My Exit Story: By La_Capa

I’ve heard it said in church that those that leave the church are those who never had a testimony to begin with. In my case, that is not true. I believed with all my heart.

I grew up in a family of six kids with Mormon pioneers on both sides of the family tree. I practically lived in the church growing up between Sunday meetings and choirs, seminary, mutual and other youth activities. I enjoyed Young Women (except for the times they made crafts) and enjoyed Girls’ Camp. By the time I was in my teens I had read the Book of Mormon several times and if you were to quote me a scripture from it, I could probably show you where it was located.

When I entered the University of Arizona I quickly found a group of wonderful Mormon friends and we had scripture study/hang out time every night. My faith was strong and I was very active in the college church group. My sophomore year I moved in with Mormon roommates. I always knew that I wanted to serve a mission so in March of 2002 I put in my papers. I expected to go to Russia but instead got called to Argentina.

In the missionary training center (MTC) I began to unravel. Before the MTC, occasionally in church I would start crying in sacrament meeting. I felt guilty because I wasn’t ‘good’ enough: didn’t read the scriptures enough, didn’t have enough faith, etc… In the MTC those feelings intensified and there was no outlet to get rid of them because I was with a companion (partner) I did not get along with 24/7 and I was immersed in religion all day long. If I could go back in time I would diagnose me with depression and get myself to a psychiatrist ASAP, but back then I just thought my soul needed to go through a refiner’s fire.

I was happy to get out of the MTC and into Argentina, even though I knew nothing of what missionary work entailed. It was hard. I was walking around at least 6 hours a day and people were talking around me in a language I didn’t understand too well. When I would try and speak no one would understand me. Luckily for me, my first area was a town in Argentina called Zapala and it had (and still does – I’ve been back twice!) the nicest people on earth. They took me under their wing and in the two transfers I had in Zapala, despite my hardships, I had an enjoyable time. The opposite happened in my next area. That is when my depression intensified. I was referred to talk to a church psychologist once a week, but his advice was horrible: focus on scriptures instead of yourself. I would obsess over the scriptures but that did not lessen my pain. My mission president decided to send me near the mission office so I could see a psychiatrist so I was transferred to Cipolletti, Argentina. My three transfers in Cipolletti changed my life. I went on Zoloft and suddenly my lows weren’t as low. I was with a companion whom I absolutely loved. A couple of families took me under their wing and became my best friends. To get back to my testimony: I believed what I was preaching, that the Mormon church was the truest church on earth and could bring the most happiness.

To make my mission story short: I went through several more transfers and many companions and after a year in Argentina I was burnt out. My stress was exceeding my medication. After one bad day my companion suggested that maybe I should go home. I prayed about it and it seemed right. I walked over to the mission home and told the mission president and by the next day at Noon I was on a plane out of Argentina on a medical release.

The mission story is important because it is important to know how burnt out I was. I didn’t go inactive after my mission like many missionaries though. I still attended church even if I didn’t read my scriptures as often as I did pre or during the mission. Over the years though, the guilt intensified. Most Mormons get married in their early twenties, but despite my best efforts (asking guys out on every girl- ask-guy Institute prom, being active in the ward, attending Institute dances, etc…) it wasn’t happening. I began to wonder why that was and I began to feel guilty about that too.

I remember this moment. It was sometime in the Fall of 2005 and I was reading Richard Bushman’s work on Joseph Smith “Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling”. That is not an anti-Mormon book. I wouldn’t have touched anti-Mormon literature. I was reading in the book and came across the words “Joseph Smith was maried to at least 30 women”, eleven of them being women that were already married to other men (their husbands still living). I felt like I had been punched in the gut. I had been in the church all my life and had never heard of Joseph Smith’s polyandry. I was disturbed, but like a good Mormon, I put that issue on the “shelf”. I had several other items on the shelf: blacks and the Priesthood and the racist comments of previous church leaders, evolution (which I believed in as a good Biologist should), the inferior status of women in the church, etc…

A little after this time my Mom passed away. I had somehow believed that when someone died you could feel their presence near, whether at home or in the temple (which I attended at least once a month), but that wasn’t the case for me. My Mom really was gone. For the first time in my life I began to have serious doubts about what the church was teaching about life after death. Death suddenly seemed more permanent than I had previously believed.

I entered grad school and suddenly I was examining my religion under the same critical eye I was examining science. I was on the internet one day and came across “Exponent II” an online magazine of women in the church. That led me to the whole ‘Bloggernacle’ (www.ldsblogs.org). I was intrigued. Here was a whole community of believing latter-day saints that were able to be realistic about their faith and knew the troubled issues of the church. I had been going inactive after my Mom’s death, but reading the blogs kept me going to church.

