Stories of mormon faith transitions. Share your truth – own your story!
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"I was constantly told who I was supposed to be in this life, how I was supposed to act and feel and that never aligned with my soul. I was told to date a certain way, to get married a specific way to a specific type of person and I was supposed to make babies. I felt pressure to conform to church standards and believe things that I didn’t care about. I knew from a young age that I never wanted to birth children, I never wanted to be a mother… just look at the one I had. I was constantly told that bringing souls to earth was my overall life purpose by my church leaders. It was even in my patriarchal blessing! My mother always felt burdened by her kids except when it came to the topic of giving her grandchildren. She felt entitled to a better life but was unable or unwilling to go get it. I wasn’t going to follow her footsteps. I didn’t want to be with my family together forever." - Rosana's "I was a Mormon" story. Read more at https://wasmormon.org/profile/rosanna1818/
"This is just the tip of the iceberg. It would take me through a temple marriage and a divorce, cutting ties with my family and up until age 28 to finally say “Enough!” and walk away from the torture of the Mormon religion. Realistic conversations, belief struggles and mental health topics need to be more common in any religion. Heaven knows it would have helped me." - Rosana's "I was a Mormon" story. Read more at https://wasmormon.org/profile/rosanna1818/
"When I was in middle school my mother’s emotional abuse escalated towards me enough for her to start a physical fight once, I tried to fight her but ended up running off the property. I never fit in with my community and never considered anyone, any neighbors a true ally. I felt alone without any support. No one ever talked to me about my family issues. No one saw my mother’s abuse." - Rosana's "I was a Mormon" story. Read more at https://wasmormon.org/profile/rosanna1818/
"Both my parents grew up Mormon and so I inherited their beliefs by default. I was born and raised in Utah where my family was actively involved and attended the church and their activities consistently. My mother grew up in a large Mormon family being one of 12 children and my dad was also one of 9 children who grew up as Mormon. Needless to say they both suffered in their childhoods due to financial strains and a lack of nurturing attention. Looking back now, I had the same upbringing. I was a Mormon." - Rosana's "I was a Mormon" story. Read more at https://wasmormon.org/profile/rosanna1818/
"I left so I could relax my mind and get away from all the pressure. I wanted to live more than I wanted to take the sacrament and the blessings that were promised to follow someday. Stepping away opened my eyes to genuine kindness and happiness without strings attached. Even with some guilt still, I felt I finally had permission to truly ask myself what my morals and standards were and I realized most of them didn't align with the church." - Savi's "I was a Mormon" story. Read more at https://wasmormon.org/profile/savi1lavy/
"I started to research and listen to the experiences of others who left. The racism in the church went so much deeper than I was taught and it disgusted me. I knew then, that the racism alone was enough for me to leave, but I kept diving in deeper." - Savi's "I was a Mormon" story. Read more at https://wasmormon.org/profile/savi1lavy/
This is a spotlight on a profile shared at wasmormon.org. These are just the highlights, so please find Savi's full story at https://wasmormon.org/profile/savi1lavy/. There are hundreds more stories of Mormon faith journeys contributed by users like you. Come check them out and consider sharing your own story at wasmormon.org!
