I hated those; unless the spkr was a BP or SP or someone with an AAA+ reputation... No One seemed to have a feeling of obligation to live what the spkr said, and
No / very little connection to Kindness, Honesty, etc.
'All Show and No Go'
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/14/2015 12:03PM by GNPE.
Testimony meeting: crying, travelogue, family newsletter, bizarre connections to illustrate "spiritual experience" saying I KNOW vs I believe, repetition-same trite verbosity as the last person, kids who breathe into the microphone like Darth Vader, endless talk of blessings/being blessed, magical prayers/priesthood blessings, importance of food storage...
Pompous wind bag high councilmen who think they need to speak 15 minutes longer than quitting time, last days fear mongers, women who speak like children, endless BoM scripture references, any GA quotes, talks read word for word, bishops who claim revelation, chastisement, self righteousness, tithing shake-downs, morality lectures, importance of the temple, missionary work, Joseph Smith worship, home-teaching...
Pretty much all of it. Must stop. Having flashbacks...
I remember one high councilman giving a talk many years ago in which he listed all of the good qualities a man needed to have to be called to the high council; the inference being, of course, that he had these qualities. My teenage self was so disgusted at this blatant lack of humility that this memory has stayed with me and was one of the earliest things to go on my shelf.
Oh and I couldn't bear the crying, either!
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/14/2015 08:08AM by durhamlass.
The drool-inducing, mind-numbing blather. And--basically--I dislike the people. Mormons are inconsistent, dishonest with oneself and others, and uninformed. If you have dumbass prick for a bishop, you're stuck with a dumbass prick for a bishop and have nowhere else to go.
The cadence of mormon-speak. You could probably read a GA talk in SM and it would be considered radical...if you read it in a normal voice with normal pauses for grammatical structure.
And the fact that talks were 100% BS and prepared the night before.
You begin to feel the overwhelming urge to slap people into talking faster! With all the dead air in between words, we could have left, gone out to lunch and come back to the stupid mtg.!
Non Mormons accidentally tuning in to conference must think it is recorded and something is wrong with the speed setting. Ugh!
The metal chairs. I was in very large wards before I left the church and unless you arrived to church 45 minutes before SM started, you didn't get a spot on a padded bench.
Besides the chairs, I disliked testimony or sacrament meetings that seemed to be devoted to a particular person in the ward. One time, a popular YM president was released. There was an entire meeting where the young men and other leaders went to the stand to bear testimony of what a great guy Brother X was.
I also remember the testimony meeting where a husband went to the podium and said, "I'd like to bear my testimony that I love my wife." His wife was the Primary president. His testimony prompted all the kids in the ward to go to the podium and say how much they loved the guy's wife too.
and tells me how she and the last bishop's wife nudge each other as each regular stands up to tell the same story over again. The #1 person is now on a mission. I'm sure they all miss her.
Boring speakers more than anything. Once I had my twins, I don't think I ever had to sit through a whole SM again.
The UU Fellowship I attend has very comfy chairs. We sip coffee during services. The speaker is often from some random interest or field of study. Pretty sweet. Relatively short. It's the opposite of Mormon church.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/14/2015 02:00PM by rationalist01.
Lack of content. The last couple years of my involvement were the worst. Rather than someone being given a topic and having them work on it, the new rule was to give people a conference talk or something from the Ensign, and give a talk on that. Aside from individual commentary every paragraph or so, the was nothing new or original for probably 5 years before we escaped.
The stinky smell well everyone has breathed up all the air in the room. All the crying over nothing to cry about. The constant ramiumptun speeches over such special families, special spouses, lucrative jobs, the "only" twuuuu church.
The only entertaining things during meetings were a piece of chewing gum and that part of the green hymnbook that showed how to move your hand to conduct music. Doodling on the meeting program was a treat best saved for the latter portion of sacrament. Not looking at the clock was a skill painfully acquired, clocks with a second hand were torture.
"I have 16 children. All of my boys went on missions and have been sealed in the temple to worthy females who have born them many children. All of my daughters are sealed to worthy returned missionaries and have born them many children. I have 89 grandchildren. Most have served missions and been married in the temple. I have 27 great-grandchildren, the oldest of which is preparing to serve a mission..." (ad infinitum)
The overwhelmed middle-aged relief-society president:
"I had such a spiritual experience this week I would be remiss if I didn't stand before you and bear solemn witness (add long awkward pause) that I know (another pause, enter the tears) with every fiber of my being (pause one more to grab a tissue) that God loves me..."
