Alright, so for the past 2 days I have been reading a lot of information from exmormons and "nevermos" and what I have read so far about the LDS Church is indeed true, sadly. Why? Because I am technically a "Mormon" because I was baptized last year in the summer by a missionary. I also have read info. about the temples, and I heard that there are "secret" masonic rituals that go on in there and what not. Nothing Judeo-Christian about that. Additionally I have read the history about the LDS Church that Brigham Young was a drunk and polygamist, and that African-Americans weren't allowed to attain priesthood until the late 1970s.

So, what am I doing in a exmormon forum may you ask? I wanna leave this so called "church" because I feel cheated and the only reason I got baptized was because my dog(my best friend) was run over by a car on the street, and that made me extremely pissed, frustrated, and ferociously sad. I wanted a way to leave that harsh event behind and become happy again. And now that I look back carefully, I think I also did it to please the missionaries (very kindhearted young men btw). What I need now is some advice from you exmormons and nevermos on how to ditch this so-called "church." I have come up with some solutions that may work which include:
-Running away to another state, far away from my local stake, and any "detection" from other members.
-Come up with excuses to avoid attending church.
-Enlist in the United States Army (most basic training facilities/bases are in Georgia and North Carolina, far away from the "Mormon corridor")

And anything else I'll leave it to you.

Some Information about me:
-I am 19 years old
-I live in Northern California
-I live with my parents.
-I attend community college
-I enjoy world history(I should of looked into LDS history before joining, dumb me)
-I listen to rock/metal
-I love my country, the big ol' US of A

I appreciate the help, thank you!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/18/2017 08:03AM by almightyluigi.

right now I'm in a similar boat I stopped going to church but I haven't officially resigned yet I just got foot surgery and I don't want to confront anybody about my resignation yet. I do have a plan to move to another state after resigning as well. I've just been avoiding people from the church for the last 8 months but if you really want it to be over you got to resign. So if you don't want to run and avoid just straight up resign to the bishop with a resignation letter saying i want out.

Good advice, but the problem with that is I am such a spineless coward to confront the bishop about resignation (Mormon kindness is my weakness) and on top of that the "church" is only a mile away from where I live. So even if I do successfully resign, other LDS members and missionaries will harrass me to come back. I mean I can still resign, but that means flying under the radar everytime I get out of the house. I wish this was easy but it is what it is unfortunately.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/18/2017 05:22AM by almightyluigi.

You don't have to communicate with any of these people. I sent in a letter directly to LDS church headquarters informing them that I was renouncing their church and to remove me from their membership rolls. Put it in the letter that you will consider it to be harassment if you receive any contact from local leaders and that you have retained a lawyer. If local leaders try to contact you, don't answer the phone or the door or whatever. Just keep the communications between you and church headquarters in Salt Lake City.

Think about how much important, relevant information about the LDS church that your "friends" in the local ward neglected to share with you. You don't owe them any explanations of why you're getting the f*** out.

You and I my friend are in a shockingly similar situation I live like a mile from the church also and I also don't think the harrassment will stop it will get worse once I resign and facing the bishop is really something I don't want to do either. As the months go by the stronger I get and eventually I have to make a stand that I am totally finished with them so I can live a real life. I believe they will find you where ever you go so I feel its really important to get yourself off the records and to make a stand with them to not harass you ever again. Or you can hide and avoid forever its your choice.

Call the mishies. Tell them how much you love them, but also tell them all you found out and show it to them on the internet. Then tell them that if they should harass you, you will turn up at church to say all this in F&T meeting.

Leave them with a hug.

Yea you could leave a little more bold with a soft threat maybe I'll do that.

Running away will not resolve anything.

Eventually the church will track you down, forward your data to the church in the area you move to and the contacts and pressure resume.

Resignation will stop them from following you.

Heartless Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Running away will not resolve anything.
>
> Eventually the church will track you down, forward
> your data to the church in the area you move to
> and the contacts and pressure resume.
>
> Resignation will stop them from following you.

I was inactive and they found me 7 different times. Ever time i moved cult members would show up at my home/ apartment. This after i screamed leave me alone and dont contact me. It took threatening to go to the media and suing as well as having my name removed to stop the harassment. They don't honor bo contact and just being inactive.

