This originally started as a conversation thread on the Facebook, then turned into a private messaging thread, and then ended up in my Facebook notes for prosperity and now will find it's final resting place here. Again, I apologize for the lack of punctuation and misspellings but I wasn't much of a fan then and also for the pirate speak (which some of you may remember was an option in the Facebook back then, and maybe still is?):
the following is a very lenghty conversation i had with the almost not so typical molly mormon back in the land of lincoln on the border of the cheese wiz who believes she is not a molly due to the fact that soon after this converation she deleted me:
this began when she posted one of those polls showing her love in all her right wing jesus republican glory
Scrawled by Molly Mormon 'round about 2:42 in the evenin' Merry Month o' June 5 in the foul year of our lord 2009
I am pro-life. I pretty much take the church stance on it, and Obama is pretty far from that.
Scrawled by Art Holmes 'round about 2:50 in the evenin' Merry Month o' June 5 in the foul year of our lord 2009
how so? and what sources do u usually get your info from? im curious cause the church seems very big against sourcing from outside the church which i've never felt comfortable with. and at least since i would consider you a much more obedient member than i since im a convert. im wondering what sources are acceptable and unacceptable when following our president?
Scrawled by Molly Mormon 'round about 3:18 in the evenin' Merry Month o' June 5 in the foul year of our lord 2009
Boy....I am having trouble keeping up with you on this...I just don't seem to have the time.....but I will say I am a convert too. What do you mean by "sourcing from outside"?
Art Holmes
i've been in the church almost 3 years and there seems to be this unspoken rule that any sources that do not come from within the church or are not approved by the church we are to stay away from. i tend to call this the walt disney, republican, country music conversion dilemma of carbon copies and since i was 32 when i joined im pretty sure im not that type of a person and its a huge regression for me to go against something i feel so strongly that im not. are we allowed to watch msnbc, cnn, or is only fox news allowed? are books written by non members allowed? am i allowed to hear both sides of the argument and go with the one that i feel is right even if the church is opposite in their beliefs. do i have to support prop 8 in order to be a good member? do i have to kill off what is authentically me? i guess when your not married with no kids you have a lot of time to ask yourself these things lol
Scrawled by Molly Mormon 'round about 3:38 in the evenin' Merry Month o' June 5 in the foul year of our lord 2009
Hum? Insteresting thought on things....not all people are republican....get to know people before you put them in the "bubble". You are supposed to figure things for yourself. Don't always do things logically....more from the heart, well at least in my opinion.... Since I am one of those with kids...off to piano lessons I go. I love to repond to more of your post...but maybe another time, and do remind me...I do have a lot going on and tend to forget....I do also have STRONG opinions that tend to dffer from others, and do love to hear what other peole think....even though I sometimes get very stired up about it. As Kris would say....I love to let people know how wrong they are....even if it is just an opinon. BUT if you are going to logically play devils advocate...not interested.
Scrawled by Art Holmes 'round about 3:52 in the evenin' Merry Month o' June 5 in the foul year of our lord 2009
being a mormon democrat is a bit like being a gay republican. at least that has been my experience so far. alrighty would like to know your position on abortion, prop 8, if you were for obama during the last election, and if you have differing opinions that the church has and what those specifically are. if i have any hope of avoiding outer darkness these insights would be most helpful especially since my priorities do not involve marriage, kids, and polygamy in the eternities.
Scrawled by Molly Mormon 'round about 5:09 in the evenin' Merry Month o' June 5 in the foul year of our lord 2009
ew this could be fun. I do believe that there a few senaters that Mormon's and democrates....or at least that was the case a few years ago. Abortion-rare cases, when the mothers life is at stake and when the fetus has no chance at life, etc. and maybe a few other times. Prop 8-I always got confused about the yes and no thing, so I do believe that yes the constitution should be amended to state a marriage is between a man and a women. That is what marriage is about! I was not for Obama in the last election. AND I am laughing out loud at the fact that you said "if I have any hope of avoiding outer darkness" my insights are just my insights. Too funny. Question for you.....you beieve the church is true? Or at least that is what I am guessing if you choose to be a memeber....yet you believe things that are different than church views? So curious?
Scrawled by Art Holmes 'round about 10:54 in the mornin' Merry Month o' June 6 in the foul year of our lord 2009
harry reid is a mormon democrat but hes the only 1 that im aware of. there are things with the church that are very parallel to my own spiritual intuition of what i feel to be true. pre-earth life most definately and how we treat our fellow human beings (prop 8 being an exception) but coming from a background in pshychology and philosophy there are things that are quite disturbing to me. polygamy from the original church i feel is an incredibly damaging viewpoint and the main reason i think joseph was persecuted so heavily, the reasoning why it was banned in 1890 from the church perspective as being something thats just 'on hold' for the moment but we as men cause thats what we are lol have to take this up again when we get to the eternities, temple marriage to get into the celestial? or highest kingdom and having kids as well. plus i honestly dont know with being a convert so late how i could make that kind of marriage dynamic work with the wife being a homemaker?
i hate to point out an example of a church couple but its been bothering me so this is 'off the record' but would like your opinion. when i joined there was a fella who joined about a month before me. single no kids about to turn 50. a year later he met a lady on 1 of the lds dating sites and about 3-4 months later they were married. i've always felt people in the church seemed to get married way too soon in the church and especially with women just out of school it seems to be their duty to get married before their 22 and then become this baby making factory. philosophically and psychologically theres a saying that your 20's are to figure out who u are as a person and your 30's are the time to start a family and have kids. also when you get into a relationship it takes about a year to really get to know someone cause your brain is firing off all these feel good endorphines and your chemically imbalanced. so the first year my church couple friends were married they were very giddy with each other. the kind of thing when your single and hopeless can drive you a little batty. now they seem to be in their terrible twos and bickering a lot plus they're trying for a baby. she's been taking feritility shots and has had a very bad physical reaction to them. plus shes almost 50 and it pains me to see her go thru all that cause shes super nice lady. i really wish they would adopt and i cant help but think they're trying for a baby as a church obligation. i've seen this kind of weird acceptance with the younger couples pre child and post child so again something im a bit disturbed by when these are not exactly goals of mine. as far as me believing the whole truth and nothing but the truth about the church i've got a long way to go with that. i dont know if you were at church when i gave my talk but i did it in a way that doesnt sell out my spiritual beliefs and coming from a very different perspective. everything i said in that talk i believe in 100%. i posted it in my notes section so if you want to go back and find it it would make some of more basic beliefs a bit more clear.
Scrawled by Molly Mormon 'round about 12:42 in the evenin' Merry Month o' June 6 in the foul year of our lord 2009
Man I am not for sure how to comment on that. Love the couple that you are talking about. Don't know them very well but I do like them. Kris and I were engaged 2 weeks after meeting....and I was 21. Guess I managed the 22 age limit huh? LOL. Marriage is tough, hard, and worth every bit. ..... this is hard to explain over the facebook thing. Maybe we can catch uo some other time.
I remember hearing you talk from the mother's lounge. I loved it! I thought that it was very well thought out and presented. Sorry I didn't say so when I was at church. I tend to be quit shy around those that I don't know.
What are your feelings about the same things that you had asked me about? Abortion? Prop 8 and things.....
Art Holmes Merry Month o' June 6 roundabouts 12:47 in the evenin' in the foul year of our lord 2009
thanx. im a pro-choice in the same way u are. life of the mother, complications in pregnancy and development, incest, rape. I'm not for laws that make it necessary to get your parents approval if your underaged. there are a lot of circumstances where i c it as a necessary evil and c it also as a safety issue. it saddens me that its becoming increasingly difficult for women to obtain one.
prop 8. i c gay marriage in the same light as civil rights in the 50's. im very for it since its coming from a place of love and being against seems to be coming from a place of hate and discrimination and also it has no direct effect on my life so i dont c why a gay couple whos been together for 20 years should have less rights than britany spears who can go off to las vegas and get married for 55 hours. in todays world if your for gay marriage its like being accused of being gay as like being lover of black people in the 50's. today most people see that as being ridiculous and laughable and voting for obama on this reason alone and him winning made me an emotional mess the day after the election. very fortunate to have been alive for that.
Molly Mormon Merry Month o' June 6 roundabouts 5:18 in the evenin' in the foul year of our lord 2009
My heart aches when I hear people saying that abortion is okay. Long before I became a member I couldn't imagine someone choosing to destroy a life....or even the potentional for a life for no reason. I look at my own children and can't imagine someone wanting to do that when there are so many people out there that can't have children of their own and would need to adopt. There are times in life when people get them selves into situations and abortion is just not the answer. Face up to thing and do what is right. I believe that a minor should have to have parental permission, I also belive that a person should go thru some kind of counciling before being able to. AND that is only if it is legal to do, I really do think that it should be illegal, except in the cases that we have talked about.
I didn't vote for Obama because I don't feel that he is qualified. One thing that I do love is how unified the country seems to be behind him. At the same time I catch myself controdicting my own feelings when I say that, I hate that he is the type of guy that has a beer wtih his friends a B-Ball game. Seriously....when did the office of President of United States get to be such a casual office position. I think Miss America would loose her crown if she did that. I do hold the president to be an examplor for everyone and I don't feel like he is.
Overall, I love the fact that we have a Black/African American president....I just don't like him.
