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Containing 3,876 Articles Spanning 260 Topics Ex-Mormon News, Stories And Recovery Online Since January 1, 2005 |
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| Yesterday, October 15th, I went with others from my ward and stake to cut down trees and do cleanup in southeast Texas in the wake of Hurricane Rita.
I showed up at 5:00 am at our stake center, and my bishop saw that I was wearing a white T-shirt and asked if I needed a yellow "Mormon Helping Hands" shirt. I said, "No, I'm OK." To my surprise, he shrugged it off and said no more about it. After everyone showed up, we left for Orange, TX. At the Orange stake center, I ran into my stake president, who again asked me if I needed a yellow T-shirt. I again said, "No, I'm OK." but didn't bother to stick around for his reaction because I was hurrying into the building to take a leak. A few guys from my ward asked me if I needed a yellow T-shirt. I gave each of them my standard, "No, I'm OK." answer, except one guy who kept pressing the issue. I finally said "I don't look good in yellow." One guy from my ward, XXX, said "Oh, don't bother {myfirstname}, he's an independant thinker." (More on XXX later.) What is the deal with wearing those damn T-shirts? I can't tell if the church is more interested in the PR, the "missionary opportunities", or the actual work beingdone. In Orange there were a couple of guys with a professional video camera going around interviewing people. They didn't look like reporters, because the interviewer was always off-camera and dressed in work clothes, too. I wonder if it was a church PR effort? Orange and the surrounding area still has a lot of tree damage. All power was back on from what I could tell. There were many businesses open, but still a sizable fraction temporarily closed. About two-thirds of the roofs had at least a small section of blue tarps covering them, and several that were completely covered. The area around Orange is fairly wooded, and probably one third of the trees were snapped in half. Even though it had been three weeks, the storm damage was still pretty evident. My work group was assigned to Vidor, "Home of the KKK", Texas. We went to a non-member's house. She was an elderly lady who had four or five large trees down in her back yard. My work crew had 8 men and 4 chain saws. It was hot, humid, and heavy work. Differences in religious devotion not withstanding, there wasn't a slacker in my group. We all worked our butts off. At lunch, I joked that if we were Jedi Knights with lightsabers, we'd have finished the job in less than an hour. Brother XXX chuckled, and I got a lot of blank stares, and dour EQP said, "I prefer to live in the real world, not a fantasy world." I had several responses to that, but I kept my mouth shut. Later in the afternoon, we had one tree left to clear. It was leaning at about a 45 degree angle, up against another tree. After cutting a couple of limbs that were apparently holding it up, it only went down a couple of feet. The roots were still keeping it up. I was tired and punchy, so I ran up the trunk and started to jump on it. XXX also came up and jumped up and down on it with me. It slowly started to fall, and we rode it down. We were only about 8 feet off the ground, and it fell pretty slowly, so it was kind of fun, and we were not ever really in danger. XXX was the only guy there who called me by my first name. Everyone else called me Brother Lastname. I, on the other hand, called everyone by their first names. I really don't understand the whole Brother/Sister thing. If it was meant to show closeness or fellowship, it sure doesn't do it for me. People I am close with call me by my first name, even people I work with. Being addressed by my last name is only done by strangers and ward members. Go figure. We finished a little early, at 4:00, because all of our chain saws gave out. We still had to cut up that last tree that we downed, but if the saws don't work, there's nothing more we could have done. At least we listened to the Astros game on the radio on the way home, instead of telling each other "inspirational" stories. I was recently assigned to home teach XXX. I had not really known him or his family before. I am glad to see that he seems like a real person, and not some thoughtless drone. I was pleasantly surprised at how affable and friendly he was, esecially compared to my other work-crew members. We helped a poor, elderly, non-member lady clear trees from her back yard. I am satisfied that what we did made a real difference, at least to one person. I'm also glad that I didn't have to wear advertising for the church. |
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| Thinking of my former time in Mormonism (40 years), I realized that me, my wife and our kids did NOTHING for our communities in the form of service. In fact, this selfishness extended to charitable giving as well. I am not promoting or endorsing any charitable organization here, I am just relating my experiences with this topic. I also realize that not everyone had the same attitude as we did as mormons.
