“Wanna explain the segment of the Frontline/American Experience PBS recently where they were talking about the typical LDS missionary 2-year experience?”
What about it? Missionaries are there for a specific task. They are taught how to use their time wisely. I find it to be an excellent life skill to know how to plan out my day.
Why are you so concerned with the minute details of how we live our lives? Why is it your concern how I choose to schedule my time?
That's just it. The program mentioned that missionaries don't really schedule their time. It's basically established for them.
You asked this back in #1365 & I wanted to respond in a broader way than just the rigid scheduled life of an LDS missionary...because frankly folks like CC have pointed out how much spiritual control is even wielded by some lay folks (bishops).
This also dovetales into your responses to me having to do with Ezra Taft Benson's comment that "The prophet is the only man who speaks for the Lord in everything."
Ya gotta understand that the outside world's perpective of Mormonism doesn't just arrive in total cluelessness. For those who love history, LDS is rich in exploring--from more recent history where Benson laid down those "14 Fundies in Following the Proph" (1980) to 100+ yrs before that when Brigham said:
"When brother Joseph Smith lives, he was our Prophet, our Seer, and Revelator: he was our dictator in the things of God, and it was for us to listen to him, and do just as he told us." (JoD, vol. 1, p. 106)
Benson said, as one of those fundamentals, "The Prophet does not have to say, 'Thus Saith the Lord,' to give us Scripture." (Fundie # 6)
Thus, when Brigham said that Joseph is "our dictator in the things of God," Joe's words don't have to go through a "Ten Commandments" type of stone print job or an LDS gold plate print job to be tabulated as "Scripture" as authorized and determined by the latest gen authorities. Enough LDS prophets from Brigham to Ezra Taft have repeated what Joe said in History of the Church (only more authoritatively tactful than how Joe framed it):
"God made Aaron to be the mouthpiece for the children of Israel. and He will make me be god to you in His stead, and the Elders to be mouth for me; and if you don't like it, you must lump it." (HoC, vol. 6, pp. 319-320)
There ya have it: Your living prophet is your scripture factory (Benson). The original prophet was a "god" and "dictator" to his people--even if some of them are "lumpy"; plus he's consider a "god" in the celestial kingdom beyond. The fact is, we just don't see LDS touting that they consider JoeSmith is divine, even if they make one distinction by saying that he's not the godhead they directly relate to.
Ya just gotta understand that if the LDS church has a P.R. prob, it's not us.