So, here's part I: http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1829713


So after all the good suggestions, I wrote a quick email to the stake prez. I tried to be cordial and not a jerk, even though he pissed me off. Here it is:

Bro. So and so,

You told me I could ask questions about my 'loss of testimony'. If you can research and give better answers than the brethren and FAIR on these subjects, I will heartily return to church. Here's a link to most of my questions, although not all: cesletter.org. Read that and let me know. Also, I found it very disturbing that I asked you at least twice if you were visiting my home to see my wife, and both times you responded 'yes.' It then looked as if you were there to talk to me. I don't agree with the dishonesty, coming from somebody that's supposed to be in a 'leadership' role in his church. I felt ambushed in front of my kids and don't appreciate you bringing up subjects that I am not even allowed to talk to my kids about without severe consequences from my wife. Not to mention, if somebody is visually sick, it stands to reason that maybe a different time would have been more appropriate.

I am going to save you a lot of time, and ask you to please not come back. I no longer consider myself a member, and I would appreciate you putting me on a no-contact list (not that one exists). From what you said last night, you assume that I am feeling a certain way and that nobody leaves unless they are looking for negative things about the church. I found all I ever needed to confirm my decision by looking on the church's own website. If I ever feel the need to come back to the mormon church, I will contact the proper 'authorities'. I appreciate you honoring my wishes. Thank you for your time.

jdoubledub..


So, it took a few days, but I got a response back today. Here is what he said:

Hello jdoubledub,

I apologize if you felt ambushed or that I was dishonest; that was never my intent and I surely hope I did not cause more frustration between you and your sweet wife. I was unaware of you or your wife’s story prior to the visit. The ward mission leader set the appointment, he asked if I would be interested even though he was leaving town, I said yes, he sent his assistant to go with me. I was pretty much clueless and should have been a little better prepared and I am truly sorry for causing discomfort.

When you asked “would you like to see my wife?” I did not take the question as “are you here to see my wife?” so thus my response with a yes to both questions. I was happy to meet with just you or the both of you, whatever was convenient, it was a treat to meet all of you. You were very cordial considering the circumstances and I appreciate that.

In regards to the cesletter.org I am probably not the guy to respond to that good brothers questions in a way that would be helpful to you. However, if something comes my way, and I expect eventually something will, I will most definitely forward for your consideration.

Your wishes for no contact will be honored and forwarded to the bishop so he and other ward leaders are aware of your request.

Warm Regards,

Stake Prez.



Okay, let me clarify a few things that I didn't like about this letter back, and I hope I'm not nitpicking. First of all, the ward mission leader fixed an appointment??? My wife said there was nothing set, and now I'm not sure I believe her. Second, why would the stake prez be doing visits for a ward mission leader??? He obviously knew about my situation before hand. Lastly, all you have to do is look at my other posts on here and you will get a good history about my life with my wife. I can tell in an instant whether or not somebody 'talks to god' when they utter the phrase 'sweet wife.' If, by sweet, makes life hell, than they are correct. But I know that their inspiration/revelation is bullshit the second they utter that about her. Anyway, let's see how long they go without trying to contact me again.

My wife is very sweet, but for some reason, when Mormon leaders use the phrase "sweet wife," it has the "fingernails on the chalkboard" effect on me.

+1

"Sweet" has certain connotations which could cause anyone to grimace because it is so limiting of the love and respect that one should have including respect for the intellect of one's spouse. Yet it is so often used even by GAs. Rather, one should use terms such as "wonderful" and "awesome".

classic mormon nopology.

I am so sorry you have feelings.

+1

Good luck on the no contact request. Maybe it will be honored since he agreed to it and he is the Stake President. That may help on the ward level.

I noticed he didn't respond directly to your comment about overstaying while visiting someone who is ill. He had to skip over that because he was clearly inconsiderate and there isn't any kind of reply that would justify staying.

Hope you're feeling better.

Yes! That wording jumped out at me and instantly spiked my blood pressure. It's never, "I'm sorry I offended you," it's always, "I'm sorry you feel offended." There is never any ownership in Mormon apologies; it's always the other person's fault for feeling something. Drives me nuts!

