I've heard Chili Cookoffs mentioned a few times here. Ours always seemed awkward and cliquish, as did many ward functions.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/12/2011 05:14PM by freegirl10.

When growing up in a small farm town we had some good dances and group dinners. Several times we went as a group to the lakes and had swimming parties. In the fall we would cook a whole hog over an open pit. Some of the group had home made moonshine and would sneak out to the cars to nip. Overall It was a good life for a young man growing up.

Re: Is TSCC cutting its own throat? --- I think so! I am one that remembers when the LDS Church was fun!


I converted in the early 60's when we had dozens of events, and discussions, and a variety of music for choir, progressive dinners, BBQ's, picnics -- with water fights, RS lessons on a large variety of subjects, Firesides, Bazaars, Road Shows, Dance Festivals, New Years parties with live music,Speech Festivals, and on and on and on.

We had our own budgets. I was a Rel. Soc. Sec. Treasure -- actually took minutes and read them in class - which is long gone.

Those are just the ones that I can remember off the top of my head.

We had full time dedicated paid custodians who took care of the buildings and kept them in excellent shape. After Events, members volunteered to help put chairs and tables away.

I enjoyed those events, the socialization, the discussions-- made a lot of great memories.

Then things changed. All the fun was gone. All the choices were gone. No variety in music, or lessons, or open discussions.

No more Road Shows, Dance Festivals, and only a few Firesides.
No more progressive dinners, Ward picnics (maybe 2) and no more live music at dances. The list goes on.
No more custodians.

The LDS Church today is not the church I joined and enjoyed.
I lost interest long before I left and stopped believing.

This is all so true. I remember so many fun things as a child and teenager. The Bazaars were my absolute favorite. We would have big Halloween parties in side the church with all the classrooms being used. Lots of dinners that were fun!! And with my kids there were always roadshows and dance festivals. And ward picnics at the local park were great.

I don't think this was a sponsored church activity, but I love chasing more many girls in early morning seminary. I think girls are weaker when they get out of bed at 5:00 AM. What do you think?

We have pot luck a couple of times a year, we also have a Halloween party with costumes and trunk or treating, and a Christmas program as well. Sometimes we even have Pionner Day activities.

Up until about a decade ago, my old ward had amazing steak bar-b-ques, with all the trimmings. Thirty years ago, they had ward campouts, in one of the California parks. They lasted a week,
with hiking, fishing and such. It made for good memories.

As a kid we had amazing Ward picnics in the mountains, campouts, road rallies, talent shows, dances, road shows, pig roasts, and rafting trips. As I grew older and became an adult we had...uh, we had... um...well...you know...

Oh yea. We had service projects at the Stake welfare farm followed by a testimony meeting. We performed service projects at the Stake Center followed by a lunch of PB&J sandwiches. Then we had a service project where we put in the Elders Quorum President's new yard with top soil and sod followed by a Dominos Pizza and soda lunch. Our best activity was a RS/EQ karaoke dinner. We did a pot luck and ended up singing for at least 45 minutes. I sang "Friends in Low Places" which ruffled some feathers and got me an interview with the Bishop the next Sunday to review what is "appropriate" behavior in church.

Those were pre-correlation days, the days of fund raisers, bazaars, game nights, softball and basketball tournaments, parties, dances, and movie nights. You could invite friends and not expect much weirdness. The missionaries were not yet in the habit of descending on your visitor like giant leeches, either. We were respectable.

It all changed with correlation and with the practice of linking everything to "missionary efforts." It was before the time of making every effort, every book, every talk, everything that there is, something the purpose of which is merely to validate the Joseph Smith story. It seems, in retrospect, that back then Joseph Smith was merely Our Founder, whereas in today's Mormon church he is a powerful action figure that members worship almost as much as Jebus.

Now Mormonism is just plain creepy, and who in their right mind would come to a Mormon church expecting even a hopeful message?

Ward Picnics and campouts, fun Xmas and other holiday parties. A few variety shows, ice blocking, kissing rugby....

Chili cookoffs

Trick or Trunk

Christmas Pageants

Road Shows

Pinewood Derby

Progressive Dinners

Wife Swap Parties

Nude Apple Bobbing

(just checkin' to see if yer paying attention).

BYU Basketball on the dish night.

Ron

...as it could be if you had to be a mormon teenager.

In our stake, roadshows were fierce competition. And we actually put all the stuff in our cars and took it on the road. We also participated in dance festivals, one of which was an all-So. Cal. one that we danced in the Rose Bowl (circa 1973). One year my mom took a carload of girls to Utah for June Conference and we got tickets to the huge dance festival and the road show finals.

We had dances on the basketball court that were formal dress, live bands, photographer, and we'd spend days decorating for them.

Girls camp was about camping. I'm sure I never took scriptures. We'd have lie-n-cry the last night but other than that the other nights were skit competitions between the wards. Once you'd finished your 4-years you could go on the Summiteer hike. I went one year. It was a week in the high Sierras over Mt. Whitney, carrying everything on our backs. We knew what we were doing because we'd actually learned skills.

And like others mentioned, I remember ward campouts, weiner roasts out in the desert, bazaars, all-Southern CA youth conference on Catalina Island, volleyball tournaments, regional overnight girls conferences, dinners where we actually were allowed to cook in the church kitchen. Oh, and beach parties! Did I forget beach parties? It would be multi-regional also and there would be a whole stretch of beach with all the girls in one-piece swim suits, and we were probably the only ones within miles.

