When I divorced my two daughter 9 And 11 and I moved to a new town. My girls made friends with Mormon girls at school and wanted to take the lessons. I agreed but told the missionaries that I would listen to the lessons to find out what the girls were being exposed to but I did not want to become a Mormon Within two months the girls were baptized and I became a Mormon about 4 months after that. The girls from school were the Bishops daughters and he and his family lived on the street next to me. Even though a was considered a "Single Adult" the Bishop's wife and I became friends. She was a sahm and I worked full time we had our girls and religion in common and I enjoyed her company. There were times when, without malice, she would tell me statistics about kids from "broken homes" and what trouble they could get into. I didn't take offense to this as she sincerely thought she was helping me lookout for the girls. I found out pretty quickly about the Mormon rumor mill and the Bishop's wife had most of the juiciest gossip. I really didn't buy into this because I had so much responsibility at work I didn't want to spend free time talking about what other people were up to. The young women teachers seemed to really care about my girls and I felt good about being in that ward.
Four years later the Bishop's 18 year old daughter was crying at my house and told me she was pregnant. I loved this girl like one of my own daughter. She asked me to come to her house when she was going to tell her parents, I was apprehensive because I know it wouldn't be well received but I went. Not well received? Holy shit. Her mom slapped her in the face and her dad told her he hated her. They asked me how long I had known, I told them literally 15 mins, and they asked me to leave their house. I was so shaken I didn't know they had that in them. They refused to look at me in church (as though this was somehow my fault) and they became the number one topic on the rumor mill. They had their daughter move out of her bed room and onto the couch den. They were showing their other children what happened to bad people. One of the grandmothers wrote a letter and said she was ashamed to have her as part of the family and God considers her sin second to a murderer. Holy shit. They told her she would give the baby up for adoption and then the boy's family got involved. They were not Mormon and were baffled by this behavior. They said their son would take the baby and they would help him raise it. A battle of wills ensued and the Boy's family threatened to take them to court. The next day they came and got the pregnant daughter and took her to their house and she had a room of her own again. She also visited my house and I thought the Bishop's wife was going to slap me. The Bishop pressured the two 18 year olds to get married at city hall and no one but the Boy's family attended. Once the baby was born the ,now man, enlisted in the Army in order to support his family. The marriage didn't last a year but the in-laws continued to have their daughter-in-law and their Granddaughter live with them. She had stopped going to church and had practically no contact with her family. They never once went to see their granddaughter. I left the church shortly after that. I hadn't really believed in what they said but would have kept going had this debacle not happened. I wondered how many other people were smiling and baring their testimony and hiding hate. Its easy to talk about how much you love your family until they don't follow the party line.