Hi, I'm sorry this took so long. My internet was down after I got back from the meeting house.

I first want to make a disclaimer. I am so sorry I do not mean to offend anyone with my post. These are just my thoughts. Secondly, I have a Theology degree, so I do have a belief in God. I also respect that if you don't believe that is OK in my book. Everyone has their own path.

Secondly, I can't wrap my head around the 'once God was a man like us'. How could he be all powerful and omnipotent? I guess Joseph never looked those words up.

I got to the church at 9:15. Sacrament started at 9:30. I thought I looked the part and did well, until a missionary came up to me. He was friendly. I said I was from out of town. Perhaps he didn't buy it because during sacrament the missionaries sat by me! It was annoying. I noticed A LOT of people came late and throughout everyone had a blank face. Yep, a blank face means it is 'the one true church' why does no one smile? (Except the Bishop who I could hardly understand) It was loud even before Sacrament started. The opening Hymn was # 125 How Gentle God’s Commands. The ward business was just odd. Everyone raised their hands. Should I have? Then we sang #169 As Now We Take the Sacrament. Then Sacrament was blessed. I thought it was odd how gentle these young boys and men were with wonder bread and water. Honestly, I don't get this whole wonder bread and water thing, but I'm Catholic. We order wine and host (unleavened bread).

I thought people would be more reverent during Sacrament meeting. I also thought it would be a packed house. The missionary that talked to me sat next to a little boy and kept him entertained the whole time. Never even listened to the talks.

The first talk was about stake conference and the lady talked about note taking on what the speakers are saying. The Holy Ghost has told her to take notes to open her heart and mind. She started crying when talking about her 'circumstances'. I don't know the lady so I don't know her problems in life. She said she wants to learn what Heavenly Father wants from her. She likes to reread her notes and she puts them in her scriptures. She then contradicted herself and said she just puts the notes in her scriptures and doesn't do much with them unless she gives a talk. She said she should study them before giving a talk or visiting teaching. She also said she needs to study the Ensign when it comes. (Isn’t that just a magazine? Why study it?) She said it makes her a better person and that the other speaker knew hers would be a short talk.

Instead of singing the next song it was changed to hear a young girl play the violin. It was very nice. I noticed a girl in the meeting was wearing shorts and was scruffy looking. I did not see her after the Sacrament Meeting. So I guess the talks are on the small things learned at Stake conference. The next talk was from one of the counselors to the Bishop. It was something about having a spiritual eye and that is how we draw closer to the Lord. Honestly, I swear he kept repeating himself for 30 minutes. I will tell you a highlight was when he said we must all go to the Temple with questions and the first question should be “what sort of questions should I ask” He admitted he has had doubts but he takes the questions to the temple and asks what he should be doing different o draw closer to Heavenly Father. What are changes he can make to have a change of heart? He said keep commandments; follow the teachings of the Prophets. He also cried. Not just being obedient but growing a testimony. We concluded by singing #153 Lord, We Ask Thee Ere We Part (what?)

Sunday School was in the chapel. It was studying Alma 17-22. I never thought there was roll call. There was a clipboard going around and let me tell you A LOT of people haven’t ben to class in a while. It was really boring and I will have to tell you it looked like 2 people were paying attention and perhaps 5 or 6 who read from the BOM. The teacher was not very good. He kept losing his spot, but that is what happens when you don’t have a degree and are ‘called’ He brought up rainbow discussions. Does anyone remember Missionaries using those?
Now off to relief Society. Only like 18-20 woman went to it. I think I was in a small meeting house. It is in a bigger town. I was surprised by the small numbers to be honest. There is only one meeting time on Sunday unlike how some places have 3. I don’t understand Relief Society. It didn’t seem like they did anything except help bake stuff, visit people and learn about something. It reminds me of Sunday School with Woman. I thought this ‘oldest woman’s organization” would be out in the community helping those in need. I had the wrong idea about Relief Society.

It was really laid back and the lady who taught was brand new to teaching. She had been teaching younger kids so she apologized if she started teaching like that. The chapter she taught on was # 13 from President George Albert Smith. It was about Missionary work and how when people know you are Mormon they watch you. They said that now with Mitt Romney as president they should invite more people to come to church and clear up misconceptions about the church. The teacher also cried. Mormons cry a lot it seems. Why?
One highlight was a lady who said she had neighbors who she pretty much love bombed along with her other Mormon neighbors. The neighbors felt the spirit but decided to join the RLDS. I guess it was not a happy story. Mormons don’t like RLDS I see.
Well, I don’t know if I will ever be back. Perhaps just to see a fast and testimony meeting. You all sat ALOT for those 3 hours. I felt like I wanted to get up and walk around or just leave. I was also very sleepy after. How do people do that every week?

