Missionary work- you’re doing it wrong

A few weeks ago there was a large, “historic” missionary meeting held.  It was broadcast and members were encouraged to attend.

From LDS.org
Where necessary, local leaders should adjust scheduled worship services so that members are able to participate in the live broadcast of this historic event.

The meeting largely centered on the “new” ways of conducting missionary work.  Tracting is largely unproductive so now missionaries will be using social media (largely Facebook) to contact people who are recommended to them through local members, chatrooms via mormon.org and will use Facebook to build relationships with people before trying to go to their house and talk to them in their living rooms about religion.  Also they’ll be doing this with brand new Ipads! Also your local missionaries will be giving tours of the local meeting house to interested parties since now they’ll be hanging out there to access the meetinghouse wifi (hint: password usually Pioneer47).

Yay missionaries!

Except now it looks more like this:

So…  why were so many members invited to attend this meeting of “historic” proportions?  Well it was also a pep rally to the fabulousness (yes I just made that word up) of the church and a guiltfest (made that one up too) for members to do their part.  The missionaries have better luck teaching people (and let’s keep our eye on the prize- baptizing people they teach) when they are able to utilize the members to find people to teach.  So members need to be excited about missionary work and participate in it.  But they should be nice even if people aren’t interested in their message… right?  Right. Because that’s the the right thing to do.

 

Han Fei Story Three: The age of religions and gods

About Christmas time Han Fei told us the story surrounding Chinese New Year in preparation to teach some aspects of Chinese culture to the Elementary kids she worked with.  The story had some interesting points that led to an interesting statement that I mulled over for a while.

 

Jeffery Holland: Lord I Believe

Remember- this is what I hear when I listen to conference.  It’s not roses and sunshine.  It’s not happy and uplifting.  It’s not at all what you were going for when you were “inspired” to send it to me.  If you want to know why I’m reviewing conference, or what conference is- go here.

Holland is a current crowd favorite.  His talk from this last conference, Lord I Believe, was posted and re-posted and praised over and over- when you count all the pins from Pinterest and status updates from Facebook I think it was the most popular talk from this conference.

(These excerpts from a BBC interview are my favorite Holland moments- they were not shown in conference though… yet.)

I think the reason why it was a crowd favorite is that Holland attempts to acknowledge that people are struggling to believe in the church.  Which is good.  People are losing faith- at an ever growing rate. Leaving in droves you might even say… or as Marlin Jensen said, “we are in a greater state of apostasy then since Kirtland.”

 

Conference Review- A Preface and a Note to Believers

I was just going to jump into reviewing talks- but I decided I needed a brief explanation of what conference is for the people who aren’t LDS/Mormon and a brief “what is your problem?” for the Mormons.

A Preface:
A couple months ago was LDS General Conference.  For those uninitiated it’s five “sessions” that are two hours long each in two days. That’s 10 hours of speakers, songs and prayers.  One of those sessions is the ‘Priesthood Session’ so only men are supposed to watch that one (generally at a church building while wearing Sunday dress clothes).  There is a meeting the week before that is 90 minutes long for women.  In the spring it’s specifically geared to the Young Women (girls ages 12-18) and in the Fall it’s geared towards the women in the church (Relief Society Meeting- women ages 18+).  When I was active (and as a child) I listened to all of conference minus the priesthood session.  Now that I’m no longer active… I still listen to most of it- and reviews of all of it. (Reviews Here Here and Here)

General Conference weekend is a different experience from the apostate side of the fence- especially when you have many LDS friends on Facebook and other social media.  The LDS church is very PR savvy and encourages its members to use social media to share their thoughts on General Conference.  Conference weekends follows a stream of Facebook posts, Tweets (including an announced hashtag) and pinterest pins, about every talk, song, what the choir is wearing, and encouragement for people to “come listen to a prophets voice.”

 

Podcast: Young Women’s General Session review

Now that my semester is nearly over and I no longer feel like I’m drowning I have more time to blog.  First I’m going to review a couple of parts of General Conference.  This first post is in verbal format.  My 14-year-old daughter and I were invited to watch the YW’s meeting and then discuss it with a couple of other fabulous women.  You can listen here. It was a great chat and really fun to do it with my daughter.  She’s a pretty incredible kid.  Super smart and observant.

Some important notes:  The Young Women’s Meeting is just that- a meeting. It’s not an actual session of conference.  Neither is the General Relief Society Meeting.  I wonder why the need to separate out the girls from the women. Why not combine the two into a “Women’s Session” of conference?  If 12-year-old deacons can listen to the same meeting as their father’s every six months then 12-year-old girls and their mothers can combine meetings too right?

Another note- I will be reviewing Sister Dalton’s talk from the regular session also- because I feel like it ties into the entire tone of this session so much.

Enjoy!

 

My thoughts on polygamy in podcast format

I was invited on the Mormon Expositor to talk about Polygamy last week. It was a lot of fun with some super smart ladies that I sort of adore. Good times.

Give it a listen

 

What have you replaced the church with?

I had a friend ask me this.  I guess it’s a similar question to “how will you know how to be good without the church?”

I thought I’d share my response because I felt like it described how I feel so well.

If you remove a tumor from your body do you need to replace it with something? Or does your body organically fill in the vacant spot with the goodness that was supposed to be there in the first place that the tumor had pushed out of the way to make space to grow?

By removing the church I’ve made space for love. For family. For real friendships. For honesty. For authenticity. For education without boundaries and limitations. For knowledge without fear. I’ve opened up the box that the LDS church has kept me locked in for my entire life and made space to be myself and it’s a glorious thing.

For my readers who have also quit believing in and attending the LDS church- what have you replaced it with?  How have you filled in the space that it left?

 

One Reason: I couldn’t raise my girls in the church

I want to raise my girls to fight inequality wherever they see it.  I want them to fight for equality for all. Especially for themselves. That’s why I’m glad we’re no longer taking them to church and exposing them to quotes like this:

 ”Young women you will be the ones to provide an example of virtuous womanhood and motherhood. You will continue to be virtuous, lovely, praiseworthy and of good report. You will also be the ones who provide the example of family life in a time when families are under attack and being redefined and disintegrating. You will understand your roles and your responsibilities and thus will see no need to lobby for rights. “

When we forget history we are doomed to repeat it.  I can’t think of a single example in human history where women have been given a “right” that they’ve not lobbied (read: fought tooth and nail) for.

 

Leaving the Church but not leaving it alone

This was already a topic I was planning on blogging on because it’s something that’s so frequently asked.  When I publicly announced my blog on Facebook I pretty quickly got the following two responses.  Because they ask what is so often asked, in a way that it is so often asked I’m going to use their posts as a springboard for this discussion.  Formatting is mine.