I am on the fence about using quit Mormon vs doing nothing. How long does it take? I am currently in the process of being baptized into a different church, should I wait till that is done then tell someone?
Or should I just go through quit Mormon and get it over with?

Using Quit Mormon was too easy, so the church erected stumbling blocks. You'll have to submit notarized proof that you are who you say you are...

It is easy.

https://www.exmormon.org/remove.htm

I really recommend doing it yourself using the directions on the above link. It's easy. I don't want to disrespect the efforts of the lawyer on the QM site, but he is sometimes very backed up and you also need a notarized resignation letter for him to process your resignation (due to the church and its law firm being jerks about his efforts.)

You can do it yourself in ten minutes. You fill out the form with your info, email it in, and wait 4 to 8 weeks.

If you use a law firm, you have to print the form or have the law firm mail it to you, you fill it out, have it notarized, mail it to the firm, they mail it to LDS Inc, and you wait 4 to 8 weeks.

The upside of a law firm is that they are your official contact with the church, so you get to avoid contact with the bishop. The downside is that it is more bureaucratic ( see above), and you have to give the law firm your personal information, which makes you a potential "marketing opportunity". If they do ten minutes worth of free legal work for you, some day when you need other legal work (will, trust, adoption, divorce, whatever) they might get a call from you because they are the only law firm you have ever actually talked to.

Personally I did it myself, and I would recommend that to people. My bishop did contact me by letter. He lived 40 miles away, plus I don't think bishops are very enthusiastic and contacting people who are resigning. Would you want to talk to someone who had just sent in a resignation?? It would not be at the top of my to do list.

contact is not a hoop you have to jump through. It is a hoop the church tells the bishop to jump through, and I get the feeling that it is becoming more common for bishops to not bother to try and contact resigned members. (You are resigned as soon as they receive your resignation letter/email. The final confirmation from them only confirms their paperwork is done. You were already resigned)

You are under no obligation to interact with the bishop, and whatever you say or don't say will not have any effect. You can ignore the bishop, tell him to process the resignation, hang up, yell at him or read him the weather report. None of it matters.


TL;DR do it yourself. It's easy.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/14/2019 06:06PM by Brother Of Jerry.

Thank you all for responding.

Do it yourself. It is empowering to take to use your autonomy, and take charge of your own life.

The Mormons have no authority over you. According to law, put into motion by a lawsuit in Arizona, years ago, which reached the Federal Courts, you need only NOTIFY a cult or organization that you have resigned. The cult can not demand an explanation, or money, or a visit, or anything else, because when you notify them, you are OUT. I mailed a certified return-receipt letter to the head office in SLC. When the receipt was signed, that was the moment I was free. When your electronic e-mail resignation is received, you are immediately resigned.

I still wanted that "confirmation letter", anyway, to keep in my file, and I didn't mind waiting FIVE MONTHS for mine, because I was already legally resigned. The confirmation letter says only that "your name has been removed from the rolls." Mormons don't have the word "resigned" in their vocabulary. They never use the phrases, "Thank you for your years of service" or "Thank you for all that tithing money."

All the Mormon paper work, and the bishop's visits, and other junk is just more Mormon-invented garbage, and not legal and not necessary. That's their problem, not yours.

In your letter of resignation, you might enjoy writing all the reasons WHY you are resigning. Now is a good opportunity to get everything off your chest, and out in the open. I doubt if any Mormons bother to read all the letters of resignation--but you would be writing down the facts for yourself and your family. My children resigned with me, and our letter honestly, politely, and succinctly says it all, for us. It's our "un-mission statement."

But, you don't need to give one word of explanation, if you don't feel like it.

Congratulations!

Yup, do it yourself. DIVORCE them! Kick them to the curb. YOU have all the power!

Oh and PS - if you send it certified and request a signature as soon as you get that you are OUT - FINISHED. If they try to give you any crap tell them you know the law and they can jump through their own damn hoops.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/16/2019 04:14AM by Susan I/S.

Well said! I didn’t want to play fun and games so I just had my lawyer send the request in for me. It cost me a bottle of rum I picked up in Barbados for him. He knew I was going to the Caribbean and he said pick me up a bottle of the good stuff we can’t get here and we are good.

I hope he shared with you!

I resigned over 5 years ago by just following the instructions

given here. Its not hard to do, just do it.

I don't understand how the church can simply decide to not honor the resignations coming from the lawyers at QM. Attorneys are officers of the court. They can negotiate in a court of law on our behalf. I once sued someone and my attorney filed paperwork on my behalf to end the case based on negotiations that he facilitated with the other side and with the court and that he and I alone agreed-on in a private meeting, without the court even requiring my signature. I doubt that the court ever required my attorney to give them a copy of the contract that I signed with the attorney. They accepted his word on the fact that he represented me and also on the fact that I was in agreement with the terms of the legal resolution of the case. A person's membership in any church has and can have legal ramifications. A licensed attorney should have the ability to represent a person in their dealings with the church if the person asks them to.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/16/2019 07:29AM by azsteve.

Because "Kirtland-McCostco" raised the not unreasonable possibility that because the Quit NormanBates attorney never met his 'clients' in person and took no money from them, it was not unreasonable to consider the possibility he was being lied to.

The regular method, given in modern revelation via an appellate court, has a church officer contacting, supposedly, the misguided exmormon to confirm the announced intention.

My brother in law is a bishop. He told me a member of his ward claimed his friends pranked him and use to have his records removed.

Apparently it works. They had to baptize the guy again to get him back as a member on the church records.

Is there anybody here who resigned from a European country?

