On my mission to Hawaii I was assigned to an area with on of the worst SPs I've ever known. Aside from calling his wife as the Stake RS President and pressuring the Bishop of his home ward to call his 24 year old son as 1st Councillor in the BP, he was also infamous for his policy of calling members from the congregation with no prior warning to bear testimony during Stake Conference.

Members were, understandably, wary of this practice. They all accepted it as something that was a possibility and they were a bit nervous by it. We knew members who would leave the meeting before this practice started so as not be in line to be called out.

I have never before, nor ever since, seen a stake that undertook that practice.

Has anyone else seen this?

I think this was somewhat common when meeting spkrs concluded talks before scheduled time for closing....

Instead of closing & letting ppl go home, they 'had to' bore the congregation further.

What the selection criteria for each choice was would be case-by-case; strong testimony members? waivering / NOMs? who knows.

As usual, some ppl enjoy getting a chance to speak, others don't

I've seen this happen in multiple sacrament meetings and stake conferences. I was never called up, but I'd love to be called up now...that's probably the only think that would give me the courage to bear my anti-testimony...

I've seen this in stake and ward conferences in Kona and Hilo stakes.

Yes. And it was dreadful.

(Where in Hawaii? What island? We were in the Honolulu West Stake. Kamoe was the SP, but that was many years ago. I had his son in YM. What an experience...)

This was in Honolulu West. about 8 years ago.

I've seen this a number of times before, particularly at stake priesthood meetings on Sunday evenings.

This is one of the big things I hated about the Morg. I'm an extreme introvert - I'm not outgoing, and I'm really not keen on going out of my way to meet new people...I ESPECIALLY hate being put on the spot to speak/pray/read in front of groups...the Morg can't seem to accept that any worthy person could be anything other than an extrovert...if you really believe in the Gospel and the inspiration of your leaders, why WOULDN'T you be able to overcome your reservations and do what you are asked? I'm more than happy to let my priest be paid to read the lessons, preach the homilies, say the prayers, etc. Something to be said about a paid clergy.

It always made me nervous, although I never got called up. Maybe they didn't pick me because nobody had every heard me bear testimony.

I didn't really have one. I was just a poor sucker who thought there was something wrong with me that I couldn't get a witness of the spirit.

It happened to me at age 19 in front of an enormous congregation during a Sunday morning sc. My family was sitting in the front row and apparently I smiled or caught his eye somehow. Not my idea of fun but I did ok. I was the only one he called up to the podium. Prior to that our bishop had a habit of calling on the youth on Ward Conference Sundays to give ex temporaneous talks as they were then called. Some of my peers hoped he would call on them. I guess they'd prepared and wanted to impress. I always tried to miss that Sunday night meeting. With uber-tbm parents that took some conniving.

Not directly related, but an idea for those who are called on to go up and bear false testimony, this quick one might work, and cause some chuckles as well.

One time at a stake conference, there was a visiting GA who was to be the final speaker. But one of the speakers went way over their allotted time. So when the one of the speakers went up to give their talk, conscientious of the time restriction, and to allow the visiting GA to have his full allotted time to speak, this guy stood up and gave a brief talk worded exactly as follows:

"We stand to be seen, we speak to be heard and we sit down to be appreciated".

The congregation actually got a good kick out of that. In this case mind you, it was perfectly acceptable, because it was obvious that it was out of respect for the GA to allow him to speak. But it would make for a kick ass "testimony" when unwillingly called upon.

When I was young and there was a silent period in F&T meeting, a man in the ward would stand and ask the young men in one of the priesthood quorums to stand and bare their testimonies. I think it was his assignment. We always dreaded hearing his voice and wondered which quorum he would select that day.

This was a common practice in our ward (and I suspect in our Stake). Our Stake President at the time was James E. Faust and he was also a member of our ward. Apparently he had no problem with the idea.

That's when I learned how important it was to lie if you wanted to be a good Mormon. To this day my hatred of Mormonism boils over every time I think about those sick Sundays!

Why didn't my parents - or anyone - protest?

To Hell with them!

When were you there? I was an unpaid salesperson in hawaii too- 94-96

It was standard practice for the Bishop to call two to three people out of the audience EVERY WEEK to bear their testimony once sacrament had been passed and before the talks began. So naturally, every week when Sacrament Meeting started, everyone did everything they could to avoid eye contact with the Bishop as he would look around and decide who his victims for the week were going to be. This Bishop was David Haden, a career salesman at Mr. Mac and total d-bag to boot.

This seems like a very dangerous thing for LDS management to do, even considering their magical power of discernment.


I can think of quite a few of our people-Lucky, Steve Bensen, go down the list- that LDS Inc might not want to give an open mic to in front of their supporters.

If I were called in that situation, I guarantee that the congregation would never forget it. I would prolly have some bruising after being escorted from the building.

There are some bells that cannot be unrung.

I saw it happen once where the invitee was 'surprised' by the invitation to bear their testimony. They got up, shuffled to the end of the pew and everyone's thinking, wow glad they didn't ask me. When he gets to the aisle he turned right, away from the stand, and walked out of the meeting.

Nobody else was invited up during the meeting and it progressed with the assigned talks. Nobody even had the grace to leave the stand to go find the man to offer any apology for embarrassing him. Needless to say, they now invite only people who have had advanced notice and accepted.