Art Holmes Merry Month o' June 8 roundabouts 7:50 in the evenin' in the foul year of our lord 2009
The i want to have a beer with that actually came from bush and carl rove and the type of image they were going for and really didnt understand why people would vote for him cause of his clearing brush capabilities.
My definition of pro-life is abortion should be illegal no matter what. If its illegal then thats that and no one regardless of the circumstance is getting one cause its illegal. As difficult as it is to get one its kind of like saying the south won the civil war because you cant get elected president unless you carry a southern state.
With parental consent i cant imagine being in a circumstance where your raped by your father and then having to get his permission. For some odd reason the movie 'china town' comes to mind. You'll have to forgive my stream of conscousness i have a bad weakness for the brilliance of family guy. lol anwayz. . .
What was your age when you became a member? Why did you become a member? How did you know after 2 weeks that it was marriage time? How long were you married before your first child? Have you found your dating/enagement/marriage/to child transition to be the church norm timeline?
I just dont like him? Reminds me of something i read in wayne dyers first book about how its unrealistic for everyone to like you. Are there any other issues you feel obama is off the mark with? How would have mccain (aka bush's third term) been better? How do u feel about romney? Did you think bush's reading of 'my pet goat' after the 2nd plane hit on 9/11 was an acceptable reaction? Do you think we would have went to iraq if 9/11 hadnt of happened? Do you believe in global warming? Is al gore out to lunch? is anything that ann coulter, bill o reilley, and glen beck (who is mormon and u can check out his conversion story on utube) say acceptable? Do you think in the '04 election it was a wise tactic to say that Kerry was not a war hero because he didnt die in vietnam? What feeling do you get when you hear the name Michael Moore? Do you think Sotomayor is qualified and or a racist? should i feel guilty about watching saving private ryan on TMC to comemmorate D-day saturday or band of brothers or schindlers list on VE day? should i be loving the movie pearl harbor cause its a walt disney movie and walts wife was mormon even tho walt was gay? creationism or evolution? should creatonism be taught in high school? whats the difference between evolution and intelligent design? how does science differ in its purpose from religion? What do u feel is the greatest evil in the world besides me plaguing u with all these questions?
sorry just curious and brainstorming off the top of my head for variety and conversational purposes. i would be stunned if you have an answer im not expecting on any those. i had a bunch yesterday for my home teacher such as prophecy vs history from one of the testimonies that was given and how it applies to the book of abraham and the why and how of that books creation. this outer darkness destiny is ridin on my shoulders because of my 'black hole singularity' church status and for the life of me just can not seem to fit into a mold that goes against what i feel in my heart and difficult to put my head around certain concepts that i must believe in to get celestial glory even tho it would be a serious regression of everything i've learned from life experience the previous 3 decades before i joined. and cant stop thinking about what movie sister boyer deemed inappropriate? what music i need to be listening to? or if there any other acceptable tv stations to watch besides byu and would it be a sin to switch over to digital because i can only get it on satellite? should i be reading anything that doesnt have that chruch stamp of approval? is ignorance really bliss?
Molly Mormon:
This one could take me all day, with dealing with the kids at the same time. Just so you know......you sound kind of attacking....but I am not takling it that way. I am assumiing that you didn't mean it like that. I tend not to get offended easy at all.....so if you are trying to do that please spell it out! ;o)
First off I need to say that I have trouble staying on top of things politically. I don't find that I understand a ton of it, and that I really see things from both sides a lot of the time, then tend to lean to the more conservative side. So here I go with what anwers I do have.
We have the same views of abortion except the parental permission thing, I also agree with you with incesent case, We don't live in a perfect world and I think that someone else should be able to step in cases like that. If a girl can find a place to get an abortion I am sure that she can find the police, or social workers to help with the father situation and he rights would not matter at that time.
I have watched family guy once. I laughed at it, and then felt discussed with some parts....so I havne't watched it again.
I was 18, long conversion story! I mean long! I don't know I should write it here and take up the space or get on with the rest of the questions. BTW I am not going to take the time to read over this and make sure that it makes sence with grammer or spelling. At times my fingers don't move as fast as my mind and things get jummbled up in the the text. I really hope that it is readable. Conversion short story, I had been friends with members all my life....I moved A LOT. As a child I thought that it would be fun to go to church with my friends but my very democratic family would not let me. In high school I had a great mormon friend and my family was investigating a multitude of religons at the time. NEVER the LDS church. My mormon friend, Eric, invited me many times to join the family for dinner with the missionaires.....we had a very easy-going friendship and I would always show up after dinner, just walk in and of course the Missionaries had already left. The summer between my 10th and 11th grade my dad decides to put of sunny CA ranch house up for sale in a recession and it sells in a week, so he decides that he has great job opportuntiy in Utah and that is where we are headed.....NO THANKS . I told him under no terms was I moving to Utah and going to school with a bunch of mormons. NOT HAPPENING. So I ended up finding the family a place to rent and he agreeded to stay 1 year. I didn't want to move my senior year either so I worked hard and graduated a year ealy and then they never moved....fastforward a couple of year. Now I am dating a semi-active LDS guy and we get into an agruement about some of his activites that I am questioning.....wondering if they were church standard type of things....his response is "you're not a member why in the hell should you care!" So I left crying....I was asking question out of curiousatity and he didn't want to share. So I went to Erics house for answers.....he said come meet the missionaries. I said no, so he decided to answer all my questions for me.....I asked question after question after question.....I talked for a straight 3 hours. At the end Eric couldnt' answer my questions so I agreed to meet with the missionairies. The first question was "Do you believe in God?" and my answer was "I don't know." I was thristy for all the imformation and drank it up, trying to get every detail that I could. I really questioned EVERYTHING. BUT once I decided to figure out if it was true of not, and decided that it was I was signing up for the entire thing. I couldn't possible imagine that just part of it was true.....it was all or nothing. To me it is all....every little detail. So I don't go and look for thing to despell the truth. Simple faith, and it is exponding and I do still ask question. AND I have been told that I give the first impression of molly mormon, and I have to laugh at that. Laugh HARD. BTW boyfriend broke up with me, and then when he found out that I was getting baptised tried to be us again.....even pretty much proposing.
Next question.....engagement after 2 weeks, impulsive? Kris is not my type. We are opposite in many many many.... ways. Marriage is hard, and maybe even more so since we are so different. BUT it has worked out well. How did I know? Really hard to say..... I can't say that I prayed hours over it, or that it was a supper hard thing. Did pray, yes. I knew then that he was going to be a very good thing for me. VERY GOOD. Looking back at things he is very balancing for me. Allowing me to think that I run the show.....and really he does. Here is his thought on things....maybe you have heard this.... I get my way 95% of the time and he gets his was 100% of the time. He only cares about that 5% and he normally ends up being more subborn than me....even though he will say there is no way that is possible. Am I going into too much?
Next question.....married in March pregnant in April. It was a week long discussion of it. HE wanted to wait a year, and I was baby hungery. Not just a church thing, most of my family does the married young and babies young. I was 22 when I had Elaine. Do I feel like I missed being just a married couple? Sometimes? BUT the plan was to be young, have kids young, enjoy grandchild young....enjoy retirement with young kids. So I guess you can say that the timeline does seem to fallow the tradtion church norm.....but not for that reason.
Next thing....Obama. I think I would like him for a nieghboor. Not a president. I think that he is idealistic on what he can do. I believe that I have higher standards for that office than what he has demonstrated. Bowing to a king?? I don't know that I would say that I loved McCain because I didn't. BUT boy was he ever tenasious (sp?). I was so PRO-ROMNEY. Not just the church thing. He really is a good businessman. AND I felt that not only was he a republican....he would have been good for the economy. I have family that is so strongly democrate, and yet they voted for McCain over Obama....because they just didn't seem him as qualified. Don't even know what the 'my pet goat' thing is that you are talking about. Like I mentioned....not much time in my little world. Global warming....is something happening OH YEAH. Does it have to do with all of the gasses and stuff? Sure. Does it have everything to do with it....not so sure. I am sure that it does play a factor. I also see things that are happening as signs of the times. Don't know wh bill o reilley is, I have heard of glen beck (isn't he the one that did the money graph not too long ago?) Just figured out who ann coulter is.....read her book "if democrates had any brains they'd be republican'. I didn't understand much of it. She quotes a lot of things in it. AND if you don't know what was going on at the time it was hard to understand. BUT funny. Kerry, I thought that debates between him and Bush were histarical! He is very well spoken, then you had studdering Bush, who looked clueless. Kerry is what my learly of the democrated party. Nothing to explain it by, just gut feeling. Do I think that he doesn't qualify as a war hero? Let's not go there, my little brother is soon to be off on his second tour in Iraq......he just turned 21.....I have heard stories that people his age should never have to experience. So I have no opinion on Kerry and the V. war. Sotomayor...new judge right? Didn't know her before, havne't had the time to investigate, and I think a lot of things are tanted one direction or the other. BUT what was thought of as a racist comment....come on! Why does everything that we say have to be taken under a microscope? AND at the same time.....being in her position she should be very careful at what she says. Creation over evelution.....hello! Yes if they present one side, they should present the other in school. You have to learn about all the other religions in history why not that one? Micheal Moore....I laugh, I find him personally funny. Interview wise and things. I haven't seen a movie in years! We are just now starting to see them. So I haven't had much of a chance to see any of his work. Maybe I will had one onto the que in Netflicks. I saw Private Ryan....loved it. Felt it, is a better way to put it. Band of brother, and schindlers list I haven't seen. My brother says there is movie with Tom Cruise....something about the Lion and the Lamb that is perfect for his job, or that is what he does? Have you seen it? You should not love a movie BECAUSE it was a walt disney movie. Love it for the movie itself. Greatest evil in the world...hum? Tough one. What do you think? I am a simpleton......lack honesty, lack of integrity, I think most evil starts there maybe? My husband would say appathy...that people just don't care.
