The manipulation pattern

[Surfah]

On my mission we were teaching a part member family. One of the non-members was a staunch baptist and started trying to get their family involved in her Church and would do everything in her power to keep us from teaching the family. One evening we had an appointment to go teach them and we had an exchange for the night. He was an older gentleman who served his mission in South America long ago. His Spanish was rough and he was barely active but for some reason he wanted to go out with us and even confessed to us on the way to the appointment that this was something he doesn't do.

Anyway, we get to the appointment and the baptist minister is there ready to bash us. We decline and refuse any attempts he makes to get into it with us. Finally he starts teaching us all a lesson and then starts in with his manipulation pattern. He asks if the family loves Jesus. They all say yes. He then asks if it is important to do what Jesus asks. They again say yes. Then he asks them if they're willing to reject Jesus by not being baptized. Of course they say no. So then he invites them to be baptized. And they all say yes. So we left.

Our exchange for the night though had a great time. He couldn't stop talking about the evening and it really energized him and his commitment to the Church. So that made me happy.

The father of the family got really sick and moved home to Mexico to die presumably. The rest of the family stayed. It was a weird situation. They raised fighting cocks to fight in New Mexico. That was cool.

[Clark Addison]

I'm not sure if this completely fits the premise, and I feel kind of bad replying after Creek's admonition, but this was one of my favorite mission stories.

My mission would usually baptize about 40 people a month. The highest we ever had was around 70. During the time period of this story, things were slow, and we had only been baptizing 15 to 20 per month for a few months. My Mission President got a hold of this talk or article on Convenanting with the Lord. I've heard of a few other missions who did something similar, so I think it was spreading around at the time. This was not written by a GA, and was not in an official publication. In fact, Elder Komatsu, who was the Area President at the time, did not want my MP to pursue it in a rather loud argument in his office.

The theory of this program was that if we made a goal, and then said "here is what we will do to meet this goal", the Lord would be bound to honor this covenent and it would happen. So we had a mission conference, and the MP (who was and is, I should say, a great man) really laid it on us about how we needed to have faith, covenant with the Lord, and we would surely meet our goals. He had each companionship make a goal for how many baptisms they would have next month. Then he had all the Zones meet and compile the numbers. Then all the Zone Leaders went to the front of the room and, one by one, state what there goal was, with a lot of pressure to make it big.

For the purpose of this story, I must reveal that I was a ZL on my mission. My comp and I got all the companionship goals, and they added up to over 20 baptisms. We knew how many investigators we currently had, and we knew that in the previous month we had baptized around 4, so we knew that that 20 wasn't going to happen. So we go up with all the other ZLs. The first one is called up, and he says "The Kowloon Central zone will baptize 25 people next month!", and everyone cheers. Then the next one stands up and says "The Island East Zone will baptize 28 people next month", and everyone cheered louder. We were about the sixth zone to go, and by that time the mission had already committed to about 150 baptisms, which was twice as many as we had ever had, and the crowd is in a frenzy. So I stood up and said "The Kowloon East Zone will baptize 7 people next month", and there was silence throughout the room, and the MP gave me a bit of a dirty look. I am pretty sure that meeting is why I never made AP.

So in the end, the mission had a goal of over 200 baptisms. We just missed that number, baptizing around 35. On the plus side, we were the only zone that met our goal, but somehow we didn't get any credit for that.

[HuskyFreeNorthwest]

I stole one of the posters from the MTC, because one of the guys in my room said "They were protected and were never to leave the MTC under any circumstances" one of my companions in the mission when I hung it up in the usual spot in the bathroom said "You know major companies would pay you a ton for that, they've been trying to get their hands on it for years".

I believe it is still in my Mom's basement, how would I go about getting competing bids from major companies?

[TripletDaddy]

One that I'm embarrassed about in retrospect....that I'll Build You a Rainbow film strip we showed to everyone on the mish.

