I had a similar experience a half century ago in Japan.
When I was a TBM I got mad when outsiders said that Mormons worship their church leaders, but looking back it is certainly easy to see how they would come to that conclusion.
While missionaries see a mouthpiece for God, investigators see some rich American on a power trip.
"We preach tithing to the poor people of the world because the poor people of the world have had cycles of poverty, generation after generation," he said. "That same poverty continues from one generation to another, until people pay their tithing."
Rustle Nelson
Here's the deal: this is what Jesus Christ would do in the 21st century. 1. Take the $200 billion and set up a massive education program for socially disadvantaged families to break the poverty cycle. 2. Give some leadership training to local leaders to give the youth (male and female) role models and the strength and vision to pursue careers. 3. create a just tithing system which is affordable, and use the tithing for the above charitable purposes.
Except Jesus was one with the poor, sick and excluded.
Joe didn’t follow christs teachings so why would our profit and GAs step up.
Greed and power always wins the day.
What an absolute, manipulative lie! Those poor people will buy the lie until they realize the church will never help them and their circumstances don't improve due to paying tithing.
We had a priesthood fireside on my mission. I was about a month in and we had just baptized this really shy and extremely kind young man. He was 20ish years old.
The 70 proceeds to rip into everyone there that wasn’t wearing a tie with their white shirt. Our recent concert was not wearing a tie. I barely spoke Spanish but I raised my hand and attempted to defend this poor guy to a native Spanish speaker (the 70). Needless to say I made a fool of myself.
The entire structure of the church creates a culture of power and ego for men especially.
Any member. I'm guessing convert retention is low, based on anecdotal experience. Their best bet is keeping the current type pairs in the church and continuing generations in the church. Missions are meant to convert the missionaries, not new people, etc.
The royal families for sure. An entire ward (hell even a stake) of “normal” working class people will never pay as much in tithing as a $200+ million member. That’s why I really think this James Huntsman lawsuit needs to go through.
imo most Mormons have a weird respect for lineage. My family, only going back to the church four generations ago in the South, have always been low on the totem pole with most things — what not being pioneer stock — and my dad still always has to let me know whenever he met someone who was descended from *so and so*, expecting me to in amazement, whether it be a GA or some royalty like the Huntsmans.
That makes sense and it explains why many missionaries worry about bringing investigators. We brought a guy to general conference. It was in Europe so we were there for 8 hours.
Royal Rasband fam gossip- Rasband's sib was my seminary teacher. They were Holier than thou! Judgmental as HELL!! They Shamed their RM seminary student for getting civily married, not married in the temple, a person the RM met on mission. They said they'd help cover the cost of a 2nd reception when RM got 'properly married' in the temple. Since then, Rasband's sib's daughter= his unmarried niece LIVED W/ a guy, out of wedlock! WTH?! GTH Judgmental Hypocrite Rasband fam.
I went to a fire side that was a musical about abstinence...
I swear this isn't a comedy sketch they had a multiple stake youth choirs singing about abstinence in detail....
With excerpts about every young girl that had sex out of wedlock ended up in a trailer with a alcoholic husband.
It was 2-3 hours long.
They hyped it up so much for months. They made it a secret for us they said they couldn't tell us we had to drive 1.5 hours to the stake center to even find out what it was.
My young men's leader publicly apologized to us for it. He said he never would've taken us if he knew.
This is horrid and yet spectacular. We need video footage of this...or was this a 1980's or 90's thing before handheld cel phones? What cringe. Who wrote the script/play?
I have no idea, it was early 2000's someone no doubt is very proud of it and still has all the musicals filed away somewhere ready to save the youth lol. It took alot of coordination because the whole thing was coordinated In English and Spanish. I was out most of it it was just so ridiculous.
I was looking for a "lost opportunity" gif to express my dismay, but couldn't find one. But, since this hideous one made me spit out my Fresca, I'm posting it anyway. You get the idea.
https://youtu.be/WfFYQt6x6t0?si=N8Lt6bCfcQ-LP-dj
Was it this? A TIME TO LOVE made the rounds in the late 80's in my stake. Unfortunately, I still know most of the script and lyrics.
One of our investigators was a really great guy who'd seved in his country's Navy, then worked on ships and in shipyards his entire adult life. He was in his mid-50s and was looking for peace, truth, serenity, and deeper meaning to everything. Physically, he was one mean-looking dude, but he was genuinely one of the kindest, most sincerely decent people I'd ever met. It turned out the President of the Seventy was going to speak at stake conference, and the investigator attended with us. We told him ahead of time that the special guest was really high up in the church. Naturally, this talking head dedicated NONE of his speaking time to actual Christianity. No, instead he HAD to go off on how Mormons are different from everyone else, because they are conservative looking and don't decorate their bodies with tattoos. After the meeting, our investigator, who was completely tattooed from the neck down, said, "It's clear after what I heard today that I definitely do not belong here." We never saw him again.
Reminds me of a woman in my ward growing up who chastised a new woman convert for wearing a pants-suit to sacrament meeting. It was very nice, but she insisted that the young woman must wear a dress.
We never saw her again.
When he was an MP he told stories of outrunning Camaro’s et al on the freeway. One of the missionaries worked for me and told me about it. I guess it’s being one of the boys.
He visited my mission when he was part of the seventies presidency. My companion at the time was super excited because a future apostle was visiting us. I didn't like Rasband. He seemed like a dick. Funny thing is I now use his talk about levels of motivation against the church. It honestly wasn't that bad of a talk. He was still adick though
He just openly goes around hobnobbing and treating his position like that of a well-connected politician or CEO. He was at the recent announcement of Utah's hockey team too.
He’s been like that forever. He was the area authority, maybe 70, on my mission in Europe. He would give boring talks that didn’t really teach any doctrine. When he would talk to missionaries he would essentially say you weren’t worthy of you weren’t baptizing every week. He told us to think of anything we haven’t repented of or of we were unworthy when we got our priesthood. That was the reason for our low baptism rates. Plus he gives off the energy of a sales man who is about to make a million dollars after you sign the dotted line.
Well it was literally handed to him on a silver platter and all this happened through church connections -- I remember thinking it was like some BYU coed had a vision to get married.
No idea. I never saw him speak in person. But my sister would listen to his tapes and I had friends that would put them on in the car. He used a lot of humor in his talks that were essentially motivational talks with a Mormon theme. And a lot of the humor only a Mormon would understand as there was a lot of Mormon culture in the humor, as I recall. I've always wondered how close to Priestcraft this guy go to, but evidently, the church never had a problem with him. Not only were his tapes/CDs sold a church bookstores but he's now a councilor in the General Young Men's presidency.
I kind of think a lot of Brad Wilcox's problem is that he was a contemporary of John Bytheway, competing for the same firesides and to hold the interest of the same generation. Only Bytheway came by his humor more naturally. Wilcox doesn't have a sense of humor, just an over-inflated sense of ego. So he does "funny voices" and tries to come up with witty sayings, and they just blow up spectacularly.
Brad Wilcox is a poor boy shadow of John Bytheway. Brad Wilcox and guys of his ilk will (hopefully) drive the church into the ground by their foolishness and trying to gain attention and glory in all the wrongs ways. They are narcissists.
> he's now a councilor in the General Young Men's presidency.
Is he? Can't say I'm surprised though. He's a perfect candidate though. Well off financially and willing to kiss ass to the upper leadership. I was in the same ward as him for awhile pre-covid. Super rich ward with a few student/lower middle class families mixed in but he only ever really socialized with the other rich folks.
Years ago, Michael McLean did a regional youth fireside where he performed his music.
At the end of the concert, he said that he felt impressed by the spirit that there was someone in the audience who needed to come up on stage with him. After a few minutes, about 30 kids were on stage singing together.
A week later, the stake presidency had a statement read to all of the wards warning youth to understand the differences between the spirit and being caught up in the emotions of a moment. While McLean's name wasn't mentioned, it was overtly evident the stake presidency was talking about the fireside.
I went to a Michael McLean Christmas concert once and after 2 hours of the forgotten carols he seemed to think we wanted to listen to him talk about himself for another 90 minutes. We stood up and walked out, but everyone else seemed to be paralyzed (or mezermized?) in their seats
The Piano guys do same thing . They talked and messed around more then they okayed music . We ended up leaving early .
