I went to public school, as did all of my siblings. I have 3 siblings that attended ivy league schools, I have another sibling that is currently getting a Phd, I have a law degree. I say this not to boast, but to state that there are all sorts of average mormons who have excelled, and I wish the program would have focused on them.

I also found Toscano to be the worst contributor to the program. I didn’t find it hard to watch her talking about being excommunicated. It became readily apparent that she #1 Doesn’t understand that being excommunicated is part of the repentance process and that the High Council members who were shaking her hand wanted to help her out. #2 I think that a husband should have the RIGHT to decide who dresses his deceased wife. If he wants to exclude his sister-in-law that is something that he should be more then entitled to do, and Toscano being offended by this just shows that she has a bone to pick.

The increased visibility of the Church in the world brings a variety of new challenges. However, you parents and prospective missionaries have no reason to be fearful and to feel that serving a mission is unusually dangerous or risky. Our records since 1981 reveal that the total number of missionaries who have lost their lives through accident, illness, or other causes is very small. The life-style of Latter-day Saint missionaries before and during their missions contributes to their health and safety. For example, the death rate of young male missionaries from the United States serving worldwide is one-fifth the rate of young males of comparable age living in Utah. It is one-seventh the rate of young males of comparable age in the general population of the United States. I do not imply that missionary service is a guarantee of increased longevity, but missionaries obviously have a much lower risk of death than others of comparable age.

(M. Russell Ballard, “Duties, Rewards, and Risks,” Ensign, Nov 1989, p 33.)

I don’t know if Elder Ballard’s numbers control for underlying health and lifestyle (i.e., is the death rate he cites for all males in that age cohort or just those who could have passed a missionary physical in the preceding two years and who didn’t drink, use illegal drugs, etc.)

My memory tells me that Elder Ballard has made such a claim more recently, but I couldn’t find it.

Specttacled caimans can be found in some areas of northern Argentina. That species is a relatively small member of the alligator family and (unlike crocodiles) is harmless to humans. The spectacled caiman is smaller and even less dangerous than the relatively benign American alligator we have in the southeastern US. I suppose we can give him misidentifying a caiman and uncritically accepting folklore about frogs, but it is still a stretch to suggest that he was in any danger from the local herpetofauna. After all, millions of Argentinians live their lives quite calmly in the presence of frogs and caimans. For that matter, alligators and frogs can be found in my town here in Louisiana, and I guess I forgot to be frightened.

The story of being terrorized by poison-spitting frogs and crocodiles is about as credible as if he had told us about fire-breathing dragons and crocodiles in the British Columbia Vancouver Mission.

Something of an irony, considering how he was going on about how he couldn’t accept the credibility of the church origins.

Then there are problems here in the US. We were scheduled to feed the missionaries on Easter. We had a part-member couple with us, and we waited, and waited, and waited until we got a call from them. They weren’t going to be able to make it–some idiot pulled his car in front of the missionaries on their bikes, and one of them hit the car and wound up in the emergency room.

No poisonous frogs though in the part of Mexico I served.

I thought they gave Tal enough rope to hang himself with in the eyes of LDS viewers. I have no idea what non-LDS viewers would think.

Yeah, I agree. But it seems in conflict with what the objective of the documentary.

Couldn’t they find someone more representative? Do all missionaries need to be typified as capable of suicide bombings?

Please don’t dismiss the idea of fighting off ninjas so glibly. I served a mission in Japan, and unprovoked hand-to-and combat with ninjas was many missionaries’ worst fear.