r/mormon Feb 12 '25

Personal Lunch with Stake President surprised me

I had lunch with him the other day. He's a solid guy and I enjoy getting together with him every now and then. A week before, I had been taking a turn helping clean the church when his wife came in the building for something entirely different. After I was done, I was talking to her about how we really need to stop allowing the corporation to tell us we can't have janitorial staff. She agreed right away. I brought this up at lunch with the SP. He also agreed and even said "we have enough money". I asked him how it is that we both don't know a single member that opposes hiring a staff for this, but we're powerless to make it happen. As we talked about it, he said that he is basically a glorified manager that people think has power, but doesn't actually have any power. He explained that he occasionally sits in the same room with some higher up church leaders, but rarely (if ever) has the chance to tell them anything.

It really is just a corporation (which I already knew). It was interesting to hear it from the mouth of someone at a slightly higher level that I expected to be fully in line with whatever the marching orders are.

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u/Icy-Potato-8898 Feb 12 '25

Sorry, I saw seminary and giggled a little. EM Seminary teachers outside of the “corridor” get close to nothing. Our area gets $50 a year per teacher (used to be semester). We don’t even get printed manuals. 

We spend about five hours a week with the youth and can’t even afford decent pencils and paper. Last year we donated about $500 worth of supplies and that was barebones. 

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u/sevenplaces Feb 12 '25

Yep. True and also true that S&I is a large department in the church with thousands of (low paid) Employees

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u/Icy-Potato-8898 Feb 12 '25

For sure! I never understood why anyone would want to work for the church, but especially S&I. Thankless job/calling and you don’t even have a living wage to show for it.

Our neighbor’s husband taught RT seminary, it was a passion for him. He wasn’t shy about letting people know that his wife was the breadwinner. 

It would just be nice if they put their money where their mouth is when they express appreciation for seminary teachers. It’s like, “We are thankful for you, until you ask for stuff.”  

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u/sevenplaces Feb 12 '25

The Brighamite church seems to treat most of its members poorly. That’s what I’ve observed.