Hah....I think my answer page is longer than your question page. Love the questions. I almost wish I had better answers for you, I really am not too politcal, and catch myself even talking about it because I don't feel like I know enough. BUT when I do see things, they really stir me up! I have a big opinion on your outer darkness therory. GET OVER IT! I know harsh huh? Seriously...this is not ment to sound rude, but no one cares. People like you for you, and people should never look down or give you a hard time about these things.....unless of course they are doing it jokenly. BUT we want everyone to be as blissfully happy as a married couples....j/k. REMEMBER what you have learned the past 3 decaded was worldy views, and now you have a chance to learn other views and consider both sides.......from the heart and not just logically....like I know that you are doing. It would seem hard if you have these contradiction between church views and your views. This is how I look at it.......the church teaches that we are to investigate and ponder things and then decide for ourselves.....you are deciding for yourself.....let everything else role off your back like water on a duck. Pull yourself out of your own spiril.....no one else wants you there. BTW who is your hometeacher? I want to know what movie it was too.....didn't you say Night at the M. ? AND that almost makes me what to see if more. BYU TV, I am so glad that I have it......Conference in my PJ's is great. AND seriously that is about the only time that I watch it. Would I be a better person and feel better about things in my life, and get a better understand of gospel things if I did watch it more? More than likely, yes. BUT I am glued to CSI, Crimal Minds, Bones, and others like it.....are those church standard? Man do I have a long way to go.
So now that I have cover most of your questions.....do you feel that my answers where those that you were expecting?
SO an addition....I just tried to send this and facebook told me that my message was too long.....I needed to shorten.....don't give me so much to reply to next time.... LOL
Art Holmes
thanx for such an honest reply. i wonder if its cause you were a convert and not born into the church. i feel my talk was a lot more powerful cause im a convert and come from a very different background. i have so much more respect for you as its so easy to see people at church who are our age and all come off as the same person making it difficult for me to have a legitimate meaningful conversation with them. i'll write more later so i can ponder some of the things u talked about it. i'll send you my conversion story. i typed it out a couple of weeks ago. may find it interesting.
WHY I JOINED THE CHURCH
In 2004 my mother had a stroke. During this time I was living in south beloit and had been laid off from my job and my unemployment was running out. My brother had just been evicted from his home of the last 12 years and mother and significant other were being strapped financially due to mothers stroke. My brother came to stay with me during that summer and by the fall mother and boyfriend were interested in moving in to save money and to help me stay afloat.
So by 2005 my living situation was me, mother, mother BF, and brother. I had managed to get a job at the end of 04, mothers BF was working, and my brother was well my brother. If it hadnt been for him the year of 2005 would have been really special and living very very well but instead it turned into a very valuable life lesson on how damaging negativity is and my lack of having a support network to deal with brothers alcoholism.
My father passed away on september 12, 2002 and never got along with his oldest son. His saying was 'i love him but i dont like him very much' I had to go to belvidere to pick his stupid drunken ass up which took about 4 hours and listening to a lot of bullshit from him and his reasonings for getting wrecked. For someone who for years before dads death would get drunk and bitch and complain about how father was not exactly father of the century and how tough he had it growing up i would have thought he would have been happy with dads passing but instead i had to put my own mouring on hold and deal with him. I've already told my sister that she is babysitting and keeping an eye on him when mother passes away cause i am not dealing with it.
Back to 2005. So brother is not working and i'm working 2nd shift and somehow he manages to always score beer money. he can get totally waisted on about 3 dollars. and i would have to deal with this stuff. mothers Bf would do his best to deal with it but brother man was pretty much stuck on the couch for that year. I on the other hand had no one to actually talk to with dealing with such negativity and by the end of the year had come to the conclusion that my brother was in my life for the soul reason of learning how damaging negativity is to ones spirit and well being. It didnt help that at work I had been promoted and was dealing with people who didnt speak english and a front office who had no idea how to do the job i was assigned to do and sending me in completely opposite directions of what the shop foreman needed and leaving me not accomplishing what i needed to accomplish on a daily basis. i only took the promotion so i could work first shift. i really should have stayed on 2nd but the heavenly powers that be must have had other plans for my life. in january of 06 i quit and went on a very emotional downward spiral of hopelessness. in may of that year mother and bf got their own home and brother man went with and i was left running out of money, not able to land a job, and worst of all most of the people i knew were on a level that for me there was nothing about them that was enlightning, or insightful, and basically just very toxic to be around.
So june of 06 im at home and get a knock on the door and these 2 sister missionaries did their schtick and asked if they could come back and since i was dying for conversation that actually had some substance i said sure. I had developed a fascination with philosophy about a year before they knocked on the door. Mainly due to my fascination with the matrix triology and what does the whole concept of life mean anywayz? So the conversations i had with the missionaries was something that i desperately needed after dealing with my alcoholic brother for the last couple of years before that.
In 04 when i was out of work i had some jehoviah witnesses come to the door and then would come back and give me some lit and was always very nice to them but the mormons definately have a system of bringing you into the church that is really unparalleled. The missionary training center in utah should be a required business course. And it helped that I was fiening conversation on a meaningful level and was vulnerable from dealing with the my brother. So a couple of weeks talking to the missionaries i went to church and loved the structure of it. 3 hours. the first hour sacrament, the 2nd hour everyone goes into other groups that best suits them. So its not the cries of a bililon babies it is the first hour. and third hour is a segregated priesthood (male), relief society (female) breakdown. And i felt after my first time there that it had a very advanced placement type feel to it and you learn a lot faster than just going for the basic singing and a sermon that i was used to going to.
Was babtized on july 1st of 06 and spent the rest of that year getting aclimated to the church but not once did i ever consider conforming a 100% Since I joined in my early 30s I already had a good idea of who i am as a person and told the missionaries that under no circumstances am I going to become a republican, country music lovin', walt disney watchin' member. they said no problem.
My closest friend in the church joined a month a before me and was just about to turn 50 and was single. A rareity for that church. but he is someone who has really 'converted' to the mormon ways a lot since he joined. He met a women on line on one of the LDS dating sites and got married in the fall of '07. They dont waist time in that church and i think it has to do with their beliefs on 'be fruitful and multiply' and no sex before marriage or living together or basically being in a non marriage relationship that has anything to do with reality of what it is to be human. I've always felt the dating to marriage transition in that church is way too quick and my friend getting married is a great example of why. The first year they were married they were very giddy with each other, laughing, playing around, the kind of thing that when your single and hopeless drives you up a wall. Now they seem to be in their 'terrible twos' and bickering a lot with each other which I completely expected. And to top it off their trying for a baby and she's almost 50. She's going thru fertility injections and has had a really adverse physical reaction to it. I really wish they would look into adoption cause she's really nice and it pains me to see her go thru that. It feels like with the church your not really accepted until you get married in the temple and your wife pumps out as many units as she can. There are a lot of parallels with the mormons and what the duggars of the show 18 and counting are into with the whole 'quiverfull' thing.
Basically the beliefs of quiverfull is that in biblical times when you were being oppressed by the powers that be and you couldnt come up with people to overthrow those powers you would breed your own army. In the modern day quiverfull version its meant to populate to such an extinct and raise your offspring in your beliefs that you will eventually change the country and eventually the world to what you believe to be right. Its retarded and its basically what the mormons have been doing since the 1800's.
Anywayz (i got a bit sidetracked) I found the church to be fascinating on a psychological level and had developed an interest of psychology a couple of years before i joined so another added benefit. I find it interesting that when i say i go to the mormon church that they automatically assume im mormon when in fact i go for the pure fascination of it and to be around people that are in their own intelligent way are people that im glad to know.
Last year i was finally able to land some work in financial services and we work in a warm market. we dont do cold calling and are always looking to talk to certain people. such as own a home, car, have a job, married with kids, and are of a certain age. this pretty much describes the typical mormon. when i got into finance i honestly felt that the only reason i joined the church was so i would have a market list to work with. the universe works in mysteries ways. when i got into finance i was also told that it would be good to get on facebook so i would have a social network and so as i like to say my brothers negativity begot my enthusiasm for the church begot working in finance begot facebook begot what i was seeking in the first place and thats people to have a conversation with that actually has meaning. so here i am typing this out. lol
o.k. I think that about covers it for now...
artie
Art Holmes Merry Month o' June 9 roundabouts 10:25 in the mornin' in the foul year of our lord 2009
sorry about the language :( didnt read this before i sent it lol. i originally wrote this to a girl i knew in high school who grew up jehovah witness so my language alters depending on who im writing to.
Molly Mormon Merry Month o' June 9 roundabouts 11:52 in the mornin' in the foul year of our lord 2009
You're not offending with language. No worries there. Looking forward to you other reply. Church for networking??? Feel different now?
Art Holmes
facebook is a huge help with not having to stereo type people that i would pre-judge on a molly mormon level and keeping in contact with former missionaries and other democratic mormons from various other facebook pages. theres an intersting page i joined awhile back thats about not being an uneducated molly mormon.
after a year of going to church almost constantly i was away from it for about 6 months it was a bit of overkill for me and then brought back in for reasons that i described in my conversion story. so now my attendance is somewhat constant but i do skip from time to time.
