DiscussMormonism.com

I'm thinking of visiting a Mormon church tomorrow. Only time previous I tried was in basic training in the Army 20 years ago, and some woman made me fill out genealogy forms and then sit under some bedsheets draped over some chairs and I had absolutely no idea what was going on.

I recently had discovered I had a brain tumor and a kidney tumor, had them cut out, and had to move into my minivan- during the winter due to money restraints.... while recovering, and eventually I crashed the van, and have been homeless ever since. I haven't talked to anyone in months besides a cashier in passing, besides a stray cat, and miss being around people. I'm not looking for a church for handouts, don't even want them to know I am homeless. Just want a church. In and out, nobody knowing my background.

How likely am I to get this in a Mormon church? I vaguely grasp every other Sunday everyone has to go up front to church and tell everyone about what is going bad in life. I don't really want to tell everyone my current condition. I hand wash my clothes, still shave, looking for work (absolutely nobody hiring), and try to keep a low profile, but if think my life will just shock people, and I don't care to do that.

I don't drink, smoke or do drugs. Introverted. Male, early 40s, in California. Don't like to stand out. I read online Mormon missionaries can't talk to homeless people, only something called a transient bishop can, but I don't understand what a bishop means in the Mormon church, and don't want people knowing I am homeless. I don't want to ask for any handouts. After my long few months of expecting to die, I accepted it, but found myself still alive for seemingly no reason, like I am breaking some law of the universe walking around, seeing how the world is after my death, with no point or reason for my existence. Everything I already did is accomplished, behind me. I no longer know anyone. Everyone I know is dead. I think about God alot, but don't feel comfortable in a Catholic Church anymore. I can't imagine myself being in a relationship with someone, but read the divorce rate is 51% in the Protestant churches and that freaks me out. I'm looking for something more classically conservative in values. But I also read you have to attend wards, which differ from temples, and they are divided by sexes, like in Islam, where males and females separate to do different tasks. Also there are married wards vs single wards.

I can't find much about Mormons on youtube except by Mormons, and alot of weird Mormon fetish stuff pop up when I try to google.com what the sheet fort thing I was made to do was (I hope they don't force me into it again without explanation, I had no idea what was going on). Mormons look ethically and morally conservative, but I am not sure I can fit in without looking like a alien or horror, even if I try to keep quiet and blend in.

I don't know a whole lot about Mormonism besides it's links to Swedenborg, and some history from Illinois to Salt Lake City. I read about a break off faction in Michigan who had a senator/king. Saw the TV show Hell On Wheels. Navoo soldiers marching around in the desert in some old military text I read years ago. If you don't get married you don't get privates in the afterlife. Very random stuff I don't understand how it fits together.

I'm doing it more for social and spiritual fulfillment. I don't exactly expect to live forever, so more interested in the ideas as I'm still in that mode of expecting death, even though I am still alive and kicking for the time being. I just don't want everyone to assume I am only going for handouts. Not the case at all, if I can keep my circumstances, both my homelessness and near death experiences quiet the better. Just be a normal guy.

Is it possible? Or should I not go? I don't want to talk to a transient bishop if I don't want anything material. Just want to be a normal person showing up. I just don't know how much people will pry for information.

God morning, Vegetius. If you went, you’d likely be treated kindly. I would not recommend it, however. The doctrine of the LDS church, will lead you away from Christ, not toward him. Satan is all about truth mixed with lies. His MO has not changed since the garden of Eden.

A church with a strong expository pulpit ministry is what I’d recommend. I am a member of a Presbyterian Church in America (PCA): https://pcanet.org/. That may be a good place to start when searching for a church home. Keep in mind that we, humans, are all messed up people, with a tendency to think of ourselves over others. << I just say this because as you know, sometimes people say it was the people that drove them away from a church. We all need to be more kind, patient, and forgiving toward others. There is also a worldwide Bible study called Bible Study Fellowship (BSF): https://www.bsfinternational.org/

That may be a good option. BSF meets at various churches that have offered their church facility for use. BSF follows the school year, and would start meeting weekly again in September. A friend, Mark Gervais, and raised Catholic and former BSF leader, has excellent expository sermons and material on his website https://www.thbg.org/ I highly recommend taking a look at his site.

Thank you for your service to our great nation. Have you checked into the V.A.’s Compensated Work Program (CWP)? https://www.va.gov/HEALTH/cwt/veterans.asp

If I can be of any help to you, let me know.

These experiences with Mormons are so different than normal Mormon activity l cannot imagine what group you stumbled into. Getting up and explaining what's wrong in the week, I have never heard of such in the Mormon Church. Under sheets over a chair sounds like a bad dream, same with filling out geneology.

Does the National Call Center for Homeless Veterans actually do anything to help a homeless vet? The toll-free number they give out online is (877) 4AID-VET (877-424-3838).

I'd like to think they could be helpful in some concrete ways—but of course the OP is specifically about finding a church community, and that's probably not their specialty.