"The temple ceremonies were heartbreaking and not trauma informed or prevented. Joseph Smith and his young child brides, the sexual assaults that were hidden, tithing, sexism, same sex marriage, the erasure of Native Americans, the antisemitism, and colonization - all of it. Too much of the church didn't align with my morals or the world I wanted to live in - or could survive in." - Savi's "I was a Mormon" story. Read more at https://wasmormon.org/profile/savi1lavy/
"I left before I knew the church wasn't true. I left thinking I was causing my eternal family suffering by my departure. I had to if I was going to survive. I was having panic attacks going to church. The mental torture of not being perfect, not feeling worthy, not being straight, and falling in love with an atheist and wanting to be with them was a constant loop of shame and depression and longing." - Savi's "I was a Mormon" story. Read more at https://wasmormon.org/profile/savi1lavy/
"I grew up in a devoted Mormon family and went to school where the majority of kids were also Mormon. I went to church weekly, mutual, and participated in baptisms for the dead. I prayed throughout the day and read the Book of Mormon multiple times. Every margin was inked with my thoughts and insights. I enjoy reading, writing, and hiking. I was a Mormon." - Savi's "I was a Mormon" story. Read more at https://wasmormon.org/profile/savi1lavy/
"I'm so grateful I chose myself and love and I'm so grateful for the exmormon community. I've been able to process and heal and deconstruct so much pain and harmful ideologies because of this community. Now, I feel loved, worthy, accepted and saved. I believe in Love, justice, reparations, and land back." - Savi's "I was a Mormon" story. Read more at https://wasmormon.org/profile/savi1lavy/
“I pursued an education, both undergraduate and a law degree. I was married midway through my legal education. I had my first son the year after I passed the bar. I had babies, and my husband and I loved and nurtured them while we were both working. It was busy, sometimes hectic; we were stretched and sometimes tired.” - Camille N. Johnson, Relief Society General President
BYU Women's Conference - May 3, 2024
“Numerous divorces can be traced directly to the day when the wife left the home and went out into the world into employment.” - Spencer W. Kimball, LDS Church President - As Living Prophet, 1977
“Contrary to conventional wisdom, a mother’s place is in the home! I recognize there are voices in our midst which would attempt to convince you that these truths are not applicable to our present-day conditions. If you listen and heed, you will be lured away from your principal obligations. Beguiling voices in the world cry out for "alternative life-styles" for women. They maintain that some women are better suited for careers than for marriage and motherhood. It is a misguided idea that a woman should leave the home.” - Ezra Taft Benson, LDS Church President - As Living Prophet, 1981
Speaking to thousands of Latter-day Saint women gathered in the Marriott Center on the BYU campus, and tens of thousands more watching online, President Johnson counseled women to look to reliable sources like living Prophets and the Holy Ghost for answers, establish priorities, cultivate testimonies of foundational truths, and not neglect or dismiss the sacred responsibility of parenthood. - Camille N. Johnson, Relief Society General President
BYU Women's Conference - May 3, 2024
“I beg of you, you who could and should be bearing and rearing a family: wives, come home from the typewriter, the laundry, the nursing, come home from the factory, the café. No career approaches in importance that of wife, homemaker, mother—cooking meals, washing dishes, making beds for one’s precious husband and children. Come home, wives, to your husbands. Make home a heaven for them. Come home, wives, to your children, born and unborn. Wrap the motherly cloak about you and, unembarrassed, help in a major role to create the bodies for the immortal souls who anxiously await.” - Spencer W. Kimball, LDS Church President - As Living Prophet, 1977
“Earning a few dollars more for luxuries cloaked in the masquerade of necessity—or a so-called opportunity for self-development of talents in the business world, a chance to get away from the mundane responsibilities of the home—these are all satanic substitutes for clear thinking. They are counterfeit thoughts that subvert the responsibilities of motherhood.” - Bishop H. Burke Peterson, of the Presiding Bishopric
General Conference - April 1974
“Brothers and sisters, do without if you need to, but don’t do without mother. Mother is more important in the home than money or the things money can buy. Our Father in heaven wants you to be in your home to guide these spirits as no one else can, in spite of material sacrifices that may result.” - Bishop H. Burke Peterson, of the Presiding Bishopric
General Conference - April 1974
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"It's a lot easier to build temples, than it is to fill temples." - Dallin H. Oaks, Church News Video 2024
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This is a spotlight on a profile shared at wasmormon.org. These are just the highlights, so please find the full story at https://wasmormon.org/profile/feebeedee/. There are stories of Mormon faith journeys contributed by hundreds of users like you. Come check them out and consider sharing your own story at wasmormon.org!