Art Holmes Merry Month o' June 9 roundabouts 4:59 in the evenin' in the foul year of our lord 2009
im glad that you didnt take me as attacking you for your beliefs. im going to be calling out some people in this for context. the bishop might take this as 'murmuring' and being disrespectful but its just my opinion and how i feel about certain issues. if i wanted to attack somone for their beliefs pam brumble is the one that would come to mind. ill be discussing why in detail a little later.
a few questions i wanted to ask about your upbringing and your family being very non mormon is how is your relationship with them today? the first sister missionary i talked with before i joined had a similiar problem with her family and they were not for her converting to mormonism so i would imagine it must have been difficult. another thing i dont get with your family is if they are heavy democrats why vote for mccain???? im assuming they would be up on the issues and surely why would they want more of the same of what they got the previous 8 years. the only real reason i can see voting republican is if your making at least 6 figures a year and had qualified for bush's tax cuts otherwise that one goes into the twilight zone of WTF????
what suprised me about your response is your level of curiosity. it seems to me that having a very questioning and curious nature is not exactly a good fit for being a good mormon. this may be the reason why i was assigned the topic following the wisdom of the living prophet as my talk.
what questions do you find yourself asking now about the church?
the main question about your conversion is at what moment did you believe 100% in the church? there had to be that oprah a-ha moment when you believed this was the one true church.
onto obama and his idealism. the word hope comes to mind. also bush's idealogy based on his religion instead of what made logical sense based on the human condition. this is what i would consider to be the greatest evil in our world. religion ironicly enough. i mean pre-emptive war? God told me to run for president? with obama idieology it reminds of my einstein quote from my talk about how do u see the world. do you see it a world of people hating and killing each other cause if that what you see then thats what you will create for yourself in your life. bush did a phenominal job of putting oil on fire after 9/11. or do you see the world from the perspective of 'hope'?
bauwing to a king is a sign of respect and its the custom. kind of like hand holding with the saudi's. i dont see it as a sort of 'i am a man hear me roar' i am superior thing. the discovery channel or similiar channel had a documentary on this weekend about the science of body language. watch it if you get a chance. they do this run down about what politicians are saying through their gestures its really fascinating. if bush had known certain things about the iraqi people and their customs and had known that there was a potential civil war brewing would he have went to war? the movie W. goes into this and they are very fair to colin powell who comes off as only sane one in the room who ever served in a war as opposed to cheney and bush who between them had something like 15 deferrments to vietnam. i do believe we would have went to war with iraq regardless of 9/11. for one bin lauden and sadam hated each other, no weapons of mass destruction. even tho sadam said he had them it was his way of saying 'i am man hear me roar' to make iran feel unsafe and to make iraq seem more powerful than they were and cause they were iraq's enemy and now iran is more of a threat to america without sadam. sadam had nothing to do with 9/11. the 2000 election bush hinted at iraq and in clintons book 'my life' he talks about bush's change over period and asking clinton about iraq almost exclusively. and what i really dont get is bush pulling the weapon inspectors out of iraq early instead of letting them do their job.
my pet goat refers to what bush was doing when the planes hit on 9/11. he was in florida at an elementary school reading this book to children there and was told that the second plan had hit. he then sat there for almost 8 minutes. now one can argue he didnt want to leave and upset the children but on the other it goes in the WTF? category. nancy pelosi described something similiar after she had tried to talk to bush after katrina hit and what she felt from him she described as a reaction of being out of his element and scary.
Molly Mormon T'day upon the hour of 11:31 in the morning in the foul year of our lord 2009
My relationship with my family is weird. I am the white sheep in black family....on my moms side at least. My dad's side is pretty accepting of everone. My mother was not happy about my baptism, but went to it. My dad was okay with it, but didn't go. He doesn't like crowds. which I understood. I come home from the 2nd discussion and he asked me I was baptised yet and said no but that I was going to be. He then told me that he figured it was either the catholics that had it to begin with or the mormons that had it restored. So either way any religion had to be better than none at all so he was glad that I was picking one. I had a few aunt who emailed me and said that I was joining a cult that didn't realize that we were really fallowing satan....
The one cousin that is VERY democrate voted for McCain because she feel Obama is not experienced enough. She was VERY pro-Hilary. AND Kris and said that if she got elected we were going to move from the country.
I think that my curiosity is what got me involved in the church. AND I also believe that we are thaught in church to seek truth. The questions that I find myself asking now are things more on the lines of gaing more scriputre knowledge....my kids know more and remember more than me.
Them moment that I believe 100% in the church is hard to decribe...it was right after the first lesson. I HAD to know more. I had been searching for a couple of years at different churchs with my family and I had my own opinion of how things were. From what I was learning most things fit into my idea of what was right. Joseph Smith and resoration was a new thing for me....but I knew everything else was true...if that is how it came about then so be it.
I do HOPE with all my heart that Obama can live up to his HOPE and I think that my people are blinded by the HOPE. He a great BBQ neighboor like guy...do I want him running the contry...nope.
I don't understand a lot of what happened under the Bush adminitration and don't pretend to. So cute reading to elemetary kids. Love iT!
I don't recall Pams earth day post. I have seen Inconveniet Truth....he had on Oprah one day (BTW quoting Oprah... Ah ha moment...great Art). I didn't say that I believed in, but I do realize that SOMETHING is going on. Just so you know Pam and I are buds. She out of anyone is one that I agree with the most. She seems to know be as Molly Mormon as most of the ward. AND is histarical. We have same sence of humor and things. The kissing thing on her blog....think about it.....tongues touching, it is gross. If you think of it in the moment...gag. BUT of course it is part of life. Do I think that a kids of 6 should want to do it. NO. They will learn soon enough. Heck I have had to have THE talk with my 8 year old.
No I don't think that we should have universal health care. Do you know how bad the canadians are taxed, and how LONG you have to wait to get medical treatment for life threatening things? I have worked at a hospital for 6 years, it WILL ruin things. Not that I know a lot about it. I do think the medical stuff cost way to much, and that we need to realize that Doctors are humuns. My favorite OB had to retire because his malpractice ins. alone every year was $60,000. The ins. company payed out $25,000 just for my last pregnancy and delivery, 7 years ago it was $10,000. There is something wrong with a system that increases the same thing by $15,000 in that amount of time. I should say that the last preganacy was $29,000....I am still paying on the $4,000 of my part. I think that the government is already involved in too manythings. I took a political quiz on facebook and it told me I was an anacrist......which I don't agree with.
I did watch Fox news for the first time last night because your mention of it. I hated the guy that was on the acor at the time. Don't recall his name. THE church is not hateful.....some of the members may have been. This hole Prop-8 thing.....just another sign of the times for me. Will it gets passes ago to have gay marriage legalized...yes it will. Should it me....no it shouldn't. This isn't a civil rights matter. They already have the same right that I do....they CAN get married to someone of the opposite sex. Apparently this subject is one that is close to heart for both of us....maybe we shouldn't go there.
About little kids giving there testimony.....MY kids are the ones that are up there every month. I find it a great thing to do. You are right they don't know at this time. In our home I teach them that they need to seek things out on there own. Right now they are riding on the testimony of Kris and I, but there will come a time in there life that they will either be forced, or do so by choice, but they will have to gain there own testimony. Kris and I don't give our testimonies in the I KNOW fashion, my kids using those exact words was by their choice and what they have seen others do.
My kids are not allowed to do things on Sundays. My favorite day of the week used to be Sunday. We we would all go to church together, do dinner as a family, have guest over. Enjoy a relaxing day together focused on us. Kris now works Sunday nights so we come home from church and he goes to bed and to get just a few hours of sleep. I miss our Sundays together. That is the one day with life how it is that we CAN do things together and have yes, a typical Mormon Sunday. My husband is a huge Bears fan, games are on Sunday so he doesn't go to those. He also grew up playing football for 12 years, and then Rugby and wants our sons to play and Drew really wants to play himself, but not on a Sunday. Do I have this huge testimony of Keeping the Sabbath day holy. I can't say that I do, but I do know that life is better for us when we do. That I feel better, and if that is the only thing that I get from that will be enough for me to do it.
I feel awful that you have a hard time with some people. I like the Webbs, I don't know them well but what I do know I like. You not being able to be yoursef around them is your issue not theirs. It might be helpful to let go of some of your own issues and not blame it on them. Kris, do you know him well? He is so far from Peter Presthood and doesn't feel like there is anyone in the ward that he can be buddy buddy with and missed our old ward terriablly.
The movie the best 2 years. I loved it. It had a lot of mormon humor in it, I understand that it was so not going to win picture of the year, and that it was not hte best acting, but I think that is what made me like it even more.
I hope that my answers don't come acrss as harsh as they probably do, but my oh so cute kids needs some of attention....and so does the floor now that they have squirted juice all over it and each other. Again, not attacking just felt like I had to defend. AND I am hoping that it wasn't your intention to put me that position. Sorry. I just feel really weird about your post.
Art Holmes T'day upon the hour of 11:48 in the mornin' in the foul year of our lord 2009
ill try to write in more detail later. im really going to have to ponder on this one. cause its a lot closer to what i expected with your previous post which really suprised me.
Art Holmes T'day upon the hour of 12:00 in the evenin' in the foul year of our lord 2009
i've pondered it and the only question i have at the moment is how do u define molly mormon and peter priesthood? and how do u differ from that definition?
