Even as a kid I saw the church leaders as nosey and creepy. I remember a bishop asking me if I masturbated and I was still in grade school. I had no idea what that word meant and the bishop got all embarrassed because he had to explain it to me. It was a strange interview.

I didn’t learn about that stuff until I found a Penthouse magazine in a dumpster and read the forum section. Hey. Masturbation. Yeah that’s what the bishop was talking about. Wow! Women have orgasms too.

Honestly. Kids are going to do what they do. Most of us just tell the bishop what they want to hear. If you were honest in any of those interviews you were a dolt.

Yeah, repressive cultures like that teach teach people how to lie. Some of my first lies in the church were about whether I believed.

The church taught me to lie like rug while appearing as innocent as a lamb. How can I ever repay them for giving me such a weapon for my arsenal?

My father the Bishop was so relieved in the interviews with my replies to the tough questions. I don't know if that is because he believed me or was just happy to be let off the hook.

I feel really bad for the kids who didn't know to lie. God invented it for a reason.

I learned early to tell the church leaders what I wanted to say, my parents too.

I never felt any allegiance to the church, its leaders or its teachings, same for my parents as far as mormonism was concerned.

I was quite the rebel as a kid.

People can tell when I'm lying and I have a huge guilt complex. I didn't lie and I lived my life so that I'd never have to tell a bishop something about sex. The bishop asked me about masturbation and I truly did not know what it was until I was 25. I was extremely sheltered and naive. You can ask my boyfriend, who knew me at age 20, too.

So then I found myself with a gay boyfriend and the bishop wanted us to experiment. I never allowed myself to do much of anything as I felt guilty even for French kissing. I've told the story so many times. I quit going to any bishopric interviews in 1990--the last temple recommend I have. I believe I got it in 1990, but not sure. It would have to be. I still have it. It is in my wallet just as what? Not that I'm proud. That I'm glad I'm out.

I can admit that I had ONE GOOD BISHOP when I was in my late teens early 20s and working at Thiokol. He didn't even ask me to go on a mission like all the other girls in the ward. I asked him why and he said, "Because you have your life together. You don't need direction." He was my health teacher in high school and we liked each other then. He moved into the ward later.

I never lied as I truly believe in discernment. I was afraid to go to temple just in case I wasn't perfect in every way and they would be able to tell.

Yeah, I used to have a fear of the whole "discernment" thing as well. I remember thinking that church leaders could see into my soul.

When I went for my patriarchal blessing I was concerned that when the patriarch went to put his hands on my head he would receive a shock similar to the wicked witch reaching for the ruby slippers in The Wizard of Oz. Or that he would stop mid-blessing and say something like, "I can't continue, the signal is breaking up, and the spirit is revealing to me that you had sex with your girlfriend two hours ago." Nothing.

My whole "discernment" shelf came crashing down when I had to speak/confess to a G.A. before going on my mission. I flat out lied to him. When I was able to make it to my car afterwards without being struck down by a lightning bolt, I realized they didn't have ANY power/gift of discernment. In fact, they didn't have jack shit.

cl2notloggedin Wrote:
----------------------------------------------------

> I was afraid to go to temple just in case I wasn't
> perfect in every way and they would be able to
> tell.

Boy do I know this feeling!

I can’t lie, either. It simply shows up everywhere on my face and movements. Can’t do it. It has rendered me permanently unsophisticated. And it’s hurt me more than once professionally.

My mum was one of those convincing monsters that had us believing she could see us even when she wasn’t there.

The eyes in the back of the head are cleverly hidden.

My traumatic ask about the M word was for my teacher priesthood upgrade expansion pack. Im sitting in the office and the bishop is in his chair asking the belief questions. then he asks about chastity. I say I live it. Then he asks if I masturbate. I had never heard that word and I ask him what that is. He then asks if I play with myself. There must have been either a blank look on my face or fear or confusion. There was a few second pause, then he takes his right hand, touches his thumb to his fingertips and commences a masturbation pantomime for a few strokes over his crotch. He stops after 3 or 4 stroking motions and asks if I do that. I was freaked out but I think I held my composure and said nope. I went home and tried looking up the word in a dictionary but thought he said alabaster, so I could not confirm what he was talking about.

