Sethbag wrote:The Nehor, perhaps you're just young enough not to have heard all the inspirational stories that glorify not leaving people alone, even when they ask for it. You know, like the story I've heard in various forms at various times in church where some bishop or stake president tells a story of a guy who'd been offended and left the church when he was young. You know, then there's the home teacher that goes and knocks on the guy's door every month for 30 years but the guy never lets him in. That doesn't stop the home teacher though, who keeps coming back every month. Finally the guy lets in the home teacher and ends up returning to the church. And then, the predictable punchline "and that man was me." If that kind of talk doesn't glorify not letting people go and leaving them alone, I don't know what does.
Interestingly, though, ever since the second meeting with my bishop a year or so ago, when he realized that my unbelief wasn't just me having been offended, or wanting to sin, or having been fooled into believe some untrue anti-mormon stuff he could correct me on, and he really had nothing to offer to counter my objections to the notion of the church being true, I haven't heard peep from him, his councilors, the EQ president, or anyone else. I guess they're just glad they still have my wife and daughter, and maybe they don't wish to rock the boat and risk me doing something more aggressive like actually having my name removed. It's interesting to me.
Okay, no, never heard that story, must be a Utah thing. In Texas we keep in contact as much as they allow us. If someone I hometeach asks for no visits I usually just leave my phone # and cut contact down to sending a birthday and Christmas card and a phone call once a year to say hi and leave it at that. If they asked me to stop that I would. Most don't. One didn't realize he's even being home taught as we are great friends now (he was taken off my list but we still hang out). There's something fun about playing Halo for a Home Teaching Visit. Reminds me of challenging a guy on my Mission to a Tekken match with the stakes being him keeping the Word of Wisdom.
"Surely he knows that DCP, The Nehor, Lamanite, and other key apologists..." -Scratch clarifying my status in apologetics "I admit it; I'm a petty, petty man." -Some Schmo
Well here's my record-keeping, we're following you, freak out.
I went to church on and off from around age 6 or 7 to about 16. Baptized. Parents were members, never went. Mom sent my brothers and I to church so we would "fit in." She was probably right in some ways to do this (and wrong in others). I always hated church and felt it was wrong. Also never believed in God, but that's another story.
I went to Sunday School pretty regularly during that time, and Primary and MIA. I rarely went to Sacrament meeting. So in my ward I was considered "inactive." Oh the shame of non-attending parents! Bishop: Don't you want your parents to come? 10 year. old me: "Its up to them." Bishop: "Don't you want to hold Family Home Evening?" 12 year. old me: "Not really." Bishop: "Have you been living the law of chastity?" 13 year. old me: "!!! Yeah!" Bishop: "Are you sure?" 13 year. old me: "Yes." Bishop: "Are you really sure?" 13 year. old me: "Yes. Definitely." Bishop: "Let me tell you what the Law of Chastity is..." 13 year. old me: "I know what it is, and my mother's calling me..."
I went to seminary in Jr. High and for one year in High School before I got kicked out for asking too many questions and running a betting ring in the back of the class on the NCAA basketball finals.
Age 16 stop all attendance.
Graduate High School. Go to college. Get a BA. Get an MA. Work for a few years to save money for doctoral program. Leave Utah to pursue PhD. on the East coast. During this time very little contact with the church (except for missionary/ward encounters previously described in other threads). Don't think much about it either. Somewhere in here I read No Man Knows My History and find it suprisingly flattering of Joseph Smith. Because I'm living in upstate New York, it dawns on my that I'm by Palmyra and one day while having a very, very terrible break up with a very, very bad boyfriend, I suggest we go for a long car ride---for distraction---and get him to drive me to Hill Cumorah. I remember little about it because it was overshadowed by the hell of breaking off with this guy.
Finish Grad school. Get an academic job. Get another academic job.
By now nearly 30 years have passed since I attended. I've moved a dozen times over several states and across the continent. No contact with anything Mormon. Not much thought about it.
