I was born in 1974 and became baptized a Mormon at the age of 10 in early 1985.
I had contact with the mormon church before I was baptized because my mother wanted to join the Mormon church in about 1974,but she was not allowed because she only married my father through a deedpole arrangement and not a formal marriage.My sister was baptized at age 8 in 1979.

I do remember some fun activities from the earliest age such as concerts and roadshows or performances at mormon churches.I remember attending public swimming pools with people from the Mormon ward.

There was always the usual activities such as pot luck dinners and ward talent nights and similar concerts at the stake centre.There was youth activities such as father and son camps and youth camps with dances for the youth.

I have seen posts suggesting many of these fun events have been banned by the hierachy of Monson etc.Is it really true that all of these activities have bben stopped and there are no more recreational events at mormon churches?


I have not been involved in any mormon activity since early 1996.I have always kept updated with mormon issues throught his site or other news available.I knew from early 1996 that Mormon men were becoming involved in more home teaching by going out with a missionary to visit inactive Mormons.So I knew Mormojn men will have to spend more personal time doing home teaching and visits involving a miossionary.I wondered a little back in 1996 how Mormon guys would enjoy that extra home teaching workload and become confused by it.When I left in 1996,my home teaching companion would have to find another visiting companion and that person would be burdened by extra home teaching duties and I thought that was funny.

how much ward ball LDS are playing & how much ice cream they are serving, or not, does little to alleviate all the HELLISH anxiety that LDS Inc creates over the selected official LDS crisis of the minute/hour/day/week/month/year/decade.
being MORmON is basically enduring terrorism no matter how many attempted distractions they have going on.

I know this board is a regular Mecca for those exmormons who were emotionally abused by the Church because on some level for a significant percentage of their lives they believed the Church was true. And in believing they were ripe for emotional extortion, abuse and manipulation. I'm certain that in striving to be "righteous" mormons they were wide open to judgement and feelings of inadequacy, guilt and shame, right?

For that reason alone, I can see why so many exmormons flock to this site. And so this site is providing an invaluable service.

But I also hear a lot of stories about what fun socializing in the church was.

Is is possible/do you all know of any mormons who are mormons pretty much exclusively for the social outlet it offers. I know there are a lot of people in all churches who go to church week after week, not really even considering whether or not they believe, just going through the motions of church attendance so they can have a social network of friends/acquaintances/activities available to them.

I mean all those people who are mormons now can't all be wallowing in self-recrimination and guilt, can they? If it were that miserable for all of them wouldn't they just leave?

I have a mormon convert friend who says the church does teach some "crazy" stuff but who says "I just don't focus on that."

Comments anyone?

For many of the people who were BIC and live in heavily-mormon areas, this is all they know. They have never thought deeply about any of this.

Some examples:

Someone I chatted with in a chatoom from BYU - said she only hangs out with LDS and went to BYU because anywhere else there would be bad people. Did she ever THINK that its ridiculous to believe that the rest of the world is evil because its not mormon?

Someone who had nine children after the first was born quite premature and died shortly afterward. This woman was on bed rest for each of those children after the first trimester. Did she ever THINK that maybe NOT having so many was a good idea?

An LDS family with five children, all with autism. No, we do not KNOW what causes autism, and we cannot say its genetic, but did they THINK after having a few with autism that maybe having more was a bad idea?

People who have very little time with their family because of the busy-work and callings from church. Children of bishops and stake presidents and so on who have no time with their dads because of church activities. Did they ever THINK about the incongruities in the slogan "Family, its about time."

A bishop who would not come to the phone because it was family time for dinner, but when told it was church business, came to the phone. Did he THINK he was putting the church ahead of the family dinner time?

