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Over at MD&D, M&G asked me to report and give some details about church yesterday. I called the BP saturday night and asked if he was okay if we attended SM…only. Of course he said we were very welcome. None of the walds had been to church since, oh March maybe. I haven’t been active since last May.
jwald asked BP to be released from her primary president calling…so that we could decide to go to SM when we felt prompted to do so. Right now, we don’t go, and have had pretty well no contact with church…. and we struggle because jwald is suppose to be doing the primary stuff, so she feels like if she goes to SM she will be obligated to stick around do primary…which will then open all kinds of cans or worms when the ladies start asking questions in regards to our absence.
Anyway, the BP immediately released her, and made it clear that we were more than welcome to attend SM only.
We did take the kids. Oldest daughter wore pants.
The talks were 90% good, 10% aggravating. There was about ten minutes of focusing on women not waiting to have children, about not choosing to hold off on having a family just to become a doctor, and there was a quote about how motherhood and being a wife is a “calling”, not a personal choice. I cringed, and leaned over and told daughter that was bullsh*t…and that she could wait and choose to get married and have kids when/if she wanted to.
Also quite humorous in a sardonic way, is daughter is the ONLY female in the building that could possible even have kids at this time or in the immediate future…so pretty well the talk was directed at her. jwald could still have kids I guess…but I’m clipped…so hopefully that don’t happen.
🙂 BP’s wife is young enough, but they can’t have kids and adopt.A little later in the talk, the HC told a story about how the SP councilor told him to miss his stakes meetings, and spend more time with his family, and fulfil the promise he had made to his daughters to go camping that week. I thanked him after the meeting for that story.
The other talk was very good…about agency.
My youngest boy said he felt good about going to church…but was glad he didn’t have to stay for primary.
All the people were very nice and I was “smiley” (Brian’s advice) and very pleasant. One nice old couple asked what was we so busy with at school and such that we haven’t been to church in awhile. I chuckled. Everyone else at church knows, and it made me smile when these folks asked the naive question. Good for them.
BTW….I went to church because of some interaction I had with the few decent people on MD&D, but mostly because of some of the comments from Shawn. It gives me hope that there are some normal folks still left,and I want to give the church the benefit of the doubt as much as I can. Thanks for that.
Out.
Thanks for sharing cwald. cwald, Thanks for sharing. I’m glad you had a pretty decent experience and that your bishop handled the situation well.
MnG
Thanks for sharing that, friend. It made me smile today. Cwald, good to hear you had a positive experience there. I had a somewhat similar experience at church this week, too. I went and talked to my bishop yesterday, too, although for me this was the first I had told him about my doubts ( here is the linkAs for church itself, in sacrament meeting we had a couple of really good talks and then one of the worst talks I’ve heard in a long time. Up first was a young man in our ward who has a slight mental disability, who just got called to a 2 year service mission within our stake. He just talked about service and the happiness it has brought him, and it was just good and heartfelt. The we heard from a recently returned sister missionary. She went to the Nauvoo mission as one of the tour guide type people, but also had served in California in a regular proselyting mission during the winter months. She talked about how when she first got to Nauvoo she was heartbroken because the mission rules forbade proselyting to the people on tours. She wanted nothing else but to tell everybody about the gospel, and she couldn’t. But then she said she had a spiritual experience where it just came into her head that God loves every one of those people and he’s watching out for them no matter who they are or what they believe. She then shared something that her California mission president taught them, which was basically, “Don’t teach anyone unless you love them first.” I thought it was a wonderful message and I’m glad I got to hear it.
Our last speaker, though was from the High Council, and he immediately announced that his topic was modesty. I groaned (inwardly) as soon as I heard that, and sure enough, he managed to check off every single little tiny thing even tangentially related to modesty. Bare shoulders, bare midriffs, short skirts, more than one ear piercing, beards for men, anything other than the missionary haircut. All things we must avoid to be truly righteous.
🙄 He even told us to wear the “uniform of the priesthood” (his exact words). I kinda felt bad I was actually wearing a white shirt. Next week I won’t make that mistake.😈 But even with all that nonsense, I had a much different reaction yesterday than in recent weeks. For some reason, maybe because it was so stereotypically pharisaical, I was able to just laugh it off instead of getting upset and stewing about it. Same thing happened when I heard some unenlightened comments in Sunday School, too. They just didn’t bother me. Maybe I am getting more accustomed to the Middle Way.
Cylon wrote:…. I kinda felt bad I was actually wearing a white shirt. ….
What the hell were you thinking?
🙂 cwald wrote:Cylon wrote:…. I kinda felt bad I was actually wearing a white shirt. ….
What the hell were you thinking?
🙂 Lol, I don’t know, must have had a temporary brain malfunction when I was getting dressed.
cwald wrote:Cylon wrote:…. I kinda felt bad I was actually wearing a white shirt. ….
What the hell were you thinking?
🙂 I made up for your white shirt, Cylon. I wore a cross to church yesterday for the first time in years. I used to wear one all the time but lost it around the time of our move to NC from NY. Finally found a very plain, simple one that I liked.
Oh, not only did I wear it, it was plainly visible and I taught two adult classes.
Cylon wrote:Our last speaker, though was from the High Council, and he immediately announce that his topic was modesty.
Our HC speaker was assigned to speak on “Obedience and Repentance” – He related it to the olympics and how we need to make sacrifices and perfect our technique if we hope to earn the gold (CK) as opposed to earning the silver or bronze. I suppose one flaw in his analogy would be that an individual can give 110% and still come home with olympic silver – there is no shame in that. I’m wondering if there is a trend of “toe the line” type talks from HC speakers…
m&G, my youngest daughter was given a cross necklace when we moved – by one of the Bishop’s daughters. She loves it and wears it to church regularly. Great story Cwald. Thanks for sharing it. It’s nice to hear positive experiences. My Church experience was interesting…had in interview with our Bishop which went very well. He was being very careful not to offend me and I left the meeting in full control of my life and my volition and my relationship with the Church. It was good. While waiting for the meeting with the Bishop, our Stake President caught me in the hall and asked “Are you staying in the Ward?” This is because everyone is leaving for a variety of reasons, and I think they are short staffed. Can you image what someone with my issues would think of a comment like that? He and his counselors know who I am, and likely knew of my crisis 3 years ago when the Stake leaders handled my exodus from leadership rather sloppily and without any form interpersonal consideration. One of the SP members is our ex-Bishop and knew me intimately when iw as a HPGL….t
The reason our SP spoke to me was because he needs people to staff his church and wondered if I was a candidate. He never talks to me otherwise.
That was my impression…
Strange how at one time I believed it all — miracles for sacrifice, the need to put forward extremely high levels of effort in the Church given its divine nature. Now, I see it as something I will do it if’s convenient, or if I truly feel God himself pushing me in a certain direction…no longer will it waste my time or will be be simply a free laborer in a temporal vineyard….those were the thoughts that came to me when the SP said those few words in the hall.
Funny how they only take interest in your when you appear to have the ability to serve their agenda.
I’m glad it went mostly well.
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