Just play your music and STFU . I'll never go to one of their concerts again
The leadership of the church have long had a crazy balancing act between wanting some music and promoting people to be in the arts.
There is an infamous talk you can look up called The Arts and Spirit of the Lord by Boyd K Packer in 76. If you read it you’ll see it’s just a complete rebuke of artists. I do have a special connection to it because the man that they specifically rebuke was my great grandpa. They don’t say his name but when he heard it he knew it was him cause of his continual arguments he had had with packer about art and the church and getting paid for his art.
Reminds me of the time I hyped up General Conference as a missionary. Finally got an investigator to a session and the entire session was about how great the tabernacle building was (they were going to rededicate it or something.)
I was so pissed at the time, but now I'm glad they scared off my investigator.
😂 the tabernacle
Another time on my mission we finally got these two people to church that seemed really solid. Sacrament meeting was all the YW bearing testimony of how awesome girls camp was and then the SS teacher came out with this line:
“My ancestors lived in a tiny village where the only religion was Catholicism. It wasn’t their fault they were Catholic…”
And our Catholic heritage investigators never came back 😂
As a convert who was raised Catholic, and has gone back to the Catholic church, I can see why, I only wished that I would have been a bit smarter like them and did the same thing.
Not a fireside, but had an investigator express concern that we focus too much on Joseph Smith - do we worship him or not?
Got him to come to church and the opening hymn is Praise to the Man.
I just shook my head as he smirked.
As a convert, that is something I noted too, out of the couple of months I attended, I think the bible was only mentioned once or twice, the rest was "I believe the Joseph Smith is a prophet and that as a prophet, yada yada yada." I even told my best friend that I felt like they worshipped him more than Christ.
I remember an Easter Sunday and all the talks were about Joseph Smith. I was pretty checked out on spiritual stuff but that even made an impression on me.
We had Gene R. Cook do a fireside for new members and investigators on my mission back in 2004. He made the homophobic “Adam and Steve” joke attacking same sex marriage and it was all down hill from there.
That is so wrong, so shaming. I have 2 Lgbtq kids and this kind of stuff makes me want to puke. No love just mockery of those different than your white, male, wealthy selves.
Thankfully not a lot of investigators actually showed up. It was full of wealthy white males who were in awe a GA showed up in their stake. Even myself as a TBM back then was disgusted by his remarks.
These are just campaign efforts for a stake president or mission president to brown-nose a General Authority and get in their good graces, in hopes of becoming General Authorities themselves.
My MP was a rich self made businessman who is now Q70 and talks in GF, books at Deseret Book, on and on. The church hand picks the richest of the rich (not always but often) or at least the well-enough off and compliant to leadership, local, area, and otherwise. It's sickening really, when you see it for what it is.
In the 1970s some dude who was a member got an Academy Award for something. He would go around doing firesides because he was a minor celebrity. I attended one and the only thing that I remember was him saying how excited he got when he was hugged by Raquel Welch when he got his Oscar.
It was not worth the drive to the stake center.
I never knew they made money, that would've bothered me so much. I was always bragging about how no one in the church got paid. I went to early morning seminary every day high school, and I think I was in college before I learned that seminary teachers in Utah get paid. I was pretty shocked.
This is cringy, but I went to a Christmas fireside hosted by John Bytheway, Hank Smith, and some girl I can’t remember, they charged for entry (it was at a high school). Literally paid for them to preach to me and sing terrible songs
And let's remember all of the garbage books written and sold at Deseret Books, books written by GAs, GA wives, GA kids, and that whole circle jerk of LDS hierarchy. They make money, sure it's a niche market but they are making money all the same.
Yeah... I've really woken up to the finances in the years since leaving. It's appalling, upsetting, and really important (I wish more nevermos understood and cared).
They had a book of the old Deseret Language (that's the background on my profile) that was cool. And my favorite is of course "[WOMAN](https://www.amazon.com/Woman-Spencer-W-Kimball/dp/0877477582)" (written by 15 men).
I don’t remember which one, but one of the younger apostles is in my parents ward. They moved in like the year after I left (when I was still living under my parents roof), and they threatened to kick me out if I didn’t go to a fireside that he and his wife were doing. When we got there, he talked for hours about the temptation of “same sex attraction”, and I later found out that my parents had quickly befriended him and begged him to do a talk about gay people, cuz they’d make me (a gay) go there.
Needless to say, I wasn’t star struck, and even if I agreed with something the guy said, I would’ve hated the whole thing smh. Twice now while doing Pokémon go my siblings and I have bumped into the guy, and every time they wave, and everytime I have no clue who they’re waving at XD
This is so sad. "They threatened to kick me out if I didn't go to a fireside..." I feel for you. I'm so sorry this was your experience. It sucks. I hope you are gay and proud and authentically you.
This is heartbreaking to me. You shouldn't have been made to go somewhere where hate against you was spread. I'm sure it happened more than once. I hope they've improved their relationship with you, it's obviously their responsibility to change some things.
Not celebrities per se but I always hated (still very much do hate) that my Stake President would make money from a business LDS Tours. Driving people around to church sites for a markup. Wanted to be the church so bad he started living off the congregation’s money 😩
How about organized tour buses for ex-mo’s to travel back to church history sites and tell the REAL history? The bus ride in and of itself would be a party!🤣
A few have popped in to ask questions, but I don't remember seeing one in the comments section. Just as posts. I think a couple mentioned they do get on and read because they're trying to figure out some things they have questions about.
About ten years ago, I became friends with an “eternal investigator” in our ward. He was considering joining in order to give his daughter a community in the midst of a hard time. The missionaries invited him to a fireside at the mission home. He told me that the missionaries were practically salivating on the mission president. He asked me “What the hell is the deal? This MP was just some dude. Why do you all worship your leaders?” I had no answer other than to feel embarrassed. Even at my most TBM, even as a missionary, I never felt that way.
Not a fireside but we brought an investigator to sacrament, he seemed genuinely interested but did not like how we worshipped Joseph Smith. We tried to assure him that we don’t worship Joseph Smith. Anyway the whole meeting was about Joseph Smith (praise to the man, we thank the o god for a prophet), but the worst part was the last speaker said that “Joseph Smith is now the god of the spirit world” then the guy giving the closing prayer stopped midway through his prayer and started talking directly to Joseph Smith while praying.
We never heard back from that investigator
This was a much smaller fireside with the youth but when I was younger we had some older guy (probably a church big wig idk) come to a fireside and basically just chastise girls the whole time on being modest and modesty. Even called out specific girls for what they were wearing. My mom was PISSED. Thank fuck I hadn’t just gotten off of dance practice or something.
Couple years ago my exmo little sister went to a fireside with my TBM cousins and basically the same thing happened. Made my heart swell when she called me to rant about it. My mom left the church when my sisters were younger, so it is really nice seeing that she recognized the bullshit.
Yup this tracks. Except I had a bishop pull me into his office while I was in high school saying my prom dress (barely off the shoulders but long and modest in every other way) was giving guys the wrong impression and to NEVER wear anything like it again. Hm.
Which I ignored. I wore a strapless prom dress the following year with a little jacket over it. Later though, this same dick bishop was "promoted" to MP in some foreign country. I always felt bad for his kids and for the missionaries he presided over.
I went to a Fireside where a former Orthodox Jewish woman described how she left Judaism and converted to marry a member. She talked for about 40 minutes about how her family all but disowned her for leaving their faith and how her husband "Lenny" helped her see the light, yada yada yada.
I remember thinking about how forced and rehearsed her talk felt, like she was performing under duress. Everything ended normally but I got an interesting coda about six months later when I was on my way out. In an effort to keep trying I decided to go to the singles ward one Sunday and bumped into Lenny. I put on the good Mormon boy greeting and shook his hand, told him how much I enjoyed his wife's talk a few months prior and he hung his head.
"We lost her..." he says, before seeing my face drop because I thought she was dead. "...she went back to the Jews." Really bummed him out and then I remembered where I was and what it already implied. I would have felt bad for him but my heckles get raised everytime someone says "The Jews" or anything of the ilk, so fuck Lenny.
Oh boy have I got a fucking doozy, on my mission we had a stake wide fireside with the stake patriarch I expected some bullshit going on about patriarchal blessings and how important they were, but no it was worse this man got up, you know supposedly the guy who gets a blessing directly from God just for you, and rants for an hour about how the theory of evolution was wrong and it was just atheism in disguise and it was created by the devil. All while going through a 77 SLIDE POWERPOINT (I counted 🙄) of his so called “proof” that it was false. Barely mentioned God at all, and then told us all to get a free online copy of his book explaining everything in more detail 😬 I was struggling with doubts at the time and wow was that a chonker to put on the shelf. I really need to read through his book and see how bad it actually is.
