I know that term might sound redundant to a lot of you. What I mean by it is the tendency for certain mormons to invent new rules for themselves, and then judge others for falling short of their invented rules.

Here are some examples from my own experience:
I've known at least a couple "no tv" families, and they made sure to let everyone else know that having a tv was a lesser state.

There have also been a couple families I've known that made it a point to have subdued (dare I say boring) christmas celebrations, without gifts, and without references to santa claus. Again, these families made sure to let everyone know that their way was the right way.

The last thing I'll mention are the people that only read mormon authors. This one makes me laugh the most because no one in the big 15 follows such a stupid rule.

If you have any stories like these, I would love to hear.

She also considers it unacceptable to read novels because they won't help a person into the CK and "books which develop the mind and spirit" do.

She doesn't approve of wearing pierced errings and her only makeup is a touch of lipstick and powder for special occasions. Wasting food or spending money on any luxury is also sinful because it shows a weakness of character.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/24/2012 09:25AM by Cheryl.

OMG. Chocolate a 'gateway drug' for coffee!? I am laughing my ass off. Thank you, Thank you for taking all the tension out of a rough day. I think I have now heard it all, but can't wait for someone to top it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/24/2012 09:42PM by blueorchid.

Posted in wrong spot as usual.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/24/2012 09:18PM by blueorchid.

Not only in the wrong spot, blue orchid, but recursive too. (coffee the gateway to coffee.) j/k

She loves to brag about doing all of the commandments plus some others which God probably laughs at while he looks down at eath and enjoys the foolis antics of his human creations.

Thank you for the correction S.Tissue Trotter. It really has been a long day.

home schooling...

When i lived in the States, almost all the mormon mothers home-schooled their children.

I don't mind per sé, it's a personal choice, but they then made me feel bad because I didn't want to home-school.

They did their best to convince me how horrible the school system is and point out all the negative influences that are 'out there' that I should protect my children from..

here in Holland that is not an issue btw as homeschooling is not allowed in general.

OMG Becca, I am sooo sorry. :_( I didn't know you lived in Hell-hole-Holland! The land that actually bans homeschool so that the government can make sure all the little dears get their daily weed-handout while hunting down all the grandma's and grandpa's (who lost their bracelets). How in holy hell's name do you live in a country with so little freedom? Where those socialist slave-mines force you to take plenty of vacation! If Obama could have his way, he'd march this one nation under god straight across the Atlantic ocean and into the hands of those Lucifer-worshipping Europeans. May the gentile hand of Odin watch over you and yours! You will forever be in my spells.

The truth is when you must "measure up" to achieve godhood you will never reach it! They are measuring themselves with a 37" yard stick. There will always be that extra inch and they will always come up short. We are still "young" in our evolution (my opinion) and obviously our brains are way behind. I am seeing an enlightenment in people lately, but there is still such a long way to go. The self righteousness is laughable to me. Who are they proving this to? Themselves! Poor pitiful souls that will live this life in bondage and sadness. :(

Avoiding chocolate was often debated by mother as being the higher version of the WOW's no coffee or tea rule. Sometimes it was forbidden, sometimes not.
Strangely, herbal tea was always okay.
She will also insist that postum is what is meant by the barley beverages, although I don't believe that was around when the WOW was written down.

It's like she's put a small amount of thought into it, but only as far as what she heard in RS, actually.

My sister does no TV whatsoever.
Growing up, we were only allowed sesame street, Mr rogers, smurfs, and what my dad liked to watch, star trek and America's funniest home videos, so while I got SOME tv growing up, I still had no idea what other kids referred to in popular media.

I have a TBM sister who won't allow a computer in her home. She has a kid and spouse, and I assume is concerned about the evils of the Internet invading their home life.

Believe it or not, I've come across some that won't drink herbal tea or hot chocolate. I guess because it's a hot drink...but I'm not quite sure of motive.

Yes, many I grew up around ban herbal tea, that's why I put that "Strangely", she's ok with non caffeinated tea.

It's like some take "hot drinks" literally, yet guzzle caffeinated sodas while banning many other beneficial herbs, while some (my mom) try to follow the intent, theoretically the caffeine... And ban chocolate in the process.

The food storage nazi's. We all know who they are. They make sure we know who they are, and how perfectly they have gone overboard.

The perfect Sunday observers that make their kids wear church clothes all day. They're only allowed to listen to mo tab and john btw.

http://www.mazeministry.com/mormonism/newsletters_articles/longo/index.htm

He and his wife and his little babies (2 we knew at the time) lived in Wymount Terrace Married Student Housing when we were there in the early 60's. He was our Home Teacher for awhile also.

