And I'm A Mormon

To: Abbottsville Stake
From: Dennis Newsome, Stake First Counselor and advisor to the Stake Public Affairs Council
Subject: Show them our success


As many of you know, our inspired leaders in Salt Lake City have instructed the members to convince the world that the Mormon Church is a nurturing member-centric organization that prepares people to lead independent and fulfilling lives. Knowing the difficulty of this assignment, the church has invested in an ad campaign that profiles successful yet edgier Mormons. I urge everyone in the Abbottsville Stake to forward the message below to all of your non-member friends, especially those living in Louisiana, Colorado, Florida, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Missouri, Arizona, and Minnesota.  

Hi, I'm Julia

When I started coming out to church, the bishop assigned me to the ward nursery. At first it was a challenge. But the Primary President gave me a great pep talk, and pretty soon I was in charge of the entire toy box, acquiring the organizational skills so necessary for my advancement and self esteem.


Soon I moved on to the ward library, where I developed an expertise in high tech media and scholarly texts.


After that I was called to the Homemaking Committee. My Relief Society President granted me stewardship of the glue gun. I made all kinds of adorable padded picture frames.

Next I served as Compassionate Service Leader, and prepared at least 200 casseroles, 300 Jell-O salads, and an infinite number of Rice Krispie Treats.


Then I was promoted to the position of Young Women's President, which is where I am now, preparing our future leaders. Tonight the girls and I are holding a clean the ward restrooms activity.


I'm a toy coordinator, a librarian, a craftswoman, a gourmet chef, a mentor, and a toilet scrubber.


My name is Julia Vincent.


And I work at Walmart.   
And I'm a Mormon.


If you would like to stop receiving these e-mails, we'll send you an audio version of one of our library's scholarly texts.

Thanks For Voting!

To: The wonderful people who read my blog
From: Donna Banta
Subject: Thanks for voting -- for ME!

Thanks to all of you who voted for me in the Brodie Awards. I was amazed to see that I won in the Funniest Humor Piece category, and grateful that so many voted for me for Best Humor Blog. (I'll spare you the usual tears, references to my humble beginnings, and political statements.-- If you read my blog, you put up with enough baloney as it is.)

The ex-Mormon blogging world has many excellent sites to visit, and I am extremely grateful to those of you who spend time on mine.

Of course, such prestigious recognition will surely enrage the TBM's of the Abbottsville Fourth Ward, meaning I probably won't be taken off their e-mail list any time soon . . . and you may expect more silliness. ;-)

Musings From The Mission Field

To: abbottsville fourth ward
From: elder young, france paris mission
Subject: bon jour from the mission field!!!!

hey abbottsville fourth!!!!

first off, thanks all of you for your letters and care packages, especially the ones with the rice krispy treats and chocolate covered gummy bears!! my comp says i have the best ward ever!!! 

we were bummed this morning when we learnt that Monsieur Blanc's physician isn't ready to discharge him from the asylum, so he can't be baptized until febuary. 

but then my comp reminded me again that we were in gay par-ee, and we should be gay!!! hahaha (btw, i totally knew that by gay he meant happy, and he knew i knew that btw.) hahaha :-))))


so comp and i went to the park and looked for people to share our message with. most were in a hurry and too prideful to stop, but every once in a while we came across some folks who were eating a meal, or reading, or hugging and kissing, and we'd sit down and quote scripture to them. :-))) still we weren't achieving the kind of statistical success Heavenly Father and our mission president expect.

so we hopped on our bikes and road over to the Loover, where we saw a ginormous amount of people going inside. comp and i thought, ohmiheck, if we only had the admission price, we could probably convert hundreds! :-)))) so we said a little prayer, then waited for an answer and when nothing happened we sighed and road away, then all at once hit the brakes when we saw the exact amount of euros we needed to get into the Loover just lying out on this little bistro table. hahaha :-))))

ohmiheck it was a sign!

so we took the money, paid the admission and wandered around until we saw 2 hot american girls looking at a painting of a completely naked man!!  =-0  comp and i ran over and blocked their view. they got mad and told us to go away, and we told them we had an important message for them, and they said they didn't want our message, and we told them they were being prideful, and they said they weren't, and we said they were, and they asked why we wouldn't move aside so they could see the works of Michael Angelo, and we said because ours were more impressive than his, and they slapped us.

