Mine was laughable in how bad it was. According to my blessing, I am going to have terrible children who will fight against everything I try to teach them, who will rebel against me and the law of the land, who will hate me and will spit at my feet (yes that is a line in my blessing), and who will only come to appreciate my efforts after I am dead (also an exact line in my blessing).

Now isn’t that just what every 15 year old girl wants to hear about her future?

Even better than the blessing is how people reacted to it. The patriarch’s wife wrote me a sympathy letter (she was his transcriber). It was on paper that had a quote about not giving up hope, and she wrote that I shouldn’t fear my future based on my blessing. She said that not everything in a blessing comes true and I should use it more as a guideline for life and not as a literal prediction of things to come. One of my SIL’s was shocked when she heard about my blessing (she very much believes that PB’s are literal prophecies). She started crying and got down on her knees in front of the whole family and prayed to god that he would bless me with the strength I would need to make it through the painful life I had ahead of me.

I was advised to not tell any mormon boys I dated about this part of my blessing so they wouldn’t be scared away. I was also advised to find a guy whose blessing said he would have obedient children, to cancel out mine I guess.

My blessing also indicated that I would die an early death. It said that I would be the one to welcome all my siblings to the other side. I am the youngest of 10 kids, so according to my blessing I am going to die before my sister who is 18 years older than me. Awesome. My brother pointed out that it is likely that my criminal children will drive me to my early grave.

Anyone else have weird/awful predictions in their blessings?

Sounds like either the patriarch had it in for you or he enjoyed predicting gloom and doom for impressionable teenagers.

My PB was pretty standard and basic. It didn't predict the abusive husband I ended up with or the divorce we got after marrying in the temple and having several kids. It also didn't predict my leaving TSCC.


I also got a very strange blessing years later from my BP and another PH holder. At the time I was a single parent, living below the poverty level and struggling to get my education. The BP said that my life would be a series of trials and hardships, but that occasional rays of sunshine would part the clouds that would cover most of my life with toil and tears.

The blessing made me angry. I felt even at the time that it was their projections of my future based on their judgments of me that I was hearing -- in other words, that's how they wanted and expected my life to turn out.

I decided to make just the opposite happen, and I have mostly succeeded. :-)

Rest easy because the things in your blessing are actually things that all mothers go through in one way or another. Children don't have the capacity to understand or appreciate all that their mothers (or whoever) do for them, sometimes to the point of being rebellious, biting the hands that feed them, etc. this stuff happens to just about everyone. Probably not the nicest words to have transcribed and written as your once-in-a-lifetime patriarchal blessing, but look at it this way: if you're here on RFM then you might be doubting the veracity of the church to begin with.

My pb was full of sweet things, then of course at the end stated that it's all conditional on my faithfulness. I was TBM faithful with a few unavoidable human-nature sins, then all the sweetness of my pb went down the drain. For years I was mad at myself because I figured my sins of human nature had dashed all of my hopes & dreams. That's the church just messing with our heads and making us feel like #%&! so don't worry, eb, just stick with who you know you are, follow your own conscience, your own path, your own happiness.

Oh, don't worry, I know it's all BS. I left the church 10 years ago, but back then I did think it would come true and I didn't even want to have kids because of it!
Mine also ended saying that it was all conditional on my faithfullness, so I guess I don't have to worry about it coming true now ;)

I had a friend whose blessing said she would die an early death. She's lived her whole life waiting to die. What a mean thing for that old buzzard to say! By the way, my friend is now almost 80. Still kicking.

The good thing about those blessings is that they're a bunch of BS. Mine told me that my husband and children would be so righteous we'd be lifted into the heavens together as a perfect family unit. In other words, we'd be translated! I read that to my kids the last holiday we had together. I thought they were going to die laughing. We then gave a champagne toast to our perfect family. We all resigned from crazy church 2 years ago.