We would show a video with a montage of pics of a mom playing with her young boy, then have the boy describe the sadness of coming home to find his mother dying. As she takes her last breath she tells her son that she loves him and will see him again. Then more pics showing the family moving on doing the same activities they used to do but this time without the mom.

Invariably people would be in tears. We would turn off the projector, tell people that they were feeling the spirit, and then challenge them to baptism.

I'm really glad the church has basically abandoned that film strip and all the other dark guilt media.

I can't remember, but I am fairly confident that the film strip doesn't even mention the Church or Jesus Christ. There really is no discussion of any doctrinal points whatsoever. I don't see how an objective person could argue that this movie is anything other than an attempt to manipulate the viewer into feeling emotional.

[HuskyFreeNorthwest]

One that I'm embarrassed about in retrospect....that I'll Build You a Rainbow film strip we showed to everyone on the mish.

[YOUTUBE]NRlB0HV7nH0[/YOUTUBE]

[tooblue]

I like you...but you come off like a kid who isn't getting his way most of the time.

Don't worry about it Tick, I don't want anything. I would like you to know that I think a crisis of faith is healthy and it's awesome that you stay actively engaged. That's the best thing about the church. It provides endless opportunities to make a difference in peoples lives. Keep at it.

[Green Monstah]

I was non-manipulative with investigators, but I worked the manipulation pattern with my comps and missionaries in my districts/zones. I committed a district to live the law of consecration for the week (in a public d-bag way) and would ask missionaries why they were wasting their parent's money in a pretty awful way. If I go to hell, I'm pretty sure it will be because of how I treated other missionaries.

[pellegrino]

I'm surprised we haven't heard any RM stories of romantic encounters where the pattern was employed successfully (or not). Seems like there would be a gold mine of stories like that.

[Donuthole]

I'm surprised we haven't heard any RM stories of romantic encounters where the pattern was employed successfully (or not). Seems like there would be a gold mine of stories like that.

I have a story about that. I was dating a girl. One night after we'd been dating for about a year, I took her out to dinner. After dinner, I drove to a secluded place, got down on a knee, and said "Will you marry me?" Because I had spent the previous year building a relationship of trust, extending the truthfulness of my awesomeness, and resolving her many concerns, she accepted when I extended the opportunity for commitment.

[myboynoah]

Yesterday after dinner I asked Noah to clear the table. He balked. I noted how we are a family and all needed to do our part, that his mother had prepared the dinner, and both his mother and father had gone to work to purchase the food he had eaten, and that his part last evening was to clear the table. I think I threw in a few comments about how he really isn't asked to do that much around the house and that clearing the table was very minimal compared to what others had done. He wasn't happy but complied.

We repeat this pattern almost every evening.

How many bonus points do I get?

[SoCalCoug]

A missionary in my mission, rebellious kid out maybe six months. Living in an apartment with the AP's. One AP was a complete a-hole and constantly in this guy's face over every rule. The elder wasn't doing something right like waking up on time or something, I forget. The AP says will you commit to wake up on time from now on. The elder says "will you commit to suck my d***?" That kid became the mission hero.

You sure this "kid" wasn't a certain Elder Santos?

[wuapinmon]

"Not in some sissy way, or anything like that."

OH SHIT!

[Jarid in Cedar]

Yesterday after dinner I asked Noah to clear the table. He balked. I noted how we are a family and all needed to do our part, that his mother had prepared the dinner, and both his mother and father had gone to work to purchase the food he had eaten, and that his part last evening was to clear the table. I think I threw in a few comments about how he really isn't asked to do that much around the house and that clearing the table was very minimal compared to what others had done. He wasn't happy but complied.

We repeat this pattern almost every evening.

How many bonus points do I get?

Points? Write a book! I wish I could learn to manipulate my older kids that easily to do basic chores.

[Babs]

There was this time I was admitted into a secret, private forum on an Internet message board and ... oh never mind, that's too sacrosanct to talk about here.

good grief. You and rosebud.

[tooblue]

good grief. You and rosebud.

That deserves a hearty lol.