One thing I recall him saying is something to the effect that the Lord would return during the second session of General Conference when most people were home taking a nap.

He was extremely upset with me as I was sorting out some items in a desk drawer when he arrived for his Home Teaching Visit as he considered that "working on Sunday."

I was a new convert at the time, and I didn't have a clue where this guy was coming from. Hubby just thought he was a little fanatical and ignored him.

One thing that really had the ward talking was when he blessed his baby son to become a prophet of the church. Hubby kept notes and recorded info as a ward clerk. Yes, we all heard him say it!

He also had very strict and strange ideas about raising children and how to treat a wife. Seemed to me she was brow-beat into submission. I felt sorry for her.

Nobody before or since could match the strange ideas of this guy who turned out to be worse than we imagined.

Kids can choose a book for a book report and the book is (ta da) The Book of Mormon.

My extended family doesn't eat chocolate because it has caffeine in it. At reunions we only have root beer floats and ice cream for desert. They also don't play with face cards because it's related to gambling.

The second councilor in my home ward's bishopric and his family don't celebrate halloween because it's an "evil holiday"(his words). Last halloween our ward didn't have a trunk or treat but a "BoM party" instead. In a really surprising act of rebellion half of the ward had a party and trick or treat in our ward's neighborhood. (He also got mad that we had a santa clause come to the ward christmas party)

I know a couple that doesn't let their children read the Harry Potter books because somehow they're "evil."

When I attended Ricks in '66-'67 I encountered a Mormon zeal I had never been exposed to in southern Alberta (well maybe if I'd lived in the Moridor I would have) and found it bizarre and stifling. That experience more than any other drove me away from the TSCC.

My brother blessed and consecrated his house and vowed never to let any unclean thing enter. I think you have to show your temple recommend to get in. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a veil right inside the front door--I'll never know for sure.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/24/2012 09:47PM by blueorchid.

Oh gawd. Just before I left the Church, I'd become one of those, "Only read Mormon authors" people. It wasn't a rule I'd set for myself though. It just sort of happened that way, where I'd gotten to the point that all I read were Mormon authors.

I think that phrase pretty much describes ALL mormons since, well, it's ALL made up.


It's like the kid in kindergarten..."Teacher, teacher, she stepped on a crack! That's not allowed!"



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/25/2012 09:24AM by caedmon.

We had a stake president whose wife confided to my mother that they only had sexual relations to conceive children.

They had five kids LMAO

Even as a teen I thought the man was nuts, he was into self-denial bigtime.

touched her lips. So are we safe to say her husband is not a happy camper?

Not only caffeinated soda pop but I know some Mormons who won't let their kids drink the non-caffeinated version of Coke or Dr. Pepper or whatever. Because they don't want their kids getting a taste for "that sort of beverage." I guess they feel if their kids like caffeine free Coke they might one day take the plunge and have the hard stuff. The Primary President I worked with is a super Molly-Mo and she'd openly brag that no inappropriate SODA had ever touched her lips.

One of these days, I'm going to drop a loaf of Beer Bread by that woman's house. She loves different kinds of bread and would never, ever cook with alcohol. Something inappropriate needs to touch her lips and if you could see the Howdy Doody look alike she is married to, I'm pretty sure beer bread would be the naughtiest thing those lips have seen.

I didn't want to get pierced ears back in the 1970s. My sisters both had their's pierced (my little sister did them herself since our dad said she had to wait until she was older--not because of mormonism). I just didn't dare have them done. It was a breeze when I did compared to wearing those clip-ons.

So--my now TBM daughter--who snuck behind my back to get her 3rd piercing in one ear (for me, it was still that getting stuck in the cartilage feeling--not mormonism). So now her idol has no piercings and she wishes she had never had her ears pierced. I told her to wear clip-on earrings for an hour or 2.

My mother had a lot of fanatical friends--and her family is rather fanatical. One of her friends in the neighborhood joined The Sisterhood in North Ogden back in the 1970s and went to prison for sexually abusing children. Another friend--she was a fine example of fanaticism in mormonism. She canned all their food, made everything from scratch, lived very poorly.

My mother's sister was one of those no TV people--until their mother died and had a color TV up for grabs. Of course, her sister took it.

I was afraid all my life that that is how I'd have to live in the CK--it was always a fear of mine. The temple was the real shocker--if the CK was like that, no way in hell I wanted to be there.

