"Hold my root beer" - the Russell M. Nelson thread

[happyone]

Elder Kikuchi was still a soft touch in 2000. I had the pleasure of listening to him speak once in stake conference and once at a mission conference, before he gave nearly the same talk in General Conference.

I was in Japan when Elder Kikuchi took over the Japan/Korea Area from Elder Komastu. The first time I met him was at a Tri-Zone conference in Kyoto and he gave one of the funniest talks I'ver ever heard from a GA. He started in pretty good English and was so excited it gradually more and more Japanese crept in and by the end he was speaking mainly in Japanese. Everyone was rolling in the isles He also wrote a Joseph Smith story for our first discussion to replace what was in the discussions from the Church.

I see him periodically at our chapel. One of his missionaries from when he was a mission president was the Bishop of one of the other wards and he attends when there is any type of occasion in the former Bishop's family, he attends

[Moliere]

Yeah, I also remember rogue missionary tactics that involved inviting someone to get baptized after a second formal meeting with an investigator. It came before talk about the WOW, tithing, and the restoration. Crazy times.

[Jeff Lebowski]

I was in Japan when Elder Kikuchi took over the Japan/Korea Area from Elder Komastu. The first time I met him was at a Tri-Zone conference in Kyoto and he gave one of the funniest talks I'ver ever heard from a GA. He started in pretty good English and was so excited it gradually more and more Japanese crept in and by the end he was speaking mainly in Japanese. Everyone was rolling in the isles He also wrote a Joseph Smith story for our first discussion to replace what was in the discussions from the Church.

I see him periodically at our chapel. One of his missionaries was the Bishop of one of the other wards and he attends when there is any type of occasion in the Bishop's family

He spoke to our mission in Japan for about four hours straight and we were mesmerized. Loved that guy.

[Surfah]

Kikuchi and Pinnock visited our mission. I remember Pinnock chastised us for not backing in our cars to park which was new to all of us and annoying. Because now you had to stop, let your comp out to back you up into a stall rather than just parking and having your comp back you out of the stall. Whatever.

Kikuchi was rad. He told us all that we needed to have our own Sacred Grove moment. I liked that.

[Northwestcoug]

They know, at least with regard to specific times and areas of the globe. Mine was John R. Lasater, for whom I have less than Christlike feelings. I've had nearly zero desire to do missionary work of any kind since then.

Lasater was mine also. Word on the street was that he was a former army general and was a hard ass to mission leadership. I was only a lowly DL, so I never got a special meeting with him. I can’t recall any change in emphasis after he visited us.

[Green Monstah]

This is great. Toward the end of my mission, I used the soft commit at the second discussion: "When you gain a belief in the truthfulness of our message, I invite you to follow Christ's example by being baptized."

It drove some companions crazy. My last baptism, my companion begged me to "drop him," because he wasn't "progressing." He was progressing, he was just progressing slowly, and ten days before I left, the investigator asked me to baptize him, which I did, the day after the rest of my group went home.

[Green Monstah]

The changes in the church are great. But the way some of the changes have been announced have highlighted just how bad the Church's PR department is for me. Maybe I'm just too damn cynical, but don't tell me you're unsure how the culture of hard committing baptisms came about--it's hard wired into the lesson manuals you utilized for twenty years (a span that likely saw more convert baptisms than any other 20 year span in the history of the church).

[Jeff Lebowski]

The changes in the church are great. But the way some of the changes have been announced have highlighted just how bad the Church's PR department is for me. Maybe I'm just too damn cynical, but don't tell me you're unsure how the culture of hard committing baptisms came about--it's hard wired into the lesson manuals you utilized for twenty years (a span that likely saw more convert baptisms than any other 20 year span in the history of the church).

You are too damn cynical.

[MartyFunkhouser]

You are too damn cynical.

You are too damn trusting.

I think the balance is probably somewhere in between your being too trusting and my too damn cynical.

[Green Monstah]

You are too damn cynical.

I am not!

[Sleeping in EQ]

The changes in the church are great. But the way some of the changes have been announced have highlighted just how bad the Church's PR department is for me. Maybe I'm just too damn cynical, but don't tell me you're unsure how the culture of hard committing baptisms came about--it's hard wired into the lesson manuals you utilized for twenty years (a span that likely saw more convert baptisms than any other 20 year span in the history of the church).

I don't think you're cynical; but there is value in not dwelling on it too much.

[happyone]

They announce the location of the Layton temple - where everyone around here expected - about 3 blocks or so from my home. I wonder what it will do to my homes value

https://www.deseretnews.com/article/...a-century.html

[swampfrog]

I don't think you're cynical; but there is value in not dwelling on it too much.

I don't think he's cynical either; and there is value in dwelling on it a little. It's a personal pet peeve of mine that I've inherited from my father, maybe it should move to that thread .

I'm glad they are changing some focus, but the line "Church leaders don’t know where these practices began..." is disingenuous. However that appears to be the characterization of the author of the article and not a direct quote from Elder Ballard. I'm curious as to what prompted that specific phrasing.

It doesn't take too much searching to find some gems like this.

In anticipation of my address to you today, I have read and reread every major address regarding missionary work given by President Kimball during more than a decade. As I have done so, tears have welled up in my eyes as I have again caught his marvelous vision of missionary work as given to him by direct revelation.

“Brethren, the spirit of this work is urgency, and we must imbue … our Saints with the spirit of now. NOW. We are not justified in waiting for the natural, slow process of bringing people into the Church. We must move rather hastily.”

Sometimes [when] we give you exhortations of this kind, there may be a tendency to feel as though it just can’t be done; but we can baptize more people and we can do it in a very solid and stable way.

We urge this matter upon us and place squarely on the shoulders of the General Authorities and their numerous associates to clear ourselves with our Maker when we have expanded our best efforts.

Some years ago there grew up an error in the method of proselyting and many people were baptized who were not converted. This caused concern among the Brethren. We want people to have a testimony, but when we expressed some concern about many of these baptisms, the pendulum swung the other way, all the way across, and there were many mission presidents who came to feel, mistakenly, that they should never discuss baptism with investigators at all. … That problem has been corrected. … From now on, … we expect that every year there will be a great increase in conversions and baptisms. We hope that stake and full-time mission presidents will understand this. We do believe in setting goals. We live by goals. In athletics, we always have a goal. When we go to school, we have the goal of graduation and degrees. Our total existence is goal-oriented. Our most important goal is to bring the gospel to all people. We must convert more people.

This quote is from 1975, dwelling on it a little might help us stop repeating the same mistakes. Continually setting the expectations so high and blaming the lack of results on faithlessness is counterproductive.

[Moliere]

"Hold my root beer" - the Russell M. Nelson thread

Anyone here memorize and use the Golden Question? I remember some long, rambling question about the Precolumbian inhabitants of America and their record and offering it to people by asking if they’d like to know more. We had to memorize it in French and were told that it was the best way to open a conversation either at a door or in the street.

We also had Pres Monson visit France while I was there and he gave the “if you invite two people to your home to listen to the missionaries, one will get baptized and the church will double in size in a decade” prophecy. Apparently this had been said before and the members really just rolled their eyes. We got absolutely no traction in having them invite friends to visit with us mostly because they were out of friends to invite.

[Jeff Lebowski]

The church announces that they are making a specific effort to reduce emphasis on numbers. So rather than celebrate that positive change, our primary response is being upset that they aren't sufficiently apologetic and forthright about past practices?

What a time to be alive.