My mom came over for dinner tonight. Out of the blue the church was brought up, just offhandedly, and somehow it turned into a heated discussion...the first one we have had about the specific reasons I left the church.

I brought up Joseph Smith's wives and specifically Helen Mar Kimball. She didn't believe that he married a 14 year old so I showed her on familysearch.org where it lists Joe's wives and then I clicked on her name and showed her birthdate and date of marriage.

So then my mom said I couldn't prove that he had sex with any of his wives. I asked why he would marry them, then? She said, "To give them the blessings of the covenant." I said, "Well, a lot of them were already married. Why couldn't he just seal them to their husbands?" She said, "I don't know, but I don't think he had sex with them."

Then she went off about "Why are you so angry about the church, why can't you just let it go?" I explained that I was going through a process of recovering from mormonism and I was pretty much in the anger stage all the time.

"I am angry because I thought the church was god's true revealed gospel and to find out it was all a fraud started by a con man is pretty damn upsetting!" At that point I started to cry.

My 13 year old brother who has also left the church (as much as a 13 year old living with TBM parents can) and my boyfriend were shocked by this display of emotion. Actually, they were shocked I was talking about the church with my mom at all. My mom said, "Okay, you're in the anger stage, I can understand that. But why are you trying to shove all these reasons you left down my throat?"

I said, "Well, you raised me mormon, you taught me a lot of church things growing up, so to find out that none of those things were true, well, I thought you should know." (I am a little bit of a smart ass...).

She just laughed.

My brother said, "Mom, do you think Dad would leave you if you left the church? I think he would." (Yeah, he's a smart ass as well).

My mom said, "No, of course not."

It was a very strange conversation. I think it went well, (although my grandmother did come in screaming about how stupid I am and how I believe any old thing I read on the internet).

I think my mom is not as strong a believer as she used to be, and I think my brother might have a point.

It seems like she is hesitant to accept certain aspects of church doctrine (like polygamy), but eager to accept others (like being with family after death), which is completely understandable. I just wish she could find a more mainstream church that wasn't sexist, racist, or homophobic.

I didn't plan it, and I brought up Helen too. My Mom's response was that Joe didn't have sex with her. She also believes Joe really didn't want to marry any of his wives he was just obeying Gawd.

Mormon Mothers are a tough nut to crack. They seem to be the most loyal and biggest defenders of ol' Joe. My Mother never brings up religion around me now.