So apparently our mormon neighbor wasn't our friend, he was our home teacher
luvcake Dec. 2012
So when we first moved to our house in Utah we also decided that, that would be a good time to not go to church anymore. We did not make it as clear as we could have that we were never going to be going back.
So, I guess we thought we made friends with a neighbor across the street.
He and his family were living with in-laws until they could find a home in the neighborhood. His kids were in the same classes at school as my kids. He would stop over every month or so and was very easy to visit with and friendly. I think I even told my husband that they would be nice to hang out with. He would bring us treats on Holidays and always seemed genuinely interested in our family.
Well about a year later, he buys a house in the neighborhood but a little ways down the street. He came by a few more times and then nothing.... I told my husband that the ward boundaries must have changes,and sure enough they did!
So, he wasn't a friend but rather our home teacher.
[Admin Note: In the Mormon Church every family is assigned a "home teacher". This male, usually as a pair of males where one is the senior, visits assigned families once per month.]
frankie
Re: So apparently our mormon neighbor wasn't our friend, he was our home teacher
gee whiz. To outsiders this would sound so weird. pre school kids have better social skills/manners.
upsidedown
Re: So apparently our mormon neighbor wasn't our friend, he was our home teacher
He doesn't seem to grasp the meaning of friend...only "friendshipping."
gentlestrength
Re: So apparently our mormon neighbor wasn't our friend, he was our home teacher
I told my TBM mom she has assigned friends. Not so sure she got the point. What a shame that you can live on this earth so long content to be assigned your personal and spiritual associations.
It has been suggested in a prior thread that it is no longer required that you attend your assigned ward meetings, but that was certainly the case 25 years ago, what a silly religion, silly and petty.
Cheryl
A covert home teacher? My inactive/exmo sis had a VT [Visiting Teacher - female version of home teaching] like that -- for 25 years.
The lady brought little gifts and treats and visited regularly. They went out for lunch and had a good time together. Finally, the woman tried to pull a $60,000 scam on my sister's young son and his wife. The young couple saw through it in time and told sis they'd throw the "mormon b**** off their property if she showed up agian at their door and they'd cuss her out royally if she phoned them.
My sister never cared for priesthood guys who harassed her and told them so, but she was taken in by this VTer and her cookies and had to pay a price for her gullibility.
justcallmestupid
Re: So apparently our mormon neighbor wasn't our friend, he was our home teacher
Appalling! That guy didn't have the decency to admit right away that he was assigned as a hometeacher - and stopped being friendly/neighbourly the minute he didn't have be to any more? - Arrogant SOB, in my book.
Do yourselves a favour and resign (if possible) - at least than you know that whoever becomes a new friend is genuinely interested in you guys. 1 true friend is worth over 100 "friendshippers".
Greyfort
Re: So apparently our mormon neighbor wasn't our friend, he was our home teacher
Wow. How disappointing and disgusting.
xyz
Re: So apparently our mormon neighbor wasn't our friend, he was our home teacher
"Assigned Friend."
How shallow can you get?
And then Mormons go and wonder why everyone else thinks they're freaks.
notyersister
Re: So apparently our mormon neighbor wasn't our friend, he was our home teacher
This is not surprising to me at all. When I divorced my TBM husband in 1996 and stopped attending, my VTs asked if they could still visit me. I said by all means, come visit whenever they liked but not as VTs, just as friends,please. I never saw them again. These were women I had known for years.
Thanks for letting me vent about a hurt that was and still is painful.
sistersalamander
Lucky, I guess...
A few years ago, I moved to a different town. While my old town and ward was full of backstabbing, malicious people (whether assigned to befriend me or not), the neighbors in my current town are nice and I've managed to develop some pleasant acquaintance-ships. (They are still mostly LDS).
