"Throughout my childhood I'd been warned that I'd grow up to spend a significant portion of my time doing something I could barely stand"the narrator tells us,---but I'd been led to believe I would be paid for it." Lauren Oyler, "Fake Accounts"

I laughed too hard at this because for some reason I know this applies double to having a Mormon childhood.


There's normal delayed gratification, and, then there's the Mormon version.

I remember teaching an Elders' quorum lesson years ago when I said that striving for the CK was the ultimate example of delayed gratification.

Yeah, I (unwittingly) taught a lot of crap in Sunday School and Priesthood meeting.

'delayed gratification'

a not-so-subtle way to express the thought 'No Fun for you!'

in so many ways on my thoughts! I'm 63 and I've HAD ENOUGH of waiting for my reward in heaven (I gave up long ago on that idea). This life I've had was just what God expected of me, to save a soul and I'd been given this OPPORTUNITY to do such. Talk about a mind fuck.

I just found out yesterday the singles ward bishop who started all this had died in May 2019. I was looking for a picture to send someone and wondered if he had died. That's been on my mind now. I wonder if his reward has been issued.

I’m anticipating the Ovaltine Decoder Ring: READ YOUR BOOK OF MORMON.

oH MY and I bought a $40.00 coal shovel



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/28/2021 12:32PM by thedesertrat1.

HAHA. Good one.

You and I were born
We are here temporarily
We will die.
That's it
There ain't no more

Done & Done Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> There's... delayed gratification, and, then there's the Mormon version. >

The LDS version never comes

I have had TBM and evangelical friends say comforting (to them?) things like "you and your wife will see each other again"...and I smile and hold my tongue so as not to offend and know that I won't.

No Need for clothes in the hereafter, Right?

Probably not...lol

And you have to die to collect your reward.
What could possibly go wrong ?

I don't know if this really fits here...

The Second Annoying (anointing)...

It would be nice of the people who got them were so 'good' that they didn't need them, but as a fine example of a human being, I do not think that this is ever the case.

Especially is ghawd is judging is by our thoughts, as well as our deeds.

So the existence of the Second Annoying ... is annoying.

After my brother and his wife got theirs, I can confirm with certainty that they became increasingly annoying at an alarming rate. Yea, even unbearable.

The second annoying is second to none! Hopefully their calling and elections will be made sure with no further delay. Must be killing them to wait this out now they know they've won the Celestial Lottery.

I've told this story before.

I was at a dinner a couple of years ago comprising some Muslims, two Sikhs, a Baha'i, and a couple of others. The Baha'i woman was going on and on about how much God is blessing her life and how everyone else should get on the bandwagon. One of the Muslims, an urbane man in his nineties, listened patiently with eyes closed and then quietly interrupted to announce that he must relate a story.

One day, he said, a man walked into the forest with a bushel of bananas. He encountered a monkey and said, "I will give you one banana today or the whole bushel if you wait till tomorrow." The monkey took the single banana and ran back into the jungle. The man then entered a town of humans and said to the first person he met, "I will give you this banana today or, if you are patient, the whole bushel after you are dead and resurrected."

At that point the elderly Muslim dinner guest turned to the Baha'i woman and asked, "Who is wiser, the monkey or the human?"



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/31/2021 06:41PM by Lot's Wife.

Sounds like a cracker of a dinner party LW!

It was fun. The group is all professional American citizens, all but three born in India or the Middle East and all religious in the most progressive possible way: pro-gay rights, etc. They are the sort who occasionally imbibe wine while discussing the Quran and make an exception for pork when it takes the form of pepperoni on pizza.

The Baha'i woman is the only exception: obnoxious and officious, preoccupied with herself and wanting everyone else to accept her religion. Ironically, this woman and her white American husband are the only Trump supporters. They incidentally went to a lecture by Ken Burns in 2016 and booed him, if you can believe that, because he warned that Trump was what history taught was an aspiring tyrant.

The old Muslim man is awesome. He's 97, was an official in the Shah's government when it was overthrown, and is still someone whom people film for documentaries. He remembers from his childhood when Russia occupied Iran in the 1930s and early 1940s, experienced the CIA's toppling of the Mossadegh government in 1953 (a disaster for Iran and for the US), was in Czechoslovakia when the Prague Spring was suppressed in 1968, has lived in France, etc.

To tell another story from his life, in the late 1960s a young man went to his office and asked for help. He wanted to go to college but had no money. So the official set him up with a series of jobs and then forgot about him. When the revolution occurred in 1978-1979, Khomenei's thugs started assassinating holdovers from the Shah's regime. The (now) old man sent his family to the States--the kids anticipated Los Angeles but got Iowa--although he could not himself leave until about 1984.

About ten (maybe 15 now) years ago, the student beggar, now in late middle age, visited the older man during the latter's visit to Tehran. The old man mentioned that he didn't know why he had survived the purges, and the younger man said "because I was an official in the Revolutionary regime and I protected you." I have photos of that meeting: a very old man and his daughter, a middle-aged man and his daughter, beaming like old friends.

For such they are.

But you didn't give us the decision of the 'first person' the man with the bananas met! You just gave us the two choices! We don't know which choice he accepted, if either!

But to continue on with the story:

...and then he visited his bishop, who strongly suggested that the man pay his tithe of 10 bananas immediately, which the man did, because of the power the cult had over him...

So wisdom isn't really a factor when you are wielding the power of a totalitarian belief system.

Let's just say I hope you enjoyed your banana.

And the check is in the mail, it'll be worth millions someday, if you lend me ten bucks I'll pay you back Tuesday. . .

Your future reward is promised someone else. You Can't Have It, yet!

Your ticket is no good until you're ALREADY IN HEAVEN, thereby not needing it.

It's like buying a ticket for a date in the future that is too far away or in the future for you to enjoy it, and then finding out it was a free show anyway

Just received a card from the family of a 5 y/o boy and some photos of him.

Heaven can’t compete with that.


I like the movie title, “Heaven Can Wait.”