The suck-up:
"Brothers and sisters, we are so blessed to have the opportunity to have such an inspired leader in our bishop. He truly is called of God to be a Judge in Israel and watch over this ward..."
The 3-year-old:
"KSSSHHH, KUUUHHH, KSSSHHH, KUUUHHH." Wait for it. Wait for it. "I LLOOOVVVEEEE MY FAMILYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!"
The High Councillor:
...Actually I'm not sure what these guys talked about. I was usually just watching the clock by that point.
Singing of songs praising Joseph Smith. We should rewrite "Praise to the Man..." and correctly indicate that he never spoke with God and, for his actions, is eternally burning in Hell. Not even entitled to "outer darkness".
They are too long, boring and dull. Never had any real music besides from the piano or organ. The songs and music was like a funeral dirge. It was never uplifting or had people moving up and down. If it was like the church scene from the movie "Firewall" (2006) ,it would be at least more exciting and interesting. But then I'm dreaming of course!!
In bishopric meetings it was pretty clear that the main goal was "the shows gotta go on". In otherwords, just find someone to fill that speaking slot. Kind of a dog and pony show.
Then assign the poor sucker to read some general conferance talk and speak about it. (And leave it to the audience to figure out if any of it was true.)
We, on the other hand weren't assigned topics, we could do what ever we wanted. So I liked to quote a lot from the works of Jonathan Edwards rather than any modern church leaders. (and people LIKED IT because it had substance!!!)
As far as other meetings, the thing I hated was that most of it came straight from CORRELATION HELL, and was contrived as all get out, everything out of context. But the sheeple eat it up like manna.
Back in the time before the 3 hour block, scheduling meeings for 3 wards on Sunday was ugly. I lived in a downtown SLC ward with a lot of really old people. They droned on forever, and apparently it was too disrespectful to stop them.
The next ward would be backed up in the foyer. Every few minutes they'd send in someone to ask our ward to please end it. Sometimes we'd go an hour or more over while they all waited.
And how smarmy the mormon men were. How fake the women and smiley and giddy. (caught up in the spirit).
But the cry session every fast Sunday was the worst. I hated it because most of the people were looking for attention; the more you cried, the holier you were. Then when one got going, it spread like wildfire and everyone would line up to cry. Often, they'd say they believed the church was true, that Joseph Smith was a true prophet (no mention of Jesus) until the "sign off, in the name of . . . ).
The meetings went overtime. People would push their toddlers & little kids up to the microphone and prompt them into saying they had testimonies (you could hear every damned word the parents were force feeding their kids). WTF Then, you'd hear a collective Gush (a sigh) and crying from the congregation. Give me a break.
Once in a Vancouver, British Columbia ward, an edict was give that there was to be no more Cheerios in the chapel! OMG I have to say that several of us women balked and fought against this, and won. The bishop had to reverse his inspired decision to ban Cheerios, the sedative of babies and toddlers. (A custodian was bitching about it.)
Basically, I was the ring leader and I wrote up a slightly sarcastic letter re: how a dozen of us women and children could no longer be in the chapel; we've had to leave because the Cheerios were what kept the kids occupied for 1.5 hours (back when the meetings were longer & they didn't pipe the talks out into the lobby over the intercom.)
Maybe it's different out here in the southeast part of the US, but in most of the F and T meetings I've been in, you would have one or two diehards get up there every time and do their thing (ALWAYS the same diehards), and then....
silence....
and more silence...
(squirming in the seats)
and more silence....
Somebody would finally get up - you could tell they were uncomfortable to be up there, but they were also uncomfortable with the silence - and they'd say something lame, then they'd sit down again, and there would be
silence....
and more silence...
(big time squirming in the seats now, with a mother or two prodding her kid so she'd have an excuse to leave the chapel)
and more silence....
(everybody trying to steal a glance at their watch or the clock on the wall, without anybody else noticing what they were doing, of course)
and more silence....
It would get downright uncomfortable in there with all that silence.
Finally, the presiding member of the bishopric would get up and v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y give his testimonkey, and they'd do the closing song and closing prayer.