Yes I miss the fear instilled in me and my daughter when being commanded to obtain a years supply of food and items for an emergency. That actually came from the family home evening manual. My daughter cried and didn’t sleep for a week. I don't think we felt safe at all compared to non-mormons.
And I really miss paying my tithing then having to ask the church for welfare. I miss being taken grocery shopping by some old lady and being told what I could and couldn’t buy. I most of all miss being patronised, and being the constant recipient of charity, all because I was too afraid to not pay tithing. I was truly blessed, lol :-)
One thing that I've learned since coming to RFM is the truth about the Mendoza line. Truth be told, my family was below that abstract principle. In the 1970s, my ward conducted a planned Tuesday night "ward emergency" exercise. It involved a simulated emergency to pass on an important message via telephone. Each family was supposed to receive a minimum to two calls from various leaders/home teachers. I still remember the struggle that my Mom had to keep the kids/teens off the phone. We had lots of calls, but they were non-church friends wanting to speak to my older siblings. No calls came from our leaders, but it was declared a success even though my family had been skipped over.
I learned from that event that a church emergency (and others) that my family wasn't viable. I always figured that the walk to Missouri would leave my family behind.
I was somewhat surprised to find that I didn’t miss it at all once I left. I don’t miss church meetings, the people, or all the stuff I had to do. I missed the certainty of everything. It’s a bit like getting out of prison.
The Abusive Doomsday Sex CULT of Joseph's Myth Sycophants was never thrilling for me. It was always more of an obligation and a way to instill good values in my children. Little did I realize that among those "Traditional Family Values" was singing praises to a child rapist/cuckold Bull.
Remember the dramatized church history tapes? There was dramatized king to Missouri, and prophets getting killed in Jerusalem then rising again. My dad loved those and we would listen to them on road trips. I was 10-13. Those scared the shit out of me, then I accepted it and thought I was the only one with that knowledge of what was to come. I wonder what new converts would think of this Apocalyptic mind set. The Corp has really distanced itself from it. Or that is my experience from the past 2 decades.
OMG. Yes! Out here on my own. It's scary. No one to tell me what to do. No one to make sure I am not falling into the hands of Satan. No one to make me feel guilty when I do and remind me I am about to lose my Celestial Reward whatever that is. And worst of all, I can't find any really boring, mind numbing meetings to attend no matter how hard I try. It's no fair the way Satan has made everything so much fun as he plies us with those dangerous facts he throws around. The adversary plays dirty. No doubt about it.
It's hard to believe that was really my life--believing nothing we did really mattered because Jeebus was just around the corner and the important thing was preparing for that.
Jeebus ain't comming. We baby boomers will die out and no Jeebus--no return to Adam-Ondi-Ahmen, no rapture, no return to Jerusalem. But there WILL be more wars and rumors of war, more poverty, more severe weather, more of the "elite" falling, all those predictions will become more and more true. They're self-fulfilling.
And our children's generation will be waiting and waiting and waiting as the world gets crazier and wickeder and we destroy it even more. And their children's generation will wait, and their children's generation will wait....until... hey, there really is an end of the world as we know it. We destroyed ourselves! But unfortunately, still no Jeebus. There are those who will ALWAYS be waiting.
No, I don't miss that mindset. It was absolutely impossible to really be positive, to see humanity, to want the world to be something better, to believe it's even possible.