Slowly Going Downhill

Once things started to go downhill in 2010-2011 I was bound and determined that I wasn't going to go inactive again. I made a promise to myself that I would stick with it this time. My wife didn't really want to continue to go but she did occasionally if only to support me. Finally in 2011 I got another calling, one that I had before (the one I had when I went inactive in 2004) and that was Assistant Ward Clerk. I was happy to finally get a "real" calling. Maybe now I would fit in better with the ward members. But the Ward Clerk did all the work and there was nothing for me to really do. I'm not one to hang around waiting for work to be given me to do. If you want me to do something you have to tell me. I did ask the clerk if there was anything I could do but he said just filing if I had the time. I struggled with going to church. I believed in the church, that it was the true church. I believed in Joseph Smith, that he was a prophet. I read scriptures--not every day but I tried to read them as much as I could. I avoided alcohol and coffee/tea. I tried to pray, but it never became consistent. I felt my family slipping away from the church. My son didn't want to go to church. I thought something was wrong in his class but he wouldn't tell me (I later found out he was being bullied by his classmates). My wife worked every other Sunday, and on her Sunday off didn't really want to go to church--she wanted to rest. Hell, I wanted to rest too! Sunday was my only real day off--Saturday was always filled with shopping and chores. But I continued to go. I taught in Elders Quorum twice a month and did a sacrament talk a couple times a year. But I was drifting further and further away--slowly each week--each month. In January 2012 I had a talk with my bishop about my feeling "wishy washy" about the gospel. It was time to stop this nonsense, I said, and take it seriously. He gave me another calling--Ward Executive Secretary. I thought I had finally "made it". This was a big deal. I would be interracting with the Bishopric, sitting in on meetings and all the calling entailed. The Bishop gave me some assignments to set up appointments with members for temple recommend interviews and just interviews in general. I hate talking on the phone to people. I dreaded having to do this. I kept putting it off, worried that bishop would call me and ask when was I going to make these appointments. I was terrified to go to church or he would confront me about my lack of progress in this assignment. I couldn't sleep for a week I was worried about this assignment. I couldn't take it anymore. I snapped. The guilt at not doing my calling. The guilt at not going to the temple enough. Not doing home teaching(which I despised and thought was a flippin' waste of time, but thought I should do it because my Priesthood leaders told me I should do it). Guilty at dragging my family to church when all they wanted to do was rest on Sunday. Guilty at not doing the Lord's work on Sunday. Guilty at not sharing the gospel with friends like we were told to do over and over week after week. Guilty when I read a book with a swear word in it or watched a movie with a swear word in it. Guilty at not preparing for my lessons well enough. Some weeks the lesson would be OK, other times it was agony getting through the half hour lesson in EQ. I always strugged with tithing. I would pay it enough to get a temple recommend then would stop a few months later. It was just so hard to do. My wife and I started paying it at the beginning of 2012 again. We figured we needed the blessings. A week after we payed tithing we had a problem with our car and had to shell out $600. (which we didn't really have). OK, pay tithing, should have blessings--reality: no blessing just a car repair bill. The kicker was that the bill was for the car alarm. After paying the $$$, the alarm still had a problem so we took it back to the car dealership and they ended up disconnecting it, so the $600 was for nothing!!! Some blessing that was! We continued to pay tithing, thinking it was a test of our faith(sound familiar?). But the truth was we were just getting deeper and deeper in the hole. Like I said above, I snapped then. I was sitting in a Sunday morning Bishopric meeting and I felt more and more uneasy and suddenly I felt like I wanted to bolt. I didn't want to be there anymore. I left after that meeting ended and I've never been back. This was March 2012. The whole church thing was just too much to have to deal with. Arguing with my son on Sunday morning to get dressed for church. I prayed for help and it never came. Preparing for a talk, preparing my EQ lesson, worrying about my assigment. That was it. I had enough. I was done. But I held out hope that things would change. Should I stop going or should I buckle down and go back? Finally my wife confronted me and said I had to make a decision. Were we going to church, or not? This wishy washiness was driving us both nuts. I couldn't give an answer until the next day. I don't know what I was waiting for, a lightning bolt to say "GO BACK TO CHURCH". If heavenly father wanted me there he would show me the way. I waited and waited but this miraculous intervention never came. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. That was it. I was not going to church anymore. I had my answer. It was about 4 weeks before anyone contacted us. The bishop emailed and asked could we talk. I was long past reconciling. It was too late. It was over. In my mind I had made my decision. I emailed him back that no I did not want to talk, I was no longer attending church and please release me from my calling. The EQ president emailed a few days later. Could I teach on Sunday? (The Bishop didn't tell him about my email obviously). I told him that no I could not teach and was no longer attending church. "Oh, OK take care", was the response. Then in my investigations, I stumbled on a website, I don't remember which one now. All these contradictions in the Book of Mormon, no evidence of civilizations such as were described in the book. I kinda knew these things already but I didn't investigate further. The "real" Joseph Smith and how he was not like the offical church history portrayed him. I had heard stories but ignored them in the past. Members leaving the church in droves, I figured "oh they lost their testimony, they weren't strong enough, they were weak". It was their fault. They should have prayed more. Or read their scriptures or at least not peruse "anti-Mormon" websites. The incident in the 1980's over forged documents in SLC. Why didn't the prophet of the church receive revelation that the documents were forged? I had heard this story before but explained it away somehow. I noticed that church membership growth was slowing but the church claimed it was growing faster than ever. Some of the things that Brigham Young said and taught were just plain psychotic, but I ignored it. OK, so he was a nut but he was a "prophet" called of God. He was allowed to be a little eccentric. And what was the purpose of the temple endowment? What was I really learning there? It all seemed so silly and absurd but I thought God must have a purpose for it, but I couldn't see it. So many contradictions. Multiple versions of the First Vision. And why was the Nauvoo Expositor press destroyed by Joseph Smith just before his "martyrdom" in 1844? To prevent an expose on his "affair" with the wife of the press owner? His smuggling a gun into the Carthage jail and killing 2 people before being killed himself. His lying about polygamy for many years. The list goes on and on...and on... Let's face it, I was brainwashed. Pure and simple. Every time I was confronted with something odd or unusual, I would explain it away. After all the church was perfect even if the members were not. We weren't supposed to question anything, but just accept it as "inspired" counsel from our church leaders. Well now I've come to the realization that everything I've been taught about the church, about Joseph Smith, the history, the ordinances, the doctrine--everything is a load of crap. Every last bit of it. I feel betrayed. I feel lied to. I feel deceived and used. I wasted 18 years of my life in the LDS church. Years I could have been progressing in a Christian faith. Now I don't think I'll ever attend another church, ever. The LDS experience has ruined me for religion. Never say never, though. I believe there is hope and I may one day want to try attending a church. But this experience of the last 18 years has affected me so deeply that it will take years to recover. I'm just glad I didn't suck anyone else into this "religion". Now I know why they made member missionary work so prominent this year. The missionaries are running out of people to teach so we need to drag our family and friends into the church. Increasing numbers is what it's all about, don't you know? Oh and we had a special stake conference in February this year. The whole 2 hours was taken up with splitting stake boundaries and setting apart the new leaders. What a flippin' waste of time that was! Couldn't this have been done behind closed doors, not over satellite broadcast? I can't believe I went that week. Oh well, no more. There, I'm done ranting for now. I'll continue in my next post as to where I am now and what lies ahead. Take care, J.T.

