Our daughter said the last hour of church today had a member of the stake presidency telling the members they needed to teach their children to attend the temple. They were to focus on the temple more than serving missions.

Then she got a email from the stake president saying he is alarmed at how little people getting their first recommend know about the temple ordinances and their meaning. He also said he was alarmed at how many said they disliked all the mechanical symbolism and had no understanding of the spiritual significance or blessings that come from them.

In short. A lot of people seem to be not feeling anything spiritual about the temple. In short. The temple is losing it’s luster with the members and they are getting temple burnout.

Staying on the covenant path was used a lot by the stake presidency and clearly this is coming down from the first presidency.

I think the new strategy of the church is to put more and more pressure on the members to attend the temple. The missions aren’t bringing in new converts and they really aren’t retaining that many returned missionaries. Plenty go inactive when they return home.

So it’s temple mania now and that’s the new focus point. The problem is it’s showing the members can’t handle the temple on a large scale. I doubt most members like the temple that much.

Also the home based church and come follow me program now opens the members up to questioning on how this is being implemented their homes. My daughter said the stake presidency even said parents were failing to teach their children about the temple. So the guilt tripping has begun.

I can say this is all going to fail. The church is going to have under used temples all over the place and the more they beat the drum the less special the temple becomes and the more people will hate it. This of course will result in more exmormons.

"There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all."

- Peter Drucker

"Every time I go to the temple I learn something new!"

elderolddog Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> "Every time I go to the temple I learn something
> new!"


Hahahahahahahhahahahahhaha.. thats the best joke of them all.

The most destructive double whammy that belief in the church

gives you is that if you don't understand something about the

doctrine, its not the church's fault, its your fault for not

being faithful enough, good enough, and blah blah blah, the

list goes on. It's called "blaming the victim".

to be a good little temple attender was that it wasn't me THIS TIME. They'd tried to blame so many things on me, but the temple was just so ridiculous. I'm surprised more people don't leave after attending the temple. It was one of the biggest disappointments of my life and Lucy being my super special name was a REAL CLUE.

I think it was the sealings they had me do one night to another man--not my husband--that really was the last straw. Never went back. Four or five whole times.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/13/2019 05:49PM by cl2.

cl2 Wrote:
>Lucy being my super special name was a REAL CLUE.

Heh. Lucy.

If they were so into the Bible you would think they would use names from that so at least you could respect it.

If you haven't yet, you can google Temple Name Oracle and see all the names.

The guys get mostly bible names and Book of Mormon names. I got Elias so I guess at least I can go to heaven in a chariot of fire when the time comes.

There just aren't that many women in the Bible and hardly any in the BoM so they had to get creative. Besides Lucy and Emma, Joseph's wife and mother, I saw they were using Camilla as in the wife of Spencer W. Kimball or maybe that is after Camilla Parker Bowles.

They should have just called all the women "Ruth." Much simpler and nothing to keep track of. That's about the way they treat women anyway.

If this childish clubhouse crap really comes from some God it's time to come up with a new one. A God that is. I prefer a little more sophistication and creativity in a deity.

saucie Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The most destructive double whammy that belief in
> the church
>
> gives you is that if you don't understand
> something about the
>
> doctrine, its not the church's fault, its your
> fault for not
>
> being faithful enough, good enough, and blah blah
> blah, the
>
> list goes on. It's called "blaming the victim".

Yup. Our daughter said the stake presidency blamed the members for the ignorance their children have of the temple. One woman angrily fired back,"We have been told not to talk about the temple and now we are being chastised for not talking about it."

It's pretty apparent the church doesn't know what to do. They are losing members and they are terrified about losing a huge number of the younger members. The younger members attending the temple hate it and many never go back and leave the church.

So if all fails blame mom and dad. Our daughter said the stake presidency said teaching your children the gospel is your responsibility not the church's. So it was guilt trip a mania.

In 1993 BKP said that the three greatest threats to the Mormon church were feminists, homosexuals, and intellectuals. I guess now Russ is adding Mormon Mom and Pop to that list.

