When Rebuilding The Church Looks Like Destroying It*

When Rebuilding The Church Looks Like Destroying It *

I have been accused of believing that the heavens are closed and that God does not speak through his servants today, but that is simply not true.

I believe in the promise and idea of what the church is supposed to be, but that it has been bogged down with policies and cultural preferences that do not reflect the love of our savior Jesus Christ or his mission.  I believe that the church can be what it says it is and I want to help make it better.  If you have no problems or issues at church, I envy you.  I’m not sure whoever said “When the prophet speaks the debate is over”, but they obviously are comfortable with a lot of things I’m not.

Brigham Young said:

“What a pity it would be, if we were led by one man to utter destruction! Are you afraid of this? I am more afraid that this people have so much confidence in their leaders that they will not inquire for themselves of God whether they are led by him. I am fearful they settle down in a state of blink self-security, trusting their eternal destiny in the hands of their leaders with a reckless confidence that in itself would thwart the purposes of God in their salvation, and weaken the influence they could give to their leaders, did they know for themselves, by the revelations of Jesus, that they are led in the right way. Let every man and woman know, themselves, whether their leaders are walking in the path the Lord dictates, or not. This has been my exhortation continually.”

For me personally I feel that past and present LDS leaders (local and at HQ) have continually dismissed, covered up, and outright lied about things in the history of the church; and this is in no way acceptable to me as representatives of the Lord.  I am left to wonder what words are theirs, and which are from the God.

I believe these men are godly.  They love the Lord and they love us.  I do not fault them for their imperfections.  I know the Lord works with what he’s got.  But when the people in charge refuse to humble themselves and instead power forward with statements like “We do not apologize” and ignore the damage they’ve done; I no longer trust every word out of their mouth to be from the Lord.

I am no longer content to go through life accepting stones instead of bread.  I am far from perfect in my quest to live a life that is pleasing to my creator.  I believe that he is my judge, and regardless of whether I ticked off all the boxes on a list of rules set forth by imperfect men leading through a glass darkly or not, he will judge me fairly.  I accept that I do not have all the answers.  I hope that if my words or deeds are hurtful or harmful to you that we can have a conversation about it to understand each other better and make changes where necessary.

I struggle now to find the words to end this statement of belief, so I leave you with this:

Merry Christmas, my dear friends.  My words fail me just now as I try to thank you for all you do and all you are to me.  I wish peace and contentment for you all your days.  It is my prayer that when we wake each morning we remember that “Kindness Begins With Me”.  I pray that more suffering will end than begin, and that I can have the strength to do my part in making that a reality.

Xoxo, Sallygirl

*Click and read the link, please.  It’s relevant and germane to my thoughts here.

Life Lessons Learned From The Boob Tube

A friend shared an episode of the show “World’s Strictest Parents – Tooele, UT”.  It’s about two teens from Great Britain that go to live with a Mormon family living in Tooele, Utah.  After watching the entire 57 minutes, I understood something that I never have before:

We have ideals not because we are supposed to become some proscribed version of perfect, but to help ourselves seek and find the best parts of us, our families, our relationships; and work to become those things.

When we do that, we find our own perfect.  That is what we should strive for.

Also, I never understood the “becoming your own master” thing.  But I think I do now.

Understanding these things isn’t going to cure me of all my faults & weaknesses, but for now I’m finding great comfort in them, and I think just the spark of motivation I need to move forward.  I’m human.  I’m never not going to have faults, weaknesses, temptations, feelings!  But I want to hold tight to these thoughts and use them as best I can.

