I didn't believe in the doctrine and the few things I had been told sounded pretty outlandish to me.
For about 25 years I felt like I lived on the fringe in the Mormon society. I mostly tried to keep my mouth shut about my questions and disbelief, only occasionally speaking up to ask questions, which were given vague stock answers like "we'll know that in the next life". They seemed to know that I was not totally accepting of the teachings and were trying to convince me not to question or seek the truth. It was a very difficult and confusing place to find myself, living in a predominantly Mormon community, not accepted socially and not knowing if I really wanted to be.
Now I feel so much regret for ever having given in and joined the Mormon Church against my better judgment. I was persuaded by my husband at the time who had “friends” that were Mormon. At the time they called themselves “Seventies”. This was around 1978. I told my husband that I didn’t want to take the lessons but my husband persuaded me to join him. My mother had just died and my new husband had just survived a plane crash, so we were very vulnerable. (That’s what they seem to look for.) After taking the lessons with my husband I said I didn’t want to join, but he told me "it couldn't hurt" and we would be accepted more in the Mormon community where we lived at that time. Well, he immediately didn't go to church because he would take work shifts on Sunday and he would tell me to go to church without him!
To make a long story short, we were both inactive, as I couldn’t make myself go to church by myself and didn’t believe it anyway. I should not have gone along with being baptized. I was so young (19) and naïve and I was trying to please him. Well, after many problems we ended up divorced about 8 years and 3 children later. By that time we had moved to another small community in Utah.
It was then that the local Mormons fell all over themselves trying to "activate" me when I was down and out. They were not really “helping” me as they never offered any real help. I had no family or friends there as I had been a stay at home mom living in this predominantly Mormon small town community. When they were trying to “fellowship” me during my divorce I tried to go to church and fit in socially but it still didn't feel right or good to me. I didn't listen to my feelings. Instead I listened to the bishop and RS ladies who persuaded me to go through the temple.
When I went through the temple for the first time during my divorce in the mid '80s it was a farce. Looking back, I think I had been encouraged by the local bishop and others to go to the temple probably as a way of making me fearful of dating or sleeping with non-member men as a newly divorced woman. After going through the temple I felt like my neighbors were constantly watching me. I knew they were by the comments they would make. It felt very controlling. So it wasn't long after that I left the area with my three small children and became inactive again.
I remember in the temple, wanting to get up and run out of there as it felt very wicked to me. I didn't run because I didn't want to call attention to myself at the time and I was still trying to fit in socially. I went back a few times just to try to convince myself that this was really what God wanted me to do... but I got the same creepy feeling every time. They gave me a new name "Phoebe" (how ridiculous!) which my husband (I was divorced) was supposed to use to call me to him after we both died... but get this, they told me the woman wasn't supposed to know her husband's new name... AND he could, and probably would have more than one wife in heaven! Oh, and that he could be "assigned" more wives. I was told that this was because there would be more worthy women than men in the hereafter so there would have to be polygamy! My new “friends” seemed almost gleeful about telling me this. Maybe they liked seeing the shocked expression on my face. Why wasn’t I told all this before?
During the endowment ordinance, we had to learn the grips/handshakes (which I later learned came from the Freemasons) AND they actually had us make a motion as if we were slitting our own throats and disemboweling ourselves if we told anyone about the secret temple ceremony. Ugh! I think the temple endowment ceremony is what perpetuated my road to inactivity again. It was unbelievable to me that God would want us to do these things in order to "progress" to become "gods and goddesses" which is what they tell you. I look back now and think that this must be totally wicked in God's eyes.
Also, when going through the temple I remember hating the washing and anointing (for this I wore what resembled a hospital gown with open slits all the way down both sides and an old lady reached under and ran her fingers down my naked body). I'm a pretty modest person and this was totally abhorrent to me. I remember thinking that it must be me... I must be the only one who thinks this whole temple experience is totally weird and evil as all these other people who were now my friends seemed to be buying it… and they seemed like normal people outside the temple. It's funny how we can try to make things seem alright when we're feeling just the opposite!
