While serving my mission, I was quickly infected with the Mormon tendency to “be the best.” I quickly noticed that district leaders, zone leaders, and assistants to the president were seen as “better”. It was evident that a missionary received more recognition, praise, and benefits as they moved up the ranks in leadership. My young and naive self bought in to this and “went to work” t
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Sadly, that’s exactly how the church likes it. I have to consciously think about not doing so many things the church conditioned me to do (even praying for meals!). Speaking of, I’m SO glad I asked for all the pizza, burgers, and crap food I’ve eaten in the past to be blessed and nutritious for my body....ha! As for family and baptism, I’d like to think that in 7 years our families wil
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Very much agreed. One good thing we took from the LDS culture is the importance of family. We are taking things a step at a time and will never be part of an organized religion in the future.
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“You know, you don’t have to “believe” anything if you deal with verifiable facts.” Well said. My response to a lot of questions and concerns now is “I don’t know.” Which is all anyone can say about the majority of things (religiously speaking). I also don’t want to pretend like I know something when I having absolutely no freaking idea. It is definitely a new life alread
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Thanks Free man, I’ve got a lot to learn about reality. Anything that makes us comfy and cozy in Our mysterious existence, right? It makes me feel sick to think about the opinions I formed about individuals who left the church while I was practicing. Whether you still hold the belief of no agency as Satan’s plan or are facetiously using Mormon beliefs as a reason to avoid dispute,
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We really did get lucky and it makes the process easier. Power to those who didn’t have it the same way. Well, as a matter of fact, we have some interesting stories already that I may share in the near future. Yet, I know there will be many more interesting things to come. I have spent a lot of the day reading discussions on RfM. Some very helpful and entertaining. I’ll have lots to sh
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Thanks eternal! So far, the hardest thing was actually facing the fact that the church is not true. The psychology courses I took in undergrad were actually beneficial in helping understand how I had been SO conditioned to believe and practice something so wrong... We too want to avoid the conflict with family, primarily our parents. We just had our first kid and we can only imagine the wor
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Thanks for the encouragement Eric! I like your perspective on our process of learning. I feel like I just took of glasses that made me more and more blind as I wore them, but now that they’re off my vision is still blurry and will only improve with time. Hopefully that makes sense, haha. Thanks again!
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SO true. Everything I read and learn about the church now just makes me realize more and more how absolutely absurd it is. Not to mention, most of that stuff was being taught to me every week or was right at my fingertips on LDS websites and resources. How could I be so ignorant? Hahaha We still haven’t discovered our new “beliefs”, we just know they aren’t Mormon beliefs anymore.
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Cheers Berry, We too are in the Midwest right now and family is back West. I like the analogy. Discovering something so world-changing and eye-opening can be completely unique for each person. I do look forward to participating in discussions though and feel like there’s a lot to learn..
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Great suggestion Olddog. I can only imagine how quickly friends and family will be to try and “save” us the second the words come out of our mouths. Honestly, it’s an exciting and scary thing. We feel like we are free from delusion with a lot of personal development ahead of us, but that comes with the baggage of leaving the church. I am glad I found this board to relate to others. Mu
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Thanks Goop, My condolences to those couples that went through a more difficult process. We may be the same way with waiting to tell parents. We live so far from them it’s easier to not share. However, we don’t want to feel like we are ashamed of our beliefs, or lack thereof. Either way, I think just knowing that there are so many others out there that have gone through the same thi
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Thankfully, no divorce. We’ve actually discussed how lucky we are to have come to this realization together. You’re right about identity evaporating. Very abruptly, at that. Thanks for the encouragement. We are now in the interesting stage of wanting to ask to be released from our callings and sharing with our families how we feel. Seems like a big wall to get over.
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