Hello there

[Jamison]

Hello there. My name's Rob and I live in the US, Oregon specifically. I'm a member of the church and have been with the church since I was born but stopped attending after the age of about 15 due to my complete dislike of the people I ran into. After much verbal abuse which did nothing but make me feel like a worthless person and was accused by not only my peers but also by my scout leader and even the bishop of being a monster and a satanist because I liked to draw (yep, it was that stupid). I chose to follow Alma who said, and I paraphrase, "Do you think you need to be in the synagogue to pray?" This told me that you need not attend church to be a member of the church and God's still going to listen to you.

I have a great story to tell you though. After many years had passed, I ended up moving to Wyoming after hurting my back while serving in the Air Force. I moved there to marry a girl who was takeing the discussions and that fizzled out because she was bi-polar (which I knew at the time) but what I did not know was that she was getting her medication from a doctor in Wyoming and allergy medicine from a doctor back home in Oregon... the allergy medication countered the bi-polar medication which means that she was essentially unmedicated. We lived together at the time (yeah yeah, I really don't care about opinions on that) and I woke up to find myself alone. She had moved herself into the guest room and when I went in to see if she was feeling well, she told me that she was angry at me and when I asked why, she said "If you don't know, I'm not going to tell you" and that was the end of that relationship. After she stole my money from my VA check, all my things and left me with 2 small boxes of clothes and a broken stereo she didn't want. I was locked out and left to fend for myself.

I was a college student at the time and had no job (hard to find work in Laramie) and no money. I tried to talk to some friends but apparently she had poisoned those relationships and no one would talk to me. I was left to sleep in the park and was glad I had my wool trench coat.

After much searching, I got a job at K-mart and found a roommate on the same day. The person who owned the apartment complex was the president of the Wyoming Republican Party and was probably the nicest and most generous person I had ever met. It was she who got me off the street and it was my future roomate (who's name I cannot recall) that needed help paying for that apartment. It was furnished as well!

The job at K-mart paid minimum wage... federal minimum so it was horrible, and I couldn't get any hours and was at risk of loosing my home, the landlord (GOP President) gave me a job at her Dry Cleaner doing IT work and any money I made beyond rent I got to keep! Bless that woman!

I then found out later, from an old friend who relented on the ex-fiancee inspired hatered that aparently I had cheated on my former fiancee. This was rather amusing because the person she had accused me of cheating on her with was now my roomate (that must have looked great) and I really couldn't stand this person. (She had been on the Jenny Jones show for I am a Teenaged Vampire and I used to give her a hard time about it)

Once my friend realized that my fiancee had everything horribly wrong, I finally had a friend again.

Oh yeah, and my parents durring this time? My Dad was looking for work in Oregon so When I called I got my Mom who told me that I had to stay in Wyoming because I was in school... never mind the fact that her son sleeps in the park and it was winter.... in Wyoming! (nearly died too, yeah she and I don't get along anymore)

I'll skip a year and I finally got a girl to go out with me, she worked with me at K-mart and had turned me down when I first asked her out... I asked again some time later when she was single (not divorced, just broke up with boyfriend) and it turned out that he had pretty much done the same thing to her. I knew her for about a year as a friend, but once I was with her, it took only 2 months for me to ask her to marry me and she said yes in a heart beat. I took her to pick her ring, that way she didn't need to put up with my taste, and she made me kneel on the floorboards of the car! God I love that woman.

It was rather funny, she was Pagan at the time and I was Mormon. Two religions that the US has never been kind to and we were in love. She told me never to try to convert her and I told her I never would, I joked that she'd do it herself.

Years passed and We were living in Oregon when we had some elders come by. My rule has ALWAYS been that they are welcome in my home. They're kids and they need somewhere they can just be themselves, they still need to follow the rules, but at my house they can take their coats off and relax... they're so stiff! Anyhow, we had Elder Moss from Ogden Utah come in, he was fresh off the plane from the MTC and had the fire burning so bright in him that I could warm my hands like I could a stove.

We were the first family he had visited and when his companion asked if he wanted to share his testimony with us, he did and did he ever! He talked so long, and with such conviction it was all I could do to stop my wife from filling the bathtub for baptism!

She took the discussions and asked me if she should join. I recalled my previous promise and told her that if she joined the church because I said she should, then it would never mean the same to her as it would if she joined the church of her own accord.

Now I go to church with my family, I still don't iknow anyone in my ward and that's fine with me. I never turn down a calling and have had some rather intersting ones. I've learned that there are callings for the people, and people for the callings. I had a bishop tell me, back when I had just gotten off the street to cancel my television service (that I did not pay for), cancel my internet service (it was free) and terminate my phone service (after just telling me to call my parents) and after I told him that I didn't pay for the TV, Internet was free and I needed the phone to call him, work, family, etc he grew angry and told me he would not help me if Iwould not help him... How am I supposed to save money by stopping things that were either free, not mine, or were vital?

I hate people.

