This is not a funny story. It is a tragic tale of a church that has turned into a corporation. An organization that had a social contract with its members, then exchanged that contract for arrogance and ignorance.

I am a seventh generation Mormon. My ancestors received their endowments in the Nauvoo temple. My great great grandfathers settled the small town in south central Utah where I grew up. My parents live on a street with our family name on the street sign. My father was born in the house that he lives in now, and has lived there his entire life. My parent's ward meets in a chapel built on a part of my dad's old farm, and has our family name as part of its name. The point is, my parents are as Mormon as they come.

My mother was born to a poor family in Thistle, Utah. She was raised by her aunt in Price, Utah where she was befriended by the local Catholic community. She was never baptized a Mormon or a Catholic, but considered herself to be more Catholic than Mormon until High School. This despite her being a direct descendent of five generations of Mormons.

My dad's father was a Mormon Bishop, in the days when being a Mormon Bishop was a big thing. In the early part of the 20th century, before the church became an international business, a Bishop's calling lasted decades, at least it did for my grandpa. When my parents met and got married, though, my mother was not yet a baptized member of the church. She had attended seminary while going to Springville High School, and was familiar with the doctrines of the church.

In 1956, my mother was baptized in August. In October she gave birth to her second child, a son. By February, it was clear that my brother was not going to live long. He suffered from a degenerative nerve disorder that ultimately would lead to paralysis of the diaphragm and cessation of breathing, if not an earlier demise due to the associated pulmonary issues he would suffer. For young people, 22 and 21 years old, this was disheartening news.

By May, it was clear that their son would not live much longer. The Stake President, aware of the difficulties, contacted my parents and asked if they would like to be sealed in the temple to their son before he died. A touching gesture. Although my mother had only been a baptized member for nine-months, a full three months short of the recommended year, the Stake President and my Grandfather (as bishop), felt that my parents wore worthy to attend the temple, receive their endowments, and be sealed to their children. They were sealed in May. My brother died in July of 1957.

Fast forward to the fall of 2006. My brother would have been turning 50 years old. My parents, now in their 70's have lived a long and difficult life. Eight children, two died in infancy of the same disorder. Two sons served missions, all three married children married in the temple. Lifetime's of service to the church in a wide range of callings. My father's health is failing and he has only been to the chapel that bears his name, built on his old farmland, once. He has never met his current Bishop.

The scene is set... this is a recounting of what happened according to my mother...

Two men in their early thirties come to the front door of the eighty year old farm house. Knock, knock. As my mother, suffering from a broken arm and fractured vertebrae in her back from a fall three months earlier struggles to the door, and welcomes the two men dressed in suits in, they extend their hands for a hand shake.

"Hello Sister. I'm Bishop Blank, and this is my first councilor, Brother Blank. We just wanted to stop in and see you and Brother (name) on this nice Sunday afternoon.

"Come on in, I'm so glad you could stop by."

As the men get seated in the small living room, my mother struggles back into her chair.

"Well, we haven't met before, but I've been meaning to come by and see you."

"Thank you for coming."

"Have you and Brother (name) lived here long?"

"Well, you could say that. (name) was born in this house, and it was built by his father on land that his great grandfather homesteaded, so I guess, as a family, we've been here for almost 150 years."

"Oh, I didn't realize you had been here that long. Oh. Well, you have the same last name as the development across the street, were you related to that family?"

"Well, you could say that to. (name)'s family owned all of the property north of the highway down to where the city has it's facilities. All in all, about 600 acres, when you include the meadows down below. That piece across the road was about 12 acres, and we mostly grew corn or sugar beets on it."

"Oh. I see. Well, the reason we're here is because Salt Lake City has asked us to look into some practices of the church that were not conforming to general church policy."

"Uh, huh, I see."

"Yes, well, we noticed in the records that you had not been a member for a full year before you received your endowments. This would have been counter to church policy at the time. Because the proper procedures were not followed, your endowments and sealing may not be valid. The church is asking for us to look into these situations and make a recommendation as to whether you should go to the temple again and redo the ordinances."

"Well, I don't understand. I realize that I hadn't been a member for a full year, but President (Blank) came to us and asked us if we would like to go..."

"Yes, sometimes church leaders overstepped protocol and that has lead to some problems with the records, so..."

"I don't see how (name) and I could possibly go to the temple. He can barely get up to go to the kitchen without needing to stop and rest. His heart is so weak right now, we just take life day to day..."

"Yes, Sister (name), but the Lord would want you to have everything in order. If an ordinance is not done properly, it will not be recognized in heaven."

"Are you saying that you know how the Lord views my sealing to my children and my husband? Are you saying that 50 years after the fact you can second-guess the motivations of our Stake President? Wasn't he called of God then? "

(My mother is feisty!)

"Well, Sister (blank), it isn't like that. God's house is a house of order..."

"It sure is! We were sealed by a Sealer in the temple. He had the authority. I went there with my dying baby to be sealed, and we were sealed. You cannot change that."

"We certainly can. The church in Salt Lake has asked us to review all of these situations and make a recommendation. We would like to know the facts around why you were allowed to go to the temple before the one year had passed."

"Look, I don't know you, and you don't know me. I'm not telling you my personal business. Just because you come in here and say you are my Bishop doesn't give you the right to tell me that I am not sealed to my children. You live three houses down the street from me, have lived there for four years, have been my Bishop for two of those, and you have never even stopped to say hello. When my husband had a heart-attack, you didn't send anyone, you didn't call, we didn't even have a note from our home teachers. You and Brother (blank) can just go back to Salt Lake and tell them that they better send someone with more authority than you to tell me that the Lord isn't going to let me into heaven to see my babies when I die."

The two men, shocked, get up to leave. My parents don't move to let them out.

In almost a year, they haven't returned. As far as I know, my parents are still considered to be sealed for time and all eternity.

Me? I'm going straight to hell.

My sex life is non existent. I guess I am really spiritual. The bishop and first counselor in the stake presidency told us if we did oral we would feel terrible and each time we see our future children a pain would flow through us because of our sexual sin.

I do have pain each time I see our children, not from so-called sexual sin but from the lack of intimacy in our marriage and the poor example it is to our children. I hope my children will think for themselves and enjoy sex with their spouse.

Another story about my old Wisconsin branch president. . .The BP was an assoc. professor at the local college and he was my older brother's academic advisor when he was there, five years ahead of me.

Eighteen years old and barely in college more than a few days, he had his first meeting with the BP and they went over the usual things you would expect an academic advisor to talk about---your major, the general requirements, the major's requirements, etc.

Then, out of the blue, the BP asks my brother if he was a virgin. My brother was taken aback but frank enough to tell the BP that he wasn't a virgin. He was expecting to be asked the details but that's where the interview ended. He eventually graduated so I guess losing one's virginity in college or before presumably was also a prerequisite for graduation.

