Was anyone else here upset with their callings? I was called to 1) be a visiting teacher with a real snot and 2) called eventually to Primary. ANYONE who knows me knows I can't stand children, which was ultimately why I left the church. I am just not one of those goody goody motherly Mormon types. I like tea too much.

The whole business of callings just left me cold.

As a young single living at home, I had 7 callings in UTAH. I was girls' sports director AND I was also called as a referee. Ha ha ha ha I liked playing some sports, but I was not very good at them. When I refereed basketball, the other girl would make all the calls and I'd just run up and down the court. I finally told the bishop I just couldn't do it anymore.

I could play the piano, but wasn't so good at some of the more difficult songs and yet I was always called to be a pianist and I was in high school. What a pain that was. Then they called me to learn to play the organ in the singles' ward. Laughable.

And primary. I had twins that were toddlers. The last thing I wanted to do on Sunday was teach primary, but there I was for years in primary. I finally got wise and started saying, "No!!!" Believe it or not, after being inactive for several years, they called me into the YW to be a teacher. I said no.

Hated callings it was just a sad device to get people to keep coming back i think. I dont think i helped a single person with my calling including myself it only humiliated me more than i was.

I saw a brand new member walk into Primary, flop her manual down, said, "I didn't know I had to do all this!!" and left!

It was sublime! :)

Classic thats what i should have done instead of sticking it out until i was done.

I had 3 10 yr old boys in the Blazer class that could not read! The private academy that all 3 attended didn't believe in teaching reading until 4th or 5th grade. I had to improvise every lesson.

Probably the one calling I wished I had said no was when I got a call from the SP to be the EQ President. I was serving as the stake financial clerk at the time. He said that it was time that I lived up to my potential. Needless to say, that lasted two years. I asked to be released due to medical reasons. I was then called to be a youth SS teacher, which kind of sucked cause most of the kids did not want to be there. My last call was ward financial clerk and the last six months of that calling I would just show up at the end of the block to the count. Oh, the memories of us all doing callings believing that we were servicing others. What a joke.

I had one stupid calling after another. As a youth I'd switch back and forth between president or first counselor of Beehives, Mia Maids and Laurels because there were so few girls in the class - usually no more than two of us. After my mission I was called to teach primary but quit after two weeks because one of the kids constantly kicked me in the shins. I moved on to the singles ward and was called to be the Gospel Essentials teacher which I hated the most of all my callings. It involved teaching the investigators, and a church priesthood "authority" sat through the class to make sure I didn't teach anything inaccurate. He usually fell asleep during my lesson, which didn't help my self confidence. It was so nerve-wracking that after one year I told the Bishop to release me - the first time I'd ever asked to be released from a calling. After that I was the housing coordinator and then, get this, I was called to encourage people to write in their journals. I said "no" and shortly after I was out of the cult.

I was usually "called" to be in the youth program which was ok as I liked the kids and no one worried too much about correlation. However, my favorite call was 2nd counselor in the Sunday School. About my only task was to ring the bell five minutes before end of classes. Sorry "sisters", that's important man work & only for priesthood holders.

Haha, not true. I rang the bell for 7 years as SS secretary and I'm a woman. I did everything, and the president did very little. The counselors did absolutely nothing, which was the best calling in my ward, come to think about it.

I stand corrected. Good to know how open and accepting the morg has become. Perhaps Holland can use this example in a talk. The sister are not just making donuts any more!

I was constantly given callings and while I learned much via service, I didn't have a life for 36 years. My worst experiences were in visiting teaching and on my mission.

I was a new convert of 2 weeks, and the Bishop made me the director of the choir in the student ward on the Michigan campus area. I had no musical background. After the first rehearsal, I walked out of the room, and saw one of the students that I knew was a music major walking down the hall. I took all the papers and choir books, dumped them in his arms as he gave me a surprised look, and told him to take over. I did not understand that was not how callings worked.

I was in that ward. :-) The Mormon meat market. Everyone was getting married after knowing each other for three months.

Callings are nothing more than a manifestation of the slave owner society in which we have all existed. "Never refuse a calling" AKA: shut up and do what you are told! So long as you do not tell them NO they will keep infringing on you freedom until you have none left. Stand up! Say NO! And be done with it.

I had one of the most useless callings: institute class president. That meant asking someone to say opening and closing prayers. Whoop dee doo! But I was happy I never got called to nursery or primary. I too cannot stand small children. God must have known that. he he.

Yeah, callings are onerous.

I was only frustrated with one.

Growing up, I was always called to be the quorum leader -- deacons, teachers, priests. Plus MIA "head priesthood kid." They were all callings that fed my ego. I was always the top dog.

When I came back from my mission and sorta secretly went inactive, the bish cornered me at one SM I went to (a buddy was giving his RM speech), and "called" me to teach Sunday School to the young teens.

That was the calling that I refused, walked out of the church over, and never went back.

So I guess I was lucky. And I'll apologize publicly for being the young priesthood-holding prick who was always the alpha-male "leader" and made sure all the beta males knew who was in charge...geez the church makes good pricks.

Yes they do its a god damn prick factory that i couldnt deal with i had to keep telling myself that god would help me eventually if i just stick it out around these pricks but god never did a damn thing and i know you arent surprised.