Thats good to know so they will respect the resignation

"Respect" has nothing whatsoever to do with it. The courts compel them to recognize your resignation. They don't like losing lawsuits.

Resigning doesn't guarantee you will never hear from Mormons again. Even total strangers have the unfortunate experience of randomly running into missionaries and other forms of Mormon pests. But resigning does get you off HT and VT and janitor lists and off the ward roster.

Gotcha

Trained to debate and manipulate good to know, I think subconciously I knew that probably

1. Get another dog
2. Stay in school year round
3. Get a part time job that requires work on Sunday
4. If you are considering the military talk carefully to a recruiter and lock in a position that requires technical training. This will give marketable skills post military duty
5. Stop attending
6. Resign.
7. Keep us posted

Gatorman
9-4
21-5
1-0

Once I get my s*** together, and a part-time job, I will adopt a hound from the pound. About the military? I am definitely considering enlisting, since I was young boy I wanted to serve my country, become one of the nation's finest. Thank you for the advice brother, that means a lot.

almightyluigi Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Once I get my s*** together, and a part-time job,
> I will adopt a hound from the pound. About the
> military? I am definitely considering enlisting,
> since I was young boy I wanted to serve my
> country, become one of the nation's finest. Thank
> you for the advice brother, that means a lot.

Joining the military was one of the best things / career moves i have ever made.

You were caught by the cult when you were vulnerable. It could of been JWs or Scientology that recruited you instead. These types of groups go for people who are hurting. Be glad you figured it is a cult out now. You learned a life lesson at a young age. Use your new skill to protect yourself in the future. What you learned about Mormonism applies in many others areas of life. Your bullshit detector will be a valuable tool.

As Eric said, the Mormon missionaries are trained to go after people who are in vulnerable situations. Don't feel badly about succumbing to their professional sales techniques.

You can easily resign from the church. It can be accomplished by email. Complete directions for how to resign can be found here:

http://www.exmormon.org/remove.htm

It is advisable to resign because the Mormon church is likely to track you down wherever you move to (it sounds creepy, doesn't it?) Church members will call you and knock on your door. This is not a church that lets you go quietly.

Do not worry about resigning. The church loses many if not most new members, so the bishop and the membership of the local ward are well used to it.

Beyond that, one of the tasks of an adult is in learning that it is okay to disappoint others if what you are doing is in your own interest and harms no one else. In the USA, religion (or to be religious or not) is a personal choice that is guaranteed under our laws. Resign knowing that you are seeking after your own interest in a deeply personal matter, and that is perfectly okay and even advisable.

Keep pursuing your education and training because that is where most of your energy should be going right now. Don't get a dog until you get the military thing figured out.

Good luck to you! You have a lot of people on this board who are on your side. Let us know once you have fired off the email.

I graciously thank you all for the support that I need to fight this mess that I am in. It means a lot to me!

Thanks for the info and link I needed it as well. I've held off because like you said I know they won't go quitely and I'm not quite ready to deal with all that yet.

A big part of life is learning when to stand up...speak up...and shut up...not necessarily in that order...being assertive is difficult to learn but well worth the effort..ask me how i know...the first time you stand up for yourself and claim your right to be heard is hard...with practice it becomes easier...pleasing people can be a real curse...the sooner you decide who you are and what you believe...the sooner you set boundaries for those you interact with...NO can be a complete sentence...its also the one word that starts boundary implementation...say it with me now ..NO...if that is ineffective ill send you over to ron burrs for further training in the effective daily use of ..$&@& off...when no is not enough...jk but serious

I have to agree. You must learn to stand up for yourself now. If you don't, someone else, somewhere else will manipulate you


Absolutely resign via church headquarters not locally per advice given here.

I have yet to officially resign after leaving in 2003. I know eventually they will find me like they did my last state then I'll have to take official action. They will eventually figure out where you went through various documented techniques. I was a bishop and used those techniques.

Good luck.

I went to boot camp in El Paso. I found it to be like a dance school, with the choreographers wearing Drill Instructor hats. I don't know why they didn't issue olive drab tutus.

Study more church history, especially Joseph Smith. His sexcapades were truly mind blowing. Look up Helen Mar Kimball, Nancy Rigdon, the Johnson sisters. If he liked a pretty woman, he would send her husband away on a mission and marry her in secret. In the end, he declared himself king. While awaiting trial for treason in Carthage, he sent orders to the Nauvoo Legion (his army) to come bust him out. Napoleon much?

However, all the lies and manipulation they use to get you to join are just the tip of the iceberg. The real ship sinker is the appalling nature of cult psychology. They carefully take away your capacity for independent thought in order to enslave your mind. They plant neuroses there and control you with guilt. It's sick.

I have also read about that, and Brigham Young's involvement with the Meadows Massacre (an unprovoked mass killing of local native tribes and other Mormons I believe). I think the most ridiculous fact about Joseph Smith is that when he discovered the "golden plates" he stated they were "Reformed Egyptian" which according to scholars DOES NOT exist at all. Not to mention no real evidence of Lamanite DNA among the inhabitants of Central America. There's definitely more to learn from this despicable s*** show we call Mormonism.

If you plan to join the military don't get a dog. You could be seperated from it for years.

Do know what kind of training you'd like and try snd get a military job doing it.

Consider th err guard and reserves as well.

For now I am considering either National Guard or the United States Marine Corps Reserves.But yeah, I think I will get a pooch once I am financially and mentally stable. Too much stuff going in my mind right now as we speak. This will all happen one step at a time.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/18/2017 12:04PM by almightyluigi.

The Air Force gets a lot of recommendations on this board for having the best quality of life among the U.S. armed forces. You might give it a look.

almightyluigi - I wish you luck in your next move, be it the military or school.

I will echo many here and suggest you write a resignation letter to LDS Church Headquarters, and be sure to follow up with them to see if your name is removed from their "list." They may not respond or may brush you off, but keep persisting.

I had an instance (well before I left the church) when I had emailed one of the women on my visiting teaching route (the president of the relief society wanted me to write letters to the "less actives"). I had emailed one of the women on my route, and her husband responded stating that they do not want any contact from anyone from the church whatsoever. And if he heard from me, the missionaries, the bishop, etc., he will consider it to be harassment. After showing my supervisor this, they have not receive any correspondence since (so show I was told).
If you have home teachers, you may want to tell them not to contact you or you would consider it to be harassment.

I found out about the truth about the church (some of it actually, polygamy, racism, the BOM - I learned about more truths after leaving) around this time last year. I still tried to attend church because 1) I believed that it was still fundamentally good,despite its history and 2) I had devoted twelve years of my life to it. But after a few months, I knew I couldn't be a part of it, or pretend that I believed in it.
Instead of just leaving, I spend a lot of weekends out of town, visiting family as an excuse to not attend church (because if I missed a Sunday, many of the members would send me texts asking if everything is okay, and saying that they missed me). I also had TBM roommates that are self described Hardcore Utah Mormons" that would give me a hard time if I decided to skip church.
After that, I found new job that was quite a good distance from Columbia, and then just moved away. I am now working on my resignation letter before my new (or temporary rather) address will be found, and the missionaries find me.

In hindsight, I wish I would have just left as soon as I discovered the truth that I did, but it can be tough sometimes. Revealing that you don't believe in the church, or you've found out of the truth about it is a bit like coming out of the closet; you want to do it when you feel comfortable and safe enough. But either way, members (the Bishop especially) will automatically assume that someone in the church had "hurt your feelings," or just bear a generic testimony, thinking "the spirit" will speak to you, or assume that you are hiding or performing a serious sin, and you want to get out because of it. I couldn't put up with that, because it had really hurt me to discover that what I had devoted twelve years of my life to (and had given up so much for) was a fraud. So the pain was too real and raw for me to want to deal with that.

It's great that you've learned the truth about TSCC so young, and you did not get sucked in like I did. I was pretty lost and vulnerable when I investigated and joined, so it was easy for me to get sucked in.
Sorry for the long post. How did your parents feel about your joining the church? Do you think they'll be fine with your leaving?
Good luck to you. Please keep us posted on your next move.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 02/18/2017 03:44PM by severedpuppetstrings.

My parents were ok with me joining the "church" a while back, in fact, my mother is an "investigator" at the moment, while my father is a non-believer. Luckily, both of my parents are not legally married so my mom can't get baptized, great right? Also, most of my friends and family encouraged me to get baptized, mostly because of my troubled past(I was a low life thug in high school). In honesty, no, I have not talked to my parents or any of my family members about leaving the LDS Corp. I am actually afraid of telling them that I want to leave. So, it will take a while for me to leave the cult, maybe a month or so, but I will definitely leave at all costs. Sorry for the long post too lol

No worries! ;-)

I like your name severedpuppetstrings

Thank you! :)

If you enjoy history at all, Mormonism is not for you. Get out while you're still young by resigning your membership. Then you can have peace. If you still need religion, find something middle of the road, old-school. Personally, I'd suggest no religion.

Read Trails end's post again, and again :)

I too joined TSCC at a very vulnerable time in my life. I'm embarrassed to say how many years I stayed stuck in it, but two years ago I determined for sure that the LDS church is a fraud and have had nothing to do with it since. Where I live, there are so few Mormons left (Hooray, internet!) they don't come and bother me. But if I were to send a resignation e-mail, they WOULD travel the distance to try and talk me out of it! I have postponed, but I still consider myself an ex-mo. I think that in your case, as others here have recommended, resigning with threat of a harassment charge if they bother you is likely the best way to go. I'm glad that you're getting out now. I look back at many years of tithing payments and mourn over the good I could have done with that money, both for myself and for others. There were a few times when I had needed their Deseret food help, but if I had kept the tithing, I could have bought my own food! Plus I could have visited Catholic and Protestant food pantries, and they would not have tried to make me work it off! Nowadays, TSCC sticks most welfare recipients with cleaning the meetinghouse--especially toilets.

You are right about non-Mormon food pantries, Brigid. My former school hosts a food pantry supplied by a community food bank. All people have to do is show up, hopefully with boxes or bags. They receive a wide variety of healthy foods with no further obligation.

Sorry about your dog!

Please don't let the Mormons, or the avoidance of Mormons run your life! You take charge, and set boundaries. When my children and I became "less active" we were harassed constantly, by Mormon neighbors, the HT's, the VT's, the bishopric, the stake presidency, etc, until we finally officially resigned, in order to stop this onslaught! It was extreme, in our case.

Resigning made it all go away! Sure, we get the occasional demand to "read the BOM" and the usual "Why are you so offended?" But mostly, we live in peace. The Mormons are shunning us, which can be unpleasant, but is much better than being in their cult.
We have great non-Mormon friends. My children are grown up, and have bought homes in this same neighborhood. We live near the ward house, but I just take a different road, so I never pass by there. I shop at a different grocery store--a health food store--away from our Mormon neighborhood.

Don't let Mormonism change your life in any way--it's not worth it. It's all lies and threats and weird-ness.

I'm from Northern California, and that's a great place! There weren't a lot of Mormons there, and the cult is disappearing fast from there. Our ward house is now single-family dwellings. Our stake and five wards have disappeared altogether, and there's only one ward in Atherton, and a Stanford single and married ward.

Be glad your parents aren't Mormon. If your relatives are Mormons, just be assertive with them. Even if you like a Mormon, he/she is a liar. He/she has that ulterior motive of converting you, to gain approbation from the other Mormons in his/her life. That's all. The friendships and smiles are all fake. You owe them NOTHING.

Repeat after me.

"No."
"No."
"No."
"No."

You will have to say this one-word sentence at least 30 times. If you say anything more, you will open yourself up for debate, and Mormons are trained--professionally trained--to debate and manipulate. Run!

You seem like a very cool person! Good luck to you!

Resigning takes your name out of the local ward computer system. You will no longer appear on their membership lists. Right now, your name will appear on your hometeacher's list of people to visit each month, your name appears on the elders quorum list, your name appears on the ward directory, your name appears on the missionary's ward list, etc.

When you resign, the next time any of these people print the updated lists your name will no longer appear. It only appears in the central system in SLC headquarters as a former member.

It might take time, but eventually the ward will forget about you. If you don't resign, you will forever be on their lists as an inactive member that needs to fellowshipped back into activity.

I understand being scared. I had the same feelings. It took me a good two years before I just didn't care. You will be free as well. Free yourself physically first. The mental will come. Stay in touch here. This group helped me more than they know.