I was a convert and so was my boyfriend at BYU. We were both pretty angry that nobody told us about garments before we got baptized. He borrowed a pair of his roommates garments and brought them to my apartment so we could inspect them. It was a long time before I saw what women wore.

I just wish it had been a bigger deal for me so I would have left LDS, Inc. sooner.

I saw my dad wearing his after mom converted and they started going to the temple. I never told him I thought they looked stupid..which I did. I also knew back them I would never wear them. I'd made my mind up before I became a deacon that I wasn't going on a mission.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/09/2019 09:06AM by Lethbridge Reprobate.

I wasn't a convert, but grew up in a church when temple attendance wasn't heavily pushed. My parents were active, but didn't hold recommends. They became temple ready in time for me to serve a mission. Even though I took a year long temple-prep class, it was very vague about what the hell actually transpired in the temple. Oh sure, I was told that you would make "certain" covenants, but I didn't know that I would promise to avoid loud laughter and give all my belongings to the church.

Garments were not mentioned at all. It was a shock to learn that the garments were to be worn ALL THE TIME. My god, it was bad enough that I was going to be wearing a suit, necktie and white shirt as a full time missionary, but also damn hot itchy underwear. (I already had the shock of my life being NAKED in the temple.) I remember being given the bottom garment while standing with a baby-doll length shield and having 3 men watching me cover my junk. I think the left knee cap touched the floor as I got my right leg through it. A cranky temple worker yelled. "Don't ever let them touch the ground. EVER!" It scared me to be yelled out that I almost lost my balance and again the garment touched the ground. A different worker yelled at me for being careless.

Added: I went with my Mom to the Beehive store (on the alley side of the DI) the day before. She had a conversation with the sales lady about what size I would need. The entire transaction took about 2 min. The sales lady said "Hold onto them until he gets to the temple. Don't let him look at them or open the bags. My Mom was very hush about it. I think she said that I needed to get some things that were needed for the temple.

I wish that I would have had a correct and proper sized poncho for the initiatory.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/09/2019 10:09AM by messygoop.

We had a bunch of cranks in the initiatory as well. I went through with several missionaries and my mom told me I would have to get naked but I would wear a poncho.

Anyways I come out of the locker petition butt naked with the white poncho on and the other elders had garments on under their ponchos. I felt like an idiot but one of the cranky old men told the others they were not supposed to wear their garments yet.

We are all sitting naked on this bench in our ponchos and the bench is shaking. Some of the elders were so nervous they were shaking. The one next to me mumbles,”This is strange”.

I don’t think it was a spiritual experience for any of us. I think we all wanted to get are clothes on and leave the freak house.

Are mormons still required to pledge to give all their belongings to THE CHURCH? If so, how does that work out regarding wills?

Nottamo but married to a sortamaybenotreallymo.

Phil in Roy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Are mormons still required to pledge to give all
> their belongings to THE CHURCH? If so, how does
> that work out regarding wills?
>
> Nottamo but married to a sortamaybenotreallymo.

What it can mean is that the church may or not approach members if the church is "eyeballing" your real estate. They may get all friendly and say "Hey Brother Bill, the lord's work is really moving fast and it has been made known that you have some property that would greatly benefit the church. How about it?"

We had a widowed sister that was called as RS president after her hubby passed on. They owned some very prime real estate that served them well as a X-mas tree farm. During ward council, she made a comment to the bishop to tell the SP to back off. She had no intention of giving away her farm to the church.

I saw my parents wearing them when I was little. I thought they were old fashioned. I had no idea that one piece underwear had anything to do with the temple.

I remember my dad had these funny “V” markings on his underwear but figured it was a trade mark or something. I had no idea it was religious.

I don’t know when I found out about garments. Maybe in seminary. I wasn’t shocked because my older brother left the church and seemed happy. I subconsciously planned to do the same. I wasn’t going to stick around in the church because I felt they were too controlling.

But I still wasn't prepared for the ridiculous nothingness of the temple rituals.

All my life I grew hearing nothing but hype about the temple experience. Of course nobody could tell me any details because it was "too sacred." I had to wait and "be worthy" to go when the time came.

Based on the hype, I halfway expected to see supernatural things in the the temple. At a minimum, I expected to receive profound truths and answers to they mysteries, with details about the nature and reality, including the spirit realms, that simply were unavailable to anyone outside of the temple. I thought it would be a life-changing event.