Community Service: As a busy mormon, I attended Sunday services, additional church meetings, YM/YW activities (weeknights and often weekends), did HT, attended the temple regularly (whatever that meant?), prepared lessons etc... When all of that was done, coupled with a demanding professional life, I found little time and/or energy left to help with community service opportunities. I would see needs to volunteer with various school, community and kids sporting events but I would "quietly" avoid volunteering. Why? Because I felt I was doing my part with all of my "church service". This cog-dis has been apparent more since we left the morg and have had conversations about this topic with my FIL. FIL and MIL are very active TBM temple workers. As we talk to them about community service, my FIL feels that he is providing a "spiritual service" to his community by doing temple work (huh?). Of course I disagree because I think he's simply wasting away his prime retirement energy on useless work but I regress! Since we have left the church we have attempted to correct the error of our ways. We have encouraged our kids and actively sought ways to serve our fellow community friends. Being in the morg eliminated the need for us as parents to find "community service" projects for either ourselves or our kids. Now we have to find them ourselves and it takes a hell of a lot of work. However, it does get easier as we get more experience finding those opportunities. This also segways into the next area. Charitable Giving: Of course any faithful, practicing TBM is a "full" tithe payer. What this means to a community is that "mormons" don't contribute to anything else. In my case we felt that after a 10% tithe, an additional ~1% fast offering, church magazine subscriptions, various donations of items for the "church humanitarian aid projects" or should we say the "church members humanitarian aid projects", potlucks and youth activities etc. we didn't have anything left in our budget. The result is we would snub any other "charitable" giving as much as possible. Often we would get "forced" to donate something but it was done begrudgingly. I know it was a bad thing and we are attempting to right our wrongs with both our kids and our community. Again our logic was based on the false premise that we were already doing our part. Looking back I regret donating so much to one organization. We are now teaching our kids that it is okay to drop a $1 into the red salvation army container at Christmas time or to send $10-$20 into the schoolfor some charity or even to buy GS cookies sometimes. It is really not big deal, but we made it a big deal as morgbots. Of course I acknowledge that there are exceptions to the rule. However, my personal experience was one of selfishness towards my community in the form of my time and money. No wonder mormons are looked at as "peculiar", we were! |
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| When I was an EQP the Stake challenged each ward to come up with a service project; to help those in need in the ward.
That sounded like a good idea; get everyone involved in helping those less fortunate, those truly in need.
My phone rings and it's the first counselor in the bishopric all excited because he had come up with a great service project. "Let's finished the Bishop's basement for him!" I didn't know what to say. I had thought we were going to help the truly needy in the ward. But the counselor went on to explain to me that the Bishop donated so much of his time to the church, that he taught seminary as an occupation so he didn't make a lot of money, that his wife didn't work outside the home to obey the words of the prophet and to take care for their five children, so you see the bishop was truly needy! He needed the ward to step in and finish his basement for him. Now mind you, I was TBM through and through at the time but this didn't seem right to me. Was the Bishop a nice guy; yes he was. Did he donate a lot of time for his church calling; yes he did. Was he strapped for cash due to his fairly low paying employment, his five children and his stay at home wife; yes he was. Was his the most needy family in the ward; no his was not. I explained my feelings to the counselor. The Bishop was short on cash due to the choices he had made and was continuing to make. These were his personal choices about employment, number of children, church callings, etc. Would it be nice for some of his friends or neighbors to perhaps help him do some finish work in his basement, sure. But not as a ward service project. Their were other people in the ward who were in much worst situations not due to their personal choices but due to happenstance. Medical conditions, families where the bread winner had abandoned them, a family who had been involved in a car wreck, etc., etc. I lost the argument. The Bishop's basement was finished while others in greater need went without. Of course later on in testimony meeting you would have thought that the ward had all turned into literally saints due to the amount of tears, thanks and sobbing that went on. Did it help the Bishop and his family; sure it did, it was a nice thing to do. But as an official church service project I felt it was wrong. I sat there with my hard heart thinking about the other families that could have been helped but weren't. This isn't meant to condemn all church service projects. Some of them are great and really benefit those in need. But this one didn't. If you really want to hear me rant just ask about another official service project; install a family's roof mount air conditioner. |
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| I was reading the post on Temple Square on how a ward goes in and plants items in the gardens there. This is their service project.
