Has anyone else been seeing a lot of "I am XYZ, and I am a Mormon" commercials?

[Black]

Grace62 wrote:
OK, I have lots of neighbors who are Mormons. Prior to moving to the West coast I knew approximately zero Mormons and even less about their faith. So it's been an experience. Morning meetings without caffeine involved aren't fun to me, so volunteering with Mormons requires some open-mindedness.
These are very nice people...well educated, health-conscious, highly civic-minded, ambitious, etc.
However....
I find the secrecy and exclusivity around their faith practices to be off-putting. I think requiring every young person to spend a year of their college-age time trying to recruit more Mormons is rotten. (and the kids I know have all ended up "recruiting" in some pretty nice places - like Paris or Miami Beach. Not exactly community service. )

Interesting. The Mormon missionaries I've experienced are stationed in a working class, gang-dominated neighborhood that most forum members wouldn't be caught dead in. They speak only Spanish with each-other . . . live in not-so-great accommodations within the community, and have a very meager budget from which they're expected to take care of all of their material needs (that's part of the experience.)

Grace62 wrote:
My son had a little crush on a Mormon girl back in 4th grade and the mom called me to say there'd be none of that. I didn't even know what the heck she was talking about at first, but I'd hate to be growing up knowing my family would disapprove of any person I liked outside their faith, and that I could get "shunned" for marrying outside. (My son and this girl are still good friends - she's a student at BYU now. Her older sister graduated this spring and was promptly married to a fellow BYU student - both at age 21. )

Fair enough, but not really any different from a host of other cultures around us that aren't all about the "melting pot."

The LDS stake in our neighborhood was destroyed by an arsonist last year. The police were hush-hush but we're pretty sure that a Mormon kid did the deed. They were given three possible designs for rebuilding by the powers that be in Utah, no deviation from that allowed. Extremely top-down organization - that's a turn-off to me.

Last I checked, Apple didn't put store managers in charge of building design ;-)

The other thing that's really bugged me is their influence over scouting. Kind of long story and I won't get bogged down, but their money control of our local council causes us non-Mormon scouts some headaches and pretty major inconveniences, like never being able to have training events on Sundays.

I won't comment on the theology, I understand it only a little. I did read Jon Krakauer's book Under the Banner of Heaven - interesting stuff there.

Will check it out, thanks.