You might want to try F&T meeting. It will be stranger than what you saw. We did warn you about how boring it would be.

True. I told her it would be like slowly suffocating...

The three hour block is proof that it is not the one true church. LOL. No loving God would come up with that.

If you were around before the three hour bloc you would not be anxious to go back. It entailed going at least twice on Sunday AND going during the week for primary and relief society. Where I live it was thirty minutes each way for each trip! What changed the church, of course, was not inspiration, but a gas crisis where too many could not make the multiple trips.

Of course, if the church were not so intent on having geogrphical divisions and left the time of attendence to the members, competition between the wards would automatically improve both the quality of worship and teaching and attendence, Other churches do that. But TSCC insists on often changing the geographical lines and snipping comradarie.

Since the church is not true, it is probably a good thing it follows the policies.

I was and at least there was a break. Three hours straight is a taste of hell as far as I am concerned.

In the UK (and probably applies most wards outside Utah) people travel long distances to the nearest chapel. some travel by public transport and "15 minutes from the chapel" can mean an hour each way by bus.

before the 3 hour block, you'd get people who were 'regular attenders' for sacrament, but who never went to peinshood or baking society

Thanks for this, Julie.

LDS Sunday services are SO BORING, and so repetitive. What I find so amusing (but which TBMs are so proud of) is that you could have walked into any LDS chapel on any Sunday and gotten pretty much the exact same experience. It's so homogeneous.

People always arrive late to mormon meetings. It's become culturally acceptable because it happens so often, so people don't really make an effort to be on time.

Blank faces could mean several things - either they don't really want to be there, or they're trying to be calm and serene to "invite the spirit", or they don't really want to be there, or maybe they don't really want to be there.

Raising hands during ward business is like mormon voting. Everyone who receives a calling is supposed to be sustained unanimously by everyone in their ward (stake callings have to be sustained by the whole stake, etc). People are always given the option to vote no ("Any opposed by the same sign"), but this practically never happens. If it does, the dissenter speaks their concerns privately to the bishop, not to the ward. You were fine not to raise your hand - if you were an LDS visitor, you would know that you only get to vote in your own ward/stake.

I hope it was educational for you!

I think they cry a lot, or are able to bring on the tears and the choked up speech easily, because they are fed a continual middle-brow gruel of sentimental stories that Reader's Digest would turn down, stories in the Ensign particularly that would make country music seem uniformly free of tragedy.

Also, I believe Mormons, whether they know it or not, live in constant wounding of their souls or psyches. They live in dread fear of losing their testimonies, of not being good enough, of losing blessings for their loved ones because they are not doing enough of what the Lord has asked of them.

Before I became a Mormon I worried about my children and loved them. After I became a Mormon I prayed often and fervently and most anxiously that nothing bad would happen to any of my children and that my family would be safe. I lived in fear. Once I stopped drinking the Kool-aid, I stopped praying constantly like some idiot. Guess what? I still love my children and worry about them, but I'm much more practical and rational about it.

I think when a person is that close to feeling like he or she is losing it all, that the person is easily pitched into emotional displays, tears, being overly impressed by sentimental stories or images, e.g., Mary Robinson's "Footprints in the Sand" poem, which concludes with the Lord saying, "The years when you have seen only one set of footprints, my child, is when I carried you."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/16/2012 03:36PM by derrida.

Blank faces also signify that the person is NOT there. Only their body is there. The mind and heart are elsewhere. Honestly, about the only thing I miss about church is the time to just think, organize/plan my week, zone out etc. I rarely paid attention. Church was a time to go on autopilot.

Mormons cry a lot because all their lives they are taught God speaks to them by influencing their heart and mind. This means he uses emotional means to make his point. So they tend to hyperactivate their emotions, feeling constant crying and strong feelings are a sign of spirituality, unlike most people who think it's a sign of the Terrible Twos. They don't have the normal restraints on their feelings that the rest of humanity have. They also seem to have missed the memo (in the bible, nonetheless) that feelings are a bad way to determine truth because they can be manipulated. There are a number of scriptures that warn against using feelings to determine truth. Ooopsie.

And it is long. I bet they could get some of their members back just by eliminating Sunday School and just having Sac Meeting and RS/Priesthood/YM/YW/Primary for 45 minutes afterward. I mean, Sunday School really is completely unnecessary and, while a 2 hour block isn't as good as a 1 hour mass, it's a step up from the 3 hour block. Maybe they need that time for your mind to go numb so they can shove more information into it. Maybe three hours is what it takes to achieve that level of brainwashing.

