I was BIC, but always disliked church. However, I was an obedient kid so I went along without complaint, playing the game until I moved out of my house (and really trying to develop a testimony.)

My first apostate thought came while I was senior primary age, in the early 1990s. It was general conference weekend, and my mom made us attend all four sessions at the stake center, so that meant wearing church clothes for almost two days straight. By the last Sunday session, I was tired. I was drained. And I was so over it. The thought went through my mind, "If the church is really true, I would want to hear the prophet speak." NO part of me wanted to hear the prophet speak. That little doubt lingered with me all through childhood. I kept waiting to WANT to go to conference, but that never happened (luckily when I was in high school we got satellite TV and could watch conference at home, so it was slightly less painful.)

What was your first apostate thought?

Early on. Although, like you, I was an obedient kid, and probably had some trouble with confidence in my own thinking.

When I got baptized, my mom talked to me about the devil and HF. I realized it just seemed fake, like they weren't really there tempting me or watching every little thing I did.

When my dad was a stake missionary, I went to some of his discussions. I was probably about 7 or 8 years old. He would tell the marvelous story of the First Vision or the Book of Mormon, and that was just embarrassing to me. "They aren't going to believe this crap," I remember thinking, and wishing I could fade away from the situation. My dad would either straight out lie, or twist the truth when confronted with information about the church. I saw others do it too, and I understood their shame was an indictment on the church. If they felt like they had to lie, then something was wrong with the message.

On my mission, I got to the point that I refused to teach the more silly parts of Mormonism. I ended up teaching about Jesus instead. When I was tasked with interviewing for baptism, I let the investigators get baptized regardless of what they confessed. I also went to the beach, to movies, slept in, and whatever else, not believing that I would be eternally punished.

It was until after finishing college that I realized what had been happening and had enough faith in myself to leave the church. It's the best decision I ever made.

I was always embarrassed when my parents would talk about Mormonism too. They always encouraged me to invite non-Mormon friends to Wednesday night YW activities, but I never wanted to because I really didn't want them to join the church. I envied their freedom from it.

I substituted in the Primary a few times after I turned 18 but before I graduated high school. I never gave the lesson in the manual. We'd talk about being kind and things that bring them joy and keeping an honest journal so they would have memories from their childhood (I'm a huge fan of journaling and scrapbooking still have all of mine from age 8 to the present day) Those kids would all be adults now, and I'm hoping some of them found their way out. I'm thinking that thanks to Google, odds are likely =)

I didn't go in the temple to do baptisms until I was 18 and I had a panic attack. I wondered why I would have a panic attack in the place closest to God.


Doctrinally, it was when I realized the cross isn't where Christ atoned, but in the Garden of Gethsemane. I just couldn't accept that

The temple was 45 minutes from where I lived, and every time I was on my way there for baptisms for the dead, I got carsick. I'm not prone to motion sickness, but it got me EVERY SINGLE TIME. Summer. Winter. Daytime. Nighttime. Didn't matter where I sat in the car or if I drove. EVERY SINGLE TIME. Perhaps I sensed how wrong it was, but the brainwashing was too deep for the reality to rise above the fog.

I always had temple nausea, and my intestines would rebel, during the temple sessions. I usually had to leave my seat several times to run to the bathroom. The angrier the matrons got at me for leaving my seat, the angrier my intestines got. I don't think my innards liked the idea of being slashed, during the "disembowlment" pantomimes, which we were forced to perform back then. I kept thinking I would get used to it. I tried taking medicine, and not eating anything--but it never got better.

I also felt a very strong presence of evil in the temple--why? The Mormons said that Satan couldn't enter the temple, once it was dedicated.... I started listening to my gut reactions, instead of the lies, and that set me on the pathway to freedom.

"God is a jerk. I don't like this guy very much."

~Beth at age 10

"Beth is one sexy fifth grader!"

