The church obsesses about it’s youth and probably more now than ever. Russ has told bishops to delegate more tasks to the Elder’s Quorum President and Relief Society President so they can spend more time with the youth and be their buddy.

I had good bishops as a teenager. Their interviews they were forced to do weren’t probing. They just seemed like one of the guys on camp outs and youth conferences.

They just were there like most your teachers were there. Looking back most everyone was just there but a few things stand out. A coach or a teacher making an extra effort to help you or a boss giving some good advice.

Who I remember most was the other kids trying to get through the teenage years and dealing with the same crap. My seminary teachers, Sunday school teachers, bishops and all that are pretty forgettable. I couldn’t name most their names now.

I had a 'branch president' when I joined in Duluth, MN; my first bishop got me started to Ricks (yes, I'm that old!) & on my way to the Great Lakes Mission (same as MWR, partly to avoid Viet Nam/the Draft).

He later became president of the Seattle Temple, I knew his dad as a real estate appraiser in Seattle, both nice guys, IDK how 'church broke' he was in his early years, but U don't get to be Temple pres by asking too many questions...

His name was Gordon Conger, he was an attorney, the next Bp in that ward was a CPA, Go Figure!

Rubicon Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I had good bishops as a teenager. Their interviews
> they were forced to do weren’t probing.

I'm glad you had a positive experience, because some of my bishops have *probed* like curious, little aliens!

You, who are on the road
Must have a code
That you can live by
And so become yourself
Because the past is just a goodbye

Great advice

Yes. My bishop had a very negative impact on my life as a youth.

I was baptized not long before I turned 13, the age when the yearly birthday/morality interview with the bishop began.

My bishop was a trial attorney. He conducted the interviews like he was Perry Mason and the youth was the guilty party being interrogated. He was devoid of warmth. He was determined to draw out a confession of sin. It was hell.

That bishop made me feel like I was morally filthy although I was a good kid. For the next several years I lived in fear of those interviews. Whenever I had a "bad" thought or did anything the Mormon church deemed immoral I was filled with dread because I would have to confess all to the bishop.

How I envied the non-mormon kids I grew up with who didn't have a dark cloud of guilt hanging over them at all times and didn't have to be interrogated by the bishop.

I had an attorney as a mission president and his interviews were awful. Same type deal.

I can honestly say I don't remember any of them. They were simply priesthood guys filling their roles who meant nothing to me personally.

In really don’t look back much. You don’t live in the past.

Bishop Hill, oh yes I remember him. I was around 10 years old when I had a personal interview with him while my Mom said outside the office. It turned into a 15 minute lecture on "not playing with yourself". Honestly, I had no clue what he was talking about but his intensity scared me. I never took the LDS church serious after that.

My Dad was the Bishop from the time I was 8 to 19, so, uh, yeah.

I had a good bishop and had good memories of him. He was sincere and seemed to really be interested in the youth. My interaction with him had always been positive. He was a high school teacher and also taught seminary. All of my good feelings changed many years later when my sister told me that he had tried very hard to dissuade her husband from marrying her because our parents were part member and inactive. His were nonmember. That created a nasty cloud over my memories of him.

no but his oldest daughter did
she was my first

I had a bad one. He came along at a very pivotal point in my life when there were family problems. He was one of those who believed that if your family wasn't giving 110% to the church then that's why you have problems.

He tried to get me away from my inactive father and that bugs me to no end; even today.

He was chosen to get my ward into shape. He gave out copies of that awful Kimball book as well as BKP talk about factories. He asked those probing questions into thoughts and sexuality.

He kept notes about interviews. I gave vague and ambiguous answers to pointed questions.

Puberty was rough. It was a very dark time in my life.

I want to add that a new stake president and a new bishop with another new ym presidency did their best to provide better support to the youth. I was very frank with the new bishop about serving a church mission: I did not regularly attend seminary and I couldn't locate the book of Mosiah if my life depended on it.

Somehow the new bishop got my mission papers in order and then I went off to the MTC and mission only to discover leaders like the asshat that were abusive.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/28/2021 10:49AM by messygoop.

A new bishop actually helped healing in my trouble home. The big difference was that he listened to people. I think he took an interest in people and wasn't big on pushing the church agenda. That helped my Dad get back and no one told him off if he missed a Sunday or sat in the foyer because the church pews were hurting his back.