"In regards to the cesletter.org I am probably not the guy to respond to that good brothers questions in a way that would be helpful to you."

Yeah. That good brother quit the fucking church right before they were going to kick him out.
As far as nitpicking. Yeah-a little. You won. They're going to leave you alone. That's huge (whether they do or not- that remains to be seen). Enjoy.

The "sweet wife" thing made my hair stand on end.

Your last paragraph says it all. I would say you are dead on with your assessment of ALL of it. Sorry man. Good luck.

See, and all of this could have been prevented with a phone call and a little honesty prior to the visit.

"Bro so&so,
The ward missionaries asked me to come over and bug you about the church. That ok with you...

No?
okydoky
bye."

Is that really so hard? What is wrong with a damn phone and a few manners?

Maybe back 100 years ago, unannounced visits would be OK. Not in today's society. Church leaders need to respect people's time and make appointments. This drop-in out of the blue stuff is always inappropriate.

You've made your position clear. Gave him something to read. Now all you have to do now is..... nothing! :-) He got the picture.

I have no idea why so many Mormons don't know it's rude and disrespectful to drop in on someone. That is a big problem with their lack of boundaries and social awareness.

The reply to the CES Letter is one that says he didn't read it.

Hopefully, you can preserve your family and get to a point where you can share your conclusions with your own children. That is only fair.

Hope you're feeling better!

I suspect the CES letter is radioactive for these guys. They've received directives from the mothership not to look at it, let alone respond. Those in too deep will obey in full.

I think the only way to challenge doctrine and dispute claims is in real time--i.e., sit them down, face to face, with all the docs spread out on the dining room table, and go down the list.

I don't have the time or patience. It's not my responsibility to take off their blindfolds.

I noticed that he also didn't apologize for inapproprately discussing it in front of the children.

He put everything back on you, you apostate just looking to be offended.

And if he thought you were asking if he wanted to see your wife he would have said, "Yes, can she come join us please?"

The Stake President isn't really the problem here, although his visit was annoying. The real problem is your wife. You need to stop walking around on eggshells. Say what you will in front of your kids. Not saying whatever it is you want to say isn't improving things.

I have read through your other posts. From what you wrote (if it is even remotely close to reality), your kids will come to hate your wife. She will become increasingly impossible for them to please as they get older (or maybe even now). They will suffer (or are already suffering) just as you are in the midst of all the craziness.

I hope you fell better from your current ailment, but more importantly, I hope you find the strength to break free for your sake and the sake of your children.

I'd like to share my testimony about what you said, and I know it's true. <sniff, sniff>. ;)

I think you are right. I've been feeling that more and more prevalent every day, and it scares me. The only problem, is how scared I am. I am sooo scared to leave. I am only just garnering the courage to stand up for myself. It's taken lots of therapy and finding the right people to help, but it's getting there. I just wish I wasn't so scared of it all. I'll get there, it'll just take time.

But you are very right and your insight is spot on. I just wish I had more courage.

You and your children are in my thoughts and I wish you the very best.

The following is a cheesy quote from the Dune series by Frank Herbert, but it has oddly given me comfort in the past:

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

It is such an excellent description of what you need to do with fear! How can it be cheesy?

I find myself thinking back to Dune often these days.

I regard it as one of those books you really need to read at some point in your youth.

jdoubledub Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The only problem, is how scared I am. I am
> sooo scared to leave.

Is that your only alternative to being yourself in your own
home? If you express your honestly held beliefs to your own
children, does that mean you have to leave?

Congrats on writing the letter! And, nice job.

Remember change does not happen overnight and is not always, maybe even often, easy. Also, never forget that the church holds a blue ribbon in the field of indoctrination, making fear real and scary when you break out of the church's circle of control.

I was so angry at the cult and so hurt by its mountains of lies which I had swallowed and followed to help me pound out a path to follow in life. But, what I was most angry about is when I discovered its first priority and concern is always the cult, and how, when it pushed its way into my husband and my life and teen in a time of real crisis, this is ALL THEY CARED ABOUT.

