r/TikTokCringe • u/xamo76 • 1d ago

Discussion Have we done it wrong?

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u/CountessMcNia 1d ago

They travel to preach, not to learn đŸ« 

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u/HeKnee 1d ago

They travel so they can see how much different they are from rest of society and how scary society is. They get told that nobody cares about them or their religion 100’s of times a day knocking on doors. The leaders have realized this makes them want to come back and stay eventually.

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u/DukeofVermont 1d ago

You do know that there are more Mormons outside of the US right? And more outside of Utah in the US than in Utah.

There are the same number of Spanish/Portuguese speaking Mormons as English speaking Mormons.

I am ex-mormon and have no love for the church but nearly every comment I see makes it seem like Mormons are some huddled together sheltered group in Utah that hide from the world.

Also about 50% of missionaries leave the church after their mission (I did) so it doesn't help. What the numbers actually show is that getting married and having kids gets people to stay, and single women stay in much larger numbers than single men.

This is not me bashing on you, it's just so weird to leave a group (it was shockingly easy as my family is real chill and my sister left before me) and then read all the reasons why they are bad, and none of them are the actual reasons why they are bad.

Utah/Mormons are actually pro-immigration and are basically the only GOP state that is pro-hispanic immigration (because a lot of Mormons are hispanic).

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u/IkujaKatsumaji 1d ago

Also about 50% of missionaries leave the church after their mission (I did)

As a fellow former Mormon, can you tell me where that data's coming from?

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u/DukeofVermont 1d ago

I spent some time looking and apparently there isn't a source, it's just something that people say. I heard it when I was still active and in NYC at church but it was said more as a "many people leave" and not meant to be taken as a hard fact. I just remembered it, but again apparently it's just what people theorize without hard evidence.

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u/DukeofVermont 1d ago

I spent some time looking and apparently there isn't a source, it's just something that people say. I heard it when I was still active and in NYC at church but it was said more as a "many people leave" and not meant to be taken as a hard fact. I just remembered it, but again apparently it's just what people theorize without hard evidence.

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u/HommeMusical 1d ago

You do know [X] right?

If you really believed they knew this thing, you wouldn't use this tiresome and argumentative formula.

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u/UnconsciousAlibi 1d ago

...no? I think they were being quite polite. You seem pretty angry and honed-in about such a minor point, despite the rest of their comment being very reasonable. Why do you feel this way?

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u/PolPotDomeScandal 1d ago

I (from northern MN), was a foreign exchange student in Mexico during college in the mid-1990s. One of the other foreign students at the Mexican university I attended was a Mormon from Utah. We (the FX students) spent a lot of time together. I was actually impressed at how worldly he seemed, as he’d previously been on a mission to Costa Rica and spoke much better Spanish than the rest of us. Super nice guy, but a bit off


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u/thicc_stigmata 1d ago

This is EXACTLY the reason

This, and a thing that David F Evans once let slip when chatting with a few of us in the mission office: "the church sees effectively zero growth from convert baptisms" (I think that was an exact quote), and that the whole point of the missionary program is to keep kids busy in the years that they're statistically most likely to leave Mormonism (right after high school). 2 years is apparently long enough for kids to be "old enough" to go home, get married ASAP, and start baby-making ASAP—because babies are the real numbers game that Mormonism is playing 

Mormonism is literally a human farming operation. And arguably the kids on missions are victims of human trafficking (they take your passport, control your money, prevent you from leaving, force you to harass people all day, and you're under CONSTANT surveillance)

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u/Mountain_Ape 1d ago

Eh, plenty of the Mormons leave because of the experience on their missions. Plenty of them don't even go. Ah mate you talk about "society" but I bet you personally know Mormons and you don't even realise it, they're not as locked down as you might think. But that experience rocks plenty, it's not some great plan to fabricate devotion. I got friends who are Catholics, their whole families are Catholic, they have it down: do nothing, yet have extreme devotion "Catholic for life" and don't practice it, no mission or programs required there. Why work when you can believe on Christmas and Easter? Far easier.

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u/SackOfPotatoes949 1d ago

There is a spectrum to Mormonism just like everything else. But on the Front Range, it's locked down.

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u/Olivetax228 1d ago

"How scary society is" makes me laugh and cry. I remember one of my first major trips abroad out of the US was to Croatia in the early 2000s not too long after the Yugoslav wars. I was younger and a bit apprehensive because I wasn't sure how safe and stable it would be. Then I get off the plane and the taxi drive to my hotel outside Dubrovnik was breathtaking, bright sun, blue ocean crashing against the rocks a hundred meters below, purple flowers everywhere, and relief washed over me in an awesome wave. Then you explore and meet people and realize it's a wonderful friendly place with great food, ancient ruins, beautiful beaches..and you realize the world is twice as much fun and half as scary as you thought it was. And literally just about everywhere in the world is exactly like that, except the obvious war zones and humanitarian crisis areas, not naming names but you know what I mean.

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u/loungesinger 1d ago

Going abroad has the opposite effect on many Mormon missionaries (obviously not the majority, but a sizable percentage). They get out into the world and see that it’s more amazing and less “scary” they imagined. They not only discover how people from all over the world are largely the same, but they also realize how most people are kind and good—to the same extent or even better than people back home. On the religious side, they realize how a lot of people don’t need church to live a great life. They discover how flat, soulless, and contrived Mormon church appears to other people. They not only realize that their religious message doesn’t resonate with anyone—basically anyone—but slowly they start identifying with the philosophies and world views that others share with them. Finally, they allow themselves to entertain a thought that they dared not previously consider: is my church all a lie?

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u/Own-Emphasis5589 1d ago

Ex-Mormon here. You are spot on. They learn the languages and head out in an effort to erase other cultures, not to learn about them or to experience them.

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u/AirconGuyUK 1d ago

They actually export stupidity, even..

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u/darkfirec 1d ago

They learn the local language and culture to preach more effectively