I have been out of the church now for over 15 years and I hardly think about it these days. I ran into an old friend from a ward I lived in about 25 years ago yesterday and as we were talking another person from that same ward came up and started talking to us. It turns out that where we used to live in Orem where there were 5 wards and one stake that same geological area now contains barely one ward and they said it is so small they are thinking about absorbing it into a near by ward. It is an area right by the University Mall so it isn't a dead or dying area nor is it poverty. Not much surprises me these days but hearing that did surprise me. Right in the heart of Mormondumb it is shrinking so bad that where there was one an entire stake there now is barely a ward. Just thought I would share.

Hmm...I have lots of TBM relatives in Orem.

Is it an area that's been taken over by student housing? I have a friend that used to live over by UVSC. Many of the houses in his neighborhood were rented to students.

oldtimer Wrote:
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> I have been out of the church now for over 15
> years and I hardly think about it these days.

Wow. what is the deal? you do not have any lingering /residual MORmON family to constantly throw MORmONISM into your face? (Lucky you if that is the case)

Hey Smirk sorry for not answering sooner I wrote this then forgot about it until just now.

Actually my TBM mother lives with me and my wife but we have an understanding, I don't interfere with her religious buddies coming to visit her and she doesn't bother me about not being morgbot anymore. Aside from that all my kids are out and my friends are either out or completely inactive so I really don't have people bugging me about the church these days.

I live in the middle of Utah Valley so I am in the center of mormondumb but I set my boundaries up front and if they attempt to cross them I let them know right away and so far things have been going pretty good. I am very happy living here and the church doesn't bother me in the least. In fact I kind of like it because shopping on Sunday is awesome around here!!!

AFter a very long absence, I attended in Pocatello several years ago. The wards appear to be operating on a minimal skeletonized basis. They could have easily been consolidated, but that would have eliminated the vanity calling for Bishoprick and counselors as an incentive for the few remaining faithFooL who are dumb enough to remain in LDS Inc's unmentionable secret handshake social club. ...The MORmON secret handshake is not just secret, it is unmentionable !!!!!

Sounds like so sort of Weird demographics at work here.

just sayin'

Well hopefully that's true

That's good for the people of the geographical area overall.

It's happening everywhere. Good report.

My husband occasionally attends, though he is no longer a believer. He says that the ward is down to 1/3 of what it used to be. From where we live, you have to drive a long ways to get to THAT ward; nothing is closer. We used to have a large branch near home, but they closed down in about 2003 when membership fizzled away. In spite of shocking facts being disclosed via internet, I wanted dearly to keep believing, so I turned to the apologists for comfort and pretzeled up. We drove the long way to that ward, but after a few years I stopped going because of a painful disability that had developed. My husband cut back, but we were still believers and I found many ways to keep my "testimony" going. But finally I burned out and would not look at LDS material any more. My mind shut off from it and I turned to interests in other things.

My disability had a HUGE flare and I ended up in the hospital in a great deal of pain. I needed God then to help me endure, pull through, and recover. God was with me, but the church was not. I could not talk on the phone because of my condition, and nobody wanted to drive at least 25 miles to be with me at the hospital. They were overly busy with their church callings, so they sent the missionary elders. The elders couldn't bless me because my head was inflamed and laying their hands on it would have caused me terrible pain. I was in too much pain to talk, so they said a prayer with my husband and then left. I began to wonder what it would be like to have a local priest or minister who was trained to deliver spiritual help at a time like this.

After I returned home and finished recovering, I decided to do a deep search and find the HONEST truth about the church; no more pretzeling! It took me a couple of years, but in March, 2015 I determined for sure that the LDS church is not true! And I have learned since then that many people have deep searched as much as me, and have come to the same conclusion about the Untrue church. There is no doubt in my mind that the church is shrinking, except in a few places like Western Africa.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/22/2017 02:11AM by brigidbarnes.