Missionaries are also supposed to give 4 hours of service a week. One of the lines we read in Priesthood each Sunday regarding the Aaronic Priesthood guidelines is that the young men are to give meaningful service. Now I am thinking about the service projects I have been involved in. Yesterday, I helped my 2 sons mow an older ladies lawn in the neighborhood. She was a member who was in her 70s who had suffered a stroke last year, and was unable to do it. The yard was big, and took about an hour and 1/2 with a push mower. I thought it was meaningful service (until she insisted on paying my boys and wouldn't take no for an answer) because there was no possible way she could have done it. It was hard exhausting work. On Saturday, the Elders Quorum is also mowing a lawn...The Salvation Army's church lawn. Why they can't do that themselves is beyond me. I am sure they have at least a couple of guys or gals strong enough to push a mower around the place. I think of this as meaningless service. Other than PR relation points between us and them it does nothing. I might go since it's just down the street a block away and help for the exercise, which I could use. One thing I have noticed about Church projects is how they LOVE to toot their own horn about how much service they are doing. Service to get converts and tithing. The stake will swoop into a small town in our area each year and clean it up. I think a couple years ago they passed out t-shirts, just like the Katrina thing. So they become walking billboards and do it for ulterior motives. Basically service for the sake of service without hope for some payback later, does not exist in the Church. It is all about obligating those served to serve the Church later. I didn't put diapers on my kids with the expectation for them to put diapers on me when I get old and feeble later in life. Is it true and meaningful service though, if your real aim is to get something in return. If that's the case, then it's not service, it's a job, a job where the Church doesn't pay you, but they expect payment from those served. |
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| During the four decades of my LDS Church membership and faithful participation, one lesson was repeated to me on a regular basis: “If you are not happy, you must be disobeying some commandment.” Happiness, in the LDS Church, is predicated on righteous living. Righteous living is determined by what other people tell you is correct – parents, home teachers, YM/YW advisors, bishops, stake presidents, mission presidents, General Authorities, et al.
When I was a teenager, I felt happiness exploring my life and its limits. Some of my exploration took me outside of prescribed Mormon boundaries. I felt conflicted then – why did I feel happiness when I was “disobeying.” I didn’t understand why LDS adults strayed so easily from the source which should have been making them happy. On my mission, I earned the reputation of being a strict rule follower. I woke up on time, made street contacts as outlined, had baptisms, etc. Yet, when I felt unhappy enough to speak with the mission president, he always told me that the source of my unhappiness was some small disobedience to a rule – and who couldn’t find some way to improve compliance? During the following two decades, I remained very active. During law school, I was an Elders Quorum president of an Oklahoma ward that covered five counties. Then I became a Young Men’s President, then Ward Mission Leader, then HP Group Assistant (and temple worker at the same time), then bishopric member, then HP Group leader, then bishopric member again. I never slacked in service and duties. But I was becoming increasingly unhappy. I noticed along the way the most church duties are nothing more than “busy work.” I was having meetings to discuss meetings about other meetings. We didn’t do a lot of service. The service we did do was nothing more than busy work – temple attendance – not to benefit the living who actually needed some help, but for the dead (allegedly). And when we did go visit the living, it was usually to encourage them to be active in the church and to re-new their commitment to what was essentially busy work. The LDS Church could and should be known as the Church of the Busy Work. I have concluded that the LDS Church is incapable of producing happy members – even for the believers. There is only an artificial happiness which comes from staying busy - even when that busy work is sanctioned by church leaders. The placebo effect doesn’t last forever. True happiness, in my opinion, comes from within. The Church of the Busy Work teaches that happiness comes from performing arbitrary tasks which have no real significance. The second problem of such teachings is that when its victims notice that being busy doing church work isn’t leading them to happiness, they are told that they aren’t doing it well enough, or more of it, or with the right attitude. This just increases the level of unhappiness. The person is forced to look at herself/himself instead of realizing that it is the environment which is causing the problem. No wonder so many LDS men and women have become so dependent on anti-depressants. The real problem the LDS Church faces isn’t its false historical teachings, or past offensive practices, it is that even for the faithful, church hurts. |
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| The LDS Church donates enough in humanitarian cash donations each year for all of the members of the church to buy a candy bar. One candy bar. Or maybe a non-caffeinated soda...