Then I went for the first time. During the whole thing, I was shocked at how goofy and stupid each phase was. "Is this some kind of joke?"

But up to the end, I held out hope that the best was yet to be revealed. Well, it turned out that the climax of the entire series of rituals was doing a stupid hug with a guy hiding behind a curtain and then walking into a room that looked like a fancy hotel lobby.

"Maybe something special is going to happen in this room" Nope. As I stood there waiting for something...anything...that would match any of the hype I had heard all of my life, an old lady came up to me and suggested that I should get out because other people needed to come through.

I then spent then next 3 years or so with a voice screaming in my head "You've got to be forkin' kidding me!!! You. Have. Got. To. Be. Forkin'. Kidding. Meeeee!"

And, brothers and sisters, that's why the temple is so special to me. It's the experience that implanted the "you've got to be forkin' kidding me!!!" screaming voice in my head.

I thought it all was a bad joke. My first time through the temple was a live session. Old people doing bad acting. It was nuts.

Wally, your first temple trip was a lot like mine. All the hype and excitement contrasted with the SERIOUS let-down of the real thing.

I got in on the old-style throat-slitting and disemboweling gig. I remember thinking to myself, "Seriously? Is this weirding out anybody else? How am I supposed to keep a straight face with this malarkey going on??"

I wasn't shocked about the garmies. My VTs were cool and they told me all about them. Their descriptions were both accurate and very funny. For the first few months, I kept the eagle eye out to see who wore garmies and who did not. I felt like I had been elected into an elite group who got to wear the "magic skivvies," and I thought it was cool.

But after the novelty wore off, my youngest daughter took me skivvy shopping at Victoria's Secret, and that was even MORE fun. I know that you can get sensible underwear at WalMart, but there is just a certain caché about Victoria's Secret. While I wear some of their more conservative designs, they still out-flash Wally World, and my DH likes what I choose, so we are both happy.

My mother showed me her garments, which were the old-fashioned one-piece flare-leg style. Women didn't want to take all their clothes off to go to the bathroom, so they had to pee through one of the flared legs! I guess they had sex that way.... No, I'm not joking. You can't make this stuff up. Garments were designed by men.

I got another shock, because my mother had taken out the seam from between the two legs, and had sewn the legs together, so it was like a mini-skirt slip. She sewed pretty lace around the bottom of the skirt, and around the neckline. She wore normal women's underwear underneath the "slip"--another no-no. My father refused to wear garments. He said they were uncomfortable, and the nylon made him hot. I think it was partly vanity, too, as they were very attractive people, and were social with a lot of non-Mormons.

>>>>He said they were uncomfortable, and the nylon made him hot.>>>>>


Oh, my goodness, are they ever HOT! That was eventually what forced me to stop wearing them. I had a job without air conditioning and I could not make it through the day without perspiring buckets. One day I went to the ladies room and took them off, put them in my purse, just so I could survive the rest of the day. Never put them back on again.

Texas was brutal. I would start perspiring within an hour after showering and that was within an air conditioned apartment. We left around 10am and returned about 1 in the afternoon. If possible, another shower and change of garments and clothing. I think we were supposed to have two weeks worth of garments as missionaries. More often than not, Thurs night was an emergency wash night if your companion wasn't a snitch.

I had seen my parents in G's many times growing up so I knew it was an eventuality for me. Still, I dreaded the thought of having to wear those fugly things as much as I dreaded going on a mission. I didn't want to give up my tighty whities (the anti-garment).

As for the actual first time through the temple, the voice in my head was screaming "IS THIS THE CHURCH I GREW UP IN??" I also thought that due to all the temple hype throughout my life that I was going to witness something mind blowing and actually thought that the veil was going to be some astral portal to another realm. When I discovered it was just a cheap crappy curtain I felt like Ralphie in A Christmas Story.

Yeah. I was hoping the veil was going to be a cosmic stargaze or something.

Another thing that pissed me off was my mission president halfway joked and said nothing like finding out you were lied to to get you out here.

I think that’s why most of us left. The church does not tell the truth and cannot be trusted.

clotheslines, as did my parents. I had people who worked with me at Thiokol ask me about them as they saw them on clotheslines.