What I am trying to say is that these people do not think enough about this to consider if they do spend time in guilt and recrimination. Its not within the culture of the church to think about and question things like this. It never comes up, because the church discourages this type of self reflection.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 02/27/2011 09:36AM by acerbicobserver.

acerbicobserver Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Someone I chatted with in a chatoom from BYU -
> said she only hangs out with LDS and went to BYU
> because anywhere else there would be bad people.
> Did she ever THINK that its ridiculous to believe
> that the rest of the world is evil because its not
> mormon?
>

I was this person. Set on BYUH. Because I was worried about alcoholic parties. Gosh. To think how everything in my future has changed now.

YW activities are rarely fun. Only fun ones are when we combine with YM, and dances are becoming so strict it's almost like Sacrament meeting with "current" music.

TSCC would sponsor a Mormon Night at Disneyland, no more.

That is the draw- social activities. But this is where a young brain simply doesn't see the whole picture. They don't care much about facts at 15-18 or even longer.This is why they choose to lovebomb young people-purely for social activities.And if they were brought up by parents who were BIC they will keep going.

No one should go to any church where they attend for only social reasons...dances, potlucks, camping. Religion has a spiritual component to it, of course, and the whole basis of attending should stand on that foundation. If you don't believe it do the social activities matter? I call those people weak, needy, followers only. Very sad. I also think they are very shallow people.( if they attend as an adult)

Cate S ..

What you are missing is the fact that many who do stay have rather deep ties to the church. They cannot leave. Many others, like myself have no ties to the church. I never had any sort of transitional event, ie. burning bosom, never held any leadership positions. Without those sort of events, church better have something to offer me. It doesnt, nothing is fun, nothing is really worth going to. I can pray to the Lord in a State Park with the Olympic Mountains in the background. I find that awe inspiring.

Besides, people are social beings and seek out others with similar interests. If you happen to get stuck in a bad ward, meaning a bad fit, you are basically SOL. Shit out of Luck.
It has happened to me. So I did find a group where I did fit in and was actually wanted ! !

I will not deny that many find something in church. But, never did. Obviously something is wrong. Something structural, I am a regular in some Corvette Forums. The same core problems are always brought up, ie. Cooling systems, electrical, AC issues.
They are design faults. I see the same thing with the Church, tithing, priesthood, etc. There is a huge design fault that is NOT being addressed.

Without something FUN to do, church becomes a dreary chore and if you DONT have to go, you wont.

Something is flawed in the Church and it is not run by the LORD, it is run by committee. It is a Corporation first and 2nd most. We are just financial contributors.

I don't know if the level of activities are changing or not, since I haven't been to church in about 5 or 6 years.

But I don't think I could have attended just for the social activities, if I no longer believed. I was in it because they said it was God's only true church and in order to get back to Him, I had to belong to this church. If it wasn't true, then there was no point being there, for me anyway.

I can easily imagine though, that for those born in the Church, it's the only social group they've ever known. They really do have the attitude that those outside of the Church are not to be trusted.

I imagine that even if social activities are being cut back, many Mormons still only associate with other Mormons for their social activities.

And I know I really have NO CLUE what it's like to actually be caught in it, especially to those 5th generation, BIC, Morridor residing types. I live on the East Coast and so only know mormons in very limited numbers.

This morning I was walking in the park at the river in the city I live. It is beautiful, serene and inspiring there. I walk my dog there every day for an hour and a half. This morning some park worker in his CAT starts plowing down all the dead trees along the path. As you can imagine the air of serenity was temporarily suspended while I was walking. I ran into a woman I regularly see and we complained bitterly to each other and she said "this is Sunday morning and I'm at Church! He's too loud." It made me think of my convert to Catholicism mother and how she forced us to attend church all those damn years and how I hated it and of course I left the church as soon as I was an adult--I haven't been in one since her funeral 8 years ago. And I know that she LOVED going to church.

I can't attend a church--it's too boring. My inspiration is nature--not sitting in a pew. Just like 87vettguy said. However, I know that there is NO other place that one can find social interaction the way it's always available in a church. I'm sorry, but I can't imagine the Corvette get togethers are nearly as frequent, varied, appealing to your entire family and emotionally sustaining as what one could find by attending a Church.