According to the church's website, they have donated $201 million in humanitarian cash donations since 1985. That comes to $9, 136,364 per year. The church lists their current membership at 12,868,606 members. The average growth rate of the LDS Church is roughly equivalent to the inflation rate during the period from 1985 to 2007. Therefore the member growth rate is cancelled out by the inflation rate, allowing us to do a simple calculation: Total Donation/Membership/22yrs. This comes to $0.71 per member per year. For the average large Mormon family, the required 10% tithing per year costs about the same as the much-needed used car for the kids. From this donation, the loose change from underneath the seats is donated to humanitarian causes. http://www.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/v/inde... Yeah, I was amazed when I actually ran the numbers! And these are the figures that the church gives, so I don't think they are any more accurate than the total church membership number at the top of the page. |
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| While on a mission in Argentina during the 1980’s I saw poverty for the first time in my life. Although Argentina is a wealthy country there are many urban and rural areas that would be considered poor by North American standards.
Some of these areas were off limits to missionaries for teaching. We were told that the Mormon church feared conversions among the very poor because the converts would tax the LDS financial ability to feed them. (However, I was unaware of any church care of the poor while in Argentina). During a mission conference, a group of missionaries asked our mission president why the LDS church wasn’t doing more to alleviate the needs of the poor within the country. He responded that teaching people the gospel of Jesus Christ was the answer for helping the poor out from underneath their oppressive burdens. In other words, the church was spending NO money to help the poor in Argentina. The LDS church provided no schools, no food, no health care, no anything for the poor - the poor being seen as too much a burden to carry. Several months later, I was at a district conference or stake conference when a General Authority came to visit. He stated that the Argentine nation, which was suffering the effects of hyper-inflation) would only blessed economically when the Argentine Mormons paid a full tithing and generous fast offering! Even at twenty years of age, I could barely stand the imperialistic attitude demonstrated at the conference. I was embarrassed by what I heard. So instead of hospitals, schools, clothes or medicine, the LDS Church came to care for the poor by taking ten percent of their income. The Mormon Church had enough money to build a temple in South America a hundred times over, yet they forced the South Americans to sacrifice nearly everything they had - including pulling gold fillings out of their mouths to sell the gold to build a temple. James E. Faust was so moved by this sacrafice that he purchased several of the fillings to keep as souvenirs. You can find photos of James E. Faust proudly holding up a handful of gold fillings, like some gold-hungry conquistador holding up his loot after raping and pillaging the natives. |
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| We hear so much about TSCC's welfare programme and how it looks after it's members - while largely ignoring the other few billion of the world's population - that I thought I'd share with you my experience with ward welfare.