I was always very 'strong' in the church. I never drank, partied, shopped on Sundays or even swore! But when I was eighteen, I 'slipped up' and got pregnant. I confessed to my bishop, and he was very nice about it. I asked him how long it would be until I could take the sacrament again, or until I was forgiven. He very kindly said, "That's between you and the Lord." Then he said that he believed I was a good person, and that we all make mistakes. I felt really good about that.

Anyway- I ended up getting married to the father, so I moved from my home ward and got a new bishop (EEEK). It had been about nine months, and my baby was about three months old. I had tortured myself repenting for my horrible sins. I had prayed and studied everyday. Every Sunday I had gone through the humiliation of passing the sacrament up. I finally felt worthy now! I started taking the sacrament again, and I felt a weight come off of me. So I decided to see if the new bishop would let me go to the temple. My husband was anti, so he wasn't going with me anytime soon.

Do you know what this a-hole said to me? He pointed to the baby in my arms and said, "There's a problem with where he came from. We have to make sure that those sins are cleared up." Looking back, I wish I could've smashed his arrogant head, but at the time, I felt like a piece of crap. Here I thought I was all forgiven, but this 'inspired' bishop didn't seem to think so.

So a year and a half later, I was divorced and back in my home ward. I still wanted to go to the temple really bad. (Had I not waited long enough?) I talked to my home ward bishop, and he gave me a recommend, but I still had to clear it through the Stake Pres. I was about two months from turning 21. Anyway, I went to the Stake Pres's office, really excited. I was just one step away now from finally doing the Lord's will. He told me to wait until I was 21! I immediately broke into tears, I was so disappointed. Did that matter to Mr. Jerkface? It wasn't long after that that 9/11 happened, and I started questioning Mormonism. I never made it back for my 21st b-day. Thank God. I'd be stuck wearing the magic underwear.

Many years ago when I was 17, I was raped. We were living far from Utah at the time and lucky for me our little branch did not have a very conventional or obedient Branch President. He was an anthropology grad student who couldn't afford any more schooling and was stuck with a crappy job. Before I really got started he realized the nature of my problem and asked me if I had a close girlfriend whom I trusted and I said yes and he insisted that I bring her in to the interview. This was so inspired because it changed the whole atmosphere and I was able to discuss it more freely and the tears flowed.

He told me that I had a problem that he could not address. He explained that it was not a spiritual problem but a different kind of problem and he strongly advised me to seek professional help. He offered to pay for it and said this was like getting shot in the spinal cord. It was not my responsiblity for getting shot but I could have a big impact on whether I would ever "walk" again or whether this would cripple me. When I asked for an LDS counselor he told me that there were not any good ones in the area and advised me to find a Protestant or Catholic counselor who was respectful of my religion.

He even told me that technically from a spiritual point of view in the mind of God that I was still a virgin even though the medical fact was that I was so severely injured that it required stitches. I don't know why but those words were so valuable to me.

I found a good counselor but I came back to visit with him many times and he later gave me the strength to get through the legal proceedings when they put me on trial. I don't think I would have been able to cooperate with the police and attorneys.

They released him after this because the District leaders found out that he was not asking enough detailed questions about the sexual practices and fantasies of the youth. The next Branch President was this half senile old guy who could not relate to the youth and they probably found it easier to just lie to him. Problem solved.

But I shutter at what might have happened to me if the old guy had told me it was my fault and I needed to repent. I might have cracked up and killed him. Or believed him and ended up killing myself. If there are any church moles monitoring this site, they need to listen real closely to these women who have been physically raped and then been spiritually raped again by Bishops who have little understanding of what it is like to be raped.

I have been a Mormon all my life and have never met a bish or any other Priesthood leader who did not fit the following description,some of course more grossly than others. I must admit to having served on HIGH! councils,Bishop Rickies and the like. Just cant do it any more. My stomach will not allow it. Nancy Reagan and I "Just say no!"

Carefully errected personal facade; consisting of the following carefully groomed personality traits:(Please feel free to add to the list)

1.Rightousness,
2.Super conservatism,(yet to meet a liberal that was not ferreted out and dismissed or reassigned quickly)
3.Leader worship,
3.Propriety,
4.Super size humilty,
5.Goodguymanship(made up wordphrase).
6.Perma grin.
7.Nose so close to next superior Priesthood leaders rear that if he stops quickly Utah's sodomy laws would be violated.(See also#3)
8.Never confrontational,except when defending the omnipresent party line.
9.Meeeeeknessss.

Underneath all this and more runs a river of boiling hot oil. The hot oil of right wing rightous indignation. And a sincere desire to kindly and ever so meekly have all people who do not march lockstep through the morgue of conformity put in camps (other kingdoms)where they will not be bothersome to the RIGHTeous.

In one month my bishop (who happens to be my first cousin) 1. Told an elderly gentlemen in my ward who was sexually abusing his grand-daughters and their friends to "move away" for a while and let it all blow over. (Like they don't have little girls in Arizona?) 2. Allowed a return missionary to marry his "Molly" sweetheart in the temple the same month my very good friend found out she was pregnant and it was his. (She ended up having an abortion.)

After a torturous 20 years of mental and verbal abuse I finally got up enough guts to divorce my husband. After my divorce I dated a few guys and one of them happened to have dated my ex-husbands new wife, Betty. He told me that they had "rolled in the hay" and that he was embarrased because her 10 year old son had walked in on them while they were "doing it". I don't know how she did it, but three months later Betty was marrying my ex in the temple and I was being disfellowshipped.

Now fast forward 15 months. My ex is the bishop in their new ward. My oldest son is leaving on a mission and I can't go to the temple with him because I am still disfellowshipped.

OK, this guy wasn't actually MY bishop, because I'm not actually LDS. But I did go to BYU, and was friendly with the girl in the office of my apartment block. She was LDS, but not very good. Same could of been said for most of her friends (and no, I'm not naming names). We used to get together quite a lot and party late at night, have a few drinks, smoke a variety of substances, some of which were legal. It was a real pleasure -- and a relief -- to get to know the BYU underground (which is real, enduring, very popular, and up to all sorts of stuff).

Anyway, one day, the owner of the apartment block, who was an LDS bishop, enters the office and asks my friend how well she knows me. She said I was a friend. He asked her if I went to church. She told him, "He goes to HIS church," meaning the Episcopalian church. He said to her, "Maybe you should get yourself some new friends.

A while later, he found out that I'd been smoking in my bedroom and threatened to report me to Student Life. I denied everything, said it was a friend who'd been smoking there, promised it wouldn't happen again, and just to be safe, threatened to sue him if he "defamed" my character to Student Life. So he kept quiet. But when I checked out at the end of the year, he just refused to return my bond. So I threatened to sue him again. Finally, I got a detailed breakdown of charges he said were imposed on all tenants for necessary cleaning etc. I never found out whether all tenants did have to pay these charges or not. But, interesting coincidence, all the charges for cleaning the carpets, repairs to furniture, and other stuff, just happened to be exactly equal to the sum of my bond!