* and then she was gone forever never to be heard from again but the beat goes on
the following is a very lenghty conversation i had with the almost not so typical molly mormon back in the land of lincoln on the border of the cheese wiz who believes she is not a molly due to the fact that soon after this converation she deleted me:
this began when she posted one of those polls showing her love in all her right wing jesus republican glory
Scrawled by Molly Mormon 'round about 2:42 in the evenin' Merry Month o' June 5 in the foul year of our lord 2009
I am pro-life. I pretty much take the church stance on it, and Obama is pretty far from that.
Scrawled by Art Holmes 'round about 2:50 in the evenin' Merry Month o' June 5 in the foul year of our lord 2009
how so? and what sources do u usually get your info from? im curious cause the church seems very big against sourcing from outside the church which i've never felt comfortable with. and at least since i would consider you a much more obedient member than i since im a convert. im wondering what sources are acceptable and unacceptable when following our president?
Scrawled by Molly Mormon 'round about 3:18 in the evenin' Merry Month o' June 5 in the foul year of our lord 2009
Boy....I am having trouble keeping up with you on this...I just don't seem to have the time.....but I will say I am a convert too. What do you mean by "sourcing from outside"?
Art Holmes
i've been in the church almost 3 years and there seems to be this unspoken rule that any sources that do not come from within the church or are not approved by the church we are to stay away from. i tend to call this the walt disney, republican, country music conversion dilemma of carbon copies and since i was 32 when i joined im pretty sure im not that type of a person and its a huge regression for me to go against something i feel so strongly that im not. are we allowed to watch msnbc, cnn, or is only fox news allowed? are books written by non members allowed? am i allowed to hear both sides of the argument and go with the one that i feel is right even if the church is opposite in their beliefs. do i have to support prop 8 in order to be a good member? do i have to kill off what is authentically me? i guess when your not married with no kids you have a lot of time to ask yourself these things lol
Scrawled by Molly Mormon 'round about 3:38 in the evenin' Merry Month o' June 5 in the foul year of our lord 2009
Hum? Insteresting thought on things....not all people are republican....get to know people before you put them in the "bubble". You are supposed to figure things for yourself. Don't always do things logically....more from the heart, well at least in my opinion.... Since I am one of those with kids...off to piano lessons I go. I love to repond to more of your post...but maybe another time, and do remind me...I do have a lot going on and tend to forget....I do also have STRONG opinions that tend to dffer from others, and do love to hear what other peole think....even though I sometimes get very stired up about it. As Kris would say....I love to let people know how wrong they are....even if it is just an opinon. BUT if you are going to logically play devils advocate...not interested.
Scrawled by Art Holmes 'round about 3:52 in the evenin' Merry Month o' June 5 in the foul year of our lord 2009
being a mormon democrat is a bit like being a gay republican. at least that has been my experience so far. alrighty would like to know your position on abortion, prop 8, if you were for obama during the last election, and if you have differing opinions that the church has and what those specifically are. if i have any hope of avoiding outer darkness these insights would be most helpful especially since my priorities do not involve marriage, kids, and polygamy in the eternities.
Scrawled by Molly Mormon 'round about 5:09 in the evenin' Merry Month o' June 5 in the foul year of our lord 2009
ew this could be fun. I do believe that there a few senaters that Mormon's and democrates....or at least that was the case a few years ago. Abortion-rare cases, when the mothers life is at stake and when the fetus has no chance at life, etc. and maybe a few other times. Prop 8-I always got confused about the yes and no thing, so I do believe that yes the constitution should be amended to state a marriage is between a man and a women. That is what marriage is about! I was not for Obama in the last election. AND I am laughing out loud at the fact that you said "if I have any hope of avoiding outer darkness" my insights are just my insights. Too funny. Question for you.....you beieve the church is true? Or at least that is what I am guessing if you choose to be a memeber....yet you believe things that are different than church views? So curious?
Scrawled by Art Holmes 'round about 10:54 in the mornin' Merry Month o' June 6 in the foul year of our lord 2009
harry reid is a mormon democrat but hes the only 1 that im aware of. there are things with the church that are very parallel to my own spiritual intuition of what i feel to be true. pre-earth life most definately and how we treat our fellow human beings (prop 8 being an exception) but coming from a background in pshychology and philosophy there are things that are quite disturbing to me. polygamy from the original church i feel is an incredibly damaging viewpoint and the main reason i think joseph was persecuted so heavily, the reasoning why it was banned in 1890 from the church perspective as being something thats just 'on hold' for the moment but we as men cause thats what we are lol have to take this up again when we get to the eternities, temple marriage to get into the celestial? or highest kingdom and having kids as well. plus i honestly dont know with being a convert so late how i could make that kind of marriage dynamic work with the wife being a homemaker?
i hate to point out an example of a church couple but its been bothering me so this is 'off the record' but would like your opinion. when i joined there was a fella who joined about a month before me. single no kids about to turn 50. a year later he met a lady on 1 of the lds dating sites and about 3-4 months later they were married. i've always felt people in the church seemed to get married way too soon in the church and especially with women just out of school it seems to be their duty to get married before their 22 and then become this baby making factory. philosophically and psychologically theres a saying that your 20's are to figure out who u are as a person and your 30's are the time to start a family and have kids. also when you get into a relationship it takes about a year to really get to know someone cause your brain is firing off all these feel good endorphines and your chemically imbalanced. so the first year my church couple friends were married they were very giddy with each other. the kind of thing when your single and hopeless can drive you a little batty. now they seem to be in their terrible twos and bickering a lot plus they're trying for a baby. she's been taking feritility shots and has had a very bad physical reaction to them. plus shes almost 50 and it pains me to see her go thru all that cause shes super nice lady. i really wish they would adopt and i cant help but think they're trying for a baby as a church obligation. i've seen this kind of weird acceptance with the younger couples pre child and post child so again something im a bit disturbed by when these are not exactly goals of mine. as far as me believing the whole truth and nothing but the truth about the church i've got a long way to go with that. i dont know if you were at church when i gave my talk but i did it in a way that doesnt sell out my spiritual beliefs and coming from a very different perspective. everything i said in that talk i believe in 100%. i posted it in my notes section so if you want to go back and find it it would make some of more basic beliefs a bit more clear.
Scrawled by Molly Mormon 'round about 12:42 in the evenin' Merry Month o' June 6 in the foul year of our lord 2009
Man I am not for sure how to comment on that. Love the couple that you are talking about. Don't know them very well but I do like them. Kris and I were engaged 2 weeks after meeting....and I was 21. Guess I managed the 22 age limit huh? LOL. Marriage is tough, hard, and worth every bit. ..... this is hard to explain over the facebook thing. Maybe we can catch uo some other time.
I remember hearing you talk from the mother's lounge. I loved it! I thought that it was very well thought out and presented. Sorry I didn't say so when I was at church. I tend to be quit shy around those that I don't know.
What are your feelings about the same things that you had asked me about? Abortion? Prop 8 and things.....
Art Holmes Merry Month o' June 6 roundabouts 12:47 in the evenin' in the foul year of our lord 2009
thanx. im a pro-choice in the same way u are. life of the mother, complications in pregnancy and development, incest, rape. I'm not for laws that make it necessary to get your parents approval if your underaged. there are a lot of circumstances where i c it as a necessary evil and c it also as a safety issue. it saddens me that its becoming increasingly difficult for women to obtain one.
prop 8. i c gay marriage in the same light as civil rights in the 50's. im very for it since its coming from a place of love and being against seems to be coming from a place of hate and discrimination and also it has no direct effect on my life so i dont c why a gay couple whos been together for 20 years should have less rights than britany spears who can go off to las vegas and get married for 55 hours. in todays world if your for gay marriage its like being accused of being gay as like being lover of black people in the 50's. today most people see that as being ridiculous and laughable and voting for obama on this reason alone and him winning made me an emotional mess the day after the election. very fortunate to have been alive for that.
Molly Mormon Merry Month o' June 6 roundabouts 5:18 in the evenin' in the foul year of our lord 2009
My heart aches when I hear people saying that abortion is okay. Long before I became a member I couldn't imagine someone choosing to destroy a life....or even the potentional for a life for no reason. I look at my own children and can't imagine someone wanting to do that when there are so many people out there that can't have children of their own and would need to adopt. There are times in life when people get them selves into situations and abortion is just not the answer. Face up to thing and do what is right. I believe that a minor should have to have parental permission, I also belive that a person should go thru some kind of counciling before being able to. AND that is only if it is legal to do, I really do think that it should be illegal, except in the cases that we have talked about.
I didn't vote for Obama because I don't feel that he is qualified. One thing that I do love is how unified the country seems to be behind him. At the same time I catch myself controdicting my own feelings when I say that, I hate that he is the type of guy that has a beer wtih his friends a B-Ball game. Seriously....when did the office of President of United States get to be such a casual office position. I think Miss America would loose her crown if she did that. I do hold the president to be an examplor for everyone and I don't feel like he is.
Overall, I love the fact that we have a Black/African American president....I just don't like him.
Art Holmes Merry Month o' June 8 roundabouts 7:50 in the evenin' in the foul year of our lord 2009
The i want to have a beer with that actually came from bush and carl rove and the type of image they were going for and really didnt understand why people would vote for him cause of his clearing brush capabilities.
