Alternate approach: highlight the most horrifying parts, and paste a horror index in both the front and back.
Then a casual perusal results in reading about skins of blackness or drunks getting beheaded, etc.
[https://skepticsannotatedbible.com/BOM/all/cr\_list.html](https://skepticsannotatedbible.com/BOM/all/cr_list.html)
This is a list of cruel and violent BoM content.
[https://skepticsannotatedbible.com/page.php?type=mainintro&book=m&id=3](https://skepticsannotatedbible.com/page.php?type=mainintro&book=m&id=3)
You can select other topics like "women" here.
Good idea. Make it easy to notice the highlighted passages and include your "testimony" of the truth about the church in the front. The missionaries will make sure not to leave any more after that.
Highlight 3rd Nephi 3:7 “Or in other words, yield yourselves up unto us, and unite with us and become acquainted with our secret works, and become our brethren that ye may be like unto us—not our slaves, but our brethren and partners of all our substance.”
I always had a gut instinct of stuff (like this) my companions wanted to do that seemed clever, but always felt tacky -- and I'd try to push back.
The worst were missionaries who would "tip" a pass along card at a Denny's.
You think it's better or worse than the fake money with scriptures on them? I figure it's a little bit better because at least you can see that it isn't money right away.
Funny story about pass along cards though. I got one once to give to my classmate because he was on the roll for my primary class, but never came to church. The teacher encouraged us to invite him if we knew who he was.
I gave him the pass along card at lunch at elementary school. He didn't know what it was, so I told him it was a pass along card. He said, very happily, eyes wide (he wasn't very popular but I considered him my friend, so I think he was happy to have been thought of), "Thank you!" And then passed it to the person next to him XD
I don't think he knew was it actually was. I don't know if he ever went to church that he could remember, but looking back it's very funny to me that he just immediately rejected my attempt to get him to come to church lol.
Fake money is definitely worse. It's a deliberate act of deception. Leaving a pass-a-long card in lieu of a tip is just a shitty move without an attempt to deceive.
I mean, leaving behind cards is annoying but fine as long as you leave an actual tip, as well. The ones who don't? Well, great way to make sure someone never joins the church.
Of course! After all, everyone has heard those inspiring stories of someone finding a BoM in a mud puddle, a pile of trash, or in an abandoned building and reading it, and then immediately searching for missionaries so they could join.
In the 90s, MFMC had a high-quality film about some dude in Europe who joined up that way. As a missionary, I wondered why it didn't happen more often. As someone who read the damn book dozens of times, I wonder how I didn't see why it didn't happen more often.
I get it - I was brought up on the regular Bible in regular (major) denominations. The BoM was one of the most boring, repetitious, and tedious reads I've ever seen. I'm even skeptical it ever happened with anyone.
I texted the number the missionaries left in a BOM in my little free library, said it made the best rolling papers for weed and I’d watch for more.. guess who never got more lmao
Doing the lord’s work! Well done.
You could also get sticky tabs and a highlighter and mark the 50 or so times it talks about dark skin being terrible and white skin being delightsome and beautiful.
Remember those “Flood the Earth with the BoM” campaigns all through the 80s and 90s?! Man, they didn’t flood the earth, but they sure flooded the earth’s landfills. What a waste!
The 1981 edition of the BoM had extensive changes. That campaign was the church's way of not eating the cost of the millions of old editions in inventory.
Yes, I have a little library and wouldn’t hesitate to remove, say, MLM Brochures. I look at the BoM as similar. Pay up (upline) who are packing away the dough while you are expected to pay 10% and work your tail off.
Add a sign that says, "while we respect all faiths, we kindly ask that you refrain from leaving religious texts so as to keep the reading material entertaining and inclusive."
Or a sign that says, "To the Mormon missionaries who keep putting Books of Mormon in here: We now have a security camera, and will be turning the videos and your contact number over to the police."
Someone keeps doing something similar with leaving leaflets for their church at the gas pumps of one of the local stations... yeah I throw those away every time I see them
Most likely. I grew up a JW and my mom would leave Watchtower and Awake magazines in different places. Waiting rooms, hotel rooms, hotel lobbies. Gas pumps is one I've never seen before though
There’s 100% going to be some old lady giving her testimony every testimony Sunday about how righteous she is & hoping someone out there is reading it.