I think I'm probably a lot vaguer in my beliefs than msnobody, but even if you're also less sure where you stand, I think the kind of church she recommends is a good bet for finding people who are open and welcoming and non-judgemental. Jesus was really big on respecting people who are down on their luck, and it's the churches that try as hard as they can to follow Jesus, with as few added frills as possible, that are likely to welcome a homeless vet without asking him to jump through any hoops.

Any followers of Jesus should be happy to help someone in need, but it's not mainly about hand-outs. The Gospels show Jesus getting into trouble just for associating with people who were living hard times, listening to them and talking with them, sharing meals with them, counting them as part of the group. Any church that does that kind of thing is following his example. Churches that don't, really aren't.

I already did CWT prior to the surgery. I had a brain tumor removed, but prior to that was convinced I was going insane, not knowing about the tumor. I got a bad diagnosis, that didn't match my symptoms at all, and tried a few times to argue against it as I learned more, but in the end, was basically told to shut up and take my pills if I was to stick around, and I was convinced my mental health was declining. I eventually left out of disgust.

Then one day I woke up dying with extreme vitiligo, vomiting bile from even turning my head or turning on the phone and looking at it, was walking very weird. Hospital initially thought it was just some temporary viral phase, gave me a few antibiotics and anti-nausia medication, and told me to walk it off. I was certain I was going to be tossed on the frozen streets and die. But then in the end, they gave me a scan, found a tumor. Then while lying in the hospital waiting for my brain surgery, they told me I had a 10cm tumor on my left kidney, and wanted it removed.

After a few months of cutting and prodding I was released. It was stumbling around going from my minivan to Panera Bread wasting all my savings surviving, guts and head destroyed.... but found to my surprise I wasn't crazy anymore. Wasn't obvious at first, but my ability to concentrate and study came back. I wasn't vomiting everything I brushed my teeth, or smelled something bad, or was stressed out.

Problem with the VA is, after I wrecked my minivan I was living in (I returned to work for one week during this time, still winter), was in order to go into their homeless program, I would have to continue "therapy", for a mental disorder I never had. The medications had severe side effects for me, and getting them changed out likewise had bad side effects. I ended up in Florida, cause I didn't have the balance or stamina to make it around a frozen mountain city in my state of being, and lived in a swamp in Tampa, Florida studying to be a security guard, dumping my savings into that. But only after I did the classes for both class D and G did I discover that the diagnosis that I got from the VA prohibited me from doing security, and the legal path to getting around this involved going to the VA to getting it reversed. Took over a month to get a meeting to do it, and the doctor acted astounded someone would ever try it, once your diagnosed you are diagnosed, didn't know of the laws I spoke of, saw the letter from the state psychologist wanting it reversed, then he added insult to injury saying I wasn't a threat to the pubkic or acting rashly (which is precisely what the state wrote it wanted to affirm for the exception allowing me to be licensed) and then the psych said he wanted me to become his patient and talk about my childhood- and told him I was on the verge of bankruptcy, and the literal only reason I was there was to undo the VA's big mix up, and the tumor scar was very real, and asking me about my early life wouldn't help him rediagnose me, as I was not the same person anymore AFTER the surgery. We couldn't time travel back to that point for him to see me in that state, can't reinsert the tumor and let him have a go. I needed the license approved to work now. He refused not wanting to risk his medical license on some law he never heard of for someone he didn't know, I informed him I would starve to death long before those pointless meetings would finish, and was crushed as the only warm weather state I wouldn't freeze to death in if I had to have another surgery that didn't require Guard card licenses was Mississippi, and I didn't want to he homeless in Mississippi.

Then I remembered where I was born (california) was pretty nice weather, didn't have restrictions for unarmed work, but knew I couldn't afford the license now that the VA made me wait doing nothing for over a month to wait for a dead end interview.

So in order to go the the VA for their homeless shelter, I first gotta get a job, and then pay for two civilian psychologists not associated with the VA to diagnose me as sane, take it to a VA mid level psychologist doing admin work, to have it overturned, so I don't have to take the bad medication for a disorder I don't have, in order to get a bunk in a place that allows me to go out and find work. I can't even find work as it is, tried several dozen job applications, and will do several more dozen.

As for the Mormons being Satan and the pentacostal not being the case, doubtful. I studied philosophy for a few decades and became attached to Stoic Philosophy as a Christian (99% of christiand across all denominations are Christian Neo-Platonists, watch the movie Agora to see how that started). My main focus on on Stoic Ethics.

Pretty much every Christian demonization I visited were acting like Unitarian Universalists in their ethical values. None of it was family or society focused in the classical sense. The Stoics built the ethics of the Augustan state (a society built around monogamy and households ran by husband and wife), and Christians adopted this directly. I am of this tradition. Most Christians traditionally were until the 20th century.

I haven't come across a church yet that hasn't been downright rotten. Worst I seen was a Methodist church that was pure progressive activism, no hints of God or caring about society beyond abstract causes.

