Elder Holland Withdraws Fantastic Missionary Story

[oliblish]

I was reading about this some more at this site:

http://www.mormonlight.org/2017/06/30/e ... ries-time/

They have updated the story with the news of the retraction, but it is interesting to read some of the reader comments:

Rick Douglas Richards · Sheridan College
Is anyone else curious why this guy never contacted his family for 20 years?
Like · Reply · 2 · Jul 1, 2017 4:57pm

Jeremy Amonson
Cause it never happened
Reply · 3 · Jul 1, 2017 9:04pm

Marla Fawcett Thomas · Accounts Payable/Payroll Clerk at TCB Quality Landscaping, Inc
He had estranged himself from them and everything they stood for. It took a "special unexpected moment" for his heart to actually be touched. Once a tender place in his heart was reached he opened up and began to reconnect. Many people of this world have had a time like this where they become estranged from others in one of their relationships -- perhaps, because the pain is so strong and the remorse of the past is like a fortress to protect themselves. Many have not forgiven themselves and will not open up to allow reconnection in their lives -- no matter what. It might be labeled "pride" and it takes that "special unexpected moment" to unlock those feelings.
Reply · 1 · Jul 2, 2017 7:28pm · Edited

Rachel McAllister Payne
Marla Fawcett Thomas this story has now been withdrawn by Elder Holland because of false information. http://www.deseretnews.com/.../Elder-Holland-withdraws...
Reply · 15 hrs

Debbie Parrott · Zone Manager at Walmart
Gave me Chills! What a wonderful story!!!!! I know without a doubt stories like this happen!!! Love Our Heavenly Father and Our Savior Jesus Christ! We would be lost without the guidance of the Holy Ghost.
Like · Reply · 32 · Jun 30, 2017 4:17pm

Stephen Cartisano
Jeremy Amonson : Jeremy, this is completely believable when you've seen these type of experiences happen on multiple occasions within the Church.
Like · Reply · 7 · Jul 3, 2017 10:44pm

Frase Kirk · Works at Royal Hotel
Jeremy Amonson why does it make you cringe?
Like · Reply · Jul 4, 2017 6:11am

Tina Brady Maxfield
Jeremy Amonson someday you will come to believe in this story, today is not that day but some say you will tell this story with full purpose of heart. God bless you! And God loves you!
Like · Reply · 5 · Jul 4, 2017 8:43am

Steve Craven · Decatur, Illinois
Jeremy Amonson ... I have known of Jeffrey Holland for many years -- and he is not the type to "make up" a "feel good story."
Like · Reply · 8 · Jul 4, 2017 4:55pm

Ralph A Welliver · Holyoke Community College
Jeremy Amonson I believe it because, 1. Elder Holland told the story. 2 because I have seen things like this happen in my own life.
Like · Reply · 2 · Jul 8, 2017 1:39pm

Rachel McAllister Payne
Steve Craven this story has now been withdrawn by Elder Holland because of false information. http://www.deseretnews.com/.../Elder-Holland-withdraws...
Like · Reply · 2 · 15 hrs

Leanne McNaught · Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
It is true. A friend of ours who was a missionary at the time, went to the temple with this man and his wife. And we are from Australia. Truth is truth and there is no denying it.
Like · Reply · 1 · Jul 6, 2017 2:23pm

Rachel McAllister Payne
Turned out not to be true. Holland withdrew the story because of false information.
Reply · 11 hrs

Leanne McNaught · Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Rachel McAllister Payne Only on the dates of the event. Which is what my young said when this was released. I know it is true., I know the young Return Missionary told of this story a couple of years ago. You can beleive what you will but it is real.

[Linked]

You know, on the one hand, I guess Elder Holland deserves some credit for retracting the story. He knew doing so was going to make him look kind of stupid, so I'll give credit where credit is due.

I agree that he's doing the right thing here, but I doubt he would have without his hand being forced. I'd imagine that family members were talking and the word would have gotten out that the "miracle" part of the story was fabricated. And, Holland would have never told it without that part of the story (the younger brother finding the older brother who didn't even know he had a younger brother, and so on). Without that part it just becomes a story of a rebellious son coming back home.

With the attention this story got this time, there is simply no way that the truth would not have gotten out. There have to be many friends and family members of this man who know the truth.

I think it stinks that Holland blames a family member and insinuates that they lied. How about he just owns up to his mistake and corrects the story with a warning not to repeat stories unless one know they are true. It would have been very easy to fact check the story before he told it (told at least 3 times with different details added to the fabricated part each time).

