and thus a Mormon no more...

Kenny requested Ernie's ex-communication story and ANYTHING for Kenny so here goes....

I took a year off before going to grad school. We lived in a great brick 4 flat near downtown Champaign, worked at Record Service together and went to a hell of a lot of parties that year. We were friends with everybody in the 4 flat and were wont to all hang out together on the front porch. One evening it was somebody's birthday and we even had birthday streamers on the porch (giving it a somewhat wholesome air I thought). Ernie and I were sitting on the porch swing and of course the whole gang was drinking.

Two men in suits came striding down the sidewalk and up to the house and Ernie immediately stood and went to meet them. Everyone turned and stared at me and I just shrugged my shoulders. I didn't know what the hell was going on either. Turns out they were Mormon missionaries....Ernie had just known and figured they were there for him. Ernie was raised Mormon but as an adult pretty much stayed clear of all churches. The missionaries regularly visit all members of the church but Ernie had moved around quite a bit as an adult so they had never tracked him down. So there they were....at our party.

Ernie stood there with his long shaggy hair and his skinny jeans, talking to them with a beer in his hand. He was polite of course but told them he wasn't interested. A few weeks later as we were packing up to move to Michigan he got a registered letter in the mail stating that he was going to be put on trial for Behavior Unbecoming to the Mormon Church. He could attend and bring any Mormons in good standing to testify on his behalf if he wished. We went ahead and moved to Michigan and a few months later another registered letter arrived telling him that he had been ex-communicated.

We still have that letter somewhere and I should dig it out and read it again. At the time I was shocked at how vitriolic it seemed. As I recall, it pretty much said that we hope someday you realize what you have lost. There was no 'give us a call if you want to come back' kind of thing going on there. It was more 'we cast you OUT.'

So no dramatic story I'm afraid....just shows what having a beer with your friends can lead to... Years later we helped my sister move to Salt Lake City (what a beautiful place). We visited his relatives, who were lovely. They gave us 7-Up and doughnuts and then his uncle told Ernie that his hair really sent the wrong message. This to a 30-something year old man to whom he was related by marriage. geesh. To this day Ernie gets a bit jittery around anything too church related. Being a close friend of Bob's and seeing my experience taking my father to church for the last couple of years has softened him a bit but when the baby-faced missionaries came into our yard the other day....suffice to say he let me do the talking....