For family barf evening, my so busts out this jewel of nonsense from 1973, flips open to a page where the spirits guided her and commences to reading. It was some story where HBly was "interviewing" and excommunicated member and this individual was seeking the holy guidance of the spirits he had as a member...blah,blah,blah....
Anyway, it bothered me because I'm unrepentant, unrighteous, and whatever else the spirits tell my wife. But seriously, it is funny that an excommunicated member (if it is actually real) is a subject matter expert when they are trying to get back into the fold of the Lard's corp, however when they want to get as far away as possible form it, they are the most dithering fo idiots misguided by the worst of all spirits and cannot have an opinion that can be taken seriously on anything.
The Mrs. tells us how the spirits prompted her to read that and how she wants all her family to buy into this nonsense because her experience tells her that everything else will cause unhappiness. Because she knows. She has sinned in the past. She is an SME on that, and if your opinion contradicts hers, it does not matter since clearly my opinion is Satan's opinion.
Don't get me wrong, I love being boxed in and told that once I believe something, I always believe it. No matter what. But, it can get tiring to be reminded every time she gets on a soapbox.
Reminds me of my youth when it was hammered into us from the pulpit that only Mormons knew true happiness, that the rest of the world only had Brand X and only thought they were happy. That was the theme of my Mission Farewell. Ewww... makes me cringe now.
Once I got into the real world it became very evident that if anything, the opposite was true. Mormons can rain on any parade.
I have been shielding the Mrs from anything church history related. I just got the most wicked of ideas... send her the links to the essays and just ask, are these for real?
Put her on the immediate defensive that this is the message of her church.
On the other hand, my mother knows all the stuff in the essays now and it has only galvanized her testimony, so be careful playing with fire, haha. It's just another excuse to show an even greater faith! Watcha gonna do?
The problem that I find with older or pioneer stock members is trying to help them see they are being conned.
Since they were taught no real doctrine all along or were too lazy to actually study it, they do not know that it keeps changing all the time and invalidates their whole made up movement.
The only thing they know how to do is bury their head and dig their feet in and assume these good men that have $100B tucked away for themselves are looking out for their good.
Identify which type of sheep they are? Those who will listen to the master's voice of reason or the stubborn, wooly ones that don't think anything of being sheared as cattle of the church.