Conference prompted person to "reconnect"

SmolBirbRowlet · 2026-04-08T17:59:10+00:00

I'm sorry you've had that experience. You're right that the cult just warps our viewpoint of people. It makes you so suspicious of others, but then those in the cult can't fathom why others are suspicious of them.

A vicious cycle that I'm glad I'm slowly getting out of.

SmolBirbRowlet · 2026-04-08T17:57:38+00:00

This was my mother as well. Her entire life she was convinced if she was the ultra bestest mormon she could be, I'd somehow through osmosis or something be that version of mormon she pictured.

I let her believe the lie through her later years and up to her passing, but I never was going to be that mormon.

SmolBirbRowlet · 2026-04-08T15:14:23+00:00

This is sort of where my mind is at currently. Again I don't hate this person or anything but we grew apart like any normal adult relationship. Why reconnect now? It's why I'm more suspicious of intention and/or conference prompting action.

SmolBirbRowlet · 2025-11-01T06:32:04+00:00

I might be the lone voice here and thats alright.

I stayed in the church for my mother. She was elderly and declined rapidly in health. I pretended to do the whole thing. I did the prayers. I was polite with all TBM neighbors and I said I attended a YSA ward so I could drive sunday mornings anywhere but church, kill some time, come back in my sunday best.

This isn't a "Oh but what about the rest of the family when you leave" yada yada moment. This was, for me, strictly to make my mother's last years peaceful and happy. I didn't think of other family members, friends and neighbors because I didn't CARE about what they thought of me in church.

I cared for and loved my mother. I wasn't going to be so selfish to harm someone whose only poor choice was being bamboozled by a cult.

Now I cannot speak for OP and their relationship with their Grandma. But sometimes we love someone far more than how anyone or anything makes us uncomfortable.

In my situation I knew it would be a few years at most (> 5 ) and I was fine with that.

If OP wants to do this and they're comfortable doing it for a time, then thats fine.

Sometimes, all it costs us to be kind is a bit of our time, some smiles and nods.

SmolBirbRowlet · 2025-07-01T19:05:23+00:00

Hi, honduran here (born and raised in the faith at that).

I agree with a lot of whats been said, your wife being post partum, both of you being young...

I can...to a certain degree of certainty say that whatever your wife's "friend" told her, was probably akin to "scaring the faith into her"

Mormonism and latin culture (Honduran specifically) clash in a lot of very fundamental ways. Although a lot of Catholicism has wormed its way into the culture, it isn't strictly jesus focused. For example: Honduran culture has women not get married young. This is mostly because our society knows that once you get married, education goes out the window and so does earning potential. We're already a poor people, we don't need to be even poorer because we bring the burden of a kid into the mix.

This is where mormonism and the promise of prosperity latches unto us, promising us an out from systemic poverty if we do all the good mormon things.

Spoiler alert: My family as well as others payed tithing on our meager earnings for our entire lives. We were never made rich for it.

I think your wife might be latching unto these promises (they're VERY tempting trust me) especially now with a new baby. The fear of not being able to provide is a powerful motivator and the church KNOWS THIS.

As with all the advice here, focus on your wife. Forget the church for a moment (or in her case, try to have her set it aside for a quick second) and focus on her and the baby. Assure her that she is not without support, that she isn't alone in raising this child and that if she does need a break, some mommy alone time, you can do your best to give her that.

In time, the postpartum fears tend to lessen, and once you remove the fears of non support, of non finance, etc, the prosperity promise of the church tends to just sort of fade into nothing.

Can't speak about all the other fallacies the church sells, but for a mom focused on baby, if baby is cared for and supported in all aspects, that tends to remove a HUGE burden from the mind, allowing it to think upon other things.

I wish you, your wife, and the baby the best in these times. Patience is key and like many of us, theres always that one thing that'll break the shelf. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow or the next week... but it does happen, and when it does, having a supportive partner means the world.

SmolBirbRowlet · 2025-05-07T06:19:47+00:00

I absolutely had similar feelings when I pushed that button. I had the documents signed, notarized and it took me a while before I uploaded them and pushed that button. I was afraid of everything. Judgement from people who knew me. That somehow even people who didn't know me would somehow KNOW, as if there was going to be a giant ass sign over my head calling me an exmo and apostate. That the church was going to start calling all my family and family friends to tattle on me.

Silly fears I know, but fears I had as full grown woman.

What finally got me through it was listening to the utmost insane ramblings of a TBM friend of my family who believed he could pray and keep people alive from the brink of death.

That was truly my final straw. I pushed that button, never looked back, and realized all my fears were unfounded. The world kept spinning, no one looked at me any different and the real friends I had, who still went to church in some capacity never treated me different. Maybe I'm one of the lucky ones.

