How did you feel after your first time through the temple?

Did you receive any "spiritual nourishment?"

No spiritual nourishment.

It was just crazy, weird shit, like really crazy.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/06/2015 10:35AM by scotslander.

Frankly, I didn't know what to make of it. What surprised me most was the offer to withdraw at the BEGINNING before I even had an idea what I would be withdrawing from. I thought it to be a rather stupid announcement.

They never did tell everyone that you're about to agree to a threat to have your throat cut open and body cut open as a "penalty" and then offer you the opportunity to withdraw if you don't want to make those agreements. Why they offer to let you back out the way they did has always been a mystery to me. Why bother? The whole ceremony was dishonest.

BAT. SHIT. CRAZY

I was totally clueless when I was endowed. Only did that one time in thirty years. When I was in the church there weren't temples on every corner. My wife was freaked out. I didn't feel any special witness.

My thought was...

"THIS is what all the super duper hype oh so sacred can't talk about it" is all about...

I felt very let down.

"Weird" is a good word to describe how it felt.
Also very "DISAPPOINTING".

After ALL this build up of special temple prep classes, years of hearing from friends, family, ward members bearing tearful testimonies, and hundreds of general conference talks of the utmost importance of the temple. Then add the history of the struggles and sacrifices to build the temple, as seen in the church's inspirational movie, "Legacy",
It all honestly spiked my curiosity.

Was I missing out on some grand spritual experience? Did people really feel closer to God in His house?
Besides, it was what my wife wanted. I could do this for her, it would add to her happiness.

So I wanted to find out, so we worked toward that lofty goal.

When the first, secoond, third and every subsequent time of attending was completed, I came out very disappointed, and second guessing myself. Was I doing something wrong?

Weird handshakes, tokens, true order of prayer??
Very ugly clothing, robes, sashes, aprons, hats?
Swearing oaths, learning very ritualistic things that enable you walk by the angels, who stand as sentinels,..... Really???

I couldnt be with my wife until the last 5 minutes in the celestial room. What the hell?? I was doing this mostly for her. I wouldnt have gone this far with all the tithing spent to get there if it wasnt for her.

No, this wasnt The House of the Lord,..... this was the house that Brigham built.

My first time in the temple was quite moving for me.

It was the CLOSEST I ever came to hearing the "still small voice". As I was slitting my own throat, slicing open my bowels, and Pay Lay Ale-ing, something was screaming "YOU ARE IN A CULT!!" in my head.

turned out to be, so I was relieved, just glad it was over. I did find it troublesome. I don't like to have any attention directed my way and I was always doing something wrong so the old bitches would correct me, right down to how perfectly my sash wasn't tied.

The last time I did an endowment session, I had my robe on "inside out" when I got to the veil. I had to change everything to the right position and then I was the last one through the veil yet again. That was my 4th session. I always took my very good friend to help me.

The last time I went, just after 1990 as my ex wanted me to see the new movie, they pulled me aside to do sealings. They didn't pull my ex aside, so I was "sealed" over and over to some guy who seemed to think he'd found his one and only. I had 40 minutes to wait in the foyer for my ex to get out of his session. I never went back. It was the most time I was ever allowed to meditate while in the temple. I never once got to sit down in the CR. I was sure that if I could just take some time there, I could figure out my life. That time in the foyer was enough time to realize I hated the place and I never went back.

I found doing sealings for the dead to someone who was not my spouse was worse than anything else I experienced while going to the temple.

I had built up in my mind that the veil was going to be some supernatural inter-dimensional portal to the other side. When they raided the wall and I saw it was just a stupid sheet I had a big WTF moment.

Yeah, I was a nerd.

That makes me laugh. I was the same way. I thought there would be a mist and angels would be singing and I'd feel like I was walking into the presence of God.

Instead it was "now God is on the other side of this sheet so put your knee to the inside of his knee and your inside feet together and reach around and touch his back while he touches yours and pulls you as close as he can and this lady will knock on the door and if you say all the right passwords he'll let you come through the sheet."

Of course, by that point the ONLY thing going through my head was "Make it stop! I hope this is the end of it."

Funny thing is that my current church's women do a retreat every year and the paganish women started a tradition of doing a candlelight labyrinth. They set it up with over 700 tea lights and it is amazing. By far the most spiritual thing I have ever felt. The first time I walked it, it hit me that THIS is how I thought I would feel when I was going through the veil at the temple. Like I was walking into the center of my soul or something. But instead, it couldn't have been more cold and unfeeling and creepy.

