My decision to leave the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was not a sudden, spur of the moment decision. It's been coming for about 2 years, although I wasn't aware of it in the beginning. I am writing this document in case anybody wants to know the real story of why I am leaving, rather than to accept the stock answers which are given in church (was offended, desired to sin, or too lazy to do all that the LDS gospel requires). If you have chosen to read this, I want to thank you for caring enough about me to listen.

First, a little history about myself. I was raised as a Presbyterian. I was taught about God and Jesus and was taught to pray. I attended on a regular basis and was involved with the youth group as a teenager. Being a Christian was just the way I was raised. When I went to college I stopped attending church. It wasn't that I didn't care, it was because I was having a good time being a college student and staying up late at night and sleeping in on Sunday mornings.

Following college, I just didn't get back into the habit of attending church, although I thought about it at various times. I moved several times with my job and ended up in Oklahoma City, moving in to an apartment next door to Cheryl, a young woman my age who was LDS. We quickly became friends and she included me in her social activities, which were all with the young single adult group from her church. I found the people very nice and welcoming. When Cheryl told me about the beliefs of her church (in particular about eternal marriage), I felt an excitement. I felt so good inside. Eventually I started meeting with the sister missionaries and I learned things I hadn't known before. I always thought God created the world, but they taught me that it was Jesus Christ. They told me about a pre-existence. They told me that the true church of Jesus Christ had been taken from the earth and had to be restored, and that it had been restored through Joseph Smith. These very dedicated women were my age, and they were so excited to be serving God. It was very appealing because I wanted to love God enough to serve him at all costs. They taught me that the good feelings I had were manifestations of the Holy Ghost, which confirms the truth of all things. By the time they left I was on a spiritual high, and called my sister to talk about it. We talked over an hour (and those were the days before cheap long distance rates). When we hung up the phone, it rang within 30 seconds. It was the missionaries calling to challenge me to be baptized in 10 days.

I read the Book of Mormon and paid particular attention to the scriptures that were used in the pamphlets which accompanied each lesson. We met almost on a daily basis. They taught me how to pray in the right way and encouraged me to get a testimony of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon through prayer. I prayed fervently and asked Heavenly Father for the burning in the bosom that was promised. It didn't come immediately, and they told me that Heavenly Father doesn't always give us answers right away, but he tests us to see if we will continue to be faithful. I had been taught about the Word of Wisdom, and so I made a conscious point of ordering Sprite rather than Coke when I went out. I continued to pray until I felt the burning in the bosom. At that point I knew that I needed to be baptized. Like Joseph Smith said, "I knew that it was true, and I knew that Heavenly Father knew that I knew," so I had to follow what He had shown me.

I was scheduled to be baptized along with 5 other people on September 23, 1978. I had requested that a certain man baptize me, but there was bad weather that day and he was stuck in Tulsa. I had shown up for my baptism with my parents and sister in tow. I was grateful they had come from Texas to be there for me. My brother couldn't make it, but he sent a beautiful cross on a necklace. I was so pleased by the gift and wore it to the Church. When I got there and the missionaries saw it, they were horrified, or at least they seemed that way to me. "Mormons don't wear crosses," I was told. That disturbed me. Then I learned the man wouldn't be there to baptize me. I was wondering if I was making a mistake and the Lord was trying to show me, but the sisters assured me that it was Satan trying to keep me from making this commitment to the Lord.

Another priesthood leader was dressed in white to baptize someone else, so he performed my baptism as well. I felt so clean afterwards, so pure. I wanted the feeling to last forever.

As the years passed, I learned more about the gospel and what is expected of a good Latter-day Saint. I was an active, practicing member from my baptism on. After moving to Texas I met a returned missionary who became my husband 5 months later in the Manti Temple. He was such a good man, so dedicated to the Lord. He believed in living a life of exactness and obedience and I was right beside him. Through the years our children came and we raised them and served at church. There was a time or two when someone offended me, a couple of times when I took a sip of something only to discover it had alcohol in it, and one time in particular when I cussed a blue streak because of my frustration with my calling as Primary President. But, most of the time, I faithfully lived as much of the teachings of the church as I could. Well, I wasn't very good with keeping a journal, but I kept the Word of Wisdom, I attended my meetings, I prayed multiple times a day (by myself, with my husband and as a family both morning and night--6 prayers right there). I read my scriptures faithfully, both my personal reading and reading with my husband and reading with my family--3 scripture readings a day. We were faithful in paying tithing and paid generous offerings in other categories. We always had Family Home Evening. We accepted all the callings that came our way and put the church first in everything.

