As a child, what sorts of things do you recall that contributed to your indoctrination as a young member of the church?

For example, i recall "Follow the Prophet" as a song that told me I should always do what the prophet said.

Or for the young girls, remember the used gum on the plate trick?

I'm assembling a list of things we didn't know we were being indoctrinated with, and could use a little help.

What other tools of indoctrination does the church use in Primary, Sunday School, FHM?

Nothing created problems for me later in life as the platitude:

just do it now, it will all work out later.

I chose the wrong spouse,wasted 2 years, got my degree after many years of married poverty, had kids too early, got into too much debt, bought too much food storage, spent too much time service the church at the expense of family....

all while following that precept in my mind.

In reality it does not always work out later if you just do what the leaders tell you. It turns out that the consequences of bad and rushed decisions have the EXACT same outscomes for mormons as they do for non-mormons, weird, uh.

This is the tingue ob bitterness and resentment I still have against the corporation: they lied to me into making bad decision to profit them, at the expense of my future.

on a less seriouns note, these came back later in life to blow my mind:

Joseph was not a poligamist

god changes people's skin color, the worse the darker

jS translated the papyrus

the temple ceremony has not changed in the smallest detail
since adam (I wonder who played adam in the version adam saw)

Polygamy was to have more kids becuase so many men died in the war

I'm lucky to be too old to have sung that song, but unfortunately I've still heard it. I thought singing about wanting to become a missionary and some stupid song about growing popcorn on apple trees were bad enough. Then out popped this piece of crap song going from weird to downright creepy.

As a young child I can still see myself at age 5 standing in the kitchen looking at the jar of coffee on the counter. My dad drank coffee most of my life. I was so worried about having my family forever, they had me hook, line, and sinker.

The licked cupcake--we were taught that we had the power to keep men from being tempted by us, to stop them from sinning by dressing correctly, etc.

I've been thinking about a lot of these things the last few days--especially after listening to that stupid interview with THAT woman. That really messed with my mind.

You can't tell me I wasn't indoctrinated.

I'll be interested in seeing what others say. I'm not up to thinking too deeply about it right now.

"The licked cupcake"...is this the same as the chewed gum?
I've never seen/heard this one.

"The devil is nearby, so beware," said my Sunday school teacher. "There was a little boy in this very classroom who thought it was funny to pull down his pants. One Sunday, just as he'd dropped his trousers, a bearded man looked in through the door and laughed. I ran after him in the hall, but there was no one there. You never know how close he might be."

I tried to imagine the hirsute demon walking the halls of the boring little building, seeking out the naughty. It didn't sit right in my mind. It had to be true, because it was part of a Mormon lesson, but it didn't make sense. I learned not to trust my own intuition. That was the real lesson.

I learned that if I didn't follow ALL of the mormon rules that I was worthless, and there was no hope for me. I also learned that if you repented of a sin, then did it again, you'd NEVER be forgiven.

By the time I was 11 I knew that I was a hopeless, useless waste of humanity. I figured it didn't matter what I did or didn't do. As a result I made the life of every Mormon adult around me a living hell. I used to feel bad about that. Now I figure it was the law of Karma playing out int their life.

The gold plates were a BIG deal when I was a child. Every Sunday in JR. Sunday school we would see a big fake Golden plate replica on the podium. There were a lot of flannel board stories about JS and the Golden plates. There was no doubt in my mind that story was true. Well, sorta no doubt. I thought God wasn't too smart not letting anyone but Joe and his friends see them before he took them back. I thought God was mean to Emma. Then I was told Emma was an apostate and deserved what she got. Oh ok. I didn't know the half of it.

I learned that only very special people, ALL mormons of course were the only ones allowed to wear that awful underwear. I felt sad that I would have to wear it too someday. I loved beautiful clothes, and knew that garments would prevent me from being able to wear anything that was nice. I learned that the talents I was born with were useless and not appropriate for a good mormon girl. I was artistically talented, it distressed a lot of mormons. I also learned that if I didn't land a man by the time I was 20, there was going to be a big problem. Any girl that was a good mormon was supposed to find a man if she wanted one or not. Not just any man either. He had to be mormon. How depressing. Mormon guys were weird and creepy. I wanted nothing to do with them. Despite that I landed one not long after turning 18. I felt suicidal during that marriage. I divorced him when I was 20. A BIG NO NO! I was shunned there after. Oh happy day!

They tried to teach me that mormons were the only good people on the planet. I knew for sure that was a lie. The worst people in my life were mormons. 90% of the misery in my life was inflicted on me by mormons and the teachings of the mormon church.

I did find this on Scribd.com, and was surprised to see it's a Church document.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/121920227/LDS-Church-Strategic-Campaign-Presentation

Check it out

Standard's nights were bigtime indoctrination fests.

I remember one woman standing up,eyes blazing, wagging her finger at all the YW and saying, "NO PETTING!!"

At the time, I was taken aback,

Now, I think that poor woman's hysterical, in the figurative and literal sense.

It was pretty scary and crazy at the time, though, when I was the ripe old age of 14.