And the thing about LDS is that is so socially active. They have some sort of sh*t going non-stop. Not Sunday's only, by any stretch of the imagination.

Unlike honestone, I don't think that people who would go to Church only for the social networking are shallow. I know that I simply cannot get anything close to the social opportunities available at a church even if I walked for 4 hours a day at the river. That kind of church, by nature, is solitary.

I know what acerbicobserver said about the Mormons discouraging self-reflection. I've heard that again and again on this forum. But I am self-reflective and even if someone told me not to be I couldn't help it. People like that are just born that way.

I can't imagine there aren't a significant number of Mormons who know it's all a crock and yet they just go through the motions BECAUSE it's their entire social life because they were BIC and live in the Morridor. They've just found a way to make the society that they were born into work. And they do the Mormon thing the way they want and they fake it if they need to and they don't feel guilt and shame. They're just working it to make it work for them.

I don't know, just a thought. It seems to me that those who would feel the guilt and anxiety and shame and self-loathing thing are very sensitive people to begin with. I know. As a Catholic child I felt all that. But my 3 sisters and brother didn't feel that way even though we were all raised in the same household.

Sorry so lengthy. Thanks for your spin.

I never thought being a mormon was fun. Not even back in the good old days. I guess I just don't like being around mormons.

: Taking the Fun Out of the Church - Roadshows, Dances, Etc. --- All pretty much gone. Nothing is fun anymore.


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 :-) (I have the pictures to prove it! ), RS lessons on a large variety of subjects, lots of guest speakers (minor vehicle repair, self defense, funeral arrangements, and on and on).

We had Firesides, Bazaars,(all hand made items for sale for RS budget), Road Shows, Dance Festivals, New Years parties with live music, and on and on and on. I still have one of the series of "Out of The Best books" - short stories and poems that we studied in RS.

We had our own auxiliary budgets. I was a Rel. Soc. Sec. Treasure -- actually took minutes and read them in class - which is long gone. I think the annual dues was something like $2. (Bet only a few of you would even know about RS Sec/Treasurer!)

we had car washes to earn money for the kids for camp and Scout camp and other projects.

When we lived in UT in the 60's,we had Firesides with many of the leaders from SLC. They would come down to Provo and speak in small Firesides. Many of those men are deceased now.

In So. CA in one of the wards, we had a project to drive cars from the local airport, back to one of the airports in LAX -- several times a week---to earn money for our Ward Budget.

I used to take orders and go to an egg farm and buy eggs in bulk for several of the ladies.

Those are just the ones that I can remember off the top of my head. There were probably more.

We had full time dedicated paid custodians who took care of the buildings and kept them in excellent shape. Had a grounds crew also.

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. Had to stick to the hymnal and the manual.
No more guest speakers,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.

I appreciate when you do that. You represent the institutional memory of what the church used to be.

Members nowadays need to appreciate just how much they've been robbed.

I remember there being activities like the ones you describe in the ward of my 1960s childhood in Cottonwood Heights, but my parents were inactive so I didn't participate in most of them. I just knew they existed.

Beyond that, church for me was a social thing that some of the kids did. My neighborhood was a mix of active, inactive, and non-member families. I don't remember anyone's degree of participation being a big deal, but I'm sure the non-member kids would say differently and it must have been an issue because I was aware of it. I only just went to Primary and, later, Mutual. I wouldn't say it was fun, exactly, but I remember having some fun in the church building--laughing during songs, for example. It wasn't NOT fun.

I went to girls' camp once, and I suppose that was fun. All I remember about it is learning to make tuna-can burners, buying a mess kit from Allied, and then having a really good tin-foil dinner at the camp. Other than those three things, it's a blank.

In 1973, my family moved to Arvada, Colorado, and I stayed in Salt Lake with my grandma--the nice one, not the other one. She wasn't a member, but I attended Mutual in the East Millcreek ward where she lived. That was about the same as the ward in Cottonwood Heights, except that the active kids made a strong effort to get me to go.