The three hour bloc helps prevent members from wandering into other churches which meet for one hour and can be fit into the member's schedule so he/she can compare. By using such a long period and making it a subject for a guilt trip if one cuts out early, members are kept in. I know this because for many years it prevented me (well, effectively discouraged me) from going elsewhere. Only when Sunday school became so unbearable and they changed the HPs to a room which caused hypothermia, did I cut out and go elsewhere and, voila, I found a better place where I can worship and not be afraid to say what I think. My DW is still held in as a beloved primary teacher.

"So they tend to hyperactivate their emotions, feeling constant crying and strong feelings are a sign of spirituality, unlike most people who think it's a sign of the Terrible Twos."

That's funny, CA girl.

Do you think some of those tears of joy might actually be tears of stress? As we all know, Mormons don't have it easy. The demands on their time, the quest for perfection, the cognitive dissonance, keeping up appearances, the anxiety, the depression, the family strife.

If I was still a Mormon I would be crying too -- but it would have nothing to do with feeling the spirit.

It sounds like you experienced a pretty typical Mormon 3 hour block.

Apparently by the end of the 3 hours you understood the blank faces you were seeing at the beginning...

Relief society as Sunday School for women only is a good description. They do a fair amount of stuff outside the Sunday class, but it is mostly things like taking meals to women in the ward who are having babies & such.

Now you see the results of lay people giving all the talks and lessons. Sometimes you get someone who does a really great job and sometimes you get someone who is insane and makes it interesting, but usually it's just boring. What you cover at church each week can pretty much be boiled down to: read your scriptures, say your prayers, do family home evening, go to the temple, do service. Occasionally missionary work, family history, tithing and a few other things get rotated in.

Church is what you make of it, generally. If you go because you want the "church" aspect, it sucks. Once you have some friends and such there, and go to socialize or goof off with like minded folk, it actually can be ok. However, as a visitor, I would HATE the LDS 3 hour torture session.

I have told people that I have trouble doing missionary work. Next time I will just point them to this thread for an explanation. I love it when non-members experience a mormon service and feel sorry for us.

I have asked that we have Sacrement Meeting followed by PH/RS. I state that more people might stay since SS is usually boring (they did not like that). I really just want to leave after two hours. They could squeeze more wards into each building (oh no, I forgot, the church is not growing). I think they sandwich SS in between so they can control us. SS would not be so boring if the bishopric had to attend. I just go to McDonalds the second hour, drink a coffee and listen to John Dehlin's podcasts.

Why do you not find that compatible with omnipotence? All babies are born illiterate. That does not mean literacy is impossible. In Mormon theology omnipotent is something you become, not something you are. That does leave the problem of how god # 1 got omnipotent, but "that is not necessary to our salvation". You hear that a lot when you ask awkward questions in Mormondom.

I personally have a more fundamental problem with omnipotence - if God can do anything, is this really his best work? Christopher Hitchins does a rather long vamp on that theme in "God Is Not Great".

--> if God can do anything, is this really his best work? <--

Thanks for the update! Glad to hear an outsider's critical view of their first time LDS church experience. Sounds like it was a pretty typical, run of the mill day at church. The more people cry, the more people think they are feeling the spirit. Kind of like when Kim Jung Il died, his faithful followers started balling their eyes out to project out loud their love for him. The crying is definitely a way for people to make themselves look more dedicated. Even many TBM's within the church that are less prone to crying know it's more an emotional response than a spiritual one. Those giving speeches and lessons will even try to get tears out as they think it will make project a more spiritual message. I for one when I was a TBM couldn't stand it when people cried in church. I'm not very emotional, never have been, but I know there has been a time or two when I got somewhat emotional during a lesson or speech and would do nothing or little to resist the tears as I thought that the emotion would help to project my message and sentiment more favourably. It's very much socially acceptable, even a norm to cry in church. Church members pride themselves in the fact that they're not formally educated in religion. Their study consists of what they have read at home (scripture study) and from church and church meetings. Many people attended seminary during their high school years, however, most kids just sleep through that or doodle. So their education on giving speeches and lessons is based primarily on using similar formats that others have used and taken directly from the manuals. Church meetings are pretty much identical across cultures as there is a very structured system in place for formatting. Even the lessons in sunday school and RS/Priesthood are the same pretty much anywhere you go so if you attended a different ward on any given sunday, you wouldn't miss a beat. Fast & Testimony meeting, usually the first sunday of each month are the worst. On that day it's free reign at the pulpit and all the wack jobs go up and compete with each other who can be the most spiritual in bearing their testimonies. Problem is, while the congregants are advised to keep their "testimonies" centered on Christ, that most of the time doesn't happen, and people usually talk about the problems they've encountered over the last couple of weeks, or discuss their recent travels or interactions with their non-member friends.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/16/2012 05:02PM by nefight.

lol, "Kind of like when Kim Jung Il died, his faithful followers started balling their eyes out to project out loud their love for him. " the 'balling' instead of 'bawling' gave me an instant image of thousands of poor n koreans scooping their eyes out with melon ballers to show their supposed grief for kim jong il. Haha, thanks a lot, now I can't get rid of it :/

put on your critical thinking hats

What? No discussion of DNA and the Book of Mormon? What about the BBC documentary, or the Businessweek article? I'm astounded!