I came to Utah at the age of 14. I met a girl named Jussy who was from an inactive Mormon family. She was about as anti-Mormon as you can become. She loathed the LDS church more than your typical Exmormon does. I am an evangelical Christian, and I was a new one at the time, so I talked with Jussy. She said she didn??t want to have anything to do with religion, especially Mormonism.

Well, Jussy told me that her parents were nagging at her to go to church. They were especially upset that her brother hadn't gone on a mission. Jussy did not get along with the people in her ward. I knew most of them from school; they didn't like the people she hung out with. The pressure got to her. To make matters worse, she went to school with the bishop; he was the Vice-Principal of our school. Jussy turned to drugs; she got depressed.

Then one day her mother came home late one night and found that her daughter had chosen to end her life, Jussy's mother found Jussy in the closet. She had hung herself.

Jussy??s funeral was the most horrific thing I have ever went to as far as funerals go. The girls who snubbed Jussy performed and acted as "friends" of the newly deceased. Then the bishop, that SOB, went up and gave a speech. I won't go into details. He lied lets put it that way. That funeral service was full of people that Jussy loathed. Her bishop had proven worthless in my eyes. He had a suicide in his ward and yet acted indifferently. I spent my last year at high school resenting him.

Jussy's parents, oddly, have become active members again. I have not the heart to tell them what Jussy told me.

If Jussy were alive today, she would be 19 years old. She would be in college, I think, and an atheist to boot.

I think that wherever Jussy is, she's happier than she would be here on Earth, where, by now, her active LDS parents would be pressuring her to find an RM and get married in an LDS temple.

May Jussy rest in peace.

When this happened, in 1990, I was 24 year-old convert. Yes, I converted for a woman, being led around by my dick like most guys are. We're still married, btw, and she's just now starting to question the morg in a serious way. Anyway, I found myself working for one of the "Big 8" accounting firms in Los Angeles.

I discovered AFTER landing the job there, that my boss was a Bishop in a local single adult ward. So, I just sort of assumed a certain level of integrity on his part. I wound up doing sales & use tax returns for corporate clients, and it didn't take me long to figure out that the procedures used by my predecessor were - to put it bluntly - fraudulent. I went to my boss, to point this out, and to express my concerns. His exact words to me were, "Well, I GUESS you could call it fraud. But that's just the way we do things here."

That's like saying "my girlfriend is kind of pregnant." She is or she is not. It is fraud, or it is not. I guess "lying for the Lord" lets some people justify anything. I've since learned that your typical TBM businessman would steal the pennies from his dead mother's eyes.

This incident was the start; it took me sevral more years to become disillusioned enought to leave the church. And the name of the accounting firm: you guessed it, Arthur Andersen!! Yup, Enron's own bookkeepers! What a surprise!

Bishop threatening to take temple recommends of men who do not do their home teaching... I heard this directly from the bishop. The ward now prints reports that shows which families were not visited for the past month, 3 months, 6 months, etc. And, of course, next to the family's name are the names of the hometeachers. The bish said he would call these gentlemen in, and if they were not willing to do better, take their recommends because "if they are not doing their assignments, then they are not temple-worthy." I couldn't believe what he was saying. Everyone knows that the vast majority of active members HATE hometeaching -- it's a failed program that has only one purpose -- stats! I don't recall there being a hometeaching question in the temple recommend interview. Perhaps this bishop was just getting out of hand, and his stake president would put a stop to it if he heard about it. Talk about being worthy by compulsion! TBM's (True Believing Mormons) perhaps don't realize it, but they've adopted Lucifer's plan.

I grew up many years ago in a chaotic Mormon family with 6 older sisters. For some strange reason two of the girls in our fairly large ward were "blessed" with enormous breasts, to the point that the guys were constantly teasing them about it. ("Betty Jo ain't seen her feet since she was 12. Can't even tie her own shoes."). Well, the fight to sin is real and the other girls in the ward were not about to be out done or undone either. So they started stuffing their bras with cotton. It got so bad that at the beginning of the school year, (our mostly non-Mormon High School had this custom where Seniors would make humerous predictions in an assembly devoted to this purpose), and one of the most hilarious predictions was "the Mormon women are gonna knit their cotton tops into sweaters." Since the Mormon girls did not generally put out sexually it was rather more convenient for them to stuff, guys would never actually know the difference and girls weren't suppose to tell guys that sort of a thing about each other.

Cotton worked well in small amouts but as the contest intensified and the average breast size continued to explode, the armloads of cotton did't exactly jiggle right. So the girls in our ward switched to water ballons and further refined it artistically to a better consistencey by adding an old Mormon favorite, jello. One of my sisters discovered that if you let it set up for only about 1 1/2 hours in the frig, it was near perfect. Exact timing was everything because it would melt quickly before meetings ended. Amazing what gets a teenage girl out of bed early on Sunday morning. A major problem with the jello was when the guys started to pinch or you had to sneeze or some old lady with a pin in her dress hugged you or at any other unexpected encounter, the jello balloon could leak or suddenly rupture and stain your dress. So my sisters were always careful to coordinate the flavor of the jello with the color of their outfit, just in case.

One of the girls with a naturally enormous size started getting severe back pains from the weight and underwent reduction surgery. This provided the perfect excuse for the rest of the girls to explain their wildly fluctuating figures. Like going to church with the watermelon look and then showing up to early morning seminary the next day with nothing more than okra, or peanuts or a couple of fried eggs. Guys would overhear girls in the ward whisper things like "I'm having Them surgically reduced again next week, they grow so fast."

This got so ridiculous that it was getting down right distracting to everyone at church. The teenage girls were swamping out testimony meetings, volunteering to give talks, or to perform all varieties of musical numbers; just plain clamoring for every opportunity to flaunt their generous but artificial figures. I think if the truth was known, attendence at church went up because most of the backsliders were men and this certainly provided better and cheaper entetainment than you could get legally anywhere else. I think the married women in the ward finally noticed that, amidst all the cheerios flying around and squawking little brats, the older angelic daughters of Zion were not doing so swell either. Instead of taking the young maidens aside and discretely telling them to stop it, they went straight to the Bishop and made it his problem. Mormon solution: take all problems to the Priesthood.

So the Bishop went bonkers. He interviewed every single teenage girl and demanded to know her actual bra size, and told them it was a great wickedness to lie and basically deceive about something so distracting to the minds of young men and to pretend to be something you are not. All future bra stuffing was strictly forbidden. He made little charts, patterned after the personal progress charts, of their breast growth. And he claimed that if he noticed any future discrepancy he was going to call out their names over the pulpit and send the girls straight home from meetings to change into something more appropriate. He also threatened to do random inspections at Seminary so that pretty much wiped out school as a time not under his control. I'm surprized he didn't insist on physical inspections and actual measurements. Maybe he did and I never heard about it.

