Thought I'd share a fun little story about a missionary encounter with ya'll:

I live in a 4-unit apartment building with my girlfriend of 4.5 years. The local Sales-Kiddos visit our upstairs neighbors pretty frequently, but we've somehow managed to not have to really interact with them other than very briefly in passing. When we do run into them, I'm pretty cold and straightforward and make sure to leave no real opening for conversation because I 'know.'

She is a bit more willing to entertain the small-talk and sales-pitching out of politeness.

She was raised Catholic, but is not religious. My own exit from the Church happened relatively unceremoniously about a decade ago, so Mormonism has never really had much of an influence in her life or on our relationship, though she is in the loop about my story/experience with Mormonism and my general thoughts about it.

Last Tuesday when I came home from work, my girlfriend suddenly asked me: "Why are Mormons so WEIRD!?"

I just laughed and told her that there probably was not an easy answer to that question, and she proceeded to tell me the following story:


With the nice Spring weather we had last week, my girlfriend decided to go outside to repot some of our house plants while I was at work. While she was doing that, the missionaries wrapped up an appointment with the upstairs neighbor. I guess they saw this as a good opportunity to stop and finally try to make the full pitch to my girlfriend on the way out.

They did pretty good, made lots of small talk, talked about the weather, talked about the neighborhood and the community, etc. She said they were really nice and it was a pleasant interaction for a solid 10-15 minutes, plus she didn't mind the company while she was outside working on the plants. Eventually they finally popped 'the question' (Do you mind if we share a spiritual message with you?)

She politely declined and said she really wasn't interested in their religion. So they shifted their strategy a little, made some more small talk to see if they could could make some other in-roads.

They started asking about me, if I'd be home soon, or if I'd maybe be interested in talking to them and they could schedule a time to come back when I was there. (They didn't otherwise know me or anything about me, they only knew that she lived with her boyfriend.)

At this point, she said politely and innocently, "You could ask him, but honestly, he's probably not really interested either because he *used* to be Mormon."

When she told them that, she said that they totally changed and completely shut down. They said "oh, I see, he probably knows the whole spiel then.. haha" then they literally just turned around and walked away.

No "nice talking to you!", no "have a nice day", no "bye", no "see ya later", no "wave", no nothing.

Just a weird awkward fake-laugh, then walked away without another word while she just kind of stood there shocked and confused about what just happened.


She said it was one of the weirdest things she's ever experienced, because she had just spent the last 15 minutes having a perfectly normal, reasonable, and pleasant conversation with these people, only to have them suddenly just check out and abandon ship out of nowhere without a word, and she had no idea why.

I told her it is probably because I'm an 'Apostate' and once they found that out, they probably just didn't want to risk having me show up while they were still within range of the inevitable, impending lightning strike.

She said she didn't really know what that meant, and just sort reiterated her original question to me: "Seriously though, I don't understand why Mormons are so weird...It was really weird...WHy are Mormons so weird??"

All I could really do was shrug.

Well, if they aren't going to be able to make a sale, they don't want to spend any more time on it. LOL

I'm guessing they will now have a testimony about how they sensed evil and had to leave that property quickly.

And Mormons wonder why people still think they are weird!

Ha ha ha, I'm familiar with that reaction. A really gung-ho TBM teenager, who was walking down the sidewalk with his family just after it was announced at conference (Oct.2012) that 18 year old males could serve a mission, approached me, a total stranger, and asked me the "golden question" to show off in front of his parents. He asked, "have you ever heard of the Mormon church?" (eight years ago it was still okay to say "Mormon"). Without thinking, I said, "unfortunately, yes"). You should have seen his face. I really burst his bubble. His parents looked really embarrassed. They quickly scurried away without saying anything further.

I wonder why missionaries give up so quickly when they encounter exmos? Is it because exmos know all the tricks? You'd think that missionaries would want to engage with them and convince them to return. Instead they turn tail and run. It is weird.

