Wars and Rumors of Wars

It's coming. In fact it's something which has been in the making for the better part of the last two years.

The approach the Mrs and I have taken to Church has been to be in it, but not of it. We do what is asked of us, but seldom do any more. I may blog in the future about the struggle we're having, with wanting our kids to learn good principles, but not expose them to the political and other related crap which they are going to be taught in their Sunday School classes, but that's another topic for another time.

There have been a few skirmishes, as various members try to 'extend the hand of fellowship' to us. Mostly they're just annoying, since it's obvious that those extending the hand, are only doing so out of a sense of duty to not see us stray. I think I've shared the crabs in a bucket analogy before.

Things got ratcheted up over the weekend though.

I'm not normally a superficial person, but there is a certain female member of our congregation, that gives me the willey's. She'll talk to me occasionally, and without fail I get cold shivers as she does. I'm sure she's a nice person, but she also has absolutely no sense of what it means to be considerate of other people - all that matters is doing God's will - see my post of blasphemy too!

Anyway, so the old lady invited us over for a Family Home Evening tonight - she called like 5 times for it as well. Mrs. Koda feels a little obligation to the lady for various reasons, and to help ease her mind I said I would support her in going if she felt we should.

My whole thing is... It's called Family Home Evening. FAMILY - meaning our family and HOME meaning our home. Why do people feel like the need to invite us over to their homes?!? Is it perhaps that they assume we're incapable of feeling the spirit in our own home?

Anyway, so that go us slightly annoyed.

Moving on... Those of you who follow my fitness blog may be aware that I'm doing a "Swim across the English Channel" challenge this month. It calls for 21 miles of swimming. Yesterday afternoon I got another 2 miles added to my total. That's over 7 miles so far this month, and last week, I swam further than I ran - I still don't claim any semblance of sanity.

Anyway, so I return from the pool feeling pretty good. And we had an evening planned with the family, so I was pretty excited.

But as I walked through the door, I realized that Mrs. Koda's countenance was a little dark. It turns out that the secretary for the local congregation called and left a message, that the Elder's Quorum President and the Bishop would like to stop by to speak with me.

I think I know what it's about... I refuse to go out and participate in the home teaching program for a number of reasons. Primary among those reasons are the fact that I think the program is a pretty lousy substitute for getting to know and helping out your neighbors, and the fact that I keep getting assigned absolute douche bags as partners.

My current partner has been telling everyone he knows, that I just won't go and that as a result I'm a terrible person. His wife has apparently taken this as a person insult to her as well, since she no longer speaks to us.

I probably should have gotten it over with last night, but I just wasn't in the right frame of mind to deal with their manipulation games and guilt. Our local leaders are particularly adept at these sorts of things. The other problem with them it is a very much a "You're either 100% in, or you're 100% out" mentality. I'm pretty sure it's a form of psychotic type disorder, which while I am sure isn't limited to Mormonism, it does seem to be extremely prevalent - especially in the region where I live.

Anyway, so no doubt war is coming. I'm not going to consent to being the Mormon they want me to be, and so they'll likely engage in a series of personal attacks, and then proceed to engage in character assassination attempts with all the neighbors and anyone else.

Anyone who brings up Mormon teachings to me this week about the "Pure Love of Christ", or how Mormons believe in "Free Agency" is likely to get bitch slapped and told to engage in a series of unnatural sexual relations with a plethora of inanimate objects and themselves.