I joined the LDS church in November of 2005. My best friend had converted several months before me. When I first started to read the BoM I did so, wanting to find proof it was false to convince him to not go through with it. What I found was I had missed having religion in my life. I was raised around several different churches growing up and while I found some of the things I read to be odd, there where these little pieces of it that rang of familiar threads and brought a since of comfort to me. It would be a while before I would realize why they seemed so familiar well after I started on my path and was baptized.

I was endowed in December of 2006. My missionaries were still on their missions, and actually went with me, as well as my best friend and his new wife. He'd gotten me a job working where he worked, I was in a singles ward. The church did a lot of things that were good for me. I felt welcome with my ward, I went to Institute classes, I would go to firesides, FHE, sang in the stake choir.

My friend on the other hand was not as happy. He was cheating on his wife, hitting on me, and blackmailing me to keep it quiet. The more I kept hidden from the church, the more inactive I became. After I was told by the church how I should vote, I stopped going at all. Occasionally I would get emails or phone calls as the church would catch up to me. I dated on and off, though never church members.

2009 I started dating again, he is ex LDS, and I moved in with him. I got pregnant, and it was ectopic. I desperately wanted the support of the church but felt so guilty I couldn't bring myself to contact anyone. I started searching the internet for help. I ended up spending some time in LDS chatrooms. Many people there were very supportive, but because of my actions, and my admitting to the fact I had not held to church standards, and because of the nature of what I was explaining happened, I ended up banned from the main one.

My boyfriend and I broke up. I went through more bad relationships. Finally, last year after a rather bad breakup I was contacted by, of all things ward missionaries looking for my ex, who I still lived with. They invited me to come back, and I tried. Of course it was time to come clean about all the things that I had done.

My new bishop was nice enough, always busy, with this family ward I decided to visit, figuring the already awkward age gap at singles wards was just going to be worse now. Each time we talked, I left his office in tears. Finally he broke it down to me. He needed to pray on it, decide if I needed a formal hearing for all the things I had done while I was inactive. He blamed my failed pregnancy as well as other health issues on my not being faithful or repentant enough. Everything he said made me feel smaller and smaller, and more of a failure. I was asked not to go to meetings outside of my local Sunday ones unless he approved it. I felt even before the official decision I was already being cut out like a festering wound. He laid out the idea that he would be thinking of what punishment I would receive. If he decided I was not repentant enough, there would be a formal hearing, I could even be ex communicated or more likely disfellowshipped. Already I was being told to behave like they had already decided I would be disfellowshiped. Of course I was reassured that because I wasn't born in the church I was being given the benefit of the doubt and likely would not be ex communicated. I came to them in a time of need, where all I wanted was to come back, be good, have good examples followed, and I felt casted out and all anyone could tell me to do was to talk more to the same people who kept pushing me away.

The priest who had been blackmailing me had divorced his wife and left her for his mistress is still on church rolls, even after all of this mess. His ex wife worries that if she tries to remarry he would cause issues with her being sealed to her new husband. The one good thing that came of this is I was finally able to tell her the truth of what I knew to help her. She hopes that one day he'll be the one ex communicated but he contacted me recently saying all he had to do was talk to his bishop about it and that he'd be welcome back when he's ready to go back.

At this point in my life I still feel sad and lonely, and it's hard on me when ward members show up on my doorstep. I've stopped answering their calls, so the only way they have managed to make me talk is to corner me when I am home. They are always nice and polite, and I hate to tell them to go away, I do feel they think they are doing good, but all it does is make it hurt more.