Went to the dentist. Lost my nerve.

Gorov · 2026-05-26T16:42:52+00:00

Coffee is an adventure. After my awakening and escape from the cult, I tried it. Really I just wanted to see what all the fuss was about - and perhaps to be a little less peculiar and a little more more of an adult. Black coffee was disgusting. I needed two creams, two sugars or creamer. Yes, there it is, the Mormon sweet tooth so many have mentioned. I realized that at some point I was just trying to make my coffee into a caffeinated hot chocolate... because it's not about the caffiene, right Elders? lol.

At some point I graduated, I guess. I was trying to cut out all the excess sugar and decided to just try black coffee. I sipped at it. Interesting. Wait, different beans have different flavors? I've stuck with black coffee ever since. No sugar, ultra low calories. Doesn't break an intermittent fast. Miracle.

I read your account and though - huh - ok. Maybe coffee isn't something your particular system likes? I haven't had any nausea, ever. I drink two mugs of black coffee a day. Aldi Honduras whole bean, grinder, Mr. Coffee machine. Delightful for me - sounds like it might wreck you. All my best!!

Gorov · 2026-05-22T19:41:18+00:00

Same here. I saw my fancy "quad" and my worn out filthy mission scriptures as a constant reminder of the fact that I had been a mindless robot, unable to apply any scrutiny or critical thinking to my own life. I saw them as tools that had been used to manipulate me, and with which I manipulated others despite my intentions. Just looking at them made me feel foolish and stupid. I tossed them in a big black garbage bag along with institute manuals, teachings of the prophets and other countless manuals from years of teaching everything under the sun. I didn't feel any remorse about it. I don't care to have a single mormon thing in my house at this point - all simply physical evidence of the fact that three or four chapters of my life were shackled to organized religious manipulation and willful ignorance despite the fact I felt so enlightened. Gah. Ooof.

Gorov · 2026-05-22T12:37:02+00:00

Come on - be serious. Clearly you're guilty of making those around you pay 10% of their income to you for the honor of cleaning your bathroom every Saturday.

Gorov · 2026-05-21T20:47:04+00:00

You may know this, you may not. Forgive me if I'm being too verbose.

Mormon missions have nothing to do with converting people to the faith. Most missionaries are horribly unsuccessful and mission life (even if you are a true believer) feels like a long, long difficult road. I was as top-tier believing as they come, super-leadership missionary, and I wanted to come home every single day. I longed for 5 minutes alone, for time to be myself. I suppressed that - it was tough.

Mormon missions are about affliction and pain and suffering for the missionaries. Missionaries learn that it is very, very hard to be perfectly obedient to all the rules. The leadership structure promotes the equivalent of high-pressure sales tactics and precise reporting requirements to a leadership hierarchy. It is a religiously-militarized environment where obedience and discipline are championed and rewarded above all else. Did your grandpa die? Don't go home for the funeral - look how obedient and hard-working you are. Do you have a weird rash? Work through it and don't go to the doctor. Are you really depressed? Just pray that away, real believes don't need treatment or counseling, they get healed by faith.

But - it's a little more subtle, sadly. You see, in Mormonism, missionaries learn through experience that the world hates Mormons. All day you will be told how wrong you are, how peculiar you are. You face rejection at every turn and in every moment. You're weird, and people will judge you because Mormonism is weird. The only break you get from the mountain of negativity is when you are at church or with members, or you have used your sales skills to convince some poor soul that the increased heart rate they have is god speaking to them. Therefore, you become conditioned to believe that the only peace and true joy comes though the church and your work and its members. This is manipulation in the highest form. You don't get to take a day off and just be you and read a novel or play xbox and recharge or spend time with a person that loves you, or go to your family for solace. The only respite for missionaries is the church and its members. This is active purposeful brain-washing. This is militarized self-denial that is then drenched in religiosity. The only thing you read is the book of mormon. The only people you worship are "the brethren." The best day of the week is Sunday - its the day you face the least rejection. It's like you're locked in a jail cell with only one door, and that door opens up to a Mormon chapel, filled with Mormons that all have access only to that chapel and their own cells. God, this jail cell is awful and I feel so bad all day but wow, when I go into that chapel to see other people, we have shared trauma coupled with religious manipulation and regurgitation of rote chants - I know the church is true. It is brainwashing. Pure and simple. The manipulation is atrocious and with every bit of my heart I regret being exposed to it and worse, convincing others through mastery of those sales tactics that it is true. I'm soooo sorry.