--Judic West, Monarch of Monaco, Age 12

Not Judy Quest?

Right!?!?

She won't stay in her own lane!!!

"Monarch of Monaco" was good, though, right?

The whole temple experience. I walked out strongly believing that the ceremony was man-made bullshit.

I still think so!

I just brushed off those little flecks of history. Why would they matter if the church is true? Any doubts about the Masonic connections and Orwellian levels of authoritarianism were also easy to dismiss. God must want it that way. Everything was fine up until the day I realized that my whole life was a lie. It’s no wonder most Mormons will do anything to avoid that realization.

It really started when I decided that I didn’t need anything the Church offered. I either already had it or I didn’t want it. So why not start questioning? I looked at that perfect facade and saw cracks. Why are there cracks? There aren’t supposed to be cracks. It all came tumbling down. Yup, I was lied to my whole life. TSCC, f*ck your lies.

Although growing up Mormon, as debilitating as it was, was kind of magical. But if you want magic, go Wiccan.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/23/2020 05:57AM by babyloncansuckit.

I was reading a chapter in Miracle of Forgiveness and as my jaw slowly dropped to the floor I thought, "Wow! It's all a lie. Didn't see that coming."

I went from truly believing to apostate in about two seconds and what I felt was light as a feather. Not even ten thousand Alka-Seltzer could have given me that much relief.

What I felt was pure love. I didn't know where it was coming from but I was taking it.

What part was it that you read when it happened?

A friend and I at BYU had confided to each other that we were gay. He had read the book and said it had given him what he needed to fight being gay and gave it to me to read. I read one chapter---Crime Against Nature. That was it. I was done. I knew poison when I saw it. I knew in that instant that SWK was a disgusting fraud. Didn't need to read another word.

My friend did indeed get a girl and get married in the temple.

More specifically, this is SWK's words that made the light go on:

“Therefore, to those who say that this or any other evil is incurable, I respond: how can you say the door cannot be opened until your knuckles are bloody, till your head is bruised, till your muscles are sore? It can be done.”

I was reeling from the ignorance, the viciousness of his message. This prophet disgusted me. My knuckles were bloody. My whole body was bloody fighting this awful burden that was strangling my life. My heart, mind, and soul were bloody from trying to open the damn door. And you’re telling me I haven't tried hard enough, Spencer?

1973. I knew no "anti" info regarding the Mormon church. If SWK was still alive I would send him a thank you note for getting me out of that damn church.

What about your friend, is he still married to a woman? Is he still in the closet?

A couple of years ago we reconnected. They stayed married but he is open about being gay. I don't know much about his life as I don't ask personal questions----I left the Mormon "no boundaries" thing the same place I left my testimony. On the floor somewhere in Provo.

He is exmo as is his wife and they have a special disgust for SWK and burned the MoF page by page in their fireplace. Two of his children left Mormonism with them but the two oldest remain staunch.

I would say they are very happy together and have adjusted and made the decision to be together in spite of everything. A shared life, children, and companionship. I have no idea at what point he told her.

I had those parts memorized as I read that after finding out he is gay. Myself, I feel I knocked that damn door down. Maybe Kimball isn't gay as he DOESN'T GET IT.

Interesting how your friend's life has turned out. I wonder if he has relationships on the side. I would have stayed with my husband the rest of our lives (and he was free to do whatever--he live downstairs and I upstairs), but it was too much for him. But now he lives here and we are good friends. I depend on him for things I could never depend on my boyfriend for just out of how our relationship. We know each other REALLY WELL. I am quite sick right now and, yesterday, my boyfriend and I decided to take our dogs for a walk. I thought I was up to it. I was not. I made my way home and hoped the boyfriend would leave as I was going to ask my husband to take me to the ER. I felt that bad. It takes a lot for me to ever get to that point. I walked around on a broken foot for 4 days. But I overloaded on medications and by the time my boyfriend left, I was okay and went to sleep.

