This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Trapper's daughter is getting married. Like me, they're LDS. This means a bunch of things have to happen before they can wed for time and all infirmity in the temple, none more important than prenuptial interviews by not one but two bishops.

Daughter and prospective Son-in-Law (not their real names) attend different Young Single Adult wards. Their respective bishops have known them six months max. Nevertheless, the manual says they must visit both their bishops as a couple.

First they were interviewed by her bishop; maybe 10 minutes of well-wishing and advice on being married — which everyone who's married knows is a lot different from being engaged, because you're still friends at that point.

The second interview, with Son-in-Law's bishop, didn't go as well. It lasted three times as long, involved considerable prying, prolonged reading from the handbook, a couple of object lessons bordering on the squirmy, and instructions on proper wedding night behavior.

The interviews couldn't have been more different. Son-in-Law and Daughter felt great after the first one, and as if they'd been caught planning a crime following the second.

Ecclesiastical counseling is hit or miss no matter which church you belong to. The more authoritarian the church, the more prying and confessing is involved.

I dated a couple of Catholic girls when I was younger. I always wondered what they admitted to in confession.

Me: "Did you tell him about … you know?"

Her: "That's none of your business. Go to confession yourself."

Mormons also have a form of confession, interviews in which our individual worthiness is evaluated by leaders prior to us participating in various church rituals.

In all my years as a Mormon, and despite some fairly egregious behavior, I've never had a bad bishop interview, including the ones I asked for. None has given me horrible counsel or presumed to intervene in my life to the point where I ended up disliking them or wishing they were dead.

Maybe I've been lucky. After all, I can't say the same of others placed in positions of ecclesiastical responsibility over me, including senior missionary companions, assistants to the mission president, elders quorum presidents and even stake presidents.

Some of it is my fault. Even at my most cooperative, I'm not easily managed. If I don't like what I'm being told, I ignore it. I try not to let it upset me. I've done that before and found it to be a waste of time and energy better spent on entertaining impure thoughts.

During my LDS mission, an overbearing senior companion and district leader tried to "interview" me. According to my mission journal, my answers were "No," "None of your business," and "[good for you]!"

Note: Say what you will about profanity, I've found it an effective tool when it comes to getting the overly pious to leave me alone.

Advice and counsel is one thing. Everyone needs help at some point or another. But voyeuristic and judgmental interrogation doesn't even come close to being helpful.

Think about it. Assuming you believe in a great creator, it makes sense to develop some kind of personal connection with whatever that is. It borders on the self-destructive to insert other fallible human beings (including some serious doofuses) between yourself and that relationship.

Robert Kirby can be reached at rkirby@sltrib.com or facebook.com/stillnotpatbagley