Or missionaries 100000% think it will be an opportunity.
Throw it out every time.
There’s one in my neighborhood with a sign on it that says absolutely no religious material allowed. Maybe try that? (I doubt it’ll stop them. They’re like cockroaches.)
Another alternate approach:
Title each row “fiction” and “non-fiction” and keep putting the BOM in fiction.
I’d kind of get a weird giggle out of this every time, as I’m sure they’d invariably be doing the opposite.
Left BoMs in a few of these on my mission. One left a kind but firm note saying that the purpose of the box was for the community to share its favorite books and to please not use it for proselytizing. I left them alone after that.
I agree with the correct location, unless there’s a fiction section.
My thinking is those poor boys have to buy those books unless things changed since I was in a mission in ‘80’s. Anyway they probably see they are gone and sooner or later the person who took them will either contact them or they’ll come across that person while knocking on doors.
The worse thing that can happen to those books is for them to never be touched. Eventually some missionary will take them out.
Thanks I served my mission from 81 to 83. One of the lucky ones with an 18 month mission. We had to buy or pay for everything including the pamphlets and those Articles of Faith Cards that we used as business cards.
I’m glad those poor deluded kids don’t have to buy them anymore.
I had a companion that liked dropping 'BOMs' at other denominations. On weekdays, we would go into churches and he would run up to the pulpit and hold up a book of moron. I would snap a photo; he would put the book on the pulpit and away we would run.
I hated doing it but did it for his enjoyment.
Doesn't that violate the rules of the book dropbox? I could see doing this if there was more than one book of mormon. If people start tossing books they don't like then trust in the dropbox is gone.
I honestly think you're being kind of a dick here the purpose of the free library is for people to leave books not for you to ideologically curate them. If people don't want them they won't take them.
Most likely, they are keeping track of the number of disappearing books as "placed" and reporting them on their weekly stats.
Good. They'll keep focusing their efforts there and keep getting nowhere.
Do missionaries still report this statistic? I serve 2011 to 2013 and never reported this.
Beats me.
I served 2013-2015 and we did. It may depend on the mission though. The mission right next to ours didn’t.
2019-2020 and we still reported stats
I served 2009-2011 and we did
Bet it depends on the president. Ours was an accountant. Tons of stats.
💯 I "placed" a couple BoMs in the free books section at a local library in one of my areas and would count them towards my stats.
Alternate approach: highlight the most horrifying parts, and paste a horror index in both the front and back. Then a casual perusal results in reading about skins of blackness or drunks getting beheaded, etc.
add ‘trigger warning’ on the front, & tab all the highlighted sections of racism & sexism.
Great idea! Has someone already created an index like this that I can print out?
[https://skepticsannotatedbible.com/BOM/all/cr\_list.html](https://skepticsannotatedbible.com/BOM/all/cr_list.html) This is a list of cruel and violent BoM content. [https://skepticsannotatedbible.com/page.php?type=mainintro&book=m&id=3](https://skepticsannotatedbible.com/page.php?type=mainintro&book=m&id=3) You can select other topics like "women" here.
Thank you!
Good idea. Make it easy to notice the highlighted passages and include your "testimony" of the truth about the church in the front. The missionaries will make sure not to leave any more after that.
Highlight 3rd Nephi 3:7 “Or in other words, yield yourselves up unto us, and unite with us and become acquainted with our secret works, and become our brethren that ye may be like unto us—not our slaves, but our brethren and partners of all our substance.”
The BoM is definitely inappropriate reading material for children.
It's the best for children
Too much effort.
Meanwhile, the missionaries think this local bookshare will be a goldmine for people converting as there seems to be so much demand for the BoM.
I always had a gut instinct of stuff (like this) my companions wanted to do that seemed clever, but always felt tacky -- and I'd try to push back. The worst were missionaries who would "tip" a pass along card at a Denny's.
Servers hate those. Especially when it is left in lieu of a real tip.
