See below the letter sent to my Stake President explaining the initial reasons for my leaving the church. There are many more issues now, but this was where it all began.

  

28/08/2008

 

Dear President

 Re: Request to be released from my High Council Position 

You should have been informed by Bishop XXXXXX that I have asked to be released from my calling as a high councillor. I felt it was appropriate (following council from Bishop XXXXXX) to write you a letter giving you the reasons for my request, and to let you know where I currently stand as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

 

To give you the full background, I will need to make this a lengthy letter, and I understand that you may not respond. I know how busy you are, and have no desire to add to that burden. As Bishop XXXXX once said to me, “I (You) have a lawn to mow too.”

 

I’ll need to start in the youth programme.

 

I recall that during my 1^st/2^nd young men’s camp being around people in the church making disparaging remarks about black people. I was used to this outside of church, but was taken back by it in the church, especially as it was one of the young men’s leaders. Unfortunately for both him and me, he did not realise that I was there until the person he was making the comments to suggested he needed eyes in the back of his head. Looking back at that issue, I am now more disappointed that the other leaders and young men didn’t offer some kind of protection to me, nor did they suggest his comments were not Christ like.

 

As I continued through my early church life, I had the odd racial comment from others, but I just put this down to being the way it was, and if I had the chance I would use a physical response to reply to the comments.  Hence why there was so much trouble between myself and the XXXXXX family during my youth years.

 

Bearing all the above in mind, I managed to get through the youth programme, not least in part to friends like your Son, who although from a very different background spent time with me and helped me to see that there were people who looked past social background and colour.

 

As time went by, I decided to serve a mission, and put the past behind me. I eventually was called to serve in Ireland and was trained by XXXXXXXX. At the time, President XXXXXX was encouraging missionaries to search the gospel deeply and there was a culture of passing round transcripts of talks amongst the missionaries. Within my first week, Elder XXXXXX read a talk by Mark E Peterson that was currently the hot read. He handed it to me after reading it, and said “Do you know this?” I can remember that as he handed it over he looked a little worried.  I read the talk.

It explained how those with “Negro” heritage were not valiant in the pre-existence.

 

Here is a quotation from the talk:

 “Think of the Negro, cursed as to the priesthood.... This negro, who, in the pre-existence lived the type of life which justified the Lord in sending him to the earth in the lineage of Cain with a black skin, and possibly being born in darkest Africa—if that negro is willing when he hears the gospel to accept it, he may have many of the blessings of the gospel. In spite of all he did in the pre-existent life, the Lord is willing, if the Negro accepts the gospel with real, sincere faith, and is really converted, to give him the blessings of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost. If that Negro is faithful all his days, he can and will enter the celestial kingdom. He will go there as a servant, but he will get celestial glory.” (Race Problems as They Affect the Church, an address by Apostle Mark E. Petersen, delivered at the Convention of Teachers of Religion on the College Level, Brigham Young University, August 27,1954) 

The above quotation and others in the talk shook me, but I was determined to find out if this was really true. I began studying the subject and prayerfully trying to understand why I would have been such a bad person previously. I considered the likes of Hitler, a “white” person who if he accepted the gospel in the spirit world could progress to the exaltation, why would I only ever be a servant? Questions like this really concerned me.

 

I felt that the only way I would qualify for an answer was to be as faithful a missionary as I could and an answer would be given.

 

For the next 23 months I worked as hard as any missionary I knew. I eventually was assigned to train 3 other missionaries, serve as a district leader, zone leader, assistant to the president and as a travelling missionary trainer. As I went through this period I became more and more uncomfortable with the doctrines taught on the subject by other leaders such as Bruce R McConkie.  I also realised why so many missionaries were using racially offensive language to me.  For example, the term used when someone rang on the phone and then did not wait for it to be answered was “###### Ringing”. I even had companions who referred to me as “######.” If they had read what I had read, then I was a second class citizen when it came to my eternal potential so why treat me with any respect?

 

As I served as the assistant to the president, I was moving round the mission doing a tour with the general authority Elder XXXXXXXXX. I eventually plucked up the courage to ask him for an interview so I could run the results of my studies by him. He sat and listened. Once I had finished his answer was that my studies were correct doctrinally, I had to accept them and move on. He also said that I would never be half the man that some of these men were. As an obedient missionary, I accepted his answer at the time, and continued forward. My thoughts would often return to my fiance at home, and whether I was worthy to marry her as I was part Negro. Was I just polluting her as white woman? 

 

I tried my best to complete my mission as I had committed to previously and eventually came home. And even with my reservations, XXXXXX and I were married and began to have our children.

 

I still was not over the doctrinal question and continued my studies to find an answer. Feeling that it was only diligence to the gospel that would bring me to the answer I needed.

 

Unfortunately things went from bad to worst. Instead of finding teaching’s that made me feel better, I was finding additional quotations that made things worst. I went to web sites that defended the church’s position on subjects only to find quotations I had never read that the defenders of our faith were trying to deal with.  I have been in touch with a number of apologists for our faith, and have asked for answers, but none of them are official responses and none of them retract comments like the one given below.

 “Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of god, is death on the spot. This will always be so.” (Brigham Young Journal of Discourses, Vol. 10, page 110)What does the above mean for me and my mixed race family? Why did he say that? It became clear why other leaders over time have taken the doctrinal lines they have.Although this is not an exhaustive list of the quotations and issues I have, after 11 years of trying to find answers I am now feeling as though they will never come. The doctrines that gave me hope are now undermined by teachings of chosen races of which I and my children are not part.This leaves me with no way out that I can see. I either accept the teachings or reject them. If I reject them, then my testimony of truth being part of this church from the beginning is destroyed. Unless the church is willing to correct the statements given by some of it’s leaders over time, then I see no alternative but to follow my conscience and leave the faith I have sacrificed and worked for. There is little else I can say. I have spent 11 years of my life working for an answer from the church I have loved. It has not been given. What am I to do?I am grateful for the principles the gospel has given me, and the desire it has given me to follow Christ’s example. I will be forever indebted to good men like yourself, Bishop XXXXXXX and others who have been great examples to me over my life. But I can’t ignore these teachings any longer.Hopefully the above has explained my request to be released. I don’t know what my next steps will be, but at least you now know why I will no longer be acting in my calling.Thank you for reading this far, and I hope that over time we can still stay in touch. I will be attending church with my family on Sundays and will most likely bump into you now and then. But unless an answer is forthcoming either from my heavenly father or one of his church representatives I won’t be taking an active role in the church’s functions.Take care, and give my best to your family.Regards