A big P word

 A few years ago I wrote a whole huge blog post on my personal blog about women in the priesthood.  It was 2014 and Ordain Women was in the news a lot (at least the LDS news) regarding giving women the priesthood.  I jumped on my soapbox and preached from on high about how important I thought it was for MEN to have the priesthood and not women.  Seriously, I don't even know that version of Syndy anymore.  

Today I'm here to make new statements and change my original opinion because frankly I'm now more educated and "woke"...yep I said it "woke".  Deal with it.  

April of this year, 2022, I went to my first feminist retreat. Not something I ever envisioned for myself.  When I was there I was still active in the church and processing a lot.  It was life changing and I'm planning on going again this next year, I'm even on the planning committee.  

Here's something you need to know about mormonism.  It's all male run.  Like completely.  People will tell you that women can lead as well and they would be kinda right.  Women are allowed to lead other women and children.  Once males turn 11 they are not allowed to be lead by women again.  They can be taught by women but women are never again their leaders.  Women leaders in the church are always overseen by men.  We cannot make decisions, give callings even distribute our own budgets for our organization without approval from a man.  We get our temple recommends from men, we are punished by men if we sin, we are asked to do callings by men, it's literally all men in charge.  

In my feminist organization it's all women.  ZERO men.  We went to a retreat in another state and we didn't have to have one single man there to do anything for us.  In the church women are not allowed to even be in the church buildings alone and we cannot do activities without a male being there to "make sure we are safe".  At the retreat we presided, we spoke, we sang and prayed.  We blessed, we loved and women collected all the money and distributed it accordingly...SHOCKER!  Women ran our worship service, we passed around m&m's instead of bread and water, we sang beautiful songs surrounded by nature, it was lovely.  It was the most spiritual experience I have ever had outside of childbirth. 

My daughters, if they had remained in the church, would never know true leadership.  Currently my oldest works for an insurance agent.  Her boss and owner of the company is a woman and all the employees in her office are women.  She is learning to lead in a healthy and normal way.  If she had stayed in the church she would be a leader out in the world and only allowed to be a follower in her church.  How messed up is that?  My husband works for a small paper company, think Dunder Mifflin of the Midwest, and it is owned by a woman.  My daughters are seeing very good role models out in the "world" on how to be a strong leader, but in the church they were always second.  

Now my husband has never been one to make me feel second.  We do things together and he's always supported my endeavors and I've supported his, but in the church he was over me.  Leaders would come to him first to see if I would take a calling.  His calling always came before mine and if I was in a leadership calling and they wanted him to have one too they would release me from mine to give him the opportunity to serve.  When I got married I understood that his word was the last word.  When he told me he wanted to move to Illinois and had applied for a job here in my mind I heard the words of my leaders "your husband has the last word".  Even naming our children he always joked that he could name them whatever he wanted because he got to give them names and blessings at church in sacrament meeting so his word was the last word.  He also knew if he ever wanted to sleep with me again he would not under any circumstances name any of our children Wolfgang...yeah it was one of his picks! LOL 

In the church there are no true women leaders.  That is sad.  Making that one change, letting the women have the priesthood and leadership opportunities would, in my opinion, help them retain members.  How many women are leaving and taking their families with them because they realize that they are never going to be equally represented?

 

Politics

 I hate politics.  Like really hate them.  For the last 40+ years I have basically ignored them.  Then the 2016 Elections hit and I realized I needed to stand up and take notice.  The 2020 elections here in the U.S. were brutal.  It even got heated on my facebook page where I literally had never posted anything political before.  

For me politics has always been something everyone else was into and knew about.  I just focused on my little corner of the world and let everyone else figure all that garbage out.  In 2020 there was a lot of tension between parties here and that really separated people, family, friends, neighbors.  I was frankly shocked at how many people that I knew and loved voted for Donald Trump.  People who I know to be good people, yet they vote for someone who is really a disgusting person.  I got so many comments about how his character didn't matter and what mattered was his views on the issues.  So many comments about how it didn't matter what he said/did it only mattered how he voted and "ran the country".  I didn't understand how so many TBM's could vote for someone who clearly stood for so many things that the church teaches against.

