Maybe it was just me and my peers, but it seems like back in the 80's kids in the church were so much naughtier and willing to mess about than now....and I was probably one of the better behaved ones.

I look at my own teenage kids & their TBM friends and they hardly get up to anything at all. In fact they all even sit with their families during sacrament meeting, whereas all youth in my day sat together right at the back of the chapel, where we talked loudly, passed notes and generally caused annoyance. Here's a few other things I and my friends got up to:

* as a group of teachers we once mixed some dish washing up detergent in one of the sacrament cups. The unfortunate lady that partook of it actually shrieked and spluttered out loud. Bishop was really pissed but we stuck together and he never found out which one of us did it
* on a young men's camp with a leader that we all hated (nickname was Hitler), we substituted a couple of raisins from his desert for some rabbit droppings and then covered it all with custard. He never even realised. We couldn't stop laughing all day
* on a camp with a kid in our tent that was really annoying, we carried him off one night whilst he was still in his sleeping bag and threw him and all his clothes and equipment into a river. (Ok, I do feel a bit bad about that one)
* as priests we would skip lessons and either go to the nearest shop to buy candy or we would hang out in the car park and push a couple of cars to completely different parts of the car park to confuse the owners, or on one occasion we convinced a YM leader to take us out in his new sports car instead of a lesson. We hit 145mph, still the fastest I've ever been in a car
* whenever there was any snow we would end up throwing snowballs really hard at the members leaving, as well as local residents - resulting in more than one fist fight
* we encouraged very young children to sneak up to the microphone at the end of sacrament meeting and shout rude words. I don't recall any really bad swear words being uttered, but things like 'dick head','poo face', hairy willy' and 'Bishop's wearing knickers' would invariably stop all chapel conversations in mid flow
* we always had fights with young men from other wards in the stake
* we were banned from every single camp site within a 40 mile radius. This was mostly due to the use of catapults and letting down the tents of neighbouring Boy Scouts in the middle of the night

What did you get up to?

We went to a basketball tourny in Ogden from Wyoming when I was 16 and we got into a big brawl on the court and when we went to leave all our tires had been slashed.

I personally didn't do any of the mischevious things you did but I did my share of making out and petting in the basement of our old church, in the baptismal font no less. Those were good times to be sure.

We would hide our SS teacher's scriptures and lesson manuals in the ceiling tiles. He took it in stride.

When I got my mission call to Germany, I exchanged some mock Heil Hitler salutes with the young men's leader. (It was an inside joke between us--I know not very funny in some contexts, but it can be. see Dr. Strangelove). We were in the chapel at the time. The Bish did not like it. Looking back on my Mormon experience, I could not think of a more appropriate place to raise your hand in slavish worship of your leader. Heil Hinckley! BTW, the YM leader is the bishop of that ward now, but this incident may dash his chances of making Stake President or GA.

Oh lord.

I detested everything about church.

I'd skip priesthood, go to the gas station on the corner and buy snacks.

Once I squeezed the handle on the fire extinguisher releasing the powder in a spectacular fashion.

I would skip class, hang out on the stage and swing on the curtains.

There was a big screen on the stage and I would throw Chinese throwing stars at it. Tore that fucker to shreds.

Levi in Priesthood

http://imgur.com/F4T3cff.jpg

THAAANK YOU!!!!

you made my day, btw.

:) anytime.

We used to climb the steeple to get onto the church roof while skipping wed night activities or sometimes on sunday during the other wards meeting time.

Skipped class to go home and get snacks.

Talked one teachers instructor into freeing us on superbowl sunday - Came back to find the bishop in our classroom. Never had another class with him.

Just stupid teenage stuff

When I was a freshman in high school (1990), there was some sort of stake activity going on that my mom dragged me to. A classmate of mine that also lived in the same stake had also been dragged to the activity. We ended up hiding out in the nursery room jamming to Color Me Badd's "I Wanna Sex You up".

I have many stories like this. I never did anything illegal though - drugs, drinking, etc, while at church.

Well, not exactly at church, but me and my siblings used to tickle the missionaries on their foots when were kids, and steal and hide their shoes before they were supposed to leave. (In sweden you almost always take off your shoes in private homes). Actually we tended to do this with all mormon guests. Wonder how many investigators were turned off by my family.

Finger blasted a couple of Laurels ... not simultaneously, mind you.

I remember your age group Sherlock, as a group you guys were mischievous.
When chaperoning a dance one had to check the “Pepsi”….because the only thing Pepsi about what you guys were drinking was the can….plus your beverage of choice.

When you were 11, you thought good entertainment on a hot summer day, (103 in the shade) was to lob water balloons onto passing cars in a small subdivision while hiding behind a grapevine. That was funny to you until the Relief Society president’s car window burst all over her because the cold water hitting her hot windshield caused it to contract too fast.

It was funny to you guys to throw lit firecrackers into crowds until we explained that toddlers who can’t move fast enough and are shorter, are in danger of getting hurt.

My son who is your age, has the same lament about the younger kids now. He says they all stay inside and play video games. They don’t hang out together and get into trouble, or cause it.

Maybe they’re all just dumbed down now. No loud music the parents don’t like, no sneaking joints behind the school at lunch time. No sharing of porn magazines. No cutting cookies with the family car on the back roads. No sneaking out of the house at 3 A.M., avoiding the cops and buying junk food at the local truck stop. No sneaking out together and watching ‘forbidden’ R rated movies. Yep….this younger set is different.