When you are as messed up as the men in the red velvet chairs, your hands could get seizures with all the finger pointing you have to do in order to take the blame off of yourself.

Haha. If I had nickel for every time I heard that I could get a Triple Venti Latte at Starbucks.



"I learn something new every time I go to the temple."

"Oh yeah? Like what?"

"I can't tell you because we are not IN the temple."



Hahahahah ha ha ha

I heard that a lot before getting my mission call. It made going to the temple that first-time sort of exciting! I was going to learn a lot, but apparently there was SO MUCH going on that it was impossible to grasp it all, which was why you had to keep going!!

Then I went to the temple and was pushed into making a left turn, down the road the atheism.

What I learned in the temple was that Elohim was clueless and instead of being omniscient had to keep asking Jehovah and Peter Paul and Mary to keep reporting back. Color coded charts and whatnot I suppose. Finally Elohim sticks his head into the garden and has to ask "What's happenin?" and it's Lucifer who fills him in and reminds his omniscience that "this is the way it's done in all the worlds. Duh."

I learned Satan had mighty priesthood and the best apron with the coolest insignias and that Satan was a Methodist minister.

I learned if you want to look really stupid, the temple is the best place to go for that.

But I got all that the first time and never learned anything new after that.

"this is the way it's done in all the worlds. Duh."

That was succinct as fuck.

Thank you.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/13/2019 06:08PM by Levi.

I love you, Done & Done!



"Burnout" still blames the victim.

Sorry, Shinehah, there're no "announcements", anymore.

There has always been a lack of temple attendance, in California, ever since I can remember. We had "mandatory" ward temple night, and when just the same four people showed up, it was expanded to stake temple night. Now, they've given up the idea of group attendance altogether.

Temples have been for money-laundering and for the tax-free free-maintence holding of lands, for many years, now. IMO, temples weren't EVER built because there was a "need."

No building was ever so useless, or so obnoxiously ugly.

Done & Done Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I learned if you want to look really stupid, the
> temple is the best place to go for that.

With no prior briefings or hints, we were hit in the Temple with treats that our throat would be slashed if we whispered a word about the ludicrous rites to any fellow mortal.

That sort of baloney did it for me first time around.

What new thing would I learn next week?

All of it was based on the rebungnified Freemasonry scam of mind-control and money-grubbing.

Good luck with that!

I had temple burnout 30 years ago. Imagine the angst now when the younger people are away from their phones for hours? Makes me wonder if some of them might sneak their phones into temple sessions and check their instagram account from time to time. Do the temples have wi-fi? hehe

My guess is that what will drive younger folks away from TSCC is the endless callings. Attending temple 'sometimes' is one thing, but having these callings every single week? Ridiculous, especially the meaningless ones or the ones that cost money such as providing snacks and projects for kids.

I agree with Gemini on doing without phones. In my ward during sacrament meeting there were always people in the lobby on their phones. I think they waited till after sacrament had been passed.

If you have a smart phone, I don't think you would need wi-fi in the temple because you are getting internet through your phone carrier. No need for anyone to enable wi-fi.

I'm not sure this is a long term plan or just a desperate ploy to prop up sagging numbers, and/or assign blame for the sagging numbers. I'm detecting a sense of panic among the leaders. Jeff Holland has been panicky for years now,

Brother Of Jerry Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'm not sure this is a long term plan or just a
> desperate ploy to prop up sagging numbers, and/or
> assign blame for the sagging numbers. I'm
> detecting a sense of panic among the leaders. Jeff
> Holland has been panicky for years now,

It's panic. If they make the church more liberal it will piss off the conservative members and the more liberal people who left still won't come back. The church is going to lose a lot of it's younger members and all they can think of is to blame the parents for their children's failure. The church never does anything wrong. It's always the members fault.

Now that you don't get to have your own planet anymore, isn't the temple hoopla about the only thing left that the Mormons have to distinguish themselves from the pack of other churches?

As Mazeppa said, "You gotta have a gimmick--if you're gonna bump it, bump it with a trumpet!"


