Why I am not a Mormon

[_Jason Bourne]

How many members do you know that have written GAs and not gotten a response or had the letter sent back to local leaders?

Are you asking me how many disobedient members I know who have sent letters to the brethren even as the brethren have formally and clearly asked not to be contacted?

I personally only know a maybe six or seven, who have been disobedient, and they have all had the letter forwarded.

Now, if you want me to ask on RFM I'm sure there will be some good stories. ;-)

In fact I think I will.

Be back with more information.

;-0

~dancer~

But why are you discounting my experience and that of my friends? We are two regular joe members.

Maybe it is the content. My friend wrote about his sadness in his divorce and in his agnst over his betrayal. I wrote over a very personal emotional issue.

Maybe questions on doctrines and policy and stuff like that is not repsonded too. Maybe I was just lucky. But I have two letters from two apostles, one unsolicited, that I will keep and hold dear to me.

[_Jason Bourne]

Get there early, sit toward the front, and make an effort to shake Elder Oaks's hand. (If there's a Saturday night adult session, that would be an even better opportunity.) Unless he's simply got to leave, I would imagine that the first fifty or so people who crowd around him will get to shake his hand, that they won't be driven off by thugs from Church Security (who probably won't even be in the same county).

As noted, I was recently at regular sacrament meeting where Pres Uchdorf made a surprise visit. The SP was not with him, no security, no big wigs, just him and some family. He sat up on the stand, next to the bishop. He spoke for a few minutes. After he mingled with the crowd and shook and with I bet most of the congregation. There was one sister who is elderly, a recent widow and in a wheel chair. He bent over, hugged her and kissed her on the cheek. Afterwards he spontaneously gathered the youth together in the gym and spoke to them for 40 minutes and even did a question answer session. I was impressed.

Harmony I am not dismissing your experiences. But others have some that are different than yours that show the brethren can be friendly, warm and somewhat accessible.

[_harmony]

You completely discount anyone's experience that doesn't agree with your own. I know what I've observed. You don't, yet you feel comfortable in telling me that my life's experience is incorrect, because your experience is different. I'm comfortable allowing yours to be different, but I'm not willing to compromise my own observations.

I've said absolutely not one word about your alleged experience with the visit of one apostle twenty years -- "twenty years!" -- ago. I do, however, think that your sweeping generalizations from that claimed experience are ridiculous.

I make no more sweeping generalizations than you make, Daniel. You say they're approachable. That's a generalization. I say they're not, another generalization. I think your generalization is ridiculous, based on my experience.

Primary teachers were sent to the stake centers along with everyone else to watch it on tv.

Just as I was for the Mount Timpanogos Temple dedication. Just as I was for the Provo Temple dedication. Just as I was for the Nauvoo Temple dedication. Just as I was for the Conference Center dedication.

Oh good, you agree with me. You were relegated to being part of the "unwashed masses" a few times yourself.

One of my neighbors, though, manifestly a high-ranking Mormon aristocrat divorcee, middle school teacher, and soprano, sang with the choir for the Mount Timpanogos dedication and, hence, was able to be in the celestial room with President Hinckley. (Which, I suppose, left about 30,000 seats in the celestial room empty that could easily have been used by "the faceless millions," "the unwashed"?)

Your sarcasm does you no credit, Daniel. And choir members get tickets. Rather than stack the room with local leaders, it would be more fair to have a lottery-type drawing, where every members name is put into a box and the number of seats in the room would be the number of names drawn out. That way, everyone has an equal chance of being the room with the prophet. Of course, that's not going to happen. Bishops and SP's would throw a fit, if they were relegated to the lower room or worse, the stake center, like everyone else.

Pres Hinckley didn't come to our stake center after the dedication to meet the members, that much I can tell you, even though my stake is the one with the airport and the stake center is on the way. He was escorted to his limo and went straight to the airport.

I'll bet there were some other places he needed to go. How horrible.

Yeah. Some place infinitely more important than the precise place he was in, with members infinitely more important than the ones sitting in the stake center less than a mile away.

They have a cadre of security sweeping the area clear and we, the unwashed, the non-leaders, are not allowed in the same room, let alone allowed to shake hands. We can watch from a distance or on a television monitor.