Three years ago I start researching an artist I want to write about. I notice that he uses masonry/masonic symbolism in one section of his magnum opus, while another touches on Utah history. Hmmmm. I know he grew up in Idaho. Hmmmm. Mormon subtext? Anyone written on this yet? Googling around I find some assy Mormon film website which claims him as an "ethnic Mormon." Preposterous!!! What does that term mean? Google some more. End up on RfM. Read through it. Realize that I recognize about four posters (although they post with screen names). One is long lost friend. I post on RfM. Once. Twice. Three times.
I come home from campus and my husband tells me that Mormon "missionaries" have been by asking for my by name (or at least by an earlier version of it) and saying they are from "my church." I think he's making a bad joke. He often makes jokes about Mormons/what he calls my "hick accent"/Utah.
They come back. They are two snot-nosed elders (decades younger than me) who attempt to put the guilt into me and demand I "come back." I'm astounded they know who I am and where I live. They won't tell me (don't know?) how they know this. Nor will they take "I'm not interested" as an answer. Nor will they accept that as far as I'm concerned I'm not Mormon. They are rude and sarcastic.
I have to shut the door on them.
Then the Twilight Zone music kicks in. No contact for over 30 years. Three posts on RfM. A week later, these guys show up.
From the Ernest L. Wilkinson Diaries: "ELW dreams he's spattered w/ grease. Hundreds steal his greasy pants."
Sethbag wrote:The Nehor, perhaps you're just young enough not to have heard all the inspirational stories that glorify not leaving people alone, even when they ask for it. You know, like the story I've heard in various forms at various times in church where some bishop or stake president tells a story of a guy who'd been offended and left the church when he was young. You know, then there's the home teacher that goes and knocks on the guy's door every month for 30 years but the guy never lets him in. That doesn't stop the home teacher though, who keeps coming back every month. Finally the guy lets in the home teacher and ends up returning to the church. And then, the predictable punchline "and that man was me." If that kind of talk doesn't glorify not letting people go and leaving them alone, I don't know what does.
Interestingly, though, ever since the second meeting with my bishop a year or so ago, when he realized that my unbelief wasn't just me having been offended, or wanting to sin, or having been fooled into believe some untrue anti-mormon stuff he could correct me on, and he really had nothing to offer to counter my objections to the notion of the church being true, I haven't heard peep from him, his councilors, the EQ president, or anyone else. I guess they're just glad they still have my wife and daughter, and maybe they don't wish to rock the boat and risk me doing something more aggressive like actually having my name removed. It's interesting to me.
I am in the EXACT same situation.
And crawling on the planet's face Some insects called the human race Lost in time And lost in space...and meaning
Sethbag wrote:The Nehor, perhaps you're just young enough not to have heard all the inspirational stories that glorify not leaving people alone, even when they ask for it. You know, like the story I've heard in various forms at various times in church where some bishop or stake president tells a story of a guy who'd been offended and left the church when he was young. You know, then there's the home teacher that goes and knocks on the guy's door every month for 30 years but the guy never lets him in. That doesn't stop the home teacher though, who keeps coming back every month. Finally the guy lets in the home teacher and ends up returning to the church. And then, the predictable punchline "and that man was me." If that kind of talk doesn't glorify not letting people go and leaving them alone, I don't know what does.
Interestingly, though, ever since the second meeting with my bishop a year or so ago, when he realized that my unbelief wasn't just me having been offended, or wanting to sin, or having been fooled into believe some untrue anti-mormon stuff he could correct me on, and he really had nothing to offer to counter my objections to the notion of the church being true, I haven't heard peep from him, his councilors, the EQ president, or anyone else. I guess they're just glad they still have my wife and daughter, and maybe they don't wish to rock the boat and risk me doing something more aggressive like actually having my name removed. It's interesting to me.
