The land of snow and Mormons

Tooling around and found this site. I've lived here for 18 months now and never noticed anything odd about the Mormons, in fact, I've come to like a lot of them. They seem like decent, family-oriented people. The racism I'd expected has not materialized. But those are some silly beliefs. Even granting that most Western religious belief is silly in one way or another (there's an all-knowing, all-powerful being who, nevertheless, has this compulsive need to "test" people, when he is supposed to know the outcome already, and he sure does have a temper!), some of those things are, well ... I'll stop there, except to say I don't get the thing about the underwear at all. I read through the Book of Mormon, and after awhile started wondering if it was somebody's attempt at comedy -- I can't believe they go door to door using that thing in their pitch. But of all the things I don't get, the tithe flummoxes me the most. You are expected to raise big families, the wives tend not to work, but you are also expected to give 10% of your income to the church. What do they get in return for that 10%? And they foot the bill for their own kids going on those missions (I actually admire the missions and the commitment it takes to an extent). It has to be the most expensive major religion out there. You can surely get the same community involvement and social benefits by choosing a different church. You can go to Catholic services for the price of a couple of bucks thrown in the offering basket. Mormonism ought to have priced itself out of the market. But it's one of the fastest growing religions in the world, from what I can gather. I just don't get it.