My personal belief in the LDS faith was very short-lived; however I learned many good things from being a member of this faith.  I learned that open-mindedness mixed with guilt, sorrow and despair can cause a person to hope and believe in things that make no sense if it means the result will be they are loved, accepted and their sins washed clean.  I also learned to read the small print before signing on the dotted line because the small print is where you will find the deal-breakers. 

I was at such a place in my life, and I did not read the fine print when I was baptized in 2003.  I felt so good when I was baptized and gave my testimony of the "true" church! I gave it again at stake conference and did not stumble over one word! I believed the missionaries were sent directly from God and could do no wrong, they were not just young men to me, but the very mouthpieces of the most High.

Before I was baptized, I began reading the Book of Mormon and was given a pamphlet of the testimony of the prophet, Joseph Smith. I remember reading this testimony off the pamphlet about 4 times in the row on a car ride, mulling it over and over. Did this really happen?  Oh how neat! His story seems so real, it must be true. Why would he lie?   I'm absolutely not sure how my mind did this mental acrobat. To this day I am bothered that I could have believed in his story this way.
I came from a Christian faith already, and I had what Christians call a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  I just knew when I became a Mormon I would have even MORE of the Savior because I would have the fullness of the Gospel.  I read “A Marvelous Work and Wonder”, and was impressed with the Indian story in there of times where the Indians would tell of the Messiah in the Americas. (Mm hmm, I really was.)  I would cross-reference things from the Book of Mormon to the Bible and get so excited when I could get further "truths" and make sense of things in the Bible I could not made sense of before.    I read such articles in the Ensign that would stick with me forever.  One such article was about comparing other religions to lamps that just don't burn as brightly as my new faith.  Their gospel as told by the other Christians is not wrong, their gospel is just not full of as much light.  I liked this idea.  I tried to persuade my friends and family, and they thought I had gone nuts. They treated me a little differently after I converted. My sister and father didn't understand and they distanced themselves from me.  They accepted me, but not on the same level as before because they thought I now believed in some very odd things and they could no longer relate to me. 

My dad and his wife went to my second wedding that was held in the Relief Society room. They didn't understand why the Bishop hardly said anything. It was done in a jiffy and they felt it wasn't made special. At this time I was so naive I didn't understand that it WASN'T special. I didn't even understand that I was to marry or be sealed in the temple, and that this wedding was for life only and didn’t really count. After a year I could take the temple prep classes and so forth, but I was never to get there. It was meant for others, but not meant for me.

I started off in Gospel Principles.  Our class at the time was full of amazing people that were experienced and loving and wonderful.  I thought all Mormons were this way in the world.  I hadn't realized I just happened to be in a very special ward with authentic, very special people and it may have been more the exception than the norm.  There was an older gentleman in there that was so intelligent and wise about life and about the scriptures.  He would come to my home with others and they would talk to me, and it was very mentally stimulating to hear him speak; like brain candy. I soaked up his brilliance.   When my husband wants to be persuasive he will bring up such a person, and also our former Bishop who was indeed a special man that is irreplaceable as no bishop could otherwise be as lovely. 

I lived with Betty before my wedding so that I could remain chaste under her protection.  She was a very loving and wonderful older lady who had lived her whole life in the church and I remember her saying how the church had been so good to her and that she loved the church more than anything.  Believe it or not, this was the first time I took a bit of pause at her faithfulness to a church.  In one way I found it heartfelt and sweet, yet on the other hand, I wondered why no one was speaking about how much they loved Jesus Christ.  Oh well, no matter. Betty told me people were at different places in their testimonies. This made sense to me. Then I had heard from my friend at some point that men would have multiple wives in the celestial kingdom but that we women wouldn't care. We will feel differently about it then.  This bothered me. I was jealous anyway, only wanting my new husband to have eyes for me and not considering the possibility that he could join to someone else, but no matter. I asked another lady in my church who told me not to worry, and that if I had any questions about it to ask the bishop. I had started noticing when I would ask questions at certain points that I might be overstepping my bounds. 

I was one of the innocents who thought the church was so true, that I could ask anything about anything and there would be someone gladly to answer. I started sensing that this was not encouraged. The women would answer me by saying, "Ask the bishop." I soon realized that we are not free to discuss such deep things together that went outside the box or wasn't in the manual, or that I was not yet privy to know because I had not gone to the temple and it was too sacred.  Well, I wouldn't let that deter me from my faith whatsoever. I hardly skipped a beat.  When I had the men over that night and said “I heard men have to call their wives out of the grave by a name!” and laughed about it thinking it was all a big joke and not a true belief but something the haters made up, and they gave me a look of shock, but none of them replied to what I had said so I figured it wasn’t true.

I was offered a promotion with my same company with expectation that I would need to move to another state. We decided that I should take this promotion and we put our home on the market. I had to start my new job in 2 weeks, so I moved ahead of my husband to my new destination 3 months in advance while he took care of selling our home.  I went there, put money down on a new home, rented an apartment with a 3-month lease, and waited.  At this time I was less than a month pregnant with our daughter and I had only my dogs for company.  Those three months were wonderful.  I even went to fancy restaurants by myself.  I loved me and my life. I was the best company I ever had.  I stopped in to Deseret bookstore one day and purchased some new books, one was about Emma Smith.  I noticed a lot of the photos in the book were from the RLDS.  I had never heard of RLDS before.  I had no idea there were other branches of Mormonism. I was taught their beliefs did not vary, they all believed the exact same way.  No matter. That wasn't going to shake my faith; Just a little bump in the road. But wait. What? Emma was suffering? This is not the Joseph Smith I knew! He wouldn't have sex with other women. (Maybe they all have it together! No, quit thinking that way. That's bad.  Well, this is all bad!!) And so my worry started.  I really tried to make polygamy okay in my heart because God said it was His will.  Somehow now, I didn't perceive God anymore as very loving. I started to resent Joseph Smith as a prophet and I started to think God didn't love me like I thought he did. I was very sad.  I even took that and shoved it to the back of my mind. But when I would pray, I felt He wasn't listening or wasn't there at all. Deep down I felt he didn’t care.

