one of my memories from being in the Mormon church, I think I may have been like 10-11-- I was going to this thing called 'day camp' for the church in my area (anybody else recognize this??). they had us (the girls- no boys were allowed) divided by age group and each age group had a different schedule for the two days they came to visit. it usually included stuff like watching a Mormon movie (or a dialogue-less cartoon if we were lucky), being taught how to cook and sew and take care of kids/what a good wife will do, getting married in the church (which by the way they didn't even propose marriage as a choice they just told us all we would be married one day and we just agreed because they wanted that), learning about the doctrine in general, etc. it usually also happened during the summer and the church had NO air conditioning so it was always hot as fuck and we had skipped promised 'waterpark days' more than once (and when we got them we had to walk there from the church. in upwards of 90+ degree heat).
anyways I went on a tangent. during one of these yearly day camp events, they had a like. reenactment?? they actually had a couple of these thru it.
the first one, they put blindfolds on us and had us go through this mattress obstacle course?? and if you wandered off course or got stuck one of the seminar teachers dressed in white with wings would come and take your hand to guide you through it to represent the holy spirit guiding you. and at the end of it there was this tub of mud that you had to walk through, then through dirty water, then through clean water- "your sins being cleaned away".
the second time they blindfolded us, they had us inside (thank god). they set up this rope handrail through the long ass hallway (pictured below for reference):
and we were told to grab the rope and use it to guide ourselves through the hallway, and to not let go and wander off under any circumstances. so we all lined up single file to do it together and our seminar teachers stood off to the sides whispering stuff to us but they made it obviously seem bad ('Who needs God? You don't need Him!' or like. 'Hey, this drug seems cool!' or shit like that. I don't remember what exactly).
when we got to the end of the hallway and went into the sacrament room they took our blindfolds off, and more of my teachers were inside dressed like angels. one of them hugged me genuinely crying and said 'I've been waiting for you for so long' before sending me up the stairs behind the podium to sit and wait for the rest of the girls
and then after that they. idk they preached something. I zoned out cuz I was staring at the crying angel woman in the background. I don't even remember if she'd stopped crying or not but judging by my reaction I'm pretty sure she had. Just shut it off like a switch. it gave me a weird feeling.