Okay, no, never heard that story, must be a Utah thing. In Texas we keep in contact as much as they allow us. If someone I hometeach asks for no visits I usually just leave my phone # and cut contact down to sending a birthday and Christmas card and a phone call once a year to say hi and leave it at that. If they asked me to stop that I would. Most don't. One didn't realize he's even being home taught as we are great friends now (he was taken off my list but we still hang out). There's something fun about playing Halo for a Home Teaching Visit. Reminds me of challenging a guy on my Mission to a Tekken match with the stakes being him keeping the Word of Wisdom.
But Nehi, their next hometeacher will do the same. When you are an inactive, its like your confronted by an ever changing parade of people who want to be your best friend and strangely shy away fromwhy you doubt. They are scared of asking why.
your situation is pretty unique in that you have non-induced interaction with a less active.
And crawling on the planet's face Some insects called the human race Lost in time And lost in space...and meaning
Mercury wrote:But Nehi, their next hometeacher will do the same. When you are an inactive, its like your confronted by an ever changing parade of people who want to be your best friend and strangely shy away fromwhy you doubt. They are scared of asking why.
your situation is pretty unique in that you have non-induced interaction with a less active.
My circle of friends include 3 less-actives and 2 non-members. We play a lot of board and video games, watch movies, set off illegal fireworks in the middle of the street. More than once they've called me to pick them up from the bar after they've had one too many. Around here this is normal. If this ticks you off so much people, my advice is to GET OUT OF UTAH.
Why should I shy away from why they doubt? To the best of my knowledge it's not a contagious disease. Some people I home teach I realize I will never be friends with because we have nothing in common. Those people I just keep in contact with on a casual basis and don't drive them away. Two have come back to Church from what I'd like to think were my friendly calls. Maybe, maybe not. One I dated for a while. It's all good.
"Surely he knows that DCP, The Nehor, Lamanite, and other key apologists..." -Scratch clarifying my status in apologetics "I admit it; I'm a petty, petty man." -Some Schmo
I'm not faulting you for your efforts. I'm talking about a wider spectrum of problems. Get Mormonism out from under the microscope and take in its full dysfunctional array of behaviors you find "peculiar" and others find annoying.
Mormons are stalkers because they have no social manners. Well, at least the middle and lower class.
And crawling on the planet's face Some insects called the human race Lost in time And lost in space...and meaning
Mercury wrote:I'm not faulting you for your efforts. I'm talking about a wider spectrum of problems. Get Mormonism out from under the microscope and take in its full dysfunctional array of behaviors you find "peculiar" and others find annoying.
Mormons are stalkers because they have no social manners. Well, at least the middle and lower class.
Make a custom sign:
"Home Teachers and any form of religious missionaries will be dowsed with corrosive acid from above and shot while trying to flee. You have been warned."
Most will walk away chagrined. I'd laugh hysterically, ring the doorbell, and get ready to dodge. So that'll take care of most of them. Getting rid of me you just have to ask without the sign :)
"Surely he knows that DCP, The Nehor, Lamanite, and other key apologists..." -Scratch clarifying my status in apologetics "I admit it; I'm a petty, petty man." -Some Schmo
Mercury wrote:I'm not faulting you for your efforts. I'm talking about a wider spectrum of problems. Get Mormonism out from under the microscope and take in its full dysfunctional array of behaviors you find "peculiar" and others find annoying.
Mormons are stalkers because they have no social manners. Well, at least the middle and lower class.
Make a custom sign:
"Home Teachers and any form of religious missionaries will be dowsed with corrosive acid from above and shot while trying to flee. You have been warned."
Most will walk away chagrined. I'd laugh hysterically, ring the doorbell, and get ready to dodge. So that'll take care of most of them. Getting rid of me you just have to ask without the sign :)
Nehi: Officer, I wasn't pestering her, I was just waiting outside her house so I could see her...she really will love me once she gets to know me
Officer: Shut up pervert
Nehi: No, you don't understand...
Officer: Do you have any narcotics on your person?
Nehi: Not the cavity search AGAIN!
And crawling on the planet's face Some insects called the human race Lost in time And lost in space...and meaning