In my area the members were largely made up of converts though some were Born under the Covenant as they would say. If you were a convert to Mormonism, what pulled you in to be baptized and then what pulled you out?

My best friend met the missionaries and was baptized. She got me taking the discussions with them. I was only 14 years old when I started taking the discussions.

I was a very bullied kid in school and the Mormon kids didn't bully me. I found a social group where I felt that I could belong.

After 30 years, I got a job working for the Church. It felt like a good ole boys club. I often felt that the women were rather patronized by the men. Morale was also very low.

9/11 happened and it suddenly hit me that, as horrible as it was, there were people out there who were willing to kill and to die for their faith. It suddenly felt very arrogant to think that you had the only truth. I realized that other people would be just as adamant that they had the truth, with just as much conviction as people of my own faith.

At the same time, the low morale in my job place made me realize that in this organization which encouraged us to be perfect, I was running on a hamster wheel where no matter how fast I ran, I could never really be good enough.

I realized that it had greatly damaged my self-esteem and I wondered why I was doing that to myself. I thought it best that I leave, so I did and never looked back.

Several years later, I began to discover the truth about the Church and its claims and once I realized 100% that it was just not what it purported itself to be, I officially resigned.

And also, after the organization began to fight against the civil rights of others in the same-sex marriage debate, I no longer wanted my name to be associated with that organization in any way. I was always taught by them that agency is a very sacred thing and yet here they were fighting against the agency of others.

That bothered me, a lot. I was done.

I was in an abusive relationship which the missionaries rescued me from, it was easy to get brainwashed as traumatised as I was. Ironically it was my partner who invited them over; turns out he was from a Mormon family. He was completely inactive and didn’t give a damn about the religion; he was desperate enough to try this as a way of getting me to marry him. Ironically once I was starting to convert, I literally told him to f*** off. That was the only good thing that came of it.
Finding out the truth is what pulled me out. And I found out the truth because I was trying to strengthen my testimony by seeking to become a Mormon apologist which meant having to play devils advocate. I had no intention of leaving. But being a single parent in that environment was complete misery so I figured I needed more knowledge and spirituality in order to cope with and rise above it.
I look at all this now and my journey in and out of mormonism is SO ironic in the way it happened, it’s almost comical.

I was a hormonal convert. Who could resist a 25 year old man in uniform.