One thing that was different was that he stopped asking questions after "Are you living the law of chastity?" He did not ask probing questions.

Unfortunately, he was released before I returned home from my mission. The next bishop called was the typical asshat obsessed with power.

from age 12 until I was about 18. It was my friend's father. My older sister said he never asked her. He asked my younger sister. She reminded me that after you said no (although neither of us knew what it meant), he'd stare you down to see if you'd change your answer. Hell, I was totally clueless about anything sexual. I actually didn't know what masturbation was until I was 25 and with my gay boyfriend. The bishop assigned me to keep track of my boyfriend's masturbation habits as if we could get him to stop masturbating, then we could get him to change to straight. Those years dealing with those leaders in my 20s over the gay issue were extremely damaging to me. I learned more about sex from church leaders than anywhere else.

But that damn bishop in my teens was HORRIBLE. He'd ask those questions for annual interviews, semi annual interviews, and dance cards every 3 months. He was perv. I'd post his name again, but there is already one of my posts on google with his name in it. He died 2 years ago.

I was an extremely good little mormon girl and I was very naive,very protected. What they did to me was very damaging. I consider it emotional rape.

My bishops tended to ignore me. That was fine with me.

My father was my bishop during my teens, so yes.

I had a current apostle serve as my bishop during the teenage years (many, many years ago). He was a bit stiff but overall a good guy. Not hardcore at all, although he obviously was a strong believer. Wife was even more cool than him. Good memories.

I only got active at 15 in Palmdale, CA, and my first bishop was also my principal. He seemed like a pretty good bishop until, I believe, anyway, he tried to molest me in a shower when our Explorer group was staying in an empty dormitory at the University of Utah. My father had died after we arrived, and I did not know about it. This is what occurred:
- he got everyone up early and took them outside, where he told them about my father
- I woke up and no one was there
- I went into the shower, and the bishop came in and took off his clothes and climbed into the shower with me (a two or three-person shower)
- He started making weird small talk, which made me uncomfortable, so I climbed out
- He came out with me, and seemed miffed. Because I didn't stay in there with him? Don't know.
- He began telling me how my father had "gone to meet Heavenly Father," saying that, if I wanted, they'd send me back to Palmdale on a Greyhound
- I did not want to take some Greyhound all the way to Palmdale, so I elected to stay
- The rest of the day no one would talk to me.

I'll never know why he got into the shower with me, making weird small talk instead of taking me aside, sitting me down, and telling me about my father's death. I think that Rule Number 1 is to tell the family member first about his father dying, not 20 odd other guys. I think that Rule Number 2 is to remain dressed whilst doing it; a large naked man should never tell a skinny naked kid about a family member dying. Being naked is somehow inappropriate, or at the very least, terribly bad form.

This bishop was replaced by a very nice man who was highly respected in the city. I loved the guy. He had suffered lots of hardship, and while I was on my mission, two of his daughters were killed in a car accident. He remained bishop for a long while, during the days when a bishop might stay on for 10-15 years. He had a withered left arm, yet managed to be the best fast-pitch softball pitcher in the United States. There was church-wide fast-pitch softball in those days (of course there was, like all-church basketball, road shows, bazaars, and all kinds of stuff to keep the members interested). Our ward took the all-church championship for many years in a row because of him. He did a lot of good for me. He even wrote me regularly while I was at college and on my mission, so as a bishop he was exemplary.

Is one of the worst I've ever heard. I've never forgotten it since the first time I read it on here.

My last bishop was, after my own dad and son, the best man I've ever known. So yeah he had a very positive impact on my life. He officiated at my wedding too.

I had a bishop that loved to ask about worthiness, and chastity, Bruce Mckonkie was big back then so we weren't suppose to eat chocolate, no playing cards, etc... and the world was going to end before 2000, we were all Saturdays warriors waiting for the rapture, and of course there was miracle of forgiveness, the joy!

Chocolate? WTF? Chocolate was a huge part of our and other Mormon households here at Christmas time.

My bishop prior to my own dad was a man who probed into my 12-year-old private life very invasively, asking me questions about my genitals using big words I didn’t know at the time. I lied, not fully realizing what was going on, only that I’d been caught with my pants down (figuratively speaking) and I was NOT going to suffer that shame in front of my entire extended family who were waiting in the hallway to hear that I was worthy to get the priesthood. The bishop was relieved, so he passed me and I walked out of there feeling like an absolute scum bag and then an imposter as everyone congratulated me on doing everything they ever told me to do and being so honest, because that’s what being a good person means. I descended into a living hell, and then they made my dad the next bishop.