In short, I was as good a Mormon as I could be. And yet, having said that, I was nowhere near perfect. I liked to play the slot machines when I was on a trip. I had depression and struggled to have the energy to take care of my family and my home. I did pretty well with the family, but was a terrible housekeeper. I often fulfilled all the parenting roles for our children because of my husband's demanding job, and later his calling in Bishoprics and then as a Bishop. One child suffered from several chronic illnesses which added to the stress in our lives. But despite all of this, we remained faithful.

Years passed, my husband died, and I continued to raise the children and attend church and fulfill callings, just as I always had. I moved halfway across the country at the promptings of Heavenly Father, and made difficult decisions regarding pushing one of my children out of the nest. I dealt with disappointment when I discovered some of my children were not living according to the teachings of the church. But I still was faithful to the church.

Now, why was I faithful all of those years? There are several reasons. The first is that I had received the spiritual confirmation of the Holy Ghost that the church was true. I believed that the leaders were chosen by God to lead the church and to lead the people of the earth back to him. I believed that as an individual I had free agency to choose to follow God, through the church, or to rebel against the church, and thus against God. The church helped me to be a good person, giving me opportunities to serve others. My friends at church were some of the most wonderful people that I had known. So what if I couldn't drink alcohol or coffee or tea, so what if I couldn't shop on Sundays, so what if more than 10% of our gross income was given to the church. It just didn't matter. I would do anything that God asked of me and I was happy to do so.

I believed that I would go on in the same way until the end of my life, at which point I would live with Jesus Christ, with the hope that I might also make it to exaltation in the Celestial Kingdom and be with my family forever. It was for this purpose that I made covenants in the Temple and returned to provide these same blessings to my ancestors.

But, sometimes, I would wonder about some things. For example, if the Temple ceremony was given by revelation, why was it changed? We were taught that God is unchangeable and in him is "no variableness nor shadow of changing." (Mormon 9:9). Then I learned that Joseph Smith taught, in the King Follett sermon, that God was once as we are now and Brigham Young expanded on that when he taught that God "was once a man in mortal flesh and is an exalted being." So now I had two issues, why was the Temple changed, and was God the "same yesterday, today and forever" (Mormon 9:9) or had he once been a man that continued to grow until he became a God? So, if he hasn't always been God, how can he be omnipotent or omnipresent?

Traditional Christians called us a cult and said that we worshipped a different Jesus. "How ridiculous," I thought. I worship Jesus of the Bible, the son of God, the Savior of the world. I knew that he could save me "after all that (I) can do." In fact, the LDS Bible Dictionary says "Divine grace is needed by every soul in consequence of the Fall of Adam and also because of man's weaknesses and shortcomings. However, grace cannot suffice without total effort on the part of the recipient. Hence the explanation, 'It is by grace ...'." I had a hard time explaining that to some people who said that our works don't save us. I tried to make them understand that I didn't think my works would save me, but that I was obligated to do all that I could just the same. It was hard to defend, because I didn't understand it perfectly myself. Besides, I was of the opinion, which I believe is common in the LDS church, that other people use grace as a means to be lazy and sin all they want and just expect Christ to save them merely because they claim to be Christians. The thought of "mocking" what Christ did was horrifying to me.

One topic that was a great concern to many people was the fact that the church used to practice polygamy. My attitude was, "whatever God wants is right," so it didn't bother me. In fact, in the Old Testament the Lord says to David through the prophet Nathan that "I gave thee thy master's house, and they master's wives...". (2nd Samuel 12:7) So, the Lord said he gave David his wives. But I did wonder about the scripture in the Book of Mormon that said "Behold, David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable before me." (Jacob 2:24) I didn't know how to reconcile these scriptures which appeared to disagree.

Nevertheless, despite all of the scripture reading and praying I was doing, I didn't really worry about things like this that I couldn't understand. I trusted the church. I trusted the leaders. In fact, the 4th prophet, Wilford Woodruff said, " The Lord will never permit me or any other man who stands as President of this Church to lead you astray." He went on to say that any leader who attempted to do so would be removed from his place by the Lord.