A friends PB says she has a beautiful body. I suppose that dirty old man thought her 15 yo body looked pretty good to him. Trust me, it ain't all that. Mine also says that if I read All of the scriptures i'll have a testimony so strong that it will be impossible to break it. I read all the scriptures. I suppose that blessing is right about that one. I have an intensely strong testimony that the church is a man made artificial church that is used to cover up the fact that it's really a corporation.

The old buzzards that give those blessings know that their just making stuff up. It was downright abusive what that jerk said. They're nothing more than fake fortune tellers. And bad ones at that.

My brothers PB says he will lead congregations in song. He can't sing in tune or read a note of music. My other brothers says that he will speak to large groups of people all over the world. He has a severe speech impediment and refuses to do any public speaking. I'm sure there are loads of people on this board that an tell you similar stories of the insanity of PB's.

OMG, i cant even believe that!! how crazy! I guess that patriarch was having a rough day??!

My PB was very very cookie cutter. You will get married in the temple to a good worth priesthood holder and bring forth good priesthood holder sons... blah blah blah.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/09/2013 02:15PM by queenb.

Will you scan your blessing and upload it, or type it out? PLEASE!!!???? I understand if you are keeping your ID on the downlow though.

I would advise against that. Keep in mind that TSCC has all blessings in a database in HQ, even one paragraph could produce a unique match and identify the poster.

and blessings are sold for money, they should give some thought to customer satisfaction. A PB like that is like serving a cold burger on a stale bun.

Was the point to frighten someone into holding to the rod even harder? It would have had a far different effect on me -- I would have shopped around for better service and a more encouraging message. It can't serve any positive purpose for the individual to expect misery in the future. We should all be prepared for random bad stuff, but it's outrageous that they would deliberately instill fear of the future in a young person. Especially when there is so much pressure to look cheerful and with-it.

mine basically said I'd be poor (too true : ( ) I was blessed to be a stalwart member and told not to reject callings and that I'd be a temple worker.

It was pretty vague. My parents try to spin it to mean that I'm suffering with MY WIFE's lifelong affliction with cystic fibrosis, but it seems the Lord would have been able to specify that it was an liiness my wife would have asopposed to "You will suffer. . . " Mormons will put any spinon a PB to say that it came true. after all,I didn't need to be righteous to acquire a lifelong affliction. it's only blessings, not curses, that are wthheld due to lackof righteousness.

The closest I've had to a lifelong affliction was an eighteen-month-or-so-long case of noticeable acne, which essentially disappeared by the time I was seventeen.

Mine said that I had a testimony of god that was unshakable and couldn't be lost. I was already a closet atheist at that young age.

Mine said that I would undoubtedly be with god and Jesus in the next life, working beside them (at whatever they do, which I thought was populating the universe with multiple wives).

Also, it said that I would be "the one" who receives revelation from the lord.

Haha.

My blessing says that my non member dad will join the gospel due to my example. I am officially resigned from the church since 10/2013.

What an awful thing to say to a child. How inspired. I'm sorry you had to live with that fear for so long. I hope you realize that you can have the life YOU want, and some old geezer predicting doom and gloom for you has no part in it!

Mine predicted things that never happened:

I was told I'd become a great leader of men. I guess he missed my crippling social anxiety.

I would rise up in the church. I had already given up on Mormonism by then.

I would have children. I've only had one.

Three strikes and yer out.

My PB was two pages of bombastic rhetoric about how I was one of God's most chosen spirits and that if I was faithful I'd eventually get to the point where I'd be able to see through the veil and find out lots of good stuff via personal revelation. Several years after that I found out the guy was totally delusional and had been asked by the SP to keep his nutty beliefs to himself.

This year I actually did get to the point where I saw through the veil . . . and found out the truth about JS and TSCC. THAT, my friends, is what I call personal revelation!

Well mine was normal...except I had two...my first one was mostly threats saying I needed to do what the church laid out I'm guidelines before me or I was basically going to hell. God I wish I had that one written down. It also babbled about how I fought Satan in the pre exsistence.

My brother's said that he and his wife were going to fight a lot. We used to rib him about her throwing plates at him. She really is nuts though, although no reports of plate throwing yet.