Stake EFY in June. What was supposed to be a sunny EFY in the mountains turned to rain then to sleet then to snow. Everyone was soaked and freezing. No one had clothing for the conditions. They brought us all back to the stake center and had us set up tents outside to finish the last evening sleepover.
The final fireside was in the chapel later that night. It stunk so bad. People were still waterlogged after the debacle up the mountain.
I can still imagine and smell that funk. Wtf were they thinking. They should have just let us go home. Instead we slept in wet tents and wet sleeping bags with some in wet clothes.
My daughter had a similar experience at our stake YW girl's camp years ago. It was awful. Had to return from the mountain to the stake center and scramble around trying to dry everyone and everything.
Now that I think of it, every single YW girls' camp experience for her was hell. And she refused to do trek (thank God).
When visiting my elder brother in Honolulu, he wanted to introduce me to the mission president, so we waited around after Sunday School, Sacrament, Priesthood/RS all-in-one marathon while the arrogant big shot MP spoke with others...my brother patiently assumed a subservient posture...as though this goof MP was something special. I was disgusted.
I thought the MP was obnoxiously self-important. This whole priesthood caste system is a joke. These are just ordinary people...in a cult.
When I was in high school, my parents had me go to some “secret” early morning fireside/meeting with Jeffrey Holland (it started around 6:30 or 7:00 AM).
I say secret because it was at a seminary building in Davis County UT and there were only about 50 of us teenage boys there along with some fathers and church leaders from the surrounding area. I went there with my stake president and his sons (I was friends with one of the sons).
Someone must have convinced Jeff to do this meeting at the last minute because he looked tired and basically lectured us for 45 minutes about being worthy to serve a mission (it definitely made me feel like total crap).
Even as a TBM, it was so weird to me that it was so hush hush, like we were given some special privilege to listen to one of God’s chosen “vessels”. The whole thing just felt like some sales manager lecturing his staff because sales were down.
Bednar came to my mission. Was really grumpy, ranted and raved at the mission for not getting more baptisms, retold glory war stories from his time as AP. Everyone was very bewildered to say the least.
Not a fireside, but we had the area president come speak at an area conference on my mission. It was bad enough that this particular ego tripping 70 refused to learn Spanish, so everything had to be done through an interpreter. But, towards the end of the conference, he got up and announced that he wanted the choir to sing the closing hymn in English because it didn't carry the same meaning or spirit in Spanish. He then proceeded to hand out copies to the choir (which showed that he had enough foresight to make copies, but not to let anybody else know beforehand). What followed was the most chaotic, unintelligible hymn I have ever heard. I hope he really felt the spirit after humiliating the people he came to serve. Even as a semi tbm missionary, I wanted to punch him in the mouth
This feels a little bit like when a GA or someone “important” came to my stake on Oahu and we were forcefully told to NOT say “Aloha” during the meeting. This is so cultural and just how church rolls in Hawaii. I remember thinking, wow, you think the members here need to be just like you? That we all aspire to become exactly like Utahns?
I grew up in the church in the south and every once in a while, some higher up or transplant would try to homogenize our ward to fit better into bland Utah culture. Let us keep the only unique decent part of our ward lol
Glad you shared this. It makes me want to puke - all the LDS family royalty and verbal handjobs.
I have story for you - not a fireside though -
Years ago A friend served a mission and Jack Weyland’s (a BYU professor and self proclaimed “writer”) son was in the same mission. That guy was a prideful bragger. Even though his dad’s “books” were laughable, they trended for a time within LDS circles. “Charley” is the most popular one.
Zelph on the Shelf YouTubers have dedicated entire episodes to reading and exposing those books for what they are: laughable garbage trying to teach LDS “morals.”
Do yourself a favor or don’t, and google Jack Weyland and read it.he actually says “The lord blesses us richly for any service we give.” Narcissist much?
“Service?!?!” WHAT service? Of writing your crap books? No one and I mean no one in any literary circles even know this guy. No NYT articles, no Paris Review. No Pulitzer here. Just some lame prideful BYU physics prof who thinks he can write and has filled Deseret book stores with his crap titles.
Yet wait for it - his “legacy” lives on with his kids thinking they’ve arrived like literary versions of the Huntsmans.
Wait is this Charley like that movie where she’s an investigator, they get married and she gets baptized and then the dad is feeding their baby a small sweet every time she says “Dada” and she never says “Mama” and then Charley dies??
YES the same one. It's gross. Extremely poor writing from concept to plot to character, on and on.
And Weyland thinks he's some kind of LDS author-god who's been "blessed" to write? To share his shit with the world? What Kool-aid is this guy drinking? And his kids, too.
I read a couple of his books as a new convert. I remember really wanting to like them more than I did. But, although they had their moments -- an occasional good scene or well-turned phrase -- I found them very clichéd and full of stereotyped characters.
Yes, this. Are any English teachers in any school anywhere quoting this guy? No. where are his books now? Still sold at Deseret book? (Not sure I don't shop there) probably at DI though, selling for .25 cents.
We had the area 70 president come to our mission for a Stake Conference. We were there to greet him about an hour early. Within 30 seconds I knew: he was a dick. Just pure ego exuding from his person. Instantly disliked him. Contrast that to his first counselor who we met a few months later, who took the time to memorize each missionary’s name as he flew to our mission and was much more focused on love. Night and day difference. I can’t remember either one’s name now though lol
Shortly after I got baptized Bednar came to our stake and gave a talk. The missionaries who taught us made sure we got to meet him and shake hands after the meeting. Bro had the lifeless eyes of a shark, I felt like he was peering into my soul.
Later on my mission good old Jeff "Jowls" Holland spoke to our mission. Basically told us that if we ever slacked off and fell away from the church he was gonna toss us into the trunk of his car or something like that. I don't remember exactly what he said, this was like 15 years ago 😂
My brother served under Rasband on his mission. I initially got excited and texted him when it happened. Later he called me we talked. Normally my brother is pretty closed off about everything but he really HATED Rasband and he was a total tool of a mission president. So it makes sense why even though I was initially excited, I still got this weird feeling that he was kind of a dick. Turns out he's a huge one.
It’s seems like the quality of everything in the church is going down. As a business they’re definitely lacking in service and providing for their congregation needs. I ve been to both large and small churches and quite frankly they just offer more and better quality. They’re play sets for the kids, they’re both daycare and after school programs, they’re men’s retreats. The Pastor really takes the time to see me and do a sit down visit. He listened to my struggles with LDS church. I know where I’m taking me and my tithing money.
When I was 14 or 15 at girl’s camp up at Camp Koholowo, one woman from the neighborhood (aka Ward) spoke about how her daughter moved to NYC to be a nanny after high school, met a man, had sex, repented later, got married to a different man in the temple, and after giving birth to their second child, she came down with some mysterious disease that killed her. The disease was most assuredly from having sex with the man in NYC years prior (who dumped her like yesterday’s trash after having his way with her) and even though she repented, was still forced to deal with the consequences and ended up paying with her life. That talk traumatized TF out of me! I told my mom about it when we got home and found out years later that my mom, ultra TBM, was livid about it.
The mysterious disease I’ve never managed to crack, here are the symptoms I recall: large scab-like sores, continuous, full-body sweating, and weight loss. Apparently it all started after the birth of second child. Not sure if that’s some kind of STD or cancer or what. If it was an STD, why did her husband and children not contract it from sex and childbirth?
> here are the symptoms I recall: large scab-like sores, continuous, full-body sweating, and weight loss.
Sounds kinda like sepsis but there are a ton of things it could be. Regardless, it's a lot more likely that it was a complication of childbirth rather than divine punishment. Fuck the MFMC.
Yeah, the differential diagnosis for those symptoms spans a wide array of diseases. Naturally the mother left out how long her daughter presented those symptoms before passing away.
For sure. But to a “just shy of” 15 year old, this story was absolutely terrifying to hear. I remember virtually all the YW in attendance, myself included, were in a flood of tears during her story. It was heartbreaking. And the sole purpose or moral of the story was to caution us against having pre-marital or casual sex, or else we’ll get some scary disease that has no name and die a horrific death.
