Jean Was a Mormon, an Ex-Mormon Profile Spotlight

Jean was impressed with the ‘true religion’ as taught by the missionaries and joined the church with her young family. After serving faithfully for a long time and even serving a senior mission to South Africa, she collected a few issues onto her shelf. She questioned why she and the other missionaries weren’t better protected when serving and why the church doesn’t do more to uplift those in poverty-stricken Africa. Her son shared some troubling church history issues which overloaded her shelf and sent her spiraling. Through her faith deconstruction, she learned some important lessons and resigned from the church. She credits learning real church history to helping her deconstruct the farse of Mormonism and escaping the cult.

I was born in Dorset, UK in 1944 while air raids raged around us. I am a wife, mother, grandmother, great grandmother who loves to read. I was a mormon until I read real church history.

I was not taught to think critically and was trained in religious thought by my school and the Church of England. I believed in ‘God’ and thought that everyone else believed in the same way. I was excited when as a young wife and mother of two small children the missionaries from the Mormon Church knocked on our door and proceeded to teach us about ‘true religion’. We joined and later moved to Canada.

As seniors my husband and I served a mission to Capetown, South Africa. On our second day in the country, we were involved in a road accident in the mission’s Volkswagen van. We were passengers in the back seat and received the worst injuries. My husband’s neck was broken, my back and many other bones. We had cuts and bruising everywhere.

GOD DIDN’T PROTECT US. We were wearing our temple garment underwear, we were being faithful by serving a mission and yet… I didn’t give up on the church over that of course but it did begin a series of questions about why and why God seemed to have abandoned Africa

I could not settle into the old way of life knowing that people in Africa were hungry, needed education and jobs, so we raised money and went back to our old mission area to give out micro loans for people to start their own businesses. WHY doesn’t the church do that?

My second son left the church and I wanted to know why. He shared what information he had about the history of the church and before too long, I had read all of that and so much more. It was a terrible time for me and I felt quite suicidal. I didn’t know who I was if, after 39 years, I was no longer ‘Sister Bodie’, the bishop’s wife, the branch president’s wife, the seminary teacher etc.

I learned that ‘feelings’ are not a good way to determine what is true. I learned that information needed sources to even be considered. I learned that the reason why black men could not receive the priesthood was pure racism. I learned that the church is a racist, misogynistic organization that does not deserve the loyalty of its members – so I resigned my membership.

Some of my family members and my children were upset with me for leaving the church, my husband and I were arguing about the information I was discovering and I realized that God didn’t even care about that. If God loved anyone, ever, he certainly did not love me.

Jean

Continue reading Jean’s full wasmormon profile at https://wasmormon.org/profile/jean-bodie/