One of my sisters was quite tall and skinny and liked to run on the beach all the time. She didn't much care for guys until later and she had small breasts and was rather sensitive about it. She completely ignored the entire stuffing charade. And the Bishop did not call her in and quizz her. He lined up the rest of our sisters and interviewed them to their complete mortification. Oh, the weeping and wailing and screaming that transpired at our home later that day. My inactive dad was about to get out his gun when he found out and to go a hunting Bishop but mama made him leave it be. When she got through telling the Bishop off something terrible, I bet he wished he'd been shot instead. Mama also banned jello from our house. Drastic measures for tumultuous times.

My tall sister actually felt bad that she, like, had been left out, that she was somehow not a sexual individual just because God made her slightly different and she chose a different path. Ironically it was the path that the Bishop was trying to get the rest of the girls to follow and somehow she felt punished and ignored. He could have at least interviewed her and told her what was going on and complemented her on her prudence.

Of course, they never said one thing to the guys. It was not like we weren't living under the same roof with all of our sisters, so most of us knew exactly what was going on. I think this entire problem could have been avoided by letting the youth go to the beach together a few times and letting them wear normal bikinis. And if we had treated the size and shape of our developing bodies as just another natural feature. And not gone so hard on the guys if they took a rare peak at a Playboy magazine. The youth were obsessive about sex because their leaders were obsessive about them not having sex or anything like unto it.

My former spouse was and is a devout Mormon. For years she and her Church cohorts did everything in their power to suck me in to their midst. One summer, she set me up with a male member, ostensibly to play tennis Saturday mornings. Several times the former Bishop and reigning stake president happened by, whereupon the two of them would beseech me to try the Church. I dodged and countered their arguments successfully until summer’s end.

About a year later, my spouse told me that my former tennis partner had left the Church. When pressed, she informed me that his 17-year-old daughter had run off with the 54-year-old and very much married stake president. - 05/22/2003 - anon

It's fast and testimony meeting. Sister Smith walks up to the stand once again, like she does every month. You know the one - the lady that gives her "testimony" EVERY month, talking (or mostly crying) about everything under the sun... her ex husband never took out the trash, her poor cat got hit by a car, her sister-in-law's neighbor's second cousin got cancer, or whatever.

Anyway, she gets up this month and is especially out of control. She is boo-hooing so bad you can't understand a word she is saying. 10 minutes go by, then 15, then 20. Everyone is feeling uncomfortable, especially the Bishop. Finally, the Bishop can take no more.

He walks up to Sister Smith and puts his arm around to comfort her (and to try and wrap it up). Sister Smith, with tears streaming down her face says, "I'm sorry Bishop, I am such a big boob." The Bishop leans in to Sister Smith, inches away from the microphone, and says, "That's ok Sister Smith, I LIKE BIG BOOBS." The sacrament meeting ended 10 minutes early.

I went to my bishop when I was thinking of leaving Mormonism. For some reason I thought he might provide some profound insight I hadn't thought of that would influence me to rethink leaving. In his office after listening to me and basically not knowing much of what the hell I was talking about as he knew very little, he just said well you got a tough decision to make. After a few more conversations on the phone he actually made a deal with me that if I went to church for three months he would read B.H. Roberts Studies of the Book of Mormon and tell me what he thought.

I agreed and sat through three months of boring meetings biting me tongue when I wanted to ask questions I knew would make everyone there uncomfortable. Well three months went by and when I got a hold of the bishop after playing phone tag he promised to bring the book by shortly. A month went by with no word and at this point he had over four months to read it and give me a response. When he finally dropped by with my book he offered no comment and so when I asked what he thought he admitted that he only read the introduction. He had made a promise and didn't fulfill it, basically he lied and blew me off when I took my promise to him very seriously. We haven't talked since then and I'm now an ex-mormon. - 04/12/2003 - from www.geocities.com/exmormon2000

There was the memorable bishop (now Steak Pres.) who told my mother (in the depths of depression) only 4 or 5 months after the death of my father to stop suffering from "Poor Little Old Me Syndrome". Helpful. - 04/11/2003 - from Elizabeth

There simply is not enough bandwidth to tell of the stories of Bishop Clueless.

He was made the bishop of the singles ward in the Seattle stake about 1996/1997 ish. I knew of this nut because I grew up in his ward. He was and is the most arrogant, rude, condescending sombiotch I've ever had the displeasure of meeting.

I kid you not and I am NOT exaggerating - he stood at the pulpit after being 'voted on' and stated "I know that I've offended people in the past and I hope that they can forgive me. I am going to be better". After the closing prayer he shook hands with a couple of people, took the few steps down from the stand, walked up three pews and saw a girl that was from his home ward from years past. She was about 30 at the time and wanted to get married. He put forth his hand and all but hollered "Why Lavelle! You're not married yet?!?! Why aren't you married yet?!?!" Moron.

The following week we were sitting in Sunday School and he announced that we were to arrange our chairs in a horseshit I mean horseshoe pattern and during the course of the lesson, we would be asked questions about the lesson topic. When we got a question right, we would get a point and the person with the highest points would sit in chair one, second person in chair two, etc all the way down the line. Moron.

That was the last time I went to church actually. I'm all but stupid and I knew I'd be sitting at the end of the line :-)

Anyway, after about 9 months of this there was nobody attending the singles ward and the stake shut it down. Moron.

A few months pass and the Stake President has this bright idea, "hey, Second Ward needs a new bishop, Let's get Bishop Elder in there". Moron.

So, now he's the bishop of a family ward. In priesthood meeting he announced that unless the elders achieved 100% home teaching, they would not get their temple recommends. Moron. (stake president got at least 10 calls the next day and the threat was neutralized)

After sacrament meeting one Sunday, the congregation was busy chatting it up amongst themselves before heading off to various classes. Bishop gets up to the pulpit and duly informs everybody that they needed to AND I QUOTE!!!! "be quiet and go to your classes or you're all going to hell" Moron.

There was a gentleman in the ward that had been a faithful member for 50 odd years. This brother was diagnosed with cancer and told my aunt but asked her to keep it quiet. She thought the bishop needed to know so as to help however he could. She advised the bishop of this brothers problem. His response? "Well, he's old and we all have to die sometime." She walked away shaking her head thinking "what was i thinking?". Moron.

I could go on, but I think you get the point. By the way, he was released a few weeks ago after only 2 1/2 years. Stake President finally pulled his head out and checked the attendance rate.

I came to St. George from our of state at a time when they were actively protesting an adult book store that had set up shop in Mesquite, Nevada.

I was appalled to find that Sunday school and Priesthood were joined. Not for a joint lesson but a rah-rah to get more people down on Sundays to protest the store.

I called the Bishop to task on the subject, but he claimed innocence. So I called the stake president to task.

He also said it was acting well within the guidelines of the brethren.

My words finally reached the regional representative who also turned a well groomed ear to the facts that they were more interested in putting this store out of business than abiding the guidance of the brethren.

People actually today get on radio talk shows and take pride in the fact that they participated in such a scandal. It speaks volumes to the pride and arrogance that the church promotes among its members.