Before a year of being member I was called to be the YM first counselor (by god, the fact that there were a little number of priesthood holders and those being generally old people didn't count at all). soon after that YM president moved to the other ward's side of the city, so brother Lucas became the YM president without hardly any experience in the subject but "I was called by the god of Israel so all I need was faith and obedience".
Then came the nightmare called "2016", At first I have no YM (the only YM active was YM president's son), so I have to re-activate them (I re-activate one and at the end of the year I had two YM), plus I had an old book (1993, as old as me) to teach YM classes.
Apart from this, the other YSA in the ward became inactive so I was the only member who went with the missionaries, and I was preparing myself to go to a misssion.
From the beginning of the 2016 the ward attendance fell to 20,as a dumb TBM I thought "Lucas, you must try harder", and I tried and the things got better (40/42 of attendance at the end of 2016) but for bishop and SP "It wasn't good enough, you should try harder".
And the mission, well I made all the paper stuff, I took it to my SP and he told me "everything is OK" but five months later he told my bishop the papers are in the old form, I need the new ones,and I told him Lucas that (Liar), but because I really wanted to go to the mission I shut my mouth and do some extra stuff (In the end I didn't go ).
So at the end of my journey as a YM president I enjoy the blessings of being underrated,have a flu each 20 days, have a renal colic and suffer anxiety (I woke up at 3 or 4 a.m with horrible stomach cramps or I just couldn't sleep at all).

The only calling I ever had that caused me to seriously consider leaving the church was back in the early 1980's when the new position of Ward Activities Specialist was invented. I was given that calling, and in Stake training sessions, was instructed that basically I was to assist the various ward auxiliaries with events they had planned.

Unfortunately, the ward auxiliaries saw it differently from what I had been trained. They felt that if they wanted to throw some dinner or event, it was MY job to come up with a theme, and plan and execute the whole thing while they sat back and did nothing. In their eyes, it was MY calling to do everything for THEM. This led to some serious contention. When the Bishop sided with the auxiliaries on a few things, it nearly drove me out of the church.

As I grew older and bolder in the church, whenever I was interviewed for a calling, it was usually I that flipped the tables and interviewed the person giving me the calling. I didn't accept ANYTHING unless it was all spelled out and to my liking. I had one Stake High Counselor once tell me that he felt like I had put him through a "negotiation wringer". Haaa haaa.

Since high school, I was manipulated into playing the piano and organ. Mormons love to perform, and they would call me at the last minute, to accompany them, and would hand me a complicated piece of music, and expect me to play it perfectly, at first sight. The performers were usually show-offs with no musical ability. When correlation mandated the demise of all the great music, and the wonderful Lutheran and Catholic organ music I had learned, it was a mixed blessing. I no longer needed to rehearse these simple pieces, but they were boring and uninspiring. This, plus the years of having to sit alone in Sacrament meeting, and not with my children, having to go early and stay late to rehearse, having to rehearse on Saturdays--I burned out. For years after resigning, I would cringe whenever the phone rang.

I quit my callings for legitimate health reasons, and I was too sick to work, too. The people at work were understanding, and they kept my position open, for me to return. The Mormons were not so understanding.

They refused to release me! They told me to bring a barf bag, if I was that sick. The chorister said, "If you can drive yourself to the hospital for your treatments, then you can drive yourself to church." The bishop said that God would give me the health and strength to be the organist, and that if I quit, God would not bless me with health and strength, and I would get sicker. They made me feel horrible and guilty and worthless. After I quit, not one of the music people ever called me to ask how I was. The bishop did call, to ask if I would give free organ lessons. I said, "No," and he started arguing with me. I said I needed all my strength to get well, and to raise my children. No one ever offered help, of any kind.

What fools we were to give and give and give, to a cult that would only take, and never give anything in return.

Yep i always have to tell myself that church was a false support that just preyed upon me as i was getting weaker so never go back again thinking it would improve my health. Ive never understood why mormons loved performing and watching performances so much, does it make them feel like kings and queens watching a jester or is it a show off thing because we are not aloud to do anything else with our lives besides practice constantly, and my skills with a piano surpass yours type of a thing. It always seems that mormons dont know how to do anything except watch each other and then judge each other whether good or bad but i think the thinking part of their brain got ripped out a long time ago.

I was clerk for a hell of a long time and actually enjoyed it, being an accountant it suited me fine. Hated sunday school so clerk duties was a chance to duck out of it and just lay back in office. Enjoyed doing all the reports/money etc.

I was eventually released and called to counsellor on Bishopric. It was during my tenure on that I realised church was a croc of shit. I hated it, I only stayed because I was close to my Branch President, he was having a hard time running things and I didn't want to leave him in lurch. A certain family was against me and constantly had a go at me about anything and everything. I did have fun conducting sacrament meetings while hungover though ;-).

Nice i always feared if i had continued to stay they would try to move me up the ranks and maybe into a high position like you were and then realize it was all a croc of shit. I was lucky that my bullshit meter was going off the charts when i was just a teenager but i did come back and give the church a second shot in my late twenties just to make sure i didnt make a mistake and not knowing what went on in the temple always drove me crazy so i made it my mission to figure it out and learn some other things about the church as well and it kinda paid off maybe? I could of just wasted even more years of my life by seeing the weirdness that went on in the temple.

Breeze, your story touches my heart. I hope you and your family are doing better. I'm so sorry about the ill use you endured. Most of us here have been in the same spot. I hope you have many years of joy now that you're out. And Lucas, time to heal. Thanks, all, for help in healing.

@Breeze,

I am astonished by your story, too. :-( If you could drive yourself to the hospital, you could drive yourself to church? My God. What awful people. The Christian (or just humane) thing to do at that point would have been to offer to drive you to your appointments, to watch your kids, etc.