I was born into a Mormon family in the hub of Happy Valley. Right in Provo, Utah. Both my parents are life time members, as were my grandparents. My grandfather was born in Provo in an old house right next to the BYU stadium built in like 1890 before there was much else around. Needless to say, I come from a long line of proud Utah Mormons. 

I had the standard Mormon childhood. I went to church, went to seminary at school, went to youth activities, etc.  Although I went through everything the way that I was expected to, I have never been a very spiritual person. I never received personal revelation. I never was good with reading my scriptures and praying regularly like I was told I should. But I went along with it because that was expected of me by my parents and friends at school. That's just how the culture was....is.

After I graduated I decided that I didn't want to go on a mission. At that time in my life I knew that I didn't have a strong enough testimony to make it through 2 years, and also I really wasn't keen on going and living in Brazil for 2 years. (It seemed like everyone was being called there and I was sure that I would too because I really didn't want to go there). Anyway, eventually I told my parents and my friends my decision about not wanting to leave, and that's when my relationships with everyone changed. It was like someone flipped a switch. my dad told me that if I wasn't going on a mission then I needed to start paying an enormous amount of rent to live at home and had to get a "real" job so that I could support myself and move out. Then my friends started asking me questions about why I wasn't going. They assumed that since I wasn't going to be leaving, I had to have done something wrong. I must have broken a big commandment because that is the only way someone wasn't going right when they turn 19. Had I broken any big commandments? No. I just didn't want to go. But no one could accept that.

I felt like an outcast. Shortly after that, I realized that life in happy valley Utah would not be very fun for me if I stayed home. Life at home would be awkward with my parents, a lot of my friends would be leaving on their missions, and I couldn't get a date to save my life because girls only will date guys who are planning on leaving or have already come back from their missions. Yeah, it was not what I had in mind. When the pressure from everyone got to be too much, I just decided to do it. I would leave and serve my mission so that I could continue to fit into the norm and so that I could again feel like I was accepted. Honestly, the biggest reason I did was to avoid the constant badgering from everyone about it. Once I started "preparing" to go, things got back to normal. People treated me like a normal person again. I put my papers in and did whatever I could to leave as soon as I could. I even went so far as to not be as honest as I probably should have been with my bishop and stake president. I went into the MTC 3 weeks after my 19th birthday.

I never got committed to what I was doing on my mission. I floated along and pretty much slacked off unless pushed to do something by my companion. Looking back, I have realized that the reason I didn't work as hard as others was because I wasn't spiritually into it. In the back of my mind, it just never felt right. Of course I naturally thought that it was just Satan putting doubts in my mind, so I just tried to ignore it the best I could. At different times during my mission I really tried to gain a testimony of the church and its teachings. I would read the scriptures, I would pray, I would work hard, and try to convince myself that I believed what I was teaching. By the time I was to come home after 2 years, I had basically convinced myself that I believed it. Having had to eat, sleep, teach, and live this religion non-stop for 2 years, it's not too surprising that I thought I believed everything.

When I got home I again went through the motions like I was expected. But I was doing everything just because it was expected. Once I moved out of my parent's house, for the first time in my life I wasn't expected to do anything religious. I didn't have to go to church if I didn't want. I didn't have to attend weekly ward activities. I didn't have to do any of it. And I realized that I didn't really want to do any of it. It wasn't enjoyable for me. The church and religion in general is supposed to make people feel good about their lives and give them purpose for why they are here. All the church ever brought me was guilt and annoyance. It made me feel guilty because I never really felt the spirit. I never would get answers to my prayers and because of that it made me feel guilty like I wasn't living right so I wasn't getting the spiritual confirmations like everyone else. Again, was I doing anything really wrong? No, but I always felt guilty like I had. That is when I started to realize that the church keeps its members faithful through guilt and manipulating you so that you are guilted scared into being faithful.

So I stopped going to church and to the activities. I mean, I didn't really want to be there anyway, why should I go just to make myself feel guilty for not being a good Mormon?

After attending church less and less as the years went by, the guilt went away. I felt a lot better about myself because I didn't feel the doom of condemnation hanging over my head. I felt free. It felt good. It felt right. my whole life I was told that to gain a testimony you should follow what you feel is right and let the spirit guide you...unless what you were feeling was moving you away from the church because that had to be Satan's influence. Again, there is the church teaching manipulating you into what they want.

But at the same time I still felt trapped because I didn't want to "come out" and tell people where I stood. I mean, how could I tell people around here in happy valley that I didn't believe in the church and that I never really did? I was certain that the same thing would happen like what happened before I left on my mission. I didn't want to become the outcast again.

Over time I came to terms that to really become free, I had to be honest with everyone else about where I stand with the church. I didn't want to lie anymore. It's not like I go around wearing a banner proclaiming to the world that I left the church, but whenever people ask me about what I believe, I am just upfront and honest about my feeling concerning the church.

But I knew that once I "came out" about it, my parents would have to know. I just kept putting it off. I didn't want to deal with them. I didn't want to find out what they would do. I didn't want to disappoint my father. I didn't want to make my mother cry. I love my parents and I knew that this would just break their hearts.

Around the beginning of 2006, my mother decided that she wanted to talk religion with me. She had noticed that I had stopped going to church and wanted to know what was up. So she sat me down and we started talking. She was very inquisitive about what my feelings were in regards to the church and kind of blunt about everything. I decided that if I was going to tell her, this would be the best time. She had kind of backed me into a corner as it was. So I just leveled with her. I was upfront with her about everything. She started asking me questions about what commandments I had broken and if that was the reason I decided to leave. She even asked me if I was gay. I told her that I wasn't gay, and that I wasn't leaving because I wanted to break the commandments. As we talked I found it easier and easier to just get it all off my chest and be straight with her about everything.

She took it better then I thought. My dad wasn't there for that discussion, and I'm kind of glad he wasn't. He would have reacted very differently from my mom. The following weeks and months after that my dad didn't talk to me much. I know that my mom filled him in on the conversation and he just didn't want to discuss it with me.

Then after I told my mom everything it has been a lot easier to tell everyone else. And doing so has been very freeing. Very liberating. Over the past year my dad and I have become friends again. He likes having me come around the house and I think he has come to terms with it all. We still have never talked about my religious beliefs specifically, but I don't know that he is ready to actually hear it from me personally. But that is just how my dad is. He has never been one to talk about his feelings. Especially with his oldest son.

Now that I am a lot more open about my leaving the church, people want to know what I believe instead. I have been asked on more then one occasion the same thing. "If you don't believe in the LDS faith, then what do you believe?" up until now all I could really say to anyone is that I don't know what I believe. The thing is, people that have a certain belief, expect you to know what you believe as well, and if you don't know what that is, then they want to convert you to what they believe. In reading through one of my friend's blogs he said this:

"I claim agnostic because I believe that it's okay to say "I don't know." I claim it because I believe in change and growth."

We are both in similar places with the church. We can relate to each other a lot. He can relate to my "coming out" with religion since he "came out" a few years ago that he was gay. I agree with him and where he stands with the church. I think that it is ok to say "I don't know" and to not have all of the answers in regards to religious beliefs. Religion is an ongoing quest for what your personal beliefs are. And for me, I'm not going to find them through the LDS church. I don't know if and when I will ever find a religion that I fully agree with. Until then, I will just say that I don't know what I believe. And I'm ok with that.