3. Many members drink caffeinated beverages, but not coffee or tea (no surprise there)
2. Many members hate BYU, especially if they went there

and number 1

Many Mormons seem obsessed with nudity or revealing clothing.

1) I think home teaching is an utter waste of time for 80% of the ward. Why not focus more effort on the 20% who need good visits.

2) I feel guilty that pageants make me cringe. I feel even more guilty that they don’t move me like they seem to move everyone else.

3) Deseret Book offends all of my sensibilities. From the shrine of graven images to the walls and walls of sermons for profit.

4) In fact, I despise and loathe every attempt to take advantage of Mormon culture for money - novels, music, Book of Mormon action figures …

5) When my wife asked if our boys were getting old enough that she should be careful to cover up in front of them, I encouraged her to do the opposite. (She didn’t need much encouragement). What better place to learn what a human body looks like than in your family.

6) We use face cards (apparently like the rest of you heathens).

7) When my in-laws insist on blessing the food in restaurants, I don’t participate.
I don’t usually close my eyes during prayers when I watch General Conference on TV. But I do when I go to General Priesthood at the stake center.

9) I love the Church and don’t feel like a lemming.

10) (deep breath … muster the courage … admit it …) I took my family to a nude beach and it was one of the most innocent and wholesome things we’ve ever done. The wife and kids loved it. We’ll probably do it again. (… whew … I said it)

This is a Mormon blog. Are you sure you are even a member of our church?

Adults playing video games in church meetings is a pet peeve of mine. Why not just go home and play it on the big screen?

Brandt: I put the whole crying-thing in there because recently, one woman got up and started crying about her experience at the cannery. I almost started choking. And for back scratching? It makes me CRAZY. Nothing to me is better than a good massage but in CHURCH??? I can honestly say I’ve NEVER seen this done except in our church meetings and it’s quite common. WTH???!!!

I love to watch football on Sunday and I think we should cancel church on the Superbowl so the whole day can be truly devoted to its proper celebration.

I not only play with face cards regularly but have also gambled in real casinos spending only up to $25 dollars which my husband and I declared ‘entertainment money’.

I HATE it when people bless the refreshments (junk food) at activities by using the phrase “bless this to strengthen and nourish our bodies” (or any such phrasing…)

I cringe when people say they know this is the “only true church.” Also when I bear my testimony I go out of my way to say I know that any church that brings people to a better relationship with their Savior is good and has truth and that I just think our church as the most truth.

I am a member of the Relief Society Presidency and I don’t always do my own Visiting teaching and think that if you call someone on the last day of the month you both know it is only for statistics and not because you really love and care about them…

Wow…I didn’t realize I’d have so much to add…
I’m trying to decide if I feel better or worse…
Let me pour a nice cold glass of Diet Coke (the proven nectar of the Gods) while I contemplate the situation…

re: 6 - crying in fast and testimony meeting over something that’s not sad - I couldn’t help but laugh because that’s my wife’s grandmother to a “T”

re: 8 - scratching of the back during sacrament meeting - college married student wards are the worst for that - I am all about tenderness, even in church, but I do think it goes overboard

re: 17 - primary programs - I think these are seriously my favorite sacrament meetings of the year. I absolutely love the little flubs that go on during the meeting!

1. I hated seminary and won’t expect my daughter to attend it when she’s of age. I believe that teens need sleep and should concentrate on core subjects first. I also got kicked out of seminary when I was caught sitting in my car doing homework instead of going into class one too many times.

2. I don’t like our Mormon culture that preaches “obey obey obey” and like to use my brain more than blind obedience. And I question authority of all types, including those in the church.

3. I let my 7-year old daughter play with make-up, wear 2-piece swimsuits and spaghetti strapped tops, and lip synch to Snoop Dogg.

4. I proudly wear a bikini most of the time. I think the body is a beautiful thing and there is nothing shameful in wearing a 2-piece if that’s what one is comfy in.

5. I hated garments and cried for days after I first started wearing them. I then tapered off to not wearing them at all. Despite all my efforts of dressing modestly, nothing I could do would hide them enough and I felt like a freak if anyone saw me wearing them while changing at the gym.

6. I detest fast & testimony meetings and really hate it when people cry and things that really aren’t sad. It seems the eeked out tears are supposed to signify a greater level of spirituality but it comes across as bizarre and contrived to me.