I have a very firm foundation in early Christianity. I'm very aware of how concepts like vices and virtues, the seven deadly sins entered the church and mutated over time. I know the church fathers. I am not particularly impressed with any arguments about how poorly educated priests in a seminary think the ideas came about, and usually don't care to refute them. I literally know the texts from early Christian and their prechristian predecessors, and know how they evolved in roman and medieval times. 99% of the arguments are just delusial psycho babble, but I will accept the fake histories and wobbly philosophical underpinnings like the Myth or Er if they would only live like Christians in their ethics, and have a solid basis for society.

I know alot of Mormonism is structured off Swedenborg (his religion is featured in the movie "What Dreams May Come" with Robin Williams), I know alot of ideology is going to be generic pan-christian and occult ideas from the 19th century American west because that is where the church comes from. I get that. I fully expect to hear a story that sounds as incredible as Joseph Smith or Brigham Young riding around on a dragon with John Henry and Big Foot, and will have to look around at the congregation just smiling in full acceptance at the obvious falsehood. But you know what? I just spent a couple of years digging through the creeds of the Catholic and various orthodox churches, looking at which pagan philosophies infiltrated which churches, causing them to break up in schism, and nobody takes those philosophies for real anymore, or even understand them, and it had been so long most are not even aware that is how it started in the first place. Protestants did much the same, Muslims did it too. Buddhists also broke down on a sectarian basis in their societies based on the earlier philosophies.

Jesus mostly preached ethics, and I just want a ethical Christian church. There isn't going to be Christian sect not blindly emerged in bizarre beliefs that a good historian can point out wasn't originally part of the faith, that the congregation is going to think is essential, part and parcel, always was. They will not syllogistically work out every bizarre contradiction in their faith and make it purely rational.

I'm just interested in finding a church that isn't overly obscene and trying to burn everything down. I want Christ + Ethical living. I will suspend my judgment on some stuff out of politeness if the society they create works better. I do not know if Mormons work better, only Mormons I know we're from the Army and they were all druggies, except once, but his hands were blown off him (right after he married), and so don't know how to model him as a ideal Mormon as I didn't know him for very long.

Literally all I am looking for. I obviously can't know the complex beliefs of Mormons as I am not a Mormon. I am too old to be a missionary (42), and would have a hard time justifying any sects weird fantasies (like the analogy of Joseph Smith riding a Dragon- yes I made it up, just using it as a placeholder for the inevitable enough term with something weird and fantastical). I'm more worried about how morally ethical they are, not in words but in deeds, and do they more closely align with Christ's thinking than holding to doctrine that is heavily misplaced at times in a modern world?

I think the real Satanic influence is letting society collapse into chaos and oblivion of letting every standard slide, and refusing to learn and adapt, endlessly butting your head against the same wall. I just want to see a functional society. That's pretty much what Jesus preached. He was highly pragmatic, a good polemics, but taught basic common sense values. He had to do it in the apocalyptic Judea-Roman context of his times, so people had to struggle with the questions of get circumcised or not, eat pork or not, which on a sociological level made some sense in that era, but less so in a era of moon landings and instant global communications. So just as Christians had to struggle with that then, making allowances and a give and take for the greater ideas of a just Christian society, I will make mythological allowances today, so long as the basic underlining structure is a sound and stable Christian society that is growing and adapting. That isn't a theologically dead vestigial remain of a earlier era that people nitpick over but don't understand. I want to see a vibrant, alive church, that produces good children who build a better world.

Do the Mormons meet that criteria? I don't know. I'm going to wash up and hike out to their church. I'm likely to be disappointed in some respects. Will be looking for the positives. I'll likely be slightly annoyed if some 18 year old kid tries to explain the religion, converting me on the spot with a few lines. I'm heavily soaked in world history, philosophy and logic and don't think they can. I will be impressed if they can show evidence of a sound, moral society- not more moral words but moral doings.

Mike, I'm sure if you want to visit a Mormon church they will let you.

Gadianton wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 13, 2025 2:43 pm

Mike, I'm sure if you want to visit a Mormon church they will let you.

Surely. Mike.

Marcus wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 13, 2025 5:14 pm

Gadianton wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 13, 2025 2:43 pm

Mike, I'm sure if you want to visit a Mormon church they will let you.

Surely. Mike.

AtlanticMike??

Mike, come on man.

Update, just got out of church. I showed up late, during the first part of service. I was expecting everyone to be sitting under the bed sheet forts, but everyone was just sitting on couch benches instead. Woman was directing a gospel song, waving a composer wand around. I know people say the guy waving the stick around in the symphony is actually doing something important, coordinating, but she didn't seem to have a effect on anything waving it about, and she was trying real hard. Then everyone broke up into the male and female groups, and the guys talked about what does due diligence mean.

I asked when the bed sheets start, and nobody knew what I was talking about. Why did the Mormon church at Fort Benning Basic Training 20 years ago make me fill out a genealogy pamphlet and then sit in a bed sheet fort? I vaguely recall ther saying Brother and Sister Sheets when I asked what was going on. I was so confused, and even more so now.