Mine was actually pretty nice. The patriarch who did it was a good friend of the family from long before I was born, so it was no surprise that he was able to personalize it.

My youngest brother wasn't so lucky. He got his in a different town at a time when he was struggling with the church culture but still believed. He was told in his that he had been a general in Satan's army during the pre-existence war in heaven, but that he had switched sides at the last minute.

He left the church for good before the typed copy came in the mail.

My patriarchal blessing told me I'd have a loving husband and children, 2 things I wanted more than anything else in the world. I did finally get married in my 30s and after years if trying, surgery, $1000s etc I finally managed to get pregnant ONCE. I love my little boy dearly.

After that my husband became depressed but would not get any help, no matter how hard I tried. My efforts to make his life easier didn't help either. But I wasn't too worried because God doesn't lie and my PB promised children, so nothing bad could happen to either of us before then right?

So now I'm mid-40s, single Mum to one child and a husband dead from suicide.

(((Hug))) Laban's Widow :'-(

I hate patriarchal blessings. My mother in law is certifiably crazy. She turns everything church related into an over the top super spiritualy deep event. She is like Glen Beck on steroids. I literally try to avoid her at all costs. Because she never fails to launch into my husbands pb, and exactly what it means. She loves to inform me that hubby will end up living and working all over the world, so I better be up for that.....and how he will be the means of converting tonz of faithful members as he lives in all these foreign countries. I don't know how she is reading all this miraculous crap into it, because I've read it and its pretty basic. And yeah the outlook for her prophetic rantings aren't looking very good.

PB's.....one of the worst ways that the church messes with our heads.

Mine said that if I did not follow my righteous future husband I would end up betraying myself and others. My exhusband was too righteous to have sex with me and after many years of him ignoring me, yep, I quit following him around and begging for affection. I also studied my way out of the church, and so I guess they could say I did betray myself and others. I betrayed the empty marriage and the empty church-- and the empty me. I spent a quarter of a century calling a celery stalk a meal.

Mine was so generic it was painful. My mom and I got ours one year after we were baptized, even though I was only 13. My mom thought it was something that we were supposed to have and basically bullied me into getting it with her. I wanted to wait til I was older. She also forced me to fast but I snuck in the kitchen and stole some granola bars and ate them when she wasn't looking. For a long time, I thought my PB was generic and uninspired because I cheated at fasting.

But now I know it's because the Patriarch didn't know me from Eve. It reads like he just got out the Gospel Essentials teaching manual and said a bunch of stuff I already knew about heaven and making a good decision, setting a good example blah blah blah. It could have applied to anyone. The part about me being a Savior in Zion for my kindred dead was a direct result of my mom telling him how much SHE liked genealogy. Even while his hands were still on my head, when he said that I thought "that isn't me - that's my mom." The only interesting thing it said was I would be led and guided of the spirit to A particular individual. These were the days Saturday's Warrior were popular and he probably got the idea there was a one-and-only for me from that. I went through a lot of perfectly nice, probably right for me guys and didn't get serious because I didn't get that sense of recognition I was SURE I would have from being guided by the spirit to my one-and-only. I also didn't get married til my late 20s, literally because I didn't "recognize" the one. This promise was a mixed blessing because it kept me from despairing when I hit 22 and was still single - God was testing me dontcha know? On the other hand, it also kept me from considering a lot of probably good men because I was looking for a fairy tale.

I know this because by the time I got to my late 20s, I'd given up on the Holy Ghost and just married who I wanted to. We've had some tough, tough times because we didn't know each other well enough and come from very different backgrounds but he's still my best friend and it's way better than waiting for an imaginary friend.

My father was in the bishopric, and my mother was RS president, and fanatical. All of my brothers went on missions. I was an extremely religious Mormon, and asked my parents to arrange my patriarchal blessing, when the time came. They didn't bother. I was a female, and a "nothing." I always felt bad about that, but was afraid to get a blessing when I was older. I was afraid the patriarch would draw a blank. Um....you are from a different tribe...um...I'm getting nothing....

