Every ward seems to have at least one nutcase. We have a clown in our ward who is guaranteed to come up with the dumbest $*** possible during any lesson. He is also adept at offending everyone in the room with a very few poorly worded (and intentional) comments. Some faith promoting rumors seem to be almost plausible. His fall into the category of extreme fantasy and fiction.

If you don't know who the nutcase was in your ward . . .

:)

I've lived in a lot of different wards. There's at least one nut case in every ward. They are great entertainment.

A 50 year old 400lb guy that wore overalls/white shirt/tie to church, thought he was every young girls dream. He got arrested twice for stalking. I can't figure out why they didn't give him the X.

Then there was the prophet. Every testimony meeting he would get up and call everyone to repentance. He would use his prophet voice, and his prophet language. He loved to say "even the Lord Jesus Christ our elder brother and savior."

The easiest way to identify the nutcase is usually to watch and see who regularly gets up right before fast and testimony meetings is over and goes 10 minutes over...

+1

Hahaha!

OMG, I hope I was never that bad at my worst TBM moments. I was really invested into the Morg. Then again, I was too afraid of crowds to ever bare a testimony in front of anything, so at least I have that going for me.

My first ward had a couple of nut cases. The most interesting was a old man who knew his scriptures almost by heart--the whole quad. When he spoke, everyone hushed and listened. He was always bringing homeless men to the block to be saved. Everyone whispered that he was possibly one of the three Nephites. Didn't stop the RS sisters from Febrezing the RS room when Sunday School was held in it.

My second ward I didn't attend long enough to figure out who the nuts were.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/14/2012 12:24AM by Sorcha.

My favorite was an old lady, she kinda looked like a cat lady, she would stand up in the 2nd row and bear testimony about her white rabbits. Every 1st sunday of the month. I loved her

We had a guy in the ward with Asperger's Syndrome. He would hit on girls hardcore all creepy in their face then run in the bathroom in the middle of sacrament meeting....yeah

Seems like Mia and Convert knew my pedophile brother!

I swear to God, that he bore his testimony every fast Sunday of his life! Sometimes twice, in priesthood meeting and testimony meeting both. His bishops constantly had urge him to keep it short, before he began, then interrupt him to make him stop. This creature had no boundaries, no sense of propriety. There is something about pedophiles--you can't make them stop!

He liked to brag about his famous GA relative, and he would imitate his "Prophet" voice and Mormon jargon. Because he was a huge tithe payer, his ward let him get away with stalking, harassing, bullying, insulting, and hurting others. He acted like he was the pathetic victim, and played on the sympathy of others. He had no boundaries.

I think of Mormonism as a haven for nutcases.

The mishes baptized this guy who lived in a halfway house for mental patients. Can you believe they frickin' tracted out a mental home. JHC. Desperate are we? I think so. This guy was psychotic in the beginning. He looked liked he was 100 years old, but I think he was mid-60's. He raled on and on about delusional topics, i.e. how he'd seen Joseph Smith in vision, how he received addtional Abrahamic blessings, etc. It was all very entertaining. The Bishop intervened with his case worker to ensure he was properly medicated before coming to future meetings.

Then there was the "Sammy" (Samoan) guy who spoke for 15 minutes every FAT meeting. He was a former Bishop, so they let him groan on. One time he told us that he'd left his favorite suit coat on the bus, thinking that he would never see it again BUT miracously, the next day it was in his closet hanging. He and his wife cried about how this was the hand of the Lord for sure.

Then there was the ward pedophille (65 years old), who loved to hit on little girls (5-10 years) by giving them gifts at church, stalking them, etc.

I could go on and on, but in the end, IT'S A CRAZY EFFING CHURCH.

I want to go bear my "testimony". What do you think the odds are I can walk into my local ward (basically I'll be a complete stranger) on Fast and Testimony Sunday, unnoticed, and proceed to bear, with a sincere and honest heart, that Joseph Smith is a kook and a fraud and a sexual predator?

By the way, I will look the part with the haircut, no facial hair, and full suit and tie

Don't give your testimony at the beginning. Give people some time to drift off and then see who is paying attention.

return and report

Do it! ...video recording or it didn't happen.