Clover Club

That’s one of the things I miss about Utah.  These trips are always so bittersweet for me because I really love Utah!  There’s SO much I miss about living here!  I wish I could explain why I continue to live in California if I love Utah so much, but I’d have to understand it myself and I just don’t.  And I don’t feel like living in California is bad or torturous, I love California too!  Just as much as I love Utah.  Hence, the bittersweet.  Damn that Nevada, why does it have to be so big and between my two loves?  Plus, it smells like ass.  😉

In honor of my great love of Utah, I give to you my list of things I love and miss about Utah the most:

• Shaved ice/snow cone shacks.  Have not seen these in CA, if they have them they must be few and far between.
• Friendly neighbors!  Not that my neighbors aren’t friendly, it’s just people pretty much keep to themselves in Cali.
• Speaking of neighbors… You don’t have to live in a rich neighborhood to live in a safe and friendly neighborhood.
• Driving across the valley takes 20 minutes at most.
• Wasatch Drive
• My friends!  I have great friends in California, but they’re scattered all over and with husbands that have colossal commutes, it’s hard to have girl time.  Also, I’m pretty sure none of them would organize a pole dancing class for fun like my good friend D did.
• Grandma Sycamore’s Bread – YUMMERS!!
• My cute nieces and nephews – Seriously, my sisters (blood and in-law) are going to be fighting boys off with a baseball bat!  And my nephew T?  He’s going to go pro with hockey.  The kid has mad skillz.  High schools all over the valley want him for their team.  Bless his heart, he wants to play for the Utes, too!
• Speaking of the Utes…. UTAH FOOTBALL!!!
• Dating culture – It’s totally normal to go on group dates, the bigger the better!  And they’re so creative, too.
• Sconecutters!  Totally not real scones, but yummy just the same.
• Arctic Circle, because, FRY SAUCE!
• The plethora of inexpensive (and free!) activities for people of all ages.  There’s too many to list!
• Stake Lagoon Day – Why can’t we have Stake Disneyland Day?  I totally vote for it!
• Dollar movie theaters – I’m pretty happy with the price structure at our local AMC theater, even though we rarely can go to a movie on the weekends; but there are SO many movies I’d rather see in the theater than have to wait for DVD!
• Deseret Industries – Yes, we have some pretty great Goodwill stores, but DI has better prices and is organized so much more efficiently!
• Trader Joe’s, In-N-Out Burger, and IKEA are here!
• Scouting in Utah wards is much more adventurous.
• Utah Mormons are… different than members “in the field”, but there are some things they just do better here and I’m jealous of that.
• My family – I’ll say it again, I really miss my family.  I enjoy visiting them SO very much, but living here would be different.  I imagine how great it would be for our kids to grow up together like my brother & sister’s kids are, but the reality is it just wouldn’t be what I want it to be and I don’t know that I could handle it.  I love my sister, but her family is the busiest family I know (and good for them!), and time for get togethers is scarce.  I love my brother, too; but his family is so much younger than mine and until now all girls (baby boy is due soon!).  How fun is it for them to get together with mine?  Probably not enough to hang out much more than we already do.  And that’s once a year or less.  Why can’t my dreams be reality?  How hard is that for the world to revolve around me???  I don’t ask for much, just all your free time! 😉
• Undergraduate options – Not too many where I live.  There are two JC’s in my area, and they are cut down to bare bones.  To take any interesting classes I’d have to head up to Sacramento and that’s just not an option right now.
• Summertime – Sure, it has similar temperatures to the Central Valley, but it’s a dry heat (lol) and so much less oppressive than the humidity we’re plagued with!  Plus, summer thunderstorms!!

I could keep going but the day is starting to get away from me and I’m going to take advantage of the empty house to get all showered up.  Today is pedicure day!

I Wear Them Every Sunday

Pants.

I have for years and this is my story:

Those of you that know me live and in person know I am a rawther large person of size.  And by that I mean I make Melissa McCarthy look malnourished.  This is not a slight or a dig at myself, it is just a fact.

I wear them because I have tried so. very. many. other ways to not wear them (skirts with nylons, tights, leggings, spanx-type shorts, etc.) and nothing, NOTHING prevents chafing.  Chafing so painful and severe that I am thinking everything BUT holy thoughts.

I thought and prayed about it and decided that Heavenly Father would much rather have me at church in my slacks than not at all.

For the most part, I’ve been right.

