$1,000,000 Apostle Signing Bonus?

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

“ He said that each new member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles is given one million dollars to take care of any financial obligations they have. This money gift allows them to fully focus on the ministry. He said that the overriding consideration of who is chosen is whether they are “church broke,” meaning, will they do whatever they are told. He said the senior six apostles make the agenda and do most of the talking. The junior six are told to observe, listen and learn and really only comment if they are asked. He said that it takes about two to three years before the new apostle discovers that the church is not true. He said it took Dieter F. Uchtdorf a little longer because he was an outsider. He said they privately talk among themselves and know the foundational claims of the restoration are not true, but continue on boldly “because the people need it,” meaning the people need the church. When the Mission President voiced skepticism and named ___ as one who surely did believe, The GA said: “No, he doesn’t.” The one million dollar gift, plus their totally obedient attitude makes it easy for them to go along when they find out the church is not true. For these reasons and others, he doesn’t expect any apostle to ever expose the truth about the foundational claims.”

Wow.

- Doc

[_Mormonicious]

I think you’re correct, Dr. Moore. If anyone can figure it out, I believe Google has a cached page that was taken down? I got this bit when I googled the linked webpage:

“7 hours ago · Years ago Mormon author and lifetime Church Education System employee Grant Palmer claimed to have had private meetings with an emeritus Mormon General Authority who had lost his faith, and...”

- Doc

All HAIL Google GOD and her son eBay and the Holy Toaster youtube

[_Dr Exiled]

These bonuses and perks are probably reserved for those in the Q15 because the 70's families I know didn't get much of anything when their fathers passed on. One would think the wealth would have been distributed as inheritances.

[_Dr Moore]

[_Doctor Scratch]

Wow, this is really explosive news. It totally blows apart the Mopologists' endless assertions about how the GAs aren't seriously cashing in due to their status in the Church. I have always figured that there was some considerable "remuneration" being tossed around behind the scenes: I mean, we already know that this is going on with the Mopologists, thanks to public tax records. But this would seem to confirm that much the same thing happens with the Brethren. No wonder the Mopogists seem to be okay with outright lying about this: they've probably known all along that the General Authorities do things like this.

[_Gadianton]

But this would seem to confirm that much the same thing happens with the Brethren. No wonder the Mopologists seem to be okay with outright lying about this: they've probably known all along that the General Authorities do things like this.

Doesn't it go beyond merely just being "okay" with it? I mean, don't we see it argued that the General Authorities are living like paupers?

[_Fifth Columnist]

Here is a little more information from a Reddit poster who claimed to have discovered Busche's identify a couple of years ago solely from Grant Palmer's description:

ImTheMarmotKing
It's hard to give too many details since I don't want to out him. Here's my summary though.

After close to 2 years of searching and talking to several people 'in the know,' I got enough information to deduce who it is. I was confident enough that I sent him a long type-written letter with some personal pictures explaining why I was looking for him and all that. A couple weeks later, I got a voicemail from him congratulating me for finding him. I called him back later, and we spoke on the phone for a bit, and he told me his story.

Several months later, I knew I was going to be near him, so I gave him a phone call and asked to meet. He agreed, although he didn't remember me anymore by this time (I gathered that I'm not the only person that has come knocking on his door).

I sat with him for about 3 hours. He told me interesting stories about his life among other things. When I brought up Grant Palmer's document, he told me that he was misrepresented on many details. He didn't seem to remember much though. I read him several passages from Grant's piece, and sometimes it was like he was hearing it for the first time. In fact he only seemed vaguely aware of all the talk about him. I truly don't think he is very aware at all about the 'exmo world' so to speak, other than he knows people are 'waking up.' I told him about some of the things Grant had said on Dehlin's podcast. He had no idea what that was.

A few of the things he contested:

1. That the brethren don't believe, that they get a million dollar gift, etc - he said this was not his opinion, but just some "rumors" he had heard while a GA

2. Elder Uchtdorf taking longer than most Apostles do to discover it's not true - he reacted as if he'd never heard this passage before, looked taken aback, and said he'd "never say that."

3. That he was de-converted by reading Grant's book, and gifts it to other people - the 70 claimed he only read a few pages of it, and didn't particularly like it. In fact, I think he said he threw it away. He said he rebuked Grant once for trying to tear down the church.

There are other things as well, but I'm trying to be very conservative here and not give away too much.

Overall, Grant gave off a vibe of having a much closer connection to this guy than he really did. I met with the 70 not long after Grant's last appearance on MormonStories, which was right after Hamula's excommunication. In that interview, Grant stated that his 70 had told him that he met with Hamula on a specific day that he named, and had learned he was exed over adultery. That annoyed me since that information is so specific that it would effectively "out" the 70, since Hamula could have only met with so many 70's in one day, but it was a live podcast and couldn't be edited out.

So, when I spoke with the 70, I assumed he'd have heard about this already and be outraged. Nope. Contrary to what Grant claimed, the 70 hadn't spoken with Grant in months. It turns out Grant learned this through an intermediary. I know this intermediary because I have spoken to him before and Grant specifically named him in an email to me (which I'll get to later). So that's one instance in which I can verify that Grant exaggerated his closeness with the 70.

There is a bunch of other stuff I learned that is extremely relevant, and would significantly change the tenor of Grant Palmer's piece, but I can't get into it without endangering his anonymity. But I think it's important to note that this 70 isn't really this closet exmo hiding in the wings, reading r/exmormon and MormonThink and secretly trying to get people to leave the church. It's true that he doesn't believe in most of the truth claims of the church, but our similarities with this 70 don't extend much further than that, in my opinion. He doesn't live in our world. I would say the odds of him doing an "AMA" or something are effectively zero.