The trick is to list things you heard about Joseph Smith, while crying, and saying how you know they can't be true.

There was a guy who kept to himself, had a beard, lived in a trailer in his parents driveway and surfed a lot.

We all thought he was a nutcase--but in retrospect he was a guy who knew what he wanted from life and probably didn't give a sh#t about what the deacon's quorum thought of him.

It's funny how TBMs think everyone else is nuts or weird without scrutinizing some of their own beliefs or life choices.

that is a great point. the number of people who i think are a bit off has decreased significantly over the last several years. there are many ways to be "normal" and healthy that do not fit the narrow confines of any one culture.

Oh, yes, Sister X.

Every Fast Sunday, she saved me from death by boredom with stories of miraculously cured ingrown toenails (Jesus, for sure), angels in her bathtub, and the like. She always wore a muumuu and did her hair in a wobbly bun on the very top of her head.

She was my salvation. Except we always went overtime.

otherlives Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Oh, yes, Sister X.
>
> Every Fast Sunday, she saved me from death by
> boredom with stories of miraculously cured ingrown
> toenails (Jesus, for sure), angels in her bathtub,
> and the like. She always wore a muumuu and did her
> hair in a wobbly bun on the very top of her head.
>
>
> She was my salvation. Except we always went
> overtime.

I seriously thought you were talking about the nutcase in the ward that I grew up in...until you wrote about the bun, the one in my ward always had short hair, and in addition to it, she would bear her testimony about how bad her husband was!

Our ward has a guy who sings at the top of his lungs. It doesn't matter that it drives everybody in the entire ward crazy, he sings as loud as he possibly can. He is heard well above the entire congregation. Over the years, many bishopric members have approached him to quiet down. He doesn't care. He sings on. What at idiot.

There was a lady in my ward that did the same thing.

The kids thought it was hilarious and would make fun of her.
One FT meeting she stood up and scolded those kids for a solid 20 minutes.

She then sat down and sang louder than ever when it was time to sing again. It was pure torture. She couldn't carry a tune in a bucket.

We had a lady get up and announce that her new name was "Mary Rose" and that she saw angels and demons all over the chapel so she knew which ones of us were good and which ones were bad. She was criz-azy.

I think that it's a church policy to have at least one nutcase in every ward.
I remember one family in my first ward that was uber TBM to everyone, demanding everybody to follow the church's crazy rules plus a few extra they made up. And when they weren't preaching to everybody else, they were breaking their rules in secret.
In my ward in Utah, I ended up in a ward FULL of them.
And in my final ward there were two nuts outside the leadership. Both believed in the authority of his phony-ness Joseph Smith and both gave answers that lowered the IQ of everyone in the room.

My favorite (although there were others):

The lady who had a life-saving revelation every month. She was getting ready to die or spiritually collapse and she was saved by some miraculous event--usually within a few days of Testimony Meeting.

I just want clarification -- in a room full of TBMs, do you mean the extreme nutcase?

The ward I was in years ago had the good samaritan lady who always stopped to help people in distress and made sure they knew she was mormon and then reported on her latest good deeds in testimony meeting. It was her way of being a missionary, she said..haha

This same woman was later the ward magazine representative and when I stopped attending church in the late 90's knocked on my door one day. When I answered she told me she was there to renew my church magazines. I told her I didn't want the magazines anymore. She stepped back, got a strange look in her eyes and then blurted out to me "You should be spanked!"

Was she making an offer?

I was so shocked at her words at the time, I didn't come back with a snappy reply like that, but oh, it would have been fun to watch her face if I had asked her that question! haha

I probably would have been stunned into silence myself.

But wouldn't it have been fun to reply....With my pants up or down?

I think my MIL was probably the ward nutcase at one point. She is resigned now but was a crazy TBM in her time. She says now that she was brainwashed into having seven kids.

Yeah, I remember a few. There was one lady who just blurted out questions all throughout Sunday School and Relief Society. She completely monopolized the lessons every Sunday.

They would strategically place people around her who could keep her calm and try to get her to interrupt less.

She was more annoying than crazy, but when they tried to ask her to let someone else get in a question, she'd get angry. "Why you tell me to shut up? I got a'much right as anybody to ask question."

