in a world where all of that information is at everybody's fingertips.
00:33:26.636 --> 00:33:34.412
And it comes instantly the minute you spend five minutes on Google asking questions about the church.
00:33:34.451 --> 00:33:35.835
You'll find out about polygamy.
00:33:35.875 --> 00:33:37.436
You'll find out about racism.
00:33:37.477 --> 00:33:44.106
You'll find out about the church's$100 billion that they're stockpiling.
00:33:44.166 --> 00:33:49.494
I mean, you'll find out every piece of information that you're not supposed to talk about.
00:33:49.535 --> 00:34:02.374
And sending these missionaries into those discussions and saying you can't talk about these things, even things, as you point out, that are in the gospel topics essays that the church has actually published.
00:34:02.882 --> 00:34:04.324
They don't know how to talk about them.
00:34:04.984 --> 00:34:10.672
So you're sending these missionaries out and tying their hands behind their back and saying, get to work.
00:34:11.554 --> 00:34:24.492
And it just, I've said this many times to people, is that the church is in the middle of a transition that it's not willing to admit that it's in.
00:34:24.512 --> 00:34:31.342
It applies to missionary work, but I think it applies to just about everything that the church is doing.
00:34:32.161 --> 00:34:52.086
The church is being dragged, kicking and screaming into the information age and refuses to acknowledge the reality of how information is passed and how information is exchanged.
00:34:52.407 --> 00:34:58.074
We keep trying to pretend that what David O.
00:34:58.114 --> 00:35:02.960
McKay did in the 1950s is still something that works.
00:35:03.661 --> 00:35:04.302
And it isn't.
00:35:06.085 --> 00:35:10.630
But the problem is we have not struck upon the thing that does work.
00:35:11.451 --> 00:35:24.688
And so if I were made president of the church, I think half the church would apostatize because they'd be very disturbed that some goofball like me is ascended to that office.
00:35:24.748 --> 00:35:40.601
But were that to happen, and I were in charge of the missionary program, What I would do is I would transform the missionary program into a 100% service mission.
00:35:42.463 --> 00:35:45.007
That is, there'd be some specialization.
00:35:45.146 --> 00:36:11.076
I mean, I think that some missionaries could be called as teaching missionaries or something, but the reality is the way that we are going to influence the world And the way that we are going to get people to look at the church and say, that's something that is valuable, that's something I want to be a part of, is to set the church up as what Jesus called the light on the hill.
00:36:11.115 --> 00:36:24.630
Imagine, for instance, that you're the Red Cross, and you realize that you have a constant stream of volunteers in the form of Mormon missionaries.
00:36:25.186 --> 00:36:29.431
who are going to come, and they're going to essentially work for the Red Cross, and they're not going to proselyte.
00:36:30.193 --> 00:36:34.800
They're just going to work as service missionaries trying to help other people.
00:36:36.722 --> 00:36:38.465
How much good for the church would that do?
00:36:38.505 --> 00:36:44.313
I think it would do so much more, and I think it would lead to more convert baptisms.
00:36:45.034 --> 00:37:05.382
Because, you know, you joined the church not because you were persuaded by some kind of powerful doctrinal thesis or or some kind of Bible bashing argument, you joined the church because you found yourself in a group of people that you admired and that had something you didn't and something you wanted.
00:37:06.623 --> 00:37:15.052
And I would posit that 80, 90% of the people who joined the church, if not higher, do so for the same reasons.
00:37:15.652 --> 00:37:18.695
They don't do so for theological reasons necessarily.
00:37:18.856 --> 00:37:26.902
They do so because The church has demonstrated something to them that is adding something to their life that they did not have.
00:37:27.802 --> 00:37:33.489
And so if we were to send out missionaries and say, you're going to spend two years, essentially, in the Peace Corps.
00:37:34.090 --> 00:37:36.514
You're going to spend two years serving people.
00:37:36.534 --> 00:37:41.159
Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
00:37:41.199 --> 00:37:44.445
You are going to spend two years in Christlike service.
00:37:45.525 --> 00:37:48.489
And everybody will know who you are.
00:37:49.057 --> 00:38:07.135
We may be saying, okay, we'll wear a name tag or we'll do whatever, but everybody will know that you're members of the church, and the church's reputation will be a reputation for a service organization in a way that will start the kinds of conversations that lead to baptisms.
00:38:07.655 --> 00:38:21.304
You don't start those kinds of conversations at a phone call, at a doorstep, wearing a suit, in a country that, in a white shirt, in a country that doesn't dress like that.