The cult knew without a shadow of a doubt what it was doing and did it. It could NOT have spent anytime at all looking into the facts of the situation......the only thing it saw was there was a chance to get a hold on a teen, try to make them a TBM mormon, all hidden from parents who they judged in all their worldly ability to judge, had no right to be in the child's life because they were temple-marrieds who broke their temple vows.

In my opinion, the cult is not worthy of any good people walking through its doors.

Keep being strong. Truth, honesty and facts are worth the fight.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/11/2016 03:42AM by presleynfactsrock.

"In regards to the cesletter.org I am probably not the guy to respond to that good brothers questions in a way that would be helpful to you."

I wouldn't let him get away with that. He is the "Priesthood" leader, He is EXACTLY the person to answer your questions. The coward didn't even offer who would be better to answer them.

Personally, I would respond that I expected answers from HIM, and if he won't then he is a liar for promising he can and would earlier. I would tell him so and tell him that he is a coward, an no leader of any kind if he doesn't.

These people speak for God? How stupid do they think we are. They are a gaggle of cowards and weaklings, and nothing more.

I think you hit that nail on the head!

I think you have the Stake Pres. in the hot seat. You can let him off if you want to but I think I would consider lighting a few more matches. Call him on his bull sh1t response letter. Also, I think it's time to put your wife on the hot seat. Let her be the one to defend "her" part in all of this. She or the Stake pres is lying and probably both. I hate dishonesty and deception though. I tend to just call those who do it to the hot seat and then walk away. JMHO

Please tell me you actually addressed it:

Dear Bro! or, even better: Hey Bro!

I would very much like to see his face!

Your encounter with this man has been simmering with me, and I second the shout to hold him 'accountable' for all his bullshit he let loose on you during his rude visit.

Like, he did not know prior to his visiting your home the situation about your church status and marriage situation??? Spare us. He (hehe) showed his true colors as soon as he barged into your home. He rudely came unannounced and was going to stay since, you know HIS time is so precious and by god, after making the effort to come, even if you were sick as you were, he had the right, yeah, the mormon right, to stay. I think the missionary leader said to him, hey prez, we could sure use your help one this case where the wife is a devoted 'sweet' Mormon serving as primary prez, and the deadbeat husband, who has been on a mission and holds the priesthood for gawd's sake, needs to be 'reminded' of his responsibilities. And, with this, the stake prez in all of his mormon love and kindness arrived and spread a layer of guilt over you.

How he called you out for having the gall to make him responsible for his bursting in your home and STAYING when you were not well at all, you seeing through his ploy to make it seem he was visiting your "sweet" wife, and his telling you that the internet is a bad thing that gives out too much information too fast (puleez, tell me how this makes it BAD!?), and then, from his position, which he KNOWS he is rightly lording over you because he goes to church and you do not, he admonishes you to remember the basics of the BoM and doctrines NEVER change and will guide you (whew, there are sure a hellufalot of documented changes in both of these for there being no change whatsoever!)

As another poster said, I'd love that he hear straight from you that you hold him responsible to answer your church questions. The answer he gave you was meant to appease you in its deception and was just as smooth as the Hinkster's response when he uttered on national television, "I don't know that we teach it."

Hell, the stake prezes and the Hinksters and the Hollands sure are full of hot air containing no. nada, zilch information that is worth sharing to their "beloved" (?) members who they say are in need of help to find their way to Paradise.

Paradise, spare us from their hot air.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/11/2016 04:56PM by presleynfactsrock.

I would gag if the sp referred to me as a "sweet wife". Ick. It reminds me of the FLDS. Ick.

I notice the SP didn't bother to read the CES letter. He's probably been asked to do so by several people, and refuses. It wouldn't surprise me if the sp's and bishops received letters from SLC warning them about that evil letter written by that evil guy named Jeremy.

Jdoubledub,

It's possible your SP was telling the truth and it's possible your wife didn't know anything about it.

In my former ward in rural Utah, stake leaders would come visit our ward twice a year for the purpose of visiting inactive members with us.

Usually a few weeks in advance, in ward council or PEC, the Bishop would explain what was going to happen and ask us to come up with a list of 25 names of people or families to visit. In our ward, the the RS President, YW President and Primary President were involved in this process, but that doesn't mean some ward might do it without them (just the boys, in other words).