I don't know why, but the vision of the man walking out just literally made me laugh out loud. I would have loved to see that. :)

He did it dead pan.
Everyone thinking he was going to the stand and he just quietly, unhurriedly and with a bland facial expression walked out the door, closing it quietly after him.

It was very quiet for what seemed like ages (probably 30 seconds) whilst the SP came to terms that his programme was shot.

This is just a power trip for whatever priesthood jerk is leading the meeting. If a person doesn't want to do it, he or she should just decline.

I've mentioned this story before, so just very briefly:
Stake conference a couple of years ago with Bednar in attendance. SP never normally asks people to bear testimony without warning, but perhaps he felt it would look good in front of an Apostle. He calls on two youth 'under the guidance of the spirit' but rather embarrassingly it quickly becomes evident that not only is one of them not in attendance, but is actually 3000 miles away on vacation (he announced this too!). The spirit was also clearly on vacation at that moment.

This was/is standard practice in the stakes I've been in. In fact, when I was a senior in high school I had this happen to me. My dad was speaking with the visiting general authority after the adult session of stake conference on Saturday night. The GA told him that it wouldn't be surprising if his son was called to bear testimony in the main meeting on Sunday.

I was terrified of speaking in public or bearing testimony. I'd never even bore my testimony in sacrament meeting before even though I was a full fledged TBM. My dad knew this and told me what the GA had said. I was so terrified that I refused to go to the meeting. The GA ended up calling my name and someone had to tell him I had stayed home sick.

To this day I never bore testimony in a large meeting and when I was still believing I got extremely nervous when they did the random call ups out of fear I'd be called upon to make up for my previous bail out.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/05/2013 03:15PM by CainTheSasquatch.

I've seen it several times. Once, when it was becoming increasingly apparent that the speakers were going to end quite early, my dad got up and left the chapel once the last speaker was done.

I asked my mom where he was going, and she said he didn't want to bear his testimony. I thought it odd, it not being the first Sunday of the month. But sure enough, the BP started rattling off names, 3 at a time, to bear testimonkey and waste our time.

I've also been a part of a youth meeting where they did this and was called upon.

Youth seem to be easy targets. Mainly because they won't say 'no' and they won't say anything controversial. They'll just rattle off the same old phrases.

My singles ward bishop became notorious for doing this, whether it was because the speakers ended early or a speaker fell through at the last minute.

He also liked to get up after speakers, announce that there was going to be a special musical number and then proceed to say what hymn it was going to be, call out individual people from the congregation, tell them what part they would be singing and then ask them to come stand at the pulpit and perform.

I am an introvert also. I have been in a ward where this was done and I was not called. When I was young I was told that mormons should be leaders which suggests that I had another reason to feel inferior because I did not want to be a leader, I was perfectly happy to be a follower. Eventually I was not even happy to be that but that's another story.

My current Stake President (and an awful one at that) does this all the time, mostly to the youth and especially to the ones who are about missionary age.

At our seminary graduation, he called upon me to give a testimony. This was at a time when I was seriously questioning and basically unbelieving but before I investigated the history of the church. I stood up, made a few BS jokes, then gave a carefully-worded short message about God (I was looking into Christianity at the time), making sure to include nothing mormon-related whatsoever, then sat down.

I felt like a POS coward for even doing it, and immediately wished I would have told him no instead. If he ever calls on me again, which is quite likely for reasons I won't discuss, I'm not even going to acknowledge him. I'm just going to sit on the bench, mind my own business, and see how long it takes him to move on.

Yes, that happened in my Stake as well. But only youth were ever called up. I'm not sure if he'd get away with it so easily if he did it with full-grown adult members.

I agree, it's not right to do that at all.

Something is drastically wrong when you have to force people into saying that they believe the church is true.

Isn't that what basically happened in Spain during the inquisition?

Or in the forced confessions at Salem?

One lie requires more lies.

I was called out of the audience to bear my testimony during stake conference about 30 years ago by my SP who also lived in my ward. A couple of years ago the visiting authority called a woman out of the audience during stake conference to sing a hymn of her choosing (she is an accomplished vocalist) and to choose someone to sing with her if she wanted to, and to ask someone to accompany them. The other woman she chose was the SP wife (a member of the tabernacle choir). That guy was a bit unhinged, his talk was very random, he was just a strange person. Asking someone to bear their testimony isn't unexpected, it's done occasionally, but asking someone to preform a musical number without prior notice is just plain rude and thoughtless.

I know the church is true, I guess. Amen.

Bishop would often do this in the ward and when I was NOM I made a decision that if he ever called me up if just stand, vocally decline the invitation and sit back down.

One week this practise backfired when Bishop called on a semi-active YSA son of a former stake pres. He sheepishly went up to the stand and very awkwardly said a few words. It was really uncomfortable for everyone. He never came back after that and I'm certain his dad voiced his opinion on the matter to the bishop since he never called on anyone again.

the Morg Expects if not demands thru assignments that members are extroverts.

I became Extro on my mish (67-69, Indiana-Michigan)


That one Clear Advantage for other churches/religions; their congregations function mostly on the basis of True Volunteers, not conscripts.