We do have a connection, but we both understand where it begins and ends. It makes it SO MUCH EASIER for us.

I wish I could find him a good man. I wish he could that is. He doesn't like the ones I pick for him (ha ha ha).

I like that your friends burned Kimball's book. My son burned the bofm that my daughter gave him after she went back. Page by page in his bedroom. I could smell smoke and I kept going downstairs and asking him about it and he said, "Not me." I deep cleaned his room sometime after that and found the bofm. It is in my cedar chest.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/02/2020 10:52AM by cl2.

I have seen a lot of love and incredible companionship with the couples who stayed together and the couples who didn't after the gay Mormon took his girl friend to the temple and then inevitably had to face the reality of it all. Having gone through all that and coming out the other end makes a bond. Friendship. Caring. Love. Children together. That doesn't just go away.

I appreciate very much your transparency cl2 as few will tell what they really feel and I am sure your forthrightness has helped so many who read here.

Ya know what bugs me about these situations?

That no one in the church will admit that "The Gay" is just a thing, like being left-handed, or having red hair, or a different color skin tone, and that the 'ye olde brethren' screwed the pooch on this issue, just as they did on the Black issue.

Good ol' mormon ghawd made left-handed people and redheads and The Gays... Good ol' mormon ghawd either made ALL this world, as we find it, or he didn't.

So which is it, mormons? Cuz Manifest Destiny ghawd is dead.

Wise words. So sensible and obvious. Could you please tell my mother was well? Maybe you are the one who can get through?

What if ... I became your step-father?

I meant tell my mother "as" well. She still thinks I'm weak and have succumbed to Satan ahaha.

Step father? This is getting weird . . .

But hey, let's keep it on the table.

  I'm putty in her hands.

Done & Done, you put into a few sentences my exact feelings. For me, it happened in two seconds, too. The light just flashed on, and I immediately felt infused with the Truth. This happened, when my children and I were talking together, and they told me (and each other) or the first time about the physical beatings and molestation they had suffered at the hands of the Mormon leaders. The words just came through my mouth, by reflex,without thinking, in a wave of Pure Love and anguish:

"We don't ever have to go to that church, again!"

I knew this was "right." Relief! We cried tears of relief, joy, that our biggest obstacle to happiness had been instantly removed. The Mormons harrassed and threatened us, to try to get us back, until we all officially resigned together. Even though the Mormons made us misserable upon leaving, nothing was ever as horrible as the abuse we suffered as Mormons.

A lot of personal doubts, and rationalizations, and being gas-lighted into taking the blame for questioning too much. All my life, I was always wrong and the cult leaders and prophets and my strict TBM parents had to be always right. I felt like I was nothing.

My earliest, earliest apostate thought was that the Joseph Smith story was made up, from the first time I heard it, for all the logical reasons we all know. I asked a lot of questions, but the Primary teachers just waved me off, and never gave me any satisfactory answers.

My children, long before the Mormons leaders abused them, never believed the JS story, either. None of us bought into the idea that Heaven and "being together forever" was closed to the wonderful non-Mormons and non-temple-married people we knew. The Primary teachers taught all of my children that they and I would "pass by each other as strangers" in the hereafter. My daughter used to have a recurring nightmare that the Mormon neighbors turned into zombies and chased her down the street, and when she ran into our house, they kept pounding on the door, ringing the doorbell and phone, and clawing at the windows.

It is impressive to know that so many of us had reasonable doubts at young ages.

I think pre-brainwashed children might have more visceral wisdom and better instincts than brainwashed adults. The Mormons work very hard on indoctining children, and in a way that disgusts me, on every level. My poor children kept their enforced secrets for 5 years!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/01/2020 06:57PM by forestpal.

Thanks for taking the time to tell that. I hope lots of lurkers are reading this thread. Your story illustrates so well the fact that when it is wrong to question, it means you are in the wrong place. Truth loves questions. Any and all.