Being in grad school opened up my eyes on how women were treated in the church. At school I would be surrounded by female professors, a female department head, etc… At church I would see men with suits on the stand and the inequality was striking. I had previously enjoyed the temple ceremony but the whole Adam and Eve allegory seemed rather misogynistic: God would always address Adam and not Eve. I was being asked to hearken to my non-existent husband while he was never asked to hearken to me. I was being told I was going to be a “Priestess UNTO my husband”, not a priestess in my own right. One day during I started crying because of those very words and I was escorted out of an initiatory session. I was talking to a temple worker in the foyer and she told me that when she got divorced she couldn’t be a temple worker because you had to be a married woman to work at the veil. I was deeply disturbed. I had always felt that I had just as much power as any other woman, but here I was being told that I was a second-class citizen because I wasn’t married.

About this time Proposition Eight was coming out and I was equally disturbed. Knowing what I knew of Joseph Smith’s polygeny and how many wives other leaders of the church had at that time had (Heber C. Kimball had 50!), it seemed hypocritical for the church to tell other people that marriage was between a man and one woman. Men in the past in the church were arrested for their marriage practices and we were going to prevent other people from getting married? Additionally my best girl friend from high school, got a sex change operation and now out as male.. I saw him whenever I was in town and he was happy. He was engaged to be married. What the church was saying ‘that homosexuality would bring unhappiness’ didn’t seem to ring true. Living as I did the Law of Celibacy (in your late twenties and on out the Law of Chastity becomes the Law of Celibacy in your mind) to tell gay people they could never get married and never even date even seemed cruel. I was hardly dating myself and it wasn’t easy on me. Having many woman friends in their 30s that had never gotten married I started to imagine myself as having to live single for the rest of my life.

Even though I had all these doubts, they were still proverbially on the ‘shelf’. In March of 2008 I heard Elder Bednar was giving a young adult fireside in Knoxville, TN. I carpooled with a couple of friends there from Nashville. I heard it was to be a Q&A session and I was excited. Ever since I heard that single women couldn’t be temple workers I had not been able to attend the temple because I was so disturbed. Maybe I would get my question answered. About four questions in I raised my hand and asked my question. In a curt voice Elder Bednar retorted “I know the answer to that one, but you’re going to have to put that question on the shelf”. I couldn’t believe what had happened. An “apostle” wouldn’t give me a straight answer to a simple question. I ran out of that meeting crying. I remember being outside of that church building, looking at the stars and hysterically crying because I knew something had happened to me, something had happened to my testimony. I know now that at that moment my 'shelf' collapsed. There had been one too many items on it.

I began skipping church every other Sunday. When I was there I would sit at church and feel guilty because I felt that all the people in the 'room were believing and I just wasn’t as believing as I had been before. I moved to Michigan and had the same problems.

It was the early morning of April 3, 2010. I was reading about a woman who left the FLDS cult and her feelings about her church seemed similar to the feelings I was having. The way her church was seemed a lot like the early LDS church had been. All of a sudden I had a life-changing epiphany: the church wasn’t true. Suddenly all the doubts I had made sense – they weren’t supposed to make sense! It was all made up! I was strong that weekend: I was going to leave the church. The gravity of that epiphany was too strong though. For months I wrestled with whether I should be a “cultural” Mormon- one who enjoyed the social network the church provided but did not believe in the doctrine and did not believe in the current leadership. I even met with the missionaries a couple of times but that generally just led to crying. I genuinely did not believe anymore.

In the Summer of 2010 I was watching a British TV series called Life on Mars (excellent series BTW). In that series the main character literally takes a leap of faith. For some reason that triggered something inside me. I typed in “Ex-mormon” in Google and spent the whole week reading. What I read was pretty damning. Bushman had assured me that the women Joseph Smith had married that were married to other men were ‘spiritual wives’ only, but the evidence suggested that Joseph Smith had sex with them too just as he had his other wives. Joseph Smith even ‘married’ a 14 year old, Helen Mar Kimball, the daughter of his friend Heber C. Kimball. I wanted to believe the Book of Mormon was true, but after reading that thousands of changes had been made from the 1830 version, I was forced to realize I had been duped.

It wasn’t an exciting decision to send in my resignation letter to Salt Lake. It was a terrifying and a devastating decision the which I’m still grappling with three years later. I haven’t dated much outside the church (to be honest I never dated much INSIDE the church either). I have a hard time making friends outside church. But the plus side is that I don’t sit through church with tears of guilt anymore. What do I believe? For right now I’m a reluctant Atheist. If this life is it then I better live a full and happy one. Now that I’m not Mormon I’m free to admit to myself that I am bisexual. I’m starting to go on dates with women. I’m free to imagine myself getting married – if I had been a Mormon the rest of my life I might never have gotten married.

I believe in being an honest and kind person. I want to go into healthcare and help people. I want to love and I want to live. I don’t want to erase my past though. Growing up Mormon kept me from a lot of bad stuff (although it also gave me issues with making genuine friends and sex in general). I will freely admit that Mormonism is beneficial to some people and I don’t begrudge them their faith. Some of my dearest friends and family members are still active believing Mormons. I used to believe myself. But as much as I believed then I don’t believe now. I’ve decided to move on.