Sunday - June 15, 2014
Today was a very nice relaxing day. We woke up and headed to church. I'm embarrassed to say, but I've been struggling with church stuff for a while. A bunch of different things had happened during the summer, then in October everything just came to a head and all of the sudden, I felt like, "What the heck am I doing?" There were so many confusing things that had happened. A met a group of women, who claimed to be strong in the church. They were all heavily involved in this energy work stuff. I went to a retreat with all of these women last spring. They all talked a lot about the energy work stuff. I can see the could in this and a lot of stuff make sense, but it is easy for people to go to far. And that's where a lot of these ladies were. They had gone too far. They no longer talked about the need for prayer or the priesthood, they seemed to feel like they had the power to cure and fix anything and everything. They had these crazy ritualistic things that they would repeat every morning or before they went somewhere or before bed or when ever. So, instead of saying prayers, they would say these weird rituals about cleansing themselves from the evils of the world. They also said that it is important to cleanse yourself of your ancestors wrong doing and fears. Like for me, since I'm afraid of bees. They said that I could have gotten that fear from an ancestor, so I needed to cleanse myself of my ancestors fears and problems.
The more I learned, the more I felt like, "These ladies are crazy." At the meeting, they were crying and talking about how strong the spirit was at that moment and how they just knew this stuff had to be true. It was really weird to me. I was there, and I felt something, but it wasn't the good spirit and feelings that I'm used to. It definately did not feel right. The fact that all these women had tears in their eyes and were agreeing, really threw me off. That is the first thing, that happened and made me start to question the church. Because all of these women were what people would consider to be strong active members of the church.
During the summer, it seems like little things kept happening. Incidences where people who were "strong members of the church" were rude to us and treated us poorly because they didn't think we were as strong in the church as they were and because of that, they treated us like we were a lesser, not worthy of the same as them, type of people. That brought up the many memories of the times we were treated that way in our previous ward where we had lived for 8 1/2 years. Our neighbors right around us, didn't like us, because our yard wasn't kept as nicely as theirs. They were all retired and their lives revolved around their yards. Our yard work got taken care of when we could fit it in out busy schedules. I think we kept it decent, but that wasn't good enough for them and they made sure that we knew what a disappointment we were. They would come over and do yard work for us. When we'd go outside to thank them, they would go off on us and say, that if my husband would get off his lazy but and do the yard work himself, they wouldn't have to be over here doing this for us. Also, after Brinley was born, I didn't come to church for about 3 months. From that point forward, we were considered the inactive family. It didn't matter that we started attending church again. The primary would come once a month or so and bring us a copy of the friend magazine. They would come to the door and tell me that they are out just visiting the inactive families in the ward. Then they would give the kids a friend magazine (because, if we are inactive, surely we don't get the friend magazine). It really bothered me that they would do this, because we would see them in church each week and every time they came, I would thing, "You know, you could have just given it to us when we saw you in church on Sunday." Because we were the inactive family, we were treated differently. We were not as good as them and they did a good job at letting us know that. Things got worse, the year that I pulled Parker out of school. That was the same year that my mom had passed away. It was really hard learning how to feel okay again, with out having my mom to talk to all the time. I called her about everything. People were angry that I pulled Parker out of school. The school, tricked me into coming for a meeting where they took turns telling why I wouldn't be as good as them at teaching my child. The principal got in my face and yelled at me. The was scary and horrible. Then neighbors started coming over, telling me not to do it and saying things like, "How could you do that to your child?" I pulled him out anyways. Things were worse after that. We were rejected more. Friends that the kids used to play with, all of the sudden, couldn't play with them anymore. It was the craziest most horrible thing. By the time, we moved out in 2011, I was desperate to get away from there. Anyway, so those memories kept coming back to me.
The other thing that happened to deepen my confusion and my unsure about the church feelings, is that I started watching these shows on TLC about people fleeing the FLDS church, people escaping other cults, and the show about the Amish people leaving their church. All of these things really made me start to feel confused and wonder, if I really knew what I was doing. I had felt very strongly that I knew this to be the true church and I never thought I would reach a point where I felt this confused and I started questioning thing again. I decided to take a step back and try to figure things out. So, I asked to be released from my calling as a primary teacher. They didn't release me from my calling, but they did find someone to teach my class for me while I figured things out. They were very nice and helpful about that. I was very grateful for that. I thought, I would still attend church while I figured things out, but I had a really hard time getting myself there.
What I learned in my not attending church, is that people out of the church are just as mean and judgmental as people in the church. The church and it's teachings are true. I know that. People are not perfect. Their are a lot of good people out there and there are a lot of not so good people out there. Everybody is just here on earth trying to be the best they can be. Live the best life they know how to live. People are not out to get me, they are mostly looking out and trying to better themselves. And a lot of them don't seem to care who they hurt in the process.
It's been a crazy, frustrating, confusing little journey that I've been on over the last 6 months or so, but I now know and have a much stronger testimony of the truthfulness of the church. I also know people are crazy and nobody's perfect.
Anyways.... so Sunday was really nice, because it was my first time back to church in a long time. It felt good to be there and I hadn't realized how much I missed it. There is a feeling and a spirit in the church that I don't get to feel anywhere else. The people in my ward were so kind and warm and caring. they seemed genuinely happy to see us there. We felt very welcome and I knew that's where we belonged. Relief society was funny that day. It was the kind of meeting that you only get to experience in a small town. I love small towns! A lot of people had opinions and things to say about the lesson and that was fun. But, before the lesson, at the start of the meeting, they informed us that someone in the ward had their house broken into. You should have heard the loud gasps from everybody in the room. Then the person, who's house it was, raised her hand and clarified, that it was her cars, that had been broken into. Also, her neighbor's cars had been broken into. Then someone chimed in to warn us, that sometimes they are looking for cash or things that they can sell easily to get money for drugs. Other people spoke up in agreement adding their own ideas of what a bad guy would be looking for. Then another person warned that we should be careful, because she heard that sometimes they watch as people go to church, then break into your houses while you are at church. It was just a really funny conversation to me. I never experienced meetings like that until I moved to Tremonton. I think it is just a small town mentality. I experienced this kind of a meeting in Tooele, at my Mother-in-laws ward. It's the kind of conversation, where even though the point has been made, everybody wants to share their story or have some input, whether it is relevant to the topic or not. In the Tooele meeting, the lesson was about keeping the Sabbath Day holy. People kept interrupting the person talking to tell about the different ways they always keep the Sabbath day holy and they are appalled by people who do things differently than them.
Anyways... Sorry, I got way off topic from what I originally planned on posting about. It was a nice day. Roger woke up shortly after we got home from church. The kids were excited to give him his gifts. In sacrament meeting they passed out root beer and snickers bars for the kids to give to him, then Brinley made a card in primary and she got popcorn and another soda to give. There was a cute poem that mentioned being "Corny" and called him "Pop" to go with the popcorn and soda pop he received. Then there was the gag gift from the kids and I. We got him Handerpants - underwear for your hands (they are gloves that look like underwear). The box that it came in tells of the funny uses for handerpants.
