I just received a letter in the mail today addressed directly to my 12 year old son from the Stake President. The letter opens:

As a priesthood holder in the XXXX Stake, you are hereby called to serve as a missionary-in-training of TCOJCOLDS at the "Becoming a Missionary" Conference.

It gets better from there, and includes a "Letter of Acceptance" that he is supposed to sign.

I'm so pissed off. This is so messed up, how can they not see how inappropriate this is? How manipulative? How fucked up that they would send a letter like this to a minor?

And yes, I get that I'm still on the records, so I have it coming I suppose. I allowed him to be baptized, but I really don't have much choice in the matter because my family and my relationship with my wife are so much more important to me than this piece of @#$%& religion.

So mostly, just venting. But curious, has anyone else gotten these? I certainly never got something this over the top when I was growing up, but that was outside of Utah.

Also, from a legal perspective, I'm no expert, but it certainly seems unethical at least, if not downright illegal for an adult representative of an organization, even one of which I'm a member, to send correspondence directly to a minor. Am I offbase, do I have any recourse here?

I plan on spending my church-ditching time tomorrow preparing a reply demanding that all communication with my son be through me or my wife. Never directly contact my son you manipulative lying peice of @#$%&!

I'm so pissed right now, I can hardly see straight, so thanks for allowing me a place to vent.

Soblindsolong

Just resign. It probably isn't personal, and was a form letter that went out to all twelve year olds in the church.

How presumptuous! They think they can just say Simon Says and everyone should obey. (Guess why “the first” ordinance of the gospel is obedience!)

How about a reply to him:

Dear Stake President,
You are hereby called to STFU. My son is not going to respond to you any more than he would to Donald Duck.

How about that for recourse?

Seriously, that's the way they work. They are so audacious and insulated they have no idea how inappropriate it is for them to contact a minor and make demands like that.

Once they teach someone that the authority of God is behind the teachings, they can get away with behaving this way. If you want to boss people around, just convince them God approves with your demands.

Maybe you can use this as a learning tool for your son. Explain to him how creepy and arrogant the letter is and let him know he should not indulge people like that.

Dear Stake President,

I'm astonished that a man in your position does not realize correspondence between a twelve year old boy and an adult male stranger is inappropriate. I don't know what designs you have on my son, nor do I know what sort of relationship you seek with 12 year old boys in general. Nor do I want to know. I have spoken to my attorney and am keeping your letter in my files as proof of your attempts to groom my son with an unwelcome, unauthorized friendship. I am also keeping a copy of this correspondence as proof you have been warned to keep away from my son. Please know that I will protect my son from any future advances by you through whatever means necessary, including legal action and a restraining order. You will cease immediately from contacting my son.

Sincerely....

Right on!!! Well written.

Right on!!! Very well written.

luv it...

CA Girl,

Priceless!

++++1

I agree, my answer letter would read somethinng like,

"Mr. _____(fill in stake pres name; I gave up church title long ago) as you are aware, minors are not allowed to sign any type of contractual obligations according to the laws of our lands. Imagine my surprise at you having sent something directly to my minor child and requesting his signature. As his parent, all correspondence shared or not shared with my child goes through me. Thank you for your understanding and cooperation. We certainly do want to be law abiding citizens and ones who obey the laws of the land...do we not? I will not expect this error to occurr again."

Chris Deanna Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I agree, my answer letter would read somethinng
> like,
>
> "Mr. _____(fill in stake pres name; I gave up
> church title long ago) as you are aware, minors
> are not allowed to sign any type of contractual
> obligations according to the laws of our lands.
> Imagine my surprise at you having sent something
> directly to my minor child and requesting his
> signature. As his parent, all correspondence
> shared or not shared with my child goes through
> me. Thank you for your understanding and
> cooperation. We certainly do want to be law
> abiding citizens and ones who obey the laws of the
> land...do we not? I will not expect this error to
> occurr again."