when our faces stopped stinging the 2 hot american girls had disappeared. so comp and i went around jumping in front of other paintings until people agreed to hear our message. :-))) this worked pretty well until we got to the Mona Lisa and the guards pulled us aside and called the police. (btw, Mona isn't really that much of a hottie, she looks kinda like this horse-faced sister missionary who wears that same stuck-up expression on her face whenever she sees me and comp coming. hahaha :-))))

after that, it was kind of a blur. first comp and i tried to share our message with the guards, but they were way grumpy, so we sang the popcorn popping on the apricot tree song until they covered their ears and closed their eyes just long enough for us to slip past, only the gendarmes appeared, aimed their guns, and ordered us to freeze. 


first comp and i asked if we could share a message with them, when that didn't work we raised our right arms to the square and ordered them to leave by the power of our holy priesthood, when that didn't work, we ran. 


the gendarmes came after us, and we sped up, and they sped up, and pretty soon we were in a super-cool chase scene like the one in the Fugitive, only instead of being innocent doctors, we were righteous and exemplary representatives of the lds church, which made us way cooler than Harrison Ford. our race through the Loover went on for idk how long -- maybe an hour. then finally the gendarmes' way was blocked when comp and i accidentally knocked over this urn thingy. (it's ok, i'm pretty sure we only dented it. :-)))


comp and i walked back to our apartment this afternoon feeling like the spiritual giants that Heavenly Father intended His servants to be. we humbly prayed that tomorrow He might leave us more money at the bistro so that we can tract out the museydeorsay! hahahaha :-)))  


please keep sending care packages, it takes a lot to sustain our testimonies. also a couple of those paris museum passes would be cool. hahaha :-))))


love to all of you :-))))


elder young

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And don't forget to vote in the Brodie Awards. Polls close Saturday, January 22, 21:00 GMT

It's Relief Society Book Club Time!

To: Abbottsville Fourth Ward

From: Susan Renfro, Ward Relief Society President

Subject: February Book Club Meeting

Dear Sisters,

Please choose from the following titles:

Go Sit in the Corner

for women

Latter-day Saint sisters can prepare for another interesting read this February with the choice of the following titles from Go Sit in the Corner for women.

FREEZE!  a memoir

by

 Sergeant K. "Rocky" Maxwell (Ret.)

For four decades Sergeant Maxwell served as both a beat cop and a Mormon bishop, demonstrating the discipline, the courage, and the sheer guts the two roles demand. Gun in one hand and Book of Mormon in the other, Maxwell patrolled the city streets and the ward meetinghouse, keeping his citizens safe, and his sacrament meetings reverent. Read the inspiring story that the LDS Church Correlation Committee is currently referencing for the next edition of the bishop's Official Church Handbook.

The Reformed Egyptian Code

by

G. Hyrum Madsen, PhD

BYU religion professor, LaVerl Evans, is hired by the Department of Homeland Security to decipher some terrorist communications in Egypt. To his amazement, instead of messages from terrorists, the writing turns out to be an encrypted version of the 116  lost pages of the Book of Mormon! Brother Evans then finds himself in a race to rescue the sacred pages from a nefarious cabal of feminists, gays, and so-called intellectuals who plan to turn them into a really bad situation comedy. Based on a true story.

Mandy's Dilemma 

by

Joyce Featherstone Smith

Rhodes Scholar, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, and occasional swimsuit model, Mandy Bates, spends her return flight from Paris contemplating her vapid, insignificant, and unsatisfying life. Upon landing, she wanders into a Hogi Yogi , intent on drowning her sorrows in a succession of Mint Cookie Collisions. Instead she catches the eye of the tawny and buff assistant manager, Thad Sorenson.  As soon as his shift is over, they hit the town together, and take in the Orem nightlife. Her appetite aroused by her first taste of wholesome fun, Mandy accepts Thad's invitation to the upcoming ward pot luck. Later she remembers -- the pot luck conflicts with her scheduled photo shoot on Leonardo DeCaprio's yacht. 

Herein lies Mandy's dilemma:

or

 Laugh, cry, and prepare for your heart to be touched, when you read of Mandy's struggle over this tough call.

If you would like to stop receiving these e-mails, we'll assume you're one of the feminists, gays, or so-called intellectuals who voted in the 2010 Brodie Awards.