I was in a daze during and after. Very weird and felt stuck. Didn't know what to do other then bow my head and go along.

Warning: If you ever complain to any active Mormon that you didn't get much out of the temple, or that the endowment seems to have no meaning, they will only say that the endowment is supposed to be cryptic, inscrutable, and almost impenetrable, so as to force you to go back again and again, until some day far into the future when it will all come together and you will understand. Of course, this is all part of the "emperor has no clothes" motif; they say this because it's what people say to them because THEY don't understand. And so ad infinitum. It's a great argument for the dissident Mormon or ex-Kolobian, but whenever you use it against an active Mormon, you get nowhere.

My reaction.


Uhhhhh wut?

I was about 14 when my family was "sealed together".

I've forgotten a ton about that experience, but I do remember them making a big deal out of showing us our "forever family" after the sealing. They positioned us very carefully and opened some curtains to reveal...

Mirrors. Mirrors to represent eternity as a family.

I was thinking wtf? Mirrors, really? Will there be smoke, too?

Having gotten naked and been mildly fondled (with lubricating oil) by an old temple worker, having dressed in ridiculous robes, aprons, and hats, having learned secret handshakes and then demonstrated ways my life could be taken if I told anyone about them, and having cuddled up against another old man through a sheet to give a secret handshake and password to get into the celestial kingdom...

My thoughts were, "What the hell is this?"
And, "What happened to the 'Jesus wants me for sunbeam' church I grew up in?

2 1/2 years after my "endowment," I was gone.

The first time, I was just really dazed and confused about the whole thing. I was uncomfortable with the initiatory ceremony and being more or less naked (late 1990's). I felt like I was back in elementary school and the last kid to finish their work during the dress-up switching time as I tried to keep up with the others and not hold things up.

I anticipated learning something, but that was not to happen. We never learned about the symbols in the Abraham facsimiles, or the answer to some great life mystery. But you can always say to yourself that maybe you're not quite as worthy as you think.

It took lots of going back at the Provo temple during the MTC to get comfortable with it. There was no temple in the mission that I was in, so that was 22 months off. I went through a phase of going fairly frequently at BYU, but that faded fairly quickly.

Looking back, it just seemed like there was no way out.The LDS Church loomed so large that even if I felt uncomfortable about the temple or other things, what was there to do. At that time, leaving the LDS Church and becoming one of those "awful apostates" just didn't seem like something that was in the cards for me. I was afraid. It took more exposure to the wider world than I had at that time for leaving to be more comfortable.

Oh, then you really missed out. First time I went through was right before they made the changes in 1990. Like right before. 3 weeks later in the MTC and they allowed us to go to the Provo Temple, it was much different.

What da FOOK was that?

I went alone with my entire prep for it consisting of the bish telling me to take garments with me. It was brutal.

I had fun the first time through the temple.

Because I was a young adult convert, I hadn't served a mission. The temple was for our endowments and sealing. I was the "groom" and my wife was the "bride" in that session. Another elder was receiving his endowments prior to his mission. He was the "missionary."

At various points during the endowment, people would say make sure the "groom" does this or that the "missionary" sees that, etc.

An elderly officiator couldn't keep the "groom" and the "missionary" straight. He asks me, "Where is your mission, elder?" I was ill prepared to answer.

But the look of panic on the face of the "missionary" made my day when he asked him, "Where are you going on your honeymoon?"



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/06/2015 03:53PM by idleswell.

i did not make it thru, during the inititatoy i excused myself to ues the mens room and headed straight for my street clothes and left. a member of the ward came out to talk to me, and i handed him a note to give to my wife to be, she was inside and not aware that i left. I was out of the church right then and thereand told here we could regroup and start new outside the church she nevver understood and married a year later in the temple.

That is the first I've read of anyone leaving during the insanity.

My father admitted he wanted to leave, but didn't, and became a McConkie hardline/brethren Mormon and wrecked our lives. How different things would have been... I wouldn't have been born, #6.

Did you marry a non-Mormon?

I felt nothing. I couldn't understand why Lucifer was running the show. Elohim seemed clueless: "Return and report." Huh? Why didn't an omniscient God already know what was going on? Did he want graphs and charts with color coding or what?

It was all so Dick and Jane: "Let us go down." "We will go down." See Peter, James, and John go down.

The murals were pretty. Didn't get why the men and women were separated. Didn't like the veils over my mother's face. And pentagrams? Really? The prayer group at the alter seemed very biblical--too biblical as in OT instead of NT, and needed a dead goat laying on it to really bring it home.