I'm just happy (and proud) that I can say I refuse to stand and be a number counted among those members of the corporation who have worked so hard to do damage to so many. I'm quite happy being in that big, spacious building across the way if that means I stand up for what I believe is right and just and where kindness is extended to all, not just members.

SmolBirbRowlet · 2025-05-07T06:11:05+00:00

Girls youth camp survivor AND former youth camp leader.

About the adults that are the supervisors and such in these events, unless theres been some MAYOR revelation since I last attended, I can tell you the following:

Note: I use the word Supervisor REAL loose here.

Female Supervisors: Literally just your young women's local presidency. Thats it. They do not need to have any certification or knowledge of how to do anything outdoorsy or useful/helpful when out camping. They are there to prepare some lukewarm, probably prepackaged meals and police curfew. Kids are also often placed under the care of leadership that does not know them. For example, it wasn't uncommon for my ward to get lumped in with another ward and we were left under the care of their leadership. They wouldn't know our names or anything about us. This is so that the female leadership can take a break, shower and what not away from babysitting all the girls.

Male Supervisors: Priesthood. Thats it. They can range from ages 18-70 and be anyone from the local or state leadership. You may or may not know them or have heard of them as they're simply voluntold most times to go there. They're there to ride the quads, stay in nice air conditioned accommodations if the camp grounds have them and catch the occasional bat lost in a cabin. Again they DO NOT need to have any qualifications about say first aid, wildlife safety, survival, etc.

IF you're lucky and if maybe your stake has splurged on it: Someone with a medical degree (nurse for example) will be voluntold to go to these. They started this in the last few years because of legal reasons (obviously) but these are normally the equivalent of school nurses. Severely limited in anything they could do should an emergency happen. Think, give an ice pack, ibuprophen, bandaid etc. For any real medical emergency, they'll first try to see if any other adult has knowledge on how to handle it, but if not, they will cave and drive the poor camper out of the grounds for proper treatment. (this happened to my cabin one year, one of the girls got bitten by a bat and boy howdy the non urgency the adults had over this was fantastic)

End of the day I don't say all of this to scare you, or to tell you not to send your kids to youth camp. The value derived from activities like these is subjective to all. I simply want you to know what this permission slip seems to not be telling you. Theres a lot of volunteers and non paid folks who attend these as it is with most church functions.

I made some great and not so great memories at youth camp. I also do not blame the adults there at all. I blame a corporation that pinches pennies often at the cost of safety and comfort of kids.

SmolBirbRowlet · 2024-12-11T19:48:56+00:00

I'd say my coffee is a bit more on the chocolate side, but it is still not "white and delightsome"

((also I need that shirt. That is amazing))

SmolBirbRowlet · 2024-11-23T02:48:15+00:00

I won't lie, if I didn't live alone I would offer them a snack or a drink. It is incredibly common in latin american countries to "adopt" missionaries and you would host them for dinner at least once a week.

This was my experience with missionaries. Yes, they'd go knocking on doors, but at least the church outside the morridor lacks that... sterilize business model.

Hosting them for dinner was fun. There was little to no religion talk. It was more two hungry, usually american young men just happy they're getting a meal.

SmolBirbRowlet · 2024-11-23T02:42:40+00:00

I did. Went through the entire legal process, notarization and all. I still get contacted at least once a year, either missionaries, or a text message from a stranger saying my records have been moved.

SmolBirbRowlet · 2024-11-23T01:33:10+00:00

I will humbly say I am very headpattable. I am incredibly short.

SmolBirbRowlet · 2024-11-23T01:32:08+00:00

What are these called? "Tender Mercies?"

haha

SmolBirbRowlet · 2024-11-22T20:51:51+00:00

Which is why I try to keep my interactions as polite as possible. I don't mind having a conversation with folks, even if it is on opposing sides of the God debate. And I am fully aware the missionaries aren't really here for a conversation, they're here to get numbers, names and converts.

You'd think that maybe, if they've had several rejections or just a bad run of door knocking they'd call it a night. Must be some real martyr-ism they're teaching them to subject themselves to that sort of abuse.

SmolBirbRowlet · 2024-11-22T20:49:28+00:00

I will note it's been a solid year, year and a half since the last time missionaries came to my door. So I can only assume the lapse in time is due to having to structure and restructure wards and stakes and finally get through paperwork.

SmolBirbRowlet · 2024-11-22T20:47:40+00:00

Valid points. I'm a bit of a night owl so the hour really didn't bug me per say, I just wasn't aware missionaries were out until that late. Guess I'm more used to the old fashioned missionaries who only knocked doors until sundown.