Mormon Fanatics…..I have known many but one particular family creeps to mind. In 1979 I was about fourteen and lived in Cottonwood Heights, Utah. One summer a family moved in from eastern Washington. They had recently joined the church and came from a fairly devout Pentecostal background. They were very self sufficient and had been living on a farm north of Spokane. They had moved to Utah on a temporary basis to “learn more about the gospel”.

There were the parents and eight kids from 23 yoa to five yoa. The father had taken a job as a plumber at the COB. He felt that it was essential to work for the church and assist in the gathering of Zion. The man had an attractive daughter my age so I was consistently hanging out near them to be by her.
When we first met them it was at church. They arrived fifteen minutes early and sat on the second row. They were all tall and gangly and sat from tallest to shortest. They sat as though they were boards….Stiff and unyielding. There was no discernible movement from them during the entire meeting. Other parents took note and for the next year they set the standard for reverence and every parent tried to be like them…
These people did not mess around. They accepted the church fully and embraced every teaching. If R rated movies were forbidden then they would improve on it by only watching G rated movies. They had no television so their kids spent all of their free time at our house watching our tv then reporting on our failings to their father who would immediately report them to my mother with a follow up to the Bishop. One scandal erupted when it was observed that I put too much sugar on my Wheaties constituting a possible Word of Wisdom violation. They would wear church clothes all Sunday and were not allowed any entertainment. They were not even allowed to read the Sunday Comics in the Sunday paper.

After about six weeks my mom was home from church sick. We lived across the street and my mom observed a taxi cab waiting in front of the house. She saw their seventeen year old son jump into it with a bag. Later another cab showed up…Waited and then left. That evening the mother came over and asked if my mom had seen her son. My mom told her that story and she became distraught. Several days had gone by and the mother confided in my mom that the kid was a suspect in a bank robbery in Seattle and that the FBI had got wind that he was in SLC. He was later apprehended and put in a juvenile facility until he was 21.

While these people were extreme they were good people. They worked hard and seemed to be the type of people that whoever baptized them probably became a missionary hero. Despite their quirks I still today think highly of them.

The father, despite his zealotry, was not at all stupid. Had the internet been available he would most likely never have joined the church. His employment at the COB troubled him. He had found that his coworkers were a little raunchier than what he would have expected from Mormons and was disturbed that as a plumber for the Church he was required to perform plumbing work on the private homes of the General Authorities. He also began to have trouble with tithing. He felt that the Church was wasting their resources based on what he had seen at the COB. Thus, he would only pay his tithing in a way that the Church could not waste what he gave them…He paid it in “goods”. Utah, during the seventies had a fairly active bartering movement. This guy often traded plumbing or light construction work for goods and then paid his tithing in some sort of product. On one occasion, he did the plumbing work for a business owner who “paid” him in office supplies. He then paid his ten percent for the month on his church salary and on what he had bartered in staplers. I helped him on the project (I was paid in school supplies) and was with him when he collected the payment. I asked him why he did that, he replied “The church wastes it’s tithing money. I know that they can only use staplers as staplers, and nothing else.”

Six months later the man had concluded that the church was not true. He said that he had found some research that had indicated to him that Joseph Smith and Brigham Young were false prophets and with the same zealotry that brought him into the church yanked him out. He renounced his membership publicly and quit his job with the church. He and his family were immediately avoided like the plague and shortly afterwards they returned to their farm in Washington state…..Two of their children stayed in Salt Lake and stayed in the church. The rest though left with the family.

Don't make light of the "Hot Chocolate is a gateway drug for Coffee" statement. Studies have shown that 90% of people that end up defiling their bodies with Coffee started out drinking at least one cup of Hot Chocolate first. The extreme bad health effects of Coffee have also been conclusively demonstrated by a study that showed that every single person that drank coffee in 1902 have died. Definetely a cause/effect relationship.

You've got me laughing all over again.

My TBM neighbor makes (and brags about making) 90% of her kids clothes. Including the school uniforms for the two of six kids that go to private school. Her daughter is in my sons class (in public school) and he has told me that most days her friends bring something cute for her to wear then she will change back before walking home. I love it! HAHA! She talks about this as if it makes her a better mormon when in reality it just makes the entire family look homeless.

And yes... she is also a mega coupon freak and food storage junkie!

I'm sure most wards have one of these haha

When my sister became mormon at the age of 12, she stopped playing cards, and she also stopped eating chocolate.