ClobberBlog | Mormonism, Evangelical Christianity

Not long after I began talking about Mormonism with Neil, I called the local LDS ward so I could find out what time a service started and come visit. This was a strange thing in itself. You see, Protestant churches usually have offices with a part-time secretary who answers the phone and can field visitor questions. At the local LDS chapel, the phone number listed in the phone book led to a phone in the hallway, and it was answered by whatever hapless mook happened to be wandering by it at the time. So our conversation went something like this:

“Hi, I’m interested in visiting your congregation sometime and was wondering if you could tell me what time the service starts.” I did not know they were called “wards.”

“Our… what?”

“Um, I just want to come to a service.” He sounded really weirded out by my phone call, and that was making me nervous.

“Well, the Graham Ward meets on Sunday at 10 AM.”¹ I thanked him and hung up. On Sunday I arrived at the church at 10 AM and sat somewhere by myself. People asked me where I was visiting from and where I lived, and when I told them, they said, “Oh, you’re in the wrong ward.” This puzzled me. The place where I was supposed to visit a church was designated by where I lived? At my Presbyterian church, we had two services, one at 8:30 AM and one at 11:00 AM. You could go to whichever one you pleased, but all the young people went to the 8:30 service, so that was where I usually went.

Later that day, I would ask someone at the church where the soda machine was located. I had only ever attended Puyallup Church of the Nazarene and Sumner Presbyterian Church, and each of those churches had a soda machine in the youth building where the gym was. So naturally I just assumed that all churches have soda machines. The LDS person I asked looked at me like I was an alien.

The other funny thing about the Elk Plains Ward chapel in 1999 was that it was the ugliest church I had ever seen. It had dark blue carpeting and pews with orange cushions. It looked like something out of the 70s. My LDS friends would later tell me that the person who picked out the colors was color-blind; I honestly don’t know if that was true or not. It might as well have been. A few years later the pews were re-upholstered and became a much more amiable light blue. At the time though, you would not have known that the LDS church was the second-wealthiest church in the world from looking at that chapel.

After the sacrament meeting ended, I was introduced to some people from the Elk Plains Ward, and that was where I ran into LaDonna Pratt.² LaDonna was a junior at Bethel High School with me and had several classes with me. She was very excited that I was learning about the church and introduced me to her father, Brother Pratt. Brother Pratt was a great, great grandson of Parley P. Pratt³, loved the church and was extremely zealous about bringing other people into it. He was one of those Mormons who believes every faith-promoting legend the church has. Bigfoot was Cain, N.B. Lundwell’s The Fate of the Persecutors of the Prophet Joseph Smith was established history, and the young men mentioned in “The 17 Points of the True Church” really existed.

The Pratts were of course eager for me to take the missionary discussions, but I refused. I explained that I was just learning about the church at the request of an LDS friend and really wasn’t interested in joining, but I would be happy to visit again sometime. They said okay, and I visited the church again and went to a few LDS youth activities.

On the way home from one activity, LaDonna turned to me and said, “You know Jack, taking the missionary discussions doesn’t have to mean that you’re interested in joining the church. You can just take them to learn about the church.”

Something about the way she said it set off Admiral Ackbar alarms in my head. Still, my stated goal was to learn about the church (but not join it), so I could not think of a good reason to refuse. I said okay, and we set Thursday nights for our discussion time. My parents didn’t want Mormon missionaries coming over to the house, so I said I would meet the missionaries at the Pratt’s house.

Either LaDonna was ruefully unaware of the purpose and set-up of the missionary discussions, or someone forgot to tell the missionaries that I wasn’t a standard investigator. Whichever it was, it was the start of something bad.

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¹ I don’t remember if that was the actual time it started. Just go with it.

² Her first name was not LaDonna. It may sound odd that I’m posting her last name and not her first, but Pratt is an incredibly common surname among Mormons.

³ I always called him Brother Pratt. I don’t even know what his first name was. Incidentally, Mitt Romney is also a great, great grandson of Parley P. Pratt.