I was a member of the mormon church for a few years, until back in october of 2001 i was raped....i went to my bishop, like my family expected, and told him what happened....now let me tell you, first of all, i'm about five feet tall, this man was about 6 foot four, and for a girl who has just been through what i had, you do not want to be alone, in a room, with a guy, especially one so big...but, as the church demanded, i was...i told him, going by the church's rules, and he told me to REPENT. now let me tell you, repentance is feeling bad for something that is your fault....the rape was not my fault, and telling me to repent was messed up, i left that day, and have not looked back.

When I was asked to have an interview with my bishop becuase of rumors he had heard from other gay ass members, he asked the dirty details of what I had done. Down to which nipple he licked first, etc. He definitely got off afterwards. - 02/12/2003 - anon

My Bishop from hell was a close person to me who suffered horribly from depression and I suspect some form of paranoid schitzophrenia. He had been bishop for several years when I went into his home office and found a nudie calendar prominently displayed on his walls. I threw a fit and it was removed very soon thereafter. I was a young teenage girl when he started telling me sex, beastiality and anal jokes. He found nothing wrong with it.

I had a good laugh when I found out that he forced his wife to vote in elections for the persons or issues of his choosing. No wonder she never said anything about the nudie calendar.

He was on so many anitdepressants and whatever that the family never knew what kind of mood he was in. One minute he would be eating dinner with everybody and the next he would be saying he was a fucking bastard and peeling out in the car. His wife blamed the rest of the family for upsetting him and we were all afraid he would kill himself while he was gone.

He had a young potential missionary who was struggling with his faith that he was counseling. I have no idea what he said to him, but the young man eventually began deteriorating horribly and ended up killing himself in a pretty public way.

Not long thereafter the bishop's wife came across some love letters from her married best friend in the ward to her husband. He had even spent thousands of dollars on jewelry for the mistress. The stress of the situation became worse when the woman threatened to kill herself if he couldn't run off with her. She also began starving herself and acting eratically. They both denied any kind of sexual relationship. He had begun his relationship with her while counseling her for marital problems.

Weeks after finding the letters his wife confronted him with the evidence. He pulled out his shotguns and laid them neatly on the bed. He began rampaging all over the house. He threatened to kill the entire family one by one. He pointed at them and said "I am going to kill you, and you, etc. etc." I was terrified. I wanted to call the police, but his wife refused to let me. (Just last year he confided in me that he fantasized about dying with one the young children in the family. I am living in constant fear of him.

The woman eventually moved a few miles away with her husband. (Who until recently didn't know about the affair.) The Bishop's wife was able to talk to him into going to confess a year after the death threats incident. In that year myself and other family members observed him having contact with that woman. He was finally removed as Bishop and excommunicated.

His wife is very dismissive of his behavior and is in total denial of the situation. To make matters worse the disciplinary counsel that heard his case told their wives all the gory details of the affair. They have alienated his wife and rumors have been flying every which way about her and him.

The new bishop wouldn't tell the people to stop gossiping, nor would he punish the people who had broken confidentiality. Thus the bishop's wife lives with the shame and isolation of her husband's indescressions. The women and men of the Morg aren't capable of genuine friendship or support.

Moving to Southern California, we were absolutely shocked at how we were welcomed when attending our new ward. It appeared that the ward was controlled by a superficial high school type click, and that everyone just idolized these people. Since we did not agree with the clique or want to associate with it, it felt as if they were saying fuck you when leaving the chapel.

After three months of going home sad and depressed every Sunday, we decided to go and talk about these issues with the bishop. This is what he told us "I am sick of people complaing about how this ward is cold, if you don't like it you can leave.".

Being a Varsity coach in the ward I took upon myself to have fund raisers for the varsity team. Never did anyone from church leadership show up to help. Instead on Sunday morning I would get a couple of bills slipped to me to put into the fund, from the bishop.

The clique is so controlled by the bishop, that once a member of the ward decided it was ok to watch a television show just because the bishop did. The show was Law and Order, big deal.

Also during this period we had a case of child abuse in the ward. One of my friends wife was the little girls primary teacher. She had been telling the church leadership for months that the girl was probabally being abused. The best way for them to solve the problem was to burry it. Finally a family member of the girl turned it in. I could go on, and on.

My wife has an LDS friend in California who went through a divorce with her LDS husband. The husband accused her of adultery in the course of the divorce. A short time after the accusation the Bishopic showed up at her house when she wasn't home and rummaged through her belongings looking for evidence of the accused adultery. Nothing was found. My wife was told about the incident because her friend had received an apology from Pres Faust more than a decade after the intrusion. The friend has been and still is inactive because of the violation of her Bishopric. However, she also insists that she, "knows the church is true."

As a teenager in the late '60's I chose a career which required extra classes in high school. This meant seminary would not fit in to my schedule. My parents who were active supported my decision, but my bishop blew a gasket! He said I would surely go to hell if I did not attend seminary. I continued to attend church in spite of this asshole, but it soured me towards serving a mission. After high school I met a wonderful girl and was married in the temple in spite of this jerk! - 05/25/2002 - anon

I've never met a Bishop from Hell, but I know of one who has a front row seat guaranteed in the Celestial Kingdom, Bishop Ervin ______ and his delightful companion, Sister Dona.

My mother put a shotgun in her mouth a few weeks after papa got sent back to prison for good. I was amazed that you could splatter blood and brains all over the ceiling, four walls, and floor of a 2-car garage. I next lived with Granny and quite liked it. She kept me busy cooking and cleaning for her, and painting, gardening, canning, even quilting. But the Judge didn't think it proper, a mostly bedridden 92 year old lady raising an 11 year old boy, especially if I developed any tendencies after my father. So I was shipped far off to rural Utah to start a new life with Aunt Eliza and Uncle Dean.

I never felt like I belonged in that large polished family. My older cousins avoided me and Aunt Eliza would occasionally take a broom to me, calling me a poor little orphan bastard. I sat around watching TV and getting into trouble. Mostly I got into trouble with Ruth, the Bishop's daughter who lived next door. She was 3 years older than I.

Ruth was not to good to look at. When she got up in the morning and looked in the mirror at her dirty blond hair, her slightly cocked eyes, her crooked smile and crooked teeth, her long stringy neck, she thought to herself; I may not be as beautiful, smart, or spiritual as the other Mormon girls. But I am the one getting pumped full of semen two or three times a week by their brothers and boyfriends. Ruth was much younger than the other nine misfit progeny of Bishop Ervin. In fact she was actually the biological offspring of her oldest sister who got pregnant as a teenager. Sister Dona managed to sort of keep this disgrace a big family secret and raise Ruth as one of their own. Ruth found out about the Truth of her heritage from the cruel children at Junior High and that is about when she went wild. Absolutely no emotional attachment was attached to our relationship, just a couple of little piglets rutting in the barnyard. Ruth only called me on the phone to "come over and play" when she couldn't find anyone else and she wouldn't even dance with me at the church dances.