My definition of pro-life is abortion should be illegal no matter what. If its illegal then thats that and no one regardless of the circumstance is getting one cause its illegal. As difficult as it is to get one its kind of like saying the south won the civil war because you cant get elected president unless you carry a southern state.
With parental consent i cant imagine being in a circumstance where your raped by your father and then having to get his permission. For some odd reason the movie 'china town' comes to mind. You'll have to forgive my stream of conscousness i have a bad weakness for the brilliance of family guy. lol anwayz. . .
What was your age when you became a member? Why did you become a member? How did you know after 2 weeks that it was marriage time? How long were you married before your first child? Have you found your dating/enagement/marriage/to child transition to be the church norm timeline?
I just dont like him? Reminds me of something i read in wayne dyers first book about how its unrealistic for everyone to like you. Are there any other issues you feel obama is off the mark with? How would have mccain (aka bush's third term) been better? How do u feel about romney? Did you think bush's reading of 'my pet goat' after the 2nd plane hit on 9/11 was an acceptable reaction? Do you think we would have went to iraq if 9/11 hadnt of happened? Do you believe in global warming? Is al gore out to lunch? is anything that ann coulter, bill o reilley, and glen beck (who is mormon and u can check out his conversion story on utube) say acceptable? Do you think in the '04 election it was a wise tactic to say that Kerry was not a war hero because he didnt die in vietnam? What feeling do you get when you hear the name Michael Moore? Do you think Sotomayor is qualified and or a racist? should i feel guilty about watching saving private ryan on TMC to comemmorate D-day saturday or band of brothers or schindlers list on VE day? should i be loving the movie pearl harbor cause its a walt disney movie and walts wife was mormon even tho walt was gay? creationism or evolution? should creatonism be taught in high school? whats the difference between evolution and intelligent design? how does science differ in its purpose from religion? What do u feel is the greatest evil in the world besides me plaguing u with all these questions?
sorry just curious and brainstorming off the top of my head for variety and conversational purposes. i would be stunned if you have an answer im not expecting on any those. i had a bunch yesterday for my home teacher such as prophecy vs history from one of the testimonies that was given and how it applies to the book of abraham and the why and how of that books creation. this outer darkness destiny is ridin on my shoulders because of my 'black hole singularity' church status and for the life of me just can not seem to fit into a mold that goes against what i feel in my heart and difficult to put my head around certain concepts that i must believe in to get celestial glory even tho it would be a serious regression of everything i've learned from life experience the previous 3 decades before i joined. and cant stop thinking about what movie sister boyer deemed inappropriate? what music i need to be listening to? or if there any other acceptable tv stations to watch besides byu and would it be a sin to switch over to digital because i can only get it on satellite? should i be reading anything that doesnt have that chruch stamp of approval? is ignorance really bliss?
Molly Mormon:
This one could take me all day, with dealing with the kids at the same time. Just so you know......you sound kind of attacking....but I am not takling it that way. I am assumiing that you didn't mean it like that. I tend not to get offended easy at all.....so if you are trying to do that please spell it out! ;o)
First off I need to say that I have trouble staying on top of things politically. I don't find that I understand a ton of it, and that I really see things from both sides a lot of the time, then tend to lean to the more conservative side. So here I go with what anwers I do have.
We have the same views of abortion except the parental permission thing, I also agree with you with incesent case, We don't live in a perfect world and I think that someone else should be able to step in cases like that. If a girl can find a place to get an abortion I am sure that she can find the police, or social workers to help with the father situation and he rights would not matter at that time.
I have watched family guy once. I laughed at it, and then felt discussed with some parts....so I havne't watched it again.
I was 18, long conversion story! I mean long! I don't know I should write it here and take up the space or get on with the rest of the questions. BTW I am not going to take the time to read over this and make sure that it makes sence with grammer or spelling. At times my fingers don't move as fast as my mind and things get jummbled up in the the text. I really hope that it is readable. Conversion short story, I had been friends with members all my life....I moved A LOT. As a child I thought that it would be fun to go to church with my friends but my very democratic family would not let me. In high school I had a great mormon friend and my family was investigating a multitude of religons at the time. NEVER the LDS church. My mormon friend, Eric, invited me many times to join the family for dinner with the missionaires.....we had a very easy-going friendship and I would always show up after dinner, just walk in and of course the Missionaries had already left. The summer between my 10th and 11th grade my dad decides to put of sunny CA ranch house up for sale in a recession and it sells in a week, so he decides that he has great job opportuntiy in Utah and that is where we are headed.....NO THANKS . I told him under no terms was I moving to Utah and going to school with a bunch of mormons. NOT HAPPENING. So I ended up finding the family a place to rent and he agreeded to stay 1 year. I didn't want to move my senior year either so I worked hard and graduated a year ealy and then they never moved....fastforward a couple of year. Now I am dating a semi-active LDS guy and we get into an agruement about some of his activites that I am questioning.....wondering if they were church standard type of things....his response is "you're not a member why in the hell should you care!" So I left crying....I was asking question out of curiousatity and he didn't want to share. So I went to Erics house for answers.....he said come meet the missionaries. I said no, so he decided to answer all my questions for me.....I asked question after question after question.....I talked for a straight 3 hours. At the end Eric couldnt' answer my questions so I agreed to meet with the missionairies. The first question was "Do you believe in God?" and my answer was "I don't know." I was thristy for all the imformation and drank it up, trying to get every detail that I could. I really questioned EVERYTHING. BUT once I decided to figure out if it was true of not, and decided that it was I was signing up for the entire thing. I couldn't possible imagine that just part of it was true.....it was all or nothing. To me it is all....every little detail. So I don't go and look for thing to despell the truth. Simple faith, and it is exponding and I do still ask question. AND I have been told that I give the first impression of molly mormon, and I have to laugh at that. Laugh HARD. BTW boyfriend broke up with me, and then when he found out that I was getting baptised tried to be us again.....even pretty much proposing.
Next question.....engagement after 2 weeks, impulsive? Kris is not my type. We are opposite in many many many.... ways. Marriage is hard, and maybe even more so since we are so different. BUT it has worked out well. How did I know? Really hard to say..... I can't say that I prayed hours over it, or that it was a supper hard thing. Did pray, yes. I knew then that he was going to be a very good thing for me. VERY GOOD. Looking back at things he is very balancing for me. Allowing me to think that I run the show.....and really he does. Here is his thought on things....maybe you have heard this.... I get my way 95% of the time and he gets his was 100% of the time. He only cares about that 5% and he normally ends up being more subborn than me....even though he will say there is no way that is possible. Am I going into too much?
Next question.....married in March pregnant in April. It was a week long discussion of it. HE wanted to wait a year, and I was baby hungery. Not just a church thing, most of my family does the married young and babies young. I was 22 when I had Elaine. Do I feel like I missed being just a married couple? Sometimes? BUT the plan was to be young, have kids young, enjoy grandchild young....enjoy retirement with young kids. So I guess you can say that the timeline does seem to fallow the tradtion church norm.....but not for that reason.
Next thing....Obama. I think I would like him for a nieghboor. Not a president. I think that he is idealistic on what he can do. I believe that I have higher standards for that office than what he has demonstrated. Bowing to a king?? I don't know that I would say that I loved McCain because I didn't. BUT boy was he ever tenasious (sp?). I was so PRO-ROMNEY. Not just the church thing. He really is a good businessman. AND I felt that not only was he a republican....he would have been good for the economy. I have family that is so strongly democrate, and yet they voted for McCain over Obama....because they just didn't seem him as qualified. Don't even know what the 'my pet goat' thing is that you are talking about. Like I mentioned....not much time in my little world. Global warming....is something happening OH YEAH. Does it have to do with all of the gasses and stuff? Sure. Does it have everything to do with it....not so sure. I am sure that it does play a factor. I also see things that are happening as signs of the times. Don't know wh bill o reilley is, I have heard of glen beck (isn't he the one that did the money graph not too long ago?) Just figured out who ann coulter is.....read her book "if democrates had any brains they'd be republican'. I didn't understand much of it. She quotes a lot of things in it. AND if you don't know what was going on at the time it was hard to understand. BUT funny. Kerry, I thought that debates between him and Bush were histarical! He is very well spoken, then you had studdering Bush, who looked clueless. Kerry is what my learly of the democrated party. Nothing to explain it by, just gut feeling. Do I think that he doesn't qualify as a war hero? Let's not go there, my little brother is soon to be off on his second tour in Iraq......he just turned 21.....I have heard stories that people his age should never have to experience. So I have no opinion on Kerry and the V. war. Sotomayor...new judge right? Didn't know her before, havne't had the time to investigate, and I think a lot of things are tanted one direction or the other. BUT what was thought of as a racist comment....come on! Why does everything that we say have to be taken under a microscope? AND at the same time.....being in her position she should be very careful at what she says. Creation over evelution.....hello! Yes if they present one side, they should present the other in school. You have to learn about all the other religions in history why not that one? Micheal Moore....I laugh, I find him personally funny. Interview wise and things. I haven't seen a movie in years! We are just now starting to see them. So I haven't had much of a chance to see any of his work. Maybe I will had one onto the que in Netflicks. I saw Private Ryan....loved it. Felt it, is a better way to put it. Band of brother, and schindlers list I haven't seen. My brother says there is movie with Tom Cruise....something about the Lion and the Lamb that is perfect for his job, or that is what he does? Have you seen it? You should not love a movie BECAUSE it was a walt disney movie. Love it for the movie itself. Greatest evil in the world...hum? Tough one. What do you think? I am a simpleton......lack honesty, lack of integrity, I think most evil starts there maybe? My husband would say appathy...that people just don't care.
