This is the no fuss no hustle straight-to-the-point goods. What are the LDS missionaries going to do to try to sell you on Mormonism?

Make no mistake, they've hired marketing firms to help them find out why people join the Mormon church, why people stay in the Mormon church, and why people leave the Mormon church.

When I served as a full-time missionary in Mexico, we had to memorize all of our discussions word for word. Oh, and do it in a completely foreign language. Then, when we taught investigators, we were to unload this pile of information on you, the potential customer and convert verbatim, with appropriate pauses, and some acting skills - to make it seem genuine, or taught with the "spirit."

This approach was very stupid.

My first 6 months I baptized 5 people. After disobeying direct orders from my "leaders" (e.g. Mission President, and First Presidency) I began teaching the Mormon gospel with my own unique approach, telling myself at the time that I was teaching as the spirit dictated. I would later learn that I was simply an incredibly good salesman. I baptized more than 200 people on my mission. That means, in 18 months, I stacked up more than 195 converts. All I can say is, faith sells.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has changed their approach to a new program called "Preach My Gospel." It's still a structured sales technique but with the liberties that missionaries in my time would've dreamed for in order to capture the sale.

Mormon missionaries aren't paid for our work, but we are somewhat abused by our district leaders, zone leaders, and mission presidents if we don't meet certain goals or quotas. If you're making the sale (e.g. baptizing) then you're favored by your leaders. If you're not making the sale then those leaders often can spiritually abuse a missionary into thinking they're inadequate, inobedient to mission rules, or somehow not measuring up to what it takes to be a missionary.

I know this is true because I participated in this same political process as a district leader, zone leader, and assistant to the Mission President.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints use proven selling techniques that draw on your feelings more than your intellect. This is done on purpose. They've actually trademarked the process.

The truth is, people want to believe in something. If you can convince them that what you offer is better than what they've got, it doesn't matter if it's vacuum cleaners, life insurance, cologne, or underwear, once that doubt is placed in their mind that they're using an inferior product or service, the window of opportunity shatters open and you can begin to sell them whatever product or service you have.

I'm humiliated to confess this to you so bluntly, but the truth is, religion - like any other product or service - is a commercial product, no matter how many times you pray, meditate, and do good things. If you have to pay for any part of it (e.g. money out of your pocket) you're a customer to a company, and in the business world, a company name is known as a brand name. Wal-Mart, K-Mart, McDonald's, Farmer's Insurance, it's all branded and offering products and services that you think you need, and just might buy into if you're easily sold to.

Mormons, like most other religions, want money. They require 10% of all of your income in order to be considered a temple-worthy member. This means, being able to go in to their temples and learn all the secret rituals, handshakes, passwords, and chants.

I teach you those for free at my site without the 10%, but if you'd like to donate, I'll be happy to accept donations as well. I'm kidding of course.

Other religions pass around the "plate" or have ushers conveniently come by with collection boxes.

The point is, you pay, and the church operates tax free. Imagine being a corporation and being tax free. Imagine being the wealthiest church in the world and owning more than 100 corporations, all tax free. Welcome to the Mormon brand.

Yup, Mormonism. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. That's spelled $-a-i-n-t-$. They're the wealthiest church in the world growing wealthier every day from their corporations, their investments, and their members' tithing - 10%.

Unlike other churches, they don't report how they spend their money. To me, this is very wrong. Other churches hold themselves accountable to their congregation for how the money is spent. Mormon church leaders are accountable to nobody for how their money is spent.

To give you an idea of how Mormons find out how their money is spent, they read about it in the paper.

Members read lines like "At a meeting of the Salt Lake Chamber on Thursday, chamber President Lane Beattie suggested the project will cost about $2 billion." Visit my site at to reference the original article. That is $2,000,000,000.00 - spent by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on developing a mall and part of downtown Salt Lake, for commercial purposes.

The Mormon church spends less than 1/5th of 1% - .021% - of their yearly annual revenue towards humanitarian issues.

$2 Billion could feed a lot of starving people. It could help establish clean water systems and literacy programs to help developing parts of the world taste an opportunity for something more than poverty.

There are much better alternatives than paying your money to a church. Any church.

You can be religious, but please, be sure that your money actually goes towards improving this world rather than building up some super church (and there are plenty besides the Mormons).

If you're still interested to know how the missionaries will sell you on Mormonism, visit my site at