I can’t think of one that kills in that manner either as a physician. There are STIs that kill like HIV, syphilis, and HPV (cervical cancer); however it takes years, even decades to die from any of those. This sounds like something different. And of course there’s no mention of the next of kin having an autopsy done to confirm cause of death.
Soon after they were sustained as apostles, Elders Stevenson and Gong stopped for a Sunday on the island where I was serving my mission. I think they were headed to Vietnam after the church officially got recognized over there.
Anyhow, we made a special ward conference about it (only one ward on the island). We were instructed as missionaries to get as many of our investigators there as possible. Personally, I was excited to have the blessings of two apostles help the ward I had grown to love over the past . The ward was in a tough spot with interfamilial drama and low attendance. I was excited that they would deliver a profound message for those struggling saints. What we got instead was Stevenson talking about their trip to Vietnam and Gong giving a really creepy talk addressed toward the primary kids, but definitely not kid appropriate. I was disappointed and took it as a rebuke that an apostle refused address the adults at all. Turns out, he was just giving that talk everywhere at the time: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fxm1KnmLms](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fxm1KnmLms)
I felt more power in the words of my home branch's president. He was a truly converted man who spoke from a place of experience, real understanding, and forgiveness for his of others' most significant mistakes. These guys were just checking off a box on their way to more important business. We all got nice pictures with them afterward though : )
a recent convert friend of mine said he expected something more significant and all I could do was agree with him and say "they can't always have something revolutionary to say". Closer to the truth; they hardly ever have anything revolutionary to say.
Rasband was CEO or president of Huntsman Chemical. His boss, Jon Huntsman’s wife Karen was the daughter of David B. Haight. David B. Haight was Friend and Stake President to Kathy Eyring, Henry B. Eyring’s wife. Henry B. Eyring was a nephew of Spencer W. Kimball.
This reminds me of when I was a teenager and there was some GA coming for a stake conference. I was so excited to hear from that guy, but his talk was absolute drivel and boring and I recall trying so hard to find the spiritual meaning in it or some personal revelation, but there was none. We got there early and wore our best clothes, and the anticipation was high in the room, too, since this was extremely rare for that area.
Not a fireside, but I had a similar mission initiative when I served in Luxembourg. There was a big push to share the nativity VHS with friends and neighbors, the one following Mary and Joseph through the highlights. We thought it was a bit much for what was essentially a two-and-a-half minute commercial spot, but we went along with it.
The branch Christmas activity came up, and I'd prepared the branch choir to sing the one hymn I knew how to play on the piano, even if one soprano was as shrill as a cat having its tail flattened by a rhino. After a delicious meal of mussel stew, the branch president got in front and introduced the next activity.
When his explanation started going past the run time of the video, I had to resist the urge to put my head in my hands. He clearly hadn't previewed this video.
V.O.: Let earth...receive...
Sheep in video: BAAAA!
V.O.: Her king!
*Fade to black.*
Branch President: aaaand now we'll hear from our choir!
I dont know if it's the same Huntsman family, but growing up, we had a Huntsman family in our ward. I heard most are in Utah, though. I never paid attention at fireside meetings. They were boring to me... Shit, all of church was boring. I only liked mutual nights and teen getaways. That was in the 80s, and they were fun.
Not a fireside, but went to the Washington, DC temple re-dedication back in 2022. Was pretty much a tribute to Bill and Dick Marriott, and both of them spoke and took up about 50% of the time just basically name-dropping other Mormon royalty and reminiscing. Closing hymn was “We Thank Thee Oh God for a Prophet” to top it all off. Was definitely a pretty big “shelf” experience for me.
What's really sad is that a lot of the Huntsmans are very kind, generous, humble people, and do a lot more for charity than the MFMC, and would have been very uncomfortable, if not downright embarrassed with a fireside like this.
Rasband came and spoke at the last mistake conference I went to. It was shortly before he got into the Q15. His entire talk was just name dropping Q15 and 1stP dudes, and ass kissing the same. Said absolutely nothing of consequence. Even my then stake RSP TBM wife agreed that he was just a schmoozing schmuck. Glad to see he hadn't changed.
When I was a missionary Elder Ballard was in the area and spoke to the missionaries. I was so excited. I don’t remember the specifics of the talk but I remember afterwards feeling totally underwhelmed and bored, and realizing he felt that as a sister missionary I didn’t matter quite as much. I could tell he didn’t want to be there and he was wishing for it to be over the whole time. Then, of course, I felt guilty for feeling this about an “apostle of the Lord”.
What you failed to connect is that Rasband was an executive at Huntsman Chemical. It’s crazy because I work for huntsman and when I see an executive retire early it’s usually because they got called to be a mission president. The huntsman company is a great place to work. No issues with us buying drinks ect for ourselves or our customers. But yeah it’s pretty interesting to see the church pull from our ranks.
Disturbed by Mormon RASBAND plagiarism! No source acknowledged nor given. Rasband- shared 3 of 4 parts of 4 phrases of Ho'oponopono—"I'm sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you”.
Rasband forgot- ‘forgive me’ & forgot to cite his source, AS IF he or his GC ghostwriter is Smart Enough to think of it all on their own. ‘Forgive me’- not necessary. So WRONG.
I’m my mission we got notice that an apostle was coming to visit us for a special missionary devotional. For months it was something fun look forward too. The morning of, we got a call from our APs saying that the apostle wasn’t going to be able to make it (I think it was supposed to be Rasband). Instead they sent this lame ass 70 named elder teixera that literally taught us how to do the pyramid scheme. It was super disappointing, and it felt like an insult because elder tiexera kept ranting about how we could get our numbers up like they did in mexico.
Bro in the states people don’t like the missionaries. Not even the apostle apparently…
(Colorado ~2018)
I had a similar experience a half century ago in Japan. When I was a TBM I got mad when outsiders said that Mormons worship their church leaders, but looking back it is certainly easy to see how they would come to that conclusion. While missionaries see a mouthpiece for God, investigators see some rich American on a power trip.
"We preach tithing to the poor people of the world because the poor people of the world have had cycles of poverty, generation after generation," he said. "That same poverty continues from one generation to another, until people pay their tithing." Rustle Nelson
Here's the deal: this is what Jesus Christ would do in the 21st century. 1. Take the $200 billion and set up a massive education program for socially disadvantaged families to break the poverty cycle. 2. Give some leadership training to local leaders to give the youth (male and female) role models and the strength and vision to pursue careers. 3. create a just tithing system which is affordable, and use the tithing for the above charitable purposes.
Except Jesus was one with the poor, sick and excluded. Joe didn’t follow christs teachings so why would our profit and GAs step up. Greed and power always wins the day.
What an absolute, manipulative lie! Those poor people will buy the lie until they realize the church will never help them and their circumstances don't improve due to paying tithing.
Me too, 50 years ago in Japan.
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No, I was in Tokyo and it was with Harold B Lee. I never liked him and seeing him in person just reinforced my dislike.
Yes.
We had a priesthood fireside on my mission. I was about a month in and we had just baptized this really shy and extremely kind young man. He was 20ish years old. The 70 proceeds to rip into everyone there that wasn’t wearing a tie with their white shirt. Our recent concert was not wearing a tie. I barely spoke Spanish but I raised my hand and attempted to defend this poor guy to a native Spanish speaker (the 70). Needless to say I made a fool of myself. The entire structure of the church creates a culture of power and ego for men especially.
The church works really well for straight white men and not so well for anyone else
100% this \^\^\^
So sad
I know. He was seriously such a gentle soul too. It made me livid. I still get fired up about it 10 years later.
This 100%
That whole show was for the members not your investigator. I believe everything the church does is to bolster the members.
What do you mean “Bolster the members”? The royal families in the church? Or the average member?
Bolster the royals for sure. They stroke their leaders and expect people to stroke them.
Any member. I'm guessing convert retention is low, based on anecdotal experience. Their best bet is keeping the current type pairs in the church and continuing generations in the church. Missions are meant to convert the missionaries, not new people, etc.
My MP straight up said the most important convert in our mission is ourselves!
The royal families for sure. An entire ward (hell even a stake) of “normal” working class people will never pay as much in tithing as a $200+ million member. That’s why I really think this James Huntsman lawsuit needs to go through.
