Yrs ago when i was living in Utah, where I also left the church, I volunteered to assist at girls camp. I was told where to set up my hammock for the night, 100s yrds away. Basically hung out there in the shade and my chair all day and evening. Never was I invited to socialize or even fed. Really felt like a waste of time.
I was experiencing health issues and had turned down a calling so the RS President asked if I would be interested in a mini-calling... I was hesitant, but she mentioned how beautiful the handmade greeting cards I had donated to an auction or fundraiser or something and how she was touched by what I had said about them (that having cards on hand made you more likely to send them and that in todays world it's important to reach out to your loved ones with cards throughout the year or to say thank you for things they have helped you with) and thought it would be neat if I could send out a card to each of the RS sisters for her birthday. I agreed, not understanding that what she wanted was a handmade card from me for every sister... I found this out when I sent the first round cards and they were store-bought blank inside cards that I had written a note. I had made my assumption off of how many women would be getting cards throughout the year and the budget they gave me. I told her I didn't have the time or money to provide handmade cards to over a HUNDRED women, so she told me never mind.
This is awful but not surprising. The church requiring members to give so much can give members a weird sense of what they should and should not get for free.
My husband installed flooring for a living- we owned our own business. It was always the members who expected him to work for free or didn’t pay him after the work was done.
It saddens me that they just expected you to do that free of charge. Although tbh, We had to get help like that from a lot of times when I was a child as we were very poor and often couldn't afford repairs or work right when it was needed. Fortunately for people that we knew, like you and your husband, my tbm mother has done her absolute best to be a woman of her word, and she'd repay them no matter how long it took. And if they refused financial payments, she'd ask "is there anything else I can do?" Painting was one of her hobbies, and she was a very mural painter. So most often, they'd respond by telling her she could paint some room in their house.
A month or two ago I went to a fireside with Terrell Evans and his wife. I was interested because my believing friends said it has helped their faith. It was just a series of quotes from various Christian thinkers, over the centuries. A hodge lodge of happy thoughts about heavenly mother and a kind god. Absolutely no connection to actual church doctrine, now or past. I can cherry pick random happy quotes but it doesn’t make it anything more than my own take on god. I don’t see how he helps anyone stay in this church
Yrs ago when i was living in Utah, where I also left the church, I volunteered to assist at girls camp. I was told where to set up my hammock for the night, 100s yrds away. Basically hung out there in the shade and my chair all day and evening. Never was I invited to socialize or even fed. Really felt like a waste of time.
I was experiencing health issues and had turned down a calling so the RS President asked if I would be interested in a mini-calling... I was hesitant, but she mentioned how beautiful the handmade greeting cards I had donated to an auction or fundraiser or something and how she was touched by what I had said about them (that having cards on hand made you more likely to send them and that in todays world it's important to reach out to your loved ones with cards throughout the year or to say thank you for things they have helped you with) and thought it would be neat if I could send out a card to each of the RS sisters for her birthday. I agreed, not understanding that what she wanted was a handmade card from me for every sister... I found this out when I sent the first round cards and they were store-bought blank inside cards that I had written a note. I had made my assumption off of how many women would be getting cards throughout the year and the budget they gave me. I told her I didn't have the time or money to provide handmade cards to over a HUNDRED women, so she told me never mind.
This is awful but not surprising. The church requiring members to give so much can give members a weird sense of what they should and should not get for free.
My husband installed flooring for a living- we owned our own business. It was always the members who expected him to work for free or didn’t pay him after the work was done.
It saddens me that they just expected you to do that free of charge. Although tbh, We had to get help like that from a lot of times when I was a child as we were very poor and often couldn't afford repairs or work right when it was needed. Fortunately for people that we knew, like you and your husband, my tbm mother has done her absolute best to be a woman of her word, and she'd repay them no matter how long it took. And if they refused financial payments, she'd ask "is there anything else I can do?" Painting was one of her hobbies, and she was a very mural painter. So most often, they'd respond by telling her she could paint some room in their house.
Can i just say the corporation is just weird.
That's messed up!!!
A month or two ago I went to a fireside with Terrell Evans and his wife. I was interested because my believing friends said it has helped their faith. It was just a series of quotes from various Christian thinkers, over the centuries. A hodge lodge of happy thoughts about heavenly mother and a kind god. Absolutely no connection to actual church doctrine, now or past. I can cherry pick random happy quotes but it doesn’t make it anything more than my own take on god. I don’t see how he helps anyone stay in this church