Yes! This is exactly the kind of thing I'm afraid of. At the same time, this is a damn funny story. I'm surprised the missionaries didn't offer to baptize someone in that pool.
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You dont get it Fred, this isn't about cub scouts. This lady had no business talking to my kid about anything, much less inviting him to what is essentially her church (under the guise of scouting), without first clearing it with me. The way I see it, TBMs trying to entice my kid into mormonism is about as dangerous to him as a dealer offering him drugs or a gang member trying to recruit him. Dif
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Grubbygert is right, this is less about scouts for me (that's a whole other issue) and more about TSCC overstepping and pushing themselves on my son. This is something I have worried about since his birth and I know that this is just the first attempt. I have resigned from the church, my spouse has not, but I'm not sure how much difference that would make anyway. We live in an area that is less d
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I appreciate your responses. My issues with scouting are not limited to TSCC's involvement, but we will look into troops that are not associated with them, talk more with our son, then decide what is best for our family. I was very proud of how my son handled the situation. He did tell the busybody that she needed to talk to his parents. I am just very angry that she got him excited about it w
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A little background: my spouse and I have been away from TSCC for many years. Our son has never been to a mormon church meeting and finds the worship habits and religious ideas of our extended TBM family to be strange at best. We encourage him to be polite about their beliefs (at least to their faces) and they, in turn, have not bothered us about our lack of belief or even hinted that we should b
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I realize that I was officially out when member records received my resignation letter, but I finally got their letter confirming that fact today. After two months of swearing at the mailbox when the letter wasn't there, I'm happy to report that it has finally arrived!
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"Defying Gravity" from Wicked is my song. In the musical, when the "wicked witch," Elphaba and the "good witch," Glinda discover that the wizard of Oz is really just a man – and not a very good man at that – Glinda wants to ignore the information and continue to follow the wizard. Elphaba can't pretend anymore and decides to leave behind everything she thought sh
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Thanks for this. I can think of several people I know who need to read it. I'll be passing it along myself.
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Thank you for the quick responses! I have passed the information on to my friend and am waiting to see what transpires. I almost feel bad about bursting her bubble. She is a life-long mormon, but loves her kids more than anything or anyone else. If she sees the damage that can be done to them in the church I think she will be gone.
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I laid a bombshell on a TBM friend today. She has adopted children who happen to be black and she is white. I have often wondered what she is planning to tell her kids about the church's history of racism and finally, today, the conversation went that way. Her answer was that she will tell them that the church is run by men and sometimes they make mistakes, etc. It became clear that she thinks th
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Gay marriage may be unnecessary for you rhgc, but I assure you it is very important to thousands of gay and lesbian, tax-paying Americans, who are being denied their civil rights.
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I left the church, not because of doctrinal issues, but because of the racist, misogynistic, homophobic, hypocritical bullshit. Now if I could only get my parents and siblings off that hamster wheel.