Sister Dona, Ruth's mother was a Mormon original, a real piece of work. She extracted every bit of private information from her husband, the Bishop and broadcast distortions of it abroad, claiming to have seen remarkable dreams and visions. We had an enormous number of inactives in our town and most claimed it was a direct result of Sister Dona and her tongue. If she couldn't drive you inactive with gossip, she would get you excommunicated for sins she trumped up herself. She also had a problem with shoplifting and had been arrested a few times. Store owners in rural Utah were reluctant to cooperate in prosecuting a church leader's wife. She taught her daughters, Ruth especially, to steal for her at an early age and she never got caught.

Sister Dona had the door of her frig filled with a bizarre array of concoctions. Some were home remedies designed to magically cure any childhood ailment, but others were part of her bag of dirty tricks. For instance, her acetone, vinegar and blue cheese dressing looked exactly like slush and would take the paint off of most anything. She would etch a message on a car hood during Sunday meetings. The word "shitass" was almost like her signature. She had potions that would kill trees, lawn or flowers. She would pound nails into tires or throw eggs and tomato sauce on a house with the help of her children, telling them that they were doing "the Lord's dirty work." Another Sister Dona favorite was to half fill a brown lunch bag with dog poop, sneek it onto someone's front porch, light it on fire, ring the doorbell and run. The victim would answer the door, stomp the fire out and get dog poop on their shoe. Sister Dona might slip a stick of butter under the seat of your car while bumming a ride home from church, or stuff it in a couch cushion during a Relief Society visit, when you left her alone for a minute to answer the phone when Ruth called. The butter would melt, rot and stink like nothing you have ever smelled. It would linger for months. Tarballs flushed down the toilet got more than one front yard dug up. The stunt that bothered Ruth most was when Sister Dona caught stray pets, cats especially, and hanged them from this big cottonwood tree next to the school yard. Some mornings the animal might still be twitching or struggling a little, but they usually died. The children who loved their pets and had searched for them all night would see it.

We had large gardens right next to each other. This made it easy to till and irrigate them and to supervise the endless hours of slave labor required of all the children of both families to keep the weeds down. Aunt Eliza and Sister Dona got into these screaming fits over every gardening detail, when to plant, fertilize, harvest, etc. Aunt Eliza was usually right and so we had the biggest and best vegetables, which irked Sister Dona to no end. Late one night I saw Sister Dona creep into our half of the mega-garden wearing her white house robe and slippers. She bent over to steal some of Aunt Eliza's prize cucumbers and I shot her square in the ass with my cousin's pellet gun from the attic window. She yelped and high-footed it back home and I never heard another word about it. I guess she thought it was Uncle Dean who did it.

Uncle Dean was First Counselor in the Bishopric but he actually ran the ward. He was a fearless and decorated WWII veteran and a get-the-job-done kind of guy. Tall, powerfully built, good-looking and charismatic, he was an excellent mechanic, electrician, plumber, builder, magician, and generally knew how to do anything. Bishop Ervin was a fat, myopic, weeping, sensitive frump, greatly beloved by emotionally unstable women. He dwaddled around and had trouble even tying his own shoes. Uncle Dean had us mow their lawn, shovel their snow, paint their house, etc. for them and he worked constantly to keep both old houses from falling down. Every Sunday morning I would hear, at about 5:00 a.m., Uncle Dean's commanding voice. He would march over to the Bishop's house, through their back door and right up into the Bishop's bedroom. He would shout "Erv, get your fat ass out of the sack and get ready for Bishopric meeting!" Everyone always wondered why the Bishop looked just like he had been dragged out of bed, well he had. Ruth claimed that one time Uncle Dean took a gun and held it to the Bishop's head and made him call up this Primary President and rebuke her for having an affair. According to Ruth, Uncle Dean was "the only person on the face of the earth who could scare her mother into behaving herself."

The Bishopric went deer hunting every year. They sluffed church and suspended the Word of Wisdom for that weekend and got drunk. Bishop Ervin did not want to but Uncle Dean forced him to do it and then he would get the worst hang over from it. Uncle Dean shot a deer for himself every year and then another one for the Bishop's family. Then they'd argue over which deer belonged to whom. Usually one was bigger but had tougher meat. Bishop Ervin argued mostly by whining and Uncle Dean was torn between his own sense of pride and his desire to be of service to his fellow church leader. The few cousins and rare Bishop's son who were invited to go along were never allowed to touch a gun. We were just brush beaters who theoretically drove the deer in the general direction of the two mightly hunters, one of whom couldn't shoot straight, and we had to pack the deer out, of course. Once I scared up this big four point buck about 3 feet in front of me. Uncle Dean immediately plugged it right through the head from about 400 yards. Deer blood and brains splattered on my shoulder and arm. I had a flash back to that day when I found my mother in the garage. I realized that even though Uncle Dean was a crack shot, he might miss once and accidently kill me. I never went hunting after that and didn't much enjoy eating deer meat which was the main dish almost every night.

Uncle Dean and the Bishop also poached deer. They knew of farmers who were supposedly pestered by deer getting into their hay and grain in the winter. They'd take the Bishop's old pick-up out late at night. Uncle Dean actually shot the deer but he made the Bishop drag them back to the truck. They'd butcher the deer secretly in this old stone shed on the back of the Bishop's lot. Late one night I sneeked out of bed to have a look at three large does that Ruth told me were hanging in the stone shed and I caught the Bishop with his pants down whacking off. He had opened this rusty old military surplus trunk that was always locked up and it was stuffed with pornography. At least he wasn't doing it to the deer. Initially, Bishop Ervin assumed that I was Uncle Dean because I was wearing his black Cowboy hat and his favorite coyote skin coat in case Sister Dona also happened to be out prowling around. He thought I was going to kill him on the spot and he begged for his life. Then he realized that "Uncle Dean" was about a foot too short and maybe 100 pounds too light. He asked me to keep it a secret since if I tattled on him it would make the church look bad and destroy fragile testimonies in the ward. He told me that if I ever committed any major sins, to just come to him and he would absolve them, sort of like an indulgence. I almost blurted out about Ruth but managed to keep my tongue silent. Priesthood Progress Interviews were a real trip after that episode. The Bishop would say something like you know I have to ask you these questions but I'd really rather not so just give me the right answers and we will zip right through them.

One Friday each fall, Uncle Dean and the Bishop would make a late night run to Idaho in the old truck. The next day they'd return pretty early with the entire back of the truck overflowing with potatoes, not in sacks. I don't know how but they must have stolen them. They also pilfered firewood off the National Forest every year. Both old houses had their thermostats set at about 40 degrees all winter and any further heat was derived entirely from firewood which didn't work very good. Of course air conditioning was out of the question. We all went together to orchards to pick our own fruit every year. They had these trick baskets that were the correct diameter for one bushel but were twice as deep. Every year they would cheat the fruit growers because the trick baskets looked exactly like normal bushel baskets in the back of the truck. They justified this theft by claiming the prices were too high. Then we'd be up all night and far into the next Sabbath day peeling and canning fruit. I didn't mind the 36 hours straight of hard work but the constant bickering drove me crazy. They would not feed us on fruit picking days. We were suppose to fill up on free fruit. The summer after the episode with the three poached does, we were picking cherries and Ruth wanted to slip off for a quickie. The Bishop got lost and came stumbling along and caught us right in the act. Ruth was feeling borderline sick from eating too many cheeries anyway and she just lost it. She was on her back and she shit all over her skirt. The Bishop gave me about 3 seconds to disappear before he yelled out, "Dona your daughter is getting sick over here.

