First, it's your life, subieguy180, not the bishop's or anyone else's. You don't need to explain your decisions for your life to anybody, and you certainly aren't obliged to provide any person with a list of your reasons to leave the dishonest, dysfunctional and VERY rich Mormon Church.
The best reason to not waste two years of your life as a missionary marketing lies-based Mormonism is that it's cultic. Who says so? Steven Hassan, America's leading cult expert. The church is listed on his website at
http://www.freedomofmind.com/Info/infoDet.php?id=140If you wish, you can show a New York Times report from last July, "Some Mormons Search the Web and Find Doubt", to the bishop:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/us/some-mormons-search-the-web-and-find-doubt.html?_r=0 (I strongly suggest you read it.)
In January 2012, Reuters, one of the largest news services in the world, reported:
"A religious studies class late last year at Utah State University in Logan, Utah, was unusual for two reasons. The small group of students, faculty and faithful there to hear Mormon Elder Marlin Jensen were openly troubled about the future of their church, asking hard questions. And Jensen was uncharacteristically frank in acknowledging their concerns.
"Did the leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints know that members are 'leaving in droves?' a woman asked.
"'We are aware,' said Jensen, according to a tape recording of his unscripted remarks. 'And I'm speaking of the 15 men that are above me in the hierarchy of the church.'"
"'My own daughter,' he then added, 'has come to me and said, "Dad, why didn't you ever tell me that Joseph Smith was a polygamist?" For the younger generation, Jensen acknowledged, 'Everything's out there for them to consume if they want to Google it.' The manuals used to teach the young church doctrine, meanwhile, are 'severely outdated.'
"These are tumultuous times for the faith founded by Joseph Smith in 1830, and the rumbling began even before church member Mitt Romney's presidential bid put the Latter-Day Saints in the spotlight."
(Ref.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/31/us-mormonchurch-idUSTRE80T1CM20120131 )
In the same week, ABC News in Salt Lake City, reported:
"The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is losing a record number of its membership. A new report quotes an LDS general authority who said more members are falling away today than any time in the past 175 years.
"At meetings like General Conference, Utahns may be used to seeing members of the LDS Church show up in record numbers. But according to a recent Reuters article citing LDS General Authority Marlin K. Jensen, for the church as a whole, the record in going in a different direction.
"Elder Jensen told the news outlet times have changed, and 'attrition has accelerated in the last five or 10 years.'"
(Ref.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2840941/posts )
Why would people leave the Mormon Church "in droves"/at a greater rate "than any time in the past 175 years"? Because Mormonism is a demonstrable fraud.
For starters, Joseph Smith created conflicting versions of his First Vision fable (lie). Details are at
http://mit.irr.org/joseph-smiths-changing-first-vision-accountsEven the LDS Church's Joseph Smith Papers website provides a version of JS' supposed First Vision (from his journal, no less!) that doesn't square with the official, 'faith'-promoting version. Details are at
http://www.postmormon.org/exp_e/index.php/discussions/viewthread/38350/You could ask the bishop used a hat to "translate" the Book of Mormon. I imagine that he'd say no. Well, here's what Mormon apostle Russell Nelson included in his July 1993 Ensign article about JS "translating" the BoM:
"Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness the spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and on that appeared the writing. One character at a time would appear, and under it was the interpretation in English. Brother Joseph would read off the English to Oliver Cowdery, who was his principal scribe, and when it was written down and repeated to Brother Joseph to see if it was correct, then it would disappear, and another character with the interpretation would appear. Thus the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God, and not by any power of man."
(Ref.
https://www.lds.org/ensign/1993/07/a-treasured-testament?lang=eng )
And here's what the church's Friend Magazine said in one of its article for Mormon kids:
"Joseph also used an egg-shaped, brown rock for translating called a seer stone. The translating was done at Peter Whitmer’s home, a friend of the Prophet’s where Oliver Cowdery, Emma Smith (Joseph’s wife), one of the Whitmers, or Martin Harris wrote down the words spoken by the Prophet as soon as they were made known to him.
"Martin Harris said that on the seer stone 'sentences would appear and were read by the Prophet and written by [the one writing them down] and when finished [that person] would say "written;" and if correctly written, the sentence would disappear and another take its place; but if not written correctly it remained until corrected, so that the translation was just as it was engraven on the plates.'”
(Ref.
https://www.lds.org/friend/1974/09/a-peaceful-heart?lang=eng )
A small rock supposedly imbued with a supernatural power in JS' hat that magically generated a "piece of something resembling parchment" - really?? LOL!! What about the purported BoM gold plates that JS said he was given by the angel Nephi (later changed to Moroni)?? LMAO!!
Here's the motherlode of info. about Mormonism:
http://www.utlm.org/navtopicalindex.htmHere's info. about the massive corporate/business aspect of the financially opaque LDS Church:
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-07-10/how-the-mormons-make-moneyHere's more info.:
1. "An Insider's View of Mormon Origins" by Grant Palmer (M.A., American history, Brigham Young University), "a three-time director of LDS Institutes of Religion in California and Utah, a former instructor at the Church College of New Zealand, and an LDS seminary teacher at two Utah locations. He has been active in the Mormon History Association and on the board of directors of the Salt Lake Legal Defenders Association." (Ref.
http://signaturebooks.com/2010/02/an-insiders-view-of-mormon-origins-2/ )
2. "Early Mormonism and the Magic World View" by Dr. D. Michael Quinn, "a professor of history at Brigham Young University, and a visiting professor of history (2002-03) at Yale." (Ref.
http://signaturebooks.com/2010/02/early-mormonism-and-the-magic-world-view/ )
3. "Losing a Lost Tribe: Native Americans, DNA, and the Mormon Church" by Dr. Simon Southerton, former LDS bishop and "Principal Research Scientist in the Applied Biotechnology and Genomics area of the Commonwealth Scientific laboratories (CSIRO) in Canberra, Australia" (Ref.
http://signaturebooks.com/2010/02/losing-a-lost-tribe-native-americans-dna-and-the-mormon-church/ )
4. "The Changing World of Mormonism" by Mormon history experts Jerald and Sandra Tanner:
http://www.utlm.org/onlinebooks/changecontents.htm5. "Early American Influences on the Book of Mormon" by researcher Tom Donofrio:
http://mormonthink.com/influences.htm6. "The Lost Book of Abraham":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcyzkd_m6KEWant even more info. to add to your list? Check out my posts at
http://www.postmormon.org/exp_e/index.php/discussions/search_results/d9ad38a03d4d9355d0a3bf0bde4ec23f/ and
http://exmormon.org/phorum/search.php?2,search=,author=The+1st+FreeAtLast,page=1,match_type=ALL,match_dates=0,match_forum=2,match_threads=0Finally, you can resign from the dishonest Mormon Church via email. Instructions are at
http://www.exmormon.org/remove.htmBest wishes!