The trouble with Mormons is that they think everyone else not only should be Mormon, but wants to be Mormon and is just waiting for someone to come along to convert them. I got news for y’all (that’s the Southern coming out in me), Mormonism is part of Christianity…there are many religions that are Christian and if you took the time to research or learn about any of them, you would see quickly that all of them have basically the same idea of the “big picture”, they just go about getting there in different ways. Of course each religion has its own little unique practices and histories, but the end-goal is pretty much the same.
One of my biggest peeves is that Mormons equate religion with spirituality. They are NOT the same. I am not a religious person but I am very spiritual. Yes, I’m Mormon. Yes, I’m proud to be Mormon, but I don’t believe that I need to go sit in a building with 500 other people for 3 hours every Sunday to have a one on one relationship with God. I converse with God on a daily basis…you could say we’re tight :)
I know that church is meant to renew your covenants and rejuvenate your soul blah, blah, blah…too bad. I work way too hard and spend far too much time away from my family the other 165 hours of the week, and I refuse to give up those 3 hours on Sunday. If that is wrong, then let the big man upstairs be the one to judge me for it. Church for me is spending Sunday with my son (and pretty soon, my husband too), enjoying the blessing of motherhood and the beauty of this earth. For those of you that are right now ready to reach through the screen and argue with me, let me ask you a question: who is the better person—someone who races through their life week after week doing everything possible to “keep up with the Jones’” but manages to keep up appearances at church on Sunday…or, the person who takes a few minutes each day to enjoy the small things in life and stops to smell the proverbial roses but doesn’t go to church because they need personal rejuvenation that they can’t get in a building full of people?? Think about it…
Another trouble with Mormons is that they are judgmental…I am the first to admit that I sometimes (more often than I should) judge things that I know nothing about. You never know the battle someone else may be fighting… Of all people, I know that and I should know better than to judge a book by its cover. But it is ingrained in us! Sadly, we are taught (inadvertently) as children to be judgmental. Mormons aren’t the only ones that do this of course, but again, it seems to be more rampant than among other religions. It’s very hypocritical really…our beliefs teach us to love and accept ALL of our fellow men and women yet we leave the church building and go right back to judging and comparing ourselves to everyone else!
In this city, image is EVERYTHING…at least to many Mormons it is. It comes back to taking it upon ourselves to be judge, jury, and executioner. Perfect example: Mormon moms (and dads probably) expect that their sons will go on a mission the very moment they turn 19. They don’t even stop to take a millisecond and give their son a say in the matter. If, God forbid, said son decides not to go on a mission, the parents take it personally as if it harms their image because their son didn’t do God’s work! And don’t even get me started on if the son decides to serve his country in the military INSTEAD of serving a mission… Girls aren’t allowed to go on missions until they are 21 because they are expected to get married and have kids…that has always bugged me.
Same goes for temple marriage. I think temple marriage (and marriage in general) is a wonderful thing, if it’s what the bride and groom wants…not what the parents want. Contrary to popular belief around here, just because you get married in the temple does not mean you will have a happy marriage and just because you don’t get married in the temple doesn’t mean you will have a bad marriage. But again, it all comes down to image and what are your kids doing to better your image…dumbest thing ever. Who freaking cares what other people think about you…you are feeding their judgmental beast when you care what they think! I heard a great quote once: “What other people think about you is none of your business”…wise words!
Another thing that really bugs me is that Mormons have their own time system. If you have never heard the term “Mormon Standard Time” (MST), now you have. Now we all know what EST, CST, & PST stand for and what MST is supposed to stand for, but in Utah, it has officially been changed. In Utah, MST indicates that no matter what time you are supposed to be somewhere, you can be at least 15 minutes late, and people will wait for you. Now I wouldn’t suggest this for things such as your own wedding, graduation, or funeral (haha!) but pretty much anything else is acceptable. I know many of you are nodding your head in agreement and thinking “oh, that explains a lot”… :) My grampa (yes I know I spelled it wrong…) always taught me that if you were 15 minutes early for something then you were on time, on time meant you were late, and late was not even an option (this will come in handy when I’m in the military!) so the new MST was not allowed in our house!
Don’t even get me started on home teaching and visiting teaching…I don’t know how they do it, but every time I move from one place to another, THEY find me! Someone tell me, is the church a relative of Big Brother?? Do they monitor your movements and stalk you wherever you go?? :) Seriously though, it’s kind of annoying when I change my address and I have new visiting teachers or home teachers calling me before I even get moved in. I don’t mind if they stop by to chat and introduce themselves, that’s just good manners. What bugs me is that they automatically assume that I WANT them to continue to come over and talk to me about church. Honestly, that puts me off more than anything.
