Family Communications

Okay I'm going to go ahead and use some standard acronyms here. My wife (DW) and three-year-old son (DS) had a video chat with her mom (my mother-in-law - MIL) today while I was at work. At some point MIL asks DS what he did yesterday. Apparently even though the word "church" was never mentioned in the conversation beforehand, DS said that we went to church and he had fun there. He's so silly. DW neither confirmed nor denied this to MIL. Now MIL thinks we went to church yesterday, and nothing could be further from the truth. We haven't gone to church since we moved here and won't be going to church.

Later this evening we got a family spam email from my dad. This is extremely rare. In fact, he used an email address I haven't seen before so it must be new. He basically talked about some history books he was reading about war and tragedy, and he expressed his gratitude and humility for not having to go through such horror. He wonders why he has been so blessed. He believes that Jesus will comfort those who have suffered and help them accept the truth in the end. He exhorts us to live the gospel and ends his epistle. His written communications are always rare, but usually dramatic like that.

So now all we need to do is send off a letter saying "Hey guys we don't believe in any of this crap anymore! But we love you!" to top off the evening, eh?

I don't know how people can just happily go without telling their families of their disaffection. People will sometimes ask me, "Why do they need to know? Just don't tell them!" Some of these people are ex-mos and I just don't understand how they can pull that off. Do their families never ask them about church? Does the subject never come up? Do they censor themselves whenever they talk to family? Do they never get invited to weddings, temple trips, or to say a prayer, bear a testimony, or give a blessing? How can they cut themselves off from their families so cleanly like that? We live far away from our families yet there is no way we can go without them knowing without a ridiculous amount of hiding involved. I want to live authentically. I guess it's time to start drafting that announcement email.