Do Mormons Celebrate Halloween? Even on Sundays? ~ by Heidi

Here at Mormon Women, we receive numerous emails about Halloween in the month of October. What started out as a pagan ritual in the centuries long before the birth of Jesus Christ, has now, in the United States, become mostly a festive holiday that, through the lights, colorful costumes and fun food, brightens up the darkening days of autumn. Whether or not one celebrates Halloween is a personal preference and there is no official LDS doctrine in regards to it. Most Mormons I know think of Halloween as a fun time for children with rituals and customs that bring warmth to days that are becoming colder.

Most Mormons will dress up their children for Trick-or-Treating (a custom that includes children going from door to door to ask for candy), celebrations at school, at home, and at the church building. Some costumes are silly and some are spooky. Masks are usually avoided as they are considered dangerous, not just amongst members of the Mormon Church, but in society at large. For example, masks can make it hard to see when out Trick-or-Treating in the dark of night. They also make it hard to know the identity of a person, making it easier for a stranger to attend functions to which he/she was not invited. Also, when people feel as if they are anonymous, it can encourage negative behavior they would not normally engage in. In addition, truly scary or gory costumes are discouraged when attending functions attended by small children who might become frightened.

Many people decorate their homes just as they do at Christmastime. Some decorate outside, some decorate inside, some do both.  Some set up haunted houses within their own homes for people to tour through. Again, anything too scary is never a good idea when children are involved.

In the U.S., Halloween is a time when adults engage in a lot of drinking of alcoholic beverages. Mormons don’t. [Read more about the Mormon health code, called the Word of Wisdom.] Other than that, the only thing that is truly different about Halloween amongst Mormons is when it falls on a Sunday. In that case, the celebrations are shifted to Saturday night, or even Friday. Trick-or-Treating is limited to only Mormons as it would be rude to knock on a stranger’s  door the night before Halloween and ask for candy.

In our case, our ward (church congregation) always has a Halloween party the Friday or Saturday night before Halloween. This includes traditional games such as bobbing for apples and a costume parade. It also includes a Trunk-or-Treat, where-in the children go from car trunk to car trunk to ask for candy out in the parking lot of the church building. Many of the cars are heavily decorated and there is a prize for the best costumes as well as the best decorated car. In some wards I have attended, Trick-or-Treating is done in the building where-in each room is decorated as if it were someone’s home. It’s a fun, warm and safe solution to a night that can be a bit dangerous.

Because Halloween is on Sunday this year and our ward is having a party on Saturday night, the ward members have decided to pass out candy to the children who knock on their door on Friday night. Come Sunday night, some Mormons will choose to turn off their porch light, a signal that no candy will be given at that particular home. However, most will have a bowl of candy ready for the children of the neighborhood who come knocking on their doors.

To our Mormon readers, jump in and share your response to this question. Do you celebrate Halloween? If so, what do you do when it falls on a Sunday?

The post How Do Mormons Celebrate Halloween When it Falls on a Sunday? appeared first on Women in The Church of Jesus Christ.

~by Amanda

In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Sunday is a sacred day. It is the Sabbath day, a day that we worship the Lord. We meet together with our congregation (ward or branch) for three hours. We spend the first hour in a sacrament meeting. In this meeting, we pray, sing hymns, take the bread and water in remembrance of the Savior, our Lord, Jesus Christ; and we listen to each other speak on certain topics and bear testimony.  The second hour for those 12 and up is spent with others our age in Sunday School classes where we learn about basic gospel principles. The last hour, for adults, is spent in Relief Society or Priesthood Meeting. Youth spend the last hour in Young Men or Young Women classes (ages 12-18) or in Primary (ages 3 to 11). (Primary also runs during the second hour — children are organized into younger and older groups, and each have a class time and a group singing and gospel discussion (sharing) time.)

Genesis 2:2-3 reads:

And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God had created and made.

We believe that we are to make Sunday a day that is different from the other days. We are commanded to “keep it holy.” This can mean different things for different members. In our family, our children don’t attend birthday parties. We don’t play in or attend sporting events that fall on Sundays. We don’t shop at the store, or fill the car with gas. We do all we can to avoid working on Sundays. We don’t take our boats our to the lake. We don’t stop for dinner at a restaurant.

But there is more than just the “don’t”s. In a book called The Miracle of Forgiveness , Spencer W. Kimball says:

The Sabbath is a holy day in which to do worthy and holy things. Abstinence from work and recreation is important but insufficient. The Sabbath calls for constructive thoughts and acts, and if one merely lounges about doing nothing on the Sabbath, he is breaking it. To observe it, one will be on his knees in prayer, preparing lessons, studying the gospel, meditating, visiting the ill and distressed, sleeping, reading wholesome material, and attending all the meetings of that day to which he is expected. To fail to do these proper things is a transgression on the omission side.”