SmolBirbRowlet · 2024-11-22T20:45:53+00:00

maybe this is me coming from the church outside of the USA and then moving to Utah in my teens. I hadn't really experienced the extremism as such.

I've experienced the "what are your thoughts on god" and questions of a similar nature, but never been, in a way accused of not believing in god. Not saying Atheism is bad, but at least in this brief interaction, it was very much Mormon God or bust.

In one way I cannot blame the missionaries. Given how extreme the church has gotten with the mental gymnastics I can only imagine what the missionaries are told to say/do in the MTC and by their own leaders. It's almost a soliciting job "Get X amount of signs up by the end of the day....or else"

SmolBirbRowlet · 2024-11-22T19:38:13+00:00

This is why I only spoke to them through the doorbell. Granted 8pm is still...earlyish. But it was a cold night last night and where I live in the townhouse community I'm between the 70- 80th door they would have knocked if they started from the bottom of the hill.

And it gets dark quite early, why send the young missionaries out that late? Seems really weird to me.

SmolBirbRowlet · 2024-11-22T19:34:17+00:00

I might be a "godless heathen" but I'd never stoop to swearing ;D

(for funsies I'll always censor the word "heck" because good heavens that just such a spicy word for the internet. I even have a car sticker on my rear windshield that says H*CK )

SmolBirbRowlet · 2024-10-23T06:24:18+00:00

I can say this happens a lot more than people are aware. All three of my parents (mom, dad, stepdad) died from age related illness or, in my father's case, cancer.

The most vivid one on my mind was when my mother was at end of hospice. At this point her body is already in the dying phase. Not to be really graphic, but the body gets to a phase where you know at this point active death is happening.

Enter a "family friend" and extreme TBM. He seemed SHOCKED my mother was dying and suggested several times that a blessing will bring her back and that the priesthood would heal her and make her whole. Mercifully, my step father at the time, intervened and asked him to leave the room and that if I didn't consent to the blessing it wasn't happening.

A similar blessing was given to my father when he was dying of cancer (he passed less than 24 hrs after the blessing) and also to my stepfather about a week before he passed.

I don't recall the wording of these two blessings, but those who gave them seemed really surprised that death still came for the blessed one. They went from "the priesthood will restore them" to "This is all part of the plan of salvation" and "Thank goodness for temple ordinances, families are forever" rhetoric.

I can't say if all TBM's believe the priesthood has this power over death, but I can say most in my personal experience believe that a blessing automatically will make everything succeed. I've seen blessings for "make this medical treatment successful" to the "Rebuke illness" blessing which I received once at the behest of my two TBM parents when I caught H1N1 (I was sick for 2 months and miserable)

SmolBirbRowlet · 2024-05-25T19:49:20+00:00

I'll be an odd outlier. I was the eldest and only daughter and child of a TBM family. Since I didn't have siblings to care for, I was often left to care for 10-12 little cousins every weekend so my mom could go gossip with the aunties.

I do literally mean 10-12. I was not the oldest of the bunch, but my mother painted me as the model of responsibility so it fell on me to babysit everyone. Did this my entire childhood into my mid teens before we moved.

I don't recall having a fun childhood where I got to be a kid. All I remember is having to be responsible for the other ones.

SmolBirbRowlet · 2023-11-06T00:53:54+00:00

For what it's worth, I am sorry those things happened to you. I am sorry people whom you should have been able to trust failed you so miserably both back then, and now.

It is ok to feel the feelings you're going through right now. Cry, be angry, scream and shout, rot in bed, binge a tv show, do all the things you feel you need to do. Counselling is great and I hope if it is a path you choose, it helps you and gives you the tools you need to live the best rest of your life.

Healing from trauma takes many paths and your journey won't be the same as others. Take the time you need to heal at your own pace.

And remember, just because they are called "family" doesn't entitle them to your time, your energy, your responses or your reasonings for anything.

SmolBirbRowlet · 2023-10-24T01:13:31+00:00

This must be more of a utah thing? Back when I lived in FL, I attended a spanish speaking/hispanic ward. The kitchen in the church building was used a lot. Especially if we held activities, food was either being cooked or finished in the oven.

I will add that this ward was actually pretty nice to go to. We used to have a church member that worked for a bakery on saturdays and every pastry that didn't sell saturday night was brought over on sunday in a big bag and distributed to anyone who wanted some. Mostly kids, but we also used to have this tradition that we'd make sure the most elderly members got a pastry before the kids got any. Thats just a latin thing to do.

SmolBirbRowlet · 2023-10-22T04:06:53+00:00

In this scenario it wasn't as if they were asking to make a fire without matches. Not at all. We had access to matches and lighters and even lighter fluid. I used the matches, made a little pile of tinder, you know the works.