True story: I moved into my current home nearly 3 years ago. I no sooner got settled (sort of) and I had some OLD (seriously, we are talking mid to late 80’s) man knocking on my door asking when he and some other OLD man could come over and visit me. There they go with the assuming that I want them in my home… Anyone who really knows me knows that I am not super social. I don’t go out of my way to meet new people and I certainly do NOT like visitors in my house (except for very close friends and family) so I was bugged from the get go. I’m not even sure how he ended up with my phone number but after that first visit he called me…incessantly! He even managed somehow to get my work number and called me there when I didn’t answer my cell phone. That made me pretty mad…for heaven’s sake it’s just home teaching, not life and death. You don’t have to call me at work…better yet, DON’T call me at work…
Finally one evening (hoping that if I agreed then he would leave me alone) I caved and said they could come over… More assuming…the first question was “so what does your husband do?” I had my wedding ring on so it was obvious that I’m married but, they still could have asked. The next question: “so do you work outside of the home?” As if my answer to the first question hadn’t pretty much already answered the second…they then asked “so who takes care of your son?” Perhaps I was being judgmental in assuming that they would have figured out the answers to #’s 2 & 3 based on my answer to #1…
The not-short-enough visit wrapped up with the usual “well we hope to see you at church, it’s at such & such time on Sunday (duh, I already knew that Mormons go to church on Sunday…) As much as I had hoped that they would leave me be after that, they didn’t. That’s not what bothers me though…what bothers me is that they have a whole 30 days to contact the 3-4 families they are supposed to contact every month but they wait until literally the second to last day of the month to call me! Really??? I’m busy people, I can’t just drop what I’m doing and let you come to my house just because you waited until the last minute to do your home teaching this month (and every month). What’s worse is when the first OLD guy just stops by out of the blue…I swear he watches for me to come home then runs (haha, RUNS?!?!) around the corner to my house. Every time he expects me to invite him in (which I don’t because again, I don’t like visitors, especially uninvited ones) and then he almost acts upset when I tell him I don’t think there is a time the next day that he can come back!!
Then there’s my visiting teachers…how many freakin teachers does one little 29 year old need for cryin out loud? I loved the visiting teachers I had when we first moved to this neighborhood. They were awesome! They always called a few days in advance (and not at the end of the month) and always asked what time was convenient FOR ME for them to come over. If for some reason we couldn’t set a time, we would chat on the phone for a minute and that would be it. I really appreciated the respect they had for my time and situation. They always made me feel like they cared about me…not just about whether or not they fulfilled their obligation to visit me every month. I was very sad when about a year ago, our ward boundaries changed and I was assigned new visiting teachers. The new relief society (similar to the red hat society, only with religion involved…haha!!) president, who had to be at least 75, called me and asked if I would like to have visiting teachers. My exact words were “I would love to have visiting teachers if you can make sure to assign me someone that is close to my age”. I didn’t think that my request was out of line…after all, I’m 29 years young, if I’m gonna have to socialize, it would be nice to socialize with people that were born in the same decade.
About 2 weeks later I got a call…it was one of my new visiting teachers. Any guesses on how old she is??? C’mon, someone guess…OVER 60!! Not that that is a bad thing but seriously she talked to me like I was a little 12 year old and that totally drove me nuts! Why on earth do the ward leaders think that I want the geriatrics unit (home teachers included) at my house??? Why why why do they assign 80 year old men to visit (or stalk) a 29 year old temporarily single woman??? CREEPY! What the hell am I supposed to talk about with them…the weather?? They are all of the mindset that women belong in the home making and raising babies and men should provide a living for the family. Fine, maybe that worked for them but this is the 21st century… I could go on and on about this but I won’t…
As much as I would love to keep ranting, this post is really long already so I’ll leave you with this: in a talk at LDS General Conference about 2 weeks ago, Dieter Uchtdorf gave the best piece of advice I have heard in a very long time: “don’t judge me because I sin differently than you”. Fellow Mormons, Christians, & humans: if you have paid attention to nothing else in the last 15 minutes, pay attention to those words. Realize that IMAGE IS NOTHING, CHARACTER IS EVERYTHING. We are not put on this earth to judge each other but to love each other. So, if you love me a little less after reading my Mormon bashing rant, I accept that. After all, it’s none of my business what you think of me!!! Peace and Love to all of you :)
When I moved back to St. George, I had a friend visiting me, and she came in and said "I didn't know... there are these guys in the livingroom." So I went into the livingroom and there on my couch was the entire bishopric of the local ward. I was kind of speechless. They started telling me how they were excited I'd moved back etc, (I never went to church when I lived here before, so ???) and I just said "Actually I'm not LDS anymore..." The looks on their faces were astounding. They looked completely stunned. So they said "Uh... Well, uh.. can we uh... just visit then?" I said "Sure! It's always good to meet one's neighbors!" So we exchanged pleasantries for a while, and finally they left and asked if they could check in on me from time to time, and I grinned and said "Of course, neighbors are always welcome."
