I tried to explain to my TBM daughter things that older people miss in the church. DW kept trying to say things alleging that it hadn't changed much. She, being TBM herself, has the ability to deny even the most obvious changes, as if the church is exactly the same as it always has been.

What are important/not so important changes you've seen? It just occurred to me again that up to some time in the late 1950's or early 1960's, guys would hold their right arm to the square when blessing the sacrament. Thereafter, many of the older and more cranky men kept up the practice into the 1970's.

Road Shows
Gold and Green Balls
Super Saturdays
Softball
Basketball


and more recently....Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts along with camping and pinewood derbies.

Yes, to all of those. No wonder the youth are no longer interested in going to church.

Finance Clerk Wrote:
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> Road Shows
> Gold and Green Balls
> Super Saturdays
> Softball
> Basketball
>
>
> and more recently....Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts
> along with camping and pinewood derbies.
but beginning with Spencer Babe that all changed. I remember it all clearly and I am 85 years old

Boy Scouts - yes, until a couple of years ago.

Girl Scouts - never, never, never

Gold and Green Balls? Is that the Mormon version of Blue Balls? Whether or not, it sounds painful...

vulcanrider Wrote:
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> Gold and Green Balls? Is that the Mormon version
> of Blue Balls? Whether or not, it sounds
> painful...

Church prom.

For all ages, but it was actually a lot of fun when I was a teenager. Four years of getting dressed up and going to a dance with a girl you really liked.

The list is pretty long.

I'd say the church is no longer the social center. We had

Monthly movie night
Ward dinners
Sports tournaments
Road Shows
Relief Society Bazaar (semi yearly rummage sale)
Halloween Carnival
Frequent dances including ones for adults as well as Daddy/Daughter and ones for teens
You could borrow a sewing machine from the ward.

In our small town the church was also used by the elementary school for assemblies as our school didn't have a stage and was next door to the school.

Sunday school for adults was often a heated debate on deep church doctrines!

People actually voted no when it came to sustaining some local leaders.

You didn't have to wear a white shirt and tie, even to bless the sacrament. Sometimes cops and servicemen wore uniforms and a lot of ranchers/farmers wore work clothes to sacrament meeting if they had work to do after.

Fast meeting ended early if no one stood up.

Weirdest thing.... The incestuous back rubs. That creeped me out more than anything.

Two years ago DW and I were at a concert in Austria. Next to us was a couple where the wife was rubbing her husband's back. I had only seen this in the Mormon Church. Sure enough, at intermission they started a conversation with us and commented they were from Utah.

Monthly movie night
Ward dinners
Sports tournaments
Road Shows
Relief Society Bazaar (semi yearly rummage sale)
Halloween Carnival
Frequent dances including ones for adults as well as Daddy/Daughter and ones for teens
You could borrow a sewing machine from the ward.

I was in California and I remember all this.

Sherry

I remember SusieQ#1 used to talk about all of the interesting things that the RS used to do in their meetings before church leaders decreed that every meeting has to have a gospel purpose. They used to do crafts, and discuss books, have travelogues, and demonstrations. The women also used to do projects to raise money. When the money had been collected, the women determined how they would spend it. Somewhere along the way, they lost that decision-making ability.

It's not a women's organization if the men are telling you how to do things.

I found some Relief Society magazines my mother put away in the early 60s

One detailed the finances of the Relief Society. It in luded buildings, sewing machines, income and expenses, amounts given to the poor and investments to include stocks and bonds.

Little wonder the church "absorbed" them in correlation.

Multi Stake Youth conferences, complete with a Hootenanny(at which I first publicly displayed my attempt to perform Dylan songs, irreverent lyrics and all) at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. That may have been the highlight of my not illustrious musical career, my hopes having been dashed on the rocks of mediocrity. I blame it all on my Mission President who nixed my desire to tote my Gibson from area to area, although lack of talent was the true culprit.

"talent was the true culprit"
Alas, my problem also

I've never let a lack of talent stop my massive mediocre musical endeavors.