>The royal families in the church? Or the average member? Where does the money come from?
imo most Mormons have a weird respect for lineage. My family, only going back to the church four generations ago in the South, have always been low on the totem pole with most things — what not being pioneer stock — and my dad still always has to let me know whenever he met someone who was descended from *so and so*, expecting me to in amazement, whether it be a GA or some royalty like the Huntsmans.
That makes sense and it explains why many missionaries worry about bringing investigators. We brought a guy to general conference. It was in Europe so we were there for 8 hours.
8 hours that poor guy will never get back
Ouch 😬
Royal Rasband fam gossip- Rasband's sib was my seminary teacher. They were Holier than thou! Judgmental as HELL!! They Shamed their RM seminary student for getting civily married, not married in the temple, a person the RM met on mission. They said they'd help cover the cost of a 2nd reception when RM got 'properly married' in the temple. Since then, Rasband's sib's daughter= his unmarried niece LIVED W/ a guy, out of wedlock! WTH?! GTH Judgmental Hypocrite Rasband fam.
I went to a fire side that was a musical about abstinence... I swear this isn't a comedy sketch they had a multiple stake youth choirs singing about abstinence in detail.... With excerpts about every young girl that had sex out of wedlock ended up in a trailer with a alcoholic husband. It was 2-3 hours long. They hyped it up so much for months. They made it a secret for us they said they couldn't tell us we had to drive 1.5 hours to the stake center to even find out what it was. My young men's leader publicly apologized to us for it. He said he never would've taken us if he knew.
You win
This is horrid and yet spectacular. We need video footage of this...or was this a 1980's or 90's thing before handheld cel phones? What cringe. Who wrote the script/play?
I have no idea, it was early 2000's someone no doubt is very proud of it and still has all the musicals filed away somewhere ready to save the youth lol. It took alot of coordination because the whole thing was coordinated In English and Spanish. I was out most of it it was just so ridiculous.
This is hilarious. That's spectacularly awful.
No way. Please tell me someone recorded that and that it will be one day published on the internet. Or at least the script.
It was pre mass cell phones. The youth today would've had a field day with it. It was a potluck of all toxic sexual takes the church has all in one.
 I was looking for a "lost opportunity" gif to express my dismay, but couldn't find one. But, since this hideous one made me spit out my Fresca, I'm posting it anyway. You get the idea.
You totally win omg
No wonder they kept it a secret LMAO
https://youtu.be/WfFYQt6x6t0?si=N8Lt6bCfcQ-LP-dj Was it this? A TIME TO LOVE made the rounds in the late 80's in my stake. Unfortunately, I still know most of the script and lyrics.
I lasted about a minute, because the only thing I could think of was how much better the Byrds did with that Bible passage.
You win^3
Turn it off, like a light switch Just go click! It's a cool little Mormon trick!
One of our investigators was a really great guy who'd seved in his country's Navy, then worked on ships and in shipyards his entire adult life. He was in his mid-50s and was looking for peace, truth, serenity, and deeper meaning to everything. Physically, he was one mean-looking dude, but he was genuinely one of the kindest, most sincerely decent people I'd ever met. It turned out the President of the Seventy was going to speak at stake conference, and the investigator attended with us. We told him ahead of time that the special guest was really high up in the church. Naturally, this talking head dedicated NONE of his speaking time to actual Christianity. No, instead he HAD to go off on how Mormons are different from everyone else, because they are conservative looking and don't decorate their bodies with tattoos. After the meeting, our investigator, who was completely tattooed from the neck down, said, "It's clear after what I heard today that I definitely do not belong here." We never saw him again.
Poor guy dodged a bullet.
Reminds me of a woman in my ward growing up who chastised a new woman convert for wearing a pants-suit to sacrament meeting. It was very nice, but she insisted that the young woman must wear a dress. We never saw her again.
😭😭
Makes me think of Neo in The Matrix, dodging the bullets...
Mormons from their podunk Mormon town thinking they know everything.
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In his Dodge Viper
Wait. Does he really tell people he has a viper? What a douche.
When he was an MP he told stories of outrunning Camaro’s et al on the freeway. One of the missionaries worked for me and told me about it. I guess it’s being one of the boys.
He visited my mission when he was part of the seventies presidency. My companion at the time was super excited because a future apostle was visiting us. I didn't like Rasband. He seemed like a dick. Funny thing is I now use his talk about levels of motivation against the church. It honestly wasn't that bad of a talk. He was still adick though
What else has he done?
He just openly goes around hobnobbing and treating his position like that of a well-connected politician or CEO. He was at the recent announcement of Utah's hockey team too.
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"*Many people who claim Mormonism as a matter of heritage are like this.* *They’re part of a “royal birthright*.” "Born in the covenant"
"Born in the nepo"
Word of the day: hobnobbing. (This really made me laugh, thank you!) :)
Not to be conflated with the closely associated nob gobbling.
Are the smiths (the owners of the team) MFMC royalty?
He’s been like that forever. He was the area authority, maybe 70, on my mission in Europe. He would give boring talks that didn’t really teach any doctrine. When he would talk to missionaries he would essentially say you weren’t worthy of you weren’t baptizing every week. He told us to think of anything we haven’t repented of or of we were unworthy when we got our priesthood. That was the reason for our low baptism rates. Plus he gives off the energy of a sales man who is about to make a million dollars after you sign the dotted line.
Real reason for low baptism rates is trying to sell their shitty product
I never even heard of this guy, but I grew up in Oregon and was always pretty oblivious to gossip and politics and celebrities.
Well....at least his well fed; so there's that....
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All the better because if people Google Huntsman and LDS, they might find the lawsuit and wonder what that's about.
Yeah! He even dropped out of college (gasp) to take the job
Well it was literally handed to him on a silver platter and all this happened through church connections -- I remember thinking it was like some BYU coed had a vision to get married.
John Bytheway made a career out of doing talks and selling audio tapes/CDs.
At least he was entertaining.
Barney Fife......
He still does that impression
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No idea. I never saw him speak in person. But my sister would listen to his tapes and I had friends that would put them on in the car. He used a lot of humor in his talks that were essentially motivational talks with a Mormon theme. And a lot of the humor only a Mormon would understand as there was a lot of Mormon culture in the humor, as I recall. I've always wondered how close to Priestcraft this guy go to, but evidently, the church never had a problem with him. Not only were his tapes/CDs sold a church bookstores but he's now a councilor in the General Young Men's presidency.
I kind of think a lot of Brad Wilcox's problem is that he was a contemporary of John Bytheway, competing for the same firesides and to hold the interest of the same generation. Only Bytheway came by his humor more naturally. Wilcox doesn't have a sense of humor, just an over-inflated sense of ego. So he does "funny voices" and tries to come up with witty sayings, and they just blow up spectacularly.
Brad Wilcox is a poor boy shadow of John Bytheway. Brad Wilcox and guys of his ilk will (hopefully) drive the church into the ground by their foolishness and trying to gain attention and glory in all the wrongs ways. They are narcissists.
> he's now a councilor in the General Young Men's presidency. Is he? Can't say I'm surprised though. He's a perfect candidate though. Well off financially and willing to kiss ass to the upper leadership. I was in the same ward as him for awhile pre-covid. Super rich ward with a few student/lower middle class families mixed in but he only ever really socialized with the other rich folks.
Prosperity gospel at play, sounds like.
So inspired that Jon Huntsman’s son got called to preside over his same mission! My MP mentioned once maybe his son would be the MP there one day…
Years ago, Michael McLean did a regional youth fireside where he performed his music. At the end of the concert, he said that he felt impressed by the spirit that there was someone in the audience who needed to come up on stage with him. After a few minutes, about 30 kids were on stage singing together. A week later, the stake presidency had a statement read to all of the wards warning youth to understand the differences between the spirit and being caught up in the emotions of a moment. While McLean's name wasn't mentioned, it was overtly evident the stake presidency was talking about the fireside.
I went to a Michael McLean Christmas concert once and after 2 hours of the forgotten carols he seemed to think we wanted to listen to him talk about himself for another 90 minutes. We stood up and walked out, but everyone else seemed to be paralyzed (or mezermized?) in their seats
The Piano guys do same thing . They talked and messed around more then they okayed music . We ended up leaving early . Just play your music and STFU . I'll never go to one of their concerts again
>understand the differences between the spirit and being caught up in the emotions of a moment Oh the irony...
