Quick aside: When asked if we had horns, a missionary companion of mine - Elder Rory Mele - asked the child to feel his head for the bumps because the horns go inside the scalp in the day. He asked the kid if he could feel anything, and the kid replied negative.
"You don't feel anything? Nothing at all?" he asks again. Again, the kid answers no.
"Not even a little stupid?"
And now, on with the questions!
Q: Is it true that there is a replica of the Oval Office in the Washington D.C. temple so that when you take over the country (and subsequently the world), your prophet will work out of it?
A: No. It's inefficient. When we take over the country, we will use the old White House.
A: This cannot be true. The Salt Lake Temple itself is built out of granite. That's heavy stuff. We'd have to have some serious rocketry technology to launch that into orbit.
Q: I heard that you guys pump mind controlling drugs into the air of anyone who goes into the church buildings, which helps explain the "burning sensation" converts feel when they enter the building.
A: What? First of all, complete mind controlling drugs are almost all a form of fantasy. There is no such drug that can subtly change your thinking processes or belief systems without destroying your normal thinking processes in the brain. There would be some serious side effects. Plus, it would be ridiculously expensive.
Counter question: What are you smoking and inhaling?
Q: Is it true that one of the requirements to pass your temple recommend interview is a sexual performance test for girls performed by the bishop?
A: Nope. It would be awful hard to keep such a thing quiet with a church that has 12 million plus members worldwide, with the majority of them being women.
Q: The reason why you Mormons bring little bags into the temple is because that's where you keep your chicken you're going to sacrifice.
A: Actually, no. The bags keep a change of clothes for special events in the temple that require a more simple and reverent outfit (mostly all white clothing, representing purity).
Q: The reason there is a giant statue of a seagull in Salt Lake City is because you worship it.
A: The seagull is there because the first year the pioneers were in the valley, their crop was almost destroyed by a horde of locusts, which would have spelled doom for the fledgling settlements. A providential flock of seagulls suddenly flew in and ate them all, saving the crop. The statue was erected in its memory.
Q: I hear you believe that Kolob, the planet were God lives on, is actually the star Sirius.
A: Huh? Also not true. There's a lot of confusion even within the Church of what Kolob is. Here is the basic nitty gritty of what Kolob is.
- Kolob is a star nearest to where God resides (according to the LDS text the Book of Abraham)
- Abraham in almost all ancient Christian and Judaic tradition was a great astronomer
- God teaches His children through analogies they would understand
- God taught Abraham about Christ through using the stars and the movements thereof as analogies of Christ and God's plan for His children in the Book of Abraham.
- Kolob was a metaphor of Christ.
Everything else is a speculation.
Q: Don't you go on a transcontinental bike ride with another guy for two years, preaching the Gospel?
A: That would have been cool, but no. On our missions, we go to a specific area and teach people about our Church. Bicycles are the most efficient form of transportation and thus advocated by the Church for their missionaries.
Q: Is it true that your statue with the gun on top of the temple will shoot lasers in the Second Coming and burn all the wicked?
A: No, but oh how I wish it was.
Two stories of how we as Mormons help perpetuate these outlandish rumors:
A friend of mine brought his girlfriend who was of a different faith to a Church meeting. She was already weary and jittery because of all the crazy rumors her friends told her about being Mormon. On the table in front of the congregation was a white cloth draped over some objects. This is the Sacrament, the bread and water representing Christ's body and blood, a fairly traditional Christian rite. His girlfriend leans over and asks what's under the cloth.
"Oh," he responds casually. "That's the body we're going to baptize for the dead today."
It took him a long time to convince her that he was just joking and she should stay.
Another time, I brought a shovel to a service project and left it in my trunk. A couple weeks later, I was giving my friends a ride home and they noticed the shovel as they put their bags in the trunk. One of them asked me why I had a shovel in my car. I shrugged.
"Well, just in case we need to go dig up a body to baptize for the dead."
So what have you heard lately?
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2 comments:
How true, people believe the craziest things about Mormons, mostly because they want to believe that we're crazy and inhuman. But also partly because of some Mormons who think it's funny (or simply don't realize that they're doing it) to make jokes about what we do based on the prevalent stereotypes. I know I've helped spread some rumors that way, just making jokes about what people want to believe, and then they turn to you and take it as proof that they were right.
The best way to help people really understand what we believe is to live what we believe everyday, simple as that. People will see and know, and then when their friend/coworker/random acquaintance tells them "Mormons do suchandsuch" or Mormons believe blahblahblah" They can say, "Um, I don't think so, I've known some really good Mormons and they don't actually do suchandsuch and believe blahblahblah."
In elementary school, I heard "You guys can't drink milk, right?"
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