Several years passed while I was an inactive single parent. Eventually I met my present husband who was also an inactive Mormon and once again I tried to go to church, etc. with my husband because it was the "right" thing to do. We had 3 children together. I told myself all kinds of things, like 'it must be true, there are so many educated people who believe this stuff' and 'it must be me because I'm not getting all the good feelings after praying about it', etc. I tried many times over the years to MAKE myself believe it but I never could. I did all the things I was told to do and even went to the temple again this time to be sealed to my husband. The whole thing gave me an awful feeling… just the same as I remembered it from before.
Finally, we moved out of Utah for my husband's employment. I was looking forward to the move because I had heard that Mormons in other states were easier to get along with. We found out that the cliques exist everywhere. I used to think it was because I was a convert and not "pioneer stock" that I couldn't fit in. But, now looking back, I think that it was just that I questioned too much.
In any case, after putting up with much hypocrisy in the local ward, we finally decided that Mormons just don’t act like Christians and we couldn’t be a part of it. We never felt like we were supposed to be there. Nothing major had happened, we didn’t leave the church because of anything that would make us “unworthy”. We just had had enough of them saying one thing and doing another and all the inconsistencies in the doctrine. We wrote a resignation letter to the church headquarters and the local bishop and asked to have our names and our minor children's names removed from their membership and told them why. They didn't try to call us in to talk; they just complied with our request. It felt like chains had been taken off of me after 25 years! I experienced a wonderful feeling of freedom.
Throughout the years, I had always been warned not to read anything that was anti-Mormon with vague reasons given. Now I started to read and read and read... and it all started to make sense... I had an epiphany! It wasn't me! All those years that I thought it was just me… that I had a problem because I didn’t get the warm, fuzzy feelings about the church being true. It wasn't the "true" church of Jesus Christ...it was a man-made church! Joseph Smith was a liar, a con-man who deceived many people! All the contradictions, the cover-ups that I had heard over the years made sense to me now. The whole church was a fraud! I showed my husband the things I had been reading and he, having an open mind, read them and he, too, understood. It was more difficult for him though because he had been programmed from childhood even while growing up in an inactive family. He had gone on a mission because he was expected to and he, too, tried to do what he was told. He always fell into inactivity though throughout the years as he felt he couldn’t live up to the expectations and the “shoulds”. It just never felt right to him either. But after reading and coming to the conclusion that he had been duped, he felt like he needed to “deprogram” himself now and get rid of all the “crap” that he had been fed… and it was like a grieving process. Me? I just felt relieved and ready to help others get out. I guess I’m now joining the “anti-Mormon” crusade to help get the word out!
Right after we resigned, came the experience of being shunned and told we were heathens by former “friends” in the ward! They said we would be lost souls, shut out from the celestial kingdom and damned forever for leaving the church. How dare they talk to us like this! This made me angry. They are the ones with the problem, they are living a lie! I don’t know if the word was spread to not associate with us anymore, (I can only imagine) but we lost all of our friends who no longer wanted to get together with us. At first this bothered me greatly. Then I realized that if this was their attitude toward us now, they never really were our friends. That was a confusing feeling. Once I accepted that, I was sad, but ok.
So, we carried on with our life and formed new real friendships with non-Mormons and when our younger children questioned us about not going to church anymore and said they wanted to go to church we hesitantly sought out another church. I say, hesitantly, because I didn’t trust my own instincts anymore and didn’t want to get involved in another cult or have fanatical people tell me what to do and how to act. I didn't even know if I believed in God anymore. Thankfully, a new friend introduced us to her church, the United Methodists, and we were welcomed and feel “at home”. Our children have had many wonderful experiences in helping others who are less fortunate through youth mission trips in the summer to Seattle and San Francisco to help in the homeless shelters and soup kitchens, etc. They will be going to New Orleans this coming summer to help rebuild. It is experiences like this, that they never had with the Mormon Church, that are helping them to have open minds and compassion for others. I now feel that this is a place where we can worship and help others as Jesus Christ would have us do.
