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Want to pass muster back in the day? Here’s a list of [real] questions for you:



1. Have you committed murder by shedding innocent blood or consenting thereto?

[If you say yes, this probably means you’re going to spend significant time in hell. Just FYI.]

2. Have you betrayed your brethren or sisters in anything?

3. Have you committed adultery?

[This question was actually more detailed. I felt it wisdom to summarize.]

4. Have you taken and made use of property not your own without the consent of the owner?

[This one gets repeated in various ways, it must have been a common problem.]

5. Have you cut hay where you had no right to or turned your animals into your neighbors grain or field without his knowledge or consent?

6. Have you lied about or maliciously misrepresented any person or thing?

[Do blogs count?]

7. Have you borrowed anything that you have not returned or paid for?

[Work pens don’t count, right?]

8. Have you borne false witness against your neighbor?

[Is this the same as lying?]

9. Have you taken the name of the deity in vain?

10. Have you coveted anything not your own?

[Questions 9. and 10. may border on the unfair in my opinion. I think more explanation is needed.]

11. Have you been intossicated [sic] with strong drink?

[I wonder about alternate meanings here.]

12. Have you found lost property and not returned it to the owner when you could do so?

13. Have you branded an animal that you did not know to be yours?

[Maybe a cat or two.]

14. Have you taken anothers horse or mule from the range and not returned it?

[Never done that one.]

15. Have you fulfilled your promises to pay your debt or run into debt without prospect of paying?

[I know these people. Should I turn them in? Also, there’s something wrong with this.]

16. Have you taken water to irrigate with when it blonged [sic] to another person at the time you used it? [hmmm]

17. Do you pay your tithing *promptly*? [No comment.]

18. Do you teach your family the gospel of salvation?

19. Do you speak against your brethren or against any principle taught us in the Bible, Book of Mormon, Book of Doctrine and Covenants, Revelations given through Joseph Smith the Prophet and the Presidency of the Church as now organized? [Sneaking in polygamy here I bet.]

20. Do you pray in your family, night and morning, and attend to secret prayer?

21. Do you wash your body and have your family do so as often as health and cleanliness and circumstances will permit? [Iffy.]

22. Do you work 6 days and rest the seventh or go to meeting?

[Five days, sorry.]

23. Do you and your family attend ward meetings? [Dang. Most people didn’t go. After 1858, attendance was typically around 11%. Meeting houses were generally tiny anyway. People might come, find the building bursting at the seams, and leave.]

24. Do you preside over your household as a servant of God and is your family subject to you? [Dang.]

25. Have you labored diligently and earned faithfully the wages paid you by your employer?

[I think this is open to interpretation.]

26. Do you oppress the hireling in his wages?

[Yes. I assume this refers to my kids.]

27. Have you taken up or confined any stray animal to your own use or in any way appropriated one to your benefit without accounting therefore to the proper owner? [Does taking strays to the pound count?]

The Old Testament-ishness of this is pretty typical of Mormonism in Nauvoo and Utah. Here are two questions for you: got any good substitute questions for urban life? Are more questions better or worse? Got any favorites? These could double as home teaching questions. Try them out next visit.