Posted by:
forestpal
(
)
Date: November 22, 2014 05:49AM
My mother was the RS president for 6 years, and the stake RS president, after that. When the Mormons dropped in, she made me run in the kitchen, dump the coffee down the sink, hide the pot, and turn on the vent fan.
Neither my RS president mother or my gospel doctrines teacher father wore temple garments. They went to their own temple wedding, and the weddings of their brothers and sisters, but they had to get a new temple recommend for my brother's and my weddings. The Mormons have those wedding rules for a reason--to make parents like mine PAY.
My father was bishop when he was younger. They asked him to be bishop again, twice, and in the stake presidency, and he turned down all those callings. He said he was too busy with his family, and had to travel too much in his career.
My parents would play with us on Sundays. We would go to the beach, away camping for the weekend, to concerts and operas in the city, to movies, even shopping.
They knew the truth about Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, but refused to talk to us about it. "Don't ask so many questions." My mother taught us the Bible, and had us memorize a lot of Bible verses. Somehow, the Bible balanced out religion for me, and helped me see Mormonism as not very Christian, when I was quite young.
When the Black were given the priesthood, my mother paced around the house, repeating, "It's a cult. It's a cult." She became basically inactive, after that. When TSCC sold our ward house, to the Seventh Day Adventists, and got rid of the whole stake, my father wouldn't make the long drive over to the other stake.
My parents never came clean and officially apostatized, but they stopped attending meetings, when the kids left home. They said they didn't enjoy going to church anymore, and had paid their dues. Their fanatic TBM families never found out, because they lived away. They both had Mormon funerals, because all their children and grandchildren were Mormon at the time.