7. I hated attending BYU and sometimes it felt down right cultish to me. I attended two devotionals and after that, took the opportunity to sleep in instead.

8. I give really dirty looks to anyone scratching their husband/boyfriend/brother’s backs during Sacrament meeting.

9. I never worry about a movie’s rating. And I watch what ever TV show looks appealing to me, having a particular soft spot for movies about high school (The OC, 90210, Dawson’s Creek, Gossip Girl).

10. I correct anyone who calls me Sister. And I call just about everyone by their first name.

11. I let the missionaries watch TV at my house.

12. I hate the wedding announcements that come with a photo of the happy couple wearing matching outfits.

13. I think it’s disturbing how young some of the LDS kids are when they get married. And start having babies right away.

14. I wish there was a junior sacrament meeting for the little kids. I believe that the noise level and number of screaming children kills any spiritual feelings I would otherwise have in church. And on days when I want a little pomp and circumstance, like Easter and Christmas, I go to church with a good friend, who is Lutheran. They have the BEST music and sermons! (PS: Also, I feel like our music often sounds like a funeral is taking place.)

15. I never wear denim to church (or nylons either).

16. I correct people who refer to my husband as the spiritual head of our home. Um, that would actually be me– he is a non practicing Catholic.

17. I mostly dislike the primary programs put on during Sacrament meeting. They’re only marginally cute and mostly one big chaotic hour.

18. I hate that most church members naturally assume women are SAHMs.

19. I go for long runs on the Sabbath and actually feel it’s an entirely appropriate activity– it clears my head, is good for my physical temple, and gives me an hour’s worth of peace.

20. I sometimes leave church for an hour while my daughter is in primary and get the grocery shopping done.

21. I never fix casseroles or anything with jello.

22. I don’t like visiting teaching or home teaching. It’s time I just don’t have and is better spent with my family.

23. I have more non Mormon friends than Mormon friends and don’t feel there’s anything wrong with it. While they all know I’m LDS, I don’t preach to them or try to get them to go to church with me. I respect their beliefs.

24. Some of my best guy friends are gay and I also think one in particular is one of the most Christlike people I know.

I’m a darned long song;
I’m way too long.
It’s like you’re singing two whole songs.
You sing me once then repeat again
I cycle back and never end!

I’m a darned long song;
I’ll make you yawn.
You’ll wish the electric chair’s turned on!
I’m like a torture chamber’s rack
I’ll make the terror suspect crack.

2) After practicing the primary program song, “We Listen to a Prophet’s voice and hear the Savior’s too,” for a couple of months with a primary chorister that lacked bra padding, I now can’t here that hymn without thinking, “We Listen to a Prophet’s voice and see her nipples too.”

3) Watching a primary chorister teach the children “Oh What do you do in the Summertime” involved her doing “air motions” to each of the activities described in the song. When she rushed way too fast through the motion to “swing in a tree up high”, it resembled…well, do it in front of a mirror and you will see.

4) I had negative thoughts when the Elder’s Quorum called to check on my home teaching for the month and I had to inform him that no one had given me an assignment.

5) I had negative thoughts when the Elder’s Quorum called to check on my home teaching for the month and I had to inform him that the partner he had said would call me (and guide me as a new member to the ward in meeting those families he was already familiar with) never did.

6) I enjoy eating green tea ice cream.

7) I have supported a couple of “stop the pop” campaigns in fighting obesity and diabetes and would rather see people give up their big gulps than their iced tea.
As a married couple, we remove our garments for intimacy. By our definition, intimacy ends the following morning and that’s when we resume wearing them.

9) I encouraged the idea of continuing our ward’s support of community cub scout programs rather than starting our own pack with extremely small numbers.

10) I enjoyed the occurrence years ago in a singles ward when a member of the ward brought his college choral group to perform in sacrament meeting and after the closing prayer, they performed Ave Maria while still in the chapel. I found it humorous when the bishop, who later discovered that something improper may have occurred, assailed during our ward council the performance of the song “Via Maria”, as he put it.

