It really happened in one of my wards. We made friends with a young couple, and the woman announced to us during dinner that she was a prophetess. She said that was just something that she was, and she just had to live with it. Whenever she arrived at a new ward when her husband got transfered, she would ask to see the bishop. She would tell him privately that she was a prophetess, and not to get in a stink over it, just accept it. She seemed perfectly normal, no weird stuff going on, and she never seemed to have any overt problems with the church over it. She still filled church "callings" and all that.

Does this only work with women, or could a guy to this? Anyone have any friends who are prophetesses?

Technically, according to LDS doctrine in the Bible Dictionary(under "prophet"), all christians are prophets. When I was TBM I used to have fun proclaiming myself and others as prophet to my friends, then showing them that bit after enjoying the puzzled look on their faces.

"In a general sense a prophet is anyone who has a testimony of Jesus Christ by the Holy Ghost, as in Num. 11:25–29; Rev. 19:10."

I suppose that would technically make them a prophet - although limited in scope.

I learned the hard way that such personal revelation was completely unreliable and a total crock.

the guy was ex'ed.

Of course, he did show up in SLC at the COB and told LDS Church President he was ready to fulfill the office as leader of the church.

... my first few mission areas were in Okinawa Japan. 15 years later I went back for almost four years with the military as an almost mentally out borderline Postmo/TBM. I definitely learned more about the area and people the second time around without the missionary perspective to screw things up. Because of this I've developed a sort of pet peeve about return missionaries typical attitude that they somehow got a more "pure" and intimate exposure to other cultures and people and so know them better than people who might have gone as tourists or studied them in school or such. Yes, missionaries see and experience parts of the culture or people where they serve (particularly overseas) but they also have to do so with HUGE blind spots, so to speak, but that's another topic.

Anyhooo ... back to the prophetess thing:

Okinawans have their own traditional religion distinct and separate from the Buddhism or Shintoism or even Taoism and Confucianism of mainland Japan or China. The Okinawan religion is more of a older, almost tribal religion and is dominated by the women with each village having their own traditional priestess or prophetess and a sort of hierarchy between them and those of other villages and the island as a whole. Of course there's much more to it than that but you get the idea and I learned all this when I went back 15 years after being a missionary.

Of course as missionaries we didn't know ANY of this and weren't expected to study and learn it either; just go out and teach the "true" gospel.

We met an older couple in my first mission area that were nice, invited us in and listened to what we had to say. As we described the "official" first vision story we also worked in the role of prophets in receiving revelation and how that was important to the restoration. Then we asked if the couple understood what a prophet was and why they were important. The woman seemed a bit excited and answered that "yes" of course she understood what a prophet was because SHE WAS ONE.

As missionaries, as I said, we didn't understand why she said what she did about being a prophet. I remember looking at my companion and later comments about how it seemed a little crazy and how she might be getting a little senile .. thinking that she was a prophetess and could receive revelation for people in her neighborhood.

The irony of outright dismissing this woman's statements while also going around telling people about Joseph Smith and modern day prophets was somehow lost on us poor naive missionaries.