dianaschnuth

I was looking for this handkerchief over three years ago, when I was preparing for my wedding. I only just unearthed it yesterday:

I received this at an activity with the Young Women’s group at my church when I was in early high school. It reads:

The purity of this white hankie
  is symbolic of your life.
Live, to always be worthy
  of being an eternal wife.
May its whiteness be a reminder
  to please stay clean and pure.
As the linen – May you be strong
  with a testimony sure.

As the lace – May all your life be
  filled with feminine grace
May the inner beauty of your
  soul glow in your eyes and face.
Someday, I pray, you’ll be married
  to a clean and worthy he.
May it be in the house of the Lord
  for time and eternity.
Carry this hankerchief with you
  on that special, wondrous day,
As a symbol of the girl you are
  and will forever stay.

I was genuinely disappointed when I couldn’t find this to carry with me on my wedding day. Not because I’d remained particularly clean and pure (especially by Mormon standards), and not because I was getting married in the house of the Lord, but mainly because I was so proud of myself for having held onto it for more than ten years for that particular purpose.

A lot of the buzz words will be lost on non-Mormons. If you’re wondering what the hell it’s talking about, just leave a comment and I’ll be happy to add an explanation to my post. For now, I’m going to go on the assumption that you’ve read enough of my previous Mormon ramblings to understand most of the stuff about eternity and purity and all that.

I still can’t bring myself to get rid of this hankie. Am I a packrat, or what?

So, here’s how this random web of internetting came about: I read this post on Dooce’s site in which she wrote about her take on a recent HBO series called Big Love. Apparently, this series is about a polygamist family in Utah. Being that Dooce is a popular “recovering Mormon,” she ended up having nearly 300 comments — one of which, of course, was mine:

Diana Schnuth said at 09:09PM, 03.28.2006:

Back when I was a practicing Mormon, there was a woman in my Ward who had been widowed shortly after she was married, then had re-married and had several children. What bothered me was that she was still sealed to her first husband, and no amount of thrashing at red tape could get the Church to change that and seal her to her new husband and her family. Only men can be sealed to multiple spouses.

BTW, kudos to you for keeping comments open on such a potentially volatile topic.

I got a few hits to my blog from that comment, as I always do when I post a comment on a high-traffic blog like Dooce or WWDN, but none of them involved hate mail (thankfully) or exhortations to rejoin the LDS flock (even more thankfully).

I did receive one e-mail, though. A Dr. Michael Nielsen contacted me and asked me to participate in his study on religion and attitudes about marriage — specifically, Mormonism and polygamy. It took me less than the 30 minutes he had estimated in the Informed Consent form, and I actually found it very interesting.

Well, it was interesting to me, anyway. I enjoyed answering questions about my history with the Mormon church, and how I feel that the teachings are mainly a bunch of bunk, but that I do categorize Mormons as Christians, and that one of my most frequently-visited religion-based websites is exmormon.org.

When I e-mailed Dr. Nielsen to ask him to update me on the findings of his study, he e-mailed me back (or maybe his bot did) and encouraged me to get other people of differing religious backgrounds to take his survey. So, here I am, encouraging you all to take his survey. I found it intriguing, and will be very interested to learn the results and conclusions.

Update, 9pm: Just found this website, which I may have to refer back to later: Mormon No More. It gives instructions as to how to resign from the Mormon church. Well, Mom, I guess you really didn’t have to get yourself excommunicated, after all! 🙂

I wonder if I can get myself removed from the rolls by my 30th birthday. That would be a grand present to myself.

I finally found some microfilm I want to request from my local Family History Center.

I’ve had a really hard time locating the parents of my Grandpa Cook’s grandfather, William Henry Cook. I almost thought I had them several years back — Thomas and Rachel — but when I got William Henry’s birth record in the mail, there was this woman named Nancy listed where I expected Rachel to be.

All other evidence points toward Rachel being William’s mother: census records, for one, and other genealogists’ (undocumented) findings referenced online. Now, I’ve discovered that Thomas and Rachel were married on 3 March 1852 in Clermont County, Ohio, where all this research insanity is going on. I’ve also discovered that the Mormons have the microfilm. Clermont County Marriage Records, 1801-1910.

I’m hoping that getting some hard documentation of *something* that corroborates what I think I know will help me solve this puzzle. I’m still not sure who this Nancy person is, though. Hopefully, I’ll find out soon.

On a related topic, the Genealogy Guys mentioned that anyone can go to a Family History Center, but non-Mormons will have to sign in as a guest. That made me wonder: how will I deal with that? Technically, I’m still a Mormon, although I’m what they once called “inactive.” (Right before I myself went inactive, the more politically-correct term of “less active” was being popularized. Apparently, the less active members were being offended when someone would refer to them as flat-out inactive. Go figure.)

But do I really want to open up that can of worms? Explaining that I’ve been inactive for… *counts on fingers* …ten years could bring the Mormons back to our door in droves. Moving to Toledo finally managed to shake them, and I’m not in a hurry to evade them again.

Still, though… it’s like knowing the secret handshake. (Which apparently Mormons really do have. I kid you not. You learn it in the temple. I wasn’t old enough to learn it yet when I went inactive, though.) It’s hard to decide whether to disclose that I’m an inactive member, or just pretend that I went to the trouble of being excommunicated, and sign in as a guest.

I guess I’ll decide once I finally get my ass down to the Perrysburg FHC.

At the laundromat this evening, CNN spewed forth two unrelated but intriguing blurbs.

First: The President of the Mormon church (a.k.a. “The Prophet” of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) is going to be on Larry King Live this evening at 9pm. I may have to see if I can watch it live online somehow, or check out a capture or transcript later, as we don’t get CNN in our Very Basic Cable package. I’m interested in what Larry King might have to say to President Hinkley.

Second: A preliminary count of the Ukrainian re-vote shows Viktor Yuschenko has won by a landslide. Looks all the protesting and publicity was worth it. Congratulations to the dedicated voters of the Ukraine! (Makes me wonder if the U.S. didn’t give up too easily on our own recent election… but that’s neither here nor there at this late date.)

Edit: There’s now a transcript online of the conversation between Larry King and Gordon B. Hinckley.

If I still believed in God, I might give Reform Mormonism a go.