I’m not sure why, but my first companion remained a ZL for some time after that, I guess that the new MP was reluctant to throw out his existing leadership until he got a handle on things. I refused to “pad the planners”, and despite turning in accurate, realistic and low numbers I quickly rose up through the leadership ranks. I wasn’t above the practice of counting “dog discussions” though, just so no one reading this gets the idea I was a saint, far from it. A “dog discussion” was when a conversation with a new contact covered three or more points of a regular discussion, though informally and was recorded as such for the numbers. It was a universal practice, to the point that if an area was turning in vastly improved numbers, the recipient of those numbers would begin to howl and bark, letting the other side know that his discussion quality and numbers were being held suspect.

I was aghast and appalled at the pervasiveness of lying about numbers among missionaries, and despite my second MP being, in my opinion, a much more sincere and moral man than my first, and certainly cared more about his missionaries, it did not go unnoticed that the most dishonest missionaries, the ones turning in what were obviously inflated numbers, advanced in mission leadership faster and farther than the ones who were honest and turned in more realistic numbers. I do not recall the pressures that others here have related, yellings over the phone and blatant instructions on how to lie, but seeing the liars advancing as they did while the honest ones advancing more slowly if at all, the message still came through, if you want to go places, lie. If you don’t and are honest, there will be a price to pay. I may have been an exception, I advanced in spite of low but honest numbers, but that was part of my undoing. I ended up so completely drained and so exhausted that I have little recollection of much of the last months of the experience. It took me several years to recover and I remain distant and estranged from the church with no interest whatsoever in reconciling. I have said that the main effect of the mission on me was teaching me the dark side of what I had believed so strongly in. The starkest lesson learned was the most cynical, that to get ahead you must abandon your morals, even in “the work of the Lord”. Unless you’re willing to do that you will just have to settle. Honesty, virtue and morality, unfortunately, carry a hefty price tag, one that I can say that I’m proud to have paid up to this point in life, despite my non-stellar levels of achievement. I am now retired and I’m not especially unhappy with how things turned out. At least my meager accomplishments were gained without sacrificing my soul for them.

I had two Mission Presidents while I served, the first was a wonderful man from New Zealand (only 29 when he was called!), and NEVER pressured us for stats; only concerned that we were happy and content in the work! My second MP couldn’t have been more opposite (though in fairness, I’m told by some of my younger jr comps that he “softened up” quite a bit by the end of his 3 years). He was a lawyer from S. CA, and was use to “being in charge” (I’ll let you interpretat that). That was when the “numbers game” really heated up. I NEVER falsified my numbers, and paid the price via advancement stopped (though it’s not about advancement anyway, and thankfully I came to realize that), and some conflicts with ZL’s & the MP himself. Funny, in that country (those who served there know what I’m talking about) where you were lucky to have even a few baptisms your whole mission, I was resonsible for baptising over half a dozen in my 18 months (yes, I was a “shorty” during that time of experimentation before the Lord let us learn and set it straight!), and had the lowest hours worked (as HONESTLY reported) of any companionship. It’s not about numbers, but people; I never lost sight of that, and I believe my success in the mission reflected it (not in NUMBERS of baptisms, but in lives changed for the better!).

However, I do believe that the Lord knows “whom He has called”, and blesses those of us with honest hearts. I know my first MP is now an Area Authority 70, and I never hear about my second MP at all; even no reunions ever “advertised” if you can believe that! Also, those of us in our mission that always reported true numbers are the ones that have served as Bishops, Stake Presidents, and Mission Presidents; those that I remember were the biggest offenders are largely inactive today (most went inactive shortly after their missions!). The Lord does indeed know “whom He has chosen”; we all individually just need to remember whom we represent, and live our lives accordingly regardless of how we appear to other men.

Thanks for letter me share; this issue has “haunted” me for over 25 years now, and this was the first time I was able to share and “exercise” those deamons!

I discovered that my first trainer in the US falsified some numbers (street contacts). However, I never falsified numbers the remainder of my mission. Nore was I aware of other missionaries falsifying reports.

We were taught that numbers only matter insofar as they represent people, so although numbers were reported, the ZLs and APs would talk to us about the people behind our numbers by name. They obviously would take notes, because they would remember people from week to week. I think this helped control the desire to falsify numbers. I never had a leader yell or scold me for numbers. The focus was on things within your control, rather than decisions other people made.

I wonder if my good experience was the exception, based on all the posts…

I was finance clerk the last several years I still attended and we had at least two couples where the wives paid tithing separate from their husbands (for tax purposes.) It wasn’t a problem. That tells me that if it is a problem in a ward, it’s due to the bishop, not the church itself.

My mission president (Caracas Venzuela, 1981/82) had minimal reporting–number of baptisms, number of discussions, number of investigators. Oddly enough, the APs and ZLs were the ones who tried to add more data points, but the mission president rejected their suggestions. I soon discovered that nobody cared anyway and stopped turning the dumb things in.

The second mission president came in just when 18-month missions started and introduced the form the church HQ finally created to clear up this mess. I never filled out a single one of those forms.

As for fake baptisms; I don’t know of a single instance in my mission of a totally fake baptism, but it was chock full of sham baptisms. To celebrate my first mission president leaving, we hit 300 baptisms a month for several months. The month after he left, we did 50 (due to the 18-month fiasco and Visa problems, we were losing missionaries at a massive rate, but the drop in baptisms vastly exceeded the drop in missionaries.) In one case, I was so upset about a family my ZL companion pushed for baptism, that I refused to go. Sure enough, the Mom and one or two kids showed up the next Sunday and never again.

The biggest trick was baptizing 16 and 17 year olds. We had one town with hundreds of these, done mainly by one missionary.

Looking back at my mission, the one thing I marvel about is how we managed to burn time. I was in burned over districts where there really was nothing to do. In one case we resorted to scheduling every other visit all the way across town. Earlier, in that same town, my [senior] companion decided we would hitchhike to “save money” and find people–wink wink.

My DLs told me once that I was one of the lowest in the mission for out-of-the-house hours, but one of the highest in the mission for hours worked. They wondered how I could do that. Looking back, part of it could be that I didn’t have much imagination to find other things to do. I was too cheap to shop, and too guilt-driven to just waste time otherwise once I got started.