Recovery from Mormonism

by Cheryl Nov 2011

Yesterday, most of us agreed that cheap anonymous mormon doo-dads and sweet treats dumped on doorsteps are annoying and won't inspire us to return to the mormon church.

What about more substanial identified gifts from our mormon loved ones?

Have you received nicely wrapped morg scriptures for Christmas? Subscriptions for the Ensign? Statues of Moroni tooting his own horn? CTR tie tacks or hankies embroidered with a picture of the Manti temple?

Did any of that junk make you want to rejoin?

What about your children? Have relatives tried to hook them in by giving them testimony gloves or BofM color books instead of popular toys or attractive clothes? How did you handle these situations where TBMs [true believing mormons] used gift giving as a way of undermining your parenthood?

peregrine
Re: Tips for TBMs on gift giving. Have you received manipulative TBM-type gifts?
My TBM in-laws have being doing this to me for 20 years. However they’ve only been doing it with politics so far. We sit on opposite sides of the aisle, politically. So just about every year I get a book from some pundit, talk show host or politician on their side. I think she suspected that I was on my way out of the church so last year it was C.S. Lewis books. Now that I’m officially out I’m sure there will be several Deseret Books offerings under the tree for me and my kids.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/29/2011 06:52AM by peregrine.

nomilk
new books
what a good time to take them to half-price books (or local book re-seller)

I don't know why but they will take all new BoMs and bibles. Then I can get used copies of something I will read. (OK, I did actually read the BoM,Bible, Koran,Talmud,etc,etc,etc) But I like to read for fun now-a-days

Janelle
Re: Tips for TBMs on gift giving. Have you received manipulative TBM-type gifts?
A few years ago, a then-friend of mine (who ultimately ended the friendship when I failed to leave my atheist husband) gave us a HUGE Christus statue and a lecture on how he could be "saved". Even my TBM family members found that offensive, when we told them about it.

Even better was their suggestion of how we should display it: knock a hole in our wall, build a niche for the statue (it would've been an enormous niche), and paint the niche with clouds, etc, so every time we walked by it, we would be reminded of the CK.

dominikki
Re: Tips for TBMs on gift giving. Have you received manipulative TBM-type gifts?
Right after my BIL and SIL got married they gave us KY massage oil, the scented kind, with a card that said something like "to help extent the family tree". They had only been married one month when they announced that they were pregnant, I guess they decided DH and I hadn't been trying hard enough to have a baby after being married for 6 years. It was a little upsetting to me because #1 Ewwww, and #2 I had been trying to have a baby and was unable to, rather insensitive of them IMO. Not really a Jesus statue of BOM but still related to the subject in an odd way. I am still waiting for them to get us a big ass picture of Jesus, or something like that. Or the testimony glove for my kids.

omreven
Re: Tips for TBMs on gift giving. Have you received manipulative TBM-type gifts?
We got a subscription to the Ensign one year, him JackMo, me nevermo and never gonna be Mo. The magazines sat in their plastic, unread until I would finally toss them. Another time I got a Mormon paraphernalia wall hanging, which didn't feel as manipulative as the Ensign, just very Mormony.

It made me wonder if I should start shopping at the Catholic bookstore for the perfect gift, maybe a nice cross or something very Catholicy...a subscription to Catholic magazine, perhaps. :)

What are they thinking?

upsidedown
Re: Tips for TBMs on gift giving. Have you received manipulative TBM-type gifts?
My TBM sister who refers to herself in third person as "the bishops wife", gave me a CD of the Mormon Tabernacle Chior for a gift last X-mas. I made a weird face when I opened it......she immediately started laughing and saying she shouldn't have purchased that for me.....that made it even more insulting to say that in front of everyone.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/29/2011 10:40AM by upsidedown.

Abigail
Re: Tips for TBMs on gift giving. Have you received manipulative TBM-type gifts?
I received a nicely framed Proclamation for the Family from a sister-in-law. When it arrived at my house, the glass had been shattered. Very symbolic for the way I felt about it. It strengthened my testimony of the falseness of the Proclamation.

ginger
Re: Tips for TBMs on gift giving. Have you received manipulative TBM-type gifts?
I received the BOM with mine and DH's name engraved on it from my TBM mom for Christmas. We haven't been active in over 15 years so not sure why we would want that as a gift.

quebec
Re: Tips for TBMs on gift giving. Have you received manipulative TBM-type gifts?
A couple of years ago a MO friend of mine gave me the book "One Bright Shining Hope: Messages for Women from Gordon B. Hinckley".
I had not even left the church yet and I read it and found it insipid.
No the greatest gift. (But I know that friend and I knew she meant well. She was totally 'in love' with GBH. He was her fav. prophet. You should have seen her face light up when ever she was talking about him.)

mia
Re: Tips for TBMs on gift giving. Have you received manipulative TBM-type gifts?
People around here are so cheap. We have been asked over to dinner, and then were told to bring the main course.

