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so i grew up in mesa, arizona. there are two predominant culteural groups out here: mexicans and mormons. now my skin isn't brown enough and i didn't carry thick-ass scriptures everywhere, so it was rough going during the early years. later on in high school, i lost alot of my social hangups and started being alot more visible... making lots of new friends... and when you're in a predominantly mormon town, that means making alot of mormon friends. now here's my take on the whole mormon religion:
they are the largest growing western religion for a very good reason: they're incredibly strong in their faith. the mormon church emphasizes alot of things that you don't see in this age and day that are vitally important to a growing society: family values, personal responsibility, and the importance of following through. the church's teachings are also very convincing... they pick up alot of biblical themes and continue them with their book of mormon... anyone who beleives that moses or david could speak with god could very well beleive that joseph smith or brigham young did the same. their whole bend on the standard christian religion is modern prophecy. that's really all that makes them different from the rest of the churches. that means that they really only need to sell you on one minor detail and then they've got another beleiver in the fold...
now during high school i became interested (partly because most of the girls worth dating were mormon and because i wasn't a big troublemaker, so i got along with alot of the mormon guys)... so much so that after i graduated high school i went through their course of teachings with missionaries and was baptised into the church. it was all fine and dandy until i went to college and realized there was more to life than just that, but alot of the reason i "fell away" was that most of my mormon friends were off in other places on their missions... i had no real support structure, and that's vitally important when converting... to continue the support as they grow. so anyways, i've been through the whole deal and would probably still be a beleiver if i hadn't had an opputunity to explore my own self and my own feelings in college... it's agreat church, don't get me wrong. i trust my mormon friends explicitly and i know that i can always depend on them when i need them... but i feel like i grew out of what i got into when i was young and impressionable.
as for jehovia's witnesses, i'm gonna keep my mouth shut... they stole away too many years of my aunt's life before she finally was able to get out. i know quite a bit about their beleifs and i don't understand why the evangelize as much as they do (according to teachings, only 144,000 of them will be worthy enough to ascend), but i suppose that's their lives and it's not my place to tell them they're wrong.
what do i do nowadays when they show up at my door? politely turn them away. i don't understand who would be so insecure about their own personal beleifs that they feel the need to do inane and mindless things to people who are only trying to "enlighten" (in their own special way) others.
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My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.
- Thomas Paine
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