I remember a quote in the Book "Life Everlasting" in effect saying that people are born into bad families because they were not good spirits in the Pre-existence. He was talking about white people with "bad" ways.

I was hurt when I read that. It wasn't only black people, and to some extent other non-white people who were unfavored by God in the Pre-existence. Now I was included. My family wasn't the swiftest. Though still a TBM, I turned against the concept of Pre-existence.

Believing in the church while starting to disbelieve some teachings here and there helps to create the pathway out, even though it can take years to make the Final Realization.

That would refer to moi.

My Mormon family was a curse to me. Was I bad in the pre-life or were they?

Hyde was probably referring to Joseph Smith.
After all, Smith "married" and began sleeping with his wife, Marinda Hyde, while Hyde was on a "mission" to Palestine...

The quote was made in the Brigham Young years, if I remember right. I don't have the book anymore. Joseph was highly honored as the opener of the "restoration" and a martyr, but Hyde could have been thinking of him unconsciously.

I remember how much the church used to blab about how honorable the Smith family was. They were highly acclaimed, such honorable people! They had a great reputation with their neighbors. But then the internet came along...

Hyde at one point, in the Missouri years, declared that the church and its leadership had "lost the spirit of god." He joined with William Law in writing a screed against Smith and the church for their actions. He was disfellowshiped, but not ex'd. For whatever reason, he kissed and made up, and let Joseph send him on several missions -- while Joseph slept with his wife.

I guess he finally found that arrangement to his liking, though -- after Smith's death he started taking "celestial brides" himself. What at first made him reject Smith as having "lost the spirit of god" apparently became okey-dokey when it was he who was getting all the nookie he wanted. Nothing turns a weak man to the "dark side" faster, after he's condemned it, than giving him a little power and letting him be the corrupt one.

Joseph Smith was a swindler.

Not a great man. But a great deceiver.

I don't remember hearing that. But I do remember living it.

My family was poor, and both parents worked outside the home to make ends meet. There were times dad would be out of work due to the seasonal nature of his work that was construction. We went without a lot of the material things my peers and classmates took for granted.

Because our parents had a passionate relationship ie, love/hate for most of their marriage, we grew up in a mostly dysfunctional family.

Then they divorced by the time my siblings and I were in our teens. That really put a wrench in our home life and church life.

If we were so worthy, why all the strife and heartache? We were BIC/TBM.

It made no sense to me. Maybe why I became agnostic during my later teens. Until I prayed finally asking God if he was real or not. The answer to my prayer came within days and weeks. So I know there is someone who watches over us and cares for us. Learning I was loved by the infinite source of love in the universe was enough to convince me of my worth as a person and an infinite being. There is life everlasting. Of that I am sure.

I just no longer buy into the Mormon mythology.

Paying a full tithe was once thought to "bless" a family so a mother could stay home and raise zillions of kids for the church. At the same time, however, they demoralized people who were not able to be "self-sufficient". You could get some welfare help, but you would also feel a sense of stigma and receive a lecture about the obligation to become self-reliant. Yet they wanted you to keep having those kids.

Thinking back, LDS was an extremely stressful church to belong to, get married in, raise a family in. Only an elite kind of people could be successful in it. To fall short of their impossible standards produced depression, anxiety, guilt, feelings of failure, and a fear that you might be going insane. It wasn't worth the promise of that "forever family". Other churches believe that you can be with your loved ones in the afterlife, which renders the Mormon struggle to keep one's family--worthless.

But if we were just rotten spirits in the pre-existence, then we deserved all the misery anyway. Right, fellow ex-Mo's?

It certainly wasn't the church's fault, and my parents have claimed innocence, so that leaves a four-year-old boy to blame for his beatings. The little devil had it coming.

as my dad wasn't very active and my mom wasn't very social. She couldn't hear very well, so it made it worse. She was raised with 2 deaf parents, the oldest child in the family, and she was their voice from age 4 or 5 on until they died. People were not kind to their family either.

The first time I found out I as mormon royalty was when I came here. All of my grandparents, great-grandparents were pioneers except my grandmother, who was a convert in the early 1930s. I have a relative who was in the Martin handcart company. BUT I was never mormon royalty. When I knew my marriage was ending, I took my kids out of the church as I know how children of divorcees are treated. I was treated better in mormonism when I was with my gay husband who was cheating. Everyone loves my ex STILL. It obviously was my fault. My sister and I had a good laugh over the list on this board of qualities of mormon royalty and those lower on the list. We determined that my ex is still mormon royalty. She said it doesn't take long when they move for the wards to figure out that her husband is mormon royalty and she is the fringe element.

I sure want to go to the CK and be in the fringe element as I was all my life. I stayed because I wanted my family forever. I started worrying about that at age 5. I thought our family was dysfunction and all the others were perfect. Little did I know that our's was fairly normal and the families of the TBMs had huge issues.

So GLAD to be out of mormonism. I'm so grateful I got the parents I did. At least they were REAL and not the pathetic TBMs.