Baptism
Any ordination
Endowment
Sealing

I was pissed at God after my baptism because I believed that I was fully responsible for my sins and I was basically setup to fail by my creator.

I felt I had magically become accountable for my whole life.

The magic of transformation lessened with subsequent rites of Mormon passage. By the time I was actually "set apart" as a missionary I viewed my change as more of country than person.

Ditto for marriage. I didn't think anything other than a legal thing had happened but that I had "done it right" er righteously. If something was sealed in me it wasn't obvious to me. At that point in my life I was clean from drugs and the drudgery of a mission. I was doing what I had been trained up as a child to do and back on our heavenly farter's plan for me.

So I'm curious if anyone else experienced some magically change or at least emotionally charged experience when something significantly Mormonly important happened to them.

I might have had it happen in my baby blessing but I can't remember.

I did have some emotional experiences with prayer and blessings of healing but when I lost my car keys, er testimony I realized the context and not the content was what was significant.

No.
I expected that I would feel different. I didn't. It made me wonder...at first, wonder what was "wrong with me" that I didn't feel different. Later, wonder why other people claimed to feel different, when clearly nothing of any import had actually occurred!

I did, however, feel liked I'd changed after the first time I had sex. For the better.

How about that :)

ificouldhietokolob Wrote:
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> I did, however, feel liked I'd changed after the
> first time I had sex. For the better.

The natural sexual man is an enemy of God. I think both you and I love being the enemy of someone so unnatural? :)

Amen to that, Brother Berry!

At baptism I wondered why baptise at 8? Wouldn't it be better to be 80 and wipe away a lifetime of sin?

Ordinations I never wanted. Never felt a thing.

Endowment was the biggest let down. I was foolish enough to believe the stories of people reuniting with deceased loved ones in the temple. When my deceased mother was not waiting for me on the other side of the veil, I asked my father "why in the hell did I just go through that then?"

My sealing was some years after my marriage. Again I felt nothing. By that time I think I knew two things subconsciously. First that my marriage wouldn't last and second that the temple was all hollow and meaningless.

Heartless Wrote:
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> First that my marriage
> wouldn't last and second that the temple was all
> hollow and meaningless.


Exactly, in my sealing I listened to a strange man drone on and on like he was prescient and personal when in reality to me it was the opposite. It was him harping on being faithful to the church more than anything.

I couldn't wait for it to be over and I remember almost none of his words.

that my legs started to shake uncontrollably. By the time they got to the "yes," I was so worn out that I hesitated and my ex said to me, "You can't back out now!"

I just went to a Jewish wedding, not completely Jewish as the girl is a Jewish convert so they could have a rabbi marry them and have Jewish children, but they had it outside on the top of a mountain. It was absolutely gorgeous. The bride and groom were able to recite some vows to each other that they had written. The food, the alcohol, the dancing--the wedding celebrations went on for 3 evenings. It was a grand affair!!! The ceremony was absolutely beautiful and I loved the advice the rabbi gave them. It was short and perfect.

Temple weddings are so BORING.

I was never "impressed" by any of the mormon rites of passage. I was too panicked to just get it over with so that attention wasn't directed at me. Just relieved to have it over with. (The temple was hideous--I was shocked.)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/12/2018 11:51AM by cl2.

cl2 Wrote:
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> It was absolutely gorgeous. The bride
> and groom were able to recite some vows to each
> other that they had written. The food, the
> alcohol, the dancing--the wedding celebrations
> went on for 3 evenings.

I wish I could give my kids that but alas they want the Mormon boredom.

Never got to the sealing ordinance, but all of the other ones yeah. I definitely felt "changed" after each one because I really believed it.

In hindsight I know it was all in my head. It's opened up a whole new universe of wonder for me, having had a glimpse of what my mind is capable of.

For me, the biggest disappointment was the endowment. I had to cross my fingers with the pre-1990 oaths. The ONLY good things was that those oaths - slitting your throat from ear to ear, disembowelment, and being sliced at the waist - were useful in solving some murders included in my upcoming book.

I never got the Oaths from Mormonism but I did from Freemasonry. For some reason a fraternity seems less severe than a religion but there are people who claim Freemasonry is one - it isn't.

I had to demit once I stopped believing in a great architect of The Universe.

"I did have some emotional experiences with prayer and blessings of healing but when I lost my car keys, er testimony I realized the context and not the content was what was significant."

I felt like a god after my wife prayed to find her lost work keys last winter.

When she got home from work, she couldn't find the work keys to hang them on their hook. She checked her coat pockets, pants pockets, purse, and checked them all again. She called the maintenance man, who was still at the school, to check her path from the school to the parking lot. She prayed and was panicked about what she was going to do without the keys.

I asked what she had done after locking up, particularly anything that may have been different than her regular routine. She said that there had been a heavy snow, but the maintenance crew at her school had already plowed, so she had a clear walk to her car without having to change into her snow boots. She locked up the door to school kitchen and walked out to the car with purse and boots in each hand. She put down the boots, opened the car door, picked up the boots, got in, and drove home.

I immediately reached into one of her boots and pulled out the missing keys. She asked how I did that, and I told her that I act in mysterious ways. Her faith in God and the power of prayer was confirmed, and I was but a footnote in her faith promoting story.

What a great story. You beat Elohim at his own game!

My temple sealing changed my life, and changed me, forever.

My temple husband thought that the sealing gave him the right to beat me and rape me, and he did so within hours after the temple ceremony. He told me that the sealing meant that I was his possession, for eternity. I kept getting Mormon advice that there was something I could do to make things better, that it was the woman's responsibility to keep her husband happy. I believed the Mormon cult, and the male interpretation of religion, but after many months of beatings, I decided that I wanted nothing more to do with the priesthood and the temple.

I knew my tormentor would maim me further, or else I would kill myself--but there was another option! I got a divorce! I was afraid I would be killed, but when he was away on business, I escaped. I moved to another city, changed my name, and got a new job. My new life was worth all the Mormon shaming and blaming and shunning. I met new people, made new friends. After a few years, I got married again. My new life has been great, but I still have PTSD, to this day.

My hometown high school reunion is this weekend--but I can never go back there! (My family are no longer there.) I won't go into a Mormon church or temple, ever again. Too many flashbacks. I'm scarred for life.

Quite the opposite. I waited my whole life for that stupid damn endowment--the pinnacle of life, the spiritual awakening, the long awaited understanding of God and the universe.

Instead all I got was naked touching, pantomiming my own violent demise, and a lifetime (at the time) of buttugly one-piece undies. Yeah, maybe it was an emotionally charged experience, but not the kind of emotions I'd been lied to about being able to expect.

No way.... I paused for a second and looked around and realized

nothing was happening and nothing was going to happen.... I was

shocked from the infantile hand exercises and hand shakes I was

taught. It came to my mind that Id joined clubs that had more

interesting initiations than the church did. It reminded me of

the initiation into a private 6th grade girls club ... god what

a load of

crap the church is.