I know we were probably the exception to the rule, but to this day I have to say my life began the moment I learned the lie and it was sweet.

My first real apostate thought? I can't really say exactly. Dating someone not mormon was a big issue. Making great friendships with nonmormons where I worked, but I worked with great mormons, too. Not finding a husband like all my friends were, wondering why God wasn't bringing me a husband.

And THEN I found out the guy I was dating was gay and my whole belief system went to hell when they had no answers whatsoever for me. What they were telling me did not ring true to me. I thought I could go to them and they would have answers straight from God, that they would give me answers of hope.

I remember talking to one of my good nonmormon friends and I told him I no longer believed in God. He told me that he had put all his trust in me as I was so devout mormon, my belief in God. He was in shock. At the time, he was separated and in the process of divorcing and wanted to marry me. He begged me to marry him and I still had to figure it out. (And it isn't the one I'm with now.)

I never saw God the same way. I never saw mormonism the same way. I just didn't know what else to do. It was all I knew. I really had no idea what to do.

Even if we married, our discussions were always about the things we didn't believe, why we kept going even if we didn't believe, etc.

If only I had figured it out sooner.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/23/2020 11:11AM by cl2.

It wasn't a thought. IT was a feeling. I can't remember the context, experience, or situation. I just remember feeling it again and again and like déjà vu it was like being in a meeting or interacting with people I didn't know and feeling overwhelmingly as if I had had these same feelings before, despite having the knowledge this is not possible.

As a child these feelings were and still are really important because as a child feelings are mostly what you have to work with.

Primary in this feeling was that what I was being taught wasn't what I was experiencing. As a very small child I thought God was the sun. And the only way I got through the temple was thinking of the sun instead of The Son.

*Youth Temple trip

After we were dunked, we waited for the youth chaperones to complete a session. We were not permitted to "hang around" the temple grounds. No, we were corralled into a musty outbuilding and sit in complete silence in these fabric folding chairs. After an hour of sitting there, the testimony meeting began. I resented it BIG TIME!

They told us that nobody was going to leave until everybody had blathered about the church. I refused and a group of girls sitting behind me were PISSED. I kept getting kicked in the butt from their pointy shoes. I held my ground and was called to pray instead. As I stood to pray, I had paper thrown at me as well as old hymnals.

Added: Prayers at church

I am not exaggerating, I was called upon to close the quorum meeting every other Sunday. There were days that I didn't feel like praying. This went on for several years. Then for the first time in my life, I was called to the the priest quorum 2nd assistant. I had zero aaronic ph leadership callings save for teacher's quorum secretary (which I dutifully recorded all of my closing prayers).

So I didn't say a prayer when conducting a priest quorum meeting for 6 months! The priest advisor went back through the recorded minutes for 6 months then he had a ppi with me.

-Messy we just reviewed 6 months worth of recorded minutes and you have avoided saying prayers. From now on, you will say closing prayers for the next few months.

Why couldn't they check the recorded minutes from the previous years to discover that only 3 of us had been assigned the closing prayer?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/23/2020 04:19PM by messygoop.

I was 5. I thought prayer was stupid and demeaning. So I refused to say family prayer.

I didn't get get dinner that night or breakfast the next day when I still refused to pray. My mom got a call from my kindergarten teacher about it though.

prayer. For some odd reason, my dad always called on my little sister to say the prayer. It wasn't planned. After it happened many times, we'd all start laughing when he'd pick her to say the prayer. From then on, it was her job.

We would have never been punished by not eating. My "husband" (after he left me and I was a single mother) told me the way to get the kids to do chores was to not feed them if they didn't do chores. Oh, like I was going to do that and if DCFS found out, they'd think that was a not so great idea 9and my sister worked for DCFS until 3 weeks ago).

It just so happens, my younger sister was the second one to go inactive in her teens of the 6 children.

There were a total of 8 of us in the family. We took turns by age to say the prayer.

