This is the first year in nearly a decade that my ward doesn’t have a ward Halloween party on the calendar. I suspect the disappearance of the activities committee has something to do with it. I would be fine with having a ward Halloween party because I, too, like being with members of my ward, and I am fine with not having one because other activities that someone wanted to do are happening instead.

Mormons love Halloween!!! That’s a fact jack. Get used to it.

I think it’s because Mormons are very kid and family oriented and are always looking for ways to do fun things with their kids. Halloween is great fun for kids and Mormons have embraced it for that reason. We have a lot of families in my ward that decorate their houses for Halloween with at least as much vigor as Christmas. It’s very big.

enguinuity? I think you mean ingenuity.

MCQ–ahhhh! I’ll blame it on my cold medicine haze. Thanks. I think you are right that Mormons just embrace it on the family fun level.

Anita–I guess that makes a difference. Like I said, we won’t see people from our ward in our neighborhood.

John Mansfield–good point on the activities committee. In this ward, it is something the youth host. I am fairly indifferent to it and if it disappears, I won’t mind.

arj–good point!

I prefer to celebrate Halloween in the rich people neighborhoods.

We like Halloween parties because they are fun. Simple as that. Candy, costumes, celebrating. What’s not to like?

I basically live in the Bible belt, so I’ve seen the “fall festival” “anti-Halloween” arguments in my evangelical neighbors (including freaky Jack Chick tracks about how those who celebrate Halloween are going to burn painfully in hell for eternity) and I’m unimpressed.

chris–it must be hard to live in a mixed marriage.

I live in the Bible Belt and recently had a stake president who banned Halloween in the stake for the duration of his reign. So, the wards had “Fall/Harvest/Cowboy Festivals” instead with no costumes. These usually included a chili/pie competition and face painting for the kids. The ward trunk-or-treat was always an underground, word of mouth affair held at a local school parking lot as we weren’t allowed to do it on church property.

It was very different from the ward in Provo we had moved from where the tradition there was for the youth to throw a Halloween party for the Primary kids complete with games and costume contest.

When Trunk or Treat falls on a Saturday, make sure to show up at Church early so you can watch the primary children stumble into the chapel with their candy hangovers.

Marcus- If I wasn’t a member of the Southern Baptist Church, I wouldn’t expect to be invited to their functions. If I wanted to participate, I would understand the responsibility lies with me to tell someone I would like to attend. I don’t know of anyone, in any church, that claims the gift of mind-reading.
Good luck with your move. Maybe the next church you find will the one that fulfills all your secret desires.

Marcus- Hmmmmm……so much I could say…….choosing not to. You should thank me.

MCQ;
Very well said!!

Marcus;
I myself have moved to Utah recently, 3 months ago, and have felt the sting of being a non-mormon. Utah is a very pretty state, and has many wonders to see, but being ostracized for my lack to not conform to their religion does happen. I have heard many horror stories,as yours, from my non-mormon friends. This struck me as odd.

I do want to say that not all fit the discription I have spoke about. I have seen many nice people here in Utah. I do not ask thier religion, just thank them for being nice. Seems like being nice is a vanishing quality now a days.

PS And the lesson I learned from Jesus is that he didn’t spend time with people who did not want to hear his message. Something about casting pearls before swine.

If Mormons are so rude and mean, please go get your Tootsie Rolls from another church.

He didn’t run away from them when they came at him, but no where does it say he sought them out. Big difference.

[...] love crafts. The Halloween party may be one funnest things a Mormon ward does all year, despite the Trunk-or-Treat idea that has swept across all of Mormondom, and despite a handful of nay-sayers who think Mormons [...]

If a non-member wants to go to a trunk or treat all they need to do is show up at the event. I have never heard of formal invites for these types of events. Its not like you need a ticket to attend. We have lots of non-members at ours all the time. I don’t think that there will be special assigned people who will be ejecting non-members from Provo county trunk or treats :)

#30 – Thank you, bbell for being a voice of reason. I am now the point of hysteria and can no longer be held responsible for my fingers on this topic.

