Misery loves company. We had some TBM relatives stay with us. We live in a resort town so we tend to get more relatives visiting than we want. Anyways the husband is a bishop and he went on and on about the demands of his calling. His wife seems burnt out with that fake happiness many Mormon women have. I would change the subject to fun things. What pissed me off is they go oh you live so wonderfully, I see you don’t have the church in your life to challenge you. I’m like get a clue. You talk about all your trials and guess what, it’s the church making you miserable but you like being miserable and burnt out because it’s a status symbol.

This is exactly right. People in this ward that I've lived in for forever are always watching and waiting, They can't figure out why my "ex" and I get along and we have our own relationships on the side and live here in the house we bought in 1986. We didn't always live here together. We get along great. My tbm daughter told me we confuse everyone as she attends this ward when she isn't in Alaska. Her husband grew up in this ward, too. I've been told she starts talks with "my mom has a boyfriend and my dad has a boyfriend."

Whatever else has happened in my life, leaving mormonism helped me make it to this day as facing the gay issues back in 1983 and on and on nearly killed me. I had to walk away to finally understand.

"Endure to the end" is more than a cliche in Mormonism. It is the prime directive. That's part of why exMos are so disliked. They have violated the Prime Directive. That cannot go unpunished.

Jeff Holland seems to me to be the best example of 'misery loves company'. He is not a happy camper, in spite of his enormous success within Mormonism.

That Holy Apostle is not a DoDo :)

And all this "enduring to the end" is not that bad. Sometimes I get to have this feeling over what Heaven will be like and then I feel great joy :)

I have an email account that I like to use on occasion when I have some spare moments in-between all the excessive number of duties I have to get done to keep the Church's local overlords happy. There's a folder in my email account for SPAM and it's such a joy to go through all those messages to see all the advertisements, links, and other wonderful messages from other accounts :) It gives me a preview of what it's like for folks on Kolob who hae tens of billions of prayers to respond to every day for the rest of eternity. I know that not everyone is righteous enough to get this blessing for eternity to be endlessly reading tens of billions of SPAM box messages every single day. But if e're worthy and Endure all the manure we have to put up with in the Church then we'll get to do this SPAM joy every day for eternity :) :) Exaltation will be awesome :)

They don't even get relief from it in the Celestial Kingdom.

They don't slip out for parties in the lower kingdoms?

Status symbol! Such an odd way to think of being TBM. Such an appropriate way too. Somehow though, seems like it indicates the bar if very low.

"I see you don’t have the church in your life to challenge you"

This is one of those lines that means nothing so it can't be answered. I remember going to a testimony meeting after the dam burst in Rexburg. The bishop got up and said, God sent this as a test. I looked around thinking, am I the only one he thinks this guy is an idiot.

dam broke in Rexburg all those years ago when I told him about the burning man comments. He said he saw them on reddit I believe, too.

My "husband" was just about ready to leave on his mission when the dam broke. His parents' house was 2 blocks up from where the water went through town.

Hey, maybe that was God's sign that he shouldn't go on a mission.

My mom shared a tidbit about a member who recently lost her husband. She is now going to be moving in with a son who lives on the eastern seaboard. I told my mom that this sister is probably done with the church.

My mom acted surprised as if this was earth shattering nonsense. -Why would she give up the church? She's always been stalwart member.

So I brought up the fact that after they sold their CA house and moved to Boise ID that they had trouble fitting in; being accepted as members. Now she is moving in with her son who didn't give a darn about the church (he was one of the youth who was church disciplined during my stake's inquisition). Maybe, he's repented and returned to the fold, but I have my doubts. I just think she will quietly stop attending because the church is not what it used to be; even ten years ago.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/06/2023 05:48PM by messygoop.

I hope that the missionaries don't feel compelled to start bothering the son and his mom.

When I fell away from my church upbringing, my mom, in time, also fell away. She would attend a local church once in a blue moon. And she kept her beliefs and spirituality, praying every night after she went to bed. It was so sweet. She would pray for the welfare of her family. But she never again was a regular church goer. Life has its seasons, and sometimes you just outgrow church.

She has lived quite a few places by Twin Falls as she didn't want to live in Utah as she can't stand how the mormons act. Then her 3 teenagers were really treated bad and they all left the church. They are all in their 40s now. None of their kids are mormons.

She had a hard time finding wards that treated her decent. We tend to be the fringe element according to the list of mormon royalty. She said they thought she and her husband were royalty, but figured out soon after they'd go to a new ward that he was and she wasn't. So she left Wendell for Hagerman and she HATES the ward there and over covid they stopped going and haven't been back. The last one of my siblings has left the church.

-She had a hard time finding wards that treated her decent.

It really shouldn't be hard to move to a new area and find decent people who accept newcomers into their existing ward/congregation. Yet, it really is.

My parents would go to the Oakland temple on Friday, do needed work on my Grandma's house, a Bay Area rental, then go to a ward near Sunnyvale on Sunday morning before making the long drive back to their home. And my mom was still working on Mondays.

The first time they visited the ward, there was some friendliness. The following month, no one was friendly. By the third month, a priesthood leader approached my dad that they really weren't welcomed as "transient members". They were told to get a letter from his assigned stake to mandate his records be transferred the Bay Area ward.

This was very off-putting and highly insulting so they just accepted to not attend any church when they went away for the weekend.