+1

You should be angry. So he was to sign it and not even ask you? How manipulative can they get??? It just shows that you may have HAD the child with your wife, but they feel they OWN your child. I say resign. And CA girl, that was super!!!

Minors can't legally enter into a contract. So the whole dumb thing serves no purpose other than to manipulate a minor into thinking they have to do something.

I love how the whole thing ignores the parents.

EXACTLY!!!!!

Was the bypassing of the parents planned???

If that is even thought of as true, then the son should NEVER go to that particular mormon church again...so what if the ward is "assigned"..

PARENTS exercise the rights for their kids..

Time to exercise now..

Unbelievably to nonmos, mormon parents put up with this kind of manipulation and overreaching with their minor children. I'm glad you're enlightened enough to say no. More parents should put the needs of their children first.

Note to mormons:

Don't send letters or ultimatums to minor children unless you have confirmation that both parents agree. Having a parental name on some ward list means nothing. You are not the parents of these kids and you're teaching them to look to you as if you were. That's wrong.

I was flabbergasted when I read the original post, but thinking back -- yes, that was the sort of thing I frequently had to deal with when I was a teen in the Church. It is a common occurrence to get stupid invitations to meetings that frighten you a little bit like that, and Mormons get off on it. Normal people with healthy boundaries are infuriated, and that is an appropriate response to have.

I used to hate those things. I was taking several AP classes in high school, and I struggled in them because of the demands on my time from the Mormon church. My parents used to prioritize Mormon meetings above anything else, so I used to have to hide meeting announcements like that from them. Your son is lucky to have a non-deranged parent.

"And yes, I get that I'm still on the records, so I have it coming I suppose. I allowed him to be baptized, but I really don't have much choice in the matter because my family and my relationship with my wife are so much more important to me than this piece of @#$%& religion."

It appears that you are on the horns of a dilemma. You are faced with the choice between two equally unpalatable alternatives. If you allow the CoJCoLDS to brainwash your son, then he is one more person they suck into their scumbag cult. If you don't allow the fraudulent CoJCoLDS to brainwash your son, then it is highly likely that your TBM wife will be seriously pissed.

How many more years of brainwashing/indoctrination will you allow the cult to have with your son?

Does your son actually like spending three hours in boring church meetings every Sunday? If that is his choice then he is already well on his way to becoming a slave of the cult.

What if you did this? Tell (don't ask) your wife that on alternate Sundays she can take your son to church and on alternate Sundays he will spend the day with you doing (hopefully fun) activities of your choice. For example, you both go skiing, or hiking, or camping (Saturday and Sunday), or fishing, or golfing, or mountain biking, etc., etc. I have to believe that your son would chose to spend high quality time with you rather than sitting in church meetings.

If your wife gets all pissed off about that, tell her tough @#$%&. YOUR son is just as much your child as hers, and she doesn't get to be the sole dictator of how he spends his Sundays.

Of course I don't understand your family situation, but in my opinion it is worth taking a stand to save your son from the Mormon cult. Your wife may become irritated enough to bring up the big "Divorce" word. But if she went down that path she would be cutting off her nose to spite her face. You respond to your wife's anger by telling her how much you love her and inviting her to share in the Sunday recreation so you are having some quality time together as a family.

The Church isn't "all about family." They set up a Sunday meeting format so that the family members are separated and the cult can poison them individually. I suggest that you need to man up to this situation and take some serious action.

+10

Here is where you must decide what your "mixed" marriage is going to look like. Not an easy decision. Some folks accept the role that the believing Mormons are the "good" people and they, the apostate are "bad." They slink around and are just grateful to stay married.

Judging from the level of anger in your post, this is not you.

From this comment, " I allowed him to be baptized, but I really don't have much choice in the matter because my family and my relationship with my wife are so much more important to me than this piece of @#$%& religion," I am guessing that you received an ultimatum re divorce unless you allowed your wife to raise the children in Mormonism.