After tormenting that ward for over twenty years, the Bishopric was finally released. And promoted to the Stake Presidency. Sister Dona was elated until she realized that her primary source of gossip had just dried up. Aunt Eliza was insulted that Uncle Dean's long years of effort wasn't better appreciated and he didn't get the top job. As the new Stake President, Bishop Ervin got up in Stake Conference in the old tabernacle and told us this heart-rendering account of how he first gained his testimony. He was in England on a mission of sorts when he wandered into this field of miraculously blooming Easter lilies. He fell to his knees and prayed to know if it was all true. He recieved a heavenly manifestation that Heber J. Grant was the Prophet of God. This was the first time any of us had heard of it. Uncle Dean was sitting right next to me and kept muttering "Bullshit" through the entire account. Later he told us his version. Bishop Ervin was in England as a soldier in May 19, 1944 waiting to run up the beach of Normandy on D-Day. He was scared pissless and went AWOL and missed the boat. He should have been shot for treason. Easter lilies are tropical plants that do not grow in England and Heber Grant was dead by then. So much for heavenly manifestations.

Sister Dona, not to be outdone by her husband in spiritual matters, rose the very next Fast Meeting and related an unusual spiritual experience. Years before, she had been in the temple and accidently opened the wrong door. She stepped into a strange room which was filled with hundreds of lambs. These were clean, well-behaved little lambs and they didn't crowd together, nibble on the carpet, or make even the least little mess. In fact they were sweet smelling lambs like the most heavenly perfume you could imagine. Then she watched these lambs be transfigured into a choir that was singing the most heavenly songs you could imagine. Sister Dona said she left "doctorinal matters" to the Priesthood. But in her heart she felt that all the innocent spirits of those lambs sacrificed in the Old Testament were somehow raised up in the temple to become human ministering angels in the Celestial Kingdom. There is more going on in those temples than we will ever know she concluded. Ruth w! as sitting right in front of me holding hands with some recently returned missionary jerk, soon to have most of the effects of his two years of diligent service undone along with his pants. I tapped her on the shoulder and whispered do you think there were any cats in that choir?

As I got closer to mission age I began to drift away from the church. Not that there was much else in that town to drift into. In order to try and keep me active, the Stake presidency got me involved in a Service Project helping old people with their yard work and home repairs. But it only involved certain people, not everyone who appeared to need it. Then I figured out my Uncle Dean's latest scheme. He would visit old people who were mostly abandoned by their kids. Alone and worried about what would happen to them. Uncle Dean would tell them about the United Order and convince them to deed title to their property over to the church in exchange for a spiritual guarantee that they would be taken care of for the rest of their lives. The Stake President was acting as the agent of the church and accepted title to the property. Often the old folks died peacefully at home. If they didn't, it was easy to give the property back to the family when health expenses appeared to be rising ! beyond the value of the house. After the funeral when the family returned home for this one last visit, Uncle Dean would call the oldest son into the Stake President's office for an interview. It helped that he was remembered by these oldest sons as a community leader during the years they were growing up. Uncle Dean would tell the oldest sons that their parents were in far worse financial conditon than they let on. That the church had been supporting them for years. That they had been forced to sell the house and the church had mercifully convinced the new owners to let the old folks stay in their homes until the end. Uncle Dean's oft repeated refrain was: "they didn't want to be a burden to their children." So clever was this scheme executed that Uncle Dean walked off with several pieces of property, mostly cheap old houses and the Stake President took most of the risk. They rented the absconded property out to poor people and paid themselves the high rents with money straight from the Fast Offerings.

When I turned 19 and hadn't been to church for almost a year, Uncle Dean gave me an ultimatum. Either I serve a mission for the church or he was going to kick me out and make me pay him back all the money he had spent raising me. Actually I think the State had custody of me and had been paying him a sweet amount every month to take care of me but that was never mentioned. I told him that I wasn't worthy. He responded that he had known about Ruth and me for years and that it didn't matter because she was like family. By that time I was long acquainted with his tactics of manipulation and was not going to be tricked into putting myself entirely at the mercy of the church in a foreign country with some fireball companion at my side all the time. So I prayed to God for the first time and asked him what he wanted me to do with my life. I had a dream and I couldn't remember it but I knew it involved a Nazi soldiers helmet, a war souvenir of my Uncle. From these signs, I determined t! o join the U.S Marines. Not exactly logical, but I have heard of worse excuses.

Basic training and a year in Vietnam were extremely difficult, physically. But compared to the years of living in the constant emotional turmoil of these two dysfunctional Mormon families, it was a cakewalk. The Marines made it perfectly clear what they expected from you and as long as you didn't start thinking about the larger issues of why are we fighting here, it was not hard. There was no bickering or arguments. Yes sir. I could handle that. I found it to be an emotionally secure yet manly organization. I grew in confidence and developed a clear sense of right and wrong. I saw the men around me all screwed up and I just thought about what I had survived as a child and I felt good. I know this was not the typical reaction to that experience. I guess I wasn't afraid of getting killed. It seemed like my best chance for going to heaven. I was more frightened of going back home and facing my Uncle. I realized that I didn't actually ever have to go back home. I could escape and go to college or something.

After I left, Aunt Eliza blew a gasket in her brain and died suddenly. Uncle Dean started openly shacking up with this young widow who had six miserable little brats for kids. They went to church together and acted like teenagers. My cousins were like sheep without a shepard. Even Sister Dona was dumbfounded. Bishop Ervin was scared shitless and didn't dare release him. He couldn't see how this was going to end and he not get shot or something. Ruth wrote me a letter and said her whole world was crumbling. Uncle Dean was the only stable person she knew and she was trying to repent and get her life in order. But if he could fall like this, then how could there be any hope for any of us. I had about a month to go and I knew what I had to do. I knew that I needed to have a talk with my Uncle Dean.