(not really)

Oh, the dreadfull experience that is church. Countless obnoxious children and crying babies causing noise pollution, sitting there tired, bored and sweating like a pig from the unbearable heat under my endless layers of dress cloathing. All of the topics are repetitive and don't bear repeating. How many talks or lessons have you heard on service, missionary work, kindness, etc? How many times have you heard the bishop, or anyone else for that matter, get behind the pulpit and bear their sobering testimony? The only indication that anyone is still awake is when the crowd chuckles over some lame joke. Worse than the regular talks are when teens give their monotone talks, not by their own will but because they feel obligated when the bishop asks them, and you can just tell they threw the whole thing together half-heartedly at the last minute.

Then comes sunday school, where I get to sit and listen to other people spowt their mind-numbingly stupid and uneducated opinions on evolution and why the church is right and everyone else is wrong. Of course, there's a few know-it-all born-again TBM teens in the class that are condescending to people of other beliefs that I can't stand. I have banged my skull against this wall so many times, and I am so tired of it...can't wait until I turn 18 and I can officialy resign from the church.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/16/2012 06:45PM by mindlight.

My ward used to use wonder bread. Sometimes even wheat... Shocker, I know.

lol really? ok, i go kill pixels now. ty

:)

It's normal for the missionaries to sit by people who are visiting (especially if you're alone) or new investigators.

Sounds like you noticed the one person who didn't wear the uniform. Amazing how obvious it is.

Wow, those meetings can be boring. I have no idea how I did it for so long. I had to laugh about the lady taking notes. I did that as a way to stave off boredom. One day I skimmed through them all. I realized it was week after week of emptiness, and boredom. It only got interesting if someone said something crazy. It was lacking in any form of spirituality. In fact I felt like I had to dumb down while at church in order to fit in.

Fast and testimony meeting really isn't better, just nuttier. Little kids getting up and claiming to know things that nobody has ever known. Proud parents pushing them up there. The mentally questionable are given a platform to say what's really on their mind. Usually the most stable people don't get up and speak.

That's my take on it after 56 years.

Fast & testimony meeting is kind of like the lottery. Most of the time you are bored to tears but once you a while you hit the crazy jackpot.

Well I haven't been to a mormon Sunday service but I did go to my nephew's Eagle Scout ceremony at a LDS chapel and thus...very mormon themed..

Mormon hymns were sung...led by the bishop's wife. She was SOOOOO uninspiring, bored, and robotic looking while leading the hymns.

3 different prayers were given at times (at the beginning, the middle, and of course, the end). The prayer at the end was so embarassing for that guy (imo at least). Knowing he had nonmos in the audience...he wanted to SOOO "spirtual"...
and bless E V E R Y O N E. I expected him to say...
"and bless mommy and daddy".
..."and grandma and grandpa".
"...and cousin eddie..."


you get the picture.


Oh yea...and nothing like the bishop asking for God's biggest and bestest blessing for the food he was blessing for everyone...which was basically JUNK food

Some do it just to be percieved as spiritual, many do it because they have learned that warm fuzzy feelings that makes you cry are a sign from the holy ghost that the "church is true" and they manipulate themselves into feeling these feelings.

And yes, mormon meetings are extremely boring, I suspect some mormons really cry out of sheer boredom.

Were you *starving* afterwards?

Everything you described sounds about right, except I always left absolutely starving!

Julie,

You were only at Church ~3 hours. When I was the ward clerk I was there to open the building and the last to leave after locking all the doors. I would arrive ~6:00 A.M. (for services at 10:00). I never planned to leave before 4:00 in the afternoon.

I would go to work Monday to rest from Sunday.

My only weeks off were General Conferences or Stake Conferences (4 times/yr). I even stopped attending the Conferences because I found talks from General Authorities to be even more insipid than speakers in a ward.

As some have noted: too bad you missed fast and testimony meeting when you could have heard 10-20 testimonies (not more the merrier). You also missed a baby blessing or a confirmation.

And for your 25 point bonus, try a Dry Council Sunday with a speaker from the High Council. Regular members might preach once a year. A high counselor speaks (almost) every month in different wards in the stake on a rotating basis. Unfortunately, speaking more frequently does _not_ improve the quality of what they have to say.

Yes I was starving to the person who asked.

I am in Wisconsin.