ReplyDeleteI never saw them again.
I don't know how they knew I moved back, probably one of my neighbors told them. Since I am no longer on the records, they shouldn't have been trying to find me in the first place. I kind of felt sorry for them when I broke the news of my exit because they obviously had no idea how to respond and were just trying to find a graceful way to escape after that. I didn't intentionally shock them, but they invited themselves into MY house without my permission. I didn't say anything about the church besides that I no longer belonged however.
I'm not too fond of visitors either.
Anyway, thanks for your "rant," you said many things I have not said in public because people will just accuse me of Mormon bashing. But people don't realize how difficult it is to live here when you are either not a Mormon, an ex-Mormon, or inactive without any desire to participate. It is overwhelming at times.
I can account for the age of at least the 80 hear old home teacher. They have a rule that home teachers to a single woman need to be high priests (the old guys in the ward). I guess the theory is that they don't want anyhing inappeopriate going on or even the appearance of inappriateness.
ReplyDeleteAs an active Mormon who would be lost without the Church, I completely agree about Utah Mormons being judgemental. Its something that is talked about in one way or another every conference. I was a VERY rebellious teenager and have felt my fair share of the judgemental stares. I just try to remember that as a human, people make mistakes. Judgeing is just one of those mistakes/sins. Those who judge will have overcome this habit before they can gain exhaltation. Just two weeks ago we went to Arizona for my brother in law's baptism. After his confirmation on Sunday, my family decided to go to the Cheesecake Factory before hitting the road. Here is some back ground info: my family is SUPER SUPER Mormon and it is a very rare occasion to find them breaking the sabbath. We decided it would be OK for a few reasons. There were 10 of us staying in my sisters two bedroom apt. Needless to say there was not much room to eat... anywhere. We needed to eat before we hit the road back to Utah. Also, it is a rare occasion for our family to be ALL together, so we wanted to make it even more special. Now, back to the point. As we were all sitting at the Cheese Cake Factory waiting to be served, my sister got a phone call from the missionaries. My brother in law had forgotten to sign some paperwork. My sister,embarrased, was like...uhhh...well... we are at CCF right now, can we call you after? The missionary and a member of the bishopric responded by saying oh we are close to there, we can just find ya. A few mintues later they found us, and to my suprise, they didnt bat an eye. They couldnt care less that we were breaking the sabbath. It was the first time that I had ever experienced a "mormon" experience outside of Utah. It was GREAT! That is how Mormons should be. Love each other, take care of each other, and leave the judgeing to our Lord.
ReplyDeleteHa ha, my original post was too long. You obviously inspired me! Since Reid's napping and I have the time, I'm just going to have to put it all in two comments.
ReplyDeleteFirst, I have to admit I judged you right in the first two paragraphs. My judgement was "Uh-oh, she had a bad visit from a home or visiting teacher." Is it okay to judge if I was right in the end? :) Wish I could be your VT, I would not hound you to come to Church.
You are spot on about the difference between religion and spirituality. In the last General Conference (I think it was Elder Halstrom) spoke about how there is a difference between, what he called, the Gospel and the Church. The Church is the whole "keeping up with the Jones" aspect of Mormon culture. Living the Gospel is what actually matters in the eyes of God. I'd heard him give a similar talk at a recent Stake Conference here in WI and I LOVED it. Couldn't agree more. Being active in the Church doesn't matter one bit if you aren't active in the Gospel.
I think my strong desire to always grow up and leave Utah came from the fact that my parents made it very clear I was to live the Gospel, not the Church. I was not to become a Utah Mormon! When asked why she never went to "homemaking activities" my mom simply told the Bishop her homemaking duty was to be at home with her husband and children. He took that as a great answer and never bugged her about it again. When asked to help at such activities, she always makes the necessary deserts, drops them off at the Church before hand, and then comes home to be with my Dad. I love her tiny ways of rebellion.
Maybe my folks are more "utah mormon" than I like to think of them as (you might be a better judge of that since I have obvious bias) but I am so grateful for their wisdom. When my oldest brother Matt told my mom he wasn't going to go on a mission, she said "okay" and the conversation was over. He was shocked! My mom, having served a mission herself, knew he SHOULD NOT go unless he was the one that wanted to. After a year of reflection on life he decided to go, and our Sutherland 2nd ward members were amazed that my mother shed not one tear during his "farewell." Her reply, "I cried when I thought he wouldn't go, now that he's going I'm happy as can be." But she never let my brother know she cried, she just let him know she was okay with his decision and she loved him no matter what. My youngest brother didn't serve, and instead joined the army. His journey is a whole other story, but I thought I'd point that out since you mentioned the military as a common alternative.