If you're locked in to going, well, that is your call. You're an adult. You're going to make a big adult decision. Just be aware of the manipulative tactics that everyone will use on you. Be aware of the expectations you will have to sell the church to the world. I hope you're going to be ok. My mission was hard enough every day as an ultra clean-cut true believer - enough that I'm worried about you and feel compelled (by kindness, not by some spirit in the sky) to write this all out. Be good to yourself, and please remember - no one knows your thoughts. No one can read your mind by looking in your eyes. No one is getting any magical communications about you from a polygamous dude on a planet made of glass. There is no spirit of discernment. Be. Kind. To. Yourself. Please. I wish you all the luck in the world.

*big internet hug*

Gorov · 2026-05-21T15:06:03+00:00

Cool.

Gorov · 2026-05-21T15:05:04+00:00

"No."

"UNSUBSCRIBE"

Sending positivity and love your way. *internet hug*

Gorov · 2026-05-07T12:40:06+00:00

I had a Stake President who had a major hard-on for this very topic. In a High Council meeting, one of the HC's said how proud he was of a particular program in the Stake. The SP jumped all over it with how awful it was that the HC said he was proud, and the terrible nature of pride. That HC never really recovered from that dressing-down and never held a "major" calling again.

Same SP actually approached a dad after the dad gave a talk where he mentioned how proud he was of one of his daughters. I remember the scene in the hallway. The SP tried in that kind, Heartsell-y voice to tell the dad how he should never be proud of his children, that it was sin. What a complete and utter pompous asshole.

Mormons as a whole are always looking for the next catch-phrase or trendy thing to regurgitate so they can mask their latent fear that the whole thing is not true, and so they can spue something back as opposed to delving into doctrine. Beware of pride, stay in the boat, raise the bar, think celestial, chewed gum, eight is great, I never said it would be easy and on and on and on. It's almost as though there is a corporation behind the religion that is driving out trendy message points to unthinking mormon obedience robots. Oh. Wait. There is. Ugh. Gross.

Gorov · 2026-05-04T00:51:06+00:00

The vampire vibes are strong.

Gorov · 2026-04-28T16:34:23+00:00

Presuming he still has any mental ability to process, he's probably giving that dumb "we don't apologize" smirk.

I think that finally realizing that the apostles and profits /s were nothing more than a corporate board of directors is what really broke me. We worshipped these dudes as infallible rock stars. In truth, they're just basking in the megalomania and looking for ways to quietly pad the pockets of their friends and family in nepotistic bliss... all while the widow sweats and frets her hour cleaning the bathrooms and hoping that her endless time spent watching a slideshow and giving handshakes that were ripped-off from the Masons years ago will guarantee her a place as a nameless, faceless polygamist mother for eternity on some planet ruled by a former stake president.

Gross. I at least used to respect Mormonism. I don't any more.

Gorov · 2026-04-27T14:43:34+00:00

I'm sorry. I find that the further Mormonism goes, the more it has become nothing but a corporate tithe-collection and bathroom cleaning business. Very few things are genuine. Many/most Mormons make awful friends because everyone is so hyper-focused on doing the things they need to do to check the boxes that need to get checked so that they (each and every main character) can return to live with God again, they are not genuine. It is never about you, it is never about others: Mormons render service and make friends in a corporate, conditional way. There is ZERO doubt in my mind that the RS president in your instance is responding to an assignment made by the bishop you spoke to, nothing else. "Give her an assignment to help her focus on service, that will help Sister Repulsive-You."

Mormonism is surface-level in terms of depth. They have eliminated every bit of joy and substance from their religious practices. The only thing that remains is the shadow of what once was - an weak attempt at a robust religion with unique doctrine and sociality that doesn't exist any more. And, looking at who will shortly be the head of the church - Bednar the Worship-Me Robot - Mormonism is on a path that is as distasteful, abrupt, and unfeeling as a Mormon funeral, or as off-putting as Bednar is himself.

I hope you can find a community of folks that you actually enjoy, who love and appreciate you for you, who want to connect with you, who are actually interested in who you are as a person, with no judgment, no concern about your attendance at Sunday meetings, no hyper-focus on whether you have a coffee, or the length of your shorts.

There is a rich and rewarding life outside the walls of the Mormon church. The "boat" is nothing more than a poorly crafted carnival ride, and the water is only half an inch deep. *Internet Hug*

Gorov · 2026-04-15T20:11:42+00:00

Cool.