BS.

Get over yourself, Daniel. You weren't there. I was.

Go to your stake conference. Unless it's held in a very odd stake center, I would guess that something on the order of 1300 of "the unwashed, the non-leaders," will be in the same room with Elder Oaks, that the stake center won't have been "swept" by security.

That doesn't change the fact that it's been 20 years since we saw an apostle in our stake conference. You see them in your ward regularly. We don't.

Of course, if you're late, you'll probably end up watching things on a television monitor from an overflow room. But that won't be anybody's fault but your own.

What does this comment have to do with this conversation? Nothing. Just another throw away from Daniel.

What we can't do is actually meet them.

Get there early, sit toward the front, and make an effort to shake Elder Oaks's hand. (If there's a Saturday night adult session, that would be an even better opportunity.) Unless he's simply got to leave, I would imagine that the first fifty or so people who crowd around him will get to shake his hand, that they won't be driven off by thugs from Church Security (who probably won't even be in the same county).

It will be a first in 20 years. And bless his heart, he won't know he'll have a little more harmony in his life than usual.

[_harmony]

Get there early, sit toward the front, and make an effort to shake Elder Oaks's hand. (If there's a Saturday night adult session, that would be an even better opportunity.) Unless he's simply got to leave, I would imagine that the first fifty or so people who crowd around him will get to shake his hand, that they won't be driven off by thugs from Church Security (who probably won't even be in the same county).

As noted, I was recently at regular sacrament meeting where Pres Uchdorf made a surprise visit. The SP was not with him, no security, no big wigs, just him and some family. He sat up on the stand, next to the bishop. He spoke for a few minutes. After he mingled with the crowd and shook and with I bet most of the congregation. There was one sister who is elderly, a recent widow and in a wheel chair. He bent over, hugged her and kissed her on the cheek. Afterwards he spontaneously gathered the youth together in the gym and spoke to them for 40 minutes and even did a question answer session. I was impressed.

Harmony I am not dismissing your experiences. But others have some that are different than yours that show the brethren can be friendly, warm and somewhat accessible.

My only objection was the generalization that all the leaders are always approachable. My experience is different. We have never had a member of the FP or the 12 in my ward building since it was dedicated by LaGrande Richards. That was over 30 years ago. I live in a rural ward in an obscure stake miles from the center of the mission. We rarely get visitors from headquarters. The closest we've ever come was an amazing sacrament meeting several years ago when some members of the tabernacle choir showed up. They were in town for a concert and decided to carpool out to our ward for church. I suspect that most wards in the mission field are like mine. When we do get visitors, they aren't from the FP or the 12.

I just cannot allow such incorrect generalizations as Daniel made to go unchallenged, when I know his comment is downright wrong.

There are obviously situations where occasionally the leaders, or individual leaders, are approachable, but to extrapolate that out to they always approachable is simply on the wrong side of what is real.

[Guest]

I make no more sweeping generalizations than you make, Daniel.

I've offered several counterexamples. I could easily offer more. (Jason Bourne's, just above, is a nice one, and could be multiplied many times.)

Primary teachers were sent to the stake centers along with everyone else to watch it on tv.

Just as I was for the Mount Timpanogos Temple dedication. Just as I was for the Provo Temple dedication. Just as I was for the Nauvoo Temple dedication. Just as I was for the Conference Center dedication.

Oh good, you agree with me. You were relegated to being part of the "unwashed masses" a few times yourself.

And I could have mentioned several other examples (such as watching the dedication of the Gordon B. Hinckley Alumni Building at BYU on a television screen).

It rather goes against your notion that I'm one of the aristocratic Mormon elite, doesn't it?