00:38:21.523 --> 00:38:22.445
And you're an American.
00:38:22.625 --> 00:38:26.650
And I mean, we have to adapt.
00:38:26.889 --> 00:38:30.052
And that would be how I would do it.
00:38:31.213 --> 00:38:36.559
And the pushback when I talk about that, it's like, well, that's not really a mission, right?
00:38:36.619 --> 00:38:40.242
You and I spent time in Thurso.
00:38:40.262 --> 00:38:45.489
I think he's probably passed away by now.
00:38:45.528 --> 00:38:46.630
He'd be in his 90s.
00:38:47.362 --> 00:38:49.003
But there was a couple missionary...
00:38:49.304 --> 00:38:51.367
I don't want to even say their names, because I don't want to...
00:38:53.349 --> 00:38:54.552
Anyway, but...
00:38:55.492 --> 00:38:56.815
I know whom you speak of.
00:38:56.835 --> 00:38:57.876
You know whom I speak.
00:38:57.896 --> 00:39:02.382
There was a couple missionary, and this guy, I remember he went on splits with you.
00:39:02.422 --> 00:39:03.505
He wanted to...
00:39:03.704 --> 00:39:04.626
He didn't want to...
00:39:05.867 --> 00:39:10.193
He was called to be the branch president of that little tiny branch that had three people in it.
00:39:11.335 --> 00:39:12.536
But he didn't want to do that.
00:39:12.597 --> 00:39:14.360
He wanted to be a missionary, right?
00:39:14.400 --> 00:39:15.641
He wanted to knock on doors...
00:39:16.514 --> 00:39:19.617
And he would scream at people on their doorsteps.
00:39:20.577 --> 00:39:25.422
And I remember I finally called the mission president and said, this is not working.
00:39:25.483 --> 00:39:26.503
This guy is scary.
00:39:27.164 --> 00:39:28.385
He's scaring everybody.
00:39:28.425 --> 00:39:34.893
And so President Banks came up to Thurso and sat down in a room.
00:39:35.293 --> 00:39:39.898
And this elderly missionary said, I don't even feel like I'm on a mission.
00:39:41.239 --> 00:39:42.240
He says, why am I here?
00:39:42.280 --> 00:39:43.141
I'm not even on a mission.
00:39:43.746 --> 00:39:48.994
You want me to manage church meetings, and you want me to do all this, but I want to be on a mission.
00:39:49.054 --> 00:39:50.255
I want to convert people.
00:39:51.778 --> 00:39:56.947
And he eventually got pulled from that assignment and was sent somewhere else.
00:39:58.168 --> 00:40:00.152
But, I mean, you have really funny stories.
00:40:00.172 --> 00:40:06.382
I remember you coming back from splits with this guy, and your face was ash and white.
00:40:07.170 --> 00:40:10.835
And you said, oh, let me tell you about my afternoon.
00:40:11.476 --> 00:40:11.675
There were
00:40:12.577 --> 00:40:19.987
a few times I looked like, you know, as white and pale as I did.
00:40:21.610 --> 00:40:24.434
That, interacting with that individual, and he was a good man.
00:40:24.494 --> 00:40:27.898
I think he had a good heart, but his style and approach was scary.
00:40:27.918 --> 00:40:38.711
I lost count how many, I think I was with him for a few hours, maybe the day, and It was pretty intense, and people would tell him who they are, and they would say, look, we're not interested.
00:40:38.751 --> 00:40:40.134
And he was like, what?
00:40:41.135 --> 00:40:42.856
What do you mean you're not interested?
00:40:42.916 --> 00:40:43.717
This is the truth.
00:40:44.438 --> 00:40:45.278
We have the truth.
00:40:46.139 --> 00:40:48.762
And he said, well, yeah, but we go to the Church of Scotland.
00:40:49.123 --> 00:40:50.784
The Church of Scotland is of the devil.
00:40:50.824 --> 00:40:53.668
He would say, it's of the devil.
00:40:53.708 --> 00:40:54.909
This is not the true church.
00:40:55.449 --> 00:40:56.449
We are the true church.
00:40:57.371 --> 00:40:58.371
This is the way forward.
00:40:58.411 --> 00:40:59.813
This is the path to salvation.
00:41:00.226 --> 00:41:02.108
you must accept this message.
00:41:02.668 --> 00:41:07.173
And on one doorstep, this old man and him got in a little bit heated argument.
00:41:07.634 --> 00:41:18.346
And basically he stamped his foot down and with a bright red phrase said, you are going to hell.