I had been single until I was 27 and all my friends were married and they made it a point to let me know that I wasn't finding someone. I was scared shitless to go through the temple. I don't like to not know ahead of time what is going to happen. I had been through enough with my gay/straight relationship dealing with leaders and I wasn't sure I even believed anymore, but if we were going to get married, it was all I knew and thought maybe there was hope this could work???? I wanted to elope and not get married in the temple. I was such a mess. Then I had to deal with my cousin about getting a TR and he didn't know anything about my relationship. I was to tell no one.

I had one thing going for me in that I knew what happened with the washing and anointing as a friend I worked with had heard you had to get naked, so I asked my sister about it. I told her if she didn't tell me, I was immediately leaving the church, so I was prepared for that.

I also remember sitting in the endowment session--after seeing my future husband in that hideous hat and I almost laughed out loud--and thinking, "This isn't the church I was raised in. What about the fact we don't have rituals like the Catholics?"

I was just RELIEVED to know what goes on at first. It just got worse as time went on as I thought about it and tried to go. The old ladies were meaner than hell. I don't deal well with that type of thing. Even on my wedding day, they were treating me horribly until my meek mother showed up. Just having her there, they backed off.

The garments were more of a "I'm finally part of the club" as I had been treated so poorly for so long by many of my friends (none of whom I speak to any longer). I had made it. Me, Lucy (my super duper special name that God had given me).

I went back very few times. I was a very devout mormon, as I know many here were. I just couldn't do it. It was NOT a good experience and it was bizarre (my dad even told me that years later).

I actually just thought everyone wore the garments until I was older. I just thought they were underwear that adults wore.

The reason I find myself on this board is that after being inactive for at least 10 years, I discussed why I couldn't stop wearing garments with my exmo therapist and he sent me here to read about garments. I laughed until I cried over posts on garments and I quit wearing them.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/09/2019 09:26AM by cl2.

As a boy, my old man walked around happily in his onesy garment for men (inside the house only). He made us gather around the family room every night for family prayer where each of us would find a chair and lean in to it. I always positioned myself opposite my old man because when he bent over the flap in the back didn't always conceal his inner testimony. I would pray that I would never passingly catch a glimpse of his back side - which was very shocking.

When I found out you had to get naked in the temple, that was the moment I knew this church was not for me. Luckily, someone was unafraid enough of the penalties that he informed me of what really goes on and that removed all doubt about my religious future. Also, garments are too fugly. My mother running around with a girdle on top of her garments was not a pretty sight.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/09/2019 12:00PM by momjeans.

I never knew a thing about temple rituals until I heard about them here. Had I attended, I am fairly certain I would been escorted off the property and possibly barred from ever entering the community again....just my reaction.

Lethbridge Reprobate Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I never knew a thing about temple rituals until I
> heard about them here. Had I attended, I am
> fairly certain I would been escorted off the
> property and possibly barred from ever entering
> the community again....just my reaction.

And the church knows that the natural response is to bolt or flee from danger. They place two of your sponsors (escorts)


You get a little paper pinned to your shirt. It's supposed to remind temple workers that this is your first time (and to be NICE to you).

were never nice. I go to an old friend's daughter to get my hair cut and she works in the temple one night a week. She said that they have told them to BE NICE and do not correct anyone UNLESS you see something that is something that definitely needs to be corrected. This girl is 33. They are calling younger people more and more to work in the temple. She said that, yes, they have had problems and are trying to stop it from happening.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/09/2019 04:41PM by cl2.

Temple workers in my experience were either very nice or crabby. Usually the crabby ones were old and they probably didn’t feel good and didn’t want to be there.

So many felt it was their job to rebuke and correct. I went to 5 different temples in multi-states (two in Utah) and it was always the same. I don't think they were ever nice.

No, when you see your parents wearing them it doesn't

seem shocking, it seems normal.

I grew up with seeing my parents wearing them. I don't know why, but I didn't really understand that they were a religious symbol until I was like 9 or 10. I just thought garments were something that all adults wore. I remember being in the store and noticing a woman in a sundress and saying (probably too loudly), "How can that woman wear that dress with her garments." My mom shushed me very angrily.

"Ghosts in Garments".

Nothing could amp up the scariness of ghosts in a ghost movie like having them appear wearing Mormon temple garments.

Usually, the scary ones have been shown wearing old-timey clothes, indicating that they've been dead since the benighted old days. But have them show up in temple garments would take it to the next level of scariness.