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The letter was signed "Confidential Records." No one has contacted me yet. For now I'm going to take a wait and see approach and give them time to do the paperwork. I haven't decided if I will talk to them if they call. Part of me really wants to tell somebody why I couldn't just walk away--why I had to make the statement that I'm not one of them and have my name removed from their r
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Well that was fast! I emailed my resignation letter to member records very late on Wednesday night. Less than 48 hours later I received letter #1 telling me that my request "must be handled by local priesthood leaders before being processed by church employees." I wonder how long the next part of the process will take. Unfortunately I recognize the name of the Stake President and he str
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My young son asked me to find some cartoons on TV that he could watch while he ate his lunch. I turned the TV on and started flipping through all of the stations that usually play cartoons during the day while he called out what was on each channel. "Elmo…, some stupid show…, Barney…." Then I turned to KBYU, which often features more educational cartoons, but at this moment w
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Thank you for your comments. I know it's unlikely that anyone at the COB will read all that I've written, but that's okay. I wrote it for me. This process has nothing to do with them and everything to do with me finally saying I don't belong to them. Like Brian said above, I guess I'm figuratively flipping them off. They may not care, but it feels good to me! Does anyone know if the email opti
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It has been a long time coming, but I have finally written my resignation letter. I would appreciate any suggestions you have. Also, does anyone know if the email option still works? Thanks! Member Records Division, LDS Church: I am writing to formally resign my membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, effective immediately. With this action I withdraw my consent
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"Defying Gravity" from the Broadway musical "Wicked" GLINDA Elphie, listen to me. Just say you're sorry. You can still be with the Wizard, what you've worked and waited for You can have all you ever wanted . . . ELPHABA I know. But I don't want it. No! I can't want it anymore. Something has changed within me, something is not the same I'm through with playing by
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I never bought into it either. Even as a kid I refused to get up in sacrament meeting to repeat the "testimony" we had learned in primary. In fact, I'm proud to say that I never did bear my testimony – I didn't have one. I was a little kid when the announcement was made that blacks could have the priesthood. Until then, I didn't know that they had ever been denied the priesthood!
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When asking the tough questions getting the "There are things we don't understand, but it will be revealed in time" or some other version of that cop-out phrase.
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A similar incident is what finally made me stop going to church when I was just 11 years old. One sunday I was surprised to see a young man, who I knew from school but had never seen at church, enter my sunday school class. His family were not church-going people, nor did they have a lot of money, therefore he did not own dressy clothes. So he came to church dressed in his best pair of jeans. He
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Though I had not been to church for many years, I decided to attend when my good friend invited me to his new baby's blessing. He is not a terribly faithful member, but to make his wife happy he had done what he had to do in the months leading up to the blessing to be considered worthy to stand in the circle and bless his own child. After two or three baby blessings, the regular fast and testi
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Could you please explain which study you found to be biased? The link I provided was not for one study, but was actually the APA's summary of a number of separate studies and papers written by professionals in the fields of psychology and public health and published in several different professional journals. So can you explain which studies you found to be biased or political and why, or was you
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outofutah, you claim that a child growing up without both a mother and father is in a "less than an ideal situation." You're basing this opinion on what exactly? Because the truth is, legitimate research is showing that children raised in gay and lesbian households are turning out just as well as those raised within your ideal situation. (See http://www.apa.org/about/governance/council/
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To Nanackle: I think the government should continue to marry everybody and the churches should call their ceremonies "holy matrimony" or whatever other term they decide upon. Marriage – with all of its rights, responsibilities, and benefits – should be available to any two, non-related adults who love each other and want to make that commitment. I'm going to give you the benef
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I tried that once – opened the door to two women I had never seen before. They introduced themselves as my visiting teachers. We stood on the front porch and had a perfectly nice conversation for about 10 minutes. Then they asked if they could come back and again next month with a visiting teaching message. I told them they were welcome to visit any time – as neighbors – but I was not inter
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A couple of years ago my TBM sister made a framed copy of the proclamation to give to my TBM parents for Christmas. Bordering the edges of the text she placed a collage of photos of my siblings and their families. I was annoyed when I saw the gift, but upon closer examination I was amused to find that photos of me, my same-sex partner and our son were included. So does she not know what the procl
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We ate at Blue Lemon. It was good – nice, fresh food. I had a very tasty panini along with some sweet potato fries that came with a potentially addictive dipping sauce (not your normal Utah fry sauce, which I also enjoy). Two of the women in my group tried the butternut squash soup and were making yummy noises to the point that I was concerned we were going to witness a re-creation of the Meg R
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So I met some friends tonight at a restaurant in the new City Creek center in Salt Lake. I've avoided downtown since all the construction began, but after circling the block I found the underground parking entrance and with a little direction from a maintenance worker in the garage was able to find the elevator. The sign above the elevator assured me that this was the way to the restaurant, so I
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