Hi, I'm Kelly.

In the end, there were many, many reasons I finally chose to leave, but my loss of trust (and ultimately belief) in the faith began six years after my baptism, when I learned that the Mormon church officially practiced systematic racism until 1978. From 1852-1978, faithful black men weren't allowed to be ordained to the priesthood, and black men, women, and children weren't allowed to enter the temple or be sealed to their families, solely because of their race.

Yes...1978...14 years after the US Civil Rights Act was passed, and after the rest of America was starting to get it right.

Being half-black, the church's doctrines, revelations, and policies of racism hurt me deeply; they were incredibly personal for me.

Had my dad been Mormon, he would have lived with this policy for 20 years of his life. Growing up in the 1960s and 70s, he already experienced racism everywhere else; he would have also felt it at church, while still calling his fellow white church-members "brother" and "sister."

Had I been born just one generation earlier, I most likely wouldn't have married my husband, who is white, because the church condemned interracial marriage, and asserted it had a gospel-centered basis. I wouldn't have been able to enter the temple, to be sealed to our children, wear the temple garments, or serve a mission. Our son, who looks like his dad, with pale skin, blond hair, and blue eyes, wouldn't have been able to receive the priesthood, serve a mission, be a home teacher, or ever be in a position of leadership over white church members. Our daughter also wouldn't have been able to be sealed to her spouse or children for eternity.

As parents, we would have had to determine when and how to explain to our children why a God who supposedly loved us all equally had cursed us, why we were less worthy, and why we were a caste apart from our non-black brothers and sisters, which is what Mormon prophets taught as doctrine and/or failed to denounce well into the 2000s.

Our children would have grown up believing: "Those who were less valiant in the pre-existence and who thereby had certain spiritual restrictions imposed upon them during mortality are known to us as the negroes. Such spirits are sent to earth through the lineage of Cain, the mark put upon him for his rebellion against God and his murder of Abel being a black skin...but this inequality is not of man’s origin. It is the Lord’s doing, based on His eternal laws of justice, and grows out of the lack of spiritual valiance of those concerned in their first estate" (Apostle Bruce R. McConkie, "Mormon Doctrine", published and sold by Deseret Book from 1958-2010).

Those, and far more heinous "doctrine," are the things black Mormon parents ACTUALLY had to tell their kids...

What does that do to a person, let alone a child's, self-esteem and self-worth? What sort of God would allow His chosen and anointed prophets, seers, and revelators to dispense and perpetuate such filth in Christ's name for 150 years? How can a child feel love from a God who they are told feels this way about them?

These are also the things white Mormons taught their kids, as they justified why it was okay to treat black people differently.

Those kids are now adults, and they're the ones leading the Mormon church.

I had never personally felt the sting and shame of racism in my life, until I felt it through the church.

I remained in the church for five more years after I learned about these things, but I went through periods of intense anger, confusion, betrayal, sadness, resentment, guilt, shame, otherness, self-loathing, and doubt. I still wanted to believe the church was true and made every effort to study the "doctrine" with an eye of faith and by using church-approved resources (as the church discourages using non-Mormon resources for study...), but the church had little to nothing to say on the history of blacks at the time and didn't provide answers or address it in their manuals or websites.

I've since learned that white-washing, modifying, and withholding information from church members is intentional, wide-spread, and openly endorsed by church leadership (byustudies.byu.edu/content/…).

It all felt so wrong, but I would shove it all down. Go to church. Fulfill my callings. Read my scriptures. Fast and pray. Feel some sort of peace over the whole thing. Because I believed that if I left, I'd be sacrificing my salvation and my eternal family.

And then something would trigger those feelings or questions and the cycle would start all over again; each time with anger and bitterness more intense than the time before. I often felt sick with myself. Who was I? I belonged to an organization that taught and preached things I hated, but that I felt bound to; I was so entrenched--from family to friends to my own personal fear that I'd be defying God--leaving wasn't really something I even considered. For five years I experienced an identity crisis of massive proportions. Oftentimes, the worse I felt about the history, the stronger I supported the church--how else could I justify staying? Well-meaning friends and church leaders would admonish me to "Just be patient and have more faith! You may not understand it now but answers will come!"

I would then feel immense guilt, believing that the reason I was struggling with this when it didn't seem to bother anyone else was that my faith was weak.

In my final year in the church, I was in an incredibly dark, depressing place. Even reading the Book of Mormon became painful to me, as it's also filled with verses that assert that God cursed unrighteous peoples with black skin (2Nephi 5:21, 2 Nephi 30:6, Jacob 3:5, Alma 3:6,8, 3 Nephi 2:15-16, Moses 5:40, Moses 7:8, Moses 7:22, Abraham 1:24).

I was hurt that these things happened. I was hurt the church didn't apologize for them. I was hurt that the church ignored them. I was hurt that members ignored them.

I was angry that the church tried to cover it up by changing the history and sharing half-truths. I was angry that for 150 years prophets said the bans were doctrines received by direct revelation from God, but that today they say they weren't and now simply refer to them as "folklore" and "policies". I'm angry that they don't address how it's possible for a past prophet to claim God told him to do something, but later prophets can say God actually didn't. If "prophets" can be wrong when they invoke God's name, why believe anything any of them say?

I know that church leaders will probably never directly admit to to the origins of the racist policies, the doctrinal and prophetic conundrums raised by their 150 year existence, nor ever sincerely apologize for them (something black Mormons desperately want), because that would require them to admit that their prophets were and can be wrong.

But it's insulting that they think we're not smart enough to figure that out.

After five years of mental gymnastics, of forcing myself to accept/justify/sustain things that I believed to be wrong, (ie: polygamy, the church's treatment of LGBTQ people and its policy banning their children from baptism/baby blessings/missionary service, the church's involvement in discriminatory politics like Prop 8, misogyny and patriarchy within the church, etc.), I finally gave myself permission to study the church and its history objectively, from an intellectual and academic perspective, and to be okay with whatever answer I came to regarding