Posted by:
Calypso
(
)
Date: December 16, 2011 11:56AM
So the one request I had during my entire spontaneous baptism ordeal was to keep it really small and private. I was in Russia with a group of about 20 people, and I lived with 3 other girls...the roommate I was close with knew, but the other 2 didn't. Basically the only people that knew were my roommate, the missionaries, the sister missionaries and the senior missionaries. I didn't want anybody else to find out because I HATE being the center of attention when it comes to stuff like that and I always thought that my relationship with God was mine and mine alone, so why should anybody else have to be involved?
Well, after asking the missionaries if we could keep it on the downlow, they said that was fine and that they'd have to tell the branch prez and some other men who were high up in the church but that would be all...so whatever, that was fine. But as the days leading up to it went on, they kept adding people who "had" to be involved. So one day, I get home and my roommate checks her email- the RS president sent an email to the ENTIRE branch inviting them to come. Every person in my volunteer program was on the list, as well as everyone else in the branch. WTF!!!!!! I was so upset, I literally cried all night...because A- I'd have to explain to dozens of people why I was 18, grew up in the church, but wasn't baptized, B- I'm an incredibly private person and I hate talking to strangers about stuff like that and C- I didn't want any of those people to come!!! I wanted my baptism to be small and special... I wanted it to be my roommate, my one other friend, the missionaries and whoever else HAD to be there to witness it or whatever.
But no, of course TSCC had to tell the entire effing world. Because that's all they know how to do. What pisses me off is how they told me initially it was fine to keep it small...if it was mandatory to let the branch know, they should have told me that to begin with. They told me some bullshit reasons about why they have to tell people- how the church is a family and they want to be there to support you. EFF that. They want to show their faces at a convert baptism so they can add another rung on their ladder to their precious Celestial Kingdom. I didn't know anyone in my branch, I had only been there for like 4 months, I guarantee none of them gave a crap that I was getting baptized.
Seriously, I cannot think of a plausible reason why it would be MANDATORY that everyone would have to know about such a private, "sacred" thing. That is such BS.
It ended up being a nice baptism, despite the fact that there were a bunch of random people there... (when I was waiting in the metro station for the sister missionaries to walk to the building, they literally invited some random Russian they met there...and she came...how special for me?) It was so awkward. I wish it would have been like I imagined it...I obviously don't care anymore but I truly think they should have honored my request to keep it small. The mass email was incredibly unnecessary. And it was awful because I had to explain to my other roommates why I hadn't told them anything and they were pissed off at me for the rest of the trip- and I had to explain it to everyone else in the program because no one had any idea...it was just so stressful and stupid.
To make things even better, the Sunday I got confirmed I was asked to pray in front of the entire church...I literally HATE praying in front of people...that's another thing that was always between ME and God. Super effing uncomfortable. I hope TSCC likes getting into other people's business and making shy people feel incredibly awkward and exposed because they do a FANTASTIC job.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/16/2011 12:00PM by ajhart.