I just listened to last week’s episode (#348 Tough Room) of This American Life.

This week we bring you backstage with comedy writers at The Onion. They start with over 600 potential headlines for their fake-news newspaper each week, and over the course of two days, in the very tough room that is their editorial conference room, they select 16 to go in the paper. Plus other people speaking their minds in very tough rooms.

One of the contributors, Malcolm Gladwell, relates some prankery from his days at The Washington Post. The mp3 is available on TAL’s website, and you can also get it on iTunes. For those not interested in digesting stories aurally, Gladwell wrote a version of this story for Slate in 1996.

Update: Gladwell’s disclaimer.

“I find the whole business of religion profoundly interesting. But it does mystify me that otherwise intelligent people take it seriously.”

-Douglas Adams

Twenty years ago today, I was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. That’s right, the Mormons. At this time, I won’t go into any detail how that’s worked out for me.

I will point out though, that a couple of days ago, the American channel PBS aired a documentary titled “The Mormons” which offers at least a relatively fair look at the church, its inspiring history and many of its blemishes. If you’ve ever wondered what the Mormons are all about, this documentary is a good place to start.

I believe the author and producer, Helen Whitney, tries to come off as impartial—however, she did make the impression to one of her interviewees that she really didn’t want to hear any negative comments about the church, even if they are true. In an off camera pre-interview he asked her, “If you love the church so much, why don’t you join it?” She responded, “well maybe if I were younger”. It gives cause to wonder at her true impartiality.

Still the documentary will probably show you whatever you are looking to find, whether it’s support for the church or evidence that Joseph Smith was a con man who was so convincing that he even had himself fooled.

You can view it online in its entirety at pbs.org/mormons/.

I had a fantastic weekend. The May long weekend is one of those fickle beasts where anticipation is rarely meted out with actual reward, but I have to say I never would have imagined mine would be so fun.

My kid sister and her husband Glen invited me out to Buck Lake for some fun and adventure with their family. Glen’s brother Jason even picked me up halfway in Calgary so we’d each have someone to chat with on the way up and of course to save a little gas. What a fantastic family. I’m guessing the invitation was due, in no small part, to the fact that I’ve seen better days. Though I might have a thousand people read this website, when it comes to the real world I have been a little bit of a recluse lately. So again, this weekend was a lifesaver.

First thing when we arrived on Saturday morning the boys immediately started to play. It was one game after another, tossing the baseball, a little catch with the football, and then the competitions started. I bet you I can knock over the lawn chair from here, next time make it Ryker’s minuscule plastic chair. Of course the chair was no match for the pig skin.

“Yeah, it was weird, the wind knocked it over and the leg just broke right off”. The grandparents are apparently used to the their sons breaking Ryker’s stuff as Grandma says with a smile, “Oh, sure it did”.

It rained that night as Chris (Glen’s oldest brother) and I finished up the Texas Hold ‘em Poker match. I had a pretty big lead, but it was getting late so we went all in blind on one deal and I ended up losing everything. Still that game is extremely fun, and we weren’t playing for money. Seeing the rain pouring down on my little tent—though I’m sure it wouldn’t have been bad once i got in it—I opted to sleep on the floor of the fifth wheel. The next day Jason, Jock, and I took the Quads out through the fresh mud and had a spectacular time. Part of the fun is trying to go through the most impossible rutted up mud traps to see if you can make it. If you can’t, well then that’s what the winch is for and with a little help from the other guys you can pull yourself out of anything. It’s great!

That night the Oilers beat the (not so) Mighty Ducks and afterwards we took the boat out wakeboarding. I have never been wakeboarding in such perfect conditions. The water was like glass and as the sun set it left pink and purple streaks that glided down into the reflection of the lake. I wish I would have had my camera out that night because except for swallowing a few bugs, the mood was absolutely perfect! I even landed a few big jumps across the wake.

I got to spend the next morning playing with the little man, my nephew Ryker, at the park and got a few pictures of him there. It’s so fun to watch what he finds entertaining.

Back in Calgary that evening I met up with one of my old friends from Medicine Hat and we went to dinner together.

Things are really starting to line up for her. We started talking about when we were younger going to church together. We talked about what everyone else in the same church age-group was doing with their lives. We talked a little bit about what our Sunday School lessons were like and how even as a kid she realized that I was the only one in class asking the hitting questions and she could see the pain in my eyes when the responses I got weren’t very satisfying.

She also helped me realize something that night which might very well change my life. She pointed out that I’ve had quite a hard time letting things go, whether it be a misunderstanding from junior high or a break-up or whatever. She claimed (ever so kind that she is) that she thinks I’m a genius and on that same note that sometimes my great mind refuses to just forget about things. Obviously I’ve been aware of this my whole life, but something about the conversation just stuck and I began to finally realize that holding onto anger for things whether they happened 20 years ago or just last year was pretty ridiculous. What was I trying to accomplish anyway? It’s high time I let things go; it’s high time I learn not to cling onto things so much; and it is such a burden off my shoulders.

So I’m back home, reclusing as usual, but I feel good. I’ve done all my household chores, the lawn is mowed, the DVD I have been meaning to burn for a friend is done, and it’s got me thinking, why shouldn’t I be happy anyway? After all, every day is a gift, and some days are extra special gifts—like the ones where you go quadding and wakeboarding in the same day. I’m a lucky guy.

I’ve always possessed a fascination with optical illusions, subliminal messages, the unconscious mind, and cognitive psychology in general. I think that’s why I found the idea of messages in music when played backwards so fascinating.

Back in 1998 I went on a mission for the LDS church. I was serving in the most unlikely place of Salt Lake City, Utah. Using the line, “we were just in the neighborhood” seemed a little disingenuous when the temple marked the skyline behind you. There are a lot of Mormons there so we had to be a little more creative.

