So I start feeling guilty and decide to go back to church after a rather long vacation. First thing they do is give me a calling to teach the young teenagers. The entire Bishopric rounds them up out of the parking lot and bathrooms and foyers. One of the other two teachers is absent so I get two classes which are already combined, or about 15 kids ages 12-16.

The Bishop threatens them with bodily harm in a very loud voice before we have a opening prayer then he leaves. They all give me fake names and so in an effort to get to know them better I ask them to tell me how their families came into the church.

One tall sassy girl coldly tells me that she is directly descended from the leader of the Mountain Meadows Massacre and asks me if I'm from Arkansas. Then they all bolt out the door. Smart kids I conclude and beat them running to my car and drive away. - 11/16/2003 - from Are you from Arkansas?

Old and Fat

Our ward recently combined with another("downsizing?"), and all the new people are old and fat. In relief society, they asked each person to stand up and state their name.. each person did of course, except me.. I said, "Hi my name is Jenny and I really don't feel like standing up".. I got such stares, no one spoke a word.. after that no one would talk to me(they did before the meeting)..

What is up with that? I think it was o.k. to not stand..I am tired of being a "sheep".. Anyway, now in rs--they pass all out all the papers(binders/rs newsletter/sign-up sheets, etc..) to everyone but me... Hmmmmmm, makes me think this website isn't such a bad idea..

Oh yeah, before this someone came up to me and whispered, "Soooooo, I hear you are an apostate,", I told the woman she was extrememly rude to say such a thing to me and that she needed to learn some manners. I told her I didn't know her, much less her name and that it was poor judgement to approach someone like that." Needless to say there was a potted plant and a "sorry" note on my doorstep the next day..

Coming out of the ward closet

In the late 80s, after I had come out of the closet, I was still trying to make my world fit into Moronism - a queer peg in a very straight hole. I had some cool LSD liberal friends who all attended a Shingles Wart in the Avenues of Slick City, and I began attending meetings with them. Soon, because of my academic abilities and great teaching skills, I was Gospel Doctrine Sunday School teacher. After awhile though, I couldn't bear having yet another single "sister" drool all over me and bake me yet more dozens of cookies to show off her marriagiablity. So I got up during Fart & Testicular Meeting and came out to the entire Wart. Ooooh, the shite hit the fan! Even though I was celibate (well, that's what I told the bish!) I immediately was released from all callings and after some interviews with the bish, he scheduled a Bishop's "Court of Love". Snort. (The outcome being that I was put on "eternal probation". Only later was I excommunicated by orders of Elder Darth K. Vader.)

But in the meantime, while awaiting my trial, the once lovey-dovey wart became suddently quite frigid. There were two other "out-ish" Gay boys in that wart, and three black sisters (one being Victoria, who was a member of the Mo Tab Choir at the time and truly a wonderful, loving person). It became quite noticable that the six of us were pretty much ostracized from the rest of the wart - the only church pew we could sit on was the one at the very back of the chapel. 1950's Alabama you say?

I got so angry at these bigoted segregation tactics, that at one of the last Sacchrinemint Meetings I attended, I quickly made a large sign which I then stuck at the end of our pew with bubble gum: "Niggers and Fags Only".

My sign did not go over well. Imagine that. About three weeks later, I crossed the threshold of a Moron Chapel for the last time. Thank goddess!

Re-kindling Old Flames

My TBM (True Believing Wife) kicked me out about a year ago when she caught me on this website. And for a few other things such as being a home teaching slackard, never made it into the Bishopric and other minor things that could be lumped loosely under the general catagory of apostacy. I had a shoe box full of old letters and notes from previous girlfriends that I honestly had not opened since leaving the temple the day I wed her. I thought maybe I'd go through them and possibly rekindle some old flames or at least get back in touch with who I was before getting married to her. It felt exciting, almost like finding a box of hot referals out in the mission field. I was able to extract over a dozen names with their accompanying parent's addresses, phone numbers, etc. of girls whom I thought might be second wife material.