00:41:20.809 --> 00:41:21.550
I was speechless.
00:41:21.829 --> 00:41:27.135
And so I said, look, you know, Elder so-and-so, just go to the gate, walk to the gate.
00:41:28.961 --> 00:41:32.746
I did this a few times on the mission with missionaries and some couples.
00:41:32.786 --> 00:41:33.867
It was difficult.
00:41:34.807 --> 00:41:36.369
And so I apologized.
00:41:36.489 --> 00:41:37.831
I said, I'm so sorry.
00:41:37.971 --> 00:41:39.853
I said, he's from America.
00:41:39.893 --> 00:41:41.333
He's from America.
00:41:42.614 --> 00:41:44.717
And I said, he's from this.
00:41:45.097 --> 00:41:47.219
He's got a different take on religion.
00:41:47.260 --> 00:41:48.360
I'm so sorry.
00:41:48.400 --> 00:41:50.202
This person was so upset.
00:41:50.983 --> 00:42:00.925
We had so many of those angry between this individual and people on the door.
00:42:00.985 --> 00:42:02.429
It was very uncomfortable.
00:42:02.449 --> 00:42:05.695
He wasn't cut out for knocking on doors.
00:42:05.755 --> 00:42:06.657
He was very offended.
00:42:06.717 --> 00:42:11.289
He couldn't understand why they weren't opening the doors and accepting the gospel.
00:42:11.329 --> 00:42:14.054
He just couldn't figure out why they weren't feeling the spirit.
00:42:14.114 --> 00:42:37.791
He also told people on the door that they didn't feel the spirit because they were sinning even said to somebody you're probably living with somebody uh out of uh you know out of marriage and therefore you don't have the spirit with you and you go to your church church of scotland you're not going to have the spirit with you and and so it was very offensive for people on the door and and i had to take him aside a few times and have some very strong words with him and i I just couldn't make any progress.
00:42:37.811 --> 00:42:39.893
That was a whole experience in itself, for sure.
00:42:41.235 --> 00:42:45.378
Going to your point there, your really important point, and you stole my thunder, by the way.
00:42:47.061 --> 00:42:47.722
That's okay.
00:42:47.742 --> 00:42:48.061
That's good.
00:42:48.081 --> 00:42:56.851
It was no surprise and no coincidence that just as you were talking earlier, and I've known this for a long, long time.
00:42:56.871 --> 00:42:58.052
I'm not saying I have all the answers.
00:42:58.092 --> 00:42:58.733
I'm not the only one.
00:42:58.753 --> 00:43:00.574
The I didn't come from me, nothing like that.
00:43:00.635 --> 00:43:01.476
I can't take credit for it.
00:43:01.996 --> 00:43:37.539
But the answer is, staring at the leaders in front of the leaders right now under their nose right now is to have all that significant global missionary force and those resources um commit to service projects um where they're not focusing primarily on baptisms or proselyting or trying to you know teach so many lessons in a day etc they're actually out there in civilian dress By the way, civilian dress, sure, keep my name tag on, that's fine, but actively involved in outreach programmes with charities, with organisations.
00:43:38.081 --> 00:43:40.083
Help, you know, food drives, for example.
00:43:40.123 --> 00:43:41.684
Look at the cost of food right now, right?
00:43:42.326 --> 00:43:43.827
The cost of food has gone through the roof.
00:43:43.887 --> 00:43:47.010
Could we not have them organizing a food drive, for goodness sake, right?
00:43:47.030 --> 00:44:01.983
We have an annual state food drive, but couldn't we apply all those mission efforts globally to organizing a food drive or doing more meaningful service projects which are having a direct impact on people's, you know, level of poverty?
00:44:02.023 --> 00:44:03.804
We have energy poverty going on.
00:44:03.824 --> 00:44:05.385
We have food poverty going on.
00:44:06.005 --> 00:44:07.887
We have people who can't afford the water bills.
00:44:08.047 --> 00:44:35.260
120 billion dollars that the church has set on a significant uh resource in the mystery effort by the way uh this happened a couple of times when i visited the uk from canada at one time i was in edinburgh and i was in a with a friend uh staying at b&b an old friend of mine um we prepared a mission together we were heading out into edinburgh from uh they call them to road near the mission um we went into the mission home by the way and we had an interesting conversation that's another Time for another podcast.
00:44:35.561 --> 00:44:39.248
But we stood at the bus stop there, just near Collington Road, where the Mission Home is.
