I realize that and I have no hard feelings, toward him or the church in general. My dad is a bishop and a wonderful, wonderful man. I can’t imagine him ever handling that situation that way. But…we’re all just people, doing the best we can. I don’t feel bad about it.

I just wanted to say that I was one who was “invited” to have my name removed from the membership records. When I moved to a new area, my new bishop and his wife came to vist, along with RS president and her husband. They showed up at my home in the middle of the day, the Saturday before the 4th, while I was hosting an enormous family gathering for my husband’s, non-LDS, family.

I invited the bishop, et al, inside to visited for a few minutes. The bishop asked when they might see me at church. I explained that I probably wouldn’t be coming but that now might not be the best time to go in to why that was. When he pressed, I explained that after much soul, and scripture, searching, I’d come to the conclusion that I didn’t believe in the restoration story as told to me my whole life and that, based on the church position of “either it’s all true or none of it’s true” I’d been forced to conclude that it must all not be true.

The bishop asked what specifically I had a problem with. I shared a couple of specifics with him. He sat there for a moment, quietly, and then said that he’d prefer (he really used the word prefer) that I go ahead and have my name removed from the records, if that was the way I felt, so that he wouldn’t have to send folks out to “bother” me. I told him that I enjoyed my LDS friends and wouldn’t mind at ALL if anyone wanted to come out and see me. He said that just the same, he’d rather I go ahead and request that my name be removed. So I did.

He insisted that I also request to have my children’s names removed, as well, though I expressed a desire to leave them and let them make that decision on their own when they were older. (These children were the product of a previous temple marriage where my husband passed away. I had been re-married for less than a year at that time.) Keep in mind that while all this is going on, over 75 people were standing around in the yard, waiting for me to come out so that we could get on with our cookout.

Since I’d already determined that there was no value in church memebership, beyond the good relationship that I had with my VERY active family, I went ahead and had my name removed. The entire exchange was very pleasant, no one lost their temper or got upset. I had already spent a great deal of time with my previous bishop and stake president, trying to sort out all of the questions that I’d had, and this new bishop didn’t even try to get into those things with me. He handed me a paper with that month’s visiting teaching message on it and asked me to fill out my request for removal on the back, before he left. Then we (the bishop’s entourage and myself) all went outside to where my guests were waiting, my husband invited them to stay for BBQ, they declined and left. I’ve never seen any of the local LDS people in the four years since.

It turned out to be a relief and my relationship with God moved forward in a great way from that moment on.

I only share that experience in response to the discusion about wether or not people are actually “invited” to have their names removed. In some cases, at least, they certainly are.

How about big name change from “Genealogy” to “Family History” ?

I know that here in The South we have been calling it Family History for a while. Although I don’t know when it changed for the rest of the world, around here it simply put more emphasis on the Family and less emphasis on big word of foreign (Greek) origin. Also, when people around here were asked to fill out “pedigree” charts they turned up there noses. “I’m no prize ‘coon dog!”, they would say. Indeed, sir, you are no prize ‘coon dog. We called them Family History sheets from way back.

Seth R, No, many Mormons have turned making “less valiant” people uncomfortable at church into an art form. The Utah-Idaho brand of Mormonism is the worst for this, but it holds throughout the US and Canada. While thick skinned myself, I’ve seen good people/families virtually chased out of the church. There is a hell, and some people are going to be surprised there.

Everyone is like this.

The only difference between Mormons and most other groups of people, is that Mormons are forced to interact with each other, so the judgmentalism is a bit more noticeable. Other groups get around it by essentially ignoring each other.