1. If I never work in Primary again, I’ll be a happy girl (despite my mom-of-young-kids status)
2. I argue with anyone who says “I don’t know who said it, but ANYWAY….” just because I can and because usually these people are the ones to stretch their “quote” so far from its original that it’s almost unrecognizable.
3. I’m uncomfortable (but not unwilling) confiding in any male authority figure.
4. I declassify certain swear words for regular use and don’t feel guilty about it.
5. I hate BYU. I went there and feel justified in hating it.
6. I hate people that love BYU. Because I’m petty like that.
7. And on a similar note, anyone that quotes from the BYU standards to prove ANYTHING has just lost his/her argument. Automatically.

John,
Does your love and concern begin and end with Mormon teens only or does your worldview extend beyond the LDS sphere?

Here’s another lead singer of “questionable moral standing” you may enjoy: http://youtube.com/watch?v=380C_nVJotY&feature=related

You’re not the only one. (That’s the reason why they put a pause in there at just the right points so that we, i.e., those of us who had the “true” endowment, can loath those who are not so privy.) You’re just an Abnormalist, along with all the rest of us Abnormalists!

I attend evangelical Christian services on Easter.

I follow my husband’s advice on garments.

I don’t follow his advice on anything else.

During RS I find friends with problems they need to urgently discuss, and I take them out to my car where we talk and cry and sometimes go for a Coke. (sisterhood)

I count the above as Visiting Teaching.

BUT:

I still (surreptitiously) make the old signs that have been removed from the Temple Ceremony. Don’t know what that’s all about. Guess I just like being weird. Does anyone else do that?

“2. I don’t let my wife put devotional MormonAds or other Mormon kitsch on the walls of our home,”

“I think MomronAds are a travesty that are just catchy phrases for people to smile at.”

There is nothing wrong with MormonAds. You just need to find the right ones to hang up:

http://www.divinecomedy.net/?p=mormonadz (some are BYU specific, but most are really funny).

It’s that secret Coke recipe.

I knew Coke was evil!

10. I love tiramisu and rum cake–always have, even as a kid when my parents didn’t like me ordering them as dessert and my mom would suggest I try to walk a straight line after.
9. I never attended Homemaking while it was called Homemaking, and only attended Enrichment when I was called as Enrichment Leader. I refuse to allow crafts into my home and have never attended a pampered chef party.
8. I multi-task during church and have proposed a sacramental drive-thru for vacations (”5 to go, hold the dry council, but we’ll take the youth speakers on CD if you have that”).
7. I do not like any food for which the base ingredient is Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup.
6. From March to October, I wear a bikini almost non-stop all weekend, changing for church and to go out to eat.
5. I have been known to use a few German words now and again. I was semi-proud when my son exclaimed today “What the crap?!” when he saw some bad grades posted on his teacher’s web site. Train up a child . . .
4. I think “LDS Literature” is an oxymoron. Also not a fan of The 5 People You Meet in Heaven or any of those Christmas Box-type books. Basically, I hate books that use cheap sentimental manipulation to wring tears out of you over poorly fleshed-out fictional characters.
3. I am a fiscal conservative, social libertarian, global warming skeptic. But I recycle and use solar heating on my pool.
2. I have never felt guilty about working outside the home (even though I have 3 kids), despite my dad’s best efforts to guilt me.
1. I am practically marinating in diet coke.

Kinda makes me wonder which devotionals are worse - BYU’s or BYU-Idaho’s

I vote for BYU-Idaho

Well, that’s for me to know and you to sell your way up to, my friend.

If ya’ll start a church…I’m joining!!!

“Diamond Sutra”–Is that a sex manual for top-selling Amway reps?

Just wondering.

I agree with you about “the MormonAds adn other Mormon kitsch.”

I think MomronAds are a travesty that are just catchy phrases for people to smile at.

Another one of my peeves - When GA’s tell stories about “Brother so-and-so…not a member…became a member…and is now a stake president/bishop/GA”

It kinda sounds like that’s the ultimate goal…becoming someone of prominence in the church

1. I listen to Anglican cathedral music as my sole devotional music on Sundays,

2. I don’t let my wife put devotional MormonAds or other Mormon kitsch on the walls of our home, and

3. Lately, I alternate between the Bible, Tao Te Ching and Diamond Sutra for my devotional reading.

1) i wore a bikini when i was pregnant. no spandex tents for me! i looked good, too.

