My second child has announced that he wants to read the entire Bible.

I will admit I am a little apprehensive, and have found myself annoyed when I've seen him following through.  I think the main reason I'm annoyed is because he is usually reading the bible when he's *supposed* to be cleaning his room.

I think part of the reason is that I am not sure how to handle him getting super interested in going to church every week.  This last Sunday, my kids expressed an interest in attending the LDS church.  My DH (thanks Honey!) reminded them in time to get ready for church.  Of course, HE was too busy to actually go to church, and didn't think we needed to stay on the premises.  So, I went to church for the first time since Mother's Day.

It was nice to be able to drop all four kids off at their various classes and not worry about them til church was over.  I was a little worried about #3, as he is officially out of nursery, and attending primary.  I wondered if he'd take it as hard as #2, who took a good 3 years to get over the fact that church no longer included free play with toys.  However, I am told that he did extremely well and was really well behaved and a real "sweetheart".  Anyway, all four kids came out of church very happy to have been there, and talking about how they want to go more often.

I got an extremely warm welcome. People were just as friendly as I suspected they would be.  My doctrinal issues still exist.  It was sad to sit in church alone and not have my husband sitting next to me so we could make our snarky comments to each other.

I felt a little bad for the relief society president.  She was beyond thrilled to see me there.  So in between sunday school and relief society, I was in the bathroom stall adjusting my panty hose (I'd forgotten how uncomfortable those things are!).  The stall door wouldn't latch properly.  The RS came running in to pee quickly before RS started.  Unfortunately, she was in such a hurry that she pounded my door to burst in and use that stall.  Luckily I was close enough to the door that it hit my shoulder and didn't bother me at all, other than startling me.  However, RS president was beyond horrified.  If I thought she had a sense of humor about it, I would have made some joke about that was why I was inactive, or that because of that I wasn't coming back.  I think she would've cried though, and still seemed hypersensitively concerned about the whole incident.  She came to sit by me during the lesson so she could apologize every time there was a lull in the lesson.  I really do like the woman, she is a genuinely nice and good person.  She simply takes life more seriously than I do.

I've been slowly sifting back over the last ten years or so of my life, and trying to figure out what was really going on in my head.  I generally enjoyed going to church.  I had doubts about certain things, but didn't really delve too deeply into those niggling doubts.  I see so many clues that I was never that devoted to the church.  I see the same clues in my husband.  Honestly though, that was something that appealed to me.  I remember when I was in high school and I was dating, the majority of my boyfriends with either inactive in the church (or struggling members) or they weren't LDS altogether.  I did occasionally go on a date with an extremely active LDS boy.  For some reason, I never felt quite comfortable with them.  I felt as though I were unequal spiritually, that they were on a higher plane than I was.  It wasn't a sexist thing.  It just seemed like they never had a mean or unkind thing enter their heads.  I knew many of them would listen to hymns and read the scriptures on sunday whenever they weren't at church.  General, Stake, and Regional conference meant an extra special time to learn more of God's word, not a week off, like it was in my mind.

Although my husband was fairly active in the church, one of his parents wasn't.  Everyone seemed fine with that, and he didn't think that parent was any less of a person because of their religious views.  He served a full time mission, and we got married in the temple.  I was grateful we shared religious views, and I was so excited to be married for eternity, because I wanted (and still do, incidentally) to spend forever with him.  None of this "til death do you part" crap.

I think my testimony for the last ten years or so was basically "There are people in the church who are smarter than me, and study much, much harder.  If this makes sense and seems true to them, then I must be missing something.  I will go along with them".  I consider myself to be a bright person, but I know there are people out there a lot smarter than me.  There's people I know and respect who are extremely active members, and believe every word of it.  They are intelligent, wise people.  So why do they still believe? I know people who even know many of the things that finally drove me to become inactive.  They have somehow made peace with the knowledge of how the Book of Abraham came to be.  They are ok with the polygamist teachings.  They accept the Book of Mormon as truth even though they know of the evidence otherwise.  I honestly don't know how they come to grips with it.  The most definitive answer I've gotten is that it just still feels right, and even though the church is flawed, it teaches more truths than any other. 

I am still a cub scout leader.  I know!!! I'm nearly as surprised as you are!

Things have been going along as though it is perfectly normal to have three den leaders.  All right.  Whatever.


A couple days ago, I was talking to one of my boys' mom.  I had confided in her that I suspected they were about to release me, hence the third leader.  I told her of my paranoias and suspicions, and she jumped to the same conclusion as me.  She was really quite upset, as she was looking forward to her son being in my group.

She also told me that this same bishop that I have never had a problem with has given her some problems.  She has a few tattoos.  She was starting to get active in the church again.  They were thinking of getting their endowments taken out, so they were trying to be good little Mormons and attend every week.  The bishop approached her one week, and asked that she wear clothing that covered all of her tattoos.  Due to the placement of her tattoos, that would put her in long sleeved shirts and ankle length skirts, or opaque tights.  She was pretty offended, and from what she says, their church attendance has dropped off considerably since then.

Anyway, a day or so after she found out about the third leader, apparently she cornered our bishop and threatened him with severe bodily harm (jokingly?) if he released me.  From the way she told it, she gave quite the impassioned speech.  I have to admit if I had known she was going to do that, I would've been more circumspect with my suspicions.  Oh well, too late now.

So, maybe I'm only a leader now because of her threats and speech?  Who knows.