And the Mormon gimmicks keep falling by the wayside. The temple is the only thing left for their "fan dance," and it's not working anymore. Uh Oh! Silly and boring is "so yesterday!"

Done & Done Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Now that you don't get to have your own planet anymore...

No? Wait! I had mine already picked out....

oh...wait...did wimmen-folk get their own planets or only menfolk?

Lost out again!!!

Wimmin-folk get to be part of a harem. Doesn't that sound just heavenly?

Pretty much. I think you will eventually see some of these temples go up for sale. I don't know when the announcing a bunch of them during general conference will stop. It's gotten quite ridiculous.

Well, they've dumbed it down to the point of it being completely nonsensical.

Back in the day, prior to 1990, There was a lot of pageantry to it. Up, down, up, down, up, down. There were penalties. You'd pantomime your own death several different ways. There was a mystique to it that has since been removed.

"You and each of you do hereby covenant with God, Angels and these witnesses that you will never reveal the first token of the aaronic priesthood, along with its sign, name and penalty, rather you would suffer (slit) your life (slit) to be taken" (this was off the top of my head, might have gotten it wrong)

The above paragraph has been replaced with elihome saying "Thank You."

You used to have to put the robe on the left shoulder that would be changed to the right shoulder. Now, that's gone and all you do is put it on once on the right shoulder.

With all these changes, I wonder how it comes off to a new initiate? I know that there was so much going on, I couldn't focus on any particular oddity.

That is the thing!

When I went through the SLC temple with the live ceremony in the late sixties, it was at least "over-the-top" with the pomp and ceremony so that by the time I was dragged through the curtains into the Celestial Room I felt like I had been part of something grand enough to leave me dazed and confused.

Then after the mission, the next time I went was to the new Orem temple and we sat in folding chairs in our yards of flowing white and watched it all projected onto a screen which made it seem like we should at least be having some popcorn and junior mints with it. The penalties just made it seem like we were watching some TV show or something.

Would love to see what Rotten Tomatoes had to say about the Mormon Cinema of nowadays dumbed down to the max.

"He also said he was alarmed at how many said they disliked all the mechanical symbolism and had no understanding of the spiritual significance or blessings that come from them."

I went through the year long temple class (isolated and segregated from my peers) and learned squat. The church wanted it that way.

How unspecific was it?

"You will make promises and covenants"

It's too sacred to discuss.

I think it's abundantly clear that church would love to lay blame on the parents for not pushing their kids harder with church directives.

It was blame the parents. Apparently they have what you can talk about on LDS.org. Clearly this is trickling down from Russel M Nelson. He's a big ordinance guy. He feels the members have no clue what the ordinances mean and he's going to blame your parents and tell them it's their responsibility and the resources are on LDS.org.

This is Russ's new plan. Guilt trip the parents and chastise them for their failures and tell them to teach a bunch of church provided doctrine that's available on the internet to their kids and the church will follow up on their progress in interviews.

Pretty creepy stuff when you figure out what it is. Russ learned a few things when he was working behind the iron curtain. He's turning the church into the East German Stazi.

Temples are a profit generating enterprise for ChurchCo with the added Bonus of keeping members in the habit of being Distracted from core Christian valued And to being often - indoctrinated.

Nothing more or less.

The temple is boring as hell.

Don't know how people can take sitting through two sessions, I could barely stand one.
And this only because we would go out and have a nice dinner afterward.

Nothing to see here, move along.

hell, it was weird as hell.

Now they are talking like the parents are supposed to tell their kids about the temple. Sure! My daughter knew everything. She was anti back in her late teens and early 20s and I told her everything. She still found it weird. She told her dad what she found to be weird. I'll have to ask him what is was again. There were several things.

BUT she and her husband go to the temple quite often. If she has kids, I think that will die down!! ha ha ha I have NO DOUBT it is my daughter who instigates the temple visits, not her husband.

What if it didn't matter what COB threw at its active members? What if the only thing that mattered was that the likelihood was that the majority of their active members would fall short of their expectations.

Then they can claim that they DO have prophetic power in their organization.

Self-fulling prophetic powers.

I could see that.