2) i encourage my husband to have facial hair (he loves shaving once weekly), and have tried to get him to wear a non-white shirt to church (i fail every time). i may have to have a laundry accident.

3) i don’t read the scriptures nearly as often as we’re told we should.

4) my longest-term friend (since 3rd grade) is gay (but never was LDS). since neither he nor i have found a way to reconcile the reality of his orientation with either scripture or modern statements, we just hope that somehow it’s all going to work out alright in the end. i tend to get a little testy with church folks about this issue.

5) also not a Republican (my husband just quit them last year). I think Mitt is probably a great guy and would possibly have made a good president as far as fiscal issues go (heaven knows we could use somebody fiscally competent in office), he acted like an idiot during his campaign. I rolled my eyes, hissed and told him to shut up more than once (talking to the TV, because i’m insane).

6) semi-vegetarian.

7) hate church activities on saturdays.
don’t enjoy Relief Society. i should probably speak up more often and “be the change i want to see” but for now i’m corrupting your kids in Primary.

9) wish we had a nursery for Sacrament Meeting.

10) pioneer-worship drives me nuts. why don’t we set up shrines and burn incense in front of them, too?

before we had kids, we used to constantly pass notes during Sacrament Meeting. i think our goal was to see who could crack the other one up first. i also hate the Living Scriptures videos and the ridiculous un-cancellable agreement you have to sign in order to buy them. It’s a scam nowadays.

2.) When I blessed my three kids, I did not ask/bless that any of them would serve missions or get married in the temple. I asked/blessed that they would be good human beings who would learn to love and serve their fellow man, and who would learn to rely and trust in their conscience/spirit, regardless of peer or institutional pressure.

3.) I wear my garments about 50% of the time, and never on weekends, except to go to church. I’ve “guilted” my wife into the same habit, but don’t feel guilty about it.

4.) I don’t feel guilty about many of the past sins I’m suppossed to feel guilty about, including many violations of the so-called law of chastity. (I was going to say more, but will leave it at that, for now…)

5.) I will teach my two sons that masturbation is natural, but that like eating and a host of other biological urges, gluttony and excess is “sin,” while moderation/balance/control is an important principle of happiness.

6.) I see the eyes of God and am moved more by people who are broken, flawed, and sinful, than I do in the perfect and upright. As such, the Telestial Kingdom feels more real, and has more appeal for me, than the Celestial Kingdom.

7.) Joseph Smith really didn’t come alive for me until I read Fawn Brodie.

8.) While I find the word of God on the pages of the Standard Works, I’m bothered by our over-reliance on them and the time we waste re-reading them ad nauseum. Tolstoy, Hugo, Dostoevsky, Twain, Roth, McCarthy, and countless others can fill our hearts and souls as much as Moses, Paul, and Nephi.

9.) I wish Mormonism would teach a form of Buddhist-like meditation to supplement our more traditional forms of prayer and fasting as a way to commune with the Divine.

10.) Mormons wedding receptions bore me to tears. I’m jealous of our Mormon ancestors whose parties and celebrations of life sounded like real barnstormers, in part because their “hearts were made glad by the fruit of the vine.”

But I am way to inhibited for that. For me it’s enough to walk the beaches in a speedo.

Stevo-o, I’m not a naturist, but I respect them and see nothing wrong with it. I imagine if you live your whole life seeing naked people in non-sexual situations then the modern media obsession with the body loses its power.

I will not be defined by a TR.

I almost forgot. I eat tiramisu every chance I get (it has espresso in it, shhhhhh don’t tell).

10. I play games on my phone all during sacrament meeting, and my wife does the same (unless there’s a speaker that catches our attention)
9. Though we’ve only been married 7 months, we REFUSED to go to a married-student ward (to listen to the students jockey for position on how spiritual they are)
8. I do attend BYU-Idaho, but don’t consider President Kim Clark’s words to be scripture
7. I roll my eyes at pioneer stories (both my parents are converts, I grew up in Detroit, MI)
6. I think that we will have Coke in heaven, and can’t wait to drink it without health ramifications
5. I have strong issues with Utah/Idaho Mormons who refer to the Eastern US as “The Mission Field” or think that because they live in a highly populated area that they are better
5a. I also take issue with people (my wife’s family included) that feel that they “know what it’s like” living in a non-Mormon populated area…(”We have bad stuff here you know)
4. I usually don’t go to church on vacation, like traveling on Sundays, and don’t have an issue going out to eat on Sundays (the wife is different)
3. I listen to Dragonforce (one of the greatest speedmetal bands in the world - just watch the guitar solo on the video “Through the Fire and Flames)
2. I agree and disagree with many things of BRM and JFS
1. I do homework on Sundays and don’t feel the least little bit bad about it, I use notes for online quizes that say “Closed book,” and I lament at how people can’t do assignments without having to ask for every little nuance of the assignment

