I usually just lurk. Left TSCC so I could watch the (New Orleans) Saints play on Sunday without the usual guilt trips.


Which got me wondering. I never went to BYU. Few Mormons out of Louisiana ever do.

So, what is a typical Sunday like for a BYU student who is also TBM?

When I was there, it was a day to go to Church and rest up for the week and perhaps hang out with friends. Shopping was a no-no. You could study in your room, but the libraries were closed. A lot of people did home teaching and visiting teaching. Very quiet usually.

As a freshman at Deseret Towers (mid-80's) I remember it being extremely boring. We didn't have the fancy gadgets that kids have today to occupy themselves...3 hours of church, other church meetings (i.e. firesides), etc. Come to think of it, BYU was very boring the entire time I was there even post mission.

See I played it differently. Was in DT (aka delirium tremens) in 82. After spending Saturday night at the Star Palace, I actually would go to Mass with a Catholic friend. We would then go have breakfast at Dennys (free refills on coffee) and then shop at Reems, that giant green dome weirdo store. And fast and testimony days never bothered me because there was a Taco Bell just outside of the campus.

I still have no idea how I actually made it out of that hell hole with a degree in hand. The bishop (nicknamed Marrying Perry) actually told me that I had no redeeming qualities other than being, in his words, immaculate.

I was actually at DT in 82-83...you played it smart. I did go to the Star Palace on Saturday's though. I too, don't know how I made it out of there w/ a degree in hand ultimately. I rarely went to church toward the end.

I definitely got by with a little help from my friends. One time they tried to ease my broken heart (after a potential beau rejected dear ole moi) by placing several mini bottles (brown bag of course) in the phone box between rooms. I nearly died when I opened the bag. How did I not get kicked out? Those were some great gals.....

Do you remember that nasty woman who ran DT? I think her name was whitehead. So appropriate.

I heard the saints were moving to utah so they could be with the jazz

RE: Dave the Atheist/Utah Jazz. New Orlean's should have traded team names in 1979. Then you'd have:

1) The New Orlean's Jazz of the NFL, and

2) The Utah Saints.

I was there summer of 2015. I went to church, cooked pasta with my TBM siblings, who were also going there at the time, and we called home and talked to our parents for a few minutes. Otherwise I just stayed cooped up in my room and pretended to study. I'm pretty sure there was ward prayer and some other small social activities, but they were optional.

I transferred to BYU-Idaho for fall of 2015, and we were allowed to miss church three times before having to meet with someone about it (and yes, they took very careful attendance). It was mostly the same as in Provo. My TBM roommates spent all Sunday cleaning, cooking, or at church.

"Boring" is the operative term for all those who weren't "Actively Engaged" having sex with their b/f or g/f...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/10/2016 04:32PM by GNPE.

No SAINT days ever.

It's sure a good thing you didn't miss the game, or church yesterday, except to watch the game.

Typical Sunday? GUILT TRIPS heaven. Nobody plays - nobody wins.

A decade ago I attended the Provo campus. The usual 3 hour block wiped out a portion of the day. If you had leadership callings, you had correlation meetings, presidency meetings, etc. Choir practice took another hour.

I was always starved and exhausted after church, so a quick lunch and long nap took the afternoon. Visiting teachers came, or I went visiting my assignments. Usually, our apartment either hosted dinner for another apartment or were invited to eat with another apartment. The bishopric households hosted dinners with 2 or 3 apartments each week, so you'd get to be in a "real" home sometimes.

The evening wrapped up with ward prayer. Ward prayer was for the super active people. You had to be there to be seen by the potential dating material of the opposite sex. If you were super righteous, you were still dressed in your sunday best. If you were more chill, hoodies and pj bottoms were the way to go. Ward prayer consisted of opening and closing hymns and prayers, a scripture, birthdays & announcements. There was more or less an open mic moment when couples could announce their engagements or people shared their mission calls. Each week an apartment was assigned to do a skit. That was always a lot of pressure for this shy girl!

At our ward prayer you had the opportunity to write signed or anonymous "love notes" to anyone else in the ward. These notes could make or break you. They would be sorted and delivered after ward prayer. Some roommates always received a handful of notes. I always felt relieved to get even one. Of course, some notes had to be analyzed to see if the guy writing the note was especially interested in the recipient or just being friendly.

By the time ward prayer was over, the day was spent. I usually felt more drained than rested after Sundays. Oh, and for my ward, there seemed to be an attitude that studying was not the way to have a day of rest from your normal weekday activities. So I tried not to study until late Sunday evening, when I would fall asleep instead of actually reviewing class notes. :( I look back now and see what a wasted day Sundays were!!

You just attend church in a random building on campus and maybe some friends want to meet up and sing hymns later, lol. We used to sing in this tunnel by Helaman Halls dorms. Other than that, you just sit around. And you better not do homework! Unless you're a sucky Mormon who didn't plan your week well and/or aren't as committed to the Lord as others. I remember also being confused that people had to WORK on Sunday to make us food in dorm cafeteria, haha. Who cares?
Also, when I was engaged, I attended my fiancee's ward 2 or 3 weeks in a row and got a letter from BYU stating that if I didn't attend church, it would affect my standing as a student there. FOR REAL! Haha. As a good little Mormon girl, I even felt BAD that I got in trouble and made sure for then on out, I was at my own ward. EYEROLL times a million.

Wake up, roommate prayer, walk to the campus for SM and all the other meetings. Then we came home (I had 5 roommates) and made a large dinner together usually inviting another house to come eat with us. I think this lasted all of 3 Sundays for me and stopped going to church.

I realized I had better things to do, like have fun and experience life instead of waiting for it to happen.