We had full-time janitors who were like family and took a lot of pride in keeping the church in tip-top form. And when someone got married outside the temple but in the church, it was held in the chapel and they'd decorate the aisles, have flowers, whatever kind of music they wanted, and yes, after my temple excuse-of-a-wedding, I was sure jealous of my friends who got married at the church and had a real wedding.

I couldn't understand why my daughter didn't want to go to a stake youth conference (about 15 years ago) and I told her how much I loved them when I was her age. She said, "Mom, we are NOT growing up in the same church you grew up in." I realized she was right on the money.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/12/2011 11:50PM by NormaRae.

You were living on some other planet or something. Like we should believe it was that much fun. Girls' camp about camping? Thhhhhppt! Can't believe that. Crazy talk, that is.

It changed when I was growing up, that's for sure. As a kid I remember going to numerous swimming parties, picnics, talent shows, campouts, etc. And one of the last posters is absolutely right, at that time you could bring a non-TBM friend and not worry they'd be accosted with the Gawspel.

Getting into my teenage years, I watched the fun getting sucked out.... by the time I left, ward activities consisted of, well, nothing. I'm not sure how the leaders of the Morg think that correlation and getting rid of fun activities is going to help their numbers.

I had forgotten about the halloween parties--much better than trunk or treat. They always had a spook alley and booths you could go to with tickets--a fishing pond and a cake walk, etc.

I loved primary on the day Santa Claus came and brought us each a bag of peanuts and candy.

The ward bazaars were great (we won a shetland pony at one), ward dinners, and movies, too, where we got to see Disney movies and they'd pop popcorn.

Mutual--when we had activities once a month, they were FUN ACTIVITIES and not something to do with our "goals."

Our ward--when I was a teenager--the most stuffed shirt bishop I ever had (hard to believe) took all the kids 14 and older to SLC for 2 days and we even went to see movies that were rated PG. One was I think, "Let's do it again" with Bill Cosby and the other was the Poseidon Aventure. It wasn't ALL ABOUT church.

I did hate youth conference though, but girl's camp was a blast. I went 2 years after I had done my 4 years and so did all the other girls my age.

AND the church paid for many of these activities--NOT us.

I remember it well...sigh.

I don't know how things were in Utah back in the good old days, but we did have fun in California. Some of my friends actually envied me, that my church was so much fun.

Our MIA went on ski trips! Our stake would charter a bus. We'd have a tri-stake picnic at a dude ranch that had three swimming pools, tennis courts, horses, archery, horse-shoes.

Our ward won the road show contest--it was a contest back then, and we won the region, and got to put on our show at Squaw Valley, and stay in the dorms there. We came in second place for the state of California!

We actually enjoyed canning peaches and pears, and working at the welfare farm at Half Moon Bay, because the day ended with volleyball and a wiener roast on the beach.

In the fall, we would gather pumpkins and have a hayride and barn dance with live music.

Yes, the Relief Society Bazaar was my favorite! We kids got to help make some of the things to sell, and the RS got to keep every dime they made. One year our ward made enough money to completely renovate the ladies bathroom.

Our janitor was a professional furnace guy, and he was the one everyone would call to fix their furnace, plumbing, sprinklers, etc.

The Primary had a Halloween party, and I used to invite my friends. It was another chance to wear our Halloween costumes. We had a spook alley, and I remember the animated dummy, who was decapitated, and had raw meat for a neck. We would watch that old Abbot and Costello movie, and sing songs that are now forbidden.

The Mormons in California used to actually celebrate Easter! They would have an Easter egg hunt in the park, with real boiled eggs, relay races, and an Easter egg decorating contest, and a fried chicken picnic.

I think activities like these build friendships and group cohesiveness. We weren't in competition with each other. We were on the same side. Maybe we felt close because we were a minority. We weren't pressured into being popular and bringing in new members. We went to BYU together, and were roommates, and were each other's bridesmaids. We are friends, still, even though half of us have left the church.

It was entirely different than the Mormon church my children experienced. Both in California and in Utah, it was dreary and depressing and--punitive.

I guess we've really brought out the over-50 crowd on this one. Haha. I like that you pointed out that activities back in the day were about friendships and cohesiveness. And you know what? Many of the less-active kids, or kids from less active families would come to these activities and some of the rarely or never came to church on Sunday.

The funny thing is that I can think of a handful of those kids, right off the top of my head, who are now as TBM as it comes, and here I am on RFM. They liked what they saw in the church and when they were adults, they sought it out. That doesn't happen now. For the most part, the kids are either fully active or never come again. They are so pestered and pressured if they aren't showing up to church on Sunday that there is absolutely nothing else to keep them around. Obviously this shows in the church's numbers and bottom line.

I have enjoyed reading this thread--how about a flip point of view?

As a Catholic (military--traveled) I always envied my TBM cousins their church activities. They had those shows, picnics and trips while we were stuck with sports in the main post chapel gym (and we had to rotate use with the Protestants and the Jewish kids' leagues).

Even after Dad retired CYO could not even begin to compete with the LDS kids and their all about town stuff back in the '70's: those small Az towns were and still are lock, stock and barrel LDS! All the bake sales and carwashes in the world never got us further than one trip a year to a nearby waterpark for one afternoon!

Flash forward to now--our church caught on to Youth Ministry in the late '70's and I have watched little Sis' kids and all those cousins broods lose their fun and games while my own kids and the kids I work with gain all those self same activities. And we don't tie in church membership or prostelytizing so we get a lot of best friends and guests along for the fun.

And have you seen what some of those mega-churches have for kids? It's like Disneyland! And they don't send out missionaries--they invite everyone who wants to come and figure if the kids have fun, they'll ask their parents to bring them to church on Sunday. Guess what? It works.

Methinks the Morg are trying too hard . . .