My brother and I played church softball around 1970. He was also an elite level baseball player in his teens and the stake athletic director waited until we were headed to the regional playoffs to tell him he was disqualified from further play because he'd played Sunday games with his baseball team (our dad, was on high council at the time but he had no say in the matter apparently). The AD was a mercurial prick who loved what little power he perceived he possessed.
In 1963 our ward basketball team won the Canadian division and went to the All Church tournament in SLC.

Do they still hold "youth conferences"? I went to one in about 1963 in Edmonton. The grand finale was the Sunday service at the Northern Jubilee Auditorium in Edmonton featuring TS Monson, newly minted asspostile as the featured rock star.

skip meetings and go out behind the reservoir into the woods and smoke pot or drink booze.

Skip meetings and sneak into the church attic and smoke pot.

Bake pot brownies in the church kitchen.

Make out behind curtains on the stage in the gym.

Take mescaline at MIA.

You know, just the usual stuff.

Darn it! That was the ward I wanted to be in. . .

Those were the days! I think.....well, at least as far as I can remember anyway.

Mescaline at MIA sounds... interesting? Fun ? What was your verdict?

Definitely better than what they had planned for us!

My best friend even had sex with a girl up on the stage in the building. It scared him really badly, so he confessed to the bishop. The bishop brought the girl in, but she denied everything, and never got into trouble. My friend was preparing for a mission, so the bishop delayed it by one year. After he was on his mission to Mexica, he and his companion were alone with two girls, with whom he and his comp had sex. Again, he got scared and went to the mission president. The mission president sent him home, but Delbert Stapley insisted that he be disfellowshipped, too. His comp just denied everything, and so the MP just shrugged, and allowed him to stay out.

Announce excommunications from the pulpit during Priesthood Meeting.

Even worse than that, in the 1950's they were still announcing excommunications and disfellowshipping from the pulpit in sacrament meeting. Nothing like insisting on shaming people publicly. Now, I know they were losing probably most of those people were unnecessarily shamed and disciplined, which is probably why an apostle (I think Nelson) came to our military stake conference in Germany, in about 1988 or so, and in the priesthood leadership session told us that church leaders had been excommunicating too many people over things that didn't require excommunication. He listed adultery as one of the things that did not require excommunication, which surprised all of us who had witnessed the excommunication of every member who had committed adultery. However, you probably noticed that a lot of people still get not only excommunicated, but now for things that sometimes upset just one or two apostholes. If a member offends church leaders by, say, sticking to her guns about why masturbation is not "second only to death in seriousness," or someone who tried to get leaders to accept gays and back-sliders more, or some woman who questions why only men are allowed to hold the priesthood, are not only excommunicated, but excommunicated by order of SLC level leaders dictating to the individual's stake president, before claiming that it was just by local leadership.

My uncle claims that in was common in priesthood lessons of the 1960's for the civil rights movement to be called the work of Satan. That those spirits who were less valiant in the pre-existence were just making trouble.
Can this be accurate or is my uncle just making trouble?

That was official church doctrine. The President of the church, Ezra Benson, declared it in General Conference. As did Alvin Dyer (look him up).

Make sure you read this insult from Delbert Stapley to George Romney, the Mittster's father.

https://archive.org/details/DelbertStapleyLetter/mode/1up?view=theater

See Delbert Stapley's letter to George Romney, a fan of the Civil Rights Act, criticizing Romney by telling him what the church thought of "Negroes" and the Civil Rights Act. Hint: The church was not in favor of giving Blacks the same rights as white people. Go figure

Go to church

When I was very little and we were in Junior Sunday School and our parents weren't there, Laurie and I used to roll the shred of Wonder Bread sacrament into a small ball, save it and take it like a pill when the water came around. Well, until the grown-ups caught us.

I thought I was the only kid who played that trick. Mom caught me. Got in big trouble

After sacrament meeting, me and the other deacons would go up and scoff down the leftover sacrament bread.

Cheryl Wrote:
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> n/t

No but they still do that.

Just saying ;)

In church we used to believe.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
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> In church we used to believe.


True

Try anyway hahahHH

And to a lesser extent, we used to claim. (Can't forget the claiming!)

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/pgp/a-of-f/1?lang=eng

Isn't life easier now that Mormons no longer have to read and think?

They never had to... And it shows

I really had fun doing roadshows. Also we got to participate in the last all-church softball tournament in 1971, driving out from virginia to utah in a converted school bus. We didn't win any games, but i pitched to my teammate in the homerun derby and he won first place. I could really lob that ball. Then again, he could hit anything.
Really liked youth conference, too, because of the dances and and sight seeing. Also had my first make out session in a bus on the way to dance, sitting behind chaperone couple who were also making out. Ahhh, the memories.

Openly and proudly discuss "deep doctrines" as well as many doctrines that were orthodox at the time but which the church now denies or hides.

Well, we used to call ourselves Mormons, for starters.

Was stake Beehive slumber parties a churchwide thing or just California? My first year we were still in the stake centered in Palmdale. I just remember that we were up all night so we were sleeping in the back of the station wagon my mom was driving on the way home. Over the old Palmdale (Roller Coaster) Road. We all puked. Second year the stake had split and we were in our own town and I remember one of the leaders brought a movie projector and zombie movies. Nobody slept. Good times. Can't do any of that non-sperachul shit that's was just for fun and fellowship anymore.

Do you think it had anything to do with your mom's driving?

No. We used to have to go to Stake Conference every three months. Back when they'd have 2 sessions of it and they'd sell box lunches (on Sunday) in between sessions and we'd eat it on the lawn of the church. But I digress. Anyway, every time we'd go and had to drive over that road I'd get sick. It was truly a roller coaster.

Coincidentally, NormaRae and I were in the same stake, although we probably lived an hour and a half from each other. Big stakes back then. I remember the box lunches very fondly; they were sold outside in one of the courtyards of the stake center. Back then, local leaders and church members tried to provide some sort of comfort to those who drove in from Barstow, and other far-away towns, because stake conference was ALL FREAKIN' DAY.

Sometimes my mother would make a really nice picnic lunch - like fried chicken and potato salad and that's what we'd eat on our blanket on the lawn. But we kids were put out because we wanted to buy the boxes like everyone else had--like a sandwich, apple and chocolate chip cookie. Now what I wouldn't give for someone to cook me fried chicken and potato salad. It's like how I hated it when my mom would pack me a lunch in elementary school on homemade brown bread. I wanted wonder bread sandwiches like the other kids. These are the things that remind me how young and dumb I was at 8 years old when I was "mature" enough to make a decision about which cult I wanted to sell my soul to for the rest of eternity.

They even stopped all the good Primary songs. Sucked every bit of fun out.

My brothers and friends even made up our own words to the songs.

At Girls' Camp, the girls actually (gasp!) JUST WENT CAMPING. WITH NO MALE "LEADERSHIP" FOR MILES AROUND. My mother took home movies showing the girls swimming in the lake in their underwear. Yeah- bras and panties. And showed it to us kids and our family friends. And nobody was bothered in the least! (BTW, at the time I still thought girls were yucky).

Corn Busts? Have they given up on these as well?

I hated organizing them, but I loved sampling all the attempts to outdo each other’s recipes.

Two and a half minute talks, followed by “hymn practice”

The Sacrament Gem!!

Working on the church farm/orchard. Mine was picking green beans for hours at the farm. Hated every minute of it though.
No wonder I have never cleaned the chapel. Had enough of providing free labor to the church when I was young.(8-12)

Exactly! And I would swear that we heard far fewer lessons about sinning and sex back then. Now there is a greater effort to control, and to take responsibility from wards and stakes so that leaders in SLC could be in charge of your ward. What they've done is really damaging.

Fart and laugh

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Has anybody already said that (asking for my friend)?

PS-It's a joke: Before Covid - people Coughed to cover their Fart. During-After Covid - people Fart to cover their Cough.

I remember eating a little bag of cheerios and thinking this is bland and boring. Then they came out with honey nut cheerios and for a moment things were ok.

I remember letting out "Sneaky But Deadly" farts and watched how far it traveled around me by the look on people's faces. LOL!

My mom would immediately pinch the hell out of me and reach for a snot rag in her purse to cover her nose. Pretty soon most people sat away from us and those that couldn't watched for my mom to pull out the snot rag from her purse. LOL!

One time she pinched me so hard that I jumped farted aloud and it continued as I walked out of the sacrament meeting. Holy sh_t that was funny!