There are, however, a lot of people that are not members of the church. One of my favorite things about my mission was meeting people from all walks of life and from every imaginable social and economic backgrounds. The diversity of people I met ranged from those that were on the verge of being homeless, to literal billionaires.

Regardless of background, we (as missionaries) wanted to get our message out and influence people in as positive a fashion as we could. One of the methods of sharing our beliefs was the use of cheesy promotional videos that protreyed value of the family/church/good morals, etc.

One specific movie that I showed to investigators of the church was the movie, “On The Way Home”.

It’s a quaint little movie about a family who goes through the pain of the loss of their daughter/sister and meet some sister missionaries who teach them about God’s plan, The Plan of Salvation (TM).

The interesting thing about this movie is a rumour that I heard from another missionary about it containing subliminal messages. I was pretty sure it was just one of those missionary urban legends, because OBVIOUSLY the church wouldn’t buy into subliminal messages, not to mention the fact that even if they are “positive” messages, it sure leaves a bad taste in ones mouth to think I was being used as a pawn to subconsciously brainwash people. (Not me! I was there to help people.)

“What kind of subliminal messages?” I probed. The other missionary explained to me that near the start of the movie, when one of the main characters is jogging home for his baptism there is a bike race and someone watching the race holds up a big cardboard sign that says, “don’t do drugs” which flashes across the screen too quickly to be noticed on a conscious level—unless you are specifically looking for it. So while that message didn’t seem like something you would expect, I still wasn’t convinced.

The message I remember him telling me about most was (and there may be more, but it’s this one that I remember) during the sister missionaries discussion, as they are teaching the family a lesson, the soft lighting and relaxing music which are in themselves creating a very serene and peaceful environment suddenly appear bubbles floating around behind them.

What?

“Bubbles? Why?” I couldn’t imagine that this was actually true. Surely I would have noticed bubbles. What would be the point of bubbles anyway?

Well the explanation went something along the lines of, “bubbles are supposed to induce feelings of peace and tranquility. They remind people of their youth and are relaxing. People subconsciously see the bubbles and it makes them feel good. When they feel good about your message they are more likely to act on it.”

I had to see it to believe it. I will always remember the next house I showed that video to. They were a super family that had just moved in to Utah and seemed quite interested in learning more about the church. As we sat there watching the movie I could hardly believe my eyes as tiny little bubbles started floating up in the background. I looked over at the others watching the movie intently. They didn’t seem to notice.

They did however decide to get baptized. I wouldn’t try to say that the movie was the reason for it, I mean come on, bubbles? But nevertheless there you have it. Subliminal messages in “On The Way Home”.

I had an interesting night out last Wednesday evening. I met a potential client to discuss a potential web page project. It started off a little rough with me heading to the wrong Boston Pizza (there are two on the South side but it wasn’t specified which one) anyway when I figured out where I was supposed to be I had an interesting time chatting with a couple of guys from the prospective client company.

I don’t want to get into too many of the details of the conversation but there were a couple of things that hit me the wrong way. They asked me what if I was LDS to which I responded in the affirmative. Technically this is true. They laughed and said something along the lines of, “Good, you’ll fit in perfectly at work—we’re all LDS. We even start each work day with a prayer”.

Fit in perfectly? Somehow I doubted that but I nevertheless nodded and smiled. I thought he was joking about the prayer but as the conversation continued I realized he was completely serious.

The product they are pushing is some kind of natural health supplement. They raved about its amazing ability to cure various mental illnesses including bi-polar and ADD/ADHD. My main contact explained that he believed the primary cause of mental illness was purely not getting the right natural nutrients into the body. He mentioned his strong belief in following the Word of Wisdom (the Mormon doctrine of healthy eating and living) and how their supplement was designed in the spirit of that doctrine. Even as he was extolling the virtues of healthy eating a giant platter of chicken wings materialized on our table. Then another one; then a third one. For someone like me—I don’t eat a lot of meat—it seemed like a rather unhealthy choice for dinner. I suppose ignoring the rule “eat meat sparingly” might not seem at the surface to be extremely unhealthy but it certainly is hypocritical.

I had lots of questions for them about their product and what they wanted me to do as far as their webpage was concerned. I got a fairly bad taste in my mouth when I heard that they had about 50 different sites all designed to help increase the search results of their main page. The image went from bad to worse when they started discussing how there were people out there whom they believed to be connected with the pharmaceutical industry that were trying to give them a bad name. This in itself wasn’t so bad because it made sense that when a company selling a natural supplement encourages someone to go off their prescription medication and take their “natural” product instead, you’re going to upset the pharmaceutical fruit-basket. Not to mention potentially putting someone in serious risk—a thought that caused me to raise an eye-brow.

But what really bothered me was how they reacted to the supposed slander—they fought back with a fax and internet smear campaign painting their accusers as child molesters!

Woah! Hold the phone just a minute guys. Maybe you guys need those morning prayers after all. I honestly don’t know the truth behind any of the libel directed against you, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. However I can’t see how you can feel justified in accusing someone of abusing children when you don’t know straight up about where those stories started. Frankly the whole story sickens me.

I’ve now found myself in somewhat of a moral dilemma. I could really use the money right now, what with being short on roommates and having student loans to pay back but I certainly don’t want to be associated with this hypocritically religious company. The question in my mind now is do I stand up for my integrity or do I help promote a company which operates in such a sleazy manner just for the cold hard cash?

Ironically it’s the Mormon in me that says stick to your virtues and gratefully decline their offer. It’s the greedy bastard in me that says, well just charge a little bit more and if they take the offer then it will be worth it, but if they don’t then I can tell myself that I didn’t really want the job anyway.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Will I be joining them in the hand-basket? I think not.

I’ve watched Michael Moore’s movies and read his books. I think he’s not really all he’s cracked up to be—in fact I’m actually very critical of a lot of the ways in which he operates. However after watching the This Divided State movie trailer and the other clips available at iFilm I was so disgusted with some of the people at UVSC, it just made my blood boil!