I think they were so shocked by my, the youngest of us, behavior they had to shutdown any similar thoughts in my older brothers and sisters. I know of no other instance where food was withheld. I think it was because we had family prayer right before breakfast and dinner that they opted for no dinner.

I had already figured out to masquerade through the silent personal prayer at my bedside by thinking about whatever I was interested in rather than praying silently.

I haven't thought of this event in decades. but it's my first though and act against the church order.

praying in front of anyone. I didn't feel you could say what you really felt if you were praying publicly. I refused to give prayers at church. One bishop called me on it. Told me to practice praying. I don't think I ever prayed in front of my husband. There are just some things I can't do in front of people. (That is why my husband is still gay obviously--sarcasm.) I probably prayed in front of my kids 4 or 5 times. I hated the forced prayers as kids.

Our family prayers were at night and whoever said the prayer just ran down the list of family member names to bless them. That was it. Our dinner prayers were the "bless this food that it will strengthen and nourish our bodies" and that was IT. It was more of an attitude of "we have to pray" not like it was a big deal. My boyfriend reminds me somewhat of my dad and I'm always thinking he is going to pray over the food. He is a Jewish convert. He'll humor me sometimes and say a Jewish prayer.

Well, this is truly fucked.

At about 6 or 7 years old....."my family is mormon and I have to be a mormon for my entire life? AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! HEEEEEEEEEELP!!!!"

My feelings got me into LDS Inc. when I was 12 years old, and my feelings got me out 20 years later. I didn't study my way in or out.

When I started to feel more unsettled than satisfied as a member it was time for me to go.

Funny that I did not research church history until I'd been out for years. I was so brainwashed and had invested so much of myself as a member that I suppose I didn't want to face all that I'd lost (boyfriend, normal college experience, family relationships, confidence in myself, $$$, etc.) after letting LDS Inc. dictate my life for 20+ years.

Today I'm more disgusted than intrigued by the deception. I enjoy reading this forum, and periodically google some of the history. I don't waste my time arguing doctrine with TBMs. I remember how closed my brain was when I was TBM.

Senior year of HS. I was very TBM at the time despite partaking in certain forbidden activities.

My seminary teacher seemed to spend an awful lot of time trying to what we would now call "inoculating" us about some of the weirder aspects of church history. It actually introduced me to lots of weird ass 5hit (like the Jupiter talisman, etc) that I didn't know before. Now this was in the belly of the beast - Orem, UT so this was a full time paid CES seminary teacher and I couldn't understand why he spent so much time debunking crap that we didn't even know about yet. It struck me as very odd and I couldn't understand why it would matter anyway since the church was so true.

Also during this time the church came out asking all members to turn over their pioneer ancestors journals to them for "safe keeping for future generations". Even then most of us could tell what the real motive was.

Anyway, these were probably the first two cracks.

>>>to turn over their pioneer ancestors journals to them for "safe keeping for future generations". Even then most of us could tell what the real motive was.


Huh? Wow, first I've heard of that? Can you elaborate? And the more the better!

Why is there bible verses copied into this book from a different continent? This doesn't make sense, do these adults really take this book as literal and not fiction.

I think i was seven.

Apostate thoughts?

1. The temple is not a Christian experience.
I couldn't place why I felt as I did while I was in the Church. I have since learned that the purpose of the temple was not to worship, but an elaborate scheme to promote extra-marital sex for Joseph Smith without offending his wife.

2. Temple recommends were used as a tool to enforce compliance.
I became free when I declared that I was never attending the temple again. Who cares if I had or didn't have a temple recommend? I could decide what was best for me.

3. Family prayer became manipulation.
My ex-wife's regular prayer: "Please tell my evil husband to do what I want." Even our LDS counselor said I was justified in leaving family or couple prayer.

4. My wife's claims of "abuse."
My wife learned to claim "abuse" whenever she didn't get her way. She used the Church as her enforcers.

