I grew up in Sandy Utah. All my neighbors were Mormon, I knew every person within a mile of our house.

My family of six was dirt poor. My mom worked part time skinning minks at a mink farm, and my dad worked at the Church office building (for peanuts). My mom had my brothers and I all by the time she was 21.

I never liked being Mormon, I wanted to go anywhere but church. My family would attend church in our Deseret Industry rags and we would suffer through the 3 hours sitting in reverence. Fast sunday was the worst. My brothers and I were always hungry, and then we had to fast once a week.

I started rebelling against the church early. I played with a non-mormon kid, I swore in private. I even smoked a cigarette once.

By the time I reached deacon I had begun acting out in earnest. My best friend in the world was a true blue mormon girl. She was sweet, and smart and we would talk for hours on our beliefs and hopes. But we were devious. Together she and I would slip a pebble into the exit doors of the church so they would not lock properly. Then when the church was empty we would sneak in, slip under the locked curtain in front of the baptismal font... We would fill the font and make into our private pool. We would swim in our underwear. Some times we would sneak into the kitchen, scavenge any food we could and eat it in the crawl space tunnels beneath the church. Some times we would sneak into the little room in sacrament meeting area and steel wonder bread. Neither of our families had wonder bread, and I would break it up just like the priests did in the trays... We would feast on trays overflowing with bread. So many fast sundays I wanted to eat that whole tray when it came around.

My friend would sometimes feel guilty about out bad deeds, but I would console her with the knowledge that god, probably did not want a bunch of uptight stiffs walking around his house. If I was god, I would be perfectly happy to let my children swim in my pool, in their underwear.

As a deacon one of my duties was to pass out the water. I would empty an entire packet of salt into just one of the little cups. The way the trays were passed around it was impossible to see what kid did it and I knew I could avoid detection. The game was to see if I could spot the poor person with the tainted water. The goal was to see if I could get someone to swear... Nobody ever did. A couple kids spit it out, and had there parents reprimand them, and that was entertaining.

At 13 my time in the church came to an abrupt end. My dearest friend and partner in crime got up in front of the whole church and bore her testimony. I was not mad at her for lying, I knew she did not have a testimony, we had discussed our faith on so many occasions. She did it to make her family happy, and I can understand that. But it made me realize that it was not just my friend lying, it was everyone. They all lied, "I know this church is true", over and over again. I never believed any of it. I went to church because my parents made me. At the end of church that day I told my parents, I would never go to church again.

My parents actually took it quite well (I'm the baby of the family). My mom told me many years later that had been secretly proud of me. Eventually my family moved to California. One by one my family members dropped the Mormon church. We overcame our financial woes and became normal people.

Thanks for this forum, its nice to know there are lots of people that can relate the weirdness of being Mormon.