Hah....I think my answer page is longer than your question page. Love the questions. I almost wish I had better answers for you, I really am not too politcal, and catch myself even talking about it because I don't feel like I know enough. BUT when I do see things, they really stir me up! I have a big opinion on your outer darkness therory. GET OVER IT! I know harsh huh? Seriously...this is not ment to sound rude, but no one cares. People like you for you, and people should never look down or give you a hard time about these things.....unless of course they are doing it jokenly. BUT we want everyone to be as blissfully happy as a married couples....j/k. REMEMBER what you have learned the past 3 decaded was worldy views, and now you have a chance to learn other views and consider both sides.......from the heart and not just logically....like I know that you are doing. It would seem hard if you have these contradiction between church views and your views. This is how I look at it.......the church teaches that we are to investigate and ponder things and then decide for ourselves.....you are deciding for yourself.....let everything else role off your back like water on a duck. Pull yourself out of your own spiril.....no one else wants you there. BTW who is your hometeacher? I want to know what movie it was too.....didn't you say Night at the M. ? AND that almost makes me what to see if more. BYU TV, I am so glad that I have it......Conference in my PJ's is great. AND seriously that is about the only time that I watch it. Would I be a better person and feel better about things in my life, and get a better understand of gospel things if I did watch it more? More than likely, yes. BUT I am glued to CSI, Crimal Minds, Bones, and others like it.....are those church standard? Man do I have a long way to go.
So now that I have cover most of your questions.....do you feel that my answers where those that you were expecting?
SO an addition....I just tried to send this and facebook told me that my message was too long.....I needed to shorten.....don't give me so much to reply to next time.... LOL
Art Holmes
thanx for such an honest reply. i wonder if its cause you were a convert and not born into the church. i feel my talk was a lot more powerful cause im a convert and come from a very different background. i have so much more respect for you as its so easy to see people at church who are our age and all come off as the same person making it difficult for me to have a legitimate meaningful conversation with them. i'll write more later so i can ponder some of the things u talked about it. i'll send you my conversion story. i typed it out a couple of weeks ago. may find it interesting.
WHY I JOINED THE CHURCH
In 2004 my mother had a stroke. During this time I was living in south beloit and had been laid off from my job and my unemployment was running out. My brother had just been evicted from his home of the last 12 years and mother and significant other were being strapped financially due to mothers stroke. My brother came to stay with me during that summer and by the fall mother and boyfriend were interested in moving in to save money and to help me stay afloat.
So by 2005 my living situation was me, mother, mother BF, and brother. I had managed to get a job at the end of 04, mothers BF was working, and my brother was well my brother. If it hadnt been for him the year of 2005 would have been really special and living very very well but instead it turned into a very valuable life lesson on how damaging negativity is and my lack of having a support network to deal with brothers alcoholism.
My father passed away on september 12, 2002 and never got along with his oldest son. His saying was 'i love him but i dont like him very much' I had to go to belvidere to pick his stupid drunken ass up which took about 4 hours and listening to a lot of bullshit from him and his reasonings for getting wrecked. For someone who for years before dads death would get drunk and bitch and complain about how father was not exactly father of the century and how tough he had it growing up i would have thought he would have been happy with dads passing but instead i had to put my own mouring on hold and deal with him. I've already told my sister that she is babysitting and keeping an eye on him when mother passes away cause i am not dealing with it.
Back to 2005. So brother is not working and i'm working 2nd shift and somehow he manages to always score beer money. he can get totally waisted on about 3 dollars. and i would have to deal with this stuff. mothers Bf would do his best to deal with it but brother man was pretty much stuck on the couch for that year. I on the other hand had no one to actually talk to with dealing with such negativity and by the end of the year had come to the conclusion that my brother was in my life for the soul reason of learning how damaging negativity is to ones spirit and well being. It didnt help that at work I had been promoted and was dealing with people who didnt speak english and a front office who had no idea how to do the job i was assigned to do and sending me in completely opposite directions of what the shop foreman needed and leaving me not accomplishing what i needed to accomplish on a daily basis. i only took the promotion so i could work first shift. i really should have stayed on 2nd but the heavenly powers that be must have had other plans for my life. in january of 06 i quit and went on a very emotional downward spiral of hopelessness. in may of that year mother and bf got their own home and brother man went with and i was left running out of money, not able to land a job, and worst of all most of the people i knew were on a level that for me there was nothing about them that was enlightning, or insightful, and basically just very toxic to be around.
So june of 06 im at home and get a knock on the door and these 2 sister missionaries did their schtick and asked if they could come back and since i was dying for conversation that actually had some substance i said sure. I had developed a fascination with philosophy about a year before they knocked on the door. Mainly due to my fascination with the matrix triology and what does the whole concept of life mean anywayz? So the conversations i had with the missionaries was something that i desperately needed after dealing with my alcoholic brother for the last couple of years before that.
In 04 when i was out of work i had some jehoviah witnesses come to the door and then would come back and give me some lit and was always very nice to them but the mormons definately have a system of bringing you into the church that is really unparalleled. The missionary training center in utah should be a required business course. And it helped that I was fiening conversation on a meaningful level and was vulnerable from dealing with the my brother. So a couple of weeks talking to the missionaries i went to church and loved the structure of it. 3 hours. the first hour sacrament, the 2nd hour everyone goes into other groups that best suits them. So its not the cries of a bililon babies it is the first hour. and third hour is a segregated priesthood (male), relief society (female) breakdown. And i felt after my first time there that it had a very advanced placement type feel to it and you learn a lot faster than just going for the basic singing and a sermon that i was used to going to.
Was babtized on july 1st of 06 and spent the rest of that year getting aclimated to the church but not once did i ever consider conforming a 100% Since I joined in my early 30s I already had a good idea of who i am as a person and told the missionaries that under no circumstances am I going to become a republican, country music lovin', walt disney watchin' member. they said no problem.
My closest friend in the church joined a month a before me and was just about to turn 50 and was single. A rareity for that church. but he is someone who has really 'converted' to the mormon ways a lot since he joined. He met a women on line on one of the LDS dating sites and got married in the fall of '07. They dont waist time in that church and i think it has to do with their beliefs on 'be fruitful and multiply' and no sex before marriage or living together or basically being in a non marriage relationship that has anything to do with reality of what it is to be human. I've always felt the dating to marriage transition in that church is way too quick and my friend getting married is a great example of why. The first year they were married they were very giddy with each other, laughing, playing around, the kind of thing that when your single and hopeless drives you up a wall. Now they seem to be in their 'terrible twos' and bickering a lot with each other which I completely expected. And to top it off their trying for a baby and she's almost 50. She's going thru fertility injections and has had a really adverse physical reaction to it. I really wish they would look into adoption cause she's really nice and it pains me to see her go thru that. It feels like with the church your not really accepted until you get married in the temple and your wife pumps out as many units as she can. There are a lot of parallels with the mormons and what the duggars of the show 18 and counting are into with the whole 'quiverfull' thing.
Basically the beliefs of quiverfull is that in biblical times when you were being oppressed by the powers that be and you couldnt come up with people to overthrow those powers you would breed your own army. In the modern day quiverfull version its meant to populate to such an extinct and raise your offspring in your beliefs that you will eventually change the country and eventually the world to what you believe to be right. Its retarded and its basically what the mormons have been doing since the 1800's.
Anywayz (i got a bit sidetracked) I found the church to be fascinating on a psychological level and had developed an interest of psychology a couple of years before i joined so another added benefit. I find it interesting that when i say i go to the mormon church that they automatically assume im mormon when in fact i go for the pure fascination of it and to be around people that are in their own intelligent way are people that im glad to know.
Last year i was finally able to land some work in financial services and we work in a warm market. we dont do cold calling and are always looking to talk to certain people. such as own a home, car, have a job, married with kids, and are of a certain age. this pretty much describes the typical mormon. when i got into finance i honestly felt that the only reason i joined the church was so i would have a market list to work with. the universe works in mysteries ways. when i got into finance i was also told that it would be good to get on facebook so i would have a social network and so as i like to say my brothers negativity begot my enthusiasm for the church begot working in finance begot facebook begot what i was seeking in the first place and thats people to have a conversation with that actually has meaning. so here i am typing this out. lol
o.k. I think that about covers it for now...
artie
Art Holmes Merry Month o' June 9 roundabouts 10:25 in the mornin' in the foul year of our lord 2009
sorry about the language :( didnt read this before i sent it lol. i originally wrote this to a girl i knew in high school who grew up jehovah witness so my language alters depending on who im writing to.
Molly Mormon Merry Month o' June 9 roundabouts 11:52 in the mornin' in the foul year of our lord 2009
You're not offending with language. No worries there. Looking forward to you other reply. Church for networking??? Feel different now?
Art Holmes
facebook is a huge help with not having to stereo type people that i would pre-judge on a molly mormon level and keeping in contact with former missionaries and other democratic mormons from various other facebook pages. theres an intersting page i joined awhile back thats about not being an uneducated molly mormon.
after a year of going to church almost constantly i was away from it for about 6 months it was a bit of overkill for me and then brought back in for reasons that i described in my conversion story. so now my attendance is somewhat constant but i do skip from time to time.
