I became a convert to the LDS church in 2010. I never felt 100% right there, but I felt a lot of positive energy from a lot of people. It seemed like a church genuinely concerned about their fellow humans. I had observed my wife and her involvement with the relief society for quite a while before I finally joined the church. The relief society was impressive to me, all their social activities and community projects that helped a lot of people. It also seemed like a church that appreciated both men and women equally. I was told the church accepted the gay community, which was a big issue to me as my dearly departed brother was gay and I stood by him for his rights. I believe in equality for all in all things.

We had developed a few friendships and felt we could really talk with the stake president. He seemed like a real nice guy. Despite his seeming niceness, we got into a terrible discussion one day. I was taken by surprise when he launched several very personal questions at me. I obviously had a worldy past and he attempted to comb through it which was none of his business. I held my temper from telling him off, but left his office hurt and insulted by his attitude. I knew I hadn't done anything to deserve his line of questioning and I almost didn't go back to church. The attitude in the ward seemed to suddenly cool towards us for no valid reason we could think of.

Shortly after this California was dealing with Proposition 8. Hearing the leaderships encouraging people to tell their families in California to oppose same-sex marriage angered my wife and I to the point that we had enough and went inactive. We moved to Utah just to get a fresh perspective on things. It wasn't the spiritual happy place I hoped it might be. It was an angry and prejudice place. After a year, the LDS church seemed like they were trying to make amends to the LGBT community. We decided after meeting this nice couple to go back to the church. I got the priesthood there. The bishop in that ward told me how impressed he was by me. But my wife and I are an inter-racial couple and got treated as such by a lot of the members to our surprise. It was a very dark and cold ward. Fortunately, despite that, we found a handful of nice people. We hated living in Utah though and went back to the town we had just left prior. My wife missed her dad who lived there.

We were in a newly formed ward and right away were called to be ward missionaries. As I love people, I was excited about this. My wife started going to the temple, but started feeling strange while there. Something didn't feel right, but she said she wasn't allowed to tell me anything about the temple as I was not yet going. That seemed strange to me, the secrecy. Soon she just felt wrong about going and stopped. She also stopped going to church as it didn't feel right either.

I was asked to consider being ordained to the Melchizedek priesthood. I was also asked to go to the Temple Prep classes. I thought I was finally going to find out what my wife couldn't share. I prayed on these matters and was prompted to go ahead. It seemed that I needed the information.

One of the first things said in the temple prep class was that we wouldn't be told anything about the temple until we actually went and that it was to be kept secret. Then why was this called a temple prep class? The secrecy was a huge red flag to me. As I was aware that the LDS members did work with the dead, I was very concerned this class was not preparing anyone properly. To what I have learned from investigating other spiritualities prior, this is a very serious and potentially dangerous thing to do without proper training and preparation. A person working with the dead exposes themselves to various spirit encounters which can range from benevolent to violent and even insane souls. A person chances being drained of their vital energies as some spirits attach unwontingly, to even being possessed by the spirits being encountered. I as very upset with the LDS church being so spiritually reckless and irresponsible.

I was also told covenants would be made, but was not being told ahead of time for what. I found that to be the same as asking me to sign a contract with my life at stake without reading it. Seriously? I went home and prayed. I was prompted to get more information. What I found was very alarming and scary spiritually. I was now understanding why my wife felt wierd at the temple. Yes, the temple emitted a lot of energy, but now I was seeing that the energy there was stolen, extracted energies from unwitting members of the church that attended. The most valuable of these energies prized by practicers of magic is sexual energy. The information I found revealed that the practices at the temple were wrongly taken from the masonic temples. I was aware from a young age that the masonic temples conducted Satanic rituals due to the memberships of my grandfathers. I refused to belong to anything Satanic! I hate Satan and the evil associated. I love Jesus. I couldn't believe I was being tricked into a similar cult. I prayed to the God of Love through Jesus Christ and had the prompting to find out what more the church had to say in the temple prep class. When I did, the class confirmed what I was guessing at. I couldn't believe my ears when I was being told that it was a 'good thing' that mankind disobeyed The Creator God. That it was instrumental and 'the plan' that Satan be there to help mankind fall in order for awaiting spirits to have human bodies. What!? I numbly went ahead with my ordination for the Melchizedek priesthood which was scheduled for a little after the class, but I was struggling with all the conflicts of thoughts and emotions.

As soon as I got home, my wife and I prayed hard. We knew what we both had to do, RUN! We resigned immediately that day. We got our resignation confirmation a few days ago. We know we may have to endure ostracism soon. 81% of the population where we live is LDS. If it gets too bad, we'll have to move away for good this time. Hopefully there are some true friends that will stay true through this. If they are strong enough, they will.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/07/2012 04:42AM by mrwinternight.