I don't think I went very many times, but I do remember one sleepover at the church with a bunch of girls. We stayed up all night listening to Chicago VII. Nancy Wilcox, who was abducted and killed by Ted Bundy a few months later, was there. I think it was her album. The song Wishing You Were Here reminds me of her and this night.

Shortly after joining my family in Arvada in the fall of 1974, my parents decided to get active and forced me into the full-on churchgoing Mormon experience. That's when I think I realized it was a religion. It felt weird and wrong, as if we were trying to emulate the Osmonds or some other family and basically pretending to be people we weren't.

The masquerade lasted five years, from which I have very few fond memories. One is from a ward trip to the Manti Temple, making out with my boyfriend Dave on the bus, in the dark, under a navy blue down coat. That was fun, but then someone tattled, and the bishop separated us and made Dave run around the block when we stopped.

I also had quite a bit of fun at Ricks Big Churchy High School with Curfews and Snitches, in spite of the curfews and snitches, but it all happened with and because of specific friends. In fact, I could say that about every fun experience I ever had in or in connection with a Mormon church.

The rest of those five years, NOT FUN. I remember feeling out of place, and watched, and guilty, and deprived. And constantly thinking, "Hmm ... how likely is it that that really happened?" or, "How likely is it that that's true?"

:-)

I guess if I had nothing to compare, but still ...

Timothy

It may have its moments, but you're still being monitored and deprived of experience and having your money stolen.

And when? Is it all Monson's doing or did it start under Hinkley and before? And why? And what has this done to the numbers of members?

And if BKP takes over do you think all the fun social stuff will be reintroduced? (jk)

Why?

Because by the late 60s SLC realized that the Book of Abraham was a fraud.

Things started changing gradually all through the 70s, starting with the RS's money and independence being taken away.

By about 1985, the Mormon church I had joined 15 years before as a teen did not exist anymore.

Being Mormon never was fun :)

Ok, ok, it was kind of fun when I was a little kid, because it was mostly all just going to primary, playing, and talking about Jesus.

But I stopped going when I was about 12 (first Young Women's meetings, and those really sucked...). Didn't come back till I was 28, and left a year later, because it was a big shock that nobody seemed to care about togetherness or Jesus anymore...

As an adult, everything was suddenly about "callings", who could get married in the temple the soonest and pop out a little of babies, and who paid the most tithe. Oh, and who gave up more of their time for the cult. Nobody seemed "real". If you ever tried to discuss anything that DIDN'T have to do with the church, everyone would just look downward and go silent on you.

It just sickened me. And creeped me out.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/27/2011 08:35PM by melissa3839.

The most fun I had was skipping primary class and running across the street to a city park. There were lots of swings and a slide that coiled around as you slid down it. There was a cheesy little zoo that had ducks, geese, a couple of bears, and some monkeys. There was a rocket you could climb up inside of, and ride a slide back down. Gigantic Elms shaded the park, and you could lie on your back in the rich grass and watch clouds stream overhead.

Or you stay in a stuffy classroom and hear fake stories about a nineteenth century con man.

3 hours of boring speakers was never fun.

When I was a kid in the 60's (yes they had churches back in the old days...) we had a lot of socials. We had roadshows and we had fund-raising bazarres complete with fishing stands where for a nickel or a dime you tossed your line over the edge and got a prize. We had halloween parties and we had cake walks. It seemed like four or five times a year the whole community got to gather together and have a lot of good times.

I went inactive for several years and went back in the early nineties, and those days were gone. All of it was gone.
What activities we did have were so formal that it almost sucked. When we had a social activity it was bogged down with people standing up to give a short talk, very formalized opening/closing prayer and very little for the kids to do besides run up and down the halls.

Sure it's nice to visit and wear dockers and a polo shirt instead of a suit and tie, but that's about all the difference between a ward activity and the socializing between Sacrament meeting and Sunday school class. In fact, if you could have snacks while socializing between Sunday Schoool and Priesthood meeting it would be exactly like the typical 1990/2010 Ward social.