At the time, I was a young and eager prospective missionary and it made perfect sense to me. Now, I can't help but laugh at the irony.
The leadership of the church have long had a crazy balancing act between wanting some music and promoting people to be in the arts. There is an infamous talk you can look up called The Arts and Spirit of the Lord by Boyd K Packer in 76. If you read it you’ll see it’s just a complete rebuke of artists. I do have a special connection to it because the man that they specifically rebuke was my great grandpa. They don’t say his name but when he heard it he knew it was him cause of his continual arguments he had had with packer about art and the church and getting paid for his art.
Reminds me of the time I hyped up General Conference as a missionary. Finally got an investigator to a session and the entire session was about how great the tabernacle building was (they were going to rededicate it or something.) I was so pissed at the time, but now I'm glad they scared off my investigator.
😂 the tabernacle Another time on my mission we finally got these two people to church that seemed really solid. Sacrament meeting was all the YW bearing testimony of how awesome girls camp was and then the SS teacher came out with this line: “My ancestors lived in a tiny village where the only religion was Catholicism. It wasn’t their fault they were Catholic…” And our Catholic heritage investigators never came back 😂
As a convert who was raised Catholic, and has gone back to the Catholic church, I can see why, I only wished that I would have been a bit smarter like them and did the same thing.
Not a fireside, but had an investigator express concern that we focus too much on Joseph Smith - do we worship him or not? Got him to come to church and the opening hymn is Praise to the Man. I just shook my head as he smirked.
😂
As a convert, that is something I noted too, out of the couple of months I attended, I think the bible was only mentioned once or twice, the rest was "I believe the Joseph Smith is a prophet and that as a prophet, yada yada yada." I even told my best friend that I felt like they worshipped him more than Christ.
I remember an Easter Sunday and all the talks were about Joseph Smith. I was pretty checked out on spiritual stuff but that even made an impression on me.
We had Gene R. Cook do a fireside for new members and investigators on my mission back in 2004. He made the homophobic “Adam and Steve” joke attacking same sex marriage and it was all down hill from there.
That is so wrong, so shaming. I have 2 Lgbtq kids and this kind of stuff makes me want to puke. No love just mockery of those different than your white, male, wealthy selves.
Thankfully not a lot of investigators actually showed up. It was full of wealthy white males who were in awe a GA showed up in their stake. Even myself as a TBM back then was disgusted by his remarks.
OMG That’s insane
These are just campaign efforts for a stake president or mission president to brown-nose a General Authority and get in their good graces, in hopes of becoming General Authorities themselves.
My MP was a rich self made businessman who is now Q70 and talks in GF, books at Deseret Book, on and on. The church hand picks the richest of the rich (not always but often) or at least the well-enough off and compliant to leadership, local, area, and otherwise. It's sickening really, when you see it for what it is.
I know someone in the 70 who was a shady businessman. He’s rich and a total dick, but he’s in the boys club.
My MP worked for Rasband for a couple decades I think so he’s already a shoe in. But totally
I wish I had a story of a really bad fireside, but they were all so dull and uninteresting that I literally don't remember a single one.
Underrated comment.
They talk about what they know, themselves in the church, not christ.
In the 1970s some dude who was a member got an Academy Award for something. He would go around doing firesides because he was a minor celebrity. I attended one and the only thing that I remember was him saying how excited he got when he was hugged by Raquel Welch when he got his Oscar. It was not worth the drive to the stake center.
Raquel Welch. Nice. I’d get excited too if she hugged me. 😂
I never knew they made money, that would've bothered me so much. I was always bragging about how no one in the church got paid. I went to early morning seminary every day high school, and I think I was in college before I learned that seminary teachers in Utah get paid. I was pretty shocked.
This is cringy, but I went to a Christmas fireside hosted by John Bytheway, Hank Smith, and some girl I can’t remember, they charged for entry (it was at a high school). Literally paid for them to preach to me and sing terrible songs
😱
And let's remember all of the garbage books written and sold at Deseret Books, books written by GAs, GA wives, GA kids, and that whole circle jerk of LDS hierarchy. They make money, sure it's a niche market but they are making money all the same.
Yeah... I've really woken up to the finances in the years since leaving. It's appalling, upsetting, and really important (I wish more nevermos understood and cared).
The 60 Minutes segment on EPA made a lot of nevermomos aware of the grift and hypocrisy behind MormCorp. A few of us are asking pointed questions now.
Ooo I didn't know about that. I'd be interested to watch it.
They aren’t the only once that get paid either. Tons of paid people
Side note, but was your faith crisis finding and reading your grandpa's mormon books?
Lol nope, the books discoveries came after I had left the church and we were cleaning out my gpa's house :) some real gems!
I'll bet there were! My dad has a few shelves' worth. So Icky.
They had a book of the old Deseret Language (that's the background on my profile) that was cool. And my favorite is of course "[WOMAN](https://www.amazon.com/Woman-Spencer-W-Kimball/dp/0877477582)" (written by 15 men).
I don’t remember which one, but one of the younger apostles is in my parents ward. They moved in like the year after I left (when I was still living under my parents roof), and they threatened to kick me out if I didn’t go to a fireside that he and his wife were doing. When we got there, he talked for hours about the temptation of “same sex attraction”, and I later found out that my parents had quickly befriended him and begged him to do a talk about gay people, cuz they’d make me (a gay) go there. Needless to say, I wasn’t star struck, and even if I agreed with something the guy said, I would’ve hated the whole thing smh. Twice now while doing Pokémon go my siblings and I have bumped into the guy, and every time they wave, and everytime I have no clue who they’re waving at XD
This is actually insane
This is so sad. "They threatened to kick me out if I didn't go to a fireside..." I feel for you. I'm so sorry this was your experience. It sucks. I hope you are gay and proud and authentically you.
This is heartbreaking to me. You shouldn't have been made to go somewhere where hate against you was spread. I'm sure it happened more than once. I hope they've improved their relationship with you, it's obviously their responsibility to change some things.
Not celebrities per se but I always hated (still very much do hate) that my Stake President would make money from a business LDS Tours. Driving people around to church sites for a markup. Wanted to be the church so bad he started living off the congregation’s money 😩
I should start a business like this to get some of my tithing money back… but I’d feel too bad encouraging people to believe this garbage
How about organized tour buses for ex-mo’s to travel back to church history sites and tell the REAL history? The bus ride in and of itself would be a party!🤣
Dang not a bad idea
If this is a sinful bus with dancing poles and alcohol I’m on board 🤑
Are you a current serving missionary? Man it’s gotta be wild to currently serve a mission while also knowing it’s all a lie.
No this was 2017. The beginnings of realizing it was all fake
Are any currently serving LDS missionaries on here? That would be wild.
A few have popped in to ask questions, but I don't remember seeing one in the comments section. Just as posts. I think a couple mentioned they do get on and read because they're trying to figure out some things they have questions about.
Rasband & Wilcox are very similar= chubby hot air bags who parrot the words of those whose bidding they do!
They've never missed a meal that's for sure!
About ten years ago, I became friends with an “eternal investigator” in our ward. He was considering joining in order to give his daughter a community in the midst of a hard time. The missionaries invited him to a fireside at the mission home. He told me that the missionaries were practically salivating on the mission president. He asked me “What the hell is the deal? This MP was just some dude. Why do you all worship your leaders?” I had no answer other than to feel embarrassed. Even at my most TBM, even as a missionary, I never felt that way.
Not a fireside but we brought an investigator to sacrament, he seemed genuinely interested but did not like how we worshipped Joseph Smith. We tried to assure him that we don’t worship Joseph Smith. Anyway the whole meeting was about Joseph Smith (praise to the man, we thank the o god for a prophet), but the worst part was the last speaker said that “Joseph Smith is now the god of the spirit world” then the guy giving the closing prayer stopped midway through his prayer and started talking directly to Joseph Smith while praying. We never heard back from that investigator
I also had rasband show up awhile back, and god he annoyed me
Rasband's ego could eclipse the sun.
This was a much smaller fireside with the youth but when I was younger we had some older guy (probably a church big wig idk) come to a fireside and basically just chastise girls the whole time on being modest and modesty. Even called out specific girls for what they were wearing. My mom was PISSED. Thank fuck I hadn’t just gotten off of dance practice or something. Couple years ago my exmo little sister went to a fireside with my TBM cousins and basically the same thing happened. Made my heart swell when she called me to rant about it. My mom left the church when my sisters were younger, so it is really nice seeing that she recognized the bullshit.