The only “problem” we have is with one adult son who is still a totally brainwashed Mormon. At this point, I feel that I have to "let go" of my son and let him make his own mistakes even though it's quite hard for me to do as my natural instinct as a mother wants to protect him. It has been five + years since I've been officially "out" of the Morg and I have never once regretted the decision. My deepest regret is as I've said before: giving in and joining it. Those words I was told "it couldn't hurt" by my ex-husband have come to haunt me. It has hurt! Probably more than anything else in my life. I learned the hard way and I am still paying the price for my mistake through the confusion that it caused my children and the false doctrines that we have had to expel from our minds.
I am very fortunate that my husband and I are happy where we are now and that our younger children are having good experiences through serving others. I had finally reached the point where all the Mormon crap that people dish out didn't matter anymore (like ostracizing you after you leave the church). However, then I had an unpleasant discussion with the only one in our family that has stayed in the Mormon Church, my 26 year old son. He is so close minded that it makes me sad. I feel a responsibility because it was I who introduced my children to the Mormon religion. I have tried a few times over the last few years or so to get my son to read some of the contradictions and fallacies about the Mormon Church but he refuses.
Then he nastily told me in an email that I am a hypocrite because I left the church and had doubts about religion and that he will never speak to me again if I bring up the doctrines of the church ever again. Lately he is always rude and condescending to me about everything. I have discovered the hard way that the Mormon Church doesn’t unite families, it divides them.
Here is a letter I recently wrote to my son:
“Son”,
J, (our youngest daughter) told me she emailed you about her sadness that she can’t come to your upcoming wedding. It really doesn't matter anymore as I understand that you are going to do what you want no matter what I say. I cannot support you getting married in the Mormon temple though. We are hurt that you are choosing to exclude us from your wedding. Someday you will understand the wisdom that I have gained over the years and how I’m trying to help you to not make the mistakes that I made.
Please don't poison your little sister by telling her that you think I have lied to her. I haven't. I have given her the information that I have found about the Mormon Church. It is not a "true" church of God, it was created by a con artist and there are many historical documents to prove it. If you weren't so pig-headed you would use your God-given intelligence to read the real truth. But, I understand, the church teaches you not to read anything "anti-Mormon" because they are afraid that the truth will set you free and they will lose you. If you want to be bound to a church that was a scam to begin with that's up to you. Just realize how the devil must be laughing!
I know that you will realize that I'm right about this someday, I can wait. And right now you’re scoffing at me. You would rather believe that what they’ve been telling you is true than examine it for yourself. The real question is why would you rather believe them than me? Haven’t I been a good mother? Do you really think that I’m just so full of crap and that I’m just out to hurt you? Why? Why would I be doing this if I didn’t care about you? I have let you go and learn things on your own with minimal influence, always being there for you. I don’t call and bug you or try to “control” you. I help you when you ask for my help. Am I that bad of a person that you can’t trust me now? Please do some reading for yourself!
Dad and I are no longer brainwashed. He has read and studied on his own and he realizes the farce that we were fed. Dad told me that he thinks that you will find out the truth someday but for now you think you’re right. We’ve been there. Dad was raised with it, so he was predisposed to believing that it was all true. Dad and I started reading and we kept finding more and more shocking information that led us to the conclusion that there is no possible way for the Mormon Church to be a true church of God. We couldn’t believe how deceived we had been! It was a rude awakening and made us sick to our stomachs. The evidence is clear from all of the historical documents... Joseph Smith was a bad man... a pedophile, an adulter, a liar, a believer in magic, a conman, a bank frauder, a man out for power and wanting to be famous for starting his own religion.
The problem with discovering this is that it is a mother’s natural instinct to try to protect her children. I know that you are too old now for me to protect you anymore… but it grieves my heart to know that I was responsible for leading you astray and I have to try to make things right. That’s why I’ve been fighting so hard to let you know. I don’t want you to go to the temple because it is not the house of God! You make covenants to be faithful to the church, not to each other or to God. Did you know that? They used to have you make signs of slashing your own throat if you were unfaithful to the covenants of the church. Does that sound like something God would want us to do? Honestly? By the way, they changed the endowment ceremony a few years ago to remove that part. Do you think that God changed his mind?