The difference between us on this score is, largely, that I don't see it as a matter of being "part of the 'unwashed masses'" or one of "the faceless millions." It's simply a fact that, if x people want to participate in event E, and the venue in which E will occur holds only, say 0.01(x) people, an inescapable implication of this is that 0.99(x) people will either not see E at all or will be able to witness it only from overflow facilities. There are innumerable ways of choosing the 0.01(x) people who will actually be admitted to the venue in which E occurs. They might be chosen on the basis of gender, or skin color, or birthdate, or music preference, or veteran status, or eye color, or political party, or lottery number, or size of bribe. For a Church event, choosing them on the basis of ecclesiastical position (e.g., bishops and stake presidents and their children) or relevance to event E (e.g., choir members) doesn't seem unreasonable. And since, contrary to your loopy class-conflict rhetoric, bishops and bishops' wives and stake presidents and stake presidents' wives and choir members are likely to come from just about any walk of life (e.g., school teachers, plumbers, housewives, farmers, dentists, accountants, businessmen, nurses, physical therapists, and the like), this seems reasonably fair, as well.

Rather than stack the room with local leaders, it would be more fair to have a lottery-type drawing, where every members name is put into a box and the number of seats in the room would be the number of names drawn out. That way, everyone has an equal chance of being the room with the prophet.

And you would get a nice mix of people -- probably including school teachers, plumbers, housewives, farmers, dentists, accountants, businessmen, nurses, physical therapists, and the like.

Of course, that's not going to happen. Bishops and SP's would throw a fit, if they were relegated to the lower room or worse, the stake center, like everyone else.

I doubt it.

However, for someone who publicly preens herself, very often, on her non-judgmentalism, you certainly love to condemn people you don't know. In large, generalized batches.

Frankly, I doubt that many bishops, if any, were invited in their capacity as bishops to sit in the small celestial room for the dedication of a small temple -- let alone with their families. There simply isn't space. It certainly didn't happen at the Mount Timpanogos Temple dedication.

Go to your stake conference. Unless it's held in a very odd stake center, I would guess that something on the order of 1300 of "the unwashed, the non-leaders," will be in the same room with Elder Oaks, that the stake center won't have been "swept" by security.

That doesn't change the fact that it's been 20 years since we saw an apostle in our stake conference. You see them in your ward regularly. We don't.

Irrelevant misdirection. Whether it's been twenty years or not, whether I see apostles in my ward regularly or not, there won't be Security goons "sweeping" your stake center and hundreds of ordinary Latter-day Saints will certainly -- contrary to your claims -- sit in the same room with Elder Oaks.

And, anyway, we don't see apostles "regularly" in our ward. Elder Perry comes irregularly, roughly once every year or two, because his sister lives in my ward.

Your claims are absurd.

[_GoodK]

Your claims are absurd.

How would I go about meeting President Monson?

[_Daniel Peterson]

My only objection was the generalization that all the leaders are always approachable.

A generalization that I've never made.

I've been in meetings where people have been asked not to throng around the speaker but to let him slip out. Sometimes there are reasons for doing that, though it's much more likely to happen with the president of the Church than in the case of a member of the Twelve.

My point is that the Brethren are generally reasonably accessible, and that they're out there meeting members virtually every week of the year, all across the United States and around the world, almost always without security escort.

I just cannot allow such incorrect generalizations as Daniel made to go unchallenged, when I know his comment is downright wrong.

There are obviously situations where occasionally the leaders, or individual leaders, are approachable, but to extrapolate that out to they always approachable is simply on the wrong side of what is real.

See above.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Your claims are absurd.

How would I go about meeting President Monson?

Go to a meeting where he's speaking -- preferably a stake or regional conference -- and, at the conclusion of the meeting, go up to the stand. With the president of the Church, this will work sometimes (as at last week's library dedication) and sometimes it won't (as, for example, when he has a tight schedule, a plane to catch, etc.). The press of people wanting to shake hands with the president of the Church, or even to chat with him, will be exceptionally large. With a member of the Twelve, it will work very commonly.

[_rcrocket]

I don't think "accessibility" or lack thereof has any application in the way the Gospel is administered in the New Testament format.

Paul was not accessible to the various churches for years and decades at a time. The Seventy were sent out to handle what the Twelve could not do personally. The Twelve explained that they were not supposed to "serve tables." Acts 6:2. This basically implies that the Twelve were not supposed to do menial things the rest of us have to do.

Accessibility and accountability to the congregations are New Age or politically correct concepts and not based in scripture. But, then again, non-scriptural and politically correct views of things are all that Harmony has in her arsenal.

[_Trevor]

I have met Boyd K. Packer and Thomas S. Monson. I assure you all that I am one of the unwashed masses.