Posted by:
anon11
(
)
Date: February 28, 2016 01:09PM
My two teenage boys needed service hours for a rank advancement in Scouting, so yesterday the three of us spent time picking up trash along a nearby road. As we were doing so, a black SUV pulled over, and two men in suits got out. One was the stake president, and I didn’t recognize the other one. They walked over to us and the one who was not the stake president said to me, “I know you.”
“I don’t think I know you,” I responded.
He said he was Elder So and So, and that his daughter and son-in-law knew my wife and me. Turned out his daughter and son-in law were our closest friends in grad school back in my TBM days. We got together with them frequently back then, and a few months ago, they had come to visit us with their family, and we had a great time reconnecting with them. Elder So and So was a member of the 70 and was in town as the visiting authority for stake conference. He said he’d like to meet with my wife and me, and we arranged to meet after the adult session that evening.
My wife is still very TBM—she played the organ at stake conference. I resigned a few years ago. I went to the church at the end of the meeting, and we met for about 30 minutes. He was very nice; we chatted for a while about our families and such. We talked a little about my leaving the church, although we didn’t discuss any of the issues that caused me to leave. I imagine he didn’t want to discuss them in front of my wife.
He did say that Joseph Smith has taken a lot of heat these days—a lot of heat. He said that if he just used is head knowledge, he would probably be where I am. But he also used his heart knowledge, and because of that, he knew Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. Overall, the meeting with him was very pleasant, and worth putting a suit on and going to the church on a Saturday night.
Interestingly, this is not the first time I’ve met with a visiting general authority. Shortly after I resigned my membership a few years ago, a member of the 70 met with me. I posted about that here:
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1058776,1058853#msg-1058853That general authority asked the stake president to start meeting with me on a regular basis to discuss the issues that caused me to leave. Anything the stake president couldn’t answer, he was to send on to the general authority. I was excited about discussing those things with the stake president, but those meetings never took place. The stake president never set one up.
When I had resigned from the church, I had met with the stake president. I posted about that meeting here:
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,762474I think the stake president realized that there was nothing he could do to bring me back.
A few months later, I had a struggle with the bishop about interviews with my kids. I posted about that here:
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,925488As discussed in the post above, I emailed a letter to several Christian ministers in the area, explaining the practice of Mormon Church leaders regarding sexually invasive interviews with the youth and got feedback from them. I then sent their responses to the bishop and stake presidency. The stake president was very angry with me, and discussed with the bishop the possibility of banning me from ever setting foot on church property. Ultimately they didn’t, and things cooled down. That was my last interaction with the stake president until yesterday. I wasn’t sure if the stake president still held a grudge from that email exchange, but yesterday he was very nice and cordial.