#29- Christopher – Thank you for being nice to missionary kids. Since I have a daughter currently on a mission in Oregon, it is nice to hear of your friendliness. I am sure as you get to know your neighbors well, (which in my experience takes about a year)you will find the people who appreciate your sense of fair play. I agree about the Welcome Wagon thing. Years ago I moved to a small rural town and I had a real life Welcome Wagon Lady come to my house with coupons from the local businesses and free samples of stuff. It was awesome and really helped me find my way around town. Haven’t ever heard of it again. Too bad, it was nice.

We’re in Seattle, and just hosted a big Trunk or Treat party on Saturday. We have dinner, games and activities throughout the church building, then trunk-or-treating out in the parking lot. It’s a lot of work, but we love it. One reason we count it a success is that it’s the one time of year we can actually get a whole bunch of different people here: the usuals, plus less-active families, inactive families, and lots of non-member friends and neighbors. We think about scaling it back sometimes, but we keep it up, because we know this is an activity that everybody feels comfortable inviting non-LDS friends to. It’s not a religious event – just a fun social event.

Marcus – my heart goes out to you and your kids. It’s got to hurt to be surrounded by people who have a strong social network, and to feel excluded from it. We Mormons are generally really good at creating a tight-knit network among our ward members. We see each other at least weekly at church, and then we also visit each other’s homes throughout the month, and work together as volunteers in our church callings. We show up for baby showers , funerals, illnesses. We come together for baptisms, weddings, potlucks. We have lots of service projects – weeding, putting together hygiene kits, putting on a new roof for a widow, cleaning up litter at local parks, etc. We get to know each other through lots and lots and lots of activities – for a lot of us, church activity pretty much becomes our life. Personally, I really value that sense of community – it’s such a blessing to me to have this group of people that feels like an extended family. I really, really love my ward. But that sense of community doesn’t come cheap – it comes from investing lots of time with each other. And because we can get so busy with church activities, it doesn’t always leave as much time or energy for developing relationships outside of our ward, which is the negative side for somebody in your position.

I’m wondering if you’re in a predominantly LDS area, and feeling out of the loop, if you could just try talking to some of your neighbors. Maybe you could just say something like, “Hey, my name’s Marcus. We’ve lived here a few years. We’re not LDS, and we’re finding it hard to integrate into the neighborhood. We want to make friends, but it seems like everybody around here does all their socializing through their church. We’re not really interesting in converting, but we’d love to be part of the social network. Would we be allowed to attend some of your ward social activities? We’d be happy to chip in. Maybe we could bring a dish to the next ward potluck, or come help you guys weed at the park, or pass out candy at next year’s Trunk or Treat? My kids are feeling left out, and we just want a chance to get to know people better.” I have a really hard time believing that any LDS congregation would reject that kind of offer. At least around here, we’d be thrilled to have you! We don’t really have a good mechanism in place for making sure that every resident of our ward’s geographical boundaries is aware of all of our social activities, but that’s not because we’re actively trying to exclude them. If I had a neighbor request to be included, I would definitely be very happy to keep them informed. So reach out, and see if you can’t figure out how to join in on some of the fun. I bet you’d be welcomed, especially if you arrived with a smile and seemed open to friendship.

Good luck!

Michelle, Marie, bbell, John Mansfield, and Living in Zion;

Thank you for the good information and nice responses. I am gonna go out on a limb here and say Marcus is trying to reach out. Yeah he may sound jadded, but I do understand his frustration. I will say by posting on here might be his way of trying to figure out the best way to approach the situation. All the advice has not only helped him, but I am taking this and will try a better way to approach my nieghbors.

As I stated before people’s religion doesn’t matter to me, I am now part of the community and want to be some active roll in it. Keep your head up Marcus and keep trying to find out what will work. Seems like for the most part, people here care about thier community.

Okay, back to the topic – although this reading has been interesting. I am a Primary President and do not want to be in charge of a potluck dinner, carnival, setting/up, etc. I’m not whining, I’m just wondering how any other wards divide up tasks, etc.? I’ve never done this before, but it sounds fun. Appreciate any input!

I’ve never thought about specifically inviting neighbors. Fun! Now to get organized and actually do it!!