I don't expect any gifts anytime soon.

Cheryl
Invited for dinner & told to bring the main course? Love your stories, Mia. LOL 

mia
Re: Tips for TBMs on gift giving. Have you received manipulative TBM-type gifts?
Yes. They knew my husband had just gotten back from a fishing trip. Asked to bring over some salmon. I did, it was fabulous. However, won't be going over there for dinner again.

forestpal
Re: Tips for TBMs on gift giving. Have you received manipulative TBM-type gifts?
Ha-ha-ha-ha! What a great thread!

Yeah, I see a lot of these in the white elephant gift exchanges at Christmas parties.

Haven't we all received the carved letters B E L I E V E. (We switched it to LIVE)

Also, the picture frame with the huge letters F A M I L Y from Deseret Book. By the poor condition of its box, I'm sure that was a re-gift.

Oh, yeah, the Mormon's favorites--regifts!

Other Mormon favorites:

--Christmas decorations, purchased the year before at the after-Christmas 75%-off sale.

--A keychain with a vial of consecrated oil, for emergencies.

--Those Mormon produced DVD's about Christ, and "Mr. Kruger's Christmas" with Jimmy Stewart.

What do you do with gifts like that? You don't want to spread the misery or help advertise Mormonism. I usually recycle the books and children's toys, to stop the brainwashing in my small way.

Our neighbors give us the Ensign every year, but we called the publisher and cancelled, and we actually received money back! I think the publisher notifies the giver, however, and it hurt the neighbor's feelings.

Dominikki receives the award for the worst, most tasteless, most obnixious gift of all time!!!!!!!!!!!

Janelle
Re: Tips for TBMs on gift giving. Have you received manipulative TBM-type gifts?
That's happened to us, too. My MIL has invited us over and asked us to bring the main course, or, alternatively, when we arrived, has told us that we're supposed to cook dinner.

Blinky
Chloroform on CD
My TBM brother and SIL gave me the Book of Mormon on CD. I listened to the whole thing during commutes - Bruce Lindsay's dramatic reading didn't fix the chloroform in print problem.

Freedom
Re: Tips for TBMs on gift giving. Have you received manipulative TBM-type gifts?
Peregrine mentions that she was given CS Lewis books. I find that hilarious, for some reasons Mormons think that he is a Mormon. Cs was an Evangelical christian. He believes in the Trinity (Jesus is God made flesh, etc.) and writes a lot about it in his books. I don't understand how they sell his books at the Deseret Book Stores, they must not be reading them.

Jesus Smith
Re: Tips for TBMs on gift giving. Have you received manipulative TBM-type gifts?
The first year I was out about being out, I got Ensign subscriptions, Deseret books and an LDS calendar as presents.

I explained that I would likely trash them, in as polite terms as I could muster. It hasn't happened again.

Admittedly, I have sent some of my fence-sitting nephews/nieces books (ebooks) on secularism.

Cheryl
Forestpal mentioned getting a refund for her Ensign gift subscription. Good idea!
Phone them and they'll send the refund to you or to your benefactor. whichever you choose. If you don't want your gift giver to know you did this, ask Ensign if they'll keep it confidential. I would think they should know to avoid making this same mistake again.

In my opinion it's inappropriate to give gifts that the receiver would clearly not want to have. If they're TBMs, stay away from coffee, tea, booze, and other exmo gifts. If they're exmos, stay away from books of scripture and materials written by TBMs.

I would never let a child I love have a Friend magazine or other TBM indoctrination materials. Adults with mature minds are choosing mormonism and staying in it to their own detriment and a child has none of their experience and maturity to understand half what they do. If a parent does not believe in the morg, they should not throw their child into it or let others take over the child's religious education. That seems obvious to me.

I finally started admitted to TBM relatives that I tossed away mormon gifts without ever removing the celephane and never reading or using them. That's when I stopped getting religious junk as gifts. All TBMs that I know are too frugal to have their money going down a rat hole.

baura
Re: Tips for TBMs on gift giving. Have you received manipulative TBM-type gifts?
Someone anonymously signed me up for the Ensign and Friend. I had three "Friend--aged" children at the time. I would throw them in the trash unopened like the unsolicited junk mail that they were.

baura
Re: Tips for TBMs on gift giving. Have you received manipulative TBM-type gifts?
This has the makings of a whole sit-com episode.

mia
Re: Tips for TBMs on gift giving. Have you received manipulative TBM-type gifts?
I can't remember who, but one of the profits or Ga's used to quote c.s. lewis in their talks. Since then he has been mormon approved.

baura
Re: Tips for TBMs on gift giving. Have you received manipulative TBM-type gifts?
A Mormon SIL visited us and, as she later said, was kind of disgusted to see that I had a framed "Proclamation on the family" hanging on the wall. She thought it was kitschy. But then after a few days she actually stopped and read what the "Proclamation on the family" hanging on my wall actually said:

******************Begin "Proclamation on the Family"******************

"Elders, never love your wives one hair's breadth further than they adorn the Gospel, never love them so but that you can leave them at a moment's warning without shedding a tear.

