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I noticed something this week now that I met with the Bishop. Our neighbors, who are LDS, invited my wife to an activity. Her husband is now saying hello to me. When I wasn’t attending LDS (for the past few months) he never said hello, just sort of looked at me or avoided me. I think it is unfortunate that now that I’m attending suddenly I’m some how a better person in his eyes. Have any you had this experience? What are your thoughts? Personally I think it’s a case of out of sight / out of mind. People are busy with their jobs, kids and family. They want to connect, but they aren’t sure how to do it. The other thing I’ve seen is that when someone is inactive, sometimes people are worried that they will offend them by reaching out to them as friends. Which is usually ridiculous of course. hawkgrrrl wrote:Personally I think it’s a case of out of sight / out of mind. People are busy with their jobs, kids and family. They want to connect, but they aren’t sure how to do it. The other thing I’ve seen is that when someone is inactive, sometimes people are worried that they will offend them by reaching out to them as friends. Which is usually ridiculous of course.
hawkgrrrl, I love how you find the most logical/simple answer. Out of sight/ out of mind.
and: out of contact / out of comfort zone
Additionally, I will add that Bishoprics have PEC meetings for a reason. They talk about the needs of members in that meeting (that’s the goal). While your Bishop may not have divulged your whole scenario, he may have mentioned that you could use some extra TLC from the ward. Once it is mentioned in PEC, the whole ward will know in a flash. This has happened to us in our current ward. In fact, our Relief Society president insists they spend the first few minutes every class to discuss the women/families who need help (my wife detests this being a very private person).
One day I got a ride home from school from my Bishop (on a Thursday I think), and he mentioned to me that they had talked about in PEC the fact that we needed some friends and whatnot (we just moved into the ward). By Sunday evening we had 4 invitations for dinner and/or FHE for the next 3 weeks, and we had a cake on our table from the Relief Society President.
You may or may not like this aspect of Mormonism, but we definitely care for our own, even if it’s public knowledge!
Euhemerus wrote:By Sunday evening we had 4 invitations for dinner and/or FHE for the next 3 weeks, and we had a cake on our table from the Relief Society President.
Receiving a cake on the table? Wow, if my ward did that I would never fully activate. I would rather stay needy by the ward. J/K
Seriously, I think I might try inactivity for a minute — just to see what kind of free food I can score! 
Though I’ll second Hawk. Sometimes I can see that people are struggling (it’s easy to spot once you’ve been there), but if we’re not close, I’m never sure how to approach the topic. I don’t know who else knows or if they’ve even admitted it to themselves yet. I don’t know if they’re dying to talk about it or just need some space. I usually try to casually and incrementally be friendly and kind and make very subtle comments that open the door, but if they don’t take me up on it — or I don’t realize they’re trying to respond — I might miss opportunities to reach out simply because I don’t want to be overbearing.
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