Yeah, prayers as lectures/demands always annoyed me.

Being kind and helping people is a Christlike experience. Doing weird rituals in an expensive building is not.

I think the difference between and church and a cult is a cult demands full obedience to it’s leaders. A church allows it’s members to have their own opinions. I know plenty of Catholics who are full aware of the dark history of their church and all the problems it has. The same with some Jewish friends of mine. Nobody is threatening to excommunicate them because they have their own opinions or don’t see eye to eye with the church in everything.

I never liked the full obedience to everything the church leadership demand in the LDS cult. Never liked that at a very young age. So that’s where my apostasy grew from.

My very first apostate thought:

In Primary, the teacher had a lesson on following the prophet no matter what he says. Even if he was not right, we will be rewarded for following the prophet (not that God would LET the prophet tell us something wrong ~eye roll~).

One kid said, "Even if the prophet said to jump off a cliff?"

The teacher said YES.

I had a moment of fear and doubt sitting there in primary knowing that didn't sound right. I had been conditioned to think that everyone was expected to act like lemmings, but what about personal revelation and the small voice and all that? Surely I would not jump off a cliff if the prophet said to.

But I got over it. I "knew" the prophet would not ask anything bad. Boy, was I wrong about that.

Contradictions in scripture.

Enoch walks and talks with god.

Then there is a nasty flood followed by the tower of babel.

Then the brother of jared goes up to get lights for his submarines. He sees gods finger as he reaches out and touches the stones. Then god says to the brother of jared that no one had seen him before.

Which is it?

So as a 8 year old I realised that true scriptures would not be contradictory.

Reading D&C 132 the first time in its entirety, sitting at home all alone without my Molly Mentors telling me like I was a kindergartner how to read and interpret things.

Seeing the supposedly omnibenevolent Creator of All threaten one little human woman with utter destruction unless she forgave and permitted JS to publicly justify philandering, written in black-and-white English, regardless of its faux-KJV "quaintness", made me physically nauseated. I knew something was funky when he started in on Abraham and Hagar, David and his harem...then it just got so much worse. God promising to squash the spouse of his chosen one? Like God needed to threaten people like that, personally? If God wanted or needed Emma to be all-in for polygamy, wouldn't he have just, whoosh, snapped his fingers and removed her distress? If it was so super duper necessary to get her endorsement, couldn't he have sent her a messenger? Even Joseph, Dad of Jesus, was given a little personal reassurance in regards to his fiancee's delicate condition.

D&C was my first and eventually most convincing apostasy resource overall, from an historical viewpoint. Anytime I need reassurance that the cult's foundation is all BS, I Google a little D&C.

My first apostate thought was "these people are assholes".

I'm going on Dave's idea that people are assholes. I witnessed over and over church leaders treating members like shit. No, this was never about a lowly schmuck treating another one in angst. No, this was always coming from big time penishood leaders. Do as I say- god has spoken.

I remember the D&C children's reader explained that God sometimes allows the prophet to have more than one wife. Of course, that struck me as odd, because family lore had it that more people were practicing polygamy beyond the prophet.

I guess that is my earliest shelf item. Why did the book say something that was clearly untrue?

Granted my apostasy is from Catholicism, though my first apostate thoughts may also be applicable to Mormonism.

I believe it was in 2nd grade at a Catholic school where one of the good nuns was teaching us that the Catholic Church was the "One, True Church" and about the importance of baptism within days of being born.

Sister So-and-So had just told us that only baptized Catholics would go to heaven. I immediately thought of all the people around the world who weren't born Catholic, and would probably never have the opportunity to convert.

I asked, "What people who, through no fault of their own, were born in countries that don't believe in Catholicism?" [yes, that's how I spoke as a 2nd grader; and yes, I did get beat up a lot until I picked up a classmate and ran him into a tree because I was frustrated by my inability to not pull my punches...but that's another story]

The nun's reply was, "That's too bad because they're not going to heaven."