I was in the BYU 35th ward in 1967 (and the whole rest of my time at BYU), and my first year we met in the fieldhouse, with sacrament in one of the many gymnasiums, and classes in in the racket ball courts. Priesthood was, as I recall, at 6:30am. I'd miss breakfast, and go with my two uber-TBM roommates. In the racket ball court it would be almost as cold inside as out, you couldn't hear clearly because of the annoying echo, and my stomach would growl. I was always freezing and hungry. So I would occasionally go to one of the vending machines and buy a danish roll or something, but there was always some Nazi ward member who would insist that using the vending machines constituted "shopping on Sunday." I'd insist that it wasn't. We were to go back and forth on that issue for years, until I left.

The following represents a church experience at BYU. No shit--as we said in the Air Force--this really happened:

The most important religious issue of the time (1967-68) was when the boyfriend of one of the girls in the ward was called up, and joined the Navy. He became a Seabee, and went off to Vietnam. He gave her his Seabee jacket as a keepsake, which had the Seabee emblem and a motto embroidered on the back. The motto read, "Seabees never die. They Just go to hell and re-group." (I think that's actually a Marine Corps motto, but if the Seabees want to use it, too, I'm fine with it. After all, I'm an Air Force man.) The ward was in a dither. Many people, girls in particular, thought it was vulgar because of the world "hell," and didn't want her to wear it. Other people pointed out that the world "hell" was in many of our hymns, not to mention the scriptures. And after all, Mormons think of hell as a place name, like Nashville, or Davenport, Iowa.

This went back and forth for weeks. One young RM stood up in a meeting, sobbing and pleaded through large tears that she get rid of the evil jacket. The girl herself would plead that her boyfriend was in Vietnam when he should be on a mission, and was in mortal danger; she owed him the respect of wearing his jacket. Finally, with the help and intercession of Our Worthy Bishop, a local architect, a solution was reached (to use passive voice). The girl went to a crafts shop and found a little patch with two flowers on it. She sewed the small patch over the middle letters e-l in the world hell. Lo, the sun did shine again, and the snow did melt. From the pulpit, Thomas S. Monson proclaimed, "The world was good again. A turkey was produced, and an empty oven was offered. Side dishes arrived as if from nowhere, cooked by our worthy Relief Society sisters. Bellies were filled, and hearts overflowed with thanksgiving. In the name of our Holy Saviour, even Jesus Christ, Amen!"

To quote a line from Monty Python: "[BYU] is a silly place. Let's not go there."

Stop this, it is getting silly.


Hahahaha!


(Anyway, did the guy come back from Vietnam? Hope so)

When I was there in the 80's it was before the ecclesiastical endorsement BS and mandatory church attendance so you could often go weeks or even semesters without going to priesthood or sacrament meeting. I had become mostly inactive (quite the achievement for being a full time BYU student living just off campus!) for no other reason than I thought that attending meetings with all of the uptight walking sphincters was just too much. It was all about show, being righteous and trying to find a mate.

One Sunday morning I had determined to repent of my prideful and slothful ways and made myself go fully intending to become the TBM that I had once been. I arrived a little early at the conference room on the second floor of the Wilkinson Center where our ward met and took a seat. As soon as I was seated I heard two righteous brethren arguing over hymn book placement in the seats and whose stewardship it was to complete this great task. It was so stupid, so surreal, that I just couldn't stomach it any longer. I stood up and walked out.

I never attended another church meeting at BYU again.

My experience was similar to crookedletter.

When I was ward mission leader, I would be up early for a 7 or 8 am priesthood executive committee meeting, followed by ward council, and then 3 hours of church. Our church meetings were at the Joseph Smith religion department building on campus. The Sunday School and Elder's Quorum meetings were dull like they always are. It's just hard to make it interesting in an environment where people have been conditioned not to disagree, or question things.


After church, I would get something to eat, and maybe have some time to rest, study, or something in the late afternoon--unless I had home teaching or calling responsibility to take care of. You never get to all of it. Then we'd have evening prayer at the clubhouse for the apartment, or somewhere on campus. The meetings were a bore.

Not every Sunday, but many Sunday's, did not feel like a day off or day of rest at all. Sometimes it was filled with church stuff from top to bottom. It was all too much, which I believe is partially why I became open to learning the truth about the LDS Church. If I was going to be at this grindstone for the rest of my life, I owed it to myself to figure out answers to the questions on my shelf--and so much more!

It was stifling, to say the least. Like Sunday for any TBM (Mormon) anywhere else - meetings, napping, and eating if it isn't Fast Sunday.

The kids who didn't like going to church got part-time jobs working off campus and took Sunday shifts.

Unhappiness
Boredom
Listlisness
Nodding Off
Forgetfulness
Confusion
Tiredness
Apathy
Guilt
Fear
Shame
Anxiety
Procrastination
Worry
Hunger
Loneliness
Dullness

All That is WORK (on Sunday!, and every day). Mormons can't put two and two together. If they do, they usually get out/ quit tscc [like it quit them]/ resign/ ex-themselves.

SLOW



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/15/2016 04:58PM by readwrite.

Went to Byu in 60's when it was mellow. No Church....my Church was golf course when warm, Timphaven( now Sundance) when cold.

I loved Sunday, actually. I didn't study school stuff on Sunday, and it was a great day to relax and be with friends, write in your journal, take a walk in the woods, ponder. I went to church, of course, but I liked it because the other students were fun to interact with, I had lots of friends, and I drank the kool-aid big time back then.

Honestly though, I don't know how anyone gets through college without taking a mental break one day a week. I would do that anyway even now that I'm not religious any more.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/16/2016 11:40AM by alyssum.