Several years ago I was driving along Roberts Road and I was praying as I drove. I was thinking about the song "It May Not Be On A Mountain High" and the line that says, "I'll go where you want me to go." I love God and want to be brave enough to go where he leads me. As I was thinking that, a thought came into my head. "What if I told you to leave the Church?" That thought sent a chill through me. Why would God tell me that? I figured it must be a test. But then I got another thought "Do you follow me or the church?" To me they were synonymous and this thought had never occurred to me before. So it made me think. What if this isn't God's true church? Would I leave it to follow him? It was a sobering thought, but I realized that I always want to try my best to follow God. But, then I shrugged it off. I figured the thought was just put there as a test, sort of like Abraham being asked to sacrifice Isaac. He wasn't to go through with it, he just had to show the Lord that he would be willing to do so. Although I did not forget this incident, I didn't think about it much afterwards.

I have always had a curiosity about ghosts and mediums and psychics. I've wondered if they're real, or if they are all conmen. The Bible warns against going to psychics and yet it also talks about having dreams and visions which are from God. I believed what Bruce McConkie wrote in Mormon Doctrine that we need to beware of this stuff. I watched John Edward and knew that he claimed to be a Christian. He claimed his gifts were from God. Later I saw a show about another medium and she also claimed her gifts were from God. I was torn because I felt drawn to learn more about this, but felt guilty because of what I believed the church teaches. I finally went to a medium for a reading and was impressed at how much she got right. After a couple of months, I started going on spirit investigations with a group who claimed that they could help trapped spirits move on to the light. It was very interesting, and the people claimed that they used their God-given gifts to help people. But, I continued to feel torn. I felt that God was leading me in this new direction, and I was enjoying it, but I couldn't understand it. One day I made a trip to the Orlando Temple just so I could pray about this in the Celestial room. I felt a peace in my heart that God wanted me to do this. Looking back now, I see it was just another step on the journey that God is leading me through in this life.

I met people online who taught how to get in touch with these natural gifts that we all have. I had experiences in which I was given messages in my head that turned out to be verified by the person I was speaking to. Basically, I was able to act as a medium and give messages from departed loved ones. I shocked myself whenever this happened. But, I knew it was real, I knew I was praying for God's guidance constantly and this continued to happen.

I met a man online who became my tutor. I thought he was going to help me learn to meditate. They said that prayer is us talking to God and meditation is listening to God's answers to us. I thought he would tell me how to be better at empathy or some other gift. Although we talked a bit about that, the main thing he was doing was trying to help me to be a "sentient being" as he called it. When I was young, through high school and college, I was a determined person. I went after what I wanted. I was involved in Junior Achievement and ended up winning some contests and earning some accolades. In college I tried to be the best student I could be, and the references from some of my professors confirmed that I had achieved this. I knew my mind and had a desire to make something of my life. But, as my tutor kindly pointed out, somewhere along the way I had become a doormat. I had become a kind, sweet person who never rocked the boat, who always tried to make the other person feel good. These are admirable qualities, but I had taken them to the point that I had no self-identity. I had truly lost myself through the years. I remember that after my husband died, I went to a therapist for awhile. I told him that I felt invisible, as if I have absolutely no impact on the world. I couldn't see that I had any influence on my children or anyone else. Although those visits with the therapist were in 1999, my feelings of being invisible continued.

It was at this point that I came across a website called "MormonThink." I don't even remember how I found it, I just know that I was looking for something on Google that led me there. Once there, I found an article about how people of all faiths receive "good feelings." It was an interesting article and I thought it was particularly applicable to myself. Much of my testimony came through the confirming witness of the Holy Ghost. By that I mean that I felt a good feeling suffusing my inner being and I felt that I KNEW that I was doing what God wanted me to do. Then here is an article telling me that Catholics and Muslims and Hindus and Protestants received the same feelings. Jehovah's Witnesses had received the same confirmation of their church. I wondered how we could prove that our witness of the LDS religion was the true one. Then I realized, which was the point of the article, that no one religion can claim to be the only true one, based on God revealing himself to his children. The article even had a quiz which had testimonies from various people, and the goal was to identify which testimony was given by a member of whichever religion. So many sounded like LDS testimonies...