You think it's better or worse than the fake money with scriptures on them? I figure it's a little bit better because at least you can see that it isn't money right away. Funny story about pass along cards though. I got one once to give to my classmate because he was on the roll for my primary class, but never came to church. The teacher encouraged us to invite him if we knew who he was. I gave him the pass along card at lunch at elementary school. He didn't know what it was, so I told him it was a pass along card. He said, very happily, eyes wide (he wasn't very popular but I considered him my friend, so I think he was happy to have been thought of), "Thank you!" And then passed it to the person next to him XD I don't think he knew was it actually was. I don't know if he ever went to church that he could remember, but looking back it's very funny to me that he just immediately rejected my attempt to get him to come to church lol.
Fake money is definitely worse. It's a deliberate act of deception. Leaving a pass-a-long card in lieu of a tip is just a shitty move without an attempt to deceive.
I mean, leaving behind cards is annoying but fine as long as you leave an actual tip, as well. The ones who don't? Well, great way to make sure someone never joins the church.
Of course! After all, everyone has heard those inspiring stories of someone finding a BoM in a mud puddle, a pile of trash, or in an abandoned building and reading it, and then immediately searching for missionaries so they could join.
In the 90s, MFMC had a high-quality film about some dude in Europe who joined up that way. As a missionary, I wondered why it didn't happen more often. As someone who read the damn book dozens of times, I wonder how I didn't see why it didn't happen more often.
I get it - I was brought up on the regular Bible in regular (major) denominations. The BoM was one of the most boring, repetitious, and tedious reads I've ever seen. I'm even skeptical it ever happened with anyone.
Oh yeah, no doubt that film was a fabrication just like all the other faith-promoting propaganda.
Get printed copies of the CES letter and add those.
Excellent idea. Or No Man Knows My History, Wife Number 19, etc. etc.
I’d place bookmarkers on the skin curses, the claims of it being a historical document, and wooden submarines with livestock.
I texted the number the missionaries left in a BOM in my little free library, said it made the best rolling papers for weed and I’d watch for more.. guess who never got more lmao
Oh! At first, I thought you’d moved it from “non-fiction” to “fiction.”
The fact that anyone including myself believe/d it’s non-fiction is just sad.
Doing the lord’s work! Well done. You could also get sticky tabs and a highlighter and mark the 50 or so times it talks about dark skin being terrible and white skin being delightsome and beautiful.
God can you imagine how many trees were sacrificed to print this garbage?
Right? It's not like paper grows on trees!
[Nowadays it doesn't!](https://www.hahnemuehle.ca/bamboo/)
Remember those “Flood the Earth with the BoM” campaigns all through the 80s and 90s?! Man, they didn’t flood the earth, but they sure flooded the earth’s landfills. What a waste!
The 1981 edition of the BoM had extensive changes. That campaign was the church's way of not eating the cost of the millions of old editions in inventory.
Mormons know no boundaries. Such an inconsiderate cult
Yes, I have a little library and wouldn’t hesitate to remove, say, MLM Brochures. I look at the BoM as similar. Pay up (upline) who are packing away the dough while you are expected to pay 10% and work your tail off.
Add a sign that says, "while we respect all faiths, we kindly ask that you refrain from leaving religious texts so as to keep the reading material entertaining and inclusive."
Or a sign that says, "To the Mormon missionaries who keep putting Books of Mormon in here: We now have a security camera, and will be turning the videos and your contact number over to the police."
It's not illegal to put Books of Mormon in the free library. What would the charges even be.
Maybe rename it the 'Little Non-secular Library'.
I’m not confident they would understand what that means. Reminds me of when they still knocked on doors with no soliciting signs…
oh, I'm 100% certain they wouldn't care. I just think it'd be funny lol They're still gonna have to keep up with the lords work & trash them.
Man I remember being told in my early teens that those signs didn't apply because we weren't "soliciting" even when we were doing food drives and shit
Someone keeps doing something similar with leaving leaflets for their church at the gas pumps of one of the local stations... yeah I throw those away every time I see them
Jehovah’ Witnesses. (Edited.)
Most likely. I grew up a JW and my mom would leave Watchtower and Awake magazines in different places. Waiting rooms, hotel rooms, hotel lobbies. Gas pumps is one I've never seen before though
Here I was thinking you moved them to fiction… I literally laughed out loud 💀
Recycle.
Gotta recycle those, my friend.
Librarians call this weeding.
They actually make good kindling if you have a fire place or are going camping.
maybe leave a note that says "please remember Little Library is not a place for religious books."