ReplyDeleteAs for the temple marriage topic, let me add one thing that bugs me. A temple marriage is a temple marriage, whether it is the ceremony in which you enter marriage from day one or whether you wait until day 467,582. I actually REALLY admire people who get married civilly first, and then work on temple marriage later. This shows honesty, maturity, and a great respect for God's House. I am SOOOOOOO bothered when people hold a grudge on their brother/son/daughter/sister's spouse because the couple didn't get married in the temple on day one. A temple marriage is a temple marriage no matter when it takes place! And as you said, a good marriage is a good marriage and a bad one a bad one, the starting point isn't the guarantee. The day to day effort is.
One last thing (though you brought a million things to my head). There isn't really a clearly stated reason as to why sisters serve later. You are right though, they are not "commanded" to serve because it is just as honorable to marry and start a family instead. As for the age though, I think it has more to do with separating gender attractions. As a 22-year-old I had no attraction to the 19-year-old boys who surrounded me. Had I been able to serve at 19, I think I would tell a different story. The other nice thing about the age limit and sister missionaries is that there is no cut off for sisters. Men can't serve after 26, cause their duty at that age is to get married. Women can serve whenever they want once they hit 21. Most the sisters I served with were actually closer to (or older than) 26 and one was even 38.
Thanks for listening to my mind race.
I'm so excited for your family that Carl comes home soon!
Thanks everyone for the great comments! Liz, can I just say that someday we should be neighbors! We would NEVER run out of things to talk about :). Stac, I'm so happy for you that you got to experience non-Utah Mormons :)
ReplyDeleteApril, I can totally relate to most of your points on a personal level. I haven't really had the struggles you've had with visiting and home teachers, as I feel mine have always been really kind and usually brief, or at least they were people I could quickly befriend; however, I can see why you would be upset with the situations you've dealt with.
ReplyDeleteI also have struggled with going to church with so many other people, but maybe for slightly different reasons. Many don't realize it, because once I'm in a social situation, I am usually bright, happy and friendly, but I have always had some pretty bad social anxiety. When it comes time for church, I often feel overwhelmed and a little bit intimidated. I do have days where I just stay home because of that. I have also found that, though I dread social situations, I need that human interaction. I've felt so blessed because when I do go to church, there is always at least one tiny thing that I really needed to hear. I thank the Lord for that! But I also find that God looks for ways to bless me, and as long as I'm asking and looking, I can see it. Thanks so much for sharing your experiences!
Liz, I always love hearing your perspectives and stories, too! Thanks!
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ReplyDeleteThere is so much here that I can comment and add to, but I am not sure that all of my comments will serve as much justice as some of the wonderful comments already stated. Here is where I come from...
ReplyDeleteI have a torn family with step-parents, many siblings and step-siblings, and half-siblings. I have been raised in the church, I am LDS, and I believe that the gospel is true. (Notice I said Gospel) Over the course of my life I have been turned off by many "Molly-Mormons". My Father and Step-Mother were so controlling and hypocritical that it helped me to realize and find the truth in Gospel principles.
Hypocrisy is my #1 pet-peeve in this world! What people don't realize or forget to realize is that we are all here to learn. The only way to learn is to make mistakes. We have our own choice and accountability...and there is only ONE JUDGE. We are here to help, boost, lift up, care for, and serve our fellow beings so that we can all make it to the "pearly gates" together. If you are truly like the Savior, you have compassion for all Human Beings no matter their status or situations.
I was one of the few that did not get sealed in the temple until a year had passed, because I knew I was not worthy to be in the Lord's House with the feelings and thoughts in my mind of my soon to be spouse. Hormones are so strong, and I was not going to have hypocrisy or what others thought of me get in the way of what I knew was right and wrong. My Judge knew my mind, my thoughts, and my heart...he will know how to judge me correctly seeing all aspects of my situation. He is the only one that has that option...thank the LORD!
I do not always go to church...my family plays a lot on Sundays (however we are always together making memories), I take off my garments when I play sports, and when I decide to be sexy for a day for my husband. I almost always dress up in something "racy" or "slutty" on Valentines day...Lets face it...garments are not cute to look at :) I make it to at least 1 HARD ROCK concert a year because I love the complex rhythms and I am a Rock girl to the core! My sister once made me an alcoholic drink and I tried it, however I don't drink. What I am trying to say to you all is that I own up to all of what I have done in my life, and I forever will. What you see is what you get...and I think more Mormons should have the same attitude. Those of you that are perfect may cast the first stone at me, but I can throw back...maybe twice as hard! ;0)
Amen Lena ;)
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