Consider my sins confessed

I’ll show you mine if you show me yours!

Thank you

I like to vacation in places like Thailand and wear nothing but a swimsuit for weeks. My wife and I did this in 2004 and 2005 (costa rica) and I can’t wait to do it again.

1. I drink Diet Coke by the liters and don’t try to hide it.
2. I don’t fast on Fast Sundays.
3. I LOVE 80’s music! I was a Madonna wannabee.
4. I delete most faith promoting emails.
5. I watch R rated movies without guilt.
6. I don’t like most musical numbers in church…too boring. What’s wrong with guitars?
7. I walk out of RS when I am fed up with the comments.
8. I don’t think garments have anything to do with salvation.
9. I love the smell of coffee.
10.I don’t want to share my beliefs with my non-member friends.

John….I LOVED that Erasure clip and am happy to have the song stuck in my head for the rest of the day!

I totally hated the MTC. It felt like prison! And the food stunk.

But my mission was pretty great. Though not the two best years. I’d trade 10 minutes with my son for those two years in a heart-beat.

OK so while I can’t say some of these things some of you have said (I AM a republican, have an MBA, voted for Mitt, hate NPR etc.) but I do have some confessing to do.

10. I could drink Coke by the gallon. Love it.

9. I heard someone tell me a faith promoting experience recently and I was nodding “oh sure” but thinking ‘gimme a break, God doesn’t care if you have a nice house’.

8. I too research and expose faith promoting emails. I hate fraud.

7. I have a Koran by my bedside.

6. I like the organ playing at my families non-LDS church better. It’s nice and loud.

5. I think Mike Huckabee is a boob (oh wait, that’s not a cultural sin…maybe saying “boob” is).

4. I will never, never, NEVER take a family picture in denim, rugby, or any other matching T-shirts.

3. I cheered loudly and proudly for Michigan State basketball and was thrilled we beat BYU this season…and every season (I attended both schools).

2. I still like to listen to My Life with the Thrill Kill Cult, Sisters of Mercy and others…..and btw, thanks for getting A little Respect stuck in my head. I love Erasure.

1. I don’t feel quilty about 2-10

My brother, you as a blatant sinner against Mormon culture, are not special. We are all sinners in the eyes of Janice Kapp Perry, Stephen Covey, the Correlation Committee, and Aunt Kimball Smith Cannon. The point is you have recognized it, brother. That is the first step!

I learned the gospel from Orson Scott Card and the Living Scriptures audio tapes. I listen to the dramatized New Testament CD’s just about every day on my commute and get choked up every seven minutes.

I call the members of the stake presidency and the bishoprics by their first names (and when I meet an apostle I’ll call him Brother Dallin or Brother Hal).

I think naturists have a healthy attitude about the human body and am fascinated by what LDS naturists talk about at LDSsdf.org

I lean vegetarian.

I love Goth Metal (Lacuna Coil, Within Temptation, Kamelot) and I love bluegrass.

I love Hugh Nibley and Approaching Zion yet find myself a very committed fiscal conservative and libertarian Republican.

Most of the things that make me “special” and “unique” in Provo really aren’t that special or unique. I know dozens of people just like me in the church and just about everyone I know is just as “liberated.”

About 75% percent of the times that I go to the temple I keep picturing Palpatine from Star Wars as Lucifer. Vice versa when I watch Revenge of the Sith.

I prefer Lord of the Rings to Chronicles of Narnia as the great fable of good vs. evil.

I prefer The Matrix to Star Wars as an allegory to priesthood power.

