I just answered a knock on the door. When I opened it, a man asked for ‘Ragnar.’ I said “That’s me.” He said, “You are?” “Yes.” (Why would I lie?)

He said he was Brother so-and-so (I forgot the name). He sure didn’t look like any of my brothers.

He was almost giddy when he informed me that they were having a stake conference in two weeks, and the bishop wanted to make sure everyone received a special invitation to attend.

He handed me a sheet of paper. It says:

“On February 11th and 12th, we are scheduled to hold a stake conference. As a stake presidency, we are very pleased to announce that Elder M. Russell Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve is scheduled to preside at our stake conference. He will be accompanied by Elder J. Craig Rowe of the Seventy.

“We are sure that we all recognize what a special blessing it is to have a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles present with us at our conference. With the present size of the church, this is a blessing that can be looked forward to only in terms of decades of years. As your stake presidency, we invite all of us, as individuals and families, to be spiritually prepared for this great blessing. To help in this preparation, we are inviting each of us to read from the Book of Mormon, each and every day, as we approach this special weekend. The ‘doctrine of conference’, both general and stake, teaches us that conferences can be a special time for us to receive personal revelation and direction in our lives and in our families. We know that this approaching stake conference will be a unique opportunity for this.

“We especially invite all adult members, 18 and older, to the Saturday Evening Session at 7 PM on February 11th. We have so many young families in our stake whose parents need to make every arrangement to be present at this session. We ask all of us in the coming weeks to extend special invitations to those we Home and Visit teach to be with us at the 10 AM General Session on February 12th.

“We express our love to each of you as we begin this new year. May the Lord bless each of us as we prepare and look forward to our approaching stake conference.”

Brother so-and-so then asked if I was planning to attend, and I replied, “Probably not.” He looked at me for a moment and said, “I’ll leave this with you, anyway.”

I believe I’ve attended that ward twice in the past 10 years, and the last was about 5 years ago. They have no idea who I am.

If they get all giddy over having someone attend and “preside” at their meeting, what’ll happen if someone actually SPEAKS to them? And to prepare for this, they want everybody to read the BoM? Why? To remind the people how much BS there is in it, so they can be prepared to hear more BS at the conference?

And what’s with “… we invite all of us…” and “We ask all of us…”? I haven’t heard those phrases before – isn’t it “we invite all of you…”?

Also, I’d never heard the phrase ‘doctrine of conference’ before.

I wonder if it has ever worked?

An da morge won let you foget dat!

Dey be comin' back agin and agin fo eeeternaty to yous doa.

Yo cannot escape dem worl.

Run! Ragner, Run! :)



(Sorry. Sometimes I can't look at a Mormon with a straight face anymore, knowing all the weird ideas and rules swirling around in their craniums. That weird look of forced happiness in their eyes.)