After six years of inactivity and many more in the closet I have reached the tipping point,and I want officially out. I would prefer NOT to use quit mormon, because I do not accept that the church got K&McK involved in it. They have enough personnel in the COB to process resignations, and anyway, they did not require a copy of my ID when I got baptised, I don't see why I should provide one to resign. And no way I am going to send copy of my ID via E-Mail to the US.

Thus, I have started to draft my resignation letter using the draft suggested here on Exmormon. But I still have a question: should I send it to MSR Dept. at the COB in SLC or to the Area Office here in Germany? The problem is, I know people there...

What would you do? suggestions? Thanks!

>What would you do? suggestions?

Personally, I would mail the letter to the area office in Germany **AND** send an email to SLC. That way, you have covered both possibilites. If SLC doesn't handle foreign resignations, they will forward it to the area office. If the area office doesn't act on it, SLC is at least aware that you resigned and could kick the area office in the butt if necessary.

Nobody said you have to send a copy of your ID anywhere. Where did that idea come from? Anybody involved in any transaction recognized by courts has the right to reasonably verify that the person on the other side of the transaction is who they say they are.

A notarized signature or its equivalent in other countries certainly meets that standard, but LDS Inc is usually pretty lax about verifying ID. If the bishop attempts to call you and he gets hung up on, he's willing to assume you answered the phone and want nothing to do with Mormons!!

Frankly I'm a little surprised they don't require a notarized signature for all resignations. Of course, if they did that, then they would have no excuse to have the bishop contact you.

I think an email or snail mail resignation sent to SLC Member Records works even if you are outside the US. SLC should be able to contact local bureaucrats should that be necessary.

LOL I did have mine notarized and the SOB still showed up at my door! I schooled that (words I would get in trouble for) on just what the law and the CHI said. I made sure he was so butthurt when he left that I am sure he thought twice about being so nasty to others.

Good show.

Technically, if you sent a notarized signature, your ID has been verified by the notary, so LDS Inc has zero legitimate reason to visit you. It would be nice if the letter of instructions to the bishop would indicate that, but I seriously doubt that it does.

In fact, they could omit the bishop altogether if you sent a notarized signature. They are just trying to be as annoying as they can get away with. You annoyed them right back!!

I sent in my resignation to Slc twice within a year , and had no reaction whatsoever. I finally went thru QM And a notary in Germany and it took almost a year , but it’s finally done. My sister’s resignation to SLC directly , also out of Germany , worked fine and took just a few weeks.

Soembody I know recently resigned from here (Germany) using why Mormon. He enclosed a pictured of the ID, I guess as a substitute for a notarized signature. A notary in Germany is very expensive!
Thanks for your replies!

I'm on my mobile and didn't notice the crazy "Autokorrektur"

The do-it-yourself resignation letter is straightforward and by all accounts effective.

You don't have to use Quit Mormon.

I am German and I have resigned via email. No ID. I simple signed my resignation letter with my full name.

Pfahl Stuttgart

I'm in the north now, but I spent several years in Pfahl Frankfurt.

Wow! Ich habe viele toten taufen im Frankfurter tempel gemacht. Ich bin 40 jahre alt. Alles lange her.

msr-confrec@ldschurch.org

Wondering if we know each other.

Thank you for your suggestions.

It doesn't matter what they say!
If you quit attending you are,ipso facto, no longer a member

Unfortunately, it's not the same thing. As long as they can
validly consider you a member, they are free to hassle you
in various ways.

OK I think that I am still on the topic
If I no longer participate in any way I personally don't care if "THEY" want to still call me a member "I aintz one"
NOw if it important that I formally quit, aka resign, then that's a different story and I agree with those who have disagreed with me.
As for me personally I DON'T GIVE A DAMN what they think or do!!
"THEY" don't buy my food nor pay my bills.
In fact I asked for help with my wife's funeral expenxes and was told to kiss off!!!!!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/21/2020 02:42PM by thedesertrat1.

I sent the certified, notarized letter myself to the Church Headquarters in SLC. One of the interesting highlights of the experience was the reaction of the notary. He was astonished that I had to jump through so many hoops to officially quit a church. Then he told me about a client of his that was Mormon and constantly threw around his Mormon titles at their office. He drove a flashy car and then constantly demanded discounts because of his religious (Mormon) priesthood title. The notary totally understood why I would want out.

When I resigned from the Mormon church, I met with the Bishop in-person in his office at the church. I had never attended his ward since I had moved and was a stranger there. I treated him with respect while telling him honestly, what my reasons were for resigning. Then I presented a typed and signed resignation letter and asked to have my name removed. A few weeks later, I received a confirmation letter on church letterhead, stating that I had thirty days to change my mind, after which my resignation would be final. I tolerated the delay. Thirty days later, I was free of the church.

As the Bishop listened to my reasons for resigning, he asked questions, probing for reasons why I might be leaving under the assumption that I must have either done something that should be confessed, or to find some rule in Mormonism that I couldn't comply with. I don't know if he ever considered my stated reasons as valid or not, because they all pointed to the fact that Mormonism is a cult. I was too respectful at the time to tell him that Mormonism is a cult, although I did state that in my letter.

I think that he was incapable of understanding why I left the church because he couldn't believe that the church wasn't true.

My solution to the problem is:
Quit attending
Ignore all their communication
Buy some normal underwear

The most life changing Quit Mormon method I know of is stop being a dumbass and move on with your life.

That is what I had to do. I said MormonMartinLuther your ass will be smart from now on and no longer dumb. Then I started planning what I wanted to do with the life I still had available.