We take time to be with our families. We visit family and friends. We write in our journals. We read our scriptures. We pray. Some people nap. Some people play games. We try to take the day to be closer to the Lord. We plan out the rest of the week. We listen to hymns. We write letters. We work on our family history or genealogy. We give service to others. We perform missionary work.

Elder James E. Faust (then a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles) said:

Why has God asked us to honor the Sabbath day? The reasons I think are at least threefold. The first has to do with the physical need for rest and renewing. Obviously God, who created us, would know more than we do of the limits of our physical and nervous energy and strength.

The second reason is, in my opinion, of far greater significance. It has to do with the need for regeneration and the strengthening of our spiritual being. God knows that, left completely to our own devices without regular reminders of our spiritual needs, many would degenerate into the preoccupation of satisfying earthly desires and appetites. This need for physical, mental, and spiritual regeneration is met in large measure by faithful observance of the Sabbath day.

The third reason may be the most important of the three. It has to do with obedience to commandments as an expression of our love for God. ….

I am grateful that we have a day to be with our families. Sometimes my children may feel disappointment that they won’t be able to go to parties or sporting events that are held on Sundays, but I enjoy knowing that no matter what we have a day set aside to be together as a family and I like that it is never a question for them. They know that this is what we do (or don’t do) on Sunday. We are able to learn more about the gospel, and strengthen our relationshipes with each other, and with our neighbors.

To Mormon women: Please share with our readers how honoring the Sabbath Day has enriched your life. What things do you enjoy doing on Sundays to strengthen your spirit and relationships with loved ones in your life?

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**Please note: The answers in “Ask a Mormon Woman” and (other content on this site) reflect the thoughts and perspectives of the administrators at Mormon Women. Although we strive to have our content consistent with the Church’s doctrine and teachings, we do not speak officially for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. For official information about or from the Church, please visit www.mormon.org or www.lds.org.
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We all breathed a sigh of relief as we turned onto the highway;  we were down to the last sixteen miles of our six-hour journey. It doesn’t sound like much, but six hours of driving had worn us out. [This was no ordinary drive on straight, you-can-drive-75-miles-an-hour freeways. After navigating through the winding, treacherous roads in the majestic Colorado mountains (with children who had never been in a car long enough to cross our state border), we were ready to be done.]

At sunset, we arrived at the place we called home for a week of vacation. I have to admit that the thought of getting up early to drive another hour and a half to get to church was hardly stomachable. But on Sunday morning, we dutifully readied ourselves (packing a cooler since the round-trip drive would be as long as the meetings) and headed off to worship with people we had never met.

Should I even say that we made it earlier than we usually do for our meetings that are less than five minutes away? (Go figure.) Seriously, though, that was the first evidence of blessings from heaven, because we left later than we should have (and there was that camper that was going so slow…). We considered it a little miracle that we were there for the sacrament. The other specific blessing was that the topic in the third hour of our meetings (a combined Relief Society/Priesthood lesson, not uncommon on fifth Sundays) was on a topic my father-in-law was pondering for his new church responsibility (calling).

But we didn’t need specific tender mercies to know that being at church was simply the right place to be. My mother-in-law leaned over to me in Sunday School and whispered that she had been tempted not to come. I confessed that I had felt the same way. We looked at each other and both shuddered to think of what we would have missed.

We felt the Lord’s Spirit strongly as these good, kind, welcoming people shared their thoughts about spiritual and temporal preparedness (the combined lesson topic), read quotes from our beloved leaders, bore their testimonies about various gospel principles, and inspired us to be better people. I felt a love and kinship with these strangers. But they weren’t strangers. They were my brothers and sisters, and I felt that strongly as we worshiped together. I left the meetinghouse spiritually filled–and so very, very grateful.

As I wrote that evening in my journal about this experience, I was reminded of a scripture I have always loved:

And after they had been received unto baptism, and were wrought upon and cleansed by the power of the Holy Ghost, they were numbered among the people of the church of Christ; and their names were taken, that they might be remembered and nourished by the good word of God, to keep them in the right way, to keep them continually watchful unto prayer, relying alone upon the merits of Christ, who was the author and the finisher of their faith.

And the church did meet together oft, to fast and to pray, and to speak one with another concerning the welfare of their souls.

And they did meet together oft to partake of bread and wine, in remembrance of the Lord Jesus.
Moroni 6:4-6

This experience was a reminder to me that it’s worth a little sacrifice (which I know many people make every Sunday) to attend our meetings. I’m sure we could have had a lovely day together as a family doing Sundayish things. But it would not have been the same. I was reminded of why we are commanded to meet each week. There is a power and Spirit associated with meeting together, renewing (and keeping) covenants, and nourishing each other with the “good word of God.” I am grateful to my brothers and sisters in Montrose, Colorado who nourished me and my family. Our vacation would not have been the same without the blessing of gathering with them to worship.

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Read more about Mormon Sunday worship:

Remember the Sabbath Day, to Keep it Holy

Visitors Welcome

What to Expect at a Mormon Church Service (from this post)

Inside a Mormon Chapel (photos)

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