I believe Mormonism is one of the most damaging man-made, mind-controlling religious machines to ever enter mankind! - Fiona's "I was a Mormon" story. Read more at https://wasmormon.org/profile/feebeedee/
2024: My husband has now broken away from Mormonism! I am super happy for him (and us). What did it? Despite many things, even evidence, that I brought forward over the years, it was the Mormon Stories episodes with Dr. Ritner that woke him up! - Fiona's "I was a Mormon" story. Read more at https://wasmormon.org/profile/feebeedee/
2023: It's been painful witnessing my TBM's denials and deeply ingrained indoctrination, even despite the profound evidence, the programming is keeping him there. I absolutely despise the lies!! - Fiona's "I was a Mormon" story. Read more at https://wasmormon.org/profile/feebeedee/
2014: I married a Mormon, realizing relatively soon that there were events, issues and historical accounts that just didn't add up. Including temple ordinances–the first Endowment session had me reeling with absolute doubt! I literally felt the evil. - Fiona's "I was a Mormon" story. Read more at https://wasmormon.org/profile/feebeedee/
I'm naturally an investigative person who asks questions and needs to make logical connections regarding rational reasoning alongside any form of historical claims. I despise gaslighting and euphemistic language that controls people. I travelled down the appropriate rabbit holes... the rest is history... literally! I was, for a time, a Mormon. - Fiona's "I was a Mormon" story. Read more at https://wasmormon.org/profile/feebeedee/
“We exchanged expressions of joy, and I walked back to the hillside. I sat down on the pile of dirt we had been moving and beckoned to my sons. As I told them that all worthy male members of the Church could now be ordained to the priesthood, I wept for joy. That is the scene etched in my memory of this unforgettable announcement 40 years ago — sitting on a pile of dirt and weeping as I told my sons of this divine revelation.” - President Dallin H. Oaks, LDS Apostle
On The Lifting of the Priesthood Ban at 'Be One' Celebration, June 1, 2018
In Ghana, Joseph William Billy Johnson “heard the news [of the priesthood ban being lifted in June 1978] around midnight at the end of a hard day when he was compelled to tune his radio to BBC before going to bed. ‘I jumped and started crying and rejoicing in the Lord with tears’ - Doctrine and Covenants Student Manual for Institute, Chapter 56: Official Declaration 2
"The United Methodist Church, one of the largest Protestant denominations in the U.S., has voted to repeal its ban on LGBTQ clergy as well as prohibitions on its ministers from officiating at same-sex weddings." - NPR
"Shortly after the vote today in Charlotte, spontaneous celebrations erupted on the conference center floor. Hundreds of people began cheering and singing." - NPR
"Applause broke out in parts of the convention hall Wednesday after the vote. A group of observers from LGBTQ+ advocacy groups embraced, some in tears. “Thanks be to God,” said one." - LA Times
“I've never had an experience like that [a miraculous experience with an angel], and I don't know anyone among the First Presidency or Quorum of the Twelve who had that kind of experience.” - Dallin H. Oaks, LDS Apostle, Bellevue South Stake Fireside January 23rd, 2016
"The resurrected Lord has continued his ministry of salvation by appearing, from time to time, to mortal men chosen by God to be his witnesses, and by revealing his will through the Holy Ghost. It is by the power of the Holy Ghost that I bear my witness. I know of Christ’s reality as if I had seen with my eyes and heard with my ears." - Howard W. Hunter, as LDS Apostle
Satellite Fireside from the Tabernacle on Temple Square, 30 October 1983
"The brother Missionaries have been in the habit of picking out the prettiest women for themselves before they get here, and bringing on the ugly ones for us; hereafter you have to bring them all here before taking any of them, and let us all have a fair shake." - Heber C. Kimball, LDS Apostle, Polygamist with 43 Wives
“I have noticed that a man who has but one wife, and is inclined to that doctrine, soon begins to wither and dry up, while a man who goes into plurality looks fresh, young, and sprightly. Why is this? Because God loves that man, and because he honors His work and word. Some of you may not believe this; but I not only believe it—I also know it. For a man of God to be confined to one woman is small business; for it is as much as we can do now to keep up under the burdens we have to carry; and I do not know what we should do if we had only one wife apiece.” - Heber C. Kimball, LDS Apostle, Polygamist with 43 Wives
"I think no more of taking another wife than I do of buying a cow." - Heber C. Kimball, LDS Apostle, Polygamist, 43 Wives
“I've felt for a long time that the church has made a very serious error in tying itself to all kinds of historical claims instead of focusing its claims on the quality of life it can engender, the happiness it can bring to people, and the spiritual and moral strength it can build in its members. It has always insisted that if X, Y, and Z historical events did not occur, then the church is not true. That's a lot of nonsense. No church looks very good under a close inspection of its own history. The Catholics don't, the Protestants don't, and the Mormons don't. There's no need to pretend that our history is free of unsavory episodes--Joseph Smith's involvement in magic and all that damned nonsense--to say nothing of polygamy. There's no point in trying to cover them up. It makes more sense to focus the case for the church on something other than its historical origins. But it's not an easy thing to do. We are so steeped in historical consciousness--often historical error.” - Sterling M. McMurrin, Mormon theologian and Philosophy professor