You can call me a hypocrite or any other names that you want to use. You can tell everyone that I’m evil or “controlling” and make them believe it if you want. There’s nothing I can do about what you say about me. If you think though, even for a moment, that I am out to hurt you in any way, you’re wrong. My love for you is deeper than the ocean.
When I was younger I was very naïve and foolish. I let myself be influenced into joining the Mormon Church even though I didn’t want to. (I can give you the details about this if you want to hear.) In any case, I always felt uncomfortable going to the Mormon church; it never felt right to me. I tried hard to gain a “testimony”; in my alone time I prayed about it. Instead I felt a lump inside me that told me that it wasn’t good. But still, I tried to convince myself otherwise. I told myself, ‘if all these other somewhat educated people believe all this stuff (you know, we can all be gods and goddesses in our own worlds, etc.) then it must be right because how could this many people be deceived? Plus, I wanted to fit in socially. So I told myself to go along with it.
By the way, just to set the record straight... Dad and I were never "MARRIED" in the Mormon temple. They made us use the GYM in the Mormon Church for our wedding. It's a bad memory. It was not a nice wedding atmosphere, how could it be with a gym floor, no decorations and basketball hoops in the background? But, of course, they were punishing us for not being "worthy" to enter the temple. I'm so mad now at their self-righteous slobber! Dad and I have talked about this and he and I agree that we should have found a nice park or some other church to be married in. So, we’re going to re-marry each other on one of our anniversaries and have a nice ceremony because they took that away from us. And yes, by the way, you were there at our wedding. I have pictures to prove it. Your memory must be faulty.
Dad and I were still under the influence of the Mormon Church leaders when we went to the temple a year later to be "sealed". At the time, I thought the whole endowment experience with the Masonic handgrips to be ludicrous and it actually felt wicked to me. Of course, I couldn't tell anyone how I felt because I was trying hard to fit in socially. I regret it now because by doing this I wasn’t being true to myself. It was very confusing. Throughout the years I never understood the group mentality of the Mormon people. They proclaimed to be “Christian” but they didn’t live like Christians. They self-righteously shun people who are not members, especially inactive members and oh, my… even worse… former members who they call “apostates”! Do you think that Jesus would shun anybody?
I tried at least three times to leave the Mormon Church over the years. It’s very difficult to extricate yourself once you’re in. Especially if you’ve been trying to convince yourself that it must be you that’s wrong because how could all these other people be wrong? I was so fed up with all the vague answers and the hypocrisy of the members that I finally couldn’t take it any more. Dad and I didn't resign because we were "offended" by anyone and we didn't resign because we weren't "worthy". I'm a mature woman, J, and if someone offended me I know how to handle it. If it was really the true Church of God no offense would matter. We decided that we couldn't deal with the cognitive dissonance anymore. We were tired of the pat answers repeated often such as "there are thing we don't understand now" and "we just have to have faith" and "don't ever question the leaders of the church", and on and on. In hindsight, I realize that they couldn't answer our questions because they themselves didn't know the answers, but they were comfortable with their excuses. I’m glad that’s what finally led me out and started my reading. Dad and I started to read and discover the real truth… and it was abhorrent to us. It was also a very confusing time for me. I felt so misled and deceived and like maybe there isn’t a God if he lets this many people follow the devil! But He gives us our intellect and our free agency. What we choose to do with that is up to us.
I went through a time when I doubted the existence of God… I know you remember that because you are throwing that into my face now by calling me a hypocrite. It must be nice to be so smug and call your mother names. Does it make you feel good to try to hurt me like this? And to tell your sister this? Wow, son. That’s incredible. Whatever. The worst thing you can do to hurt me is to get married in the Mormon temple and you seem bound and determined to do that. So be it.