That never sat well with me and remains my first memory of thinking religions can be quite cruel in assessing who is and isn't worthy of heaven.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/27/2020 01:47PM by GregS.

The concept that there is no equality in opportunity for eternal salvation is deifying the "us" in the human nature aspect of "us" and "them."

Univeral love, universal gods, universal anything are a modern globally aware peoples' conception.

I find it interesting how the bigger we consider the "us" the less can condemn the "them." Religions have a terrible record accounting for expansions of peoples' conscientiousness. Some are good at helping with the here and now but still are terrible with the here after.

It took me a lot longer that most of you - I was a very good Mormon boy.

It was after I graduated from BYU and married in the temple. I was trying to study up on Mormonism during graduate school (it was not my official major, of course) at Northwestern University in Illinois. They had a fabulous library, and since the Mormons had played a role in Illinois history, they also had a lots of material on Mormonism.

In the library I found a biography of James J. Strang, whom I had never heard of during my Mormon upbringing. It told about how he had claimed to be the successor of Joseph Smith, and had won over a lot of Smith's follwers. He had found and translated ancient plates, seen by witnesses, and had revelations, just like Smith.

Then I discovered in the library a religious book "Oahspe" which was produced by John Newbrough, who claimed it had been produced by divine help through automatic writing.
https://www.sacred-texts.com/oah/index.htm
The story of its writing was as astonishiing as Joseph Smith's story.

I couldn't escape noticing the similarities. Joseph Smith was obviously not the only person who could claim to be a prophet assisted by God.

"This crap ain't true"!

When I was sitting in seminary one morning, this high horse riding missionary spoke to us and said” The church doesn’t need you but you need the church”!

I thought:” well we sure don’t need you”!

That evening, I thought about quitting the church and joining The Young Ambassadors.

I remember being very young in Primary and hearing for the first time about leaving home, family, and friends to go and preach the gospel for two years far away in a strange land to a bunch of strangers. The teacher was gleeful about all of us boys going on a mission one day and I was sitting there thinking, "Who would want to do that?"

Over the years I never really warmed up to the idea, but felt it was just "something you did" when you reached 19 years of age. I saved my money, prepared, and dedicated myself to going. Five weeks in, the MTC Prez and a G.A. pissed me off and I walked out the front door.

westernwillows Wrote:
--------------------------------------
> What was your first apostate thought?

Mormonism is WEIRD

I think it was probably late elementary school (the 60’s) and having a hard time believing God had cursed Black people and didn’t want them in the church. (And YES, we were taught that it was ok if they were baptized but that it shouldn’t be encouraged). When I was in my Freshman year of college, my father told me that I’d be horsewhipped if I ever brought home a (derogatory word for Black boy). By that time I bore the mark I still have from being “horsewhipped ” when I was 12, so I knew he meant it. But I was struggling even more with the church’s stance, especially because of the crazy things an Institute teacher was telling us. I think it was really hard at that time to say “I know the church is true.” But it was still 23 more years before I knew FOR SURE that it wasn’t.

The forced baptism at age 8. They say it is a choice, but you really have the entire ward staring you down with extreme peer pressure to do it. No child at 8 really knows the lifetime ramifications of being baptized at 8. They should change the age to 26, or when the person really is ready.

If I had to be baptized, I wanted to do it on my 8th birthday. But, my mom insisted we had to wait another month until my Great Grandmother could attend. That's when I realized that I really didn't have any choice in the matter.

And then the day of the big event, my mom forgot to pack a pair of underwear for me to change into after the dunking, so I had to go commando under my dress. For eight year old rambunctious me, that was HARD!

First apostate thought:

There’s no way Kareem Abdul Jabber is lesser than those with TRs; and then, by extension, there’s no way that black people are lesser than white people. Impossible.

And if so, then God is not good.