First off, I wanted to thank everyone for their stories and posts. I've spent the last few days reading Bios and such and it's good to know people can make it through.

For me, last Wednesday, the catalyst for finding this site was a lovely email from the financial clerk with my YTD donations in preparation for Tithing Settlement.

Since I was a wee lad stuffing pennies into an envelope, I've hated this time of year. It always felt like a shakedown and it has always made me bitter.

I started reflecting on some of the things that make me want out.

Sundays - The kids were a little under the weather this last Sunday so we skipped Church and had a nice brunch instead. Spent time playing and laughing and enjoying the fall weather. The realization that a Sunday didn't have to be dreaded for the 3 hours in a shirt and tie, plus a couple more for sundry meetings and HT. Sheesh, is this how the other half lives?

Servitude - I love helping people. I've got a strong back and a sharp mind and like to share my talents (that's a thing I think I read somewhere). But enforced service, cleaning a church (they used to have janitorial staff right?), packing/movingout/movingin people (there are companies that do this, and I'm pretty sure they'd take a check from the Bishop's office) and every hour lost within families as spouses trade off the kids to fulfill another calling you can't say no to, despite 4 others before you turning it down.

Testimony Meeting - Please, please, PLEASE tell me one more time about how the 3 Nephites saved a Sister Missionary, plowed a field and left a warm cake on your doorstep because they knew you were sad in your heart. And do it while sobbing from the pulpit.

Word of Wisdom - I love coffee, I love tea, I love the java jive and it loves me. A nice hot cup of tea on a cold fall morning is my one way elevator to down?

"A religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has the power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation." - Joseph Smith?

At the end of the day, I think I subscribe to this... "Now, my own suspicion is that the universe is not only [stranger] than we suppose, but [stranger] than we can suppose. I have read and heard many attempts at a systematic account of it, from materialism and theosophy to the Christian system or that of Kant, and I have always felt that they were much too simple. I suspect that there are more things in heaven and earth that are dreamed of, or can be dreamed of, in any philosophy. That is the reason why I have no philosophy myself, and must be my excuse for dreaming.” - J.B.S. Haldane

So that's me... trivial stuff to be sure, but what made you go?

Was it a bunch of little stuff that pushed or one swoop that made you decide to leave?