“Faithful Mormon” wrote: There is an article in today's Tribune about Elder Stevenson's company, iFit (a.k.a. ICON Health & Fitness) and their delayed IPO. You can go read it on the Trib's website if you'd like. The public filings indicate that Elder Stevenson could earn as much as a billion dollars from the IPO.
I have some personal knowledge and interaction with one of the three stockholders named in the article. For purposes of their privacy and mine, I am not going to name which of the three it is. There are a lot of people online who are hurling unfounded accusations simply because this IPO involves an Apostle and a lot of money.
Without going into detail, there was a point in my life where my family and I were in a very, very difficult financial position. I wanted to serve a mission, but the finances just were not there. One of these three men, paid for my mission entirely. He does not know that I know that he did it, and I have always debated whether to thank him or not because I know it was important to him to do it anonymously. I am extremely confident that all three men have helped countless people with their wealth and that they've done it as Jesus admonished, quietly, and only for the pure purpose of helping others.
I am sharing this with you because I think this is important information to have. It also really bothers me to see the attacks online. You really can't win with some people.
Elder Stevenson is noteworthy as the first billionaire apostle for the Mormon church.
Is anyone else here aware of Mormon businessmen regularly paying for missionaries’ missions? Was your mission paid for?
Well. When I served my mission way back in 1990, I lucked out because it was to Peru and it was before the change to everyone-pays-the-same-amount general fund. I do recall Ward members helping out a bit, if I recall correctly, from what my mother said.
I guess, for me, if this man is paying for other people’s missions, I dunno. It’s kind of heart tendery for me. I guess I’m a sucker for altruism, even if the result is something I don’t totally support. The act is humane and charitable, and that’s something to applaud, I suppose. 50 points to Gryffinmorm.
Well. When I served my mission way back in 1990, I lucked out because it was to Peru and it was before the change to everyone-pays-the-same-amount general fund. I do recall Ward members helping out a bit, if I recall correctly, from what my mother said.
I guess, for me, if this man is paying for other people’s missions, I dunno. It’s kind of heart tendery for me. I guess I’m a sucker for altruism, even if the result is something I don’t totally support. The act is humane and charitable, and that’s something to applaud, I suppose. 50 points to Gryffinmorm.
- Doc
It still clashes with the church’s message about paying your tithing even when you can’t afford to. And it sounds like this kid was just lucky to know a wealthy Mormon leader or else he would have missed out on serving.
Compared to EPA, this isn’t much of a story. It is a mistake, I think, to focus on individual generosity or stinginess when the church has untold billions of dollars that it uses primarily to increase its wealth.
"I have learned with what evils tyranny infects a state. For it frustrates all the virtues, robs freedom of its lofty mood, and opens a school of fawning and terror, inasmuch as it leaves matters not to the wisdom of the laws, but to the angry whim of those who are in authority.”
Compared to EPA, this isn’t much of a story. It is a mistake, I think, to focus on individual generosity or stinginess when the church has untold billions of dollars that it uses primarily to increase its wealth.
I wonder if future missionaries will balk at the requirement they pay their own way given the revelation about just how much their church has sitting in the bank gathering interest.
Compared to EPA, this isn’t much of a story. It is a mistake, I think, to focus on individual generosity or stinginess when the church has untold billions of dollars that it uses primarily to increase its wealth.
I wonder if future missionaries will balk at the requirement they pay their own way given the revelation about just how much their church has sitting in the bank gathering interest.
Of course they will! And very rightly so. Me? pay for my own mission to convince people to join and give of their own money when it's riding on $120,000,000,000?! I just don't think so.
Compared to EPA, this isn’t much of a story. It is a mistake, I think, to focus on individual generosity or stinginess when the church has untold billions of dollars that it uses primarily to increase its wealth.
I wonder if future missionaries will balk at the requirement they pay their own way given the revelation about just how much their church has sitting in the bank gathering interest.
I guess there is modern revelation after all.
"Only the atheist realizes how morally objectionable it is for survivors of catastrophe to believe themselves spared by a loving god, while this same God drowned infants in their cribs." Sam Harris
I'm not one for using a good deed as a springboard for criticism. The apostle did a good deed by paying for the young man's mission. And he didn't toot his own horn about it. Good for him. in my opinion, that's what helping others is all about.
My mission was relatively inexpensive, and out turns out I had had saved enough money by working during high school to pay for it. Because my parents had moved, I had only been in my "home ward" a couple of months before I received my call. I didn't ask for any financial help, and I don't recall receiving any. Growing up, I knew we could donate to a missionary fund which I think the ward could use for young people that couldn't afford to go on a mission.
I think there may be something to the notion that financially investing in one's mission increases the sense of personal investment in it.
he/him we all just have to live through it,
holding each other’s hands.