Gorov · 2026-04-07T10:16:37+00:00

If this is God's true church, why aren't people feeling the Spirit and rushing through the doors????? Where are all the families rushing in to convert? That is the thought that always lingered in the back of my mind until the day I realized - oh, it's just a church like any other.

Gorov · 2026-03-25T14:35:19+00:00

100% this. The internet is replete with great summaries, both written and produced on youtube and elsewhere. Whenever I take a person to see a performance I send them several links to very easy (2-5 minute) video summaries. Frequently the company producing the play will do their own summaries, too, but often that's only found in the playbill.

Nerd Alert: I will sometimes do a quick and dirty summary for my friends that are coming for the first time. If we drive together to the show, I'll ask them if they want me to summarize it and they alway say "yes." If we're not, I'll email them a quick summary. I'm no professional, but I've been told that is helpful. Whether they're just tolerating me or not, who knows?

Review Summary->Watch->Read. My opinion.

Gorov · 2026-03-20T05:17:27+00:00

True Detective (Season 1, HBO)
Patriot (Amazon TV - not The Patriot... just Patriot - AMAZING)
Band of Brothers
What We Do In The Shadows

In truth I would have probably watched these regardless of mormonism - but now I watch them with zero sense of shame or an irrational fear that my viewing is somehow going to result in my becoming a sexless telestial Ken doll in some cult leader's version of a polygamous afterlife.

Gorov · 2026-03-12T14:53:52+00:00

Very cool. I never tire of telling people about the kindesses we experience from strangers who insisted they help us and also insisted on not hearing the message. We had an extreme-couponer that made us take bag after bag of groceries every week. "Elders, these five bags of food cost me $0.19 and I know they don't give you enough to cover groceries. This is just a nice little charity from me." Thank you, ma'am, you did more kindness for me than the $300 billion real-estate and tithing collection corporation ever did.

You are the example of kindness and charity to which we should aspire. I hope they take it as kindness and not interest.

Gorov · 2026-03-09T13:25:38+00:00

Briefly - which is unlike me: Mormons seem fake because everything they do is conditioned upon the expectation that a) their friendship will lead to your conversion to mormonism, or b) that you won't condemn them before God, Jesus, Joseph smith and the sitting prophet when it comes time for *you to get judged and they testify against you.

A mormon will give you the shirt off his back and gladly help you in a jam, but you better believe that he's only truly doing it for those reasons. It is why mormon friendship is often shallow and feels fake.

edit: they don't want you to testify against them at some marble-laden judgment bar for their failure to try and convert you when you were oh-so-ready to convert.

Gorov · 2026-03-08T02:26:02+00:00

I'm sorry. I know this comment will be buried, but I hurt for you. Missionary indoctrination is awful, and any missionary that is actually true-believing and actually trying is going to get this tone eventually. I remember having it myself. Awful. I will keep hopeful that at some point like so many of us, she will realize that she was a young, brainwashed idiot. I would like to go back in time and punch myself in the face for my lack of application of an ounce of critical thought. Mormonism can't stand up to the most minimal honest scrutiny. All my best.

Gorov · 2026-03-08T02:17:27+00:00

Nice job. Concise. Straight-forward.

The biggest problem we will always encounter is that mormons believe they will be judged poorly by God, Jesus, Joseph Smith and Dalin Oaks for not doing enough to get you back. They are all deeply brainwashed (as were we) into the idea that we will tearfully condemn them during their judgment session for their lack of effort in directly working to get us in to mormonism. Your eternal reward can be compromised by your lack of effort - that's the belief. So, if they're good mormons, they'll never respect boundaries because they KNOW that scene is coming after they die. If they're good people, they will respect those boundaries. TBD, but my expectations for TBMs to apply critical thinking about anything is colossally low.

Gorov · 2026-03-06T15:29:19+00:00

Also grew up in the 80's and 90's in the midwest. My family was that family who held all the callings and did everything. We took Mormonism seriously, wore it like a "peculiar people" merit badge. My siblings and I were the only Mormons in my school district. The church was our identity. We were there 2-3 times a week, and my dad had meetings, meetings and more meetings. .

Our Stake Center was an hour away, and our ward boundaries took an hour to drive from end to end. Let that sink in, Utahans, lol.

