Full Court Press

[azflyer]

In the last three days I've had:

1) My daughter was asked to be the ward chorister - She turned it down
2) I was asked to take a new calling - I turned it down
3) I was asked to play the piano at ward event - I said no

Prior to that, I was asked to give the opening prayer in church - I said yes to that... don't judge...

All of this after attending church five or six times in the last 18 months.

I'm pretty sure we're a topic of conversation in ward council now. Who can't leave who alone?

How long do I have to keep saying no before they'll get the hint? I'm sure giving that prayer in church hurt me on this front.

[Just This Guy]

The old idea of if you give someone a calling, it will make the come to church more often. Sounds like you are catching on to their tricks.

[Linked]

Yep, your family is on the ward council list. Usually these presses blow over after being snubbed on a handful of obvious reactivation efforts. I would give it a month.

It sucks that you can't say yes to giving a prayer without blowing oxygen on their fire.

[Jeffret]

It can be hard hanging out around the edges of a Mormon community. If you give any indication of being involved they want to draw you in and make you fully involved in the community.

I stopped doing home teaching some years before I finally stopped attending church. I didn't come right out and tell them I wasn't doing it. I just played the game and it didn't happen. Every so often someone would catch me at church and say, "I'm your new home teacher. We need to schedule a time to come over." I'd respond, "OK. We're really busy so I don't know when we'd be available. We'll call you if we ever need anything, though." Which we never did. From time to time someone would stop me in the hall and try to tell me my home teaching assignment, but I'd brush them off and tell them I never agreed to that. I would never be available for the PPIs they wanted to schedule. It went on every so often. I could tell they really didn't know what to do with me.

Eventually we stopped attending entirely. Not long after that I asked them for no-contact. My local leaders were great about respecting that.

[Red Ryder]

Remove your phone number from LDS tools and the ward directory. Replace it with the local number for the JW’s congregation.

[Wonderment]

Remove your phone number from LDS tools and the ward directory. Replace it with the local number for the JW’s congregation.

I

I know this is a serious topic, and my heart goes out to AZ and anyone who's being pressured into church attendance, but Red Ryder's idea is hilarious.
- Wndr.

[Hagoth]

I'm pretty sure we're a topic of conversation in ward council now. Who can't leave who alone?

It will probably be obvious when you become a ward council topic. All of a sudden random people are telling you how much they love and miss you (even if you're still attending pretty regularly). You find cookies on the porch and leaders suddenly start dropping by "just to visit" (and maybe look for a crack pipe or a stack of Hustler magazines to confirm their suspicions). I always welcome them as friends. They never dare actually broach the subject. My ward was kind enough to just stop asking me to say prayers without any request on my part. I did make it clear that I don't do PPIs or any other kind of interviews. They get all weird and nervous and don't know how to respond when you do stuff like that, so it can be kind of fun.

What I really don't like is when they start showing pity to your spouse for the unspeakable horror that has befallen them. The awesome Mrs. Hagoth, to her credit, slapped down that behavior right away and tolerated no pity. She rarely speaks up in meetings but she even made a stand on behalf of atheists everywhere in a meeting where they were bad-talking apostates.

[alas]

My active semi TBM spouse man also stuck up for me. I voiced to him that I didn’t want fake friends since I had no REAL friends, except my bishop and I didn’t want to waste his time because he can’t change what needs to change. Luckily being female, everyone else treated me as an extension of spouse man and asked him what was the best way to “help me.” He flat out told them that the best thing to do was leave me alone. He said that I have had too much pressure to live a specific way and more pressure would drive me away quicker that anything else. He repeated that when we moved, and again when we became snowbirds and switch wards every six months. They have left me alone. Nice!

My daughter told people that her husband was anti Mormon and any contact from church would offend him, so please leave her alone. They did. Even when she enrolled her son in cub scouts with the church because his friends were in the troop.

If you are not afraid to offend them by being honest that there is nothing they can do to bring you back under the church control, church people are pretty good at leaving you alone.