Now that I'm out of the church and have done extensive church history research I get it.  They are ok with voting for someone like Trump because they are ok with following men like Joseph Smith and Brigham Young.  Men who married and slept with under age girls.  Men who sent other men on missions so they could marry their wives.  Men who married adopted "daughters".  Men who kept secrets from their wives so they could go on to marry as many women as they liked.  Men who in spite of enforcing the Word of Wisdom for others drank and smoked.  Men who cared more about their reputations that what the law of the land stated.  Men who were racist, and this doesn't just stop with JS and BY, it continues TODAY!  So I get it.  If the person they are voting for does ONE thing that is good (or maybe a few things that are good) they overlook the rest.  Now I'm not saying that I am loving the president that we have now but I have not heard the disgusting things about him that I have heard about Trump.  Anything that I've heard has been fabricated and grossly misjudged.  

I can't wrap my mind around the fact that "God uses imperfect people for his work" and he couldn't find ANYONE better than Joseph Smith on the earth?  No one doing better things?  No one that had a clean rap sheet?  No one that was not an abuser, con-man, liar?  No one... 

Hmmmm...seems "sus" as my 8 year old would say. 

So if you're ok with following teaching of a man like JS, someone who is STILL quoted a lot today by church leaders I get why you don't care if a politician is an abuser, racist, misogynistic, predator because that's what Joseph Smith was. 

That does not make it right and you should really rethink your outlook on politics and religion and life.  Seriously.

 

I Hope They Don't Call Me On A Mission

 Being a TBM (true believing mormon) and having 4 kids AMAB (assigned male at birth) the pressure to make sure they all served missions was really strong. 

Males in the church are "under obligation" to serve a 2 year mission for the church when they turn 18.  They are required to go wherever the church sends them, anywhere in the world, and they are required to pay for the mission themselves.  It's very expensive and usually the parents of the missionary pay for the mission.  The last numbers I heard were around $425 a month for 2 years.  That's over $10,000 for each missionary.  This number does not include any clothes the missionary needs to bring with them ie; new suits, winter clothes for cold climate areas, appropriate things for personal days and even garments.  They also usually buy new scriptures which are really expensive and some need a passport and a visa to serve in foreign countries.  Each missionary is required now to bring a certain kind of cell phone with them as well which is another expense.  I've heard of missionaries calling or writing home asking for more money each month because they were low on groceries etc.  So the expense adds up really quickly.  

Now in the news the last few years the church has been spotlighted for it's excessive wealth.  They are estimated to be worth well over 100 billion dollars.  

well.  over.  100 BILLION.  dollars

Yet they still require their missionaries and their families to pay for missions.  This seems crazy to me as they could easily fund these missions themselves.  They do provide cars for missions that use cars but if you are a mission that still walks or rides bikes you are required to provide your own bike and replace your shoes when they are completely worn by so much walking.  My husband had to have his shoes resoled several times while he was on his mission and they were walking upwards of 14 miles a day.  

So here's my story about missions and missionaries.  I didn't serve a mission. I knew that my anxiety was too bad and I'd likely end up coming home early and I didn't want to put myself through that experience.  THANK GOODNESS I listened to my gut on that one and ignored my leaders and my dad!  I have always loved having the missionaries in my home and feeding them as a young married family was always so fun for me.  I have had countless sets of elders and sisters in our home and they are usually very sweet and bring a fun atmosphere with them.  

I've mentioned before that for a few years our family utilized our states food stamp program to get the groceries we needed.  It was hard and humiliating and I felt really guilty that we didn't have enough for our family.  I also felt very determined to "pay it forward" and use the food for us and as many people as we could help.  This included having the missionaries over for dinner about once a week for years!  During covid this kind of stopped and also when we moved to the farm I worked nights and we had sister missionaries in our ward so they could not come over when it was just my husband and the kids (it's rule).  Once I was able to quit my night job I was excited to start having the missionaries over again on a regular basis.  I found the missionary dinner calendar and put my name in a slot for a Tuesday evening.  I was so excited to have them over!  While I was adding my name to the calendar I noticed that another family in the ward had signed up for 2 days before I did.  I noticed this because they are the only other LDS family that lives in our tiny town and is about 40 minutes from the ward building.  The night before I was supposed to have the sisters over for dinner they called me and told me they could not come. They said they were out of miles on their vehicle for the month and couldn't drive out this far.  They asked me to bring the food in to the ward building and eat there.  