Julie. She was the girl that God wanted me to marry in the first place. She even had a confirmation that I was the one for her and I liked her enough to propose to her. But somehow the timing got all botched up, then everything else. We were too young and eventually she ditched me. I still had her parents phone number, so I called it. She happened to be visiting her mother and she happened to answer the phone, just like old times. She poured her soul out to me almost immediately about her porn addicted husband, his beer swilling on Saturday and being in the Bishopric on Sunday. His tirades of unrighteous dominion over her and their 6 children, even to the point of hitting her and beating the kids. But she could never leave him because of her covenants in the temple and she was afraid that her children would leave the church if she got divorced. So she is going to endure to the bitter end. She was rather surprized when I told her on what relatively flimsy grounds my wife had divorced me. But in the end nothing has changed.

Candy. She was from Montana and I dated her only for a summer. She was into horses and I never much trusted them. I had her parents address so I drove up to Montana one weekend. Her parents vaguely remembered her talking about me. They were so nice and open, inviting me in like I was a long lost relative for the rest of the evening and the best dinner. They causally mentioned that they wished that their daughter had found a nice guy like me, but seemed reluctant to tell me much else. I didn't push them and after several hours they told me that Candy had been married 4 times. Twice to active Mormons, once to an inactive Mormon, and once to a Catholic. When they told me that none of the marriages had worked out, my heart leapt. But they would not give me her phone number, wishing to spare her further pain. I left them with mine and a good impression. But I have not heard from them again. I still don't like horses either.

Anita. She was way too hot for BYU. I thought it a very long shot that she would still be available. I phoned her parents and asked about her. There was this long pause. Then slowly, "you must not have heard." They informed me that Anita had died from leukemia a few months after I had last dated her. I felt horrible causing them that pain. After that experience, I checked vital records for the other girls on my list and discovered another of my old flames. Cindy had committed suicide about 10 years ago. I didn't pursue the details, but she seemed like a nice girl back then.

Laura. She was definitely on the whacky side and I loved her phoney Southern accent. I only dated her a few times as a favor to another friend. My boss sent me to her home state on business and I just showed up at the nearest Mormon church that I thought she had possibly attended. When I asked about her, people would get this funny look on their face and change the subject. Finally one old guy told me she was locked up in the nut house. She took a knife to her kids and was lucky she didn't permanently harm them. She wasn't on my short list any way, but I thought she should be included here.

Tami. I ran across her quite by accident after discovering that her parents had moved. She was outside the University Hospital crying when I went there to visit my Aunt. She hugged me and told me that God had sent me to her as a miracle, an answer to her paryers. She had just lost her life partner to AIDS. Tami had served a mission after we broke up, to try and sort out her feelings about being mostly attached to other women and liking to do guy things more than girl things. I remembered that she was fairly gender confused and I was about the only guy she knew who was tolerant of her struggles. After the mission, she explained to me that she hooked up with this bisexual woman who also liked homosexual men. Her partner had just finished paying, a few minutes before, the ultimate price for her impulsive choices. Tami had stayed by her side until the end. She was not interested in a conventional relationship with a guy and just needed an old trusted friend and a hug. Her attachment to Mormonism was left undiscussed.

Karen. She answered the phone when I called her parents and easily agreed to a date and had to go before talking very long. I drove a few hundred miles the next Saturday and had imagined that the impossible was about to happen, only to find her in a wheelchair. She had been injured in a car collision a few years ago and her head was also messed up. On the surface she seemed fine, maybe a bit dingy in a cute way. But she could not form short term memory very well and just talked in circles, mostly about the church. She sounded almost normal on the topic of Mormon small talk, callings, etc. She could not talk about any serious subjects and was also rather gullible. As a test of her comprehension, I causally asked her if she would like to take her cloths off and sleep with me tonight. She started to unbutton her blouce right there in the restaurant as innocently as if I had offered her a bite of my salmon. In 5 minutes she had no memory of it. The ultimate date rape drug that never wore off. I realized that her parents had really trusted me to not take advantage of her. I also realized that she probably had a catheter, maybe a diaper, which really puts the breaks on causal sex, I imagine. I delivered her home save and sound to her long suffering parents.

