Sunday morning while still a believer:

Get up at the crack of dawn. Shower, do my hair and make up, stay in dressing gown for fear of mucking up clean clothes.

Wake up the kids, feed the breakfast, wash them up. Get them dressed. Clear up the breakfast dishes and all.

Get husband to watch the munchins while I change into church clothes.. pack kids and diaper bag and everything needed for meetings and lessons in the car.. drive to church.

Spend 3 hours in church, teaching, being bored, trying to keep kids quiet, get fed guiltinducing hogwash...wait for husband to finish his meetings. Drive home with cranky tired and hungry kids.


Sunday mornings now:

Wake up to the light coming through the curtains.. get up for a pee.. go back to bed and snooze for another hour or so..
Get husband to make and bring up a cup of tea.
Our dog and cat always folow him up as sunday morning is the only time they get to share the bed with us..

Drink tea, read about the internet on my phone.. chat to husband.. cuddle dog and cat..

Get up whenever I feel like to make brunch for husband and youngest daughter. Do whatever we feel like for the rest of the day.

(Okay.. we also don't have young children anymore which makes life easier already)


How have your sunday's changed since leaving the morg?

Your Sundays sound a lot like how my Sundays were, then and now.
Sundays went from being the worst day of the week to the best. I had three really young kids when I left the church, so getting ready for church was complete hell, and I even had my husband helping me out. I don't miss those days at all!

Yes, quite a change. It was tough when DW was a primary president and when I was an EQ president. Saturdays were shot too! It was great and is great to have weekends free. I am retired so everyday is a weekend now. When raising a family it would of been far better to do family outings and activities than sit in church. What a waste.

No more panic attacks and guilt trips to show up to a building where nobody gives two shits besides to gossip about you and then take your money.

Sundays from the past -

Wake up dreading going to church for three hours.

(Ex)wife screaming and yelling at kids to get ready. Kids revolting, crying, screaming that they don't want to go to church.

Load everyone into the car. (Ex)wife pissed that we are late and have to sit in the back.

Boring, boring, boring. Search the hymn book for something interesting. Nothing.

Come home hating life.


Sundays today, as in RIGHT NOW -

Sitting here in my favorite chair in my underwear, getting over a cold, sucking down a big glass of O.J.

Killing time waiting for church to start in an hour...the CHURCH OF THE NFL!!!!!

Laptop at the ready to follow my fantasy football teams throughout the day.

Probably doze off a time or two.

Make this beautiful Mac & Cheese - http://emerils.com/126572/macaroni-four-cheeses

At some point take a shower, lay around the rest of the day in fresh underwear.

You nailed it for us. DW and I discuss this almost every Sunday. Just 15 minutes ago (as we were returning from a restaurant where we sat, sipped coffee, ate breakfast, read the paper together) I made the comment that THIS is how Sundays were meant to be. Relaxing, rejuvinating, enjoyable. Not the incessant rushing, guilt-ridden mess that they were.

Gonna show my age

Men got up early to go to priesthood meeting. Maybe it started around 7 or 7:30

Women stayed home to get the kids ready and prep sunday dinner.

Men got home around 9 or so wondering why the kids weren't ready.

Everyone left about 30 minutes or so later to go to Sunday School. No primary or relief society or mutual. That was during the week, on seperate nights.

Get home from sunday school around noon or so and watch wife finish dinner.

Sometime between 2 or maybe as late as 6 head back to church for sacrament meeting even though you had the sacrament at sunday school.

Now

Total and complete freedom.

Gather up all dirty clothing and throw it in the washer. Look under beds for missing socks if necessary.

Quiz each kid as to whether they have talks tomorrow. If so, what is the topic? Have they done it? (No.) Provide paper and pencil, and tell them to start writing. Keep after them until they have produced something worthwhile. Them make them deliver it a few times, until it sounds coherent. Emphasize eye contact, meaningful pauses, delivery. (My kids hated this, but they are all capable of excellent public speaking.)

Find out if anyone is supposed to bring bread, snacks, or anything else. Make sure it is available.

I do not handle last-minute preparation well. That's why things began on Saturday at our house.

Considering that both parents had Monday-Friday jobs, and all kids had Monday-Friday school, when church was added in, it was like we never had a day off.

It was nice, reclaiming our weekends.

YES!! Oh god yes.. the saturdays... rushing to get everything done.. make sure everybody has crispy clean and ironed outfits for church. Prepare the sunday dinner in advance so I wouldn't have to 'work' so hard on sunday.. prepare lessons and talks..

Almost forgot about that...

Sattttturday is a speshul day
it's the day we get ready for sunnnnnnnday

Condensed version:

Then: Stress before, during, after church.

Now: Relax. Finish off the day at my Mom's place watching Masterpiece Theatre together.

Oh yeah, I had forgotten about Sunday Dinners!

I remember rushing home between meetings to put something in the oven. The TBM in-laws liked to come over for Sunday dinner, and everyone would have to stay all dressed up, including the cook, in "heels and hose", back in my day. It would be hot, and I would have to cover up my nice clothes with an apron, to keep from spilling on them. My husband took a nap on the couch, while I cooked and tended the children at the same time. Sometimes I would be too exhausted for clean-up, and would leave the dishes for Monday. It wasn't physical tiredness--I did all the yard work, and two dancing classes every day--but just that "giving-up" kind of energy-draining fatigue.

Three hours of demoralizing, guilt-inducing criticism, and brow-beating to do more and more and more, and do it all perfectly, can suck the life right out of you. When my children cried, I didn't get angry at them, because I understood and sympathized. Those crying infants in Mormon sacrament meetings is the sound of despair!

When we resigned from the cult, we began a new tradition of pizza on Sundays, and we would spend the time having fun together, instead of Mom being stuck in the kitchen.

On Sundays, in Utah, the ski areas are less crowded, and on the off-season, we hike and mountain bike, or have a back yard barbecue, with EVERYONE helping out.

I HATED the sunday dinners and gatherings. I still have trauma from all of that. Who can live around a bunch of fake robots?

This all brings back haunting memories. I too remember the multiple-meetings that lasted all day before the three hour block.

A Google search:

The first hint of a three-hour Sunday consolidated meetings schedule for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints came during a manmade event — the energy crisis in the early 1970s.

The First Presidency released information in 1973 on how wards and branches with members who travel great distances can combine meetings into a single of block of time, according to www.lds.org and history.lds.org.


When it was announced over the pulpit that all meetings would be consolidated into 3 hours, I might have had my first morgasm right then and there. It was wonderful news. We had been married for about a year and couldn't believe what we were hearing. Perhaps there was a gawd who loved us after all.