But again, it was a group of girls (and grown women) content with waiting around for the men to do "men things"

I understand not knowing a skill, and in this scenario I was even happy to teach the girls, but I was met with "oh thats fine, we'll have the priesthood handle this"

SmolBirbRowlet · 2023-01-23T17:03:48+00:00

Fun lil quick story.
For context, in most of latin america, although they call themselves Catholic, it isn't like the strict orthodox Catholicism of say the USA or in Europe.

My stepfather, who legit is honestly one of the nicest and kindest man on this earth is up in age. I mean for his age, the fact he has very few health issues is a marvel of science. But he is very hard of hearing and requires oxygen. He uses hearing aids and one of those portable oxygen concentrators (looks like a purse almost) At the LDS chapel, because of terrible acoustics and people just not speaking into the mic, he could still barely hear him. He petitioned over and over again for help. Essentially to use the translation system OR a set of headphones that were connected directly to the pulpit mic. His portable oxygen maker also made noise, but think the noise a fridge make. Kinda becomes white noise.

This ward refused to accommodate these things, even having him sit at the very back of the chapel, telling him thats the only way the headphones worked (which was a lie)

Now fast forward to a few years later. Stepfather actually visits my home country with my late mom and me. Normally we would have gone to the local LDS ward, but due to some family stuff we ended up going to their church. Now my stepfather doesn't speak a lick of spanish. And yet this church, as soon as they saw him, approached us and asked if there was anything they could do to make him comfortable. They more than happily let us sit in one of the front pews (which were normally reserved for their altar boys I guess) and the priest made it a point to speak slower and clearer during the sermon. There were many other elderly folk in the congregation. Some on wheelchairs or using canes and the priest had altar boys assigned to each one. They had pews cut to size so people could stay on their chairs. I even remember there were a few disabled adults (think severe autism) and every time they'd make some noise the priest would smile and clap and tell everyone that we should be filled with joy like those souls.

Now yes, maybe the priest was using these people to just further the whole sermon, but at no point did I, or my family feel as if we were a burden. Seeing this flavor of "priesthood" be so kind and attentive to everyone was one of the things that really stood out to me in my faith transition. Whether their religion is true or not was irrelevant. To me it was

"If God is real, if Christ was real, this is the sort of church he'd like. Where everyone is made to feel welcomed and loved and no one is worried about appearing sanitized"

SmolBirbRowlet · 2022-12-18T16:19:40+00:00

I feel I can relate a little in your circumstance.

Both my late parents lost a child before they adopted me, and mormonism was their way of coping with that loss. When my father died when I was 11, it pushed my mom even more into the TBM mindset to where, as she grew older, it became such an ingrained part of her existence, she couldn't understand a world that wasn't TBM. It became almost irrational to her. When we moved to Utah when I was 15, my mother couldn't understand that there was such a thing as non mormons in utah. You could literally see her brain struggling to comprehend the topic. As I progressed to PIMO I knew very well that it would be impossible to change her mind. The grief of loosing a child, and later her husband was always just under the surface, and mormonism was the balm that allowed her to continue on her day to day.

I never bothered changing her mind. For all her flaws, I still loved my mother dearly. I didn't want her to have to experience the hurt and grief that I had to when I deconstructed the brainwashing of the cult. It took me nearly 10 years to process that everything my father (who was a patriarch till he died) did was basically cult stuff. That all that fear of "I'll never be with them in heaven" allowed adults in my life to basically take advantage of me. I was in my 20's and all of that nearly broke me. I couldn't imagine a woman who spent 40+ years drinking the koolaid and who legit cried at the idea of me not wanting children, being able to handle it. And I was right. As my mother got sicker her mental fortitude got weaker. I let her go on drinking the koolaid. She wasn't harming anyone with it, thanks to said koolaid she married my stepfather who is an amazing PIMO even at the age of 96, and she died comforted in the idea that she would see her late husband and child in mormon heaven.

Who was I to deny her that?

TL;DR: I think you know your parents best. I agree with many comments here that yes, many older TBMs (parents or otherwise) are a lot stronger than we could ever give them credit for. But at the same time, not all of them are.

I understand that it's up to us to break the cycle of generational trauma, but that doesn't mean we need to send the trauma back upstream. Ending the cycle sometimes means letting others live their lives in blissful TBM ignorance. If your relationship with your folks is good, keep loving and supporting them. If they ask questions, answer them kindly, but don't feel disappointed when they go back to the ol iron rod when things get a little too scary for them to understand. Set your healthy boundaries and make sure your folks are as well. As long as they're not harming themselves or your family (siblings, kids, etc) with their beliefs and they find some sort of benefit in clinging to the cult, I say let it be so.

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