That was the first thing I can recall reading on the Internet that made me wonder about my own religion. MormonThink had many well thought-out, well written articles. I started investigating, and went from reading on there to reading other websites that claimed to have the true history of the LDS church. I didn't believe a lot of it at first because we have been warned many times in church to avoid anything that could be considered anti-Mormon. But then I read about the papyrus from which the Book of Abraham was translated. And then I read more about Joseph Smith's polygamy and polyandry. I continued to come across more disturbing information.

Somewhere during that time I decided to do my scripture reading in the Bible, since I've read the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price many, many times. It was like I was reading the Bible with new eyes. I read a lot about grace and the need to believe in Jesus. I read that it's not what goes in the mouth which pollutes a man, but what comes out. I read about Jesus fulfilling the law, so people who chose to live by the law would be judged by the law, but those who lived by faith in the Lord would be saved by his grace and mercy. This was not the way I'd been taught in the Mormon church. Of course, the LDS church said the Bible wasn't translated correctly, and so we couldn't trust all that we read in there.

During all of this, I prayed a lot. I did not want to be led astray. I'd been taught that Satan was real, that he was cunning and crafty and he desired to lead the elect astray. I'd been taught that if I didn't keep all of the covenants I'd made, that I would be in his power. So that worried me quite a bit. After all, one of the temple recommend questions was regarding apostate groups. Since I was being led to information on the Internet that was not totally faith promoting in the LDS church, was I sympathizing with apostate groups? So obviously I prayed seriously. And I felt like I should stay on the path I was currently on. Of course, by this point I didn't know if I could trust the feelings I was receiving. So, I started allowing myself to do some critical thinking, rather than just "being obedient and following the leaders." Anyone who has been a faithful Latter-day Saint will know the fear and worry that this involved. It has not been a easy time for me.

One of the many videos I watched was presented by John Dehlin. He has studied many criticisms of the LDS church and is still an active member. He had been asked by people at the headquarters of the church to do a study to find out why members leave the LDS church. He created a presentation for the leaders of the church, who I understand have watched this. One comment he made stood out to me. He was pointing out the fact that many people who leave the church actually feel as if they are being brave by taking an unpopular path. I think most active Latter-day Saints are happy in the church and are happy to be following God. When they believe the church is not true, it comes at a great sacrifice to leave the path they had been on. I doubt that anyone wants their friends to turn on them for having different religious beliefs, and yet that is very common for people who leave the LDS church. There is a great stigma attached. You don't hear about anti-Catholics or anti-Methodists. People who left those religions are simply people who chose another path. But, if someone leaves the LDS church, they are branded anti-Mormons and apostates. Some people choose to hide their unbelief so they don't have to deal with those consequences. But, I cannot do that. I value my integrity, and my integrity says that I don't live a lie. I accept who and what I am and what I believe.

I could go on at this point and give a long list of things which have convinced me that the LDS church is not, and cannot be, true. But that is not the purpose of this document. I will provide that information in another format for those who want to know. But, and I say this with all sincerity, if you are happy in the LDS church and you don't want anything to rock your world, then do not ask to read it.

If you say that I have changed, you would be correct. I have learned that it is OK to ask questions. In fact, when something demands so much of me, it is really my duty to know that it is worth all of my thoughts, emotions, time, money, energy, and devotion. Although it doesn't come from the Bible, I believe that the statement "To thine own self be true," is valid. So, now I am more likely to stand up for myself, rather than shrinking away and hoping no one notices me.

As I told my children when I wrote them about my feelings, I truly believe that God loves me. He knows my heart. He knows my desires and my prayers. I believe that if I am being led astray, that God will have enough mercy to forgive me. But, He knows that I do believe I am following the path He has laid before me. Life seems to be a journey, with twists and turns that I never could have anticipated. It is a blessing to be on this journey and I am grateful to God for my life.

I do pray that He will bless you when you read this to have a softened heart, that you will not automatically go into judgment mode. I do not mean to say that I am trying to convert you to my way of thinking. But just keep in mind the 11th Article of Faith, "We claim the privilege of worshipping almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where or what they may."

Thank you again for reading this heartfelt and sincere attempt to explain why I am choosing to leave the LDS church.