In any case, after all the lies and confusion that I sorted out I discovered that I do believe in God. But I believe in a different God than the Mormons. My Christian God sent his son, Jesus Christ here to die for my sins so that I can be redeemed. I learned that God gives us His grace and salvation by faith in Him, not by works. Sure, we need to strive to be good towards others and live a good life but the Mormon requirement of works is just not a part of His plan for salvation.
I have learned so much by going to the Methodist church. By the way, did you know that my grandmother and great-grandparents were Methodists? Not that that matters, just interesting, and it doesn’t make the Methodist church the only true church – that’s something coined by Joseph Smith to entice people to join his church. The Methodist church actually teaches things out of the Bible in contrast to the LDS sacrament meetings where you listen to people give talks about “I know this church is true. I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. I love my family…” blah, blah, blah, over and over. Even in Sunday School they don’t teach much about Christ - they teach about Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, etc. Don’t you get it? It’s a man-made church where people worship the early leaders instead of worshiping God!
I don’t claim to be a religious expert. You can research “my church” if you want and point out all the foibles and I’ll listen because I am open-minded. In fact, if you want to read and discuss with me the historical information on the Mormon Church and tell me that it’s all wrong after you’ve read it, I’ll listen to you. In fact, prove me wrong! Don’t be afraid to read. If it’s all a bunch of garbage and the church is true you’ll be able to discern that after reading all of it. Or are you not confident in your ability to discern right from wrong? Come on, you can do it. You don’t need to be advised by Mormon leaders about what to read and what not to read… you are an adult who doesn’t need to have a church exert control over you. Certainly "truth" has nothing to fear from an honest, careful investigation of ALL the facts.
I found this quote from someone and I agree completely with it: "In the years since leaving the Mormon Church I have never regretted my decision for a moment. Subsequent study has given me a hundred times as much damning information about the church and its history as I had at the time of my original decision to leave it. Many Mormon friends and family members have tried to convince me that I made a mistake, but when I insist that they also listen to what I have to say about my reasons for believing the church to be false, they soon abandon the attempt, even though I assure them that my mind is open to any evidence or reasoning I may have overlooked. They are convinced that I apostatized because of sin, lack of faith, stubbornness, pride, hurt feelings, lack of knowledge or understanding, depravity, desire to do evil or live a life of debauchery. None of those reasons is correct. I left for one reason and one reason only: the Mormon Church is not led by God, and it never has been. It is a religion of 100% human origin."
You can find links to lots of reference materials online. Just type in “ex-Mormon” and it will lead you to plenty of unbiased information. There are thousands and thousands of people who have discovered the real truth and left the church - and they have no axe to grind. Most of us are actually good people, not worthless individuals who have left the church because of our sins - as the Mormon Church would have everyone believe. We are also not devil worshippers who are trying to lead others astray! LOL! They have to explain it away somehow! Those of us who have chosen to leave have not done so due to loss of testimony (something subject to a variety of interpretations) or sin (although that might be a fun way to beat feet). We've left because, through rational and logical thought processes, we have concluded that the Book of Mormon is a complete fraud and the Mormon culture is a controlling cult, and we want no further part of it.
Ever have someone you love think you were sent by Satan to corrupt their heart and soul because you tried to give them facts about their church? Just facts, not even opinions. Ever watched someone become brainwashed by a cult, manipulated by lies and turned against the people closest to them? I have and so have many others. It’s quite an experience.
I think it’s extremely sad that you and your fiancee won’t have a nice wedding and have all of your family and friends there. God isn’t exclusionary. Good luck with your decisions. God Bless you.
I love you.
Mom
PS: If you’re still reading this, please read the following that I found:
"Come on! ye prosecutors! ye false swearers! All hell, boil over! Ye burning mountains, roll down your lava! for I will come out on top at last. I have more to boast of than ever any man had. I am the only man that has ever been able to keep a whole church together since the days of Adam. A large majority of the whole have stood by me. Neither Paul, John, Peter, nor Jesus ever did it. I boast that no man ever did such a work as I. The followers of Jesus ran away from Him; but the Latter-day Saints never ran away from me yet...When they can get rid of me, the devil will also go." Words of Joseph Smith (History of the Church, Vol. 6, p. 408, 409)