This Divided State follows the explosion of community protest surrounding Michael Moore’s visit to Utah Valley State College (UVSC) in October 2004. Though UVSC is located in one of the strongest Republican strongholds in the United States, vehement opposition to liberal filmmaker Michael Moore’s visit was much greater than anticipated. Death threats, hate mail, bribes, and lawsuits were all candidly captured on film. Equally surprising, however, was the overwhelming “uprising” of students in support of Michael Moore. Additionally, since the controversy took place in Utah, a heated religious debate broke out as to whether Mormons can profess to be liberal without betraying their religion.

When it comes down to it, it’s not about whether you agree or disagree with Moore’s viewpoint. It is about whether you believe the students have the right to bring him to their school to share that viewpoint.

Also check out the This Divided State official site.

Search keywords: Michael Moore, This Divided State, video

I got into a conversation about evolution last night with an active member of the Mormon Church. I presented the concept that though other religions seem to think evolution is the tool of the devil, LDS folks shouldn’t think so. This afternoon I discovered a great article by Michael R. Ash, The Mormon Myth of Evil Evolution, which shows that the official Church position on evolution is neutral.

Even if you’re not from a Mormon background, you may find it interesting how a major world religion has avoided committing itself one way or the other to such an obviously important topic. Also I don’t think one has to be a Mormon in order to try and reconsile one’s beliefs with science; perhaps there is something every religious person could learn from the article.

If you liked Michael R. Ash’s article, you may also find of interest Duane E. Jeffery’s well-known and often cited Seers, Savants and Evolution: The Uncomfortable Interface.

For those interested in a more liberal view of Mormons, their history with blacks and the priesthood, and the some thoughts about their policy: The Mark of the Curse by Keith Norman (PDF link).

Sitting at home, I’ve had a lot of time to contemplate what I’ve been through in my life. How I’ve come to the place where I’m at now, where I’m going and what happened to make me feel like my future is sliding out from under me. It’s a frustrating feeling; it made me think about the last time my life went through such a drastic change.

I’ve made some mistakes; I’m doing what I can to fix my life. Mostly what I feel during the day is regret and I wonder what I should do now. I had a hard time getting through the night last night. I ended up waking up around 3:30 and staying awake until 11 this morning. I miss having that friend to talk to. I ate some breakfast at around 5:00 and finished my little painting project. I should paint the other trim in the rest of the house. At eleven I fell deeply asleep, taking a five-hour nap. This sleeping twice a day can’t be healthy—it feels terrible. I thought I was switching back to a normal Alberta sleeping pattern but when I’m sleeping more in the day than the night I guess that’s just not the case.

I’ve been thinking about Anna-Maria. I’ve been thinking about how much my life has changed for the better since that sunny day in June 2002 when we met outside the church building in Medicine Hat and how it’s changed since our break-up. But I love thinking about the day we met. It wasn’t long until we sat together with her brother, Jakob, at Moxies enjoying dinner. It was the first time we really talked. I felt compelled to relate to her a very personal story. The story of the last big change in my life—how I ended up being expelled from Salt Lake City one early morning on the 20th of May, 1999, but I never told her all of the details. So now I’ll relate it to you—like Paul Harvey might say, here is the rest of the story.

But before I tell you what happened that day, I think it’s important to move back in time almost a year earlier to May 27th, 1998. I apprehensively entered the doors at the Mission Training Centre in Provo, Utah. I was about to embark on a full-time mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints—known colloquially as the Mormon Church. I was apprehensive for many reasons. I had been feeling tremendous pressure to go on this mission and I didn’t feel deeply ready. I was heartsick for my girlfriend at the time and the strange rituals performed in the initiatory Temple ceremony that all new Missionaries are forced to take part in before they leave freaked me out. I am not going to go into details but suffice it to say it didn’t sit well with me. Though always coupled with a companion, that next year would leave me feeling more alone than I’d ever been in my life. I constantly missed my home, my family, even my cat—most of all I missed my girlfriend, Sharon. She was so proud of me for “serving the lord”.

I decided to buck up and became a hard working role model. From the start I studied relentlessly, I really felt what I was doing was right, I began to feel good about what I was doing, I believed that I belonged to the one and only true church and that I was about to go out and save the lost souls living in Salt Lake City. Though to be honest, I remember when I arrived at Salt Lake City, only a one-hour drive north of the training centre, I was still deeply troubled.

I met my Mission President, David A. Christensen. I felt more love from that man than anyone I’ve ever met. He kissed me on the cheek. I’m not sure if he read through to my concerns, if he was trying to freak me out, or just trying to show me how much he cared. I think he did all three at once. I think kissing me on the cheek had a lot to do with his exposure to the culture in Brazil (Previously he had served there both as a missionary and then later as a Mission President). I immediately felt that I would do anything for that man. Unfortunately I wouldn’t get the chance.

His three-year term was up and within a week a new Mission President arrived. James A. Stephens, a man that would make decisions that would forever change the way I reflect on my mission.

President Stephens was an awkward looking man. Although he was tall, his features seemed small on his face, small eyes, small ears, a particularly small chin. He was from North Carolina and despite the sunshine there, he was a sickly pale colour. With his strong southern accent, he had a way of speaking that just exactly failed to move me. I tried hard to love this man; I tried hard just to like him. We were told that the new Mission President would be a great orator and a spiritual giant. Even though I’d only met President Christensen a couple of times it was immediately clear that President Stephens was not a hundredth the man.

Nevertheless I pressed on. I knocked on doors I converted people to “the restored gospel of Jesus Christ”. I was good at it. We baptized seven people the first month! Getting people to commit to baptism came naturally to me and of course the companions I had were very dedicated as well.