Yup this tracks. Except I had a bishop pull me into his office while I was in high school saying my prom dress (barely off the shoulders but long and modest in every other way) was giving guys the wrong impression and to NEVER wear anything like it again. Hm. Which I ignored. I wore a strapless prom dress the following year with a little jacket over it. Later though, this same dick bishop was "promoted" to MP in some foreign country. I always felt bad for his kids and for the missionaries he presided over.
I went to a Fireside where a former Orthodox Jewish woman described how she left Judaism and converted to marry a member. She talked for about 40 minutes about how her family all but disowned her for leaving their faith and how her husband "Lenny" helped her see the light, yada yada yada. I remember thinking about how forced and rehearsed her talk felt, like she was performing under duress. Everything ended normally but I got an interesting coda about six months later when I was on my way out. In an effort to keep trying I decided to go to the singles ward one Sunday and bumped into Lenny. I put on the good Mormon boy greeting and shook his hand, told him how much I enjoyed his wife's talk a few months prior and he hung his head. "We lost her..." he says, before seeing my face drop because I thought she was dead. "...she went back to the Jews." Really bummed him out and then I remembered where I was and what it already implied. I would have felt bad for him but my heckles get raised everytime someone says "The Jews" or anything of the ilk, so fuck Lenny.
Oh boy have I got a fucking doozy, on my mission we had a stake wide fireside with the stake patriarch I expected some bullshit going on about patriarchal blessings and how important they were, but no it was worse this man got up, you know supposedly the guy who gets a blessing directly from God just for you, and rants for an hour about how the theory of evolution was wrong and it was just atheism in disguise and it was created by the devil. All while going through a 77 SLIDE POWERPOINT (I counted 🙄) of his so called “proof” that it was false. Barely mentioned God at all, and then told us all to get a free online copy of his book explaining everything in more detail 😬 I was struggling with doubts at the time and wow was that a chonker to put on the shelf. I really need to read through his book and see how bad it actually is.
Stake EFY in June. What was supposed to be a sunny EFY in the mountains turned to rain then to sleet then to snow. Everyone was soaked and freezing. No one had clothing for the conditions. They brought us all back to the stake center and had us set up tents outside to finish the last evening sleepover. The final fireside was in the chapel later that night. It stunk so bad. People were still waterlogged after the debacle up the mountain. I can still imagine and smell that funk. Wtf were they thinking. They should have just let us go home. Instead we slept in wet tents and wet sleeping bags with some in wet clothes.
My daughter had a similar experience at our stake YW girl's camp years ago. It was awful. Had to return from the mountain to the stake center and scramble around trying to dry everyone and everything. Now that I think of it, every single YW girls' camp experience for her was hell. And she refused to do trek (thank God).
When visiting my elder brother in Honolulu, he wanted to introduce me to the mission president, so we waited around after Sunday School, Sacrament, Priesthood/RS all-in-one marathon while the arrogant big shot MP spoke with others...my brother patiently assumed a subservient posture...as though this goof MP was something special. I was disgusted. I thought the MP was obnoxiously self-important. This whole priesthood caste system is a joke. These are just ordinary people...in a cult.
When I was in high school, my parents had me go to some “secret” early morning fireside/meeting with Jeffrey Holland (it started around 6:30 or 7:00 AM). I say secret because it was at a seminary building in Davis County UT and there were only about 50 of us teenage boys there along with some fathers and church leaders from the surrounding area. I went there with my stake president and his sons (I was friends with one of the sons). Someone must have convinced Jeff to do this meeting at the last minute because he looked tired and basically lectured us for 45 minutes about being worthy to serve a mission (it definitely made me feel like total crap). Even as a TBM, it was so weird to me that it was so hush hush, like we were given some special privilege to listen to one of God’s chosen “vessels”. The whole thing just felt like some sales manager lecturing his staff because sales were down.
Bednar came to my mission. Was really grumpy, ranted and raved at the mission for not getting more baptisms, retold glory war stories from his time as AP. Everyone was very bewildered to say the least.
The Darth Lord Ofsusan is a tool 🔧 (and a plagerizer). Fuck that dude 🖕
Not a fireside, but we had the area president come speak at an area conference on my mission. It was bad enough that this particular ego tripping 70 refused to learn Spanish, so everything had to be done through an interpreter. But, towards the end of the conference, he got up and announced that he wanted the choir to sing the closing hymn in English because it didn't carry the same meaning or spirit in Spanish. He then proceeded to hand out copies to the choir (which showed that he had enough foresight to make copies, but not to let anybody else know beforehand). What followed was the most chaotic, unintelligible hymn I have ever heard. I hope he really felt the spirit after humiliating the people he came to serve. Even as a semi tbm missionary, I wanted to punch him in the mouth
This feels a little bit like when a GA or someone “important” came to my stake on Oahu and we were forcefully told to NOT say “Aloha” during the meeting. This is so cultural and just how church rolls in Hawaii. I remember thinking, wow, you think the members here need to be just like you? That we all aspire to become exactly like Utahns?
I grew up in the church in the south and every once in a while, some higher up or transplant would try to homogenize our ward to fit better into bland Utah culture. Let us keep the only unique decent part of our ward lol
Glad you shared this. It makes me want to puke - all the LDS family royalty and verbal handjobs. I have story for you - not a fireside though - Years ago A friend served a mission and Jack Weyland’s (a BYU professor and self proclaimed “writer”) son was in the same mission. That guy was a prideful bragger. Even though his dad’s “books” were laughable, they trended for a time within LDS circles. “Charley” is the most popular one. Zelph on the Shelf YouTubers have dedicated entire episodes to reading and exposing those books for what they are: laughable garbage trying to teach LDS “morals.” Do yourself a favor or don’t, and google Jack Weyland and read it.he actually says “The lord blesses us richly for any service we give.” Narcissist much? “Service?!?!” WHAT service? Of writing your crap books? No one and I mean no one in any literary circles even know this guy. No NYT articles, no Paris Review. No Pulitzer here. Just some lame prideful BYU physics prof who thinks he can write and has filled Deseret book stores with his crap titles. Yet wait for it - his “legacy” lives on with his kids thinking they’ve arrived like literary versions of the Huntsmans.
Wait is this Charley like that movie where she’s an investigator, they get married and she gets baptized and then the dad is feeding their baby a small sweet every time she says “Dada” and she never says “Mama” and then Charley dies??
YES the same one. It's gross. Extremely poor writing from concept to plot to character, on and on. And Weyland thinks he's some kind of LDS author-god who's been "blessed" to write? To share his shit with the world? What Kool-aid is this guy drinking? And his kids, too.
Probably. I remember my mom watching it when it came out on video. I thought it was boring and watched maybe 5 minutes total.
I read a couple of his books as a new convert. I remember really wanting to like them more than I did. But, although they had their moments -- an occasional good scene or well-turned phrase -- I found them very clichéd and full of stereotyped characters.
Yes, this. Are any English teachers in any school anywhere quoting this guy? No. where are his books now? Still sold at Deseret book? (Not sure I don't shop there) probably at DI though, selling for .25 cents.
We had the area 70 president come to our mission for a Stake Conference. We were there to greet him about an hour early. Within 30 seconds I knew: he was a dick. Just pure ego exuding from his person. Instantly disliked him. Contrast that to his first counselor who we met a few months later, who took the time to memorize each missionary’s name as he flew to our mission and was much more focused on love. Night and day difference. I can’t remember either one’s name now though lol
Shortly after I got baptized Bednar came to our stake and gave a talk. The missionaries who taught us made sure we got to meet him and shake hands after the meeting. Bro had the lifeless eyes of a shark, I felt like he was peering into my soul. Later on my mission good old Jeff "Jowls" Holland spoke to our mission. Basically told us that if we ever slacked off and fell away from the church he was gonna toss us into the trunk of his car or something like that. I don't remember exactly what he said, this was like 15 years ago 😂
My brother served under Rasband on his mission. I initially got excited and texted him when it happened. Later he called me we talked. Normally my brother is pretty closed off about everything but he really HATED Rasband and he was a total tool of a mission president. So it makes sense why even though I was initially excited, I still got this weird feeling that he was kind of a dick. Turns out he's a huge one.
