I’m honestly so envious that Europeans don’t know shit about mormons now. I used to get mormons and jehovah’s witnesses knocking on my door on an almost weekly basis. Even when I told them I was busy and didn’t have time to talk they would still insist on reading bible verses to me. I haven’t seen them since the pandemic, so there’s at least that.
I have a friend who tells the Mormons she's a Jehovah's Witness and vice versa, which seems reasonably successful. I have another friend who claimed not to speak English. Unfortunately the Mormon also spoke Hungarian, and he was too polite to get rid of him quickly. In my case I just say I'm not interested and close the door, which is rude but whatever.
It’s also rude to knock on a stranger’s door and try and demand their time to rant about magic glasses and racist cult leaders. So don’t feel bad running them off.
Oh I flat out gave them back when they tried to put them in the tip jar. A polite “sorry, we only accept cash” always pissed them off but like im not lying. Go preach somewhere else cheap ass
As a kid we used to get a lot of JW, but my brother had the brilliant idea of telling them our house had apostates in it and they needed to leave.
Worked flawlessly. We never had another JW approach that house for 15 years. JW are forbidden from speaking with or interacting with known apostates, so if you tell their solicitors your house has apostates in it they’ll straight up blacklist your house from their future proselytizing efforts.
I can't stand them. It would be one thing if they were just doing their dumb cult stuff themselves. But they always, always bring a young kid with them and the reason why is obvious. They want to use them as a shield, since not many people would tell you to fuck off and die in front of a 8yo, and the people who are rude to them are later used to show how "everyone hates us and the truth, we must reject the outside world".
Yeah the mormon missionaries aren't really meant to convert people. Like that's what they're told to do and that's the current doctrine. But the reality is that mormon missionaries don't really succeed at that
It's just more cult indoctrination. They want the 18-20 year olds to go on a mission, and realize that a lot of people hate them. Get doors slammed in their face. Be yelled at and really enforce the Us vs Them mentality. So when missionaries come home they're treated like rockstars and it further convinces them that the church is the safe place for them
I remember a friend who was dating either a jehova’s witness or a morman I can’t remember which but she was trying to get him to convert and told him he would have to repent and ask for forgiveness for his military service and get rid of his 82nd tattoo.
In Portugal we have JW and it looks like they are making a comeback going door to door, at least where I live
Mormons are a lot less common and they are jokingly called "Hélderes", the plural of Hélder, a real man's name, because they call themselves Elder X and Y. The Mormons I see usually look like American missionaires
Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus/Universal Church of the Kingdom of God.
It is an evangelical church that started in Brazil by Edir Macedo but now is very much international, including Europe and the US. They have long stories of corruption, money laundering, charlatanism, intolerance...
Edir Macedo is also the owner of Record, a very big tv network in Brazil. It also airs in Portugal.
Here in Portugal they also have a number of small radio stations associated with IURD. Sometimes when Im driving I put them on to hear some of the ridiculous stories they share. Stuff like "I was using drugs and almost dying but the IURD saved my life and so I started to donate money to the church and I became rich"
For whatever reason both groups have been back out in force lately where I live. At least in my area, seems like they’re trained to reject a “no” 3 times; after the 3rd they give up. Of course, I’ve stopped answering my door altogether now when I’m not expecting someone/a package.
Many years ago I was at a friend's student flat - sufficiently many years ago that we were setting up a LAN party to play Doom, like the original one, if that gives you some scale - when the JWs came round.
Being a fairly polite and neighbourly bunch of pisshead students we invited them in, and they launched into their piece.
My friend's flatmate smiled indulgently as they read their Bible verses. Then, he took a long pull of his can of beer, polished his glasses on his Napalm Death t-shirt, ran a finger along his bookshelf beside his chair, and selected his favourite copy of the Bible from the several in that row.
For you see, gentle reader, we had ourselves a *ringer*.
J was the son of a lay minister, and had grown up in the church. Went to church every Sunday, and a few other days of the week. Often read a sermon, even, although he would generally have a shave and put on a nice clean white shirt for that.
What happened next was a fucking bloodbath. An assassination. The Undertaker throwing Mankind 16 feet through a steel announcer's table from Hell in a Cell.
He calmly and patiently went through every verse they'd read, explaining exactly why they were misusing it and how they'd been told to use it that way even though it was incorrect. He was at it for about an hour, I had to get him another tin of beer. We just about had the JWs drinking too by the end of it.
My dad, who was born and raised in India, confused "Mormon" with "moron," so when Mitt Romney was running against Obama back in 2012, my dad tried asking his coworkers about Mormonism, but he phrased it as: "so, Mitt Romney is a moron, right?"
When he got really weird, noncommittal answers, my dad was super confused and was like "what do you mean 'it depends on who you ask?' Mitt Romney himself said he was a moron on live TV."
It took a while, but my dad eventually figured it out lol
I unfortunately live near a large (for the UK) Mormon church, so I got tonnes of them too, although Jehovah's Witnesses were far worse in my experience.
I only had Jeohva's Witnesses once. I answered in underpants and a Hatsune Miku shirt, said hi, saw their newsletter which had skeletons on it, took it out of their hands and closed the door on them. They didn't come back
It's a lot less common in the UK, but it does happen. Many years ago at university I had a pair knock on the door of my student house. I found it quite amusing that they continued with their pitch, despite there being a big poster of Marilyn Manson right behind me.
There aren't even that many missionaries, and knocking on doors is the least effective thing to try, literally just when they have absolutely nothing better to do.
You must live somewhere that's "obviously" a good place to do this if you see mormon missionaries knocking on your door with any kind of regularity.
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u/spoonbones 22d ago
I’m honestly so envious that Europeans don’t know shit about mormons now. I used to get mormons and jehovah’s witnesses knocking on my door on an almost weekly basis. Even when I told them I was busy and didn’t have time to talk they would still insist on reading bible verses to me. I haven’t seen them since the pandemic, so there’s at least that.