At this point I should mention how mistreated I felt here by my companions. There were four of us living together. Two new missionaries and two Zone Leader companions. We weren’t allowed to buy bed sheets for the first week. I remember one instance when I wasn’t allowed to stay up past 10:30 to eat a steak that I had just cooked because even though my companion asked me to cook us each one for when we got home, it was past our bed time. Instead he told me I should eat it in the bathroom. As if God wouldn’t mind me staying up to eat it as long as I pretended to be taking a dump. I understood the point of the rules, we were only to do our shopping on Tuesdays to prevent wasting time loitering around the mall, so I would have to wait a week for bedding but I couldn’t understand how freezing my ass off each night or choosing between going hungry after skipping supper for a baptism and eating in the bathroom was what a mission was supposed to be about. It was an unhappy time.

Behind the scenes, the nightmares from my childhood had returned. I jolted awake to the sound of myself screaming. It was a premonition, someone was going to die. My companion slept silently beside me not noticing a thing. I didn’t mention it to anyone.

A month later, I’m not sure if it was the flu or if it was even related to the revelations I was having and was about to have. Whatever it was, I remember not feeling well and going to bed early that humid August night in Utah.

My companion and I approached a child of 9 years old. A kind of ironic twist given my aversion for baptizing kids of inactive Mormon parents. Have you been baptized I probed? Even in sleep I was on the Lord’s errand. Suddenly another missionary approached us. He was alone which was odd—missionaries always travel with at least one companion. We greeted each other and suddenly I recognized him, it was my old friend Kris from Medicine Hat. He asked if I had heard the news about Greg. No.

“Yeah, he shot himself”.

I began to sob, and to run. I found myself approaching my house in Medicine Hat from the rear. Greg lived across the street. He was my first “best friend” in the world. I was so upset. I yelled for my parents, for someone—anyone, but nobody was home. I huddled into a ball on bed of my childhood room, weeping.

Suddenly I was awake—after a few moments of figuring out where I was, I realized I was in Salt Lake City and Greg was dead. He wasn’t really dead, I assured myself, it was just a bad dream brought on by the flu. I wish that were the case.

What happened next, was probably the very worst handling of the situation you can imagine. For days my mother had been calling the mission, trying to get a hold of me to tell me the news. Instead of contacting me immediately, President Stephens looked at his day planner. He noticed that we were already scheduled to meet next Monday and decided it would be best to wait until that meeting (three days after the funeral) to tell me what happened. (As an aside, after this event I made sure my parents always had my phone number and could contact me directly though they never did).

In his mind he prepared a speech for me. Why People Commit Suicide, by James A. Stephens. (I think the A stands for Asshat). He never counted on me getting sick. I missed our appointment. Using no logic that I can understand he decided that since I was already ill, he wouldn’t add to my burden by telling me about my childhood best friend’s suicide.

Instead I found out the next day. Once a week missionaries were allowed to check their email. My mother had written 5 times. The latest email hung ominously on top of the list of emails with subjects like, “Please Call”, “Where Are You”, and “Important”. It was adorned with the simple subject of “Sad News”.

Devastated, I wandered back to the missionary apartment. What I wanted most in the world was to call home, to find out what happened, to make sense of the strange situation I was in, to consider the option of attending the funeral. At this point of course, though I didn’t know it, I had already been robbed of that option.

The story goes on and on, and if you can believe it, it gets worse. The other missionaries insisted that I not call home until first getting permission from our inspired leader President Stephens. I phoned up the mission office, and after holding for some time, “the man in charge” came onto the phone. I told him that my friend had died and that I wanted to call home. Somehow he didn’t hear my request. Instead he wanted to know how I knew about that, and I explained that my mom had written me an email—which this being our preparation day I had read. I was confused because it sounded like he knew about this. He couldn’t have known though—otherwise why didn’t he call? I put such thoughts out of my mind. “Oh, well…” he stumbled, “I want you to come down to the Mission Office right away.” I felt a wave of frustration cross over my body, I just wanted to call my parents, was it really that big a deal? I would ask myself that question a lot that day.

It took forever to get into the car. The other missionaries would drive me to the office but since they had been playing basketball they needed to shower and change first. It was frustrating, but the frustration was just beginning. When we finally arrived at the office, the President was in a meeting with another missionary. I waited another 45 minutes. I kept wondering why calling home was such a big deal?

Finally I entered the room. I was sad. President Stephens went into the speech he had prepared. “People commit suicide for a lot of reasons…”

I don’t remember if I was even listening. I looked at my watch. Another 45 minutes past. Is calling home really that big a deal? It must be. I finally interrupted his speech. I was scared to ask, but maybe if he knew how much it meant to me, he would change his mind. “Can I call my parents?”

His face went blank, and then after a pause he replied, “Oh, yes of course!”

What? Of course? That’s all I had to do? Just suggest that I might like to call my parents and “Oh, yes of course!?” If it was that easy then why have I been waiting all day to be able to do it? The surge of emotions twisted inside me. On the one hand, I was elated after the past few hours of agonizing to finally be able to call home but at the same time I was confused and horrified that the reason I hadn’t been able to before now, wasn’t because it was such a horrible thing, but because, even though I had asked him on the phone, it hadn’t occurred to him that that might be something I would like to do.

This next part might make you sick. My mission president, the man supposedly called of God to make decisions on my behalf, dialed the phone for me. Nobody was home. I held my contemptful thoughts that maybe if I had called earlier in the day I would have gotten in touch with them.

“Maybe they are at Greg’s house,” he suggested. The idea of calling the Nielson’s house so soon after his death frightened me, but I felt a strong desire to make contact with someone. I agreed and he dialed again. My parents weren’t there.

“Hello, brother Nielson, this is President James A. Stephens, I’ve got an Elder Milner in the room with me. A friend of his that grew up across the street from him just committed suicide the other day and he’s quite upset”.

I’m not making this up. My face went pale. I can only imagine what Greg’s dad was thinking. I hope he was thinking, I’m talking to the biggest dick in the whole world. He asked whether the Elder Milner in the room was Jeff or Gary. My brother and I were both serving concurrently, Gary in Argentina and myself in Salt Lake City.