2) I think it a sin to deface your scriptures by marking 80% of the words–how does that help you find stuff? I have a BOM that I marked religiously with 6 different colors during my mission, but I didn’t create a key and now I cannot recall exactly what the some of the colors were meant to represent. Ha! I haven’t marked a scripture in years, and prefer to keep the pages pristine. And guess what? I can still find those important scriptures!

3) I read the Holman CSB bible, and love it. I like reading it better than the Book of Mormon, too.

4) I can’t stand the “roundtable” discussions that the GAs have incorporated in their training meetings of late. They make me want to poke my eyes/ears out so I don’t have to witness the clearly canned dialog.

5) I masturbate from time to time and don’t feel bad about it. I plan on one day teaching my children that in moderation, it can help quell the body’s needs without resorting to other, more overtly sinful actions (pornography, sexual relations with other people before marriage, etc.). Its also much better than letting desire lead to lustful thoughts for days on end before your subconscious takes over in the middle of the night to do what you might have done for yourself in 5 minutes.

6) I’m confident that if I constantly invited my friends, acquaintances, and coworkers to church, I would find myself with fewer friends and acquaintances, and with some pretty awkward workplace relationships.

7) Some of my best friends and closest colleagues are homosexuals, and I reject any legislation forbidding gay marriage.
NPR is my bread and butter, especially “This American Life”, which usually is about as far from the American life of typical Mormon culture as you can get.

9) I have a sneaking suspicion that if I weren’t an active, striving LDS person, I would really love coffee and wine.

10) I have another sneaking suspicion that most LDS are less saintly than their public image would indicate. And that’s OK. Could we just get over the pretensions and begin to interact and love one another despite our weaknesses? BTW, I’m sure this isn’t a purely LDS phenomenon, however; we all have a hard time admitting our faults to others by nature.

Back to the D&D and role-playing game thing: Tracy Hickman wrote the Dragonlance series (based originally on his own D&D campaign) which made a tub of money and turned alot of kids into dateless wonders. Good stuff. Even more interestin is Sandy Petersen, who created the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game, based off the horror works of H.P. Lovecraft, and acted as a consultant to the folks that made the DOOM videogames (he’s the guy who came up with the gross monsters and devil stuff…). Anyway, he’s also quite LDS.

Final confession: “The Living Scriptures” cartoons are utter crap.

I avoid Coveyisms like the plague and greatly resent having them rammed down my throat all during my two-year nervous breakdown (i.e. mission). Nibleyisms are not only acceptable but strongly encouraged. (I take perverse delight in passing his “Leaders to Managers: the Fatal Shift” aroung among the Coveyites.)

I am a musical theater geek but generally avoid anything prior to 1970. “Company” and “Jesus Christ Superstar” changed everything (for better or for worse).

Note; Erasure’s all right, but Pet Shop Boys RULE!!!!!

Point taken!

While doing so, he had the balls to write ahead to secure a position for his young protegé (most likely the object of Bennett’s romantic affection), Dr. Pierce B. Fagen.

Interesting. I’d assumed that accusations of “buggary” were something more along the lines of calling Sarah Pratt “a whore from her mother’s breast.”

Thanks for sharing the photos, John. (I see you’re one of those “take a picture of ME there, so we have proof I’ve been there” types–heh!) Interesting to see that someone is still placing flags and flowers at his grave.

1) I often purposefully take the sacrament and sustain people with my left hand

2) If the bishop isn’t still around to see, the first counselor and I drive in separate cars to drop off the donations at the bank, so we can just go straight home afterward

3) I drink decaf and O’Doul’s and love coffee-flavored desserts and candy

4) Instead of tying that little string connecting my hat to my robe, I just tuck the string up into my hat

5) When the marriage teachers recently passed around an anonymous questionnaire asking class members what else they hoped the class would cover, I wrote “sex positions” and turned it in

Bennett had the balls to talk James J. Strang into giving him back his spot in the First Presidency after touring the country, promoting his best-selling anti-Mormon exposé of Joseph’s polygamy. While doing so, he had the balls to write ahead to secure a position for his young protegé (most likely the object of Bennett’s romantic affection), Dr. Pierce B. Fagen. What didn’t the man have the balls to do? Among a cast of remarkable and ballsy personalities in the early Mormon story, Bennett certainly holds his own.

1. I am in the Bishopric and I love to bring non-church publications from which to give a spiritual thought when it is my turn.

