Dear Team,

When you are a regular participant on an exmo board, when the conversation is all Mormon all the time, it's easy to forget that Mormonism is not a relevant topic to most people. Prior to having my life turned upside down by my new Mormon relatives, here are the Mormons I have known and what I thought about them.

1960's: There was a boy who joined my fifth-grade class at a private school for gifted kids mid year. The teacher introduced him to us (I still remember his full name but will not repeat it here) and sternly warned us not to make fun of him for being Mormon. I had never heard the word 'Mormon' before, so I took a good look at him to see if he had two heads to something like that. Nothing. Other than having sandy hair and complexion, he looked totally normal to me. And nothing about his subsequent behavior stood out either. But I learned not to make fun of Mormons, whatever a Mormon is.

1970's: One of my university professors was a Mormon. He was also my academic advisor for my music major, and he conducted the university orchestra. I remember his full name also. In the classes I took with him we would sometimes, but rarely, spar on religious topics. He got one of the students pregnant, viola player, and was summarily dismissed from employ. This hurt me especially, not just because I had looked up to him as an advisor who seemed to take a special interest in my success, but because I had dated the girl briefly though nothing came of it for us. They got married. The age difference was something right out of Mormon polygamous history.

1980's: Some missionaries dropped by the house. Always up for an adventure, I invited them in. They talked with me briefly and left a copy of the Book of Mormon. Later I opened it to the middle and found myself in some preposterous battle scene with proper names of peoples and places that seemed to have no bearing on reality. Put the book on a shelf somewhere but lost track of it long ago.

1990's: While working as a middle manager at a start-up technology company -- it was eventually sold to Seagate -- I enjoyed making the acquaintance of one of the other middle managers who would call his wife every day and greet her with the phrase 'lust of my loins.' A very jovial fellow, highly competent with his job and staff, not afraid to poke fun at how clueless Mormons can be sometimes. Like when some sisters put out an invitation to an S&M party, which they thought could only mean Singles and Marrieds.

2000's: Moved into a new subdivision, new house, new neighbors. Three houses down was the Mormon family, though it took a while to catch on. Four kids and one on the way, even though the mom looked like hardly more than a teen herself. Always had multiple extra cars in the driveway and on the street on a certain night of the week, can't remember which night. In conversation we learned that her mother's maiden name was the same as my last name, and she started asking questions that might turn up a connection. On one occasion, during a brief conversation -- we only talked maybe half a dozen times during the couple of years we were neighbors -- she got very quiet for no apparent reason, her face turned blank and then to fear/anxiety, then everything snapped back to the happy/chatty façade. Had no idea what to make of that at the time, but just tucked it away for later, or never. Whatever.

2010's: My son marries a girl who already has a son by a Mormon boy. The Mormon grandparents spend two years and probably six figures in a scorched earth effort to get custody. TBM grandmother (with six kids of her own already) fits neatly into the covert narcissist, arrested development at adolescence caricature. Our whole family suffers extreme, extended emotional stress as we all pull together to fight this court battle. Eventually got it to trial (three weeks? unheard of!) where the jury turned them down twelve to zip.

Until these current events, I couldn't even spell Mormon. Now I know more about their religion and culture (and cosmology and literature, etc.) than most of them do. Now I'm paying attention.

But for decades I neither knew nor cared, nor knew anyone who knew or cared. Except for cousin Dave: he said Mormons are all about control, but he didn't explain why he thought so.

Near where I live is a small community within the major metro that has a sign announcing that you are entering their space and describing their locale as the center of the universe. I'm pretty sure they know that's not literally true.

With Mormons I'm not so sure. Maybe they really ARE the center of the universe. It's just that most people have no idea who or what they are, or how to spell their name.

Regards,

JAR

Edited to add this P.S. None of the above events took place anywhere near Utah.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/28/2015 08:00PM by justarelative.

Weird things can inspire mirth.

Thanks for the feedback. Here to serve.

That was true pleasure to read.

You reminded me once again that at the entrance to BYU there is a sign that says "The World is our Campus" when the reverse is most definitely the truth. The campus is indeed their world.

So glad you won the lawsuit. Of course you should have, but, you just never know, do you?