He didn’t know my name. Even the Zone Leaders knew it. Not only had my mother been calling for a week, not only did I call him several hours ago to tell him I would be coming down there, but he had a list of photos and names of missionaries hanging on the wall right beside us, and he still didn’t know it. I would have thought with all of these things the least he could have done was bothered to learn my name. I can’t think of any good reason why he didn’t. I wouldn’t be surprised if President Christensen still remembers me, and I only met him twice. I don’t know why this shocked me, by now I should have expected it.

I held a lot of resentment for James A. Stephens after that incident. Every encounter with him was much like the ones I’ve already described here. At one point he suggested I try “Prozac as a vacation from my worries”. He also suggested I try it only on a trial basis, “Just try it for a week or two”. He has no idea.

“Hey Stephens! Heroin is a vacation from your worries too, think I should try that?” I kept my very loud thoughts silent.

I was happier the farther away from the Mission home that I got. I dreaded the required monthly meetings with him. Of course there were other deaths back home, no one so close as Greg though, and the Happy Birthday audiotape from Sharon that also doubled as a Dear John added to my sadness. Things were rough on me. I went to the doctor about my depression.

He didn’t ask me why I was depressed. He instead gave me a prescription for Prozac. “The reason I would give you Prozac, over some other anti-depressant, is because they give the mission free samples”. Luckily I’m not an idiot. I requested a new doctor and eventually found myself in a room with the Church psychologist. Why the church employs a psychologist, I don’t really know, but there I was. I told him about Greg, and about Sharon, and about how I missed home. He was very understanding. He said what I was feeling was normal. NORMAL. and that whenever he meets with a new patient he has a policy of always meeting at least three times. But, he didn’t think we needed to meet again.

Which brings me back to the morning of May 20th, 1999. A wrap on the door signalled visitors. It was around 7:30am. I had been up for over an hour, studying, and currently I was ironing my white dress shirt. It was the Assistants to the President, Missionaries whose main job had turned from that of converting non-mormons from their heathen ways to that of helping other missionaries become better teachers or dealing with other problems. Today they would help me by telling me to pack my things. I was about to have an “emergency transfer”.

They didn’t tell me what the emergency was, or where I was getting transferred to. After all the BS I had been through, I decided to call home. I hated this kind of treatment and I wanted to discuss the possibility of throwing in the towel with my parents. As the phone rang, I thought about the fact that even though I wanted to go home, I didn’t really want to go home. I figured my parents would tell me to suffer through it and things would be okay. But oddly enough nobody was home.

I called my uncle. Not knowing it was still a secret, he spilled the beans. “Do you know where my parents are?” I asked. “They’re on their way to Calgary to pick you up, where are you?”

I was being sent home. Even though my intention in calling home was to discuss the possibility of leaving, I never actually wanted this. The decision had already been made; there was NOTHING that I could do. It didn’t matter—no amount of logic or reasoning could fix this problem.

A day or two previous to this I told another missionary that I was deeply depressed and that I had suicidal thoughts. Suicidal thoughts, not that I actually planned to commit suicide, just that I thought about it. I visualized it, going through the motions, but what I didn’t mention to that missionary and the message that failed to get to my Mission president was that after I thought about it, I thought how glad I was to be alive, how I didn’t actually want to be dead. I guess when I told him how I was feeling, I was just upset and being dramatic.

I could tell you about the trip in the car to see the Mission President one last time, the way it felt like a visit to Don Corleone’s summerhouse where, if this had actually been the mob he would have just shot me in the face because it was easier than dealing with me. Instead the bullet he used was an airplane ticket. Earlier I told him, I didn’t want to go back to the psychiatrist because I wasn’t really depressed, I wasn’t really suicidal, I was just down and as the doctor had told me before, my feelings were normal—I guess I didn’t want to give him a chance to change his mind. I did mention that I would go if I didn’t have any other choice. He said he would consult with the Church’s missionary department and get back to me. This was him “getting back to me?” Agreeing to go to the doctor now was too little, too late for me. I was going home.

I felt ashamed for being home a year early. I wanted to go back but I was so happy to see my family and besides, I convinced myself, I hated it in Salt Lake. I went to a doctor (who happened to be Mormon) in Medicine Hat and told him the whole story. He confirmed that what I was feeling was normal, and he confided in me that my inability to get along with the mission president was probably the reason I was there. Not getting along with him? It’s true that I didn’t like him, but the only thing he ever asked me to do that I didn’t comply with was to go see that doctor again. Sheesh. I used to think that if a missionary couldn’t get along with his mission president it was obviously because he was a bad missionary; someone that never followed the rules; someone who never tried to baptize people. I don’t feel that way anymore. I know from first hand experience that sometimes they don’t get along because the Mission President is an idiot.

I wasn’t the only one he sent home. In fact I heard rumours that he sent home more missionaries than any other mission president before him. It was his one-stop solution to problems he didn’t understand. I don’t know if the rumours are true, I do know that he sent a lot of missionaries home before me.

I was given the option to continue my mission in Calgary. As if—after all the propaganda I had been fed about how the location of your mission is inspired by God I couldn’t see how me being in Calgary really fit with some kind of greater purpose. Then when I refused they changed their minds and said I could go back to Salt Lake City, but I had to leave the day after tomorrow. I declined.

I was never told what the exact reasons for my being sent home were. I was given an honorable discharge and that was pretty much the last thing anyone in the church ever said to me about my mission.

I attended church regularly for the next three years. I still believed in it all despite the people, despite the absurd claims, despite the fact that attending three hours of service on Sunday was the most depressing part of my life. In the spring of 2002 I got engaged to a new convert of the church. She and I planned to get married in the Alberta Temple. Thank my lucky stars, it didn’t work out. I started to date Anna-Maria that Fall, and together we attended the University of Lethbridge. We both quit going to church at the same time, though we were both at the same place with regard to the church and would have made the same decision on our own.