Or „don’t use little library to support your personal agenda“
Mormons have a hard time hints. Don’t they.
Ha, ha, saving families, one book at a time
Dejlige Danmark?
Det er jo et fandme yndigt land
It’s important to categorize books correctly. Your librarian skills are top notch
Missionaries shouldn’t be putting trash in the Little Free Libraries. Those are for books!
Ah yes, doing the lords work. Keep it up.
Oh goodness. Even something like this will get inundated with BOMs. That's pretty tacky.
They might be thinking that their plan has been successful. Maybe you should leave a note that you don't want BoM there?
Paste in an article about Joe smith’s wives.
There’s 100% going to be some old lady giving her testimony every testimony Sunday about how righteous she is & hoping someone out there is reading it. Or missionaries 100000% think it will be an opportunity. Throw it out every time.
There’s one in my neighborhood with a sign on it that says absolutely no religious material allowed. Maybe try that? (I doubt it’ll stop them. They’re like cockroaches.)
Another alternate approach: Title each row “fiction” and “non-fiction” and keep putting the BOM in fiction. I’d kind of get a weird giggle out of this every time, as I’m sure they’d invariably be doing the opposite.
Put up a sign that says "No Book of Mormons or Bibles" IDK how effective that is.
So it’s non-fiction only.
It will come to pass….
Thank you for your service 🫡
Hvorhenne står det?
it's like when they try to destroy the jumanji and at the end of the movie lol
Amazing shelving prowess!
lol I did this on my mission. So sorry small German village. Hope they made for good rolling paper.
Left BoMs in a few of these on my mission. One left a kind but firm note saying that the purpose of the box was for the community to share its favorite books and to please not use it for proselytizing. I left them alone after that.
You might do better to write your opinion in the BOM and leave it there.
And by, "correct section", you mean the trash right?
I agree with the correct location, unless there’s a fiction section. My thinking is those poor boys have to buy those books unless things changed since I was in a mission in ‘80’s. Anyway they probably see they are gone and sooner or later the person who took them will either contact them or they’ll come across that person while knocking on doors. The worse thing that can happen to those books is for them to never be touched. Eventually some missionary will take them out.
They don't buy em. The mission home has boxes and boxes that they ask the missionaries to give away.
Thanks I served my mission from 81 to 83. One of the lucky ones with an 18 month mission. We had to buy or pay for everything including the pamphlets and those Articles of Faith Cards that we used as business cards. I’m glad those poor deluded kids don’t have to buy them anymore.
[удалено]
Honestly, I kinda wanna read it again someday. Reading it in a different light would be nice.
Keep up the good efforts. You’re doing the lords work.
Put a trash bin next to the post. "Please deposit Book of Mormon" here!"
I support this entirely.
I mean, at least recycle them if possible.
I tell ya, it felt sooooo good to throw out the book of mormon and all mormon related materials.
Is this Ireland?
What language is that? Does that say "Take a book, give a book"?
I had a companion that liked dropping 'BOMs' at other denominations. On weekdays, we would go into churches and he would run up to the pulpit and hold up a book of moron. I would snap a photo; he would put the book on the pulpit and away we would run. I hated doing it but did it for his enjoyment.
That's an ass holish thing to do.
Yes it was!!!
Aww…why waste them by throwing them in the trash?! Use the pages as kindling for a late night fire!! S’mores sound amazing! 😂
Use the pages to roll a blunt.
FOUR copies? So over the top, why do they leave four. Leave one, which is still too much but still.
Denmark, right?
I would take all of those Book of Mormon books, pour gasoline on them and burn them all. Effing Mormons.
I’ve I see them in libraries I just put them in the fiction section.
My grandpa was notorious for handing out "free" BOMs and then trying to bill people for them!
Correct section = the garbage bin.
Where is the correct section? The trash can?
Doesn't that violate the rules of the book dropbox? I could see doing this if there was more than one book of mormon. If people start tossing books they don't like then trust in the dropbox is gone.
Go you!!
Great work
Missionaries leaving more than one is greedy. But tossing them in the trash is a bit like book burning. Leave book burning to the Nazis.
Jerk move.
I honestly think you're being kind of a dick here the purpose of the free library is for people to leave books not for you to ideologically curate them. If people don't want them they won't take them.
I disagree. It's up to them to curate it however they want.