Should you love a child any more than this? No. Here are Apostles and Prophets who are destined to be exalted with the Gods, to become rulers in the kingdoms of our Father, to become equal with the Father and the Son, and will you let your affections be unduly placed on anything this side that kingdom and glory? If you do, you disgrace your calling and Priesthood.

The very moment that persons in this Church suffer their affections to be immoderately placed upon an object this side the celestial kingdom, they disgrace their profession and calling. When you love your wives and children, are fond of your horses, your carriages, your fine houses, your goods and chattels, or anything of an earthly nature, before your affections become too strong, wait until you and your family are sealed up unto eternal lives, and you know they are yours from that time henceforth and forever.

I will now ask the sisters, do you believe that you are worthy of any greater love than you bestow upon your children? Do you believe that you should be beloved by your husbands and parents any further than you acknowledge and practice the principle of eternal lives? Every person who understands this principle would answer in a moment, “Let no being's affections be placed upon me any further than mine are on eternal principles—principles that are calculated to endure and exalt me, and bring me up to be an heir of God and a joint heir with Jesus Christ.” This is what every person who has a correct understanding would say.

. . .

When the wife secures to herself a glorious resurrection, she is worthy of the full measure of the love of the faithful husband, but never before. And when a man has passed through the veil, and secured to himself an eternal exaltation, he is then worthy of the love of his wife and children, and not until then, unless he has received the promise of and is sealed up unto eternal lives. Then he may be an object fully worthy of their affections and love on the earth, and not before.

--Brigham Young, June 15, 1856 (Journal of Discourses, Vol 3, pp 360-61)

**********************End "Proclamation on the Family"******************

suckafoo
Re: Tips for TBMs on gift giving. Have you received manipulative TBM-type gifts?
Engraved scriptures, engraved songbook to match, framed picture of Jesus as Shepherd, Proclamation to the World framed in glass, "You are special to God" or whatever that book of "Sisters" is to say we are important too as women, Bath and Body Works lotions, CD collection of children's songs, and a hand made dice game one Christmas. Sherry Dew tapes, Special Witnesses of Christ VHS tape, some book on marriage (the one with the story of the boy who saves up money for the bike) Best gift of all is someone helped us put in flooring once with no personal agenda. Just a genuinely nice gesture. Oh yeah. Also Standing for Something.

Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 11/30/2011 01:15AM by suckafoo.

bigred
Re: Tips for TBMs on gift giving. Have you received manipulative TBM-type gifts?
ugh!

loveskids
Re: Tips for TBMs on gift giving. Have you received manipulative TBM-type gifts?
My 22 year old dd nannies for a very tbm family. These people are weird. The dad sits the 5 year old boy down once a month and asks him what he doesn't like about his nanny. Then he goes to dd and tells her ways she needs to improve. The 3 year old thinks dd is her mommy and cries everyday when dd goes home. Sad.

Anyway-on topic. This family has a HUGE painting of the Salt Lake Temple over their couch. My dd admired it,big mistake. Guess what she got for Christmas last year? She was sick,because they had been hinting that they were getting her a computer.A 22 year old,single,living in a apt. with 4 roommates? Perfect gift! The price tag was on the back,it was $400. She finally got the nerve to take it back to Deseret Book store and try to get a refund. All they would do for her is give her store credit. So now this tbm,22 year old has enough credit to buy all those Mormon gifts for the rest of her life! She was really upset about the whole thing. Couldn't they just have given her money!?

peregrine
Re: Tips for TBMs on gift giving. Have you received manipulative TBM-type gifts?
Freedom Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

This is one of the books she got me.
http://www.amazon.com/Question-God-Sigmund-Debate-Meaning/dp/074324785X/...
She know's I like Lewis but that I'm leaning towards atheism. I gues she thought this book would bring me at least back to Chrisitanity. It didn't. Lewis really only has one major premis. That 'good' exists at all is proof that God exists.

mia Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I can't remember who, but one of the profits or
> Ga's used to quote c.s. lewis in their talks.
> Since then he has been mormon approved.

TSM has quoted him a few times.

"Recovery from Mormonism - www.exmormon.org"