As the weeks turned into months, I fell deeply in love with Anna-Maria. I loved the trips we went on together. Disneyland became a special favourite of ours. She was often away for long periods of time following her dream of being an actor. I missed her deeply, but I never let her know how much I thought about her while she was gone. She felt unappreciated.

Where am I today? Well after another failed engagement I’m feeling pretty lost. I’m confident in my decision to leave the church—that’s not what this post is about. But as an ex-mormon I still carry a lot of guilt about what mistakes that I make. I have a strong belief in the importance of family and I think it’s important to be a good person. For that I’m grateful, despite my negative feelings for the church, it’s made me who I am today.

The sorrow of losing Anna-Maria has made me think a lot about my early homecoming. It was the most depressed time of my life, and I suppose my new sadness is just resurrecting memories from another time of melancholy. There are some major differences though.

When I lost my mission I felt that some great and important experience had been stolen from my life, and I was extremely sad, but I was happy to be done. When I lost my first fiancé I felt the same. Now that I’ve lost Anna-Maria as a lover I still feel that tremendous loss but I don’t feel the same sense of relief that I felt with these other circumstances. I don’t feel like secretly I wanted this anyway. My greatest fear is to now lose her as a friend too. It’s hard to balance what she wants from me as a friend with what she no longer wants from a partner.

Anna-Maria is a great girl, someone I should have cherished more. If I had spent the kind of energy on her that I exerted on my mission I’m sure she would still be around. I tried to marry her but I never did enough to convince her how pure my love was. When I was engaged the first time to Janine, each day was filled with dread, when I was engaged to Anna-Maria, each day was exciting—I felt filled with love. I guess her feeling was more of the former. Still I know she’s a great woman and I have no choice but to respect her decision. She’s an extremely smart, witty, and talented girl. She’s also so amazingly beautiful. I have a photo of her on the iPod Photo that she gave me for Christmas; despite our break-up I love to show off her beauty to anyone that cares to see. She’s wonderful. I was lucky enough to see her in Vancouver when I returned home from Asia. She’s still the most stunning beauty that I know. I loved the feeling I had for a brief moment having my arms back around her, her smell, her soft skin, and her small frame pulled up against me. And presently as Def Leppard sings on my iTunes, “Here I go again on my own” I have to smile and hope that everything really will be ok.

Quite a personal post two days ago. I guess the sadness sometimes makes it hard to keep it to myself. Here comes another one:

I never made it the full 48 hours of computer hiatus, I checked my email at school and inevitably booted up my computer to show my brother and his wife a video because my Xbox refuses to play VCD’s, (I guess Microsoft is worried about copyright violations, even though the one in question is of me free-flying in Malaysia). But disconnecting (for the most part) from my computer did help. I cleaned up my house and completed a boatload of errands. I’ve even had time to start reading “Middlesex”, which is a facinating book and the respite has allowed me to hit it hard.

My jet lag is slowly but surely leaving. The nap I took on Monday started at 11am and lasted seven hours. Yesterday I laid my head down around 3:30pm and got up at 5:00pm; my naps are getting shorter and once again I’m sleeping through the night.

I went to Starbucks yesterday and ordered a Mocha Tall. It’s not the first one I’ve ever had, but it marked the first time that I’ve ever ordered coffee (or a half coffee half chocolate anyway) when no one else was around saying, “hey you wanna get some Starbucks?”. I’ve never had any reason to drink coffee. I’ve never particularly liked the taste of it either, though the smell has started to grow on me. I find it empowering to try something new and to really decide on my own if drinking the occasional coffee is something that I like.

You may be reading this and thinking to yourself, “What a complete weirdo, he’s acting as if drinking coffee is some kind of crime.” I should mention that for me consuming coffee has always appeared as a horrible mortal sin, the first step in a hand-basket down the road paved with good intentions. As one of my favorite bloggers explains:

“My parents raised me Mormon, and I grew up believing that the Mormon Church was true. In fact, I never had a cup of coffee until I was 23-years-old. I had pre-marital sex for the first time at age 22, but BY GOD I waited an extra year for the coffee. There had better be a special place in heaven for me.”

Outside the Starbucks a disheveled blonde man with a mullet approached me. His golden coloured hair was long and oily, he had what appeared to be the fresh swelling of a severe beating, gauze over his left eye, and half a cigarette hanging from his mouth.

“Do you have a light?”

“No, sorry - well actually I have the cigarette lighter from my car.”

“Thanks man, I just got out of jail.”

“What were you doing in jail?” I was pretty sure from the 20 fresh stitches on his hung-over face that he had not been there long.

He explained, “I fell asleep in the park and I woke up to somebody kicking me in the face.”

“Then how did you end up in jail?”

“I don’t know. They said I was drunk.” I guess that was all he needed to say.

I gave him his light and a couple bucks in change - so he could at least catch the bus. I figured if I could jeopardize my soul with a $3 mocha the least I could do was counter balance it with a little charity. If there is a heaven, I hope there’s a special place for me too.

I used to hate camping. It’s a secret from Anna-Maria and most of my family, but I don’t think it would come as a big surprise to those that have been with me on Scout Camp. I’ll try not to delve too deeply into the bad memories.

It’s not that Scout Camp is inherently bad. It’s not even that LDS Scout Camp is inherently bad. Which as you can guess is what I went too. But do I ever hate those jerks. Please don’t take offence if you are reading this and happen to be the one or two people from Scout camp that actually made it bearable. I’m hoping you know who you are.

The thing about Scout camp was that our troop had a very motley crew of people that I would never hang out with in real life. Nice guys—most of them, but so many of them just weirdos or mental cases. They were either too different in their interests or too anxious to start a fight with us. It was especially bad after they split our ward. Which meant that most of the people I liked to hang out with were no longer in our troop. I sometimes snuck in to the other wards camps because ours sucked so badly.

