I know 1976 isn't 2018. It is 42 years ago. But in reading this person's experience I felt for converts to Mormonism. It helped me understand that a caring network can be a very compelling reason to join.


Not a good reason, understandable. I have to admit I was shocked to read such candor in The Ensign.

"Still, I held back until one Sunday night after sacrament meeting when the missionaries suggested I be baptized at 9:00 A.M. the next day! The suggestion was made in front of several members. They were smiling encouragingly and I said, after a moment’s thought, “All right.” (How could I refuse with so many people caring?)

Having made the decision, I informed the Lord that Sunday night of my plans. I asked him to give me some indication that I was making the right move. Nevertheless, I told him if I received nothing, I would still be baptized."
https://www.lds.org/new-era/1976/03/how-do-you-know?lang=eng

Man, that is the missionary experience: get baptized ASAP, never put off a baptism for tomorrow that can be done today!

What better way to get a testimony! So what if you never, ever return to church: we got the stats!!!

their resumes for bright futures in the (fkn) Mormon corridor. Nothing spiritual to it at all. Get the stats, impress the boss (the MP), have something to brag about when writing home, improve chances for prestige positions (ZL and AP). "Who cares whether the "convert" has a clue about anything or sticks with it for more than a year? That's between them and the Holy Ghost and the local members. I did my part. I got them dunked and I'm getting full credit for it! So spell my name right in the 'baptizing missionary' column!"

Lie # 1 that mormon girl says were the first words out of her mouth, "That's not (exactly) true".

"One day some friends and I discussed the destination of the spirit after death. Theories were suggested. I had heard one thing about Mormons: they believed in three heavens, and they all went to one of them. As I laughingly related this knowledge a girl spoke up, “That isn’t exactly true.” Attention was directed to her, and I asked, “How do you know?” (I was surprised someone had spoken with conviction.) She answered, “I’m a Mormon.”"

has always been one of Mormonisms big attractions. For me, I had to honestly stop being active and pretending to have a testimony as soon as it became clear to me, after much research, thinking, analysis, etc. that none of the core claims of the church were true.

It wasn't easy because it had always been my only real community and social network. I had a few friends outside of the church, but 95% or more of my family and closest friends and acquaintances were (fkn) Mormons. I had no compensatory desire to drink, smoke or fornicate. So no big plusses there after finding myself on the outside looking in. Coffee was a big plus, but I could've gotten by on no doz (totally WOW-compliant, btw).

I think most of whatever "success" that Mormons have in getting new recruits is based on convincing candidates that they'll be getting into a pretty decent community. Not perfect. But something. In an increasingly atomized world, I can see how it would have its appeal.

Although they were possibly more superstitious back in Joseph Smith's day, and of course had no access to the Internet, I suspect that even then a majority of the early converts really did it for community more than out of a strong conviction that JS was the real deal. Look how easily a guy like Martin Harris floated from one religious community to the next. People were just eking out an existence, resources were scarce and belonging to a community was often an absolute necessity for survival. The early (fkn) Mormon church probably picked up many stragglers, shunned, ostracized and disaffected people who fell through the cracks with respect to other communities.

Then Brigham Young gets the community out to nearly perfect isolation in Utah and the indoctrination of a new generation can be implemented. The Church has been running on that momentum ever since.

"I think most of whatever "success" that Mormons have in getting new recruits is based on convincing candidates that they'll be getting into a pretty decent community. Not perfect. But something. In an increasingly atomized world, I can see how it would have its appeal."

I think most of Mormonism's appeal is the ready-made social networking. It attracts conservative traditionalism inclined peoples and teetotaling prohibitionists. Really anyone with a desire for safe networking would be attracted in their more isolated worlds of rough evaluations of people based upon paltry information.

My first ward was in Louisiana, where most people in the ward were first or second-generation converts. Occasionally you would run into a blue-nose from SLC, but they were generally considered to be insufferable snobs, and while we were polite to them, nobody really liked them.

I was very vulnerable at that time, having gone through a nasty divorce after 17 years in an abusive marriage. The two kids in white shirts who appeared on my porch were the coolest youngsters I had ever met. Suddenly, on P-days, I had more mishie-kids than I knew what to do with, but I loved them all. If we pooled our money, we could always scrounge up enough money to hit the el cheapo pizza place and buy some generic soda. I rented movies in the not-quite-R-rated category, and I never snitched if finishing the movie meant missing bedtime. (I thought the MP was a prick and had no use for him.)

I loved that ward. It was like an extended family. I remember getting a call from a dear friend whose husband had been badly hurt in a car accident. She called me on a Friday night (I was single then) and asked, "Catnip, can you please come over tomorrow morning and stay with the kids [there were 7 of them] so I can spend time with [husband]?"

I didn't live far from them. Furthermore, I knew every one of those kids and enjoyed them very much. They liked and trusted me, so I knew that we would get along.

I brought over a G-rated Disney movie (pre-DVD) and some microwave popcorn, which they thought was exotic. I also asked about favorite sodas, and brought a selection that included everybody's favorite. I bought a couple of pizzas from a local el cheapo place, and we all had a great time.