Art Holmes Merry Month o' June 9 roundabouts 4:59 in the evenin' in the foul year of our lord 2009
im glad that you didnt take me as attacking you for your beliefs. im going to be calling out some people in this for context. the bishop might take this as 'murmuring' and being disrespectful but its just my opinion and how i feel about certain issues. if i wanted to attack somone for their beliefs pam brumble is the one that would come to mind. ill be discussing why in detail a little later.
a few questions i wanted to ask about your upbringing and your family being very non mormon is how is your relationship with them today? the first sister missionary i talked with before i joined had a similiar problem with her family and they were not for her converting to mormonism so i would imagine it must have been difficult. another thing i dont get with your family is if they are heavy democrats why vote for mccain???? im assuming they would be up on the issues and surely why would they want more of the same of what they got the previous 8 years. the only real reason i can see voting republican is if your making at least 6 figures a year and had qualified for bush's tax cuts otherwise that one goes into the twilight zone of WTF????
what suprised me about your response is your level of curiosity. it seems to me that having a very questioning and curious nature is not exactly a good fit for being a good mormon. this may be the reason why i was assigned the topic following the wisdom of the living prophet as my talk.
what questions do you find yourself asking now about the church?
the main question about your conversion is at what moment did you believe 100% in the church? there had to be that oprah a-ha moment when you believed this was the one true church.
onto obama and his idealism. the word hope comes to mind. also bush's idealogy based on his religion instead of what made logical sense based on the human condition. this is what i would consider to be the greatest evil in our world. religion ironicly enough. i mean pre-emptive war? God told me to run for president? with obama idieology it reminds of my einstein quote from my talk about how do u see the world. do you see it a world of people hating and killing each other cause if that what you see then thats what you will create for yourself in your life. bush did a phenominal job of putting oil on fire after 9/11. or do you see the world from the perspective of 'hope'?
bauwing to a king is a sign of respect and its the custom. kind of like hand holding with the saudi's. i dont see it as a sort of 'i am a man hear me roar' i am superior thing. the discovery channel or similiar channel had a documentary on this weekend about the science of body language. watch it if you get a chance. they do this run down about what politicians are saying through their gestures its really fascinating. if bush had known certain things about the iraqi people and their customs and had known that there was a potential civil war brewing would he have went to war? the movie W. goes into this and they are very fair to colin powell who comes off as only sane one in the room who ever served in a war as opposed to cheney and bush who between them had something like 15 deferrments to vietnam. i do believe we would have went to war with iraq regardless of 9/11. for one bin lauden and sadam hated each other, no weapons of mass destruction. even tho sadam said he had them it was his way of saying 'i am man hear me roar' to make iran feel unsafe and to make iraq seem more powerful than they were and cause they were iraq's enemy and now iran is more of a threat to america without sadam. sadam had nothing to do with 9/11. the 2000 election bush hinted at iraq and in clintons book 'my life' he talks about bush's change over period and asking clinton about iraq almost exclusively. and what i really dont get is bush pulling the weapon inspectors out of iraq early instead of letting them do their job.
my pet goat refers to what bush was doing when the planes hit on 9/11. he was in florida at an elementary school reading this book to children there and was told that the second plan had hit. he then sat there for almost 8 minutes. now one can argue he didnt want to leave and upset the children but on the other it goes in the WTF? category. nancy pelosi described something similiar after she had tried to talk to bush after katrina hit and what she felt from him she described as a reaction of being out of his element and scary.
Molly Mormon T'day upon the hour of 11:31 in the morning in the foul year of our lord 2009
My relationship with my family is weird. I am the white sheep in black family....on my moms side at least. My dad's side is pretty accepting of everone. My mother was not happy about my baptism, but went to it. My dad was okay with it, but didn't go. He doesn't like crowds. which I understood. I come home from the 2nd discussion and he asked me I was baptised yet and said no but that I was going to be. He then told me that he figured it was either the catholics that had it to begin with or the mormons that had it restored. So either way any religion had to be better than none at all so he was glad that I was picking one. I had a few aunt who emailed me and said that I was joining a cult that didn't realize that we were really fallowing satan....
The one cousin that is VERY democrate voted for McCain because she feel Obama is not experienced enough. She was VERY pro-Hilary. AND Kris and said that if she got elected we were going to move from the country.
I think that my curiosity is what got me involved in the church. AND I also believe that we are thaught in church to seek truth. The questions that I find myself asking now are things more on the lines of gaing more scriputre knowledge....my kids know more and remember more than me.
Them moment that I believe 100% in the church is hard to decribe...it was right after the first lesson. I HAD to know more. I had been searching for a couple of years at different churchs with my family and I had my own opinion of how things were. From what I was learning most things fit into my idea of what was right. Joseph Smith and resoration was a new thing for me....but I knew everything else was true...if that is how it came about then so be it.
I do HOPE with all my heart that Obama can live up to his HOPE and I think that my people are blinded by the HOPE. He a great BBQ neighboor like guy...do I want him running the contry...nope.
I don't understand a lot of what happened under the Bush adminitration and don't pretend to. So cute reading to elemetary kids. Love iT!
I don't recall Pams earth day post. I have seen Inconveniet Truth....he had on Oprah one day (BTW quoting Oprah... Ah ha moment...great Art). I didn't say that I believed in, but I do realize that SOMETHING is going on. Just so you know Pam and I are buds. She out of anyone is one that I agree with the most. She seems to know be as Molly Mormon as most of the ward. AND is histarical. We have same sence of humor and things. The kissing thing on her blog....think about it.....tongues touching, it is gross. If you think of it in the moment...gag. BUT of course it is part of life. Do I think that a kids of 6 should want to do it. NO. They will learn soon enough. Heck I have had to have THE talk with my 8 year old.
No I don't think that we should have universal health care. Do you know how bad the canadians are taxed, and how LONG you have to wait to get medical treatment for life threatening things? I have worked at a hospital for 6 years, it WILL ruin things. Not that I know a lot about it. I do think the medical stuff cost way to much, and that we need to realize that Doctors are humuns. My favorite OB had to retire because his malpractice ins. alone every year was $60,000. The ins. company payed out $25,000 just for my last pregnancy and delivery, 7 years ago it was $10,000. There is something wrong with a system that increases the same thing by $15,000 in that amount of time. I should say that the last preganacy was $29,000....I am still paying on the $4,000 of my part. I think that the government is already involved in too manythings. I took a political quiz on facebook and it told me I was an anacrist......which I don't agree with.
I did watch Fox news for the first time last night because your mention of it. I hated the guy that was on the acor at the time. Don't recall his name. THE church is not hateful.....some of the members may have been. This hole Prop-8 thing.....just another sign of the times for me. Will it gets passes ago to have gay marriage legalized...yes it will. Should it me....no it shouldn't. This isn't a civil rights matter. They already have the same right that I do....they CAN get married to someone of the opposite sex. Apparently this subject is one that is close to heart for both of us....maybe we shouldn't go there.
About little kids giving there testimony.....MY kids are the ones that are up there every month. I find it a great thing to do. You are right they don't know at this time. In our home I teach them that they need to seek things out on there own. Right now they are riding on the testimony of Kris and I, but there will come a time in there life that they will either be forced, or do so by choice, but they will have to gain there own testimony. Kris and I don't give our testimonies in the I KNOW fashion, my kids using those exact words was by their choice and what they have seen others do.
My kids are not allowed to do things on Sundays. My favorite day of the week used to be Sunday. We we would all go to church together, do dinner as a family, have guest over. Enjoy a relaxing day together focused on us. Kris now works Sunday nights so we come home from church and he goes to bed and to get just a few hours of sleep. I miss our Sundays together. That is the one day with life how it is that we CAN do things together and have yes, a typical Mormon Sunday. My husband is a huge Bears fan, games are on Sunday so he doesn't go to those. He also grew up playing football for 12 years, and then Rugby and wants our sons to play and Drew really wants to play himself, but not on a Sunday. Do I have this huge testimony of Keeping the Sabbath day holy. I can't say that I do, but I do know that life is better for us when we do. That I feel better, and if that is the only thing that I get from that will be enough for me to do it.
I feel awful that you have a hard time with some people. I like the Webbs, I don't know them well but what I do know I like. You not being able to be yoursef around them is your issue not theirs. It might be helpful to let go of some of your own issues and not blame it on them. Kris, do you know him well? He is so far from Peter Presthood and doesn't feel like there is anyone in the ward that he can be buddy buddy with and missed our old ward terriablly.
The movie the best 2 years. I loved it. It had a lot of mormon humor in it, I understand that it was so not going to win picture of the year, and that it was not hte best acting, but I think that is what made me like it even more.
I hope that my answers don't come acrss as harsh as they probably do, but my oh so cute kids needs some of attention....and so does the floor now that they have squirted juice all over it and each other. Again, not attacking just felt like I had to defend. AND I am hoping that it wasn't your intention to put me that position. Sorry. I just feel really weird about your post.
Art Holmes T'day upon the hour of 11:48 in the mornin' in the foul year of our lord 2009
ill try to write in more detail later. im really going to have to ponder on this one. cause its a lot closer to what i expected with your previous post which really suprised me.
Art Holmes T'day upon the hour of 12:00 in the evenin' in the foul year of our lord 2009
i've pondered it and the only question i have at the moment is how do u define molly mormon and peter priesthood? and how do u differ from that definition?
* and then she was gone forever never to be heard from again but the beat goes on
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