I was immediately upset.  I however told them I would not be bringing the food to the building and that I would just sign up for another time (knowing full well I would never sign up again).  Just as a passive aggressive side note I said "oh that's too bad I bet the (insert other families name) were sad you couldn't come out here to have dinner with them either.  To which they replied "we did come and have dinner with them because they are a bit closer than you"...we are 4 miles from the other family.  4.  MILES.  How can a church that makes so much money and REQUIRE that their missionaries pay for missions not have enough money to give their missionaries enough miles on their vehicles to visit and service all the people and members in their area?  I know that if I had been an investigator they would have figured out a way to extend those miles and come out.  I remained a church attendee for several more months and never signed up to feed them again.  

I understand that these kids are just doing what they are told and trying their best to follow really ridiculous and strict rules but I was so upset.  In the eyes of the church I didn't matter.  

Voice of Love

 After yesterday's blow up on FB regarding my drag queen post I've calmed down.  I went on FB this morning to see if anything else was said and by golly she deleted her comments (which in turn deleted all the replies) (don't worry I have screen shots) and she unfriended me and blocked me.  

She said "I just can't stand by and not be a voice of warning...I'm sorry you have chosen this direction"

Here's the deal...YES YOU CAN.  Members of the church have this idea that they MUST stand for truth and righteousness, but they literally don't have to.  They literally can keep their mouths shut and just be kind and loving and that will 100% do more good for the "work" than anything they can argue about.  They don't actually have the obligation they just have it in their heads that they do.  They told themselves that, they didn't hear it from anywhere but them.  So the obligation is fake.

You also don't have the right to come at someone and tell them their children are "an enemy to god' or that they are involved in "deviant" behavior or compare them to (paraphrasing here) murderers and abusers.  You don't have the right.  Now, if you want to go onto your own facebook page and spout all kinds of nonsense then by all means go for it.  However you cannot come to someone else's social media post and start spewing hate at their children.  You don't get a pass on that one.   This person has never even, that I know of, spoken to my children.  She had not spoken to me in over a year.  So you don't have the obligation or the right.

In Mr. Pachner's 11th grade history class we learned a lot about rights.  He said he has the right to swing his fist wherever he wants but the second it comes into contact with another person his rights stop and the other persons start.  We don't have the right to hurt people and that's just not physically, it's emotionally and mentally.  

Do I wanna hurt her?  YUP, I really want to email her directly and rip her a new one.  I want to find her son and let him know all the things she said about my kids.  I want to email the bishop and let him know what an amazing (insert eyeroll) person he has teaching children and to be sure to watch for traumatized youth in the near future.  Heck it would be a dream come true to go to her house and punch her in the face.  BUT...I'm not going to do any of those things because I don't have the right and also I'm not gonna stoop.  She is also going on her own journey and it's going to be a lot harder than mine.  

There was a time when I had a friend that was speaking out against the church and I couldn't handle it.  I didn't like the truth that she was saying on her own facebook page and I simply unfriended her.  We had a good friendship and had done lots of things together, but because of her journey I couldn't walk with her because I was scared.  After I left I emailed her and apologized and have refriended her on social media and we chat quite often now.  She's a good person and she is very helpful when it comes to me ranting about my struggles.  I love her so much.  I needed to step away for my own mental health and now I came back because I understand that she needed someone then too and I bowed out and that was terrible.  

So I guess the message I'm trying to get out there, and this wasn't the message I started with when I sat down to type this post it's evolving as I go, is we need to walk with people where they are.  If you believe in Christ and his ministry he walked with people where they were.  If walking with someone in their struggles is too much for you then it's ok to quietly and kindly step away.  No need to "be the voice of warning" be the voice of love.  The voice of love always wins and it is what we need more of. 