Mine says to look forward to the day that I will do the "blessings and ordinations" of my children. How can I do ordinations without sons? I have five girls (whom am overjoyed with). Regardless, this seems like an straightforward prophecy that hasn't come true. I'm sure TBMs would twist it to mean grandchildren, or some other escape.

I don't know icetea that sounds like life to me. As number of trials with rays of sunshine. Very few people have a life that is just one big party with endless happy,happy times. Sounds like the guy didn't think people should have any fun in life and maybe wanted to not have loads of kids that could be one way to stop an impressionable teen. Also maybe he was just in a bad mood since it is all bs anyway.

Mine warns of the death of a child or children. Thanks for that anxiety disorder asshat.

Haha! That made me chuckle!

So, when my wife and I left the church at 40 years old, I remembered my PB and I wanted to read it again. I hadn't looked at mine in years (neither had my wife). I was really excited to see and remember all the neat things we had been promised from the Lard. I was a little apprehensive cuz, what if our resignation was prophesied in the blessing and I just had never been aware that was in there?

So we got them out and read them. What a bunch of everyday BS. I could give the same blessing to anyone right now. I'm pissed that mine was so generic. He could've at least made up something great and then used the excuse that it'll come true in the next life.

Stupid, stupid, stupid! It was funny when I read that they use to charge money to give patriarchal blessing. First $1 and then $2 (that's how Joe Smith Sr. made his income). Then the different patriarchs would go from house to house undercutting each other and they would give multiple blessings to the same person! Man, Mormonism is soooo freaking rediculous!

where it told me that I'd better protect my virtue with my very life, because many would seek to destroy it. Oh yeah, and virtue is more precious than rubies.

This was during the time when President Kimball was the prophet, and it was the accepted thing to teach girls that it was better to be dead than raped.

It never happened. Nobody ever tried to rape me. Nobody ever even tried to manipulate me or pressure me. But I spent probably 15 years scared, looking over my shoulder.

I suppose it could still happen, but since my blessing was predicated on personal righteousness, maybe I'm out of danger.

But seriously, do these patriarchs ever think about the effects of their dire predictions?

All Patriarchal Blessings I know are full of fairy tales & absurd promises.

So - if one is not 'worthy' aren't the 'blessings' supposed to evaporate and one is supposed to become a miserable unhappy wailing gnashing teeth amigo?

'Cause that certainly didn't happen to me. In fact, surpassed the 'blessings' by quite a bit.

Perhaps it was being freed of the leg chains that allowed it.

Mine, at age 17, was textbook. I compared it with other PB's of friends and they were almost identical with statements such as marriage in temple, worthy priesthood holder husband, multiple children, education at BYU (patriarch knew I'd been accepted at BYU), joy in bearing my testimony, yada, yada, yada. Nothing unique or exceptional.

But my mother's is a total piece of garbage. Mom converted to Mormonism in her 40's and right away Dad told her to dump Mormonism. Mom loved Dad more than Mormonism and became inactive almost immediately after joining. Decades later, after Dad died, the bishop strong armed Mom into getting her PB. The patriarch told her to go on a senior mission (Mom is in her late 80's for H's sakes!). It said she would get the chance to marry again to a worthy companion (guess Mom's temple sealing to Dad after he died became null and void?????). Her new, worthy, priesthood holding husband would bring her many children born under the covenant (What? When? After she's dead????) My sister and I aren't even mentioned. It goes on about how she will find many opportunities to spread her testimony. (Mom is the shyest person I know and hates talking about religion and especially her Mormon faith) He goes on to tell her she will love serving regularly in the temple. (Heck, Mom can't even drive any more let alone stay awake for the five hour dive to her temple and five hours back)

It appears Mom's PB was all about living some kind of fantasy life in another dimension with a completely different personality and a totally new family other than ours. I took it to be a total insult to her entire life. There was no praise whatsoever for the wonderful mother and wife she had been to Dad and her daughters. It sort of sounded like "you really messed up on your first life but God is going to give you a do over in the nest life". F***-ing cult!!!!