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.
I appreciate your concern.
However, you lack the perspective of a fundamental point that I and others like me have tried to convey to you on multiple occasions:
I don’t believe a thing the President of the LDS Church tells me, on its own merits. Every word, every doctrine is subject to the veto of the Holy Ghost. If God tells me a doctrine is true, then I believe it, and I seek to understand why it is true. If God does not tell me, then I do not accept it as my own.
It’s an incredibly useful tool in life, and one that is available to everybody who will use it with humility and real intent. God will guide His people; it is not His will to leave us in darkness. I merely turn that fact to my benefit.
The Prophet is God’s mouthpiece; but that does not mean that we are expected to take his words on faith, be that man Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, Gordon Hinckley, or Abraham.
“The prophet is the only man who speaks for the Lord in everything.”
Wait a cotton pickin’ minute. Isn’t that what the Catholics say about the Pope?
We actually believe that Gordon B. Hinckley (LDS living Prophet) has this authority. Yes. He has a very sweet spirit. He implores people to obey the Commandments and to love one another. What a monster.
Quoting Joseph Smith: “Some few days after I had this vision, I happened to be in company with one of the Methodist preachers, who was very active in the before mentioned religious excitement; and, conversing with him on the subject of religion, I took occasion to give him an account of the vision which I had had. I was greatly surprised at his behavior; he treated my communication not only lightly, but with great contempt, saying it was all of the devil, that there were no such things as visions or revelations in these days; that all such things had ceased with the apostles, and that there would never be any more of them.
“I soon found, however, that my telling the story had excited a great deal of prejudice against me among professors of religion, and was the cause of great persecution, which continued to increase; and though I was an obscure boy, only between fourteen and fifteen years of age, and my circumstances in life such as to make a boy of no consequence in the world, yet men of high standing would take notice sufficient to excite the public mind against me, and create a bitter persecution; and this was common among all the sects - all united to persecute me.”
WHAT HAS CHANGED?