>>No "nice talking to you!", no "have a nice day", no "bye", no "see ya later", no "wave", no nothing.

This shows that they were not talking to your girlfriend to be friendly. They were being friendly only in pursuit of making a "sale." She would get a better reaction from a used car salesperson.

I had a similar experience in 2002, when I was engaged to be married to my exmo husband. After that encounter was literally when I found RfM. My husband hadn’t told me everything and was horrified that I inadvertently “outed” him. After that experience, I became a lot more critical, on so many levels. And that was when I learned more of the truth.

As soon as they realize that a person is no longer mormon because they used to be mormon and they know all about mormonism, they realize how silly their product is and how silly they look trying to sell it. Everything crumbles quickly beneath their feet at that point and they must retreat to more stable ground ASAP.

At the MTC, do they receive specific instruction on how to act in these situations? Or is this just the standard Mormon reflex/ingrained position?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/10/2021 03:28AM by Perdition.

Exmos are a risk to their testimony. It's why there is such a condemnation in the church over "anti-Mormon propaganda" . You're not even supposed to read it or listen to it "for fun" because Satan could trap you.

If the missionaries had stuck around and tried to pitch you their sale, you likely would have defended your unbelief at least moderately robustly. That's all the effort you would need. Missionaries aren't even told that Joseph had more than one First Vision account. Just think of everything else they have been shielded from. You could really wreck a missionary's world if he stuck around to try to defend his flimsy faith against what an exmo really knows. So, in order to protect their fragile testimony, they are cautioned against Bible bashing with other Christians(arguing doctrine by using scripture verses) and to stay away from angry, bitter apostates.

When you spot a shark in the ocean you quickly swim to shore if you don't happen to be wearing a chainmail suit.

The Mormon 101 Course in Strict Obedience doesn't include a lesson in social skills. Charm school Mormonism is not. Pair that up with being taught you are superior to other human beings who are heavily influenced by the Adversary and the combination leaves the poor boys ill suited for even putting one foot in front of the other in public.

A co worker who has Mormon friends was talking the other day about her California Mormons friends finding the Utah ones weird. Like me. I was raised in a 99% (at the time) Mormon community and was socially inept once I left the safety of the county. The hardest part of leaving Mormonism for me was learning new social skills and getting the "uptight" out of my system.

When I was a kid the Mormons always bragged about being seen as a "peculiar people." I would say your girlfriend has updated that perfectly. Weird!

That is weird. I'd have expected at least a, "Well, it has been nice talking to you. Have a nice day," and then the exit.

What sort of opinion do they think they're leaving people with by rudely and abruptly walking away mid-conversation like that?

That's a big change from the missionaries that I knew in the past. They exuded almost a fake politeness, which was also weird, come to think of it. LOL

I do think it is at least partly an age thing.

I wouldn't say I have "High" expectations about the quality of conversation with 18-year-old Mormon missionaries, but still, the complete absence of a really basic pleasantry like "Okay, thanks anyway!" or "bye!" or "have a nice day!" was indeed very bizarre to me when she told me about it.

I've had my fair share of awkward and forced conversations with Mormons, as well as awkward conversations with people that age (and younger), but this interaction (or strange, sudden lack thereof) definitely would have thrown me too.

Great story
Good subject

Because they are taught that life is white and black, and full and empty, and perfect and lacking, and so on and so forth, until the cows come home... and they believe it, and often miss the mark completely.

They are not there - or even here, on planet earth - to experience, share, grow, learn, enjoy, connect, or even accept, but rather try to attract others to something wholly unattractive, uninteresting, unimportant, unbelievable and patently untrue to boot.

They were talking with her for nefarious reasons and had selfish, hidden, ulterior motives... (They had NOTHING to share and so they didn't). It's like they were stoned and forgot why they were there (because they weren't, really). Suddenly, they slipped into a trance that said fight or flight and they took the flight (not even knowing where they were going).

They are so LOST
Mormonism deludes

Can't even have a NORMAL, unadulterated, natural experience.

Dumbfounding