On a sunny winter day of 1985 or 86, I was waiting in the entrance of the Nuremberg train station when an elderly gentlemen with an Austrian accent addressed me: “When I see how beautifully Nuremberg has been rebuild, I feel encouraged that one day our Germany will be united…
Category: Mission
LDS Inc. unwilling to tell members to obey the law?
You’ve probably all seen the news coverage recently noting that there is an increasing debate in Utah about illegal immigration. Mormons seem to be leading the charge in Arizona and Utah (not necessarily as Mormons, but these politicians happen to be Mormons) to restrict the rights of illegal immigrants. But…
How bad must things be in the US?
Did anyone else catch the latest change to proselytizing in the US? Mormon missionaries are now surfing the web looking for people. Baptism numbers must be way down if the LDS Church is allowing missionaries to spend time online searching for converts (of course, with a companion looking over their…
Bordeaux Mission wrap up!
Really enjoyed these latest chapters. As an atheist with LDS friends, it’s a fascinating (and a little scary) look into the Mormon mission world. I’m also impressed with your ability to empathize with and accurately characterize a teenage male’s sexual drive! I went back and read the whole thing together…
A Healthy Dose of Skepticism
Recently, I got a chance to experience the missionary/salesperson perspective first hand. I was asking various people to sign a petition. For privacy reasons, I’m not going to say what the petition was for, except that it may or may not be related to my work. You might question how…
The last P-day of my mission
I was back home fishing. The morning sun was filtering down the canyon as I rowed my boat out to the middle of a calm lake and started preparing my lines… Not really. But in my mind I was already gone. Anywhere but wasting the last P-day of my mission…
the best use of tithing = hunting preserves?
In line with my earlier post about the LDS ranch in Florida, I just caught wind of this: The LDS Church owns two hunting preserves in Utah. Turns out the Deseret News has profiled the preserve and the missionaries who staff it. (Yep, you read that right – missionaries staff…
God and Being Gay
Cross-posted over at Virginia Beach Progressives and Our Own Online. This is somewhat a lengthy post on how my sexuality affected my faith in God. It’s also a brief account of my entering into and coming out of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. From July 2004 to…
Investigator’s Lament
I am not your trophy, Do not display me, Do not report about me, Be my friend. When you reduce me To a number, I am less than human, And so are you.
How Mormon values gave me courage to leave
I have thought of my “exit” story as boring. Boring, but different. Rather than a narrative of the Once-Happy-TBM who unwittingly came across a troublesome theological or historical issue and lamented as it gobbled a once easy faith, my story has from early on featured something amiss…but what I’ve thought…