I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that I decided the move would be a great time to have a "clean slate." These neighbors never knew me as Mormon.
lurker 1
Re: So apparently our mormon neighbor wasn't our friend, he was our home teacher
When I was completely TBM my boss and good friend was an inactive Mormon. His brother was my bishop and the little community I lived in was a company town (high in the Sierra's in central California) about an hour from the church building. I was assigned as his home teacher. He told me I was welcome to visit any time I liked but only as a friend, not as a home teacher. I visited him a lot but never counted a home teaching visit. One time we were driving back from our corporate headquarters about 5 hours away and he wanted to stop at a bar. He asked if I would drive the rest of the way home so he could have a couple of beers. We were in the bar, him having a beer and me having a coke and we were talking a little about work. He informed me he was going to count our discussion as my 6 month performance review. I told him that was OK but only if I could also count it as a home teaching visit. We had a good laugh and that month I was a 100% home teacher.
J. Chan
Most preschoolers also understand that someone isn't necessarily
your friend just because they talk to you occasionally.
Puli
Re: So apparently our mormon neighbor wasn't our friend, he was our home teacher
Does look like he needed to movce on to e forced freinds with someone else. Mormons are kept rather busy so they might not have time to build real freindships.
anagrammy
MIssionaries, home teachers, they are all forms of affinity fraud.
The missionaries misrepresent the gospel message. The target is never given the complete truth about what Mormons believe. You can't sell mouthwash in the U.S. without complete disclosure, but you can intentionally lie and take away people's self-determination with calculated lies and brainwashing, and that's ok.
The home teacher pretends to be a friend of the family while acting as the bishop's spy. This is disingenuous as well, but if a man has served a mission, he is used to it so his conscience doesn't warn him that what he is doing is unethical.
The ability of the church to replace your real friends with their assigned friends allows them to yank out from under you all the support you thought you had from your Mormon pseudo-friends. How many people have you heard say they would never move out of the ward? They believe. They really believe they are loved. This is the bitterest pill of all--and Mormons don't have a clue that this would ever happen to them.
In fact, they draw closer together when someone leaves the fold in the form of "uniting against a common foe." They will say that it's not you, they still love you, but unfortunately your friend Stan is a danger to their families, so they can't associate any more.
Blame Stan.
Anagrammy
Heresy
Re: So apparently our mormon neighbor wasn't our friend, he was our home teacher
I left back before you were allowed to resign. It was decades before I gave up and wrote my letter. It was the only way to stop this.
I've had three monthly assigned friends since I moved the last time. The last one started out disguising it as interest in common neighborhood issues. It wasn't that at all.
They have no shame. It is as obvious as a monthly menstrual cycle.
luvcake
Re: Most preschoolers also understand that someone isn't necessarily
Exactly! Point taken!
nonmo
Re: So apparently our mormon neighbor wasn't our friend, he was our home teacher
I found out telling people in Utah when I moved here, that I wasn't mormon. This did a lot of "filtering" for me. I had no mormons who I thought were friends. I just knew and know mormons who were and are "friendly", but I don't consider them, nor do they consider me, a friend
gentlestrength
Re: So apparently our mormon neighbor wasn't our friend, he was our home teacher
Oddly, my regular family contact checks-in about once a month. "Just checkin' in" Anyone else notice this with their family?
Cynthia
Re: So apparently our mormon neighbor wasn't our friend, he was our home teacher
I am assigned as a covert VT for my inactive neighbor. When they asked me to do this years ago (when I was TBM) I told them I would not go into her home but I would make sure the family was alright as far as I could tell over the fence. We visit in the summer over the fence, she now grooms my dog. My neighbor told me she was not interested in the chruch. I told the RS pres. I would respect that and if they wanted 100% VT from me they would just have to count her as visited every month. I also still visit two widdow ladies, one is 84 the other 99. I have visited them for 17 years and plan to until they are gone. They are truely my friends and I would still visit them if I was not assigned as their VT. I never give the lesson either we just visit and they love to visit.
Our home teachers have been changed to a couple who are our age, I'm sure it's an effort to make me change my activity level which dropped to nothing at the first of the year. This couple are our friends but we don't socialize outside of church activities, so at this point we only socialize the day they come to home teach. I feel so special.
In the church most friendships are assigned. Most friendships exist within the organization people are in. When the callings change the friendships also change. The ties to other people are only a bond when the callings are in common, for the most part that is my experience anyway.
"Recovery from Mormonism - www.exmormon.org"