My husband has embellished stories to be more spiritual. Things like the baby has been crying for 34 hours straight. Already been to the doctor and prescribed medicine. Dad has spent 12 hours at work, leaving Mom alone with screaming child and has just slept 8 hours. Mom is so exhausted she is tense and is holding the baby like she is ready to strangle it. But Dad who has just got up after sleeping 8 hours after his 12 hour work shift and is fresh and rested, gives Mom who has now been up with screaming exhausted child for some 34 hours a break to finally get some sleep. Mom gives baby a dose of the medicine and some aspirin because it is time and then goes to bed. Dad uses his priesthood and baby finally settles down after another hour. The fresh and relaxed caregiver who can finally treat baby calmly has nothing to do with it. The fact that this baby always screamed when Mom was upset has nothing to do with it. The fresh dose of medicine and 34 hours without sleep have nothing to do with it. The antibiotics kicking in after 24 hours after the doc have nothing to do with it. It is all the priesthood blessing. When I heard this story in his testimony a few years later, it was all I could do not to laugh out loud. I felt like standing up and yelling, “best example ever of why MOTHERS need priesthood.”Hagoth wrote: ↑Tue Sep 13, 2022 6:30 amThere seems to be a tradition of just accepting what is said in a formal church setting as truth. It would be disloyal to reject or, God forbid, actively research the claims of one speaking in authority.stealthbishop wrote: ↑Wed Sep 07, 2022 2:31 pm I have thought about it that way too but for her to share this story so often in public is such a risk. Does she not know that there is a public record of the circumstances of her grandson's death?!
I'm sure Nelson must know pilots and airlines keep records of aircraft malfunctions, but he also knows that anyone who actually goes to the effort of doing enough research to determine that a flaming death spiral was really a rattling bolt, and then publicly talks about it, will be treated like an agent Satan seeking to destroy the church by good, believing members, and therefore not to be trusted. I can't imagine how Nelson thought he could get away with embellishing the story of the home intrusion in Africa to the point that even devoted followers felt the need to come forward with the truth. I hear people telling stories in church that are obviously not true, or are heavily embellished or modified, and I think there must be something in our makeup that tells us if we tell a story in a way that makes us or someone else feel the spirit, the story is transformed and validated as true in its own way.
So, I think some embellishment is normal among faith promoting stories.
Anyway, maybe this niggles at her brain the same way it does mine. I worked enough child protective services as a social worker to know that often after a brain injury the child goes to sleep. You know, the “don’t let the child sleep after a concussion” thing they always tell parents. Then as the injured area bleeds, it puts pressure on the brain. The child wakes up crying and mom tries a few things to figure out why child is crying, then realizes something is wrong, maybe child stops breathing and mom shakes it to make it breath, and Mom takes child into emergency. Doctors realize brain injury cannot be accidental and blame mom. But then start to realize mom does not have the upper body strength to shake child or hit child hard enough with bare fists and there is no sign of blunt force with an object. There is too much reasonable doubt that mom did it. But the child was asleep, then mom was only one with child, so everyone thinks “mom did it.” They don’t think back to before the child went to bed, when dad or someone else was caring for child. I think maybe she suspects her own son and just can’t deal. I mean, *I* suspect her son, because the mom doesn’t have the upper body strength to shake a toddler that hard. Not an infant with big head and weak neck, but a toddler.
(I had one case of a shaken toddler, that mom was loud about the father being alone with child the evening before she rushed child to emergency. Dad was charged. Child lived with permanent brain injury)
The whole thing reminds me of something one of my therapists told me. A young woman was raped and murdered and his client couldn’t deal with the meaninglessness of the whole thing, so client twisted it into some spiritual meaning. And my therapist understood that it helped with the grief, but it drove him a bit nuts that client had twisted it into a spiritual experience when it was horrific. Our minds balk at meaningless horror.