00:44:39.789 --> 00:44:43.597
And we were heading into Edinburgh on the Crimson double-decker buses, right?
00:44:44.760 --> 00:44:49.831
And at the bus stop, there was an outreach poster.
00:44:50.130 --> 00:44:50.572
And it was...
00:44:51.681 --> 00:44:54.945
It was Help the Poor, Feed the Poor.
00:44:55.025 --> 00:45:03.336
I can't remember the exact words, but it was a number of churches, Church of Scotland, the Free Church of Scotland was involved, the Methodist Church.
00:45:03.556 --> 00:45:14.530
It listed about six, seven, maybe eight churches and some other charities that were in Edinburgh that were working together to help the homeless, actually.
00:45:14.550 --> 00:45:16.112
It was the homeless shelters in Edinburgh.
00:45:16.152 --> 00:45:27.184
And I've had some direct experience with homeless people shelters in Edinburgh through a charity, actually, that I owned and operated a number of years ago.
00:45:27.204 --> 00:45:34.496
And so this was a poster at a bus stop talking about the needs that these homeless individuals have.
00:45:35.376 --> 00:45:37.701
And you had all these churches listed.
00:45:38.161 --> 00:45:43.030
And the one thing that just struck me, struck me really hard was, where's our church?
00:45:43.713 --> 00:45:45.135
Where the heck is our church?
00:45:45.195 --> 00:45:48.219
We're a super intelligent church.
00:45:48.601 --> 00:45:49.702
We're very well organized.
00:45:50.123 --> 00:45:54.007
We're coordinated and resourced at almost every level.
00:45:54.668 --> 00:45:55.849
We've got all these resources.
00:45:55.891 --> 00:45:56.692
We have all this money.
00:45:56.711 --> 00:46:05.864
We teach the Christian principles and what Jesus Christ taught to feed the homeless, help the needy.
00:46:06.664 --> 00:46:09.869
Fundamental principles of what Jesus Christ taught.
00:46:10.561 --> 00:46:17.853
Helping people, you know, feeding people, housing people, et cetera, who are homeless, et cetera.
00:46:17.893 --> 00:46:19.175
You couldn't get more basic than that.
00:46:20.057 --> 00:46:21.159
And there we are.
00:46:21.199 --> 00:46:26.708
There we see this poster and the church is not even referenced at all.
00:46:27.150 --> 00:46:30.074
And so I find that an absolute tragedy.
00:46:30.155 --> 00:46:35.003
And I've tried to have these conversations, Jim, with general authorities and I think one apostle.
00:46:35.483 --> 00:46:42.012
And if they can hear this right now, I don't know if they see it, know it, and it's too expensive.
00:46:42.032 --> 00:46:44.114
I think that's a factor without sounding too cynical.
00:46:44.635 --> 00:46:51.445
But this solution, because the missionary program right now is completely broken, totally broken at every level.
00:46:52.126 --> 00:46:54.971
It's not only affecting people's lives, it's damaging their lives, right?
00:46:55.632 --> 00:46:56.632
It's destructive.
00:46:56.672 --> 00:47:00.579
It actually is destructive on some of the young people's lives and mental health.
00:47:00.639 --> 00:47:09.269
And I know this from seeing situations or individuals' personal lives People have come to me for help as a friend.
00:47:09.289 --> 00:47:17.561
They're struggling and they're leaving and I've left and they've come to me and approached me because the parents who I know have said, you know, go speak to Ian, he might be able to help.
00:47:18.081 --> 00:47:27.335
And so you've got this failed program that's been failing for, you know, a generation and, you know, decades.
00:47:28.476 --> 00:47:58.791
You've got this new missionary proselyting program method of online which is completely failing and why on earth can the capital jail authorities see what's in plain sight a unique and valuable opportunity to put these missionaries and the members to service projects where they will do better work more meaningful and the church's name and the reputation for being kind and offering service free of charge and blessing the lives of all these people.
00:47:58.831 --> 00:48:11.684
And for goodness sake, there's a lot of people that need a lot of help, especially right now with the economy that's happening here in Canada, US, and certainly happening in the UK right now, especially the UK right now with the economic climate that's going on right now.
00:48:12.846 --> 00:48:17.030
Why on earth the church can't wake up and see the opportunity?
00:48:17.530 --> 00:48:21.934
And I think it's because it takes, it's a lot of money.
00:48:22.235 --> 00:48:25.217
I mean, for example, why are the church not opening up the buildings to the homeless?
00:48:26.146 --> 00:48:34.514
Why are they using the buildings to put on ornate objects, ornaments, like Christmas ornaments?