My Story Continued

As I mentioned in my last post, things started to unravel once I moved to a new ward. This was actually my new wife's old ward, so I knew some of the people already and some of them were my wife's friends. But it wasn't the same. I didn't get a calling until I was in the ward over a year which kind of bothered me. I was finally called as an assistant clerk. The calling was OK but I always felt like I wasn't doing enough. I didn't understand some of the things I was supposed to do and the ward clerk was no help as he counted on me to take care of the financial clerk stuff. So the stake clerk would always bail me out and help me with problems that came up. I found that I was missing Priesthood class so that I could catch up on some of the administrative chores. It was actually encouraged that I miss class to do some of this stuff. I thought that was wrong, but if your leaders are telling you this then it must be OK, right? It was this lack of connection to my quorum and the ward in general that led to my going inactive in 2004. I was only going to church to fulfill my calling, I didn't go to Priesthood class or if I did, I felt like an outsider. In January 2004 I stopped going to church. My wife had stopped going months before so there was no conflict there. I was inactive for almost 3 years. I started drinking coffee and would have the occasional beer. But I felt something was missing. I actually missed church. But no one contacted us for a couple of years. Finally, a new elders quorum president was called and he didn't know me as his family had just moved into the ward. He became our home teacher and dropped hints about my coming back to church and eventually in October 2006 I did returned to activity. It was hard. All the "welcome backs" and "we missed you" (yeah right!)kind of got to me after a while. My wife returned as well but she didn't really want to be there. I got a calling about 6 months after I returned, Elder's Quorum Instructor. The EQ president thought I needed the study time for the lessons to get me back into the gospel. I thought it was an inspired calling and I accepted. It went along well for a while, but I wasn't progressing very fast. and I still felt disconnected to the ward. I tried and tried over the years to feel connected, but those old feelings were coming back. I felt like if I wasn't here would anyone miss me? The ward was doing fine without me there. My son turned 8 in 2010 and we felt the spirit strongly, and he decided to get baptized. He was baptized in March 2010. I baptized and confirmed him. We were happy. 5 months later my wife and I got our temple recommends back and we were on top of the world. We started wearing the garments again and things were going great. That lasted for about 6 months. We struggled with tithing (I always have), and we felt guilty about that and didn't go to the temple very much. We tried family scripture study and Family Home Evening, but it didn't last long and we felt guilty about that (there's a lot of guilt involved in everything associated with the church). That's when things started to go downhill again. More about that in my next post. Take care, J.T.

Sudden Departure Part 2

In my last post I talked about the fact that I’ve been a member of the Mormon church for almost 19 years. It will be 19 years this coming December, 2012. I still remember the missionaries coming to my apartment and teaching me the discussions. They told me the Joseph Smith story about seeing God and Jesus Christ in the Sacred Grove when he was a 14 year old boy. They taught me a lot of things, but I was fascinated by Joseph Smith and his story. What an incredible tale! However, they didn’t tell me that Joseph Smith didn’t even get the story straight about what he saw in the grove until many years after the supposed event. As I mentioned, I was fascinated with the Joseph Smith story. What a wonderful story it was! Imagine seeing God and Jesus Christ in person. I always wondered though why Joseph didn’t record the date that this happened. Wouldn’t you want to record the date of so fantastical of an event in your young life? I think I’d be recording this in my journal! They (God and Jesus Christ) told him not to join any of the churches. THAT was the message that God gave Joseph Smith? there were apparently other instructions given but they've never been revealed, at least not that I'm aware. I hope there would have been more. Recently I discovered some additional information surrounding Joseph Smith’s “martyrdom” in 1844. It’s well documented in church books that he had the press of the Nauvoo Expositor destroyed. I always wondered why this was. I guess Joseph was having an inappopriate relationship with the wife of the owner of the press. When the press was going to expose this “affair”, Joseph had the press destroyed. And this whole polygamy thing. I actually bothered me back when I was investigating the church with the missionaries. I'm sure it bothers a lot of people. I posed this question to them as to why the church suddenly gave up on polygamy when the Statehood of Utah was being held up. The missionaries reponse was that the president of the church at the time received revleation that polygamy was to end. The church has tried for many years to explain the reason for polygamy in the 19th century. In the Work and the Glory series of fiction books, it actually dealt with the issue of polygamy in a good manner and I was satisfied with the reason. The brethren were “commanded” by the Lord to do it—they did it grudgingly but finally gave in to the Lord and practiced it. Why would the Lord give such a commandment? Seems ludicrous—and it is. The “real” reason was that Joseph smith was a womanizer who apparently couldn’t keep his hands off other women—especially married women. This “revelation” of polygamy was just the answer. Make it a commandment and voila, you can have marital relations with as many women as you want. And it’s not even a sin! I’m pretty sure the bible frowns on being married to more than one woman. But if it’s a new commandment from God! Let’s go for it brethren. The night before I was to have my baptism interview I couldn’t sleep. I was upset by the Elders and their behaviour earlier that evening during an appointment. They were looking at my collection of video movies and were making fun of them. I thought this odd behaviour and that it was quite rude at the time and addressed it during the baptism interview, but the district leader apologized and the elders apologized. I was placated. But this should have been a warning. Run for the hills!!! My baptism went well and I went along in the church until about a month after my baptism. It was the day of the Northridge California earthquake—January 17, 1994. I had stayed home sick from work and watched the TV news coverage of the earthquake. The longer the day went on the more unsettled I felt. The Elders had been lying to me—the church was a fraud—what did I get myself into?. I called the Elders and they came over the next evening and put my feelings at ease. I was again placated. Everything went along smoothly. I've always had trouble with paying tithing—a requirement for worthiness to gain a temple recommend and to enter the temple. I finally started to pay it consistently about a year after I joined the church. Nineteen months after joining the church, in July 1995 I went to the Toronto Temple for my own endowments. I was on top of the world. I felt great. I started to wear the temple garments and life was good. A few months later I moved into the same house the Elders lived in. It was a wonderful time. I spent time with the Elders and got to know quite a few of them over the next 2 years I lived there. I met my future wife in December 1996 and we were sealed in the Toronto Temple in August 1997. She had been a member for about as long as I had been. A few years later we moved from the city I had been living in to another city(where I am living now with my wife and 10 year old son). This is when the cracks started to appear in my church membership. I’ll get into that in my next post. Take care, J.T.