I’m still recovering from those initial feelings, the prolonged duration of my torment, and the social complications and drama have followed me around ever since any time I’m around my dad. So, yes, my bishops had a lasting impact on my life. Oh, wait, you meant a positive and memorable one? Sorry, nothing like that for me. Priesthood interviews seem to me to be some kind of true belief checkpoint put in place to either make sure you believe, extract dirt they can use to make you believe, or make you feel like shit until you come crawling begging them too ten to all of your dirt and make you believe.

When I read 1984 at BYUI, the ending got to me:

“Much had changed in him since that first day in the Ministry of Love, but the final, in- dispensable, healing change had never happened, until this moment.

“The voice from the telescreen was still pouring forth its tale of prisoners and booty and slaughter, but the shouting outside had died down a little. The waiters were turning back to their work. One of them approached with the gin bottle. Winston, sitting in a blissful dream, paid no at- tention as his glass was filled up. He was not running or cheering any longer. He was back in the Ministry of Love, with everything forgiven, his soul white as snow. He was in the public dock, confessing everything, implicating every- body. He was walking down the white-tiled corridor, with the feeling of walking in sunlight, and an armed guard at his back. The long-hoped-for bullet was entering his brain.

“He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin- scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.
THE END“

It had felt like this was what they had been trying to do to me all along. In a sense they were: the only version of me that ever mattered to them was one that was unquestionably loyal to the Party, and this other me (the real me with human needs and independent thoughts and feelings) could just lay down and die for all anyone cared.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/30/2021 12:31PM by Cold-Dodger.

the victims. Men are just as victimized as women. I'd never want the priesthood as that just created another way to victimize you. I felt bad for the deacons passing the sacrament, the priests blessing it. My family is mostly introverts and my poor brothers! And I have one who is mentally and physically debilitated. I can at least say he has some mormons who treat him really well, old friends from his childhood and he is 56 now. Missionaries treated him poorly. Yep, he went on a mission. Only one in our family including my dad, who got married at 19 to my mom.

Your experiences are a perfect example of how men are brutalized in mormonism.

I didn't deal well with leaders and their voyeurism. It has had a lasting impact on me emotionally and I'm 64. I left the church in my 30s or 40s. I sometimes think I've conquered it, but then I realize that I carry it with me and I've been in therapy with an exmormon for 24 or 25 years (since a few years after my gay husband left--and the leaders told me it was up to me to save him).

Luckily, I was raised by a dad who didn't take the priesthood seriously. He didn't like callings. He was a farmer and cussed like a farmer. We all do actually. He taught us well. Without my parents, who weren't extreme TBMs in any fashion, especially my dad, I would have had a more difficult time leaving. I was the most devout of their children and they were surprsied until they heard the story. My mom, the most active of the 2, was 100% behind me from the minute she found out. After that, my dad started telling me his issues with mormonism like the temple, which he found BIZARRE.

Keep talking as the stories of the abuses perpetuated on the male church members need to be HEARD.

My "bishop" was lucky I didn't punch his lights out.

The impact was that being that being Bishop is a full time job on top of your full time job, I rarely saw my father except for when it was time for discipline. This was from me being 8 to being 19 and he interviewed me for the mission. The ward got his attention. And we built a new ward house while he was bishop. I had to work on it evenings and week-ends and saw even less of him. I got to where I had very negative feeling toward him. Even afraid of him.

So I missed getting a good relation ship with my father and he missed out on getting to know the real me. We built a good relation ship over the years later in life once he realized I really was not coming back to the church and I really was gay and hadn't just been deceived by Satan.

He was a wonderful man. He is legendary still in old ward for how empathetic and kind, and wise he was. Loved beyond belief. He ended up Stake Patriarch and he took each blessing very sincerely. Fasted so much he finally got his weight down, haha.

My Bishop told me point blank You are blessed above anyone because you are:
1. In the true church
2. White - (people of color WERE CONSIDERED LESS VALIANT AND NOT WORTH OF BLESSINGS PERIOD).
3. Male
4. Born in Covenant
5. In the USA

Here is my story.
https://protectldschildren.org/555-name-hidden-cs-other-fear-of-looking-unworthy/