Anyway having had enough of this tangent I’ll be getting to the point of this post.

I went camping with Anna-Maria on the weekend and we had such a good time. Trust me when I say that I was extremely skeptical (even though I kept my skepticism to myself).

I’ll try and keep it condensed. On Friday we left and arrived in Sparwood (we = Anna-Maria and Sophie the Dog). Saturday: after eggs and bacon for breakfast we went bridge jumping on a VERY HIGH bridge. I’m guessing approximately 5 or 6 meters 10 meters—I didn’t realize it at the time but it was about twice as high as the 5 meter platform at the University. This bridge was HIGH!.

There were a wild bunch of guys there jumping off and one of them even did a back-flip. There were signs that said, “No Jumping - No Diving” but we got into our wet suits and promptly ignored those signs.

I joked to Anna how we would probably still be here after those locals were gone and the RCMP showed up.

I was half right. The RCMP showed up when Anna was dangling on the side of the bridge and the others had all dried off. She quickly scrambled onto the bridge but it was pretty obvious that the two of us dressed in our wet suits were up to no good. I thought for sure he was going to give us a hard time. Just then the wild back-flipping guy climbed out on the edge of the bridge. I felt immediately relieved because it wasn’t Anna or I that would be getting into any trouble today. He smiled at the officer and leaped head under heals down towards the frigid water. I looked at the cop who just said to us, “Tell him that next time I want to see a double back-flip with a twist.”

They laughed and the tension was broken. I guess he was cool with it (maybe because nobody was drinking? Or maybe because he really didn’t care. It wasn’t a dangerous place to jump and he probably wasn’t looking for a confrontation anyway.) Either way it made me have a lot more respect for him as a guy who can tell the difference between harmless fun and reckless self endangerment.

Later that night we had a game of Frisbee golf and then late night partying.

Sunday - We drove to Trail, BC to visit my cousin Don and his family. They just had a new baby girl last week.

Monday - Drove home, bought some fresh BC cherries, a peach, and four cobs of corn at a roadside shop. I can only describe how good they were with a sound that has no English word to represent it. (Think Homer Simpson drooling over Beer).

And when it was all over we were very happy to be back in a familiar bed.

In conclusion, camping isn’t that bad when you can shower in the morning, free fall into a cold deep river for at least 3 seconds, drive to the store for lunch and take off for relatives if those you are camping with are too boring or having marital problems or both. You can’t go wrong camping with Anna-Maria.

P.S. Camping with the Medicine Hat First Ward still would have sucked even with daily showers, but maybe not if I had had my Jeep and someone warm with whom to cuddle.

South Park ran a hilarious episode (your mileage may vary) in November titled “All About Mormons”.

From the South Park Studios Website:

“A Mormon kid moves to South Park and Stan has to kick his ass. But when Stan and his dad meet their new Mormon neighbors, they become fascinated with how genuinely nice they are. Meanwhile the other boys mock Stan relentlessly for wimping out.”

If you missed it, you can probably get a copy of the whole episode off of the FastTrack network (download Kazaa Lite). Just search for “SouthPark - 712 - All About Mormons.avi”.

Or if you want, you can check out the “audio only” version of the South Park Joseph Smith Story.

I think pretty much the greatest thing about this episode is that is gives people who don’t know anything about the church a background into how the church started. As someone that knows from personal experience, they tell the Joseph Smith story pretty much just like they do if you were to have the Mormon Missionaries come into your house and tell you the story, except for the part where they call Martin Harris dumb. Mormon Missionaries would never call him dumb - unless they were calling him dumb because he gave his wife the unpublished transcript, then they might but other than that - no way. This episode also portrays what nice people Mormons are - based on some of the Mormon families I know it’s so accurate it’s scary.

Update: http://www.suprnova.org has finally released this episode as a torrent. Get All About Mormons(XviD-lol).torrent now (the actual file is an AVI). It’s May 2nd, 2004 so who knows when this link will stop working.

Update: It appears to have stopped working. Sorry.

Update: Suprnova has reopened as Newnova.org. Try the TV section and open the South Park listings (scroll down to the bottom after you click).

Based on the conversation I had with Gary last weekend in Calgary, he must have been studying this page. Check out the helpful hints under Steps 3, 5(b), and 7. Remind you of anyone?

Anyway, I was in Calgary last weekend and it was pretty much the first time we’ve spoken since I stopped posting at milner.blogspot.com. We were still debating the virtues of our arguments on the blog about “same-sex marriage” issues in Canada and about Blacks being withheld the priesthood in the Mormon church (pre 1978). I told him about Brigham Young’s statement that the reason for Black’s having dark skin was because of the curse of Cain and therefore THAT is why the church refused to allow them to hold the priesthood. He told me straight out that he didn’t believe Brigham Young actually ever said that.

I did some research and found the following:

President Young stated privately in 1849 that, “the Lord had cursed Cain’s seed with blackness and prohibited them from the Priesthood,” and in 1852 the prohibition was published in the Deseret News. In that same year, in an address to the Territorial legislature, he declared, “…any man having one drop of the seed of [Cain]…in him cannot hold the Priesthood, and if no other Prophet ever spake it before I will say it now… .”

Tom Coates has been discussing strategic methods in dealing with message board Trolls on his Everything in Moderation site. An anonymous poster, claiming to be a notorious Slashdot troll, made some intriguing comments about why moderating “trolls” in secret can sometimes be detrimental.

“in short i believe that the people who must be treated with the most public, forthright, and open methods of censure are those who offend us the most. i do not believe that trickery is ever as effective as open methods because trickery is, at its core, dishonest to both the person being tricked and the online community you have secretly enacted policy for.” -posted anonymously by 20721 (link)

It was a good article and some really thought provoking comments. Worthwhile read if you are remotely interested in web administration and/or censorship.

