I was doing my daily browsing of internet material and found this frightening story told by "Inconceivable." I have been to meetings exactly like the one he talks about, and I agree with his thoughts on the matter. Enjoy.
When I was about 14 or so, I went to a combined mutual night (all the teenaged boys and girls together).
We were all given make believe airline tickets and told we were all going on a flight to a fun and exciting tropical paradise. Some of the adult members were dressed as stewardesses, pilot etc. We all boarded this make believe plane (between the chapel and cultural hall where there is a 12 foot wide space between the big curtain dividers). They served us snacks and tried hard to make it seem real. Most of us were cutting up, not paying much attention because the whole thing was a little pre-adolescent.
Then it happened. the pilot comes on and says we have some sort of engine trouble, they blink the lights for about a minute while engine noises, wind and stuff are piped through the sound system then some sort of plane crash noise. Some of us boys are still carrying on hamming it up screaming like the girls etc. Then all goes quiet and everything goes dark.
One of the leaders then states, "You are all dead now" Things got pretty serious at this point. We all got sober. It wasn't funny anymore.
Then a few lights went on and an adult member came in dressed in white and started saying things like, "were you ready to die tonight?", "your time is up and it's too late to repent", "where will you go?", "will you be with your family forever or somewhere else?" etc.. Some of the girls started crying and everything really hit an all time low.
Because this was so long ago, what I remember next was an endowed married couple I respected entering together all dressed in their temple whites. I just remembered their smiles and holding each other's hands as the bishop explained that they were members of the celestial kingdom and they were happy because they kept the commandments... the whole thing was very disturbing and frightening.
It had the effect of frightening us into a willingness to fall in line with whatever they told us. The event has come to mind a couple times over the years, but for the most part, I have blocked it out. This was about 1977.
Anyone else witness this psycho drama as a teen? If any adult attempted to do this to my kids I'd press charges and still end up spending a night in jail.
January 28, 2008 at 3:57 PM
My ward did this when I was young. I remember it but not because I felt a sense of guilt, it was because it was really weird. I don't remember exactly when this was, but it would have been around 1990 in St. George, UT.
My parents hammered the purpose of life into me and my siblings every chance they got, so I was getting numbed. It didn't hurt that I was very much in line with what I was supposed to be doing so I didn't feel guilty about anything I was doing.
I can see now how messed up things like this are. Its amazing that religion has such a huge grasp on humanity. The more I learn about religion, I only learned about Mormonism you see, the more I despise it.