So, I emailed Grant Palmer, I think this was only a couple weeks before he died, and confronted him about a bunch of the discrepancies. I tried to be polite. Grant was short with me, didn't answer most of my questions, and intimated that the 70 was either not telling the truth or had forgotten the contents of their meetings. He referred me to a 3rd party that was in those meetings (this is the person I mentioned earlier that was the go-between and revealed the Hamula stuff to Grant), but that 3rd party was only in the later meetings and not the original one where the 70 supposedly said all the really crazy stuff about the brethren not believing. I didn't want to bother Grant too much considering he was on his deathbed, so I dropped it. That 3rd party has also told me that both he and the 70 were aghast at how many details were in Grant's original piece about meeting with the 70, which contradicts Grant's claim, to me, that the 70 had read through it and given his blessing before it was published.

It's possible the 70 is the one being dishonest or forgetful, but my interactions with Grant have led me to believe he wasn't very careful with details and prone to exaggeration. The Hamula thing in particular rubbed me the wrong way, and that was verifiable that he didn't actually speak to the 70 himself about that.

Bottom line: there's not much more to learn from the 70 that we don't already know. I got the impression he has a few stories about GA's he thinks are jerks, but he's super into positivity and not speaking ill of others, and I only got him to spill tea on one GA he thought was an opportunistic ladder-climber. He spilled tea on another, but wouldn't give me a name. So other than the fact that there's a 70 out there that doesn't believe, there's not much left to squeeze out of that rock.

Link

Here is the same poster following up after John Dehlin's recent outing of Busche:

ImTheMarmotKing
Some of you are aware that I met with Palmer's GA a few years ago. I encourage everyone to review those comments I wrote here.

I am not sure I agree with Dehlin's decision to out him. But I can confirm that Elder Busche is the GA that Grant Palmer met with multiple times (but I am not one of Dehlin's sources). If you read my previous comments, you will learn that he disputed much of what Palmer said about those meetings. I was light on details, because I didn't want to out him.

Now that his identity is known, I can share a few more details. In particular, I mentioned that Elder Busche is not the "hidden exmo" Grant portrays him as, even though it's true he doesn't believe in hardly any of the church's truth claims. Part of the reason this is the case is that Elder Busche never really bought into most of the church's truth claims. For example, he told me that he only got baptized as a young man in Germany on the condition he didn't have to believe in the Old Testament, because, and I quote, "Jehovah is a mass murderer." He also claims the missionaries were upfront that Joseph was an "adulterer." In short, he never got baptized on the conviction of the restoration. He got baptized because of the enormous "love" he felt from the missionaries - a kind of love he feels is pretty much absent from church leaders now. He spoke glowingly about David O'McKay, but said the modern apostles don't know Jesus Christ. I asked him if he ever bore testimony of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, and he kind of hemmed and hawed and said maybe he did, but he never really cared about any of that. This is part of the reason I said he's not an "exmo" the way we are. I believe this detail alters the tenor of Palmer's piece quite a bit.

Another detail - which I'm going to be vague about out of respect - is that when I met with Elder Busche, he had moved on to some pretty outlandish beliefs. More outlandish than Mormonism. More outlandish than 9/11 truther conspiracies. He spent about an hour of our three hours talking about these beliefs. An example of one of his less bizarre beliefs is that Joseph Smith, Jesus Christ and others are "ascended masters," to give you an idea of where he was at.

Busche is a fascinating individual, but he is not a smoking gun that the church leadership is secretly run by closet non-believers with million dollar slush funds. He was, by his own admission, a GA that never quite fit in, that was distrusted by others because of his outsider status, and that never really believed in the core tenets of the restoration the way we did. It was always about pursuing God-like love for him. He felt like the LDS church was the best place to do that half a century ago, but isn't anymore.

LInk

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

WOW. THIS IS REALLY INTERESTING STUFF. My Lord what I wouldn’t give to read more about these “outlandish” beliefs. I love that stuff. Also, “He spilled tea on another, but wouldn't give me a name. So other than the fact that there's a 70 out there that doesn't believe...”

Christ Almighty there’s some really good insights kind of leaking out here.

ETA: Like, how in the world do you make it to the 70’s being a sort of non-believing believer??

- Doc

[_Fence Sitter]

ETA: Like, how in the world do you make it to the 70’s being a sort of non-believing believer??

- Doc

I really don't think it would be all that difficult. I know a lot of people who are fully engaged in the church because they enjoy it and don't really care whether or not it's true in the sense that Joseph Smith was a prophet and there was a restoration. My wife is one of those. She cares very little for historical facts. It is a way of life that she enjoys. So take that attitude coupled with a successful motivated white businessman and he has the appearance of everything they are looking for in a high level church leader. They assumes that since he walks the walk and talks the talk he is fully a believer. I compare it to a doTerra salesperson. They may not believe all the crap they are spewing about their product but if it makes people happy and makes money, they do not care.

[_Craig Paxton]

I've been far removed from the Ex-Mormon world and haven't been on this sight for months. Miss me? Probably not.

As I attempt to catch up on this subject, I do have a few questions. I'm well aware of Palmer's assertions and never gave them much credence. Is the OP asserting that Dehlin released then removed documentation showing that Apostles receive a $1m signing bonus? What kind of documentation was it?

For the record I know several members of the 12 personally. I can't imagine that 01. They need the money and 02. would take the money even if offered. While I can't speak of the other members, of the ones I do know they were very successful men and are making great sacrifices to be members of the 12.