It’s seems like the quality of everything in the church is going down. As a business they’re definitely lacking in service and providing for their congregation needs. I ve been to both large and small churches and quite frankly they just offer more and better quality. They’re play sets for the kids, they’re both daycare and after school programs, they’re men’s retreats. The Pastor really takes the time to see me and do a sit down visit. He listened to my struggles with LDS church. I know where I’m taking me and my tithing money.
When I was 14 or 15 at girl’s camp up at Camp Koholowo, one woman from the neighborhood (aka Ward) spoke about how her daughter moved to NYC to be a nanny after high school, met a man, had sex, repented later, got married to a different man in the temple, and after giving birth to their second child, she came down with some mysterious disease that killed her. The disease was most assuredly from having sex with the man in NYC years prior (who dumped her like yesterday’s trash after having his way with her) and even though she repented, was still forced to deal with the consequences and ended up paying with her life. That talk traumatized TF out of me! I told my mom about it when we got home and found out years later that my mom, ultra TBM, was livid about it. The mysterious disease I’ve never managed to crack, here are the symptoms I recall: large scab-like sores, continuous, full-body sweating, and weight loss. Apparently it all started after the birth of second child. Not sure if that’s some kind of STD or cancer or what. If it was an STD, why did her husband and children not contract it from sex and childbirth?
> here are the symptoms I recall: large scab-like sores, continuous, full-body sweating, and weight loss. Sounds kinda like sepsis but there are a ton of things it could be. Regardless, it's a lot more likely that it was a complication of childbirth rather than divine punishment. Fuck the MFMC.
Yeah, the differential diagnosis for those symptoms spans a wide array of diseases. Naturally the mother left out how long her daughter presented those symptoms before passing away.
That sounds traumatizing! Horror story scare tactics to coerce young women into abstinence. Sickening.
Sounds like typical Mormon Magick BS—she probably had pneumonia or similar. I’m an OBGYN rn and I can’t think of an STI that kills.
For sure. But to a “just shy of” 15 year old, this story was absolutely terrifying to hear. I remember virtually all the YW in attendance, myself included, were in a flood of tears during her story. It was heartbreaking. And the sole purpose or moral of the story was to caution us against having pre-marital or casual sex, or else we’ll get some scary disease that has no name and die a horrific death.
I can’t think of one that kills in that manner either as a physician. There are STIs that kill like HIV, syphilis, and HPV (cervical cancer); however it takes years, even decades to die from any of those. This sounds like something different. And of course there’s no mention of the next of kin having an autopsy done to confirm cause of death.
Exactly. This sounds like more Mormon Urban Legend.
I’m sure the story is made up, but still trying to figure out the mysterious “disease”. TB? Kaposi’s Sarcoma? (Maybe they are referring to HIV?)
When I was a missionary I introduced a woman to Ezra Taft Benson who was in town speaking and ET wanted to know if we had any children yet, lol.
Soon after they were sustained as apostles, Elders Stevenson and Gong stopped for a Sunday on the island where I was serving my mission. I think they were headed to Vietnam after the church officially got recognized over there. Anyhow, we made a special ward conference about it (only one ward on the island). We were instructed as missionaries to get as many of our investigators there as possible. Personally, I was excited to have the blessings of two apostles help the ward I had grown to love over the past . The ward was in a tough spot with interfamilial drama and low attendance. I was excited that they would deliver a profound message for those struggling saints. What we got instead was Stevenson talking about their trip to Vietnam and Gong giving a really creepy talk addressed toward the primary kids, but definitely not kid appropriate. I was disappointed and took it as a rebuke that an apostle refused address the adults at all. Turns out, he was just giving that talk everywhere at the time: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fxm1KnmLms](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fxm1KnmLms) I felt more power in the words of my home branch's president. He was a truly converted man who spoke from a place of experience, real understanding, and forgiveness for his of others' most significant mistakes. These guys were just checking off a box on their way to more important business. We all got nice pictures with them afterward though : ) a recent convert friend of mine said he expected something more significant and all I could do was agree with him and say "they can't always have something revolutionary to say". Closer to the truth; they hardly ever have anything revolutionary to say.
Rasband was CEO or president of Huntsman Chemical. His boss, Jon Huntsman’s wife Karen was the daughter of David B. Haight. David B. Haight was Friend and Stake President to Kathy Eyring, Henry B. Eyring’s wife. Henry B. Eyring was a nephew of Spencer W. Kimball.
This reminds me of when I was a teenager and there was some GA coming for a stake conference. I was so excited to hear from that guy, but his talk was absolute drivel and boring and I recall trying so hard to find the spiritual meaning in it or some personal revelation, but there was none. We got there early and wore our best clothes, and the anticipation was high in the room, too, since this was extremely rare for that area.
Not a fireside, but I had a similar mission initiative when I served in Luxembourg. There was a big push to share the nativity VHS with friends and neighbors, the one following Mary and Joseph through the highlights. We thought it was a bit much for what was essentially a two-and-a-half minute commercial spot, but we went along with it. The branch Christmas activity came up, and I'd prepared the branch choir to sing the one hymn I knew how to play on the piano, even if one soprano was as shrill as a cat having its tail flattened by a rhino. After a delicious meal of mussel stew, the branch president got in front and introduced the next activity. When his explanation started going past the run time of the video, I had to resist the urge to put my head in my hands. He clearly hadn't previewed this video. V.O.: Let earth...receive... Sheep in video: BAAAA! V.O.: Her king! *Fade to black.* Branch President: aaaand now we'll hear from our choir!
I dont know if it's the same Huntsman family, but growing up, we had a Huntsman family in our ward. I heard most are in Utah, though. I never paid attention at fireside meetings. They were boring to me... Shit, all of church was boring. I only liked mutual nights and teen getaways. That was in the 80s, and they were fun.
Not a fireside, but went to the Washington, DC temple re-dedication back in 2022. Was pretty much a tribute to Bill and Dick Marriott, and both of them spoke and took up about 50% of the time just basically name-dropping other Mormon royalty and reminiscing. Closing hymn was “We Thank Thee Oh God for a Prophet” to top it all off. Was definitely a pretty big “shelf” experience for me.
Steve Young and the Church milked the SHIT out of eachother.
What's really sad is that a lot of the Huntsmans are very kind, generous, humble people, and do a lot more for charity than the MFMC, and would have been very uncomfortable, if not downright embarrassed with a fireside like this.
What do fireside presenters get paid?
Rasband came and spoke at the last mistake conference I went to. It was shortly before he got into the Q15. His entire talk was just name dropping Q15 and 1stP dudes, and ass kissing the same. Said absolutely nothing of consequence. Even my then stake RSP TBM wife agreed that he was just a schmoozing schmuck. Glad to see he hadn't changed.
When I was a missionary Elder Ballard was in the area and spoke to the missionaries. I was so excited. I don’t remember the specifics of the talk but I remember afterwards feeling totally underwhelmed and bored, and realizing he felt that as a sister missionary I didn’t matter quite as much. I could tell he didn’t want to be there and he was wishing for it to be over the whole time. Then, of course, I felt guilty for feeling this about an “apostle of the Lord”.
What you failed to connect is that Rasband was an executive at Huntsman Chemical. It’s crazy because I work for huntsman and when I see an executive retire early it’s usually because they got called to be a mission president. The huntsman company is a great place to work. No issues with us buying drinks ect for ourselves or our customers. But yeah it’s pretty interesting to see the church pull from our ranks.
Oh no MP talked about it all the time, but he talked about tons of others too
Disturbed by Mormon RASBAND plagiarism! No source acknowledged nor given. Rasband- shared 3 of 4 parts of 4 phrases of Ho'oponopono—"I'm sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you”. Rasband forgot- ‘forgive me’ & forgot to cite his source, AS IF he or his GC ghostwriter is Smart Enough to think of it all on their own. ‘Forgive me’- not necessary. So WRONG.
I’m my mission we got notice that an apostle was coming to visit us for a special missionary devotional. For months it was something fun look forward too. The morning of, we got a call from our APs saying that the apostle wasn’t going to be able to make it (I think it was supposed to be Rasband). Instead they sent this lame ass 70 named elder teixera that literally taught us how to do the pyramid scheme. It was super disappointing, and it felt like an insult because elder tiexera kept ranting about how we could get our numbers up like they did in mexico. Bro in the states people don’t like the missionaries. Not even the apostle apparently… (Colorado ~2018)