Marjorie, Ann, Janice. All three fit into the same catagory. Once happily married in the temple. Active but admittedly burned out by too many church callings. Guilt ridden about not being able to measure up. Teenage children going to hell in a hurry. Willing to confide in me, a former boyfriend, about the stale state of their marriages. But they did not possess the guts to leave their self righteous clueless husbands. Prozac/Paxil/Zoloft were their medications, all powerful antidepressants I believe.

Nancy. Stephanie. When I finally tracked them down, neither would talk to me on the grounds that they had left Mormonism entirely and did not wish to discuss it or anything remotely connected with it further. I tried to tell them that I understood and was not trying to reactivate them. They did not believe me. I heard no mention husbands or partners. But then maybe mentioning husbands is a Mormon thing. I got the distinct impression that they were not interested in dating, in general. And come to think of it, the impulse to obsessively date when not married is a Mormon thing. I was not willing to shout "help me escape their clutches" which is about the only thing, in retrospect, that would have perpetuated the conversation, as they slammed the phone down.

I had a hunch that this was not going to work very good. But I also believed that you miss all the shots that you never take. Unlike Joseph Smith, I was only looking for one wife and I had saved the best two possibilities for last.

Mary listened to me cry on her shoulder after breaking up with Julie, (#1 above). I wasn't ready to make a commitment to her then and I didn't want to get married on the rebound. She went on a mission and wrote to me for about 9 months. I read through these old letters and although it had escaped my scrutiny then, she definitely had some free thinking tendencies. One sentence stood out. "You will probably have to teach me how to think all over again after this mission." She was describing some friction between her moron mission president and one of the local leaders and how she had to just keep her mouth shut and be obedient. By the time she came home I was attached to someone else and we drifted apart.

I called her parents house and her mother was delighted to hear from me. She invited me to Sunday dinner. I was so certain that this was going to work out, until Mary opened the door. She was buried beneath mountains of blubber. We still had a fine time and otherwise she seemed to not have changed much. After dinner we went to Temple Square and walked around. I was rather embarassed to be seen with her in public. She took hold of my hand and if I closed my eyes it was almost like the past 20 some years had not happened. She asked me about what I was doing and so I told her briefly the sanitary version of my divorce. She told me about this guy she married after her mission. Then she started to describe what a sexual deviant she thought he was at first. But then she decided to be more open minded and started to really enjoy it. He bragged about it to his friends who told their Bishop and they got kicked out of BYU. She wanted to get pregnant and couldn't. He didn't want to have a child. She got depressed and he didn't share in her sorrow. So the marriage came apart. She didn't mention when she started to really put on the weight.

She told me that she was so excited that we were going to get back together and she mentioned that this would motivate her to get back in shape. And she really did miss some of the bedroom activities; the toys, the cross dressing, etc. But the thought of spanking a 400 pound woman was just too much for me. I didn't call her back. I wonder how much she weighs now.

Patricia was my ace in the hole. I knew that I had broken her heart when I married my ex-wife. It had come down to a choice between the two of them. At the time they both seemed really nice. In retrospect, I could see that Patricia was much more patient and understanding. She was clearly the less selfish of the two and would not have freaked out over a few little apostate tendencies. The reason I married my ex instead was she was slightly better looking.

I had her parents address because I had written her a letter of support before she left on her mission a few days before I got married. She had answered my letter and had been forgiving, supportative and wished me the best. She was 24 years old at the time and I thought it unlikely that she had found a 19 year old. I just knew it in my heart that she had waited for me. She had that kind of blind faith, that everything would work out right for her in the end. I would make her dreams come true at last. And mine. I was lead by the Spirit to just drive down to Fresno one weekend and go up and ring her doorbell. First, I was surprized that, when I finallly found it, the address was in a ratty old trailor park, not some nice suburb in which I had imagined she was raised. Everyone spoke Spanish and I didn't think she had any Latino connections. A 50ish appearing woman I took to be her mother answered my knock at the door and I asked if Patricia still lived there. Patricia recognized me immediately and told me off. She refused to even speak to me except in rapid Spanish which I do not know. I asked a couple of despirate questions, are you still married? No, ra tat tat tat in Spanish. (Don't ask me such a stupid question, or no I am not but buzz off anyway, or none of your business. I don't know which she meant.) What happened to your plans to be a nurse? I partially understood the answer;...mama de los ninos... I was going to inquire about her religious status and noticed an icon of the Virgin Mary on the wall. She slammed the door in my face. So much for personal revelation.