A dead body, which had been retained above ground two or three days, under the expectation that the dead would be raised, was insensible to the voice of those who commanded it to awake into life, and is destined to sleep in the grave till the last trump shall sound, and the power of God easily accomplishes the work, which frustrated the attempts, and bid defiance to the puny efforts of the Mormonite. - That an attempt was made to raise the child, is denied, of course, as every other attempt has been, after its entire failure was obvious to all. The parents of the deceased child, however, state, that they were prevented from procuring medical aid for the child, by the representations of the elders, that it was in no danger—that it would certainly be restored. The father had no other idea but that the child was to be raised; neither did his faith fail him till preparations were made for its interment. He then awoke from bis dream of delusion, and dissolved his connexion with the impostors. - Ezra Booth Letters – Mormonism Unvailed, 1834. Page 190
A dead body, which had been retained above ground two or three days, under the expectation that the dead would be raised, was insensible to the voice of those who commanded it to awake into life, and is destined to sleep in the grave till the last trump shall sound, and the power of God easily accomplishes the work, which frustrated the attempts, and bid defiance to the puny efforts of the Mormonite. - That an attempt was made to raise the child, is denied, of course, as every other attempt has been, after its entire failure was obvious to all. The parents of the deceased child, however, state, that they were prevented from procuring medical aid for the child, by the representations of the elders, that it was in no danger—that it would certainly be restored. The father had no other idea but that the child was to be raised; neither did his faith fail him till preparations were made for its interment. He then awoke from bis dream of delusion, and dissolved his connexion with the impostors. - Ezra Booth Letters – Mormonism Unvailed, 1834. Page 190
“The living prophet is more important to us than a dead prophet.
Beware of those who would pit the dead prophets against the living prophets, for the living prophets always take precedence.” - LDS Church President Spencer W. Kimball, Fourteen Fundamentals in Following the Prophet, 1980
"Mormons have not always seen their president as a prophet. Before 1955, every mention of the church's leader in Deseret News articles referred to him as "President." The honorific "Prophet" was reserved only for Joseph Smith, the church's founder, and prophets from the Bible and the Book of Mormon. Yet during David O. McKays popular presidency from 1951 to 1970, church publications began occasionally referring to him as "Prophet." By the late 1960s,
"President" had become interchangeable, if not synonymous, with "Prophet," thanks to routine references to the latter in church publications and at General Conferences." - D. Michael Quinn, Historian on Mormonism - The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power
"The political consequences of such a transformation cannot be overstated. By strengthening the presidents role as God's mouthpiece on earth, rather than simply the administrative head of His church, the church's leadership strengthened its influence over all matters, including political issues, in the lives of Mormons." - Neil J. Young, "The ERA Is a Moral Issue": The Mormon Church, LDS Women, and the Defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment, 2007
This is a spotlight on a profile shared at wasmormon.org. These are just the highlights, so please find the full story at https://wasmormon.org/profile/dod13/. There are over a hundred more stories of Mormon faith journeys contributed by users like you. Come check them out and consider sharing your own story at wasmormon.org!
"I rationalized that if there is a God, he has to be only good. No one would worship a mean God. And if he is good, then he will not lie. Off and on over three days I paced back and forth, hands lifted toward the heavens, pleading with God to reveal himself if he were truly there. On the third day, confessing to be willing to give up everything I knew if I could just know if God was real—if he was really there, I received a most spectacularly miraculous, undeniable answer. God is real. Immediately following, my body steadily filled with a magnificent, beautifully comforting warmth which went deep into my bones. I was free!! And for the first time in my life, I felt love for myself." - Dodie's "I was a Mormon" story. Read more at https://wasmormon.org/profile/dod13/
I wanted to belong to a church with a living prophet. I wanted to be a member of God's true church. The missionary lessons just cover the basics which lie on the surface—all leading up to becoming a full tithe-paying member. I just gobbled up their sales pitch like gumdrops. These people had an answer for absolutely everything, including answering the questions on my Catholic "shelf." I was told I was a "Golden Convert." I felt so special to think my "heart had been prepared for the truth." - Dodie's "I was a Mormon" story. Read more at https://wasmormon.org/profile/dod13/
"Church leaders frequently admonished members to not listen to enemies of the church, so I didn't. I clearly understand why now, but at the time I was being obedient. One day my "baby sister," an evangelical, asked if I had read the "CES letter." Of course I had not. Various church leaders had admonished us not to read it. My sister wisely asked why church leaders would not want us to know what our enemies are saying so we could lovingly correct them? Fair enough. I read the CES letter." - Dodie's "I was a Mormon" story. Read more at https://wasmormon.org/profile/dod13/