00:48:36.016 --> 00:48:53.155
I'm being specific here on a stake that I know really well that the members came and put all these wonderful Santa Claus, Jesus Christ ornaments up and these other Christmas ornaments and decorations and then invited people from the community to come in and have a look.
00:48:54.217 --> 00:48:58.117
The numbers are incredibly embarrassing, but it doesn't do anything.
00:48:58.277 --> 00:49:03.344
People don't remember that, that you've got some fancy ornament in the house, you brought it to the church.
00:49:04.166 --> 00:49:05.387
The church is completely lost.
00:49:05.547 --> 00:49:08.952
We're devoid of leadership in this area.
00:49:09.452 --> 00:49:14.980
If the apostles can hear this, if you're an apostle of Jesus Christ and you can hear this, do the right thing.
00:49:15.681 --> 00:49:16.481
Be an apostle.
00:49:17.182 --> 00:49:18.905
Be a real apostle, true apostle.
00:49:18.945 --> 00:49:28.110
Do what Christ did and apply all of those resources or many of the resources you've to helping people right now who are in desperate need.
00:49:28.130 --> 00:49:36.141
Individuals who are homeless, who are hungry, and kids, LDS kids even, who go to bed each night hungry.
00:49:36.601 --> 00:49:40.126
Please, for goodness sake, can't you see the opportunity?
00:49:40.226 --> 00:49:42.690
And can't you see the timing is now?
00:49:43.070 --> 00:49:47.597
And if you do that, and you're looking at reward, fine, you'll get the reward.
00:49:48.458 --> 00:49:58.134
The reward can be improved reputation, more baptisms, fine, If that's what you want, if that's what your focus is, I don't doubt you'll get more baptisms.
00:49:58.534 --> 00:50:00.275
But do it because it's the right thing to do.
00:50:00.315 --> 00:50:02.197
Do it because it's the best thing to do.
00:50:02.237 --> 00:50:06.402
And do it because people's lives need saving.
00:50:06.563 --> 00:50:52.268
And you as leaders, as apostles and general authorities, have an opportunity and a spiritual and sacred obligation to follow the fundamentals of Christ and to apply as much of the financial and other uh resources that you have to help these people because it people are desperate for it especially right now and the opportunity is there um and the church needs to is it it just needs to have leadership it just needs to have leadership but as i said before we're doing more work for the dead we're helping the dead more than we are the living and the living are dying and um i've even had a leader say to me look if we can't help them in the living when they die, we'll help them when they're dead.
00:50:52.427 --> 00:51:01.056
I was absolutely appalled at that and took, you know, took exception to that and called this person out for that.
00:51:01.577 --> 00:51:08.925
So I feel very strongly about this as you do, and I'm glad you brought this up because it's a really important, you know, requirement.
00:51:09.045 --> 00:51:25.934
And I think it would, you know, if you want to transform the church, Jim, you want to change the church, I can't think of a better area to improve the church across the entire church structure and program than to commit more resources to helping the needy.
00:51:26.454 --> 00:51:34.264
I think it's a conduit, I think it's a pathway to greater improvement and development of the church across the entire church.
00:51:34.324 --> 00:51:53.846
I think it would be the catalyst that would change the church at every level if they were able to show and demonstrate real apostolism disciple leadership in the way that Christ demonstrated when he was alive.
00:51:53.945 --> 00:51:59.072
He was in the fields, he was in the homes, blessing lives and helping them and feeding them.
00:51:59.172 --> 00:52:14.534
And we're in our office in Salt Lake City and we're looking at numbers and looking at spreadsheets and looking at what we can do to strategize and how we can use the ministry effort on the social media, the technology to get the numbers up.
00:52:14.818 --> 00:52:15.878
The church is lost.
00:52:15.918 --> 00:52:18.882
The leadership are lost on this front, for sure.
00:52:19.164 --> 00:52:22.047
Anyway, I feel very passionate about this, as you can tell.
00:52:22.708 --> 00:52:28.637
Well, and you have said some very brilliant things here, and I think we'll let that be the last word.
00:52:29.697 --> 00:52:31.300
We're coming up at the end of this episode.
00:52:31.840 --> 00:52:39.510
So those of you listening, please make sure that you subscribe to our podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
00:52:40.432 --> 00:52:43.076
And until next time, we'll see you on Inside Out.
00:52:43.195 --> 00:52:44.478
Thank you, Ian.
00:52:44.929 --> 00:52:45.536
Thank you, Jim.
