Sethbag wrote:My main, and more or less only, recollection of unethical practices on my 1988-1990 mission in Switzerland was the use of so-called surveys, where we were supposed to walk up to people on the street and tell them we were conducting a survey, and then ask them leading questions designed to spark up a conversation that would lead to them inviting us over for the discussions. After doing this a few times, and asking my comp what happened to the answers of the surveys, and finding out that they were bogus and that answers weren't even kept, I decided that this was unethical and I refused to do it anymore. Since that was the area where, after a subsequent transfer, I became senior companion, and stayed senior companion for the rest of my mission (that was about five or six months out), I never did it again.
I did get some dirty looks and some argument from some other missionaries in a district meeting where I mentioned my thoughts on the surveys, and they weren't happy with me over it. I could tell some people had a "end justifies the means" mentality, but I couldn't bring myself to do it.
We did those some in Hamburg(87-89) as well. They weren't pushed very hard, and I rarely did them. The problem I had with them is I always ended up following up the survey by saying something to the effect of "actually I wanted to talk to you about the LDS church." The word actually of course signifying that I just lied.