Why I visited a Mormon Church
(Why I: The segment of my blog where I rant/vent to all of you lovely readers)
So. Recently a new friend of mine invited me to go to church with her and her family. Intrigued in the idea of a Mormon church service, I curiously accepted. Of course, I had no idea what to expect. I personally don’t go to church nor do I believe in the same things that they or any other religious institution teaches. However, I was raised Baptist so I had a vague idea of what the service might entail.
In order to prepare myself for some of the ideas that might have been discussed, I watched a video the night before to help alleviate some of my ignorance on the subject. Below is the link to that video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBLeNEkL3hY
After watching that I surmised that basically, Mormonism is a more modernized Christianity. Mostly taking place after Jesus’ death on the cross. These new books of the Bible can be found in the Book of Mormon.
However, what the video did not prepare me for was some of the ways in which Mormons live their life. During one of the more Sunday school settings, we were given a pamphlet called The Word of Wisdom. Inside the text are instructions based around what you should and shouldn’t put into your body. They aren’t even that unreasonable. They ask you to abstain from things such as:
-Coffee and Tea (Both of which I don’t really like anyway)
-Other harmful or addictive substances
I mean, most of this stuff is just plain common sense for anyone really. After all, if you care for your body in such a way that you care about what you consume, these items only make sense to stay away from.
In terms of the actual service and how it was structured, it was three hours long. Long, I know! During the first hour, we were in the chapel and they had different speakers come to the podium and talk about their experiences as members of the church and how certain verses in either the Bible or the BOM pertained to or helped them. The Second hour was spent in another room where we talked for a little while and then broke up into two different groups for a more official Sunday school-ish lesson. There we were given the pamphlets on The Word of Wisdom and had some discussion in smaller groups about the material. The last hour was spent in the room prior to the Sunday school room. It was just us girls and we discussed various things, either pertaining to more of our personal lives or our faith. I, of course, stayed out of this discussion as much as possible given that I was just a visitor and not a member of the congregation. After that, the service was over and we headed back to campus(Did I mention I recently started my Freshman year of college).
Overall, I would have to say that I definitely enjoyed learning more about a different religion, especially one that, all I knew prior was that they went door to door on bikes, wearing nice clothes. Everyone was very nice and respectful, well other than one joke about converting me, but I’m pretty sure that was just a joke.
Of course, I can’t speak for every Mormon church, but this one seemed quite nice.