That's like a leader that doesn't give due notice for a meeting then cries about how nobody respects him/her because they didn't bother to show up.

I got booted out of a scouting position because it was claimed that I wouldn't bother to attend because I didn't care. Truth be told, I was never notified.

I think the church is now content that the flaky members are leaving because their testimonies are too weak. They will never acknowledge that it's THEIR LEADERSHIP (or lack of) that is driving people to resign.

Poor leaders need poor polices and poor guidance to cover up their lacking...

And yet we read about Third World members who work overtime and sell possessions to tithe and save up money for a once-in-a-lifetime trip to some temple a thousand miles away.

Because temples....

Can you imagine how those members who sacrifice so much time and money to get to a temple feel after the first session? "That's it? Poor souls.

When I joined the church in the mid 70’s there were just 16 temples worldwide.
Going to the temple was a big event, it would be planned, usually a ward or stake event, sometimes staying overnight or several days, staying in the accommodation centre on site. We would travel together, usually on a coach hired by the church.
There was lots of socialising and camaraderie, we’d see and catch up with old friends from other areas who we’d not seen for a while. Yes, in spite of the actual temple work it was fun and we enjoyed it.
Now there are hundreds of temples, so a lot of members live within easy reach of one, and it loses its appeal.
Members are more able to travel there themselves, without the need of an organised trip. All the fun things associated with the old temple trips are gone, and we’re left with just the drudgery of the temple work itself.
When a new temple was announced and built in our area in the 90’s, there was a lot of excitement, we no longer had to travel for several hours, it put the temple in easy reach to be able to go wherever we wanted.
Once the initial novelty and flurry of excitement wore off, very few people attend , and have to be pushed to do so.
I think this will be a common scenario out in the “mission field”.

Does anyone remember their ward setting monthly or yearly temple goals for quorum participation, and other temple goals (baptisms, iniatories, and endowments?

The church loved to encourage ward competition to drive the numbers.

yorkie Wrote:

> Now there are hundreds of temples

Scarcity makes things special? And now they're not special....

That's a miscalculation by ChurchCo for sure.....

Yup. When I lived in New York everyone loved the bus trip down to the Washington DC temple. The temple part was blah but the rest of it was fun.

My many time great grandmother summed up her temple feelings in the 1880s.

"I no longer need to return to the temple. All the work is done for all my ancestors that I can find."

That was the original Joseph Smith plan.

When I was still attending, the big incentive to attend ward temple night was the announcement of which member would be hosting the treats at their house after the session.
I always thought that about summed up the excitement of a temple session.

A "jest" popular in my very own EQ was for someone at the end of each and every event in which the wives were involved to yell, "Okay, guys, throw your keys in my hat and then the wives will close their eyes, pick a set of keys and go home with that guy!"

...Really grabbed my attention the first couple of times this happened...

The stake president "is alarmed at how little people getting their first recommend know about the temple ordinances and their meaning" . LOLOLOL seriously?

The temple is "sacred," which means "secret," which means you're not supposed to talk about it except in the temple. So how is anyone supposed to know about it? That's just funny.

I know, I know, I attended all the temple prep classes. I read all the books I was supposed to read about preparing for the temples. I think the main reading was a short book called "standing in holy places." I myself was deeply perturbed at how little I knew going in, and, as I went out, I felt deeply hurt at all that was thrown at me without explanation.

All the prep classes and books taught was "you will get wonderful things from the Temple, so keep an open mind and have faith." Period.

If they want people to understand more about the temple going in, then they will need to actually TELL them.

I don't think there was temple prep when I went late sixties but I never got any of that prep stuff.

My parents talked about how sacred and glorious and special and holy and (add your own adjective here) the temple was but I never got any details or even a hint.

So its a twofer. First, after the buildup I was expecting the most heavenly wisdom filled event of a lifetime, and thought I would see an angel or something similar (serious here) and then, second, I got the dog and pony show! That was so generic with a "Dick and Jane" style play that all I could think was "HUh????" You finally get into the Celestial Room and then all you can think is "What did I miss? This can't be it!" And then the matron tapped me on the shoulder and ask me to move it along to make room for the next group of suckers.


