For me, it would have to be the dull, unfriendly faces avoiding eye contact while I walked to my pew. For many years, I forced people to look my way by greeting them with a smile. By the end of my "stint" in the church, I was drained.

Testimony Meeting. Being hungry, hot and tired with crying kids and being forced to listen to rote prayers, excuse me, rote testimonies so everybody's brainwashing can be tuned up. Being able to hum to the cadence of it...

IKNOW... thischurchisTRUE. I KNOW...josephsmithisaTRUEprophet....andwehaveatruechurchupontheearthtoday..wehaveaPROPHETOFGOD....ad nauseum

Anagrammy

I remedied this one by counting the number of times Jesus was mentioned (in the name of Jesus christ didn't count), along with JS, Tomato Monsoon, phreases like "I know the church is true," etc. TBM doesn't like it but it sure makes the meeting bearable!

OOOOOhhhhhh, how well I remember, Anagrammy! ***shudder***

Sitting in sm with the clerk scanning the pews and checking off each person's attendance. Another creepy thing was having the branch pres sitting up there watching as people took the sacrament or didn't take it.

Canned lessons, and no intellectual discussion at all.

+1

Especially when my RS president always had to add in the milk strippings story constantly. OMFG!

Being required and expected to show up, and feeling guilty if I didn't attend.

boredom, the noise and wearing panty hose

I agree, pantyhose. OMG, the sheer ecstasy of the first few seconds post-peel.

To me, all the LDS churches had some bad smell thing going on. There were times when I wanted to drive all the way home when I had to use the jakes because of the urine smells and stuff. Then there were a lot of dirty diapers going on, too. I dunno. I hated the smells.

Then there was the crying and blubbering from the stand, some people not even able to get their words out because they were so emotionally worked up over a stupid testimony.

Then there was all the bad information contained in all the bad talks, much of it just wrong, the urge to sleep and drool on my suit.

Then there were the stern high priests, looking at us with furrowed brows and a look that says, "I KNOW!, you DON'T!"

Anyway, there's a whole slough of things (maybe it's "slew"--I'm not sure, but I like "slough" because it inspires visions of murky, stagnant, polluted water) that one could list. Give me anything else any day.

I'd say half the shudders would come from seeing the friendly masks people wear and knowing the real self they allow to come out when dealing with non-LDS, inactive and exmos. It's not pretty and all the put-on smiley crappola doesn't make it pretty...or believable.

The other half the shudders would come from the fact Satan himself is serving as the ward bishop. He has at least one actual minion working under him too. It's pretty skin-crawling, actually.

ETA: ...including "all the put-on smiley crappola," as CA girl so well describes it!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/30/2011 11:18PM by WiserWomanNow.

The poor little children in Primary, undergoing their indoctrination...

The phoniness and facades that " Everything is just perfect at our house". I just never bought it.

Wow, I'm waxing nostalgic..... (BIG shudder)

now what i experienced those few times that i attended LDS church was someone(normally a wife)would come and sit by me. and then in sunday school as well as RS, the same. Love-bombing, i guess.

for me it was both the brow beating you took when you missed a few sundays and everyone gets up in your business by asking where you have been. Like I don't have a life and can't attend to my work life too.

The other thing was how ppl with callings were always envious with those that didn't have one. They all eye balled ppl wondering when their time was up and it would go to sister so and so who does nada at church.

One final thing, the anxiety of not knowing when they would call me to the stand to give a talk in SM. I really had no desire to prepare a talk.

Sometimes I used to sit feeling guilty about taking the sacrament too. I was like, oh well, I shouldn't be doing this but I don't need the public embarassment.