I never really got into the "gospel" stuff. I thought it was mostly hogwash, but I loved the rural Louisiana community, and for me at that time, it was the right place to be.

When my job took me to New Mexico, I found that the people in my new ward were starchy, right down to their garmies. They were NOT warm and welcoming, and they actually took the gospel stuff seriously. There were several SLC blue-bloods, who formed the innermost cliques. Converts were automatically assigned to the outermost circle.

That's when I found a new community: RfM.

What a great response. Thanks!

Where I live, the missionaries brought in too many"out of range" people with toxic personalities or serious challenges, causing many of the less challenged (dare I say normal range?)investigators and members to leave.

The more educated and stable people are not interested in Mormonism here. There are already churches with good community. There aren't enough good jobs here anymore to attract BICs to the area.

So the ward diminished and closed. For a while we traveled the 25 miles to attend the next ward, until we absorbed enough information to understand that the church can't possibly be true.

That ward is shrinking now, too. How could it not, with all of the information that's available? There are a lot of churches available to provide community. Mormons appear to be wonderful with their love-bombing, but after you are baptized and settled in, the love fizzles away. You will do better if you can fit the Mormon callings, but there are many who cannot. Mormonism was not designed to take care of people, but to drive them with a whip.

Missionaries would come across some person who had many social problems (due to mental illness, personality disorders, gross irresponsibility or whatever) and was starved for attention. Missionaries would be the "friends" that the person never had. Said person would get baptized and cling to the missionaries for as long as possible.

Members would try to take over from the missionaries and "fellowship" the person and would soon discover that the person in question was simply using everyone all the time and never had any interest in the "gospel".

Need a taxi? Call the home teacher to drive him/her wherever or arrange for another member to do it.

Need a moving service? Call the bishop or home teacher to get a member with a truck and some suckers in the Elders' quorum to handle the moving.

And if anything didn't go exactly the way they wanted, they would get in a mood. "Where's the love and caring?"

It happened so often that you could almost recognize the type immediately. The missionaries would walk in with someone and you knew that another nightmare for the ward was beginning.

Not that there's anything wrong with the people in the ward being challenged to show genuine love and support for people truly in need. But there were always those who you knew were just using people and refusing to take responsibility for themselves and, ultimately, taking time and resources away from people who really needed the help.

When part of my family converted back in '73 there was a great feeling of community in the ward in California where we were baptized. We were a "golden" family and were nurtured and fellowshipped like crazy. We were invited to an activity almost every weekend and were visited frequently by the missionaries. It was almost overkill. I remember that we were invited to be baptized pretty quickly.

We tried out some other local churches - the Catholic church and Presbyterian Church - but they were not as nurturing as the Mormon church. My parents had just divorced so the caring community of the local Mormon church was welcomed by my mother. It really was a fantastic ward.

If it weren't for the pressure to be perfect, unnecessary guilt, required bishops interviews, excessively long meetings, 10% tithing and the weird temple experience, I probably would have remained a Mormon.

70s convert Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If it weren't for the pressure to be perfect,
> unnecessary guilt, required bishops interviews,
> excessively long meetings, 10% tithing and the
> weird temple experience, I probably would have
> remained a Mormon.

So do you see what is now the church as completely different from the one you joined?

I haven't been to church in a very long time so I'm not sure what it is like today.

In the 70s there were fun activities galore, so fun that even never-mo kids joined in the fun. The 70s was just a different more laid-back time, and people were also different... The "greatest generation" - the men who fought in WWII, and people who grew up during the great depression, were in their 50s, and most were still alive and a big part of the ward in California I belonged to. The younger people were influenced by the more open and creative vibe of the 60s and 70s. The ward members were truly wonderful, which I think made a big difference. It was just a different time...

I noticed big changes in the church in the 80s with correlation, when the fun and creativity were sucked out of everything. Many things changed for the church, and not for the better. It didn't feel the same...

Young families who were more down to earth and humble in the 70s when they were just starting out were now rolling in money in the 80s and 90s (when I left) and not as nice and inclusive as they had been before. That 70s feeling of community was disappearing.

Once I got away from it I became angry at all I sacrificed to be a good Mormon. I don't regret all the wonderful people I met and fun activities I participated in, but NOTHING will make me return now that I can see LDS, Inc. for the big fraud that it is. It's just too bad that such nice people are sucked into it.

It has become so bad they have to distance themselves from their name.

People have needs: physical, social, intellectual, spiritual. For many people these needs are not met in their daily lives in a constructive way. Since the Church purports to be the answer to all things, they can claim have solutions.

In some cases, their solutions can be effective if only temporarily. A convert I knew shed over 600 lbs (yes, that much weight) so he could get through the chapel doors. A major challenge in one ward was that when people's lives improved through the gospel (and other lifestyle changes), they would move away from our economically depressed town.

I would always watch for changes. How does the convert adjust to change? New job? Job loss? Move? Marriage? Children? Separation? Education? Everything else going on in someone's life affects their relationship with the Church - partly because their needs change and their opportunity to meet those needs will be altered.

People are searching for fundamental needs and some enjoyment in life. The Church can be inspiration some, but mostly it is desperation that drives people to accept the missionary message.