I have decided to go to the Ward X-mas party next week. My DW is a little scared that I will be grumpy towards the TBM's and she wants to avoid the confrontation. I say bring it on. Everytime she goes to chruch there are always people that ask how I am? I tell her to tell them to come over and ask me myself. They won't. They do leave me alone, which is nice, but the lovebombing is being more subtle, like the X-mas basket that they left last night that says it is from the Bishopric. Yeah right, it is to try and say they care and come back to church. Well I look at it this way, if I go to the X-mas party I can put up with all the crap they will ask but another way to look at it is that it is free food. I, for one, will never turn down a free meal!

So my question to most of you, are any of you going to your ward parties?

It'd be fun to go and stir up some trouble. Spike the eggnog. Have a scripture reading marathon in the hallway with scriptures marked with all the problem areas in Mormonism etc.

The last two times I have been in a Mo church in thirty-six years was once for one of my neighbor's kid's wedding reception where my girlfriend and I went into a Sunday school room and spiked my punch with Jack Daniels. It was about twenty years ago. One of the son-in-laws smelled the whisky and noticed the changed color of the punch and said something like "nice punch".

This year I went back for a funeral service for same neighbor's son who suffered from depression his entire life. I wore a leather jacket, a long sleeved flannel T-shirt and cotton duck pants. The same son-in-law asked me if I had a suit. I said, "No." He looked at me as if I was lying, or at least incredulous that a grown man doesn't own a suit. I am sure that Rich wouldn't have cared. He liked me, wasn't a practising Mo himself and I was one of his few friends. Every male Mo there was wearing a suit and white shirt. It is a strange culture. They hardly mentioned the dead son. Mostly it was a chance for the Mos to preach their strange theology.

Marshall

I do not support a ward Christmas party and would not go. I will not attend any LDS function but am, nonetheless, in a quandary about whether to attend the baptism of a GD in two months. I fear she may be hurt if I do not attend and they live with us. I have convinced her to I only drink "good coffee" etc.

Ham-cold? boiled potatoes-cold String beans-cold Jello-for sure? Water-warm.?

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