Boys Will Be Boys

As we’ve gotten into our thirties, I’ve noticed the men in our age group have gotten more outwardly competitive. It seems that if my celestial sex partner gets a new piece of yard equipment, a week later our 30-something neighbor has the same thing or better, if my celestial sex partner has a male co-worker who gets a new techno gadget, a day later he begs for the same whistle and bell. I’ve always seen woman as being competitive with each other, but now I think the men are worse. Don’t believe me? Our ward is chock-full of 30-something couples and today he came home with an elder’s quorum “invitation” (in Mormondom this means a photocopied piece of white paper) to an adult pinewood derby. As if it wasn’t bad enough to vicariously compete through your sons when they hit this annual rite of passage, now the men have decided to just outright slug it out on the mock track. The best part of the invitation was this sentence, “Light refreshments will be served for your munching enjoyment so please sign up to bring a favorite snack or dessert.” That’s Mormon hospitality for you, here’s what will be served and you’re going to bring it, of course this is male code for, “what your wife should prepare” as let’s get real, how often does the male partner of a relationship actually worry about the food for an event? Nope, they’re too worried about their derby car weighing in at five ounces. And yeah, our car is going to kick your car’s ass.

Is It Just Me?

As I mentioned in an earlier post I’ve become a Facebook addict and have now reached the milestone of one hundred “friends.” (Somebody toot a horn) Most of these are people I knew over a decade ago while growing up in Utah and back then I was your unoriginal “Molly” and I’d dare say only a handful of people in my peer circle were not Mormon. As you know from this blog, that all changed for me after I started working for the church. So, imagine my surprise when I reconnected with people from the past and started to realize a trend—many of them have also become inactive or left the church all together. Today was the biggest shocker when I was “friended” by a kid who was on seminary council with me and was perhaps the most devout Mormon peer I had, but has now listed himself as “agnostic” on Facebook. Another of my reacquainted friends served a mission but according to his profile/photos, is now a big fan of recreational drugs and alcohol (which was sad to read/see). It also seems that recently my celestial sex partner and I have had several friends who we’ve met as we moved that are “coming out” as no longer being believers in the church.

Now this doesn’t mean the church isn’t true- it could have something to do with my generation and the life stage we’re all at, or the area we all grew up in (small SLC/Ogden suburb), the availability of information on the internet, the world being more evil now, we’re getting close to the last days and people are choosing sides, etc. Or, I could be witnessing a trend in church membership with people who have demographics similar to mine.
What do you think? And if there is a trend, how should the LDS church go about stopping this loss of members? What would bring you back if you’ve left?