This has to undermine his credibility in a lot of member's minds. But there will still be a lot more who will continue giving him the "hero worship" treatment.

I found it interesting that they included so much from an ethicist. They basically tell you how this retraction is meant to manipulate your feelings toward the church in a positive way. I have always found that manipulation works better when you don't tell those you manipulate how they are supposed to be being manipulated.

McBride said Elder Holland had an obligation to set the record straight. If he had not done so, she said, it would have had the potential to harm his relationship with his audience. On the other hand, stepping forward with a correction can improve that relationship.

"For the most part, it actually deepens trust," McBride said, "and it creates a level of transparency and humility."

McBride said media organizations build trust when they issue corrections.

[2bizE]

Got this from reditt. Before JRH was telling this fib, Kim Clark was also sharing it back in 2015.

http://hermanaalisonknight.blogspot.com ... o.html?m=1

[Red Ryder]

Got this from reditt. Before JRH was telling tho fib, Kim Clark was also sharing it back in 2015.

http://hermanaalisonknight.blogspot.com ... o.html?m=1

In case the whitewash committee gets to this:

Before I go I want to tell an amazing story we were told at the devotional last night by Kim. B Clark of The Seventy. He said there was this man who grew up in Idaho Falls in a faithful Mormon family, who ran away from home when he was 14 and went down a dark path of life. He joined the Hell's angels and got heavily into drugs and alcohol. One day he was passed out in the front yard of the home the Hell's Angels have in L.A California (a place to dry out if you are too wasted to drive), and some Mormon missionaries came walking up their street. He started mocking them, because he used to be Mormon and thought these elders were so naive. They had two dogs in the yard that were trained to attack and kill anyone who tried to come into the yard, so he wasn't too worried about them trying to preach to him when they walked by. But then when they got to the end of the street, they talked for a minute and turned around and came back to the Hell's Angels house. The dogs started growling and acting like they were going to attack. But as soon as the Elders stepped foot on their sidewalk, the dogs walked away and laid down and went to sleep. Then one of the elders came up to the wasted man from Idaho, and said, "What's up?" The man said, “Oh, nothing,” and then the elder asked, "Where are you from?" and he said "Idaho Falls." Then the elder said, "No way! Me too! Do you happen to know the So-and-sos?" And then the wasted man said, "Yeah, they're my parents." Then the elder said something that changed both of their lives. "They're my parents, too."

It was the Hell's Angel's younger brother, all grown up and called to serve a mission in California. The elder said to his older brother he never knew what happened to him, but that he knows that God sent him there to bring him home. He ended up helping his brother turn his life around, go back to church, find Jesus again, move back home to Idaho, and reconnect with their parents. He ended up getting married in the temple five years later. The Hell's Angel ended up being in the Stake Presidency (local church leadership) with Kim B. Clark, which is where he learned the story from.

[Not Buying It]

I know without a shadow of a doubt and testify with every fiber of my being from the bottom of my heart that there are a lot of people at mormonlight.org who owe Jeremy Amonson an apology.

[1smartdodog]

Dodo

[LostMormon]

I found it interesting that they included so much from an ethicist. They basically tell you how this retraction is meant to manipulate your feelings toward the church in a positive way. I have always found that manipulation works better when you don't tell those you manipulate how they are supposed to be being manipulated.

McBride said Elder Holland had an obligation to set the record straight. If he had not done so, she said, it would have had the potential to harm his relationship with his audience. On the other hand, stepping forward with a correction can improve that relationship.

"For the most part, it actually deepens trust," McBride said, "and it creates a level of transparency and humility."

McBride said media organizations build trust when they issue corrections.

Sounds to me they are telling us how we should feel, as if they they don't trust that everybody will come away with a positive spin on this, so they are telling us how we should feel about JRH coming clean. It's the same recipe used in church manuals, and the FP message for home teaching, they give us exact steps on what we should do, and how we should feel.