Don't forget to vote!

To: Abbottsville Fourth Ward and the wonderful people who follow my blog.

From: Donna Banta

Subject: The 2010 Brodie Awards

The 2010 Brodie Award nominations have been announced, and Ward Gossip is nominated for Best Humor Site/Blog, and also for Best Humor Piece. Please read all the great nominees in these categories -- then vote for ME!!! ;-)


Seriously though, there are some incredibly good Mormon-themed blogs nominated this year, and I feel very honored to be among them. Check out all the categories, and please read every entry before voting in each. The competition is pretty stiff.


Polls close Saturday, January 22, 2011 at 21:00 GMT.

Vote now!

Single Adults Get Final Warning!

To: Abbottsville Stake Single Adults
From: Mitchell Knightly, President of the Abbottsville Stake
Subject: MY FINAL WARNING!

Recently I suspended all Single Adults activities because of your gross mistreatment of  our esteemed Stake Single Adults leader, Ricky Foote. I met with each of you in extensive one on one interviews and listened to your concerns. I felt we had reached an understanding, that you were sufficiently humbled, and that I could finally reinstate our inspired Stake Single Adults program. Accordingly, I instructed Ricky to plan a fun New Year's Eve activity.


Then I was appalled to hear that after all of Ricky's labors, Sister Millie Loomis was the sole attendee at the Stake Single Adults' New Year's Eve Dance. Even her date failed to show up -- after she'd gone to the trouble to handcraft an invitation out of Sweet Tarts and deliver it via carrier pigeon.


But I was more disturbed when I heard that upon returning to the church parking lot, Ricky found the carrier pigeon locked inside of his car with the following note attached:

Sorry to POOP out on you, but we won't be DROPPING by the dance because we're tired of being treated like CR#P and think you're full of S%$T.* 

*edited for civility's sake. 

Clearly, I was wrong to assume you had learned your lesson.


As I said before, I know that Ricky is young enough to be your son, and that, in fact, one of you is his actual mother. But again I remind you that what Ricky lacks in age, he makes up for in inspired wisdom and priesthood authority. Moreover, he is devoted to all of you. He wants nothing more than to find a sweetheart for his old principal, an eternal companion for his former pediatrician, and for himself, a new step-dad. Again, I repeat:

None of you should consider yourselves on par with Ricky Foote. If you were, you would be married.

It's so tasty too!

As far as your treatment, you have gotten better than you deserve. According to my sources, instead of the wholesome LDS Single Adults' dance, you attended a New Year's Eve party thrown by the San Francisco Post-Mormons where you engaged in "lightmindedness, loud laughter, evil speaking of the Lord's anointed," and witnessed the public drunkenness of a certain disreputable female blogger.


After praying to our Heavenly Father, consulting with Ricky and your respective bishops, and evaluating your individual situations and standings in the community, I have made the following decision.

You're grounded.

From now until an undetermined time in the future, you will go nowhere but work, church, the temple, Costco, and the local FranklinCovey. Your goings and comings will be monitored by your home teachers, your visiting teachers, your quorum presidencies, your bishoprics, and, when necessary, the private security team, Big Beefy Tongans, Inc. 


During the period of your detention, I assign the following:

1. Complete the Official Worthiness Questionnaire.
2. Fast and pray.
3. Read Doctrine and Covenants 132 and Behind Every Good Man by John Bytheway.
4. Shampoo the interior of Ricky Foote's Hyundai.
5. Take turns feeding and caring for the pigeon. 
6. Staff the nursery at the upcoming Stake Valentines Day Dance.
7. Write a 500 word essay on what it means to be a "Menace to Society."
8. Make imaginative invitations asking that special someone to a future Single Adults' dance. Supplies can be found in your ward Primary closet.

Be aware that this is your FINAL WARNING! If any of you fail to obey all of the above commands, I will have no other choice than to report your misbehavior to your home teachers, your Relief Society presidency, your priesthood quorums, your bishopric, both Quorums of the Seventy, the Quorum of the Twelve, the First Presidency, the Deseret News, and your mothers.


After all, as your humble servant it is my job to look after your best interests.


If you would like to stop receiving these e-mails, don't be surprised if you receive a visit from Big Beefy Tongans, Inc.