"I know you still have a testimony!"

[_karl61]

next time she comes over tell her you are thinking of growing weed in your garden for a little extra income and you hear it's tithing free. tell her you have a web address for tithingfreeweed and see what her face looks like when you go into your home to find the exact address.

[_Bond...James Bond]

On a similar note, ever since I started suggesting that maybe gays should have the right to be married, almost all of my friends and family have asked whether I am turning gay (or strongly implied that they think I am).

Let's examine the evidence:

1) From California (uh oh!)

2) Soon to be academic...98% of academics are liberal.

3) #2 suggests liberal impulses, and everyone knows liberals are just a bit well...you know. Limb wristed.

4) Not married with 3 kids plus a few bastards on the side by early 20s.

So basically we have Californian liberal academic who hasn't reproduced irresponsibly. crap you're 65.4% gay already. Just go the rest of the way bay-bay! :P

[Oh yeah this applies to me as well but since I'm from Kentucky I'm currently only ranking 39.65% gay. I had asbestosman check the figures.]

[_Scottie]

I need a good comeback to the line, "I know you still have a testimony!" I don't want to be rude or hurt anyone's feelings, because I care about these folks, but I'd sure like to say something effective, unlike the mumblings I usually utter.

The solution is simple. Next time, say, "Oh really? Then why don't you come join me on http://www.MormonDiscussions.com and talk about it with us."

Actually, tell her to come to http://MormonDiscussions.com. She'll have a lot less web-site quirkyness grief.

[_Trevor]

What mildly offends me about the whole issue is that my Mormon family seems to associate any goodness in me, or my apostate family, with a remaining testimony of Mormonism, as if that were the only thing that would cause us to be decent human beings.

It also goes to show you how flexible a testimony can be. Even pushing kids in wheelbarrows constitutes having one! Why do they even have testimony meeting? ;-)

[_OMWO2]

Several of my Mormon neighbors and family members believe that because I continue doing some things I once did as a Mormon that I still have a testimony. My next door neighbor tells me, usually tearfully, that she knows I still have a testimony and she tells me so almost monthly. Regrettably, I have not found a way to convince her otherwise. Oddly, this is the same neighbor who once told me my house was covered in a black shroud of evil and she couldn't stand to look at it.

One of the things that has my neighbor convinced I have a testimony is that I still follow the "commandment" to grow a garden.

When I was a little girl, I sang this song:

The prophet said to plant a garden, so that’s what we’ll do.
For God has given rich brown soil, the rain and sunshine too.
And if we plant the seeds just right and tend them carefully,
Before we know, good things will grow to feed our family.

We’ll plant the seeds to fill our needs, then plant a few to spare,
And show we love our neighbors with the harvest that we share.
Oh, won’t you plant a garden, too, and share the many joys
A garden brings in health and love to happy girls and boys!

For as long as I've had my own home, I've had a garden. Now that I no longer grow vegetables because I am commanded to do so, I enjoy it even more! I also love sharing the things I grow with my neighbors. That doesn't mean I still have a testimony of Mormonism.

I still can salsa. I canned nineteen quarts this evening, though I'll have to wait 'till the end of summer to do it using my own tomatoes. I'll take some of what I made this evening to my neighbor tomorrow, and to my grandma on Monday and give them one more reason to assume I still believe, deep down inside, that the church is true.

The last time my neighbor tearfully told me that she knew I still had a testimony was a few weeks ago. I was pushing her young son and my young daughter down the sidewalk in my wheelbarrow. They love that. She approached me as I neared her driveway and said, "I can tell you still have the Light of Christ inside you. I know you'll come back one day." I didn't know how to respond, so I just mumbled, "I like pushing the kids--it's a lot of fun."

What mildly offends me about the whole issue is that my Mormon family seems to associate any goodness in me, or my apostate family, with a remaining testimony of Mormonism, as if that were the only thing that would cause us to be decent human beings.

Surely, I'm not the only ex-Mormon who deals with such comments. I need a good comeback to the line, "I know you still have a testimony!" I don't want to be rude or hurt anyone's feelings, because I care about these folks, but I'd sure like to say something effective, unlike the mumblings I usually utter.

Maybe I should just say, tearfully and with that testimony voice, "No, I do not still have a testimony. I say this in the name of myself. Amen."

KA

Damn, my exmo wife must still have a testimony because she keeps bugging me for a spot in the yard to have a garden. Sorry your neighbors seem so rude. I have to put up with the same "Mormon behaviors" with my youngest LDS brother. He can be extremely judgmental when he and I talk. I find I just have to call him out on it and then get off the phone. Good luck! PS - My wife enjoyed your red toe nail polish blog and your reply to her, THANKS.

[_truth dancer]

Hi KA,

How about this:

"Do you think Carolyn Jessop still has a testimony of the FLDS church?"

;-)

The thing is LDS folks think former believers still believe but don't realize there are former Scientologists, Amish, JW, Catholics, Muslims, FLDS, etc. etc.


~dancer~

[_beastie]

Years after I'd left the LDS church and lost all belief in any sort of god, my own sister declared that she knew I "still believed in God", and I was "just angry" at him.

There really is no talking to someone like that. That was the last conversation about religion we ever had.

[_Jersey Girl]

KA,

Since I can't identify with people doing this to others (it seems kinda desperate to be honest) I'm curious to know if you view someone telling you that you have "the light of Christ inside you" as offensive? If so, why? If not, why?

That's all!

[_Chap]

KA,

Since I can't identify with people doing this to others (it seems kinda desperate to be honest) I'm curious to know if you view someone telling you that you have "the light of Christ inside you" as offensive? If so, why? If not, why?

That's all!

I suspect people may object to this because it seems very like saying:

"Your purported disbelief is not genuine. Inside you know it is true (since you act in kind and moral ways, and we know that only those with the light of Christ (=TBMs) can do that). Therefore you are to that extent a fraud and a liar, both to others and to yourself."

Sounds pretty offensive to me.

[_Tommy]

The Lord hath said to his children, "Grow a garden, yield fruits and grains up to the storehouse of the Lord!" I have a garden, Kimberly Ann. It's not a big garden, for my new accommodations do not afford me the space. The Lord surely has blessed you my dear sister Kimberly Ann. Very few in today's world have the ability to live the letter of God's laws to us like you do. Your canned peaches and pears are your testimony of the most high God, nothing else need be said. When I look at my small tomato plant stuggling to breath in the smoggy Salt Lake City air, I see your shining face and tender love encouraging it to grow. You touch those around you, Kimberly, in ways you will never know. For some, the bushel cannot hide the light of the candle.

Oh, and what would Joseph and Hyrum have thought seeing you push those kids around in that big 'old wheel barrel! They'd had done the same, those rascals, taking those kids for a ride through the pot holes and then top off the morning with a big water fight! They sure knew how to have fun back then, and you've touched us all today with these marvelous stories. I shall remember them in the future as I prepare my words for the saints in General Conference.