Drag Momma

 So another thing that's commonly said in the church is "Where will you go?  What will you do?' if you leave the church. 

Apparently I will go to Drag Shows!  

This weekend we were invited by some friends to attend a drag show in a city nearby.  I've been so excited about this for months.  We were planning on going to a drag show several years ago and the day before the show the entire family got salmonella and I was sick for weeks.  Being the true believing mormon that I was I took it as a sign from god that I should not attend drag shows, yeah I was THAT girl.  

Fast forward a few years and I'm geared up to attend this drag queen brunch at a distillery nonetheless, oh the humanity!  

IT WAS FABULOUS!  Words cannot describe how I felt, but this is a blog so I will attempt to put it into words. LOL

The Queen hosting the event was named Sharon and she has been doing drag for close to 28 years in the community.  She expressed gratitude for everyone there and their support.  Sharon spoke about how when she first started so long ago that she was afraid for her life when she would go to and from shows.  She knew there were members of the community that would hurt her for just being her and doing what she loved.  She got emotional sharing this part and so did I.  I was surprised the emotions that this event brought to the surface for me.  Not feelings of awkwardness or fear or judgment but feelings of love and support and pride.  I am proud of my LGBTQ kids and family and friends for being who god made them to be (if you believe in god).  

I am somewhat blessed/lucky/privileged to be surrounded mostly by people in my everyday life who are more liberal thinking and accept me all my quirks and ideas.  When I wrote my facebook post about leaving the church I got support.  A few people nudging me toward coming back/conference talks etc, but mostly support and WHOLE LOT of people messaging me telling me they have left or are in the process of leaving too.  More than I ever thought and people who I never would have pegged for leaving.  Some would probably have said the same for me.  So I know that I am fortunate to have found support when a lot of  leavers lose their families and friends and communities.  I am so sorry for those people and want to help in any way I can.

I posted about my drag queen brunch on FB.  It was a post about love and inclusion and just having all the feels about supporting people in who they are who they want to be.  A day goes by and nothing but positive comments, two days all the love, day three and I get a troll.  Not like a rando internet troll, like someone I know and would have considered a friend.  Ouch, that one stung.  Not because I'm sad to lose a friend, because after today they will be unfriended, it stung because I try really hard to keep people close to me who are good and loving people and I was kind of surprised by this person's comment given she has a queer son.  

I was out doing farm chores when this comment came through and the rage that came through my body was unlike anything I've felt in a while.  It was rage akin to rage I feel when my mother in law fucks with me and my kids.  So actually it's rage I feel when anyone messes with my kiddos. My poor milk goat  was probably like "what's the deal?  She's shaking and ranting!"  haha.  I was able to finish my chores all the while replying in several comments to her diatribe.  

In her comment she expressed that this type of thing should not be celebrated (meaning drag and LGBTQ), she said they are "confused or deceived and that they are the natural man and an enemy to god.  She continued to preach about Jesus and the gospel  and claim to be a "sister in the gospel" She also said she has a gay son that she loves very much. 

pause for dramatic rage effect

 I came at her with the fact that she literally NEVER posts on my page, never makes comments NEVER even likes a post, but today she decided to come at THIS post?  WTF.  I told her I felt sorry for her son and that no sister of mine would ever say these types of things about my children.   I told  her not to feel sorry for me or to misunderstand that I find difficulty in my kids lives because I don't.  

It took like an hour to comment all the thoughts I had I made 4-5 additional comments when I thought of them.  

This person was the Stake Relief Society President for years and I worked with her several times and I was her mistering sister for a stent too.  She now teaches primary which scares the crap out of me based on her comment.  Thankfully my kids won't be subject to her or her hate speech.  

I'm not staying quiet.  I'm not sitting there and letting these people make these claims based on a religion that was made up by a con man.  Follow who you want and do what you want but you come on my facebook page of love and support and spew hate and you're gonna get the horns.

I've named this blog The OG Molly Mormann for a reason and today this person got the full Molly Mormann effect in all it's glory. 

Man I miss that stubborn, rude opinionated loving lady!