Uncle Dean's great big new orange monster truck was parked on her front lawn right by the porch, not on the drive way, as if they couldn't wait to walk an extra few feet before getting in the house. I had not told anyone that I was coming home and I wanted to get this over with as soon as I could. Borrowing a trick from Uncle Dean's own playbook, I walked in the back door and caught them in bed with the brats running helter-skelter throughout the rest of the house. He tried to get physical with me but I was about his same size by then and a hell of a lot stronger. I knew he generally kept a pistol in the dresser and I stayed in front of it. I didn't hit him but basically man-handled him. Uncle Dean was not stupid and he quickly switched tactics. He started in on me with religious threats. I told him coldly that I believed in neither God, hell nor the devil. I told him all I saw was an old man screwing an ugly woman he wasn't married to. I told him to quit dragging his family through the muck. I told him that in today's Marine Corps he would be a disgrace, which was like stabbing him in the gut. I told him my purpose in coming was to thank him for the fine job he had done trying to raise me and to ask his forgiveness for what my father had done to the family name. And this is what greets me? I gave him one week to straighten out the mess and then I was going to the church leaders in Salt Lake and to the District Attorney if he was still practicing the United Order routine with the old folks in town. I reminded him that I knew that he was a crack shot but I was going to be packing heat too and if he wanted to shoot it out with an American soldier in uniform, that was his business. He might get to be cell mates with his brother. Imagine the headline, boy survives Vietnam and is killed by church leader/Uncle first week home.

Uncle Dean went to Bishop Ervin and resigned his position. He quickly and quietly married the ugly young widow and appologized to my cousins. He sold his monster truck and gave his rental houses to the people living in them. He tried to make ammends. He was a talented guy and I hope he was a good father to those six little brats, Lord knows they needed it. Normalcy returned when Sister Dona got her mouth back in gear telling everybody about it. I felt liberated and at peace. I left Utah and the Mormons and started a new life. A few years later I ran into Ruth in the Houston airport. We both had several hours before our next flight. She had turned into a nice fat Mormon mother. It was surreal listening to her appologize for leading me astray as a youth. She inquired if I had repented and confessed. Yes, I lied to her. And I served a mission to California and was married in the Temple. She told me she was married to a dull fat guy and had two children. It was a traumatic step down from being the Bishop's baby daughter to the assistant ward clerk's wife. But she hoped to whip him into spiritual shape some day to be a Bishop.

Ruth seemed obsessed to tell me a most amazing spiritual story. An Apostle had visited Stake Conference and he was extremely impressed with the deep spirituality of her parents. Bishop Ervin had related the account of his heavenly manifestation in England and Sister Dona had given a garbled rendition of her lambs in the temple. She had just discovered the joys of prescription medication abuse and the story came out sounding quite allegorical and not the least bit literal or kookie as it had in the beginning. After Conference, the Apostle interviewed them and then they made a special trip to Salt Lake later for a very special session where they recieved what Ruth called their Second Endowment or Second Annointing. Sister Dona can't keep her mouth shut especially now and she told Ruth that the Second Endowment involved the following Seven Eternal Principles:

1. Absolute Secrecy
2. A ritual involving the Washing of Feet
3. Having sex in the temple (presumeably with your spouse?)
4. Being annointed as Kings and Queens, which office is higher than either Priesthood.
5. Actual entry into the Celestial Kingdom, equal in status to Christ. But they would have to suffer for their own future sins if they committed any. (Ritual nullification of the Atonement?)
6. The More Sure Word of Prophecy which was like a magnum load of the Gift of the Holy Ghost. They become a seer, this allows them to actually look into the future. (Hopefully not the past.)
7. No more tithing. They give everything to the church and the church gives it right back to them.

Sister Ruth testified to me that her parents had received this great spiritual blessing. And so I come to an end of my account of dear old Bishop Ervin and his lovely wife Sister Dona. A Mormon Couple True and Faithful in all things, who have by now probably departed from this world of tears and sit upon their golden thrones in yonder heaven, well down the Path to being Gods.

Note: So powerful is their spiritual influence that the first time I tried to type this story into this website, they came and visited me in the spirit and the computer erased it. Even now my right hand trembles and I can barely resist n o t h i t t i n g t h e D E L E T E B U T T O N . . . .

When I was 16 I got a job at a tuxedo shop that sold all sorts of really nice dress clothes for many different occasions. I bought a white dress shirt with a banded collar and a button cover. It was a lot dressier than the typical Mormon white shirt and tie combination that most of the other young men in the ward wore.

I was asked by the first counselor while visiting in another ward if I would help bless the sacrament because they didn't have enough priests in attendance. I agreed and sat up behind the sacrament for a good 5-10 minutes before the bishop noticed me and actually came down from the stand to ask me to go find a properly dressed priest to take my place. I asked him what he considered to be properly dressed to bless the sacrament and he told me that a white shirt and tie were the only appropriate garments. Needless to say that since sacrament meeting was going on, everyone was pretending to listen to the speaker while watching the exchange between the bishop and me.

I got down off the stand and went to the lost and found section where the coat rack was and I found the biggest and loudest tie that there was. It was orange with blue and pink stripes and it was at least 5 inches wide at the broadest part. I put it on over my shirt and button cover with the sloppiest knot I could muster. (Keep in mind that this shirt had no collar to hide the band of the tie that went around my neck. I looked ridiculous. Satisfied, I went into the chapel and sat back up on the sacrament bench.

Some people in the congregation snickered and some people were openly smiling at the point that I was making. I grinned like a monkey all the while that I blessed and handed the sacrament bread to the deacons.

After the meeting, the bishop came up to me and demanded an explanation. I told him that he wanted someone in a white shirt and tie to bless the sacrament. He responded that I knew exactly what he had wanted and that I was just being smart with him. I then responded that what he had wanted was a clone of every other Mormon boy my age in the church and that nowhere in any of the scriptures does it mention a white shirt and tie. Not to mention the fact that I was actually wearing nicer clothing than he was.

I then proceeded to tell him that it was incorrect to wear his suit the way that he was. (It was 6 on 2 double-breasted and he was wearing it open while he was standing up.) I then told him that he was too concerned with worldly matters while he should be concerned with the spiritual matters of the sacrament. ;) He said something to the effect of sustaining and obeying my church leaders and I told him to kiss my ass and walked away.

Ahhh, the exhilarating feeling of standing up to assholes and tyrants! -Scott

I quit the Church years ago and since then both my sons, now teenagers, became Christians. Recently my sons had traveled back to Wisconsin with their mother (my ex) to visit relatives. This particular town in Wisconsin is where both my ex and I joined the Church. My old branch president, who baptized me, is still there.

Of course while they were there their mother had them go to sacrament meeting services at the old branch. My sons are 17 and 16, the oldest one heading off to college this fall. The oldest one was an infant when we moved away from that town and he's made about half a dozen trips back there since then, the last one in 1997 before this trip. So they've met the old BP but mostly know him from stories I told about him.

Sure enough, they met him and he sounded exactly the same, more TBM now than he was back when I knew him. He walked up to the boys with the usual ramrod down his back and asked the oldest kid when he was going on his mission. My son didn't have the heart to tell him that he wasn't a Mormon, he was a Christian and therefore wouldn't be going on a Mormon mission. He finessed the question by telling the BP that he was going to college instead. I guess since he's no longer a BP he must've lost his spirit of discernment and couldn't tell that my son wasn't a Mormon. After not hearing from the guy myself for years, last December I got a very lengthy Christmas newsletter from him. My question though was how did he get my address?