So, if they wanted parents to be telling children about the temple---- which they didn't--- but they need to claim that now, where is the handbook to specifically guide parents on what to say about the most important day of their lives?

"If they want people to understand more about the temple going in, then they will need to actually TELL them."

This is an Emperors' New Clothes moment. They've never been able to talk about what goes on in the temple because it's jibberish and nonsense. Seriously, what could you say about what goes on in there that wouldn't cause "loud laughter" and unholy thoughts?

alyssum Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The [Mormon 'church'] is alarmed at how little people getting their first recommend know about the temple ordinances and their meaning. LOLOLOL seriously?
>
> ... "you will get wonderful things from the Temple, so keep an open mind and have faith." Period.
>
> If they want people to understand more about the temple going in, then they will need to actually TELL them.
>

Yes. Starting AT or BEFORE age 8/ BAPTISM!

I took a (TT) "Temple Test" as a youth. It was actually a questionnaire to "see how much you know (we - and/ or your parents - TAUGHT YOU) about the temple".

In a nutshell, it was a regurgitation of wishful thinking (if thinking), false symbolism, low fiction and big lies. You wear white clothes, are sealed to your family for "eternity" (impossible), 'good' feelings... etc.

TSCC taught me NOTHING (true or useful) about the temple, and forbade my dear mother from knowing or teaching us, and NOW says they did their best to tell us the truth. Liars-

TSCC: ALWAYS blaming the victim, ALWAYS crying wolf, ALWAYS begging for money (like a bum; because it is), complaining of ignorance above wisdom, and eternally crying foul.

WHEN WILL 'THE CHURCH' WAKE UP? When the alarm goes off? No... It is always on snooze. It is afraid of members waking up (even though the building is on fire and the flood waters are rising), though they gave them sleeping pills.

Mormonism ALWAYS tried to keep me in the dark.

I AM the Light.
I SEE the Light.
I NEED the Light!

Mormon temples operate in the dark and prefers members do too.

Not me!
Not you!

Agreed.

I hated the stench of pungent chlorine mixed with all kinds of snot and mucus. It was gross.

Many a times, the youth became ill from water penetrating the nostrils. It was inevitable from rapid dunkings. They had a pool-like skimmer with fine mesh to collect the offerings. They claimed that there was no time to drain the font, but cycled the water through jet spigots. Then the brave would re-enter the water for more baptisms.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/14/2019 02:09PM by messygoop.

IMHO:

youngers aren't accepting MoMism blindly like past (my) gens did. More of them want substance, which is 99% AWOL from ChurchCo.

the Temple Hype isn't working for them.period.

If I'd been allowed to talk about my first temple experience I would have said something like, "well, first I wore a white outfit with a slit on the side and a woman rubbed oil on me and gave me a new name which I promptly forgot (I still don't remember it) because I was so freaked out. Then I entered a room where men sat on one side and women on the other. The men looked ridiculous wearing white clothes and what looked like bakers hats. I almost started laughing. Then we watched a film about Adam and Eve from the time they were innocent in the garden of Eden till Eve gave into temptation and they were kicked out. Adam and Eve were really good looking with 70s hairdos. One of the characters was played by the actor Gordon Jump from the TV show, WKRP in Cincinnati. During the ceremony we put on a green aprons and had to bow our heads and say "yes." We had to pantomime slashing our throats and disemboweling ourselves to show that we wouldn't give away the secrets. Then we went to the veil were we whispered the secret password and gave the secret handshake. Someone stood next to me to make sure I said it correctly. When it was finally over I was lead to the celestial room where I was greeted by the Smiths (not their real name), the wealthiest, snootiest couple in the stake. They welcomed me into the Celestial room as if they were inviting me into THEIR home - yes, I thought I had just entered their living room.

If I had told anyone what really happened in the temple they would have thought it was totally weird. I thought it was totally weird. That is why TBMs don't talk about it. It's not that it is "sacred," it's that if they try to put it honestly into words there's no way to explain it so that it sounds wonderful. Best not to talk about it.