The pantomime of the throat slitting and gutting didn't bother me that much. I was never going to reveal the temple secrets so why worry about that. By the way I'm Elias.

I had gone thinking I would see spirits glowing and maybe a few angels hovering after the way the temple had been talked about with awe in hushed tones for the last nineteen years.

But for me, I took it all in stride because I had been raised from birth to accept all things Mormon as being from Heavenly Father--so who was I to question?

So I didn't. The brainwashing had been a complete success. I had been a perfect candidate for the indoctrination. No shelf required, however, a sufficient talent for denial was very useful.

And we all went off to Harmon's cafe for Kentucky Fried Chicken. Anyone remember that?

I felt disrespected. Why didn't they do any of the following:

-Give us a script to look through beforehand so we'd know what to expect, and be able to wholeheartedly prepare for, ponder and accept (or reject but that never really occurred to me) the covenants we made

-Give us a bullet list of the covenants to be made

-Have a question and answer period beforehand, with real answers (they did give me a question and answer opportunity right after the initiatory, and boy I had questions... but no real answers.)

-Present a short film introducing you to what would be expected in initiatory and endowment, how to wear the temple clothes, and overview of covenants and significance of

-Do any of these things on a different day than the actual session, to give you time to mentally prepare and privately accept/reject without immediate social pressure

I had been absolutely faithful to the church all my life, and had given them everything: time, talents, heart might mind and soul (unfortunately). I figured I at least merited the consideration to let me understand what was going on. Since I was not afforded any of these things (no one is of course, they'd see skyrocketing apostasy...), I felt like I'd been shoved through a sheep dip. I had the odd feeling that they were trying to get me through it before I had time to object, and when I was done (at least with the initiatory) everyone breathed a sigh of relief and put on fake smiles saying, "Isn't that wonderful?" and "You'll never know how you survived without your garments!"

Still took me 15 years to accept my true feelings.

I'm sorry, but that was my laugh of the day...

"I felt like I'd been shoved through a sheep dip."

One of the best quotes EVER to describe the temple!!!

(Dead dunking one time was all I could tolerate.)

Equating yourself as a sheep was brilliant. =)

The garb stuck like translucent tissue paper when it was wet. In those days we had to climb out of the water and sit on a throne to be confirmed, then stumble back into the pool again and again while everyone examined every curve or new breast bulge. No one was allowed to wear underwear, so everything showed.

Afterward, we had to strip totally naked in front of an old lady in a cubicle who watched drop the soaking wet suit in a bucket before she'd give out a towel to hold while walking down a long hallway to the dressing rooms and lockers.

We were told to assume spirits were watching us and judging us every move and word within the temple. The temple was presented as a haunted house of humiliation to girls who had always been told to hide their bodies at home, school, and in the public, but weren't given that option in the Lord's house.

having to drop the outfit before the women (I had 2) would give us a towel the first time I went through. I was and still am EXTREMELY modest. I don't think it is mormonism. It is just me. They sent me to the temple and then cross all my boundaries.

Cheryl Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The garb stuck like translucent tissue paper when
> it was wet. In those days we had to climb out of
> the water and sit on a throne to be confirmed,
> then stumble back into the pool again and again
> while everyone examined every curve or new breast
> bulge. No one was allowed to wear underwear, so
> everything showed.

Cheryl, I appreciate the humiliation you felt...
But to be honest, seeing the girls in those "translucent tissue paper" outfits was the only reason I didn't mind doing dead dunkings as a teenage priesthood holder... :)

First, I was utterly appalled that God felt the need to have secret handshakes. I equated that with secret combinations which I had been taught, ironically in the Book of Mormon, were evil.

Second, I was offended by the women covering their faces and having to covenant to obey their husbands while the men covenanted with God.

Third, all during my youth my father had gone out of his way to attend the temple every week. He once told me he did this so his family would be blessed. During my first time through the temple, I looked across the room at him and knew he had lost my respect. I found it offensive that he spent at least three hours a week going to the temple rather than spending time with his children. I hardly had any relationship with him. Still don't.

Why do people say they want to be with their families forever, when they don't want to spend time with them here on Earth?

When we reached the Celestial room, my mother asked me if I wanted to ask any questions. I asked if I could take off the veil. When she said no, I said that I just wanted to leave. I could not get out of that place fast enough.

I have heard that Masons go to their rituals prepared. The new initiates know exactly what is going to happen in what order, and what all the symbolism means. So Masons are not totally freaked out and shocked and befuddled by their first rituals.

Betrayed
and horrified.