A few months ago, a sister in our ward asked my daughter to babysit. On a Monday evening. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s right. Monday Evening. We try to be diligent with family home evening on Monday night, so the answer needed to be \u00e2\u20ac\u0153no,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d but I was a bit confused about how to convey that message. If someone of another faith had called, I would have explained that we had \u00e2\u20ac\u0153family plans\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and so my daughter would be unable to babysit. If that someone had continued calling on Mondays, I would have used it as a missionary moment to explain our idea about a family home evening\u00e2\u20ac\u201da night set aside to be together as a family. But because the caller was a member of my ward, I was stumped. If I said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s family home evening, so she can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d then I sound preachy and rude. If I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t say that, then what? Lie? Make up an excuse? Didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t she know it was Family Home Evening? Maybe she was of the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153FHE on Sunday\u00e2\u20ac\u009d ilk?<\/p>\n
I ran into similar problems when I went to college at BYU. Growing up outside Utah defined my values. Though a few teenage members chose slightly different values, I unconsciously equated my brand of morality with general Mormonism. BYU shocked me out of that belief. I found fellow students who were drastically \u00e2\u20ac\u0153more faithful\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and some who were drastically \u00e2\u20ac\u0153less faithful\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand all would have defined themselves as active Mormons (though those guys who were drinking beer out of Sprite cans while talking about their missions had to know they were crossing some lines).<\/p>\n
If a guy in high school had crossed one of my \u00e2\u20ac\u0153morality lines,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I would have told him \u00e2\u20ac\u0153no\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and told myself I was following what the prophet taught. But when you come to BYU and your LDS date crosses one of your morality lines, you aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t so sure. Especially if that date is an active member of the church, maybe an Elder\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Quorum president, and someone whose testimony you admire. Or what if the Relief Society President wears a dress you would have put back on the rack because it was immodest? Then you can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t help but wonder if you are the weird one, if you have defined lines that were not really Mormon lines at all, if what you thought was honest or chaste or true is just uptight and rigid. <\/p>\n
Thus, I find that I struggle to defend my values to other Mormons. I do not necessarily think this is a bad thing. My high school morality was somewhat thoughtless and assumed. Being challenged helped me solidify what I, personally, believe to be true and where, exactly, I stand on certain issues and doctrines. I just find it interesting and ironic: when someone decidedly a-religious or other-religious questions my values, I leap to defend myself and do it in the name of Mormonism, but when someone of my own faith questions me, I take a big step back and question myself. <\/p>\n
So where do you draw your \u00e2\u20ac\u0153faithful\u00e2\u20ac\u009d lines? And how do you handle situations when your faithful brushes up against someone else\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s faithful? Because I was really stumped with the woman in my ward. I stammered around about how my daughter had been sick (true) and was really tired (true) so she couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t (true), but that wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the whole, real or complete answer, was it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A few months ago, a sister in our ward asked my daughter to babysit. On a Monday evening. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s right. Monday Evening. We try to be diligent with family home evening on Monday night, so the answer needed to be \u00e2\u20ac\u0153no,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d but I was a bit confused about how to convey that message.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":109,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mormon-life"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/109"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4858"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6099,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4858\/revisions\/6099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}