[Palerider]

Got this from reditt. Before JRH was telling tho fib, Kim Clark was also sharing it back in 2015.

http://hermanaalisonknight.blogspot.com ... o.html?m=1

In case the whitewash committee gets to this:

Before I go I want to tell an amazing story we were told at the devotional last night by Kim. B Clark of The Seventy. He said there was this man who grew up in Idaho Falls in a faithful Mormon family, who ran away from home when he was 14 and went down a dark path of life. He joined the Hell's angels and got heavily into drugs and alcohol. One day he was passed out in the front yard of the home the Hell's Angels have in L.A California (a place to dry out if you are too wasted to drive), and some Mormon missionaries came walking up their street. He started mocking them, because he used to be Mormon and thought these elders were so naive. They had two dogs in the yard that were trained to attack and kill anyone who tried to come into the yard, so he wasn't too worried about them trying to preach to him when they walked by. But then when they got to the end of the street, they talked for a minute and turned around and came back to the Hell's Angels house. The dogs started growling and acting like they were going to attack. But as soon as the Elders stepped foot on their sidewalk, the dogs walked away and laid down and went to sleep. Then one of the elders came up to the wasted man from Idaho, and said, "What's up?" The man said, “Oh, nothing,” and then the elder asked, "Where are you from?" and he said "Idaho Falls." Then the elder said, "No way! Me too! Do you happen to know the So-and-sos?" And then the wasted man said, "Yeah, they're my parents." Then the elder said something that changed both of their lives. "They're my parents, too."

It was the Hell's Angel's younger brother, all grown up and called to serve a mission in California. The elder said to his older brother he never knew what happened to him, but that he knows that God sent him there to bring him home. He ended up helping his brother turn his life around, go back to church, find Jesus again, move back home to Idaho, and reconnect with their parents. He ended up getting married in the temple five years later. The Hell's Angel ended up being in the Stake Presidency (local church leadership) with Kim B. Clark, which is where he learned the story from.

Rite of passage for joining the Hells Angels is the murder of one of their enemies. Those guys are NOT just a bunch of hell raising druggy motorcyclists who like to have a good time. They are a very organized, deadly cartel of serious drug smugglers that once joined, your chances of "walking away" alive are slim to none.

Even if this guy had gotten out alive I highly doubt he would ever have been Stake presidency material. This story sounds as bogus as the one where the GA is purported to have conversed on the airliner with Mick Jagger about wanting all the youth of America to have as much sex as possible....

Pretty sad when you think about it, that this church has to rely on this sort of psychological drug to maintain it's high....

[Emower]

Dodo

I dont get the whole spirit of discernment concern everyone has. Am I the only one here who grew up acknowledging that a lot of these stories were 100% embellished or possibly fake? Maybe I was always a cynical person. It never bothered me, it was what it was, a story designed to get a reaction. I knew that they would be optimized to get the biggest sell.

Maybe because I am used to telling fishing stories...

[Anon70]

Has anyone checked out Bill Reel's posts on this on reddit. JH has been using this story for years and hasn't exactly kept the story straight...

[Not Buying It]

Dodo

I dont get the whole spirit of discernment concern everyone has. Am I the only one here who grew up acknowledging that a lot of these stories were 100% embellished or possibly fake? Maybe I was always a cynical person. It never bothered me, it was what it was, a story designed to get a reaction. I knew that they would be optimized to get the biggest sell.

Maybe because I am used to telling fishing stories...

I really don't think most believing members see it that way. I didn't. Just look at the way Jeremy Amonson got attacked in the comments above - members were like "how dare he question that story".

[LaMachina]

I dont get the whole spirit of discernment concern everyone has. Am I the only one here who grew up acknowledging that a lot of these stories were 100% embellished or possibly fake? Maybe I was always a cynical person. It never bothered me, it was what it was, a story designed to get a reaction. I knew that they would be optimized to get the biggest sell.

Maybe because I am used to telling fishing stories...

I really don't think most believing members see it that way. I didn't. Just look at the way Jeremy Amonson got attacked in the comments above - members were like "how dare he question that story".

Personally I've found the amount of skepticism in the pews would depend on who was telling the story. If it was some random member in F&T meeting sharing something fantastically faith-promoting than people would range from cautiously skeptical to outright doubtful. If it were an apostle or other higher up then people would lap that stuff up.

[Random]

You know, on the one hand, I guess Elder Holland deserves some credit for retracting the story. He knew doing so was going to make him look kind of stupid, so I'll give credit where credit is due.

I agree. He retracted the story when he discovered it was not true. I don't think that has ever happened before. I think this sort of thing should be given kudos, then maybe the Church would gradually become more willing to admit errors, but all the stuff online attacking him for doing this is going to have the opposite effect, I think.

But think about this for a minute - here is a "prophet, seer, and revelator" who excitedly repeated a frankly far-fetched story as though it were true. When I first heard it, I was skeptical. Not only does it call his powers of discernment into question, it calls his common sense into question. I generally doubt most of those fantastical stories about the gospel I hear - does Elder Holland lack the critical thinking skills to have a healthy dose of skepticism for stories like that?