Now on a personal note: a comment or two that I made may have incited some anger. Specifically it may have angered my brother Gary but I want to make it clear that I have never consciously posted trying to be a troll. According to SlashNET.org, “A troll is someone who seeks to deliberately incite anger, arguments, and disorder. A simple example would be a person who goes into #linux and extols the superiority of Microsoft products.” Metaphorically speaking all I did was ask the #linux users what Linus Torvalds would have thought about the copied code inside the linux kernel. Something that could have made some people mad but a valid question and certainly not trolling.

That wasn’t how my brother saw it. Although I wasn’t banned from posting at our family’s blog altogether, it was made pretty clear that I wasn’t welcome there anymore—at least by one member.

It pretty much started with my posts about same-sex marriage. My opinion was that all people in society should be offered the same rights, ie. the right to marry the person you love (same-sex or not). Gary couldn’t debate his point gracefully and instead of conceding defeat or just backing down he instead began attacking me on a personal level calling me such things as a sophist, a homosexual, and even a heterophobe.

I’m trying to be politically correct, but I was really insulted that he would call me “g-a-y”. It’s probably my own homophobia that has caused me to be upset.

Recently I decided to stop posting completely after the response to an “offensive” post (which you can decide for yourself if it is offensive) that I made.

Specifically on Friday, October 17th, 2003 I posted the following:

Black Person + Ethnic DNA Test = ?

I picked this up from metafilter.com:

After watching a 60 Minutes segment on the subject last year, Wayne Joseph decided on a whim to take a new ethnic DNA test. Being of Creole stock, and therefore on the lighter end of the black colour spectrum, he had developed a casual curiosity about his exact percentage of black blood. What he discovered was astounding.

I wonder what early Mormons would have thought?

Not really that offensive—in my opinion. In fact I think it’s a logical question to ask if you have been a Mormon your whole life—hearing all about how Mormons used to keep blacks from having the “priesthood power” bestowed upon them.

About the next day I received an email from my brother asking me if I was taking a shot at the church. “What exactly do you mean by [what early Mormons would have thought]? I don’t think I understand.”

I proceeded to answer his email but in my anger (still kindling from the same-sex marriage argument) I wrote an email that was decidedly too harsh and instead of sending it thought better of myself and resolved to write a kinder gentler explanation the next day. That email was never written but here for your reading enjoyment is the email I had originally prepared to send (brace yourself):

“Gary, as Dr. Phil might say, “It’s time to get real”.

Let’s face it, in the past church has been racist toward blacks. Since you don’t seem to remember the situation with pre - 1978 manifesto Mormons and blacks let me give you a short refresher. (Isn’t this safe to assume given your apparent lack of comprehension as to what I’m talking about?)

Here’s a little background that Brother McConkie so plainly articulates for us in Mormon Doctrine, p. 527 - 528, of the 1966 edition. “The Negroes are not equal with other races where the receipt of certain spiritual blessings are concerned, …but this inequality is not of man’s origin. It is the Lord’s doing, is based on his eternal laws of justice, and grows out of the lack of spiritual valiance of those concerned in their First Estate [the pre-earth existence].”

The DNA article just made me wonder if the early Mormons ever made any mistakes excluding someone that didn’t happen to have Negro blood err I mean lack of spiritual valiance in the pre-earth existence. IMHO a reasonable question because as you know the early Mormons didn’t have DNA testing to verify if someone was less valiant. Does saying this mean I was being antagonistic? I suppose, with your ultra delicate sensibilities, assuming that mistakes could have been made by “The One True Church”(tm) must mean I was “taking a shot” at it. Sorry for any misunderstanding.

I realize this email seems a little aggressive. However, I have been irritated lately with the growing feeling, based on the fact that you didn’t want our conversation to go out on the blog, that you had something to hide in our conversation or that you are worried about censoring my beliefs from the blog. Frankly I find that disgusting. I feel the same way about the same-sex marriages debate. As I said before, “it’s time to get real”. If you can’t handle it then don’t bother emailing me “why I would write something”, instead if you can’t respond on the blog then just take those thoughts and file them in your “I can’t handle the truth” directory.

-Jeff

So I decided not to send the harsh email. The next day I found my admin rights gone. I was trying to add some links in the template as well use some of the code directly from the template in a project I was doing at school. When I couldn’t get in I decided (perhaps in the heat of the moment) not to post on the milnerblog anymore. My dad figures we both need to grow up, but then almost in the same breath he adds that I am not to discuss my thoughts about “the church” with my younger sister and her freshly baptized husband. I asked him what I was supposed to say to her when she brings it up? She always brings it up. He simply told me not to discuss it with her.

So I said to him, “Do you want me to tell her that you forbid me to talk about it with her?”

“No.”

“Then what do you want me to say?”

“Just don’t talk about it with her, you can think of something to say.”

So basically he’s asking me to censor my beliefs from her. Basically he’s going against all that stuff they teach you in church about how if you believe something to be true it’s your responsibility to share it with others. Remember now—I wasn’t actively bringing religion up with her, just answering questions about why I no longer believe the Mormon church to be the “one true church”.

So it’s kind of like I’ve been politely censored. First from the blog and now from my own family. Of course I have the “right” to speak my mind—but not without the harassing comments of Gary or the guilt of disobeying my dad’s wishes.

The Mormon Missionaries are coming over to my house today. I told them that Wednesday at 1:00pm would be fine for me. One of them called me last night to ask if 1:30 would work. I explained (again) that I had to work at 2:00 and that I didn’t care when they came. He seemed slightly embarrassed but explained they had a lunch appointment and didn’t want to have to rush. I felt like telling him, “Don’t rush, take your time; in fact I don’t even care if you come over!” But I didn’t. I guess I’m a sucker for being a nice guy. I wonder what they are even going to say to me. I’m sure I’ll have something to say to them. This should be interesting.