Looking for God? Try behind the whiteboard

This is part of a series of posts on Mormonism

A lot has happened since I met the Mormon gangster a few months back, and I’m at a bit of a loss as to where to start.

On the day that we initially met with the missionaries, Leon and I were invited to attend church and also to visit President Maurer’s house for a fireside that Sunday evening. We did not attend chapel on the Sunday morning, and when the missionaries called us in the afternoon to see if we were still interested in attending the fireside, we weren’t planning on going to that either. That was until they told us there would be dessert served afterward.

The two missionaries asked if we’d give them a ride to the President’s house, I think partly because they wanted to arrive with us and ensure we didn’t just not turn up, but moreso because they really didn’t fancy cycling.

We were of the first to arrive at the mission house, where we were greeted by President Maurer and his wife, Sister Maurer. I really don’t know how to describe the house other than to say that from the fireplace, the furniture, the rugs to the artwork – the house had a distinctly Mormon, almost incestuous feel to it.

We were brought up in to a lounge area with a couple of couches and rows of chairs facing a small television, soon enough the room was over crowded Mormon elders and sisters everywhere, probably 20 in all, and two or three other non-Mormon guests.

The fireside started with a prayer, and then a song, followed by a DVD presentation of one elder’s recent mission in Southeast Asia – none of these were particularly exciting, though I must admit I found it extremely hard to avoid laughing when, during the song, Leon sung along loudly replacing every word with “God”, and got a few confused looks from the surrounding Mormons.

Then there was another presentation, two elders got up and spoke about the difficulties of communicating with God. To demonstrate this, they asked for two volunteers – who stood on either side of a whiteboard so that they could not see each other. One was playing the role of God, and had to raise a certain number of fingers on his hands. The other was to close his eyes and pray to God and ask how many fingers he is holding up. This did clearly demonstrate the futility of prayer, however it would have been far more accurate if there wasn’t someone on the other side of the whiteboard.

Anyhow, as this wasn’t an Atheist fireside, there had to be more. A third volunteer was called upon to play the role of prophet – the prophet stood at the edge of the whiteboard, so that he could clearly both of the others, the person who wanted to know how many fingers god was holding up simply asked the prophet, who was able to tell him. This was to demonstrate that prophets have the ability to talk directly with God and then communicate this message to man.

After this was finished, we sat around whilst dessert was being prepared. President Maurer came up and asked us what we thought of the presentation, and Leon asked him how you are supposed to tell if a prophet is “really” a prophet, or if they’re just deceiving you.  The President’s response was pretty shocking, you listen to the prophets messages and if they “seem right to you” then they’re a true prophet.

So essentially the Mormons have conceded that whilst God is “just on the other side of the whiteboard”, He can’t communicate directly with believers. God apparently can communicate with a prophet, however you just have to take their words on faith.

Then came the moment we had been waiting for, dessert. Sister Maurer assured me that she wasn’t drugging me. There was sticky date pudding, chocolate pudding and berry crumble – each served with ice cream and whipped cream. If only the rest of the Mormon doctrine was so palatable.