The part I heard where the dogs were trained to kill (to the dog pound super-quick in that case, and a huge fine, maybe prison time for the owner if they had ever killed anyone; besides that, what trainer would teach a person's dog to kill?) was the biggest red flag for me. Them lying down made me think either we weren't getting the whole story or someone made it up.

I say that because I personally witnessed something in regards to dogs: A friend and I were walking around in Washington, Utah about 25 years ago (I'm 60, so that isn't really too long ago to me) in an area that was still wild. As we were coming back, an SUV drove up and stopped. A man and a woman got out and let two dobermans out of the back. The dogs, in the typical mindlessly happy attitude most dogs have, started to run towards us. I was not afraid because I could tell by their attitude that they probably wouldn't hurt us, but my friend was afraid of them. She raised her arm to the square and commanded them (in Jesus' name) to go a different direction. Immediately, they both stopped short, as if an invisible leash had pulled on them. Then, still mindlessly happy, one ran off to the right and the other to the left. In my mind, I was like, "Whoa! That was weird!" And if it really was the power of God, I can say that here is proof that a woman doesn't need "the priesthood" to access God's power.

[Random]

I mean, go back to what he said about the story in what was dubbed "The Missionary Speech of All Time" - doesn't it sound like he doesn't know much about the Holy Ghost? Isn't it weird he said the Holy Ghost did all this stuff that it turns out never even happened?

The thing is, these are just men. They don't have a special connection to heaven. In fact, I would suggest that every human on earth has the same potential they have to access heaven/God, all based on the same principle of humility and sincere intent. The teaching that these men are special, with an ultra-special line to the Holy Ghost and Truth is a lie that has hurt a lot of people (including me). To a tbm, this would sound like an angry rant, but I'm not angry. I'm not ranting. My eyes have been opened to their lack of connection to heaven. And, yeah, I know that I'm "preaching to the choir" here.

[Random]

I agree that he's doing the right thing here, but I doubt he would have without his hand being forced.

And that is really sad if that is so.

I think it stinks that Holland blames a family member and insinuates that they lied.

I agree, but such is human nature. We all tend to minimize our guilt. At least, I know I do, and it seems that many others do, also.

How about he just owns up to his mistake and corrects the story with a warning not to repeat stories unless one know they are true.

I love this idea! I wish it was something they all would do.

[1smartdodog]

This whole thing makes me realize even more the church is built on a whole series of anecdotal stories. This person saw that or this person did this. The stories have just morphed into some kind of quasi doctrine.

What would really be refreshing is if leaders stopped with the faith promoting fiction and tackled some real world problems. Of course I think manny need some kind of motivation to follow these guys and the supernatural ability they claim is the ticket. Not sure the church would survive if it was living in reality all the time.

[Not Buying It]

This whole thing makes me realize even more the church is built on a whole series of anecdotal stories. This person saw that or this person did this. The stories have just morphed into some kind of quasi doctrine.

What would really be refreshing is if leaders stopped with the faith promoting fiction and tackled some real world problems. Of course I think manny need some kind of motivation to follow these guys and the supernatural ability they claim is the ticket. Not sure the church would survive if it was living in reality all the time.

Tackling real world problems doesn't give members the warm super spiritual feeling stories like that do. The reason Elder Holland shared the story in the first place is because he knew it would give his audience chills and reinforce their belief that the Church is true. Since it isn't, they need to keep feeding members those kinds of stories so they don't see the Church for what it really is. They need those stories.

[LostMormon]

Really enjoyed your podcast on this subject, I think you said Elder Oaks a few times when you meant Elder Holland, but all the different variations of the story is really quite amusing.

[Just This Guy]

Rite of passage for joining the Hells Angels is the murder of one of their enemies. Those guys are NOT just a bunch of hell raising druggy motorcyclists who like to have a good time. They are a very organized, deadly cartel of serious drug smugglers that once joined, your chances of "walking away" alive are slim to none.

Even if this guy had gotten out alive I highly doubt he would ever have been Stake presidency material. This story sounds as bogus as the one where the GA is purported to have conversed on the airliner with Mick Jagger about wanting all the youth of America to have as much sex as possible....

Pretty sad when you think about it, that this church has to rely on this sort of psychological drug to maintain it's high....

Not necessarily. The Hell's Angles was originally an Army Air Corp bomber group stationed (B-17s, Triangle A) in England in WWII. Members of that team started the baker club in the US after the war ended. My grandfather was a member of the Hell's angles when they had aluminum wings and vacuum tube radios. He did a retired from the US Air Force a number of years later.

[deacon blues]

So what are the chances we will ever find out what IS true out of the whole crazy mess?