One of the most disturbing and manipulative conference talks of the weekend was the Sunday morning session With Mr. Gonzales. He said speaking of giving your will over to Jesus Christ that “ we could trust him because he loves us“.

In my lifetime I have lived in two battered women’s shelter’s and in each of the shelters there are a myriad of women with broken bones and broken bodies and broken minds and broken spirits by their partners because their partners told them that they loved them And these women believed them and trusted them When otherwise their gut would have told them to run. And because that man said that they loved them, she stayed and she almost paid for it with her life. I only met the ones that were alive, but cemeteries all over the world are littered with the remains of women who were indeed killed by men who said they loved them and that the woman could trust them and then they were beaten to death.

The word “love” has become such a weapon in the church. The new young women’s team, begins with “I am a beloved daughter of heavenly parents...”, for years it was “I am a daughter of heavenly father and he loves us and I love him”, or something very close to that. What they’re doing with this apart from destroying the relationship between the child and the earthly parents who are actually paying for their lives like shoes and food, they are instilling in your mind that because your heavenly father loves you, you must trust him and if you trust him you have to trust his prophets who are telling you to give all of your time and talents and life to the church and make babies for the church and to constantly serve never thinking of yourself as was so eloquently Put forth by Mr. Ballard as he spoke of his wife Barbara and the selfless life she lived taking care of seven children and himself. Barbara lived the life that the Mormon church wants for women, a life full of busy service and of compliance and non-complaint.

Anyone who has begun their journey out of the Mormon church realizes that you can never give away your sovereignty. You can never ever give away your world anybody else. Especially an invisible God whom men here are saying that you must trust but in order to do so you must trust them and give up you’re well and your time and your money. Men like that or charlatans and will always devour your life and your mental health and your family.


The young women in the church are already bombarded with messages of surrendering, and sacrificing, and handing her will over to the Lord and to her husband. And those of us who have stepped away from the church have looked back in to witness the disastrous results of that. Her children have been taken by the Mormon church and her life has been all but devoured. You only have to listen to Mr. Ballard’s talk to witness the calamity that became his wife’s life.

My thoughts today would be to remind us all that love is an action. Love wants what’s best for you individually it does not require covenant keeping, rituals, tithing, belief in God’s or very dangerous men. Love invests in the very best in who you are. Love respects your choices.

When we are very small children most of our parents warned us not to go to people and strangers who are offering us candy and toys because they could hurt us and kidnap us. The same thing applies here. You do not blindly trust people who tell you they love you. You have to watch how they treat you and what they demand of you.

The Mormons like their love "tough."

They have a very strange relationship with the word love. Courts of love to strip you of your self esteem, of your humanity, of your dignity.

They will tell you it is an act of love to not allow you into their church, especially their Temples because of who you love. Is that ironic or what.

They will tell you hooking you up to an electro-shock machine was an act of love.

They will shun you and then love bomb you with something sweet on your doorstep, which is not an act of love, but a message to say, "Stop your evil ways and come back and obey."

And unconditional? That is a dirty word. Althought they will tell you Jesus loves you even as he punishes you and sends you to outer darkness and deprives you of your family for eternity.

With Mormonism "love" is indeed a very tricky work. Also useful. You can be as nasty as you want as long as you do it in the name of LOVE!

Some things that stuck out and bothered me.

Like you said, " she never complained". So she raised the kids on her own and never said a peep about the injustice in her life. Her kids never got on her nerves? She was just a walking angel. Amazing that she wasn't translated into a celestial being right then and there!

Second thing that stuck out. He mentions that she raised the kids, but not through her own strength or strategy, willpower,etc. But, with lots of help from the church and community. Communities and churches can help, but it was like she did nothing, everything just happened to her. They didn't really talk about what she did in life.. on her own.

I am sure she was a much more interesting person than the charity case that endured to the end without complaint.

Russell M Ballard was a car salesman. He sells the gospel like how you sell a car. You embellish. You paint a pretty mental picture.

God's love = condtional.
Mormon's love of God = unconditional.

Spot on. Trust has to be earned. The church tells it’s members to trust people they don’t know just because they hold a certain rank in the church.

You are absolutely correct in never giving your sovereignty away.

As much as my daughter likes to think she is TBM, she doesn't buy into this one. She is CONSIDERING having ONE child. Maybe. I wonder what she thought when she heard this talk.

