Why does it seem like F&T meetings have absolutely nothing to do with a testimony of the church? A good 95% of the people who get up talk about their month. "Oh, I went up to Utah for the week to visit my children, it was so much fun!" or "Work was pretty tough this month, a couple clients dropped." then throw in a 20 second testimony at the end.

It's pointless and ironic that their meeting specifically designed for bearing testimony has so little to do with it. I don't want to hear about people's adventures during the month, I don't care about them. I have an inkling it's just their time to vent about random crap, so they decide to get up and talk to everyone even though nobody cares.

would take a few seconds.

Sympathy and Bragging.

It is the one time when members get a little attention in exchange for their tithing money and free labor.

It is designed for people who love to hear the sound of their voice over the loud speaker.
The less they have to say, the longer they take to say it.

F&T Beating!

Cruel and unusual nourishment. Physically, mentally and spiritually speaking, of course.

Timothy

I actually liked testimony meeting the most out of all church meetings.

For the rare occasion when someone would pour their heart out about real and important things going on in their life.

I felt that in rare moments, members would actually be fairly honest and fairly real.

I always liked the crazy people to get up and talk.

dthenonreligious Wrote:
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> I always liked the crazy people to get up and
> talk.

Exactly. We had a few of those in our ward. F&T meetings were pure entertainment. I loved them.

The problem with my ward is that every month there are about two, sometimes more, people who will make blatant political statements (right wing) in their testimonkey.

Example, couple of weeks ago...

Second Counselor Brother Chubby, lead off hitter for the testimonkies..."evil and conspiring men in the government are pushing entitlements on us....".

Example Sister Shittin-in-her-boots: "...the world is becoming so much more wicked. The assault on families is relentless. Traditional families are threatened by the homosexual agenda...".

Example Brother Wish-I-could-have-been-a-GA: "there are media sources out there that seek to destroy faith. One is a newspaper in Salt Lake that constantly assaults the Lord's true church...". Ok, maybe this isn't too political, but it's idiotic. Gawd, this guy rubs me the wrong way! He's fat, has no neck, has a deep gravely voice and is always hitting on my wife.

Fu%$er!

I live across the country from my non-member parents. Every time they would come for a visit, I would invite them to church and they would go.

By chance every visit fell on a fast sunday. They thought it was weird, and I tried to tell them it wasn't like this every sunday.

After four visits and four F&T meetings over a couple of years, they had enough. No way were they going to join this church!

The Cry and Lie Meeting.

Really? It was the opposite in my ward. Almost everyone bared their testimony and then there were a few who told a story about their week to go along with their testimony. The first Sunday of every month was always tear filled.

F and t always made it easier to tell who the depressed and

medicated sheep were in our flock!

The psychology behind F&T meeting is clever.Once a month, ordinary members - who may not have their views heard in any other forum - can stand and get things off their chests in front of a captive audience, whether or not those things relate to testimony. One thing the LDS church does do is make ordinary people feel special ; average people can go to church and be called 'President ------'or be called to positions that give them both a sense of importance and belonging. They can be asked to speak and sit on the stand where those with important responsibilities sit. For ordinary people, these things are important.

Bingo. You just nailed it.

I always felt like most of the people who got up there were starving for attention or needed validation from others.

Rarely did any of it strengthen my testiphoney.

My family always called it boob day, becauase all the cry babies were up there.

"I'd like to bear my testimony...

I was sick and you brought me jello and I'm just so greateful and sob, sniff, mumble, Blah Blah, Unintelligible, blah blah, cry, sob... etc.

F&T is awful

We had one family the hubby and wifey went to the stand together to bear their testimonys..basically it was a brag session on how well they were doing and how much they were blessed. Very boring and sad for those who were left feeling inadequate (must of being doing something wrong) obviously missing out on being truly blessed. Nobody likes a boaster!

It used to creep me out when parents would take little bitty children up to the stand and whisper what they were to say.

I used to fucking hate that! The fat idiot wife of a guy i worked with would do that like every month! "Oh look how cute and inspiring that is...Sister The-Only-Fat-Vegetarian-I've-Ever-Known is whispering testimonkey into their toddler's ear!" Bleeech.

I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW.

Even from families with Father, Mother, 12, 8, 6, and 4 year olds.

Arrrgg...

Yeah, they KNOW.

It's another form of social cohesion building. People sitting in the pews listen to what's said at the stand and take their cues from that, the expectations are set up to only accept a specific form and structure for a testimony. It forces the speaker to basically confess in front of the group, cementing belief, and implicitly lets those listening know what is expected of them.

of social positive reinforcement tends to cement delusion as fact. Its starts at a very young age, i.e. "Sunbeams", age 3, who begin the rites of being pressured into saying, "I KNOW..Joseph was a prophet" over and over and over again, so that by young adulthood this has well been conditioned into the psyche of the individual.

Group Therapy and if you have to sit through it at times quite entertaining

You could write 10 names on a paper before the meeting, and 9 out of the ten would be the ones who went up to the pulpit. The other one was probably sick at home.

I know I'm going out on a limb here, but many...not most, but maybe even getting close to most...have severe emotional issues or mental illness.

I sometimes got the feeling that it was a little voyueristic and not fair to the people themselves to give them such a public forum.

that's why they're really called
mommymonies
hubbymonies
newcaramonies
vacaamonies
cellphoneamonies...yes I once heard a testimony about a cell phone no joke

It's done in TBM groups offsite too. I was part of a youth group who traveled and sang. It was an unspoken expectation that we would have a testimonkey meeting at some point, and everyone would bear theirs. I was the only one out of 25 kids who did not, despite the creepy peer pressure to do so.