At that moment the full weight of the shame and disguist of my divorce washed over me like a tidal wave. I realzed that I had been living in a not very realistic past for a very long time. A past framed in Mormonism. We Mormons live our lives as if they will last for eternity and we do not recognize that our time here is so short. We only have one opportunity and then the moment is gone forever. Life is not forever, but not living is forever. Maybe things would have worked out better between me and one or another of these many old girlfriends if I had chosen to make it happen at the time. And they had agreed. But now, what seemed like only a few months later, (actually over 20 years), it was truely everlastingly too late. We only get one shot at life and I screwed mine up. And the eternal perspective cultivated by the Mormon mindset allowed me the arrogance that I could have it all over again. I have yet to figure out what else is screwed up in my Mormon mind, but I have a sinking feeling that it is quite a bit.

I could not face being divorced and being Mormon. One had to give. I agree that this seismic shift in values and belief is irrrational. Mormons only want to be rational when it cuts their way. We instinctively and immediately retreat to feelings when it doesn't. I suddenly knew in my heart, with every fiber of my being, that I had to escape.

And the possibility, seemingly real at the time but probably remote, that a Mexican hunting knife might find its way between my ribs and into my heart, sent me running full speed away from that place. And I have been running away from Mormonism and from myself ever since. Does it not seem rather odd that so many of the girls who I dated at BYU, and got to know well enough to acquire the addresses of their parents, turned out to have suffered so much? We were all suppose to live happily ever after in the sweet embrace of full church activity and following the prophets. If a true prophet had told me back then even half of what I now know about the real future as it unfolded, I would have dismissed his words as utter nonsense. And the things that Uncle Gordon tells us now? Do they make any more sense?

One Woman Wrecking Machine

Scene takes place in Las Vegas--the city of sin. The setting is in a ward which is known as the "who's who" of Las Vegas. Refined women were often seen in the recreation hall avoiding the long boring meeting admiring each others kids and judging each other on their clothing. Elegant men were also seen wheeling and dealing their businesses. Gossip was the driving force of this ward. The Gossip was often based on lies and partial truth.

A new opportunistic member suddenly arrives and she tries to get the most attention possible and tries to be the "Queen of Gossip". She is a combination of Glenn Close's character from "Fatal Attraction" and a twisted version of Barbara Eden's character from "Harper Valley PTA" She befriends a family which is known as social climbers. We will call this opportunistic character Annie. We will call the social climbers the "Jones". Annie makes a series of accusations against various members in the ward which she visit teaches. One of the families is an "Generally Authoritative" family named the "Smiths." She accuses them of stealing money from the ward budget. She heard this from an inactive family named the "Scotts". The Scott's tried to get back at the "Smiths" because of pot shots they took at their word of wisdom problems. Annie goes into members homes and snoops through their journals, goes through personal affects to dig up the most gossip that she can find. She uses the information that she finds to gossip about people who do not support her side.

Annie decides she likes a certain person in the ward. The person which we will call "Larry" sees through her twisted ways and calls her a nut and demands to be left alone. Like the lady from fatal attraction she will not leave the person alone makes a series of false accusations against this person including criminal acts and sexual perversion. A authorative family which we will call the "Smiths" goes to bat for Larry. The Smiths go to bat for Larry because of past problems with Annie.

The social climbers family the "Jones" get in the face of the "Smiths" Annie then moves in and accuses a family of abusing their kids. We will call them the "Johnsons." The Johnsons and the Smiths gang up against Annie. The Scotts and the Jones back Annie and start fighting against the Johnsons and Smiths.

Several families see through Annie "antics" and they decide that the best thing is to put her into the mental institution. Annie accuses the Johnsons and the Smiths of the plot to destroy her.

The subject families start pushing and shoving each other one Sunday in the the recreation hall. The recreation hall then turns into a slap fest and wrestling ring where ward members end up getting black eyes and blooding noses. The ward which was known as the "who's who" of Las Vegas ended up becoming the Jerry Springer show.