I was BIC and raised going to church every week until my mission in 1979.  My father served in the Bishopric from the time I was 7 until 17, during which time, I felt like I was being raised in a single parent household.  My Mom did the best she could, but for some things a boy just needs a Dad.  Family outings and vacations were something other kids in the neighborhood got to do, but my Dad was true to his calling, while forgetting the church credo of "family first".

I worked very hard at being a good missionary, but for some reason, it just didn't click in and I started having questions of my own, such as how can something be true for one generation and then not true for the next. 

I came home after my mission and married my high-school sweetheart.  We wanted a family very badly, but things just were not working out as planned.  After 10 years, we finally conceived, but my faith had been shaken to the core as to why someone doing the right things doesn't get the "blessings" promised in a patriarchal blessing?  The stress in our home was very thick and we eventually started growing away from each other.  I strayed and was eventually excommunicated.

I thought this may be a process to get a testimony and earn my way back into the fold.  I was wrong.  I was immediately ostracized and found myself on the outside of everything looking in.  From a chruch that teaches love and compassion, there were neither.  My wife said I was just not trying hard enough, but there is only so much an ex-ed Mormon can do.  You can attend meetings and that is about it.  No one at church would look me in the eye, no one would make the old chit-chat that "members" enjoyed making with each other, even my wife was made to feel like a second class citizen, even though she had done nothing wrong.  The church of "love thy neighbor" turned into the church of "love thy member".

After several years of trying, my wife and I divorced.  I have since re-married, and enjoy the "Sunday's off with a 10% increase".  Some of the doctrine that I had/have a hard time with will never be resolved as "The Church", likes to refer to them as new revelation.  My question is "why, if God is perfect and unchanging, is His church always making changes?"  I am not bitter about what I did to lead to my leaving the church, but perhaps a bit bitter about the treatment the "followers of Christ" give to those that need the love and attention the most.  I was always taught that the church is true but the members are not.  How can you have a true church and then have devoted members that don't follow the creed and don't have actions taken on them for not following the lead they have sworn to uphold? 

I still believe in many of the tenets of the church, but will not ever be going back, because I don't think that that is the way Christ would want to have his church run or followers behave.