Or are they? Maybe they’re just sneakier……

When they were building a new chapel near my friends house we used the costruction area as our private playground every evening and weekend. We made torches with sticks and liquid nails (pop the end off the the tube, insert stick , apply flame -voila! Torch.) We used the skil saw blades in the trash piles like giant ninja stars. We frisbeed the shingles all over the job site. We played king of the mountain on the dirt pile. Man, it was a lot of fun being a kid. When we got older we used the church's dumpster to throw away our party waste to keep from getting busted by parents. Good times.

Teenage boys like you were, Sherlock, scare the shit out of me.

I wasn't a typical kid... I would draw in sacrament meeting. I once redesigned garments during sacrament. All leather, with a zipper at the crotch.

And somehow it took me many more years to figure out I was gay...

Hahahahahahaha!!! Did you show your parents??

My BIL bishop had a teenager tearfully confess to him:

- I smoked pot...
in the chapel...
during seminary.

Cracked me up.

Petting and necking in the temple

Sorry to be a wet blanket. I never did anything naughty at church while growing up. Now my life is the shits. Go figure.

When the young women came back from girls camp some of them were showing the guys some of the pictures. They forgot that they had taken one with just them in their bra and panties.

I stole it.

When they noticed it was missing and came after me, I hid it in one of the hymn books. Not sure who might of found it later.

But my husband (big-time, state champ, football jock from AZ) smoked weed with the Stake President's son outside the stake center during youth dances.

And DH is related to Boyd K. Packer. Ha! But he is, and always has been a Jack Mormon.

;o)

P.S. Ask me how he bailed on his mission call to Belgium!

Ex-mo I used to know at work told me that he and some buddies went to Las Vegas, collected a bunch of "escort cards" that are passed out in the streets. Upon return put them inside the hymnals.

Omg the list is exhaustive.

1) Took high school drum line into the church (cuz if we played outside some bitchy neighbors called the cops.) Goddamn that was loud (4 bass drums, 4 snares, 3 quad drums, 2 cymbals) Played in the hallways and the gym.

2) Recorded an album in the chapel with elec. guitars using the grand piano.

3) Took shit in urinal.

4) Moved cars around; took cars belonging to leaders out on joy rides (at 14)

5) Deployed fire extinguishers

6) Shot BB guns in gym

7) learned how to crack locks and doors in churches everywhere

8) made out and dry humped lots of cute ladies on the lawns and in parking lots

1985-1991 were beautiful years for young Mormon boys

I used to "accidentally" let my baby brother go running down the aisle during sacrament meeting. It was hilarious watching my parents quickly stand up and run after him while everyone watched. God, I was bored.

I've got to admit I was a goody-two-shoes, and probably very annoying in my self-rightousness.

But one of the funniest stories I heard was of a recently converted man who was called to teach 3 adolescents in the tiny branch he lived in. It happened that his first lesson was on a fast Sunday, which he didn't know about at that stage. He diliegently taught the class ,but being new to it all covered in only about 20 minutes. Not knowing what to do for the rest of the hour he offered to take them to Maccas for a burger and a chat. NOT ONE of them objected and off they went.

I laughed and laughed over that, but oh boy the Branch didn't, and in the end he was threatened with ex-communication!!!!! Needless to say he didn't stay in the Church.

Ah, so many good times from my youth being recounted here. Throwing water balloons at cars from behind hedges, mistreating the less popular boys at ym/scouting activities. Shooting bottle rockets at each other and other people. Soaking tennis balls in gas, setting them on fire and then playing baseball with them (almost blowing up a car in the process). Harassing neighbors we didn't like with late night calls and trashing their yards. We wrecked some sh1t back then, and oddly enough we were the "good kids".

You weren't with that group of teen boys who lit tires on fire and rolled them down the gorge in southern Utah and almost started a range fire are you?????

A few decades ago as a teacher, there was a door in the ceiling of the sacrament preparation room. We'd go up there and there was a little door to get into the HVAC duct system. The ducts were big enough we could easily crawl all over the building. You can imagine some of the things we were able to do to spy on people and/or scare them from above.

Thats how my church building was too. We (the youth) all did this. I was bummed when they tore it down and built one of the same church buildings everyone else has.

Girls camp:
I stole the key to the showers so my group could take showers in the middle of the night.

We raided the kitchen and took all the chocolate for smores.

Ordered pizza delivered on a cell phone nobody knew we had. Also ordered it to be delivered by a cute young guy. It was.

Loaded every girl from my ward into my tiny car and left girls camp two days early so we could camp at my house with air conditioning and showers.

Told the stake pres. to go to hell.

I did all of this after I turned 40. I won't tell what I did as a teenager. I'll take that to my grave. Needless to say at least two of the guys that were in my little group of friends are now stake presidents. Discernment does not exist in mormonism.

Lusting after a married woman in the ward (I was about 15 at the time) and spankin' it in the john.

Ron Burr

I ate the sacrament bread out in the hallway with some boys in my ward; on fast Sunday while the service was going on

My oldest brother (still a TBM) admitted that during the mid/late-1970s, he and a number of other Aaronic priesthood holders would take porn into the locker room, fill the shower with steam to obscure visibility, and then all j**k off together in parallel.


Note: My assumption is that this was NOT a Sunday activity, but something they did after ward softball or basketball.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/26/2013 10:09PM by facsimile3.

Hell... the worst we did was deceive leaders/parents by visiting the shut-ins Brother Duncan or Brother Winchell instead of going to prescribed meetings.

I belched in the testimony mic at the end of fast and testimony meeting when I was a teen. I got some realy dirty looks.

In the MTC my dorm room ditched our meetings to get some extra sleep time. Our Branch Pres. found out and gave us a huge ass chewing!

At a Church dance I requested "Get the Fuck Out" from Skid Row on the song request sheet in BIG letters.