I don’t remember whether I knew about them or not as a new member. Somehow nothing about the temple shocked me, but I think I was just that brainwashed.
When I discovered the silky garments it was a huge relief. The poly cotton ones itched like crazy.
What did shock me a bit was being told that bras should be worn over the top. I sometimes didn’t do so as it was too uncomfortable. Also awkward: time of the month. Wearing garments was just unreasonable, and pointless. More behavioural control. It’s all about control and submission.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/10/2019 04:16AM by LJ12.

My parents got their endowments etc when I was about 14. My younger brother and I were sealed to them that same day. I remember that I had never seen anyone, let alone my parents wearing garments. Mom made sure we never saw her wearing them and my dad was already so modest it was almost laughable.

I went to the temple for my endowments before I my mission; no one had ever said what garments look like. That day, my dad and I went to the dressing room together and he was wearing garments that went down to his ankles. He never told me why.

Then I got to the mission field and saw companions wearing them and some of them were so worn out and grimy looking it was sad.

I told my mom how bad they looked and when I came home on Thanksgivine Day 1970 she had a whole new supply of them at home and we cut out the marks and tossed them away.

I grew up with parents who wore garmies, so it wasn't something to which I gave much thought until I approached the point of having to wear them myself. Even the idea bothered me, and the idea wasn't half as bad as the uncomfortable and thoroughly un-sexy reality. I ditched the ungodly rags about a third of the way through my mission.

I know of a convert who left the church when she learned of garments. When a person didn't grow up in a cult dictating what form of undies were to be worn, the very concept would have been rather daunting. Perhaps something else the young woman was not yet told under the milk-before-meat guise would have scared her away from her baptismal covenants eventually, but in her case the garmies were the operative agent in her complete and total inactivation.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/11/2019 03:04AM by scmd1.

Seeing my parents wearing them was disturbing. It looked cultish and weird. I knew I'd never wear the things.

So...I bought into the idea of garments because they were connected to the temple which, you know, was the be-all and end-all until I actually went there.

And, it was the same with the garments. Yeah, I was shocked at how UGLY they were, how uncomfortable they were (try breast-feeding in them), and how easy it was to see if people wore them (or not). Wearing them made me feel as if I had a sign advertising that I had arrived and was now a confirmed member of something or other....because that thar temple ceremony was so weird, so juvenile, and sooo boring that I did not know what in the he!! I had walked into and crawled out of.

I felt I had been sold a rotten bale of goods in the name of the "most sacred experience of my life". Really? This is it? And, the ghastly garments were a constant reminder of the deception by the church. To me, the supposedly Golden experience was nothing but a really bad road show with coercive lines demanding that I devote everything--my time, money, and life--to the church, never asking me, just telling me.

Hmm....all this surely got me thinking.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/11/2019 04:56PM by presleynfactsrock.

The old one piecers were soooo nasty. They would get all yellow and gross. Had to fold them all the with a chorus of DON'T LET THEM TOUCH THE GROUND! Being the horrible child I was I rubbed them on the carpet at every opportunity.

And you haven't been struck down by lighting yet? Chuckle.

What about those of us who chucked them in the garbage *without* cutting out the symbols?! (Gasp)

Is there a reason most of you saw their parents wearing garments?
Did they wear them around the house, by themselves?
I thought that you weren’t supposed to see them , until you’ve been to the temple. I’m glad that I never wore them.
I never have heard this many people talk about seeing their parents in them, until just now.LOL, it’s funny.
My husband was wondering what I was laughing at and I told him.
He started laughing too. He is never- mo.
He didn’t believe me ,about the underwear part being this bad.

Pretty sure I walked around in my garments in front of my daughter when she was growing up. If it was hot, then another layer was too much. No need for pyjamas. No need to put sweatpants on. Lol (cringe).

I didn't know anything about them until I was put in foster care with an LDS couple. The husband would run around the house in his G's, butt flap flapping in the breeze. Once I asked what the little wads were on the chest and belly, and he explained that they were "marks" that stood for stuff that he couldn't tell me about. If you'll recall, back then it was on pain of death if he told me. A year or so later, I accidentally walked in on his wife when she was clad in the full niqab of garments, bra, girdle, and stockings pulled up over the legs of the garments. Hm. Sexy. But I was pretty shocked, thinking WTF??, women wear them, too? And it was summertime in S. California.