Anyhow, after all of this, I never lost faith in the church. I have completely lost faith in humanity, but I have Asperger's as well... so no real loss there I guess. But none the less, it all worked out in the end. I moved to Wyoming to get married, I just didn't realize it at the time that it was to the wrong girl.

This year will be our 15 year anniversary. I've three kids and my son, my oldest is 12 and a deacon and Austistic to boot. He is high functioning but it's not easy to have to explain to my son why he needs to go to church, when I myself really have a hard time with it. I asked my grandparents how they managed to stay together so long and I was told that you don't argue about the little things, it's the little things that chip away at the foundation so slowly over time that you don't notice the collapse until it's too late. In 2 million years, will it really matter who left the toilet seat up or who left the jar of peanut butter open?

My wife puts up with me and all my oddities, she's done nearly every job I have and we've worked together at at least three different companies that I can think of. She's a lot of fun, she's a great mom and extremely creative. She can be extremely generous when it counts and a complete pain in the butt, and I wouldn't have it any other way. She was the rock I needed when everything in life was sweeping me along when I lost my grip on the iron rod.

Like I said, callings for the people and people for the callings. Sometimes the lord knows just the right person to give a calling to and sometimes he knows just the calling a person needs. Right now, the only calling I care about is that of Dad and Husband. My wife holds true in her calling of Wife and Mother.I now have to teach that the church is true, that despite the vast amounts of complete jerks, utterly ignorant people, those who judge you and think themselves better than you. Bishops that lie and give false doctrine or just don't care about anyone other than themselves, and home teachers you've never seen... ever. The church itself is what matters, it's why you go and deal with Sunday school and still teaches the same things it's been teaching you for the 39 years you've been on this planey and will for the next 2000000000 years to come and why you have to put up with people that parrot everything told to them instead of coming to an understanding.

The goal is to find a person to care about. People suck, they're not worth investing yourself into. However a person, can be a completely different story. People have always been, frankly, vile to me. I had a mother that mothered by neglect and a father known for fits of rage, I had sisters that would lie constantly to get themselves out of trouble and me into it and they never once said than you for when I would cover for them. I've been called a satanist by my peers and those in positions of respect and have been betrayed by people who's job is to be trustworthy.

However after all this, there are those that rise above and keep you going. I've seen that great and spacious building. I've walked through it on my way to where I was going and have been taught by that experiance never to go back there again. However I met those along the way that did not belong there either and my wife was one of them. The Lord is my savior, he saved my soul and if I can keep it up, he will be my salvation. My wife however, is my hero.

That's me in a nutshell. I hope it comes across with the spirit intended, but I am really bad at figureing things out like that. There's far more to this story, but you have the notes version.

Nice to meet you.

[Maureen]

Welcome Rob!

M.

[Vort]

Wow, what a story. Welcome.

[EarlJibbs]

Nice to meet you. Sorry you hate me :)

[Lakumi]

seems us aspergers people have a bad history with our fellow man, I know I certainly did

though it seemed to have effected me worse, since you seem capable of actually being with people and I have become rather misanthropic

odd how people react to life's challenges

Out of all the people wth aspergers I have met, very few are religious...maybe there's a book about that somewhere

welcome

[Jamison]

Lakumi, your comment immediately put the Book of Mormon into mind.

I found my niche to be computers and I was fortunate enough that a couple companies I've worked for in the past had classes on body language and how to work with other people, I find myself mentally thinking things like "Stop folding your arms and lean forward so they know you're interested. Folded arms means your not interested." etc.

I found that I treat people like programs. If you push the right buttons, you get the right response. The problem is that the buttons are not always the same for each person and I get in trouble alot when I push the wrong ones... especially when they're all the wrong ones lol.

God forbid that someone do something stupid or do what I think is obvious, I still have a really big problem with incompetence and the inability to do things the proper way. It was really hard to teach myself to not correct people every time, people hate that. :)

EarlJibbs, your avatar picture puts you much closer to the likeable catagory than most people!

[Lakumi]

Lakumi, your comment immediately put the Book of Mormon into mind.

I found my niche to be computers and I was fortunate enough that a couple companies I've worked for in the past had classes on body language and how to work with other people, I find myself mentally thinking things like "Stop folding your arms and lean forward so they know you're interested. Folded arms means your not interested." etc.

I found that I treat people like programs. If you push the right buttons, you get the right response. The problem is that the buttons are not always the same for each person and I get in trouble alot when I push the wrong ones... especially when they're all the wrong ones lol.

God forbid that someone do something stupid or do what I think is obvious, I still have a really big problem with incompetence and the inability to do things the proper way. It was really hard to teach myself to not correct people every time, people hate that. :)

EarlJibbs, your avatar picture puts you much closer to the likeable catagory than most people!

What about the Book of Mormon?

I often found it hard to grasp faith, I often still do, and have a habit of picking and choosing things from several religions (much like politics or really any belief system, since-well I don't feel I can be stuffed into a catagory)

I donno, people say that's crazy, but I feel proper with it

[Palerider]

Welcome to the site and hope you like it here.