Please read through the whole thing

Okay first of all let me start by stating that this is in no way a knock on the content of my experience, in fact, I think that what was discussed was important and relevant...but...

Last night I had the opportunity to attend a "fireside" run by my local Stake. For those that aren't LDS you may not understand for those that are...you know what I'm talking about.

It was presented as a financial fireside in which we would be discussing how to get out of debt, save for retirement etc...Because of what I do part time, I wanted to go and see what principles were being taught.

As I arrived at the church I found that the 'fireside' was being held inside the gym...not the chapel plus it was being held inside one of the other building and not the stake center. This surprised me as in the particular building that we were going was signficantly smaller and the gym did not hold more than 200 people (in hard chairs I might add). After being seated, things started very normally. The stake presidency was in attendance and former Bishop got up to get things started. He talked about how about 1 year ago he was and his family were struggling to make ends meet and were having a hard time following the councils of the prophet in which we are all encouraged to save money and be prepared for difficult times. This all rang true for me as I lost my job just over a year ago and had wished that we had money saved for such times. He then talked about how he had asked for help, when he heard an advertisement on the radio for a very specific person's plan for getting out of debt and wealth building (if you are really interested in knowing which program let me know and I will let you know individually, but I don't want to specifically mention who because I don't want this to be about that person). This immediatley caused my eyebrows to raise...surely this was not...He talked about how much it had helped him in his life and that he had won a free membership to the program. Okay. The man conducting the meeting brought up the agenda for the meeting and discussed how this could be a resource (of many) that can be used to eliminate debt and begin building wealth...fine...let's get on with it...For only 99 bucks we could join up...HOLD ON....WHAT?

Okay like I said this has absolutley nothing to do with the program that was introduced, but I was shocked to hear what was going on. I can't believe that under the guise of a "fireside" we were now being asked to buy into a program...This actually explained why the activity did not take place within the chapel...we actually watched the first seminar from this person. For the record I think that the debt reduction ideas and plans are fantastic. The concept of eliminating the paying of interest to banks...fabulous. It is actually very close to what we do...but the fact that I was at a church "Fireside" blew me away.

The man conducting the meeting followed up with this comment, "...in order for this to fit within the guidelines the church has, I can't accept a check here tonight..." That sounds suspicsiously like..."we are already getting really close to the line...so we have to be careful and make sure we don't cross it..."

I hope that this doesn't offend anybody, and like I said, I am in no way knocking the material that was presented, just the false pretenses under which the meeting was set up. If I had known what this would be, I may not have gone. If everyone can take a step back and look at this...would you attend a fireside if you knew that you would be asked to pay 99 dollars?

I would be fine if they said we are going to have a financial workshop on a saturday come casual...but I don't think that they should have pushed this as a fireside.