It was shortly after my marriage that I realized my new husband believed with all his heart, but would not follow. In the 10 years we have been together he has never tithed one time. Not once!  And he would get angry if I did. He wasn't going to just give our money away.

When we moved to another state shortly after the birth of our daughter, he quit going to church and I went alone Sunday after Sunday.  I started to feel un-special there. I wasn’t getting the love bombing I once had.  No one seemed to remember who I was even if I introduced myself a dozen times. I felt left out of things, I felt like the bishop didn't care about my personal growth or my spiritual walk because my husband didn't go and we didn't tithe.  I wasn't going to the temple anytime soon, and it wasn't due to anything I had done. I saw the women with their believing husbands in their garments underneath their clothing and knew in my heart I would not be sealed in the temple or wearing garments. I would never really be Mormon, only walk among them. Not because I didn't have the heart or didn't want to, but because my husband was not a worthy priesthood holder.  This is when it started to gel for me. Why would my spiritual walk be determined by whether or not my husband was worthy?  Now I pretty much knew this religion was not for me.  I had not left though and did not think I would.

Then it happened, and the ending was pretty quick.
I went alone to Sacrament meeting at Christmas time 2009 and for the first time I chose to open my eyes.  Who are these people? I don't even know them, and they don't know me.  Sure I sit here with my assigned friend, but I've known her a year yet know nothing about what she thinks about anything, how she feels, her personal life, really anything one would expect to know about another person who visits in your home and you in theirs for an entire year.  I listened to the message, no meat, nothing interesting or profound, just stuff I had already heard, just another Sunday learning nothing new.  I noticed the tired and bored looks on people's faces, saw mothers or fathers get up with their children to go out in the halls when their child was just fine and didn't need to be taken out.  We had a few songs about Jesus, can't remember because there was no exuberance in the singing like I had remembered growing up in other Christian churches. The loudly jovial singing of carols in unison was not there.  No one cared at all about his birth, it seemed. I left and never went back that I can remember. Maybe I did, it’s all a blur after that.

January 2010 I started reading through the Bible in a year program on my phone.  I learned a lot about the Jesus of the Bible.  He was very loving and he wanted to know me. I felt drawn by him and by what Jesus said about grace. Not so much the others (like Paul or Timothy), just considered what Jesus taught the most. And mostly it boiled down to two things: Love the Lord with my whole heart and my neighbor as myself. Those are two very simple rules.  The others were just the testimonies of some good men, but I certainly was not going to follow any man's direction again even if they lived way back when and in Biblical times.

When my husband told me I am not to pray to Jesus, only our Heavenly Father that is when in my heart it was all over. I already had prayed to Jesus and God my whole life, I wasn't about to quit. I knew that it was more fulfilling already because I had experienced it.  Jesus was being eliminated. He was going away and I didn't sense his presence in the church and don't sense his presence in my husband, who, by the way, is perfectly happy being zealous, angry and judgmental in his faux belief with no intention of ever following it. He isn’t even ashamed, embarrassed or bothered by that.

If I know a few things about some of the good people of this board is that some of you are thinking I left one senseless thing for another senseless thing; one magical thing for another magical thing.  This is a line used by many, I’ve noticed.  Isn't it funny how a good response to something comes out and it gets used to death?  Well, I need Jesus, and I need his grace. I just need him in my life. The one I knew when I was little.  The one that loves the little children, all the children of the world. “Red and yellow black and white they are precious in his sight.”  That one. Not pray to Him? No. This was no longer going to work for me.
I removed my name in September 2010. My husband preaches to me still; about what, I don't know. What is he saying now? What IS the fullness of the gospel, and why is it so much better to put some men in the middle between me and my Maker? Remind me again why I joined? Hmph!!! Indeed....  I will never be Mormon again.

I don't go to church, any church. I have had a bit of a realization and formulate my beliefs based on my own interpretations of things that make sense to me.  I have noticed that in nature there is imperfection at the same time there is beauty. Ever listen to the beautiful singing of birds in your back yard? They have whole social networks going on up there. Swooping around together, pooping.... the poop, there’s the imperfection. The thing you have to clean off your pavement and clean out of your pools. But the birds sing.  I think of people in this way. We are not perfect, but we are beautiful in our imperfection. And if God made all of nature in its beauty and imperfection, he is not trying to make me something other than what he created. He is not trying to change what he designed.  I accept the grace of God. I accept that I am loved.   I believe man is fallible, as such I believe some of the stories in the Bible may just be stories. 
Even with my lack of experience in Mormonism there is a recovery period for me that is very real. I don't have the pressures of my side of the family being unhappy about my leaving; to the contrary they are happy I left.  But my husband looks down on me and thinks I am fallen. His family won't talk to me in any deep way, I am expected not to teach my daughter anything outside the faith, I am alone in my walk and when I find out new information I've no one who wants to hear it. I credit this board for giving me the information I needed at the time I needed it.

I am free from the church.  Am I imperfect? Yes. Am I Beautiful? Yes. And I believe it is on purpose and by design. The very reason a natural tree is more beautiful than a Bonsai that is perfectly manicured and shaped.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 06/29/2011 06:16PM by Eric K.