This was back in the eighties, during a recession. I had only been a member for a few years, I was married with three small children. My non-member husband had a job - a precious thing then - but because of economic conditions he was bringing home less and less money each week. However it was a job and he was desperate to hold onto it, he knew if we could make it through the next few months, things would start improving and his wages would go back up. In the meantime though he sometimes was bringing home less than £50 a week. We had little savings which soon went. Now bear in mind that I was a new member and hadn't even heard of welfare. I don't know if I'm a slow learner, but as a convert it took me decades to work out how the church worked. Then when I had learnt - I left! Anyway, the Bishop asked to see me and told me that someone had told him our family was struggling financially. I told him our situation and this was the help he offered us. He told me the church encouraged people to be self-sufficient, which I agreed with. then he told me he could help out with food for our family, but because he wanted us to be self-sufficient what he was going to do instead was give me a pear tree!! It was only a sapling right now, but in a few years it would give a good crop of pears. That was it. I left his office thinking 'That was weird', (Why, oh why didn't I listen to myself), but as I had no knowledge of the welfare programme, I wasn't disappointed. Since then I have served a long time as RS Pres. (hope you're impressed :) ) so was involved in helping people via ward welfare, often providing food for families for weeks. Different bishop though, mine had had facial hair before becoming bishop, which may explain it. BTW our ward is the wealthiest in this part of Europe. The outcome at the time was that despite our best efforts my husband had to give up his job and it was over a year until he found one again. Things did improve in his job area in the spring but he didn't get his old job back. Also, we never were given the pear tree! For those interested in documentation, I think it is a matter of record that some European countries went through a recession in the eighties. However I don't think the pear tree incident is mentioned in public records ;) |
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| Church News article ... "Bishop H. David Burton"...
It's not to save money....noooooo! I am not buying it! It's about teaching the youth to sacrifice, and respect,if you don't clean it you can't respect it, learn to treat it as special, and to top it off, it's about building personal character and eternal blessings. . (Typo on the page, I presume this is supposed to be 1999 but I am not sure) Paragraphs added for easy in reading. Oh ya, this is a new church activity. Not me. To quote Presiding Bishop H. David Burton from the January 30th, 199 LDS Church News: "This new program is pretty simple," explained Bishop Burton. "It basically amounts to inviting members of the Church to participate in the cleaning of their buildings in such a way that by their sacrifice, they will come to honor and respect and love these beautiful houses of worship. "When you think about it, next to your home, and next to the temple, where do the important events of life take place? The meetinghouse becomes a center of spiritual and social activities for our families. Here we worship the Savior every week. Here we partake of the sacrament and remember His atoning sacrifice. Here we listen and learn the doctrines of the kingdom. Here we bless our children. "Today, it is so easy for us to slip over to these meetinghouses and treat them as any other ordinary building we may enter during the week," he said.In a letter to PH leaders in the U-S and Canada, the First Presidency urged members, especially Aaronic Priesthood quorums, to play a prominent role in the care of meetinghouses. In the letter from the First Presidency, bishoprics and branch presidencies were encouraged to "enlist their youth to be part of this weekly activity" so that "from this service, young people can deepen their reverence and feelings of respect for the house of the Lord." "Our youth need opportunities to work," added Elder Robert K. Dellenbach of the Seventy and general president of the Young Men. "We've lost a lot of that perspective. That's the challenge we've got to change. I didn't like cleaning a smelly chicken coup when I was a teenager. But I had to do it. Part of galvanizing our youth in the gospel comes in teaching them to work. In the process, they will come to revere these buildings, just as their grandparents revere the buildings they helped construct in their day when they sacrificed of their time and means." "The most important thing to understand," continued Bishop Burton, "is that this program was not primarily instituted to save money. This is a program to develop personal character and receive eternal blessings. "Those priesthood leaders who teach their people that this is an opportunity to sacrifice and to build the kingdom will find success in their efforts," he continued. Facility management groups enter meetinghouses once a week and assist the cleaning efforts of the members by performing the more difficult maintenance responsibilities, such as refinishing cultural hall floors, cleaning the grouting in rest rooms, and shampooing carpets. They also maintain the equipment used by members and stock the cleaning supplies necessary for members to perform their role." http://questioninglds.blogspot.com/20... |