She'd be shaking her finger at the teacher and she was so loud when she talked. Then she'd storm out and everyone would think maybe she wouldn't be back. But she was, every week.

When she finally eventually stopped coming, I think people were relieved.

I was the 'nutcase' who wanted precision & FACTS in stmnts & lessons in church; You can easily see where That got me, te he.

Actually listening to what ppl say is enuf to grease the skids for Anyone to leave the building, leave the Church, isn't it?

She and her husband were richer than Gawd, and she was a Mormon with the bluest of blood ties to the almighty pioneers (a status symbol out in the mission field). She and her husband regularly bankrolled ward social events and programs. When funding was cut for ward dinners, they marched right in to provide a full buffet for any RS or major holiday ward event.

The Ward Prophetess was also extremely OCD (diagnosed) - organized to the point of absurdity. She constantly served in leadership position and drove her fellow counselors batty with her incessent, picky demands.

But the big-guns leadership of the ward LOVED her because she got things done . . . and done to the extreme (think broadway level productions for simple primary events). She was so scrupulous about living the gospel (and making sure everyone around her did as well) that she alienated half the ward. But that never stopped the Bishop from putting her in a constant rotation of presidencies.

She also, apparently, had a direct line to God. Her F&T testimonies were always about how we were failing as a ward and that H.F. was dissapointed. One week she chastized the entire priesthood herself saying, "You're blowing it brethren" and promised they'd all be cut off from their wives and children in the eternities if they didn't get their act together.

One year, the entire ward and surrounding beaches area was evacuted for a major hurricane. Hers was the ONLY family to defy mandatory evacuation orders and stay in their home. When we finally all returned to church a couple of weeks later, The Ward Prophetess' son bore testimony that his mother's FAITH turned the storm away from their home and they were spared distaster. (What a way to screw up a kid's mind!)

Finally, the woman was made primary president and she went all "Last Days" on us. She made the Bishop give her a THIRD counselor, based on the precedent that some long ago prophet was allowed to have a 3rd counselor.

So she gets up in church to speak after the vote to sustain her and proceeds to get all ominous in her churchy voice. She keeps hinting about the specialness of our primary children and the new Primary presidency she had assembled. She started crying and alluding to a powerful spiritual experience she had while praying about her new counselors (all 3 of them). She assured those women that they were hand-picked by Jesus Christ himself, hinting that the savior had visited her to give her the names.

THEN she started to hint around that THEE future prophet of the Church was indeed in our midst - growing and learning in our own little rinky-dink primary. Our new vision for primary was to grow this little spirit and all the other children into adults who would have hands-on responsibilities in the ushering in of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. <rolls eyes>

As she was waxing poetic and blubbering about her great visions of the future for our children, I realized that her own young son was, in fact, a member of primary. I suddenly figured out she believed her kid was destined to be the prophet someday!!! She kept alluding to the possibility of a future prophet in our ward, and expaining why she planned to build the primaray program to a new level.

Kinda pissed me off. Cuz, you see, *I'd* already had my own personal revelation that MY SON was destined to be the next prophet! <snort> So I figured her line to Gawd wasn't working so hot. What would she do when she figured out it was MY little guy destined for greatness and glory? <giggle>

Studid days. Sometimes I just want to slap myself silly.

I know the WP's son now and I can pretty much predict he's not climbing church hierarchy anytime soon. And my son? Well he's an apostate and a Catholic now. I briefly flirted with the idea that he'd be Pope one day. Naaaawwwwwwwww. He likes girls too much. heh.

So, personal revelations are imaginary and some folks get carried away with it all - even me. Our ward prophetess is still as wacky as ever. Glad I left the church 5 years ago or I might have evolved to the current ward nutcase myself.

;o)

When I turned 18 and went to relief Society for the first time, Our ward nutcase was teaching the lesson and told how she and her husband never had sex without praying first and she admonished all of us to do the same... I'm still traumatized.

I've been to catholic, episcopal, methodist, presbtyterian and probably couple of other churches I forgot, but besides a couple of slightly "off" folks, I don't remember ANYTHING like you guys have described.

Some of it must be because TSCC makes people think the are the chosen ones with an inside track to god.

That's what they get for letting folks get up and talk in church....