Many years ago we had a creepy home teacher that crossed way too many boundaries; even for an eccentric. It started with Brother Jeepers inviting himself to private family celebrations such as birthdays. My mother was too nice, but my dad didn't appreciate this kook's invasive actions.

Another thing that annoyed the hell out of dad was this guy's extreme attitude of being helpful when it wasn't wanted. We had a broken down tractor that needed a lot of TLC. My father was an excellent mechanic, but lacked the time to work on it. It needed a special wrench and fixing the tractor was a very low priority, but Jeepers had other ideas. Unknown to us, Jeepers began to come over after my dad left for work in the afternoon. Compounding the problem, we started noticing that tools began to go missing from an unlocked garage. Fearing theft, we started to lock the garage and this led to a bigger problem.

I was a latchkey kid. I was weary being home alone. So what do you think happened when I heared someone pounding on an a side door?

Sure, I freaked out as a 9 year old. Worse. I saw the person's silohuett trying to enter my home. I called my mom at work and she in turn called the sheriff. I hunkered down in my own house while waiting for the patrol cars to arrive. They thoroughly searched the property, but he was long gone. Mom rushed home to check on me.

The following Sunday, Jeepers approached my dad. He was very excited.

"How can I get your tractor running if you lock up your tools?"

Dad reported this incident to our bishop and requested a new home teacher. The bishop laughed and tried to minimize the incident as a simple misunderstanding. Dad took it to the next level by suggesting that he would have to sue Jeepers in court. That was the magic phrase and we were informed that evening of our new home teacher.

Heard that before. "But his intentions were good." To hell with his good intentions , just leave us alone!

I never experienced home teachers who did anything but sit on the sofa and mumble a lesson no one cared to hear.

They've done a lot of weird things and never take no for an answer. My sister hasn't been active mormon since about age 17 and she is 56. A single mother, though son is at college.

So my sister works for social services. The HT couple's granddaughter was taken and put into foster care. They wanted my sister to give them info. Even after my sister told them she can't do that, they keep bugging her. After all they just love her.

They don't even know her. She's never let them in. She has to keep the blinds closed on her townhouse as they can look in in the downstairs and they do. She was painting her cupboards one weekend and they started talking to her through the screen.

Back when I was in the cult, it was my experience that the ones who actually DID "home teaching" were very often the nutcase/stalker/insistent type.

The normal (or nearly so) folks would either blow it off, or stop by real quick, as if you needed anything, then head off, checking you off their list as they went.

The nutcases took it way too seriously...or used it as an excuse to have new special church-assigned friends. Like the guy above :)

Our HT's always asked to use my phone, back in the days when very few people had cell phones, and they were the size of a brick. Sometimes, they asked to use the bathroom. Couldn't they use their own, a block away?

I finally realized that it was an excuse to go into our kitchen, and look around. I wondered why. I was a single divorced working mother. Did they want to see if our kitchen and the rest of the house was as clean as our living room? My neighbor said that the HT's were supposed to look for coffee and alcohol and drugs.

The next time one used the bathroom, I went into my own bathroom, and listened, and could hear him opening and shutting the medicine cabinet, and the drawers.

The whole concept of HT's and VT's is creepy, when you understand that the motive is not to be friendly or helpful, but to spy on you and keep you in line.

Did anyone else feel absolutely uncomfortable, kneeling in your own living room and praying with men you barely knew? My children would run away, and not do it.

Looks like the HT/VT program is being back pedaled now, hopefully.

We'll have to wait and see how this works out in reality.

Being thrown together with people you'd never pick as your friends did not work out - big surprise.

I'm not so sure, Elyse.
I think we will have to wait and see how it plays out.

'Cause to me, it just sounds like they only changed the name...it's not "Home Teaching" anymore, it's "ministering!"
Doing the same thing, but pigging lipstick on that pig!

Remember Deenie? Her HTer wanted to marry her. The trouble was that he was extremely low in IQ and lived with his parents since he couldn't manage on his own. The spoiled him rotten which meant he had tantrums whenever he didn't get what he wanted. The bishop and other ward leaders told Deenie she was too fussy and she needed to marry him because it would help her church standing to not be a single adult.

She quickly became one of my favorite posters back when I was a newbie here.

She had such an amazing collection of bizarre (but funny) stories and an incredible knack for telling them.

I went inactive in 2005. I lived with my mom and my grandparents at the time - my grandfather passed away in 2007. I lived in a small town and everyone knew my grandpa, so it was common knowledge that I would be home for the funeral. The morning of his funeral, missionaries showed up at my door - they were always pestering me, so I didn't think much of it and gave them the usual "not interested, piss off" speech. After the funeral, we had a lunch at our house for everyone. I'll never understand this "tradition" - why the family of the deceased should be expected to feed the mourners is beyond me, but that's another rant.

Anyway, I snuck out to the patio to hang out with my uncles and play with my nieces and nephews. At some point, my mom came out and pulled me aside to ask why I had invited so many Mormons over? I had no idea what she was talking about, but went inside to find the missionaries and 2 men I'd never seen in my life talking to my grandma. I was able to keep it cool long enough to get them all outside and find out that the 2 men were my "new home teachers" who just happened to be in the neighborhood and thought they'd stop by to say hello.

To say I went ape-shit would be putting it mildly. I'm not proud of how I acted, looking back on it, but they were taking advantage of a sad situation to check off a box for the month. I didn't hear a whisper from the church for another 8 years after that - I guess my explosion must have made an impression, but those particular home teachers knew they weren't welcome.

The thing that pissed me off the most was the older HT. He had a big, shitty mustache and tried to act like a John Wayne man's man. At one point he tried to flex nuts and intimidate me, telling me that he and his companions WOULD go back in the house and share a spiritual message. Everything after that was sort of a blur, but I think I told him I would be feeding him his mustache if he tried. My conduct was probably more ridiculous than theirs, but I can't honestly say that I cared then or even now.