LDS Urban Legends

[Jeff Lebowski]

I have always been intrigued by urban legends. There is a professor at the U who studies urban legends and has written several books on the topic. They are fascinating reads.

http://www.amazon.com/Vanishing-Hitc...2044460&sr=8-1

And of course, I couldn't live without www.snopes.com to debunk all of the crap that my friends and relatives send to my via e-mail. This site documents LDS urban legends, but it is woefully incomplete:

http://www.shields-research.org/Hoax...an_Legends.htm

Just for fun, let's start and LDS urban legend thread. What are some of your favorite faith-promoting legends?

[TripletDaddy]

Missionaries dust feet. Town burns down or laundromat burns down, depending on how the story is told.

I have heard variations...sometimes the missionaries get pissed because the Church is being mocked. Other times they get pissed because someone stole their garments out of the laundromat and hung them up in the window for all to see.

Doesn't really matter how it happens. The main point is that at the end of the day, the Elders bust out the Rockports of Doom. The rest is usually history.

[MartyFunkhouser]

Free the birdies

[Jeff Lebowski]

Free the birdies

???

[RobinFinderson]

Tragic car accident. Priesthood holder unable to administer life saving blessing because he had spent the previous hour in titty bar.

[cougjunkie]

Man is in a car accident, the car explodes in to flames. Man is burned alive. Except where his garments are he is not torched.

[Surfah]

It was always rumored that a set of Elders and a set of Sisters married each other in Dodge City, KS in my mission. They'd work in their respective companionships by day and would separate as couples at night.

When I served in Alamosa, CO and later in Manassa members there would tell me that Ricks College was originally to be built there but because of some fighting amongst members there the Church built the college in Rexburg. This could be true but I don't know.

Also in Manassa, on the same property of the stake center is an old ordinance house. My understanding is that it was used like a temple but only authorized to perform living ordinances. It's a cool little building with lots of the symbols from the Salt Lake Temple like the all-seeing eye. It was rumored though that sometime in the mid 1900's the building was decommissioned if you will and they were told to stop performing ordinances. The members didn't as the story goes and finally the church sent out Bruce R. McConkie to settle the matter. He told the members that had they been obedient they would have received a temple but they had lost that blessing. Again, I have no clue if this is true or not, but I do know it was something the members didn't discuss openly and they all prayed to get a temple of their own when the Church began building the mini-temples.

[MartyFunkhouser]

???

An awful story about temple attendance that is completely ridiculous. In short, a young boy has a near death experience where he is saved by "birdies," which are green and white. He is taken to the temple and there are more "birdies" in cages and he urges his parents to free the birdies.

http://www.snopes.com/glurge/birdies.asp

[cougjunkie]

An awful story about temple attendance that is completely ridiculous. In short, a young boy has a near death experience where he is saved by "birdies," which are green and white. He is taken to the temple and there are more "birdies" in cages and he urges his parents to free the birdies.

http://www.snopes.com/glurge/birdies.asp

Thats a new one for me. Never heard of it.

[MartyFunkhouser]

Thats a new one for me. Never heard of it.

A woman in my ward read it in her talk in church. It was awful.

[YOhio]

This thing about the word of wisdom being a commandment and all is such garbage.

[RobinFinderson]

When I was a very young child, my parents bought some ducklings, which they kept outside in a pen. One morning we had an out-of-season frost. I told my parents that from my bedroom window I had seen angels come to the yard and scoop up the ducklings and take them away. When my parents went to the yard they found duckcicles.

I have no memory of this event at all, but it is a story that gets passed around the family to this day.

[RobinFinderson]

This thing about the word of wisdom being a commandment and all is such garbage.

WHAT?? You mean I resigned from the church for nothing??

[TripletDaddy]

Another Mexico/Central/South America fave......

family sends clothing to missionary in the mail. Clothing never arrives. Missionary sees local mailman wearing the clothing while working in his yard. This story usually involves garments but I have also heard it with shoes.

btw, In all my time in Bolivia, there were no such thing as mailmen (everyone went to the correo to get their mail) and nobody had a "front yard" to work in.

[myboynoah]

Man is in a car accident, the car explodes in to flames. Man is burned alive. Except where his garments are he is not torched.

That's not a legend buddy.

From "60 Minutes" April 7, 1996

Mike Wallace: Do you wear the sacred undergarments?

Bill Marriott: Yes, I do. And I can tell you they do protect you from harm.

Mike Wallace: Really?

Bill Marriott: Uh-huh. I was in a very serious boat accident. Fire--boat was on fire, I was on fire. I was burned. My pants were burned right off of me. I was not burned above my knee. Where the garment was, I was not burned.

Mike Wallace: And you believe it was the sacred undergarments.

Bill Marriott: I do. Particularly on my legs, because my pants were gone, but my undergarments were not singed.