Better weather is here

After an indifferent summer here in the UK, I was fortunate enough to spend a week in Silicon Valley, California.

The weather was gorgeous. Cool and overcast in the early morning, with the sun punching its way through the overcast very quickly to bring a delightfully hot -though not muggy- day. (Muggy is an British word for when the weather is hot and damp.)

When I got back home, it started to rain, so all was normal. And the weather remained normal until this week. I.E., sunny with periods of cloudy weather with some rain.

The weather has become unseasonally warm this week, with temperatures in our sun trap back garden reaching a high of 32C.

It's almost as nice -but not quite as nice- as the weather in California.

When the weather is like this it is known as an Indian Summer, a term borrowed from America.

A question of Tithing and Mormonism

Someone at the RFM board posed an interesting question, recently. It was: "How can Mormons afford to pay tithing?"

My answer to this question is: "Many of them cannot afford to pay tithing."

My parents could not afford to pay tithing. But they did and, as a result, the family suffered.

I well remember when an officious and overbearing Mormon Bishop demanded a meeting with my parents. Apparently he was "concerned" that my parents were not paying a full fast offering, so small was the amount that my parents donated every month.

When my mother showed him her shopping list with each item carefully costed (that was something she always did, in order to eke out my father's miserly wage, we were in a rural area were pay was ridiculously low) he was shocked that our family got by on such a small amount of money for food.

He was shocked, but not shocked enough to offer any financial help to my parents. "The Church Welfare Programme does not operate in Britain" he had told them. "And the fast offering is for poor people." He apparently failed to see the irony in the fact that as he knew what my father's income was and knew the minuscule amount of money my mother spent on food every week that my family was, in fact, poor. But that he declined to offer them any help.

Raptor Jesus; His book

The book is about a man who was born into the Mormon "religion" and who faithfully served a mission, proselytising for his faith.

However, that's when things started to go seriously wrong, from one point of view, or. From another perspective, seriously right. He became quite ill on his mission.

Because of the intense pressure of the religion and the beliefs dealing with faith and healing, he developed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder when he is not healed by faith and cannot finish his mission.

After searching for answers, he finally discovers that the Mormon church is not what it claims to be and he decides to exit the religion and confront his past. The book skewers the religion and American pop culture as much as it explains them.

Author Raptor Jesus said: “If I were to explain what the book's about in one sentence it would be: The book is about punching the Mormon god right in his f***ing face.”

He went on to say: “The book is aimed at anyone who enjoys a good, naughty joke and has been curious about Mormons or Mormon missionaries. It was written during the same time that the Book of Mormon Musical hit Broadway like a rabid gorilla. The audiences would be very similar.

“I wrote this because I had to in order to recover from my past as much as I could. I also found that everyone who had a strict religious upbringing that didn't want to conform really liked the parallels of their stories with mine.”

The book is available via Amazon. From Amazon.com it costs $3.44 as a Kindle book and from Amazon.co.uk it costs £2.09p.

Santa Clara is cool!

I loved my time in Santa Clara! The meal with exmos did not happen, due to security at San Francisco Airport taking two hours to get through. Apparently it was thought to be a very good idea to send everyone but a tiny handful of staff on break when they KNEW four VERY full 747s would be arriving at pretty much the same time.

So there was the ridiculous spectacle of hundreds of visitors to the USA waiting in a massive line, whilst the domestic arrivals/US citizens staff were sat doing nothing!

Eventually a small woman with a fiery, feisty nature came up, berated them and turned most of the gates from US to foreign visitors. But by the time it was too late to get to the hotel, register for the convention and then sort myself out.

But! I was able to enjoy some drinks with Mrs E and Wine Country Girl from the RFM board, so that did make up for it, as they were delightful company.

Will I be back in San Francisco next year? Perhaps. We shall wait and see!

If you want to know the truth about Mormonism: Ask a Mormon! No. That doesn't work

But that's what Mormonism gets its members to say, isn't it?

The church says to its members: "If someone says: 'Well, I read that the Mormon church believes in such-and-such on a website called www.exmormon.org tell them to ignore that, as that site is filled with nothing but bitter Mormon haters! Tell them that the only way to learn about the truth about Mormons is to ask a Mormon!"

Now, at this point it might be worth asking why the people who use the Recovery From Mormonism board (RFM) found at the website referred to above might be described as "bitter Mormon haters."

In truth the people at RFH -and several other boards and websites for ex-Mormons or former Mormons-are not Mormon haters. But they do have a wide range of issues that might see them described as bitter towards the Mormon church. And for pretty good, solid and valid reasons.

The idea that one can only receive correct information about Mormonism from Mormons is pitiful in its naiveté.

If someone said: "Why, you should not ask other, bitter people formerly involved with an MLM downline about the MLM scheme! You must only ask the people who are currently involved with that MLM scheme!" You would think them to be a bit silly.

Or if someone is asking legitimate questions about a new financial investment that looks too good to be true, nobody in their right mind set would say: "Why, bless your heart! You do not want to be asking the police about this scheme! The only person you should be seeking information from is that lovely Mr Charles Ponzi! Or perhaps there's that charming Mr Madoff!" you would wonder at their sanity.

If you want a sales presentation, ask a Mormon. If you want a perspective on the Mormon church that the Mormon church might not want you to know, ask an ex-Mormon.

I will be in Santa Clara next week

I will be in Santa Clara, next week, from Monday 12th September, for several days. I will be attending a three day conference arranged by Google.

I am hoping to meet up with some exmos in a local eatery on Monday 12th.

Please email me at matt_exmo@yahoo.co.uk.