2. Mt. Dew is the greatest soda there has ever been
3. BYU is my favorite college football team, but I also cheer for ND, FL and Nebraska
4. I hate testimony meeting so much that I usually tune out (even though I have to sit on the stand)
5. Frequently try to convince my wife to loose the garments at night - all night
6. Most of my friends are not LDS
7. I watch rated R movies if they look interesting to me - although I rarely go out to a movie
8. I am politically conservative, but I am not a devoted Republican
9. Two and a Half Men cracks me up
10. Sunday is my favorite day to travel.

Pardon me while I go try to muster up some remorse

Ahh, but the Marilyn Manson cover of “Personal Jesus” is SO much better than the Depeche Mode original, especially at loud volume and high bass!

There is a certain subset of LDS members, who seem to have difficulty discerning between the words of Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell vs. Gordon Hinckley or Thomas Monson. We had one of these women in my last ward. When she wasn’t taking it upon herself to call individual members to repentance for not having enough food storage, she was shouting about the evils of Harry Potter and such. We had a very tragic sexual abuse situation in the ward, and this woman loudly proclaimed that it was the result of the parents allowing their children to read Harry Potter, and that they probably had a secret coven.

I kid you not, folks.

Ha! I used to do the same thing, and it sometimes drove my poor kids crazy. That said, I’m told that Bennett had the balls to have masonic emblems placed on his grave marker. Did you happen to take any photos, John?

3. I hope someday to publish a book review in FARMS the way Nick Literski did. (I just have to find a book I dislike enough to trash, but that I’m still willing to read all the way through.)

Yes, but you have to do what I did, in order to really muck up the works. My review came out in print, and within a month (not planned that way, I assure you), I came out of the closet and left the LDS church. I can’t help but chuckle a bit at how much certain parties must have cringed at the time!

Repent! No discussion can center on the gospel if it includes philosophy.

Ammon Rye,

Depeche Mode is truly more to be feared than Erasure. The songs “Personal Jesus” and “Blasphemous Rumours” have corrupted the worldview of many a Mormon teen I know.

Andrew,

You may recognize the devil himself by the whiff of Folgers Fresh Roasted the next time he appears to you. (I don’t like the smell myself but I know that many of you who have spent too much time with the Gentiles do).

mormonmagmeister,

speak no evil of stake auxiliary presidencies. They have been with us since April 6, 1830, in the Whitmer log cabin, where the first stake Primary president with humility stepped to the podium and adjusted the microphone before graciously accepting the call. Verily, they were first established by Peter and Paul in Corinth, and were a part of the promised restoration.

I see no harm in that.

D&D can turn into an equal to soap operas for wasting time, and yet, it has a fond place in my heart. Gary had LDS employees from time to time. His first wife was a JW, they told her to defellowship him because he smoked which pretty much eventually ended their marriage (JW defellowshipping entails shunning). His second marriage was happier.

I’m sad I missed the reunion last summer, I was hoping to make the next one this year, but it won’t be the same.

/Sigh

Oh, and yes, I almost forgot the cardinal sin: I drink caffeinated drinks. Or rather I did until I realized that they contribute to my migraines. Ouch!

I have also sinned in that I cannot adjust myself to Mormon Standard Time (arriving LATE!).

*As a note, does anyone have any even semi official source from a member of the first presidency or quorum of twelve at any point condemning dungeons and dragons? My mom swears up and down that the church condemned the practice, but I have never been able to find anything on it. But it seems pretty ingrained into the culture among a certain segment.

1. Part of my Saturday routine to get ready for Sunday is to buy a two-liter of Diet Pepsi so I won’t be a grouch to my family on Sunday.
2. When I lived in BYU-approved housing I used to karaoke incessantly to Rage Against the Machine, then later formed a cover band to play the same.
3. I can’t stand church pop and am seldom moved by Mo Tab.
4. I saw “No Country for Old Men” FOUR TIMES in the theater and corrupted my second-counselor in the Bishopric by convincing him to go see it with me.
5. Sometimes when I’m at the grocery store I intentionally walk down the coffee aisle just because I love the smell. I’ve been doing this since I was a kid and can’t stop.

I will now retire to my chamber for some remorseful auto-flagellation.