So we'd come up with a list of names. Some we might have made appointments, others we might have figured it be better just to drop by. If we thought an appointment might be declined, we'd just drop by.

On the appointed evening, we'd meet at the Church and be paired with a Stake Leader. I was the Ward Mission Leader. I might be paired with the SP himself, or a counselor, or perhaps a Stake YM leader or other stake leader. It was switched up every time we did this.

So we'd go off. So say I was paired with the SP, I would have 3 or 4 families on my list. The SP might assume, or call those appointments. The SP would have had nothing to do with the list, I as WML helped come up with it. As we're driving over, of course I'm going to fill him in on who we're going to visit. I probably know the people better than him, so I'll give him the scoop so he knows what we're walking into.

So we did this twice a year. It's possible it happened somewhat the way he explained. It's possible the WML set it up and it's possible your wife knew nothing about it.The Church still sucks either way.

Funny follow up story.

So I had realized the Church wasn't true in any way. I decided to not do anything rashly, but to take my time, explore the situation from all possible angles and be sure of my decisions and conclusions.

As you can guess, it became harder and harder to do this and going to Church became difficult because sooner or later, in rural Utah, somebody's gonna start spouting off something hateful and un-Christlike (I still believed in the divinity of Christ back then).

So I was at a PEC or WC meeting and we were coming up with 25 names of people to visit with the Stake leaders. We had come up with 22 or 23 families and we were having a hard time thinking of any other inactive or struggling members, but we still needed to come up with a couple more names.

I told the Bishop, "You can put me on the list of people to visit. I've been thinking of going inactive."

He just laughed and said that you don't have to worry about the ones that say that beacuse they never go inactive. According to him, it was the quiet ones that just stopped going.

Well, I was dead serious and was only active a month or so longer. Everybody thought I was kidding.

I gave my bishop and stake president a full year's warning that if my feelings didn't change about the church, I was leaving. Other than the "pray and read your scriptures" counsel, they offered nothing else.

One year to the day, I handed in all my materials and said goodbye.

Either they didn't believe I'd do that or they knew they really didn't have anything to offer to someone who's uncovered the fraud.

If your wife wants a divorce because you refuse to follow her manipulative gag order, she can be the one to leave. The kids stay with you in their home until the terms of the divorce are hammered out. You don't need to be a doormat if she isn't willing to treat you like an adult.

My wife divorced me over thier bullshit. Tell that bastard to read the CES letter and tell you why the f**king church is not a scam. Ask him why Yoshua said to Nicodemus to give it all away, yet they worship rich men who run an organization that seeks money as penance for having membership in their community.

No member worships Yoshua. They worship TSM. What a joke.

The last time I went to the temple, it was at my wife's request. She was a temple worker and was invited to a special 'ceremony' where Elder Ukdork was going to speak. I went to the BR and was walking up the stares when he came in. He was surrounded by guards- in the temple. Why?

They had firearms under their coats. In the temple? Wouldn't gawd protect them in the temple? If he just carried the turd rock, he would have been safe, because it would help him 'see' danger. Right? Perhaps I'm wrong...

So let me get this straight: they guy responsible for judging whether or not someone is in apostasy, and therefore the guy responsible for determining whether or not someone is to be expelled from God's one true church, isn't the right person to ask doctrinal questions about said church?

That's like a teacher saying "I'm responsible for administering and grading your tests, but I'm not the right person to handle questions about the subject matter."

Or a judge saying "I am responsible for hearing your case and administering judgment, but I'm not the right person to ask about legal questions."

That guy has his head so far up his own butt he can almost see the inside of his mouth.

jdoubledub Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> You told me I could ask questions about my 'loss
> of testimony'.

It's not a loss of testimony. It's a shift of testimony. I can
still say, "I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt," just like I did
before, but now I have real hard-core, empirical evidence to
show HOW I know.

I still have a testimony. It just points in a different
direction.

Mormons bemoan it like it's the loss of something precious and
valuable. Well I now have something even better. I have a
real appreciation for truth, integrity, and intellectual
honesty. I haven't lost anything; I've traded up.