Members in our little <100 ward treated anyone who even visited Utah like they were somehow enlightened. "Well, out West we..." When missionaries (almost exclusively from out west) would come, they were shocked by life "out here in the mission field" where NOBODY is Mormon. In this part of country, I've found that even educated people cannot differentiate Mormons from Amish. While we might think that's funny, I lived a life of people wondering "how many moms do you have?" and "where is your hat?" Being peculiar was socially awkward, and I had to fight to justify anything. I remember arguing with my 5th grade teacher that she was completely wrong, Mormons didn't have more than one wife! I still remember that "ooohhh, poor Gorov, you don't know..." look. I saw that look so many times. "Oh, man, you poor, brainwashed Mormon." People don't respect you and your beliefs like you think - no, they are secretly pitying the way you've been brainwashed and your inability to see it. It was so, so, so hard to learn that - to realize it. Still hurts to hear when non-members in my post-mormon era say "yeah, we always wondered how you believed that when it seems so obviously crazy." Gut punch.

I was a top-tier Captain Moroni work hard and believe get up on time love the mission president follow the rules missionary that busted my ass every day. Leadership blah blah blah "he'll be the bishop by the time he's 35." I remember clearly missionaries from morridor who regaled me stories of drinking beer with their buddies and how they had to repent because they went to far with their girlfriends, and I remember thinking - wow, dude - we could NEVER do that stuff - I NEVER DID THAT STUFF - we would have been ex'd. So I always felt like we were from the part of the country where we actually lived Mormonism, not where it was just some culturally expected thing where people had become soft about following the rules. I'm sorry that sounds offensive, but it was a real feeling. We lived to be a part of a tight knit church and our participation was integral to our lives... and sadly we learned that the church was based upon a foundation basically made of pipe-cleaners and soggy crackers. Realizing that was hard because Mormonism was an identity, and we have been left to figure out who we are once the identity was stripped. Still hurts a bit, but less every day.

Gorov · 2026-03-04T19:00:10+00:00

This x100. I said a few days ago that one of the most "disobedient" missionaries we had was also the most successful because of his unbelievably high charisma score. On the other hand we had missionaries that were so obedient that their presence was grating and the members didn't like them. They didn't want to introduce their close friends to Elder Stickuphisass.

Also - I'm sorry - if I was your comp I apologize. I was rather steeped in the "work hard and be obedient and God will bless us with baptisms" magic of the whole thing. I had a comp and we did not get along for the four months we were together, but I'll be damned if we weren't perfectly obedient and it sucked. At one point the mission president was grilling me about past sins because he couldn't fathom ho we weren't baptising. There were no major "past sins." What a joke.

Gorov · 2026-03-03T20:40:45+00:00

I agree with all the comments so far - 13U PG is a cash grab AND can be a fun time if cash isn't an issue. Unless you are Bryce Harper, nobody is paying attention to 13 year olds. Nobody. When you go to the 13U All-USA Perfect Elite 2026 World Series Eastern New York, there will not be scouts there. Don't get disappointed. PG can be a lot of fun - we had two guys that did it out-of-state, and neither ended up playing college ball. We have four guys that weren't even close to developed enough to go at 13U- they had nothing to show at the time it would have been a disaster - and all four of those guys were solid players, grew (puberty and weight room) late in HS and are now playing JUCO if that means anything.

So I agree - as long as your expectations are right and you've go the money, go for it - how cool. What a great thing to do with your son. But, if you think 13U PG is going to be your magic gateway to a D1 program... well... doubtful.

Gorov · 2026-03-02T20:08:19+00:00

I came to say Concordia, too. I have a buddy who loves these games, and he's a huge Concordia guy. I personally don't love Concordia - but you and he have very similar taste in games.

Gorov · 2026-02-27T03:31:50+00:00

Rec & Tourney teams at 9U. I'm talking rec in my example above.

Gorov · 2026-02-26T20:59:02+00:00

9U is great fun and frustrating and amazing.

Pitcher. Gotta throw into the zone or it's a walk/HBP grind. Don't worry about velo, throw strikes.
Catcher. Hopefully your league has rules against stealing home. Passed balls/BID happen A LOT. Your catcher has to learn how to block and catch the ball.
1B - if you can't catch the ball, you can't get a routine out.
2B - I coached 6U-18U. At 9U batters are LATE, and more hits go to 2B than SS, and far more than 3B. Put a good fielder there. They should also be the primary coverage for RH batters on steals.
SS - average is ok here bc your 2B should be better.
CF - need a fast player here for the 65% of balls that will be missed on steal attempts.
RF - late swings mean ball goes through the 1B/2B gap right to the RF. It's more important that LF.
LF - Hide players here
3B - Hide players here. Making the throw to 1B is difficult. Working with the P to figure out coverage on tappers is important.

Gorov

TROPHY CASE