A few years back in our other ward the RS president took me aside and asked me about it and I explained myself to her.  There had been some talk about me, apparently, and she was wondering if a skirt was not in the budget because they would like to help me if that was the case.  I thanked her for her concern and assured her it wasn’t.

That seemed to satisfy her for awhile but she brought it up again a few months later, this time asking what I do when I go to the temple.

I told her that I wear pants while I drive, I change into a skirt in the parking lot, and I change back into pants when I come out.  This time she told me that I was being a bad example for the YW, and she pointed out to me that there was another “sister of size” (who was/is not as big as I am) who seemed to not have a problem wearing dresses to church. I said I was happy for her and that maybe her body type was a little different from mine and she didn’t experience the kind of pain that I do.

That was the first, last, and only time I have felt judged for the way I look at church.  When we bought our house and moved into our current ward not one person said “boo” or even looked at me funny for wearing pants.  I feel loved and accepted for who I am, warts and all.

I don’t enjoy being the odd one out.  As someone who is so very self-conscious about how I look, the last thing I want to do is draw attention to myself.  I have been in self-imposed exile from the chapel because I didn’t want to offend anybody.

Lately, I have felt that that was wrong.

Sitting in the foyer I am not able to concentrate on the speakers as well.  There are friends to visit with, and noisy children that make it impossible to hear anything over the loudspeaker.  Sitting in the foyer I am not getting the full spiritual feast being offered, and my testimony has been suffering because of it.

Beginning this Sunday I’m going to start arriving early enough to sit in the pews (the overflow chairs are too uncomfortable) and become a fully participating member of the ward again.

Because I wear slacks I am not:

• disrespectful
• willful
• undignified
• subversive
• less holy
• unworthy
• lacking
• wrong

I am just as important to Father as his children who dress to the cultural norm.  I am perfectly capable of holding callings, giving talks, and teaching doctrinally correct lessons when asked to.

If I had to hazard a guess, I think the real reason that people are upset about the pants at church thing is not because these sisters are dressing differently, but rather their reasons for doing so may seem less “legitimate” than mine.

Let’s be real.  We aren’t taught not to judge, we’re taught to not judge unrighteously.  Our whole lives are one judgement call after another.  Some of those judgements have more importance than others, but all of them require us to love our neighbor as ourselves.

Whatever the reason, I suspect that wherever you are you may begin to notice the group culture start to change.  People will dress differently for a multitude of reasons.  It’s winter in most places.  Many of my sisters have or work with small children they must chase around on the floor.  They might have medical reasons like me.  Perhaps it doesn’t fit in their budget.  Maybe they came straight from work.

Regardless, it doesn’t really matter what we wear.  It matters that we’re THERE.

Les Miserables

Is what you’ll be if you get the giant soda when going to see an epic movie like this.  Can you imagine having to get up and pee 45 times while someone is singing?  Awkward!

Good thing I got the small.

Tonight I went with my dear friends the Hoffmans to see the infamous “Les Miserables”.  That’s right.  I totally ditched my family and subverted my own January Girl’s Night Out by going to see it on Christmas night; and I do not regret it for one minute!

I wouldn’t say I was a theater geek in my younger days, just because I did not love drama enough to take the “activity bus” home after rehearsals.  Definitely one step removed from that though, as I was witness to several local productions from behind the scenes while my mom acted, and hey… I was even in one once!

I grew up loving all things musical, but for some reason Les Mis never made it into the rotation.  I couldn’t say if that was good or bad, but it made it easy for me to not hate anything about the film since I knew virtually nothing of the story and apparently even less of the songs (there are a lot more!).  Also, I have never seen a musical where really, they should call it an opera because they sing just about every. single. word!

Anyway, I think I am blithering now because I’m not really telling you anything of the story (epic!), the music (intense!), or the actors (the best!) so I should probably go, but I want to leave you with this:

Russell Crowe is WEAK!  Very nice singing voice, apparently he was huge into musical theater before becoming all Hollywood, but I would have expected a stronger voice for Javert.