ROK Undercover: What It Was Like To Spend A Day At A Mormon Church

It’s often said that the west is full of garbage and that men should seek high quality women elsewhere.  While I agree, it’s also true that most of the ROK readership currently lives in America.  While I’m here in between trips abroad, I mostly avoid local women. But if there is a place where acceptable women may be found, it should be in religious households.

In my first column, I acknowledged religion has been infiltrated and undermined, and described my fruitless attempts at finding a decent woman at a religious retreat, but there are those who still cling to the idea that an extremely conservative religion could produce a decent American female.  In the interest of you, dear reader, I have attended services at three conservative religious groups.  Part 1 of this series follows.

Mormons

My knowledge of Mormons originated from three sources: the socially awkward prudish Mormon girl I knew in middle school, South Park, and the HBO series Big Love.  The Mormon church was founded in the 1800s by Joseph Smith, and Mormons follow the holy text of the Bible, as well as the Book of Mormon, a revelation by Joseph Smith.  Mormons believe that Jesus Christ was resurrected, as told in the Bible, and then reappeared in ancient America, where he visited white-skinned Native Americans before Heavenly Father turned them red.

Mormons are extremely family oriented.  They are very clean, and often talk like Ned Flanders.  They use cute-sy words in place of regular profanities like Darn, Baloney Sandwich, Fudge, Dangit, Heck, and Oh Golly!

Despite Mormons being a very evangelical church (members are expected to devote periods of their lives to a mission, where they are sent to work full time for the church at no salary, and currently have over 74,000 active full time missionaries), it was the one place where I was not greeted as a visitor.  Nor did their web site offer any helpful information to visitors, other than an address and time of service.  Perhaps they are simply not used to people showing up uninvited.

The church is somewhat secretive, and there are certain rules one must follow.  There are regional temples, which only certain members can enter, and I would not be allowed in.  Then there are several wards, which are very similar to Protestant church sanctuaries.  I attended service at one of six or so wards in the area served by my temple.  The service consisted of a couple of hymns, a brief message by the Priest, and the majority of the time was Testimonies given by the congregation.

The congregation is seated in pews, and there is a small group of older men dressed like conservative bankers sitting at the front.  They are leading the service.  The implication is a very strong message of patriarchy, and respect for elders and authority.  The Bearing of Testimonies included about 45 minutes of men, women, and children coming up and describing the ways their faith was playing out in their lives.

Around 90% of these people were on the verge of tears, whether it was a sad story or not.  At first I found this quite odd and somewhat weak, but Mormons are extremely passionate about their faith and attribute this to the Holy Spirit touching their hearts.  This was not as boring as it seemed, and I actually found it more interesting than hearing a guy drone on in a sermon for half an hour.

The stories were from a diverse group of topics.  One woman spoke about how she had kept herself busy in the days that the temple was closed to the public, and how excited she was when it finally reopened so she could visit it.  Another woman plead with the youth to not fall to temptation and have premarital sex because you will regret it for the rest of your life, along with stories about how her heathen friends were slutting around and were very sad and embarrassed in their lives.

A man stood up and talked about preparing a spare room for a fellow friend facing bad times, and they prepared the best room in the house for him.  A thin attractive feminine girl who appeared to be 16 came up and announced she and her husband had just moved to this ward from Utah and were excited to rejoice with Heavenly Father.

Another woman got up and talked about how she was so happy to be a mother and grandmother and how it’s bad that some women are beginning to question the patriarchy and demand priesthood for females.  There was one moment of cringe when a parent brought her child up and whispered things into her ear to repeat verbatim “I love Heavenly Father and Joseph Smith is the true prophet.”

The stories reinforced the faith quite well, and indeed if one was a member of this group, I think it would be relatively easy to reject many of the sinful traits.  There is a lot of quilting and genealogy research and singing and playing board games that Mormons do together.  I had a Mormon boss once, and he was a super swell guy.  Many finance companies set up offices in Utah because the Mormons are renowned for their honesty.

One of the principle beliefs in the faith was plural marriage, with the holy texts damning you to hell if you did not believe and practice it, and though the church did fight this, they eventually caved in to US government pressure around the time Utah became a state, and stated that God told them this was no longer important.  The church splintered, with fundamentalists continuing to follow this teaching, while others fled the US oppression to Mormon settlements in Mexico and Canada.  The US government oppressed this religion with many laws targeting the church, and even unseated Mormon elected Senators to the US Senate purely because of their religious beliefs.

Marriage is taken extremely seriously, and is referred to as “sealing” which has a very permanent connotation.  There are church-led Young Single Adult Family Home Evenings which are designed to pair up young single Mormons so they can marry and procreate.

Mormons are a great example of people looking after their tribe.  I’m not sure I would want to be Mormon, but the world would undoubtedly be a better place if there were more Mormons.  However, the Mormon story is somewhat dubious and the fact that they changed vital church doctrine like polygamy, combined with a short history, makes me wonder if they will not cave to demands of the corrupt outside world at some point.

Also some of their beliefs like the inherent goodness of white skin, magic pajamas, and some cult-like behavior don’t hold up to scrutiny.  I saw a Spanish service advertised, which I may return to in the future.  Mexico was exposed to Mormonism and I have a strong affinity for Hispanic women; a chaste latina would make for an interesting mix.

Pros:

• Very patriarchal
• Very positive, happy religion
• Value purity and strongly reject promiscuity
• Nominally Christian; moderately accepted in West

Cons:

• Dubious beliefs
• Prohibitions on alcohol, caffeine, and other intoxicants
• Caved on some of their major principles (LDS in USA)
• Somewhat unaccepted in mainstream culture
• Probably the most hostile to the ideas of “game”

Conclusion

The Mormons are a very conservative family oriented community.  Mormons take the teachings of Jesus to heart, and are quite kind, helpful, happy people.  They shun alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, or anything else that comes between you and Heavenly Father, which includes sloots.  Get ready for lots of board games, bible trivia, PAX TV, trips to Utah, and hanging out with the extended church family.  Your friends will likely be other homeschooling Mormons.

But the payoff is an extremely submissive wife who knows that her eternal salvation depends on fulfilling her motherly and wifely duties so that one day you can have endless celestial sex among the gods.  Expect a Mormon girl to barely know what a penis or vagina is, but to do anything that her Priesthood holder (you) tells her.  Don’t expect to casually date a Mormon if you are not Mormon.  Also, the only single women I saw were in middle or high school.

Read More: What To Do If You’re Accused Of Sexual Harassment At Work

---