If this is the case, then here's what I suggest: Have a sitdown with your wife and say that your son is still your son and your agreement to allow him to be raised Mormon does not include anything but Sunday meetings. You do not want priesthood leaders communicating with him without parents, meeting with him privately, grilling him about masturbating, making him feel guilty, for his own safety. You insist that a parent be present during all meetings with the bishop or any other grown man--for obvious safety reasons. Try to be unemotional and tell her this is not about Mormonism, this is about safety. Show her the statistics about suicide rates for young men and ask her what she thinks the reason is for Utah leading the nation in male youth suicides. If she can see that you are not angry, just concerned, she should be willing to compromise. For his own mental health, he should not be forced to attend after age 14, unless he wants to. Young men do NOT tell their parents everything and the fact that he doesn't want to go can mask some bad things that happened.

My adult children told me stuff that went on AFTER they grew up! In SCOUTS! Now we are reading about these molestations all over the internet. I sincerely regret forcing my sons. It poisoned them against me and twisted their minds permanently. A lot of the evil in Mormonism has not so much to do with doctrine as it does to do with force. Mormonism is Satan's plan if it involves force--duh! Why didn't I see it sooner?

Hopefully, you will be able to benefit from the tragedy that wrecked my boys' futures. I only wanted certainty that I would always have them and in holding on too tight, and believing the guarantees of men who had absolutely no power to guarantee squat, I lost them.

Don't let that happen to you.

Anagrammy

"As a priesthood holder in the XXXX Stake, you are hereby called to serve as a missionary-in-training of TCOJCOLDS at the "Becoming a Missionary" Conference."

My question is...Does your son STILL want to be involved in church stuff?

My comment is...and you should reitterate this with your son AND the bishop...Serving a mormon mission is a CHOICE....so the MiT stuff and the acceptance letter is just wrong.

At 12yrs old...YOU get to decide the Who, What, When, how YOUR son interacts within the church. If it's wrong to you...then be a parent and say NO.

Tell him ur son will accept only if he can answer your questions thoroughly and truthfully:

BoA

Polyandry

ETC...

My son got one of those last fall. Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition, he didn't go because of a birthday party for some of his cousins, bwaa haa haa. :-D

Oh my. Someone is really "off" the rails. I never saw anything like that in the decades I was in the church.

Someone made a huge mistake. They need to be told that contacting children/minors is inappropriate and needs to stop. Besides, they cannot enter into a contract anyhow. Maybe a letter from an attorney would get their attention!

I think it's appropriate to write back and tell them it's not appropriate and it won't be accepted. Besides, as the parent, you won't be allowing any further activities as school comes first. (Or any other reason you want to give them.)

I also received something similar. It was a birthday card addressed to my son, turning 5, though we had resigned when he was 2, and moved to a different part of town in the intervening time. They somehow got our new address, and the card was signed by the bishop, primary presidency, etc. telling him they love him and hope to see him at church and primary etc etc.

I of course opened it without showing it to my son. I put the card in the envelope, and wrote a message on the envelope that I have never met you, and I do not allow my son to receive correspondence from strangers, and that they are NEVER to attempt to contact him again or this will be reported to the police.

I then took the card directly to the bishop's house (thanks to the return adress on the envelope) on Monday night when I knew he would be there, stuck it in the door and rang the bell. I waited in the car to wave when he came to the door. They have never bothered us again (yet). He is 11 now.

I saw and heard something even worse. In a mormon church meeting one sunday I saw 4 thru 8 year old primary children standing and bearing their testimoney. They were prompted by the primary teacher what to say. Their testimoney was that they knew the church was the only true church of god and Joseph Smith was a true profit of god. These children was so young that they were repeatidly prompted. If this is not brainwashing then I do not know what brainwashing is. I only went to the meeting because my step son was to talk.

Both our sons got those letters - it was a kind of training for future missions (which they both served). I was angry and knew, even then, it was wrong and manipulative, but I didn't know how to get out of it - it would have looked bad, after all. It took me WAY too long to give myself permission to admit it was all a crock. I know parents who have their sons wear little missionary badges around when they're as young as 11 or 12. It's sick.