Sudden Departure

Ok, I'm just going to say it. I've left the Mormon church after being a member for almost 19 years. I joined the church in December 1993 at the age of 28. I received my temple endowment in July 1995 and was sealed to my wife in the Toronto Ontario Temple in August 1997. The reason I left the church is simple. The Mormon Church is a fraud. It is not the true church of Jesus Christ restored to the earth. For 19 years I was brainwashed to believe that Joseph Smith was a 19th century prophet who restored Jesus Christ's New Testament Gospel to the Earth in these the Latter Days(hence the name of the cult church. I was led to believe that the Book Of Mormon was the word of God and that it was an additional testament(witness)of Jesus Christ. How did I come to this conclusion that the church is a fraud? It might seem that it was a sudden decision but really the seeds of rebellion have been nurtured for a while now. What finally "woke" me up to the fact that the church is a lie? I have been struggling for months, trying to find this "peace" that everyone in the church is talking about, but since I've been a member for so long the self talk has so ingrained in my brain that I had a hard time not believing what I came to think was the truth for so long. How could it not be true? I prayed about it like they tell you to do. To receive a witness for yourself that the church is true, that the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith is a prophet. It saddens me to think of all those Sunday mornings during Fast and Testimony meeting listening to 10 year old children get up in front of the congregation and say "I know the church is true, I know that Joseph Smith is a prophet and I know that we have a prophet today". Oh my! They do start the brainwashing early? It saddens me to think of all those missionaries out in the world, leaving their friends and family behind and going away for 2 years (at their own expense no less). What they are teaching is a lie. But over the years I've come to know quite a few of them and they aren't bad people. They really believe in what they are doing. So if you see them on the street caught in the rain you can give them a ride if you feel sorry for them. I had a crisis of faith in March of this year. I had just been called as the Ward Executive secretary in my ward here in Southern Ontario. I was excited for the new calling. I had finally "made" it. I was basically the Bishop's secretary. Quite prestigious, I thought. Now things will start to happen. I'll gain back my wavering testimony and start to become more active in the church, do my home teaching, go to the temple more often. None of this happened. I couldn't understand what I was feeling. Why did I feel so alone. Did God abandon me? Why wasn't he helping me? I put it to the test. I said to God. "OK, this is it?, I need to know one way or the other if I should continue on this path or what should I do?" No answer. I was even more confused... Until yesterday. I made a realization that no answer was an answer. God actually DID answer me by not answering "yes" to "Should I go back to church?" No, I shouldn't go back to the church. That was the answer. Because the church is not what it claims. It is most definitely NOT the Lord's church. I have come to this conclusion after many hours of contemplation and study. How could I have been so blind for so many years? How could I be duped in such a spectacular fashion? There were so many clues over the years but because I was a victim of brainwashing I simply ignored the clues. I will continue this discussion in my next posting. Take care, J.T.

Leaving the LDS Church

I know that not a lot of people are going to read this blog, but what I hope to accomplish is to get down these thoughts and feelings I have about my leaving the LDS church after 18 years of being a member. This is my first post and I hope to begin my journey within the next few days so stay tuned and thanks for reading. Take care, J.T.