That same bishop gave firesides where he told stories of people he had interviewed in years past being so overcome with guilt that they would confess to him years later they lied in interviews. I see that for the trick it is to plant seeds of self doubt and that the bishop really knows all. I think he said he could discern that people were lying but he didn't call them on it. I guess it was a way to create timebombs in people's heads to one day fess up. Years after that, I'm checking in at the recommend desk of my local temple and there is this old bishop. He didn't recognize me or my name when he read my recommend. I introduced myself and we spoke for a few minutes about where we were in life. His wife had passed away from cancer, and we spoke about his kids. I wonder if he even had a recollection about his panto-wank inappropriateness?

My favorite reply when I really want to piss off a bishop is
"NO Comment"
It drives them crazy
other than that I just say what they want to hear.
They are also mind controlled by their higherups.
Feel sorry for them "They know not what they do"
If you plan carefully you can drive them crazy with non-answer answers
You can also lead them down the garden path
THIS OF COURSE applies to those of is whose umbilical is still, for one reason or another, attached



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/27/2021 12:30PM by thedesertrat1.

Did not grow up in the church so was never asked such questions. I knew of bishops who asked married friends invasive questions but I was, and perhaps still am, bloody minded British enough to have replied "None of your business."

I really was a dolt. If any active Mormons are reading this: just lie. Lie and get out as soon as you can. You’ll thank me later. It’s taken me some twenty years to mostly recover from that crap, and I’ll never be 100%.

Some of us had bad experiences with church leaders. Some of us went into interviews with leaders who wrote down notes on legal pads. One bishopric in particular kept a dossier on every member, but he used the youth as the best weapon to really see what was (and wasn't) occurring in every member's home.

I tried to give vague and ambiguous answers, but those follow up questions with guilt would eventually catch me in lies.

An striking example was when I was no longer assigned to my Dad as his junior/aaronic ph home teaching partner. With my Dad, he would let me sit in the car under a tree while he visited members. And I could without hesitation tell my ph leaders that I indeed go home teaching with my Dad.

I was reassigned as my Dad became inactive. I was assigned to an octogenarian member who really shouldn't have been driving and was almost senile. He drove into the ditch then got the car stopped in the middle of the road and told me "You damn hitch-hiker" nearly killed me. Get out of mt car!." I was dumped on side of the road.

I decided it was easier just to take the ph berating for not taking the initiative to call up Brother Oldsmobile to go home teaching. If I lied and said that I went, they would track and harass Brother Oldsmobile in the hall and he would tell them "I am done with home teaching. I don't do it. Let me worship in peace!"

On my mission, the MP was an attorney. He ran the mission similar to the BYU honor code. You were supposed to rat out your fellow missionary companion (or others) who weren't following the rules. He read every weekly missionary letter as a intel report.

So one elder confided to me that their companionship was sleeping in until 10 am every Saturday. I thought to myself "Big deal." I really didn't care.

At the next zone meeting, this elder confessed the sleeping beyond 6:30 to the MP. And he fingered me as knowing about it.

So I got called in and admitted to hearing some elder's jibber-jabber about sleeping in. So I was deemed unworthy because I was supposed to care enough about his worthiness/salvation. I was also punished for knowing about it.

I will always remember the letter to the editor by a BYU professor after the mandate came down that folks who were LDS and teaching at BYU would have to maintain a temple recommend. He wrote in his letter that the mandate would just make skillful liars out of many of the employees in order to keep their jobs.

When I was a junior at BYU, a cute long distance girlfriend visited me from California over the Christmas break. We did some hanky panky in my apartment since all the roommates were gone. I had so much guilt that I finally confessed to my bishop a month or two later. He was a pretty cool character. He owned a drugstore in Provo and all the students seemed to like him a lot. He could tell that I was in anguish and told me that he would take responsibility for not taking any action, and basically told me to move on and to not worry any more about it.
So glad that my own kids led the way out of the church and that I finally followed them.

P.S.
My patriarchal blessing told me that I was to instruct my kids in the gospel, that they would have the option of following or not following but that I did not have a choice in teaching them. Boy, did I suck at following that. Glad that I did not try to do more, and wish that I had done less.
So glad that they are fine and accomplished people today without the burdens of a fraudulent religion.