I thought being married and having children would be the ultimate and it was horrible. I was never in a home for domestic abuse, but I was definitely emotionally abused by my husband and by the church. It did nearly kill me. Leaving the church was one of the best things I've ever done for myself.

Lori C Wrote:
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> You do not blindly trust
> people who tell you they love you.

You do not blindly trust people who tell you that they are the only way your loved ones can be with you after you all die.

Exactly!!! That is why I suffered so much as a Mormon. I was told that Heavenly Father and the Mormon church loved me - it was the first time in my life I was told I was loved. But that supposed love destroyed my self-esteem. I always felt inadequate; I was never good enough. It is the ultimate cog dis: being told you are loved and then treated like you are never good enough to be loved.

So members are not really loved at all, and to repay the love that is not really love, they do soul crushing things like leaving home and loved-ones to knock on doors for two years, trying to sell the gospel. They sit through boring and meaningless temple sessions and long meetings on Sundays. That is how they return the love. They are not loved by the Mormon church, but they try to love it back anyway by doing what is expected, and what is expected is devoid of love. It's really a loveless church.

I turned my back on real love to serve the Mormon church. I turned my back on real love to serve fake love. Serving fake love ends in unhappiness. I learned that the hard way.

Lori C Wrote:
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> The young women in the church are already
> bombarded with messages of surrendering, and
> sacrificing, and handing her will over to the Lord
> and to her husband.

And especially her church leaders but it isn't like they will listen to them.

https://religionnews.com/2019/09/10/mormon-men-are-groomed-not-to-listen-to-women/

Mormonism says "Jesus Loves You" (and infers it is Jesus himself) TRUST US!

Because their Book of Mormon tells them so?

Thank you for your great post, and thread, Lori C! I like the comments here.

What you say is true, and I was one of those young women groomed to accept abuse from men. My RM temple husband had all the qualifications one could ask for in a Mormon male, and he beat me almost every day (for no reason, so there was nothing I could do), and almost killed me a couple of times. I hung onto the sacred temple marriage, thinking I had no other choice in life, and I endured injuries for 14 months. I was suicidal, and pretty much destroyed, when I finally divorced him.

I was blamed for the divorce. Everyone said that I must have deserved the beatings. (My ex was a psychopath who had badly beaten his sister, assaulted several neighbors, and other horrible deeds, that everyone kept secret from me.

When I left that marriage, my other choice in life was rejection by my Mormon peers, and blame from the adults. I disobeyed, and left my husband. No decent Mormon man would ever want to marry me. My parents were ashamed. No one got me psychological help. I was on my own, yet I stayed in that abusive cult for several more years, and eventually married another Mormon male, who cheated on me from our honeymoon on.

I agree with everything you posters said about love and Mormonism! I'm a living, testifying victim of love scams. When I resigned, all of my loving Mormon ward friends disappeared from my life.

Where's the love?

I always tried to obey, never thinking of myself as independent or strong, in the least. I ended up working and supporting myself and my children, meeting all kinds of interesting people, traveling all over the world, helping others, solving problems, keeping people from cheating each other, having adventures with my children, learning with them, laughing with them. My non-Mormon life has been so rich and varied and joyful, that I can't imagine living a life like Mrs. Ballard's. Oh, I wanted to--I dreamed of living my RS president mother's life, who married young, married her first love, never had to be "out there" dating, was never abused, beaten, raped, or robbed. She never graduated from a university, never worked ONE DAY for a salary, never climbed a mountain, never remodeled a house, never worked for a REAL charity, never rode a horse, skied or water skied, never learned to ride a bike, never played on a sports team, never hiked in the wilderness, never won any awards, didn't love her children as much as I love mine, never had them turn out so well, never learned a foreign language, never played a musical instrument--and it goes on and on. She was wealthy, but in many ways, she was "deprived" of so many life experiences. She was "child-like" in her Mormon beliefs.

Calling bad things “love” reminds me of George Orwell’s 1984. I love this book and I found myself being able to really relate to it.

Most things about the mormon church are just like the government in 1984. The whole cult is just abusive: spiritually, emotionally and psychologically.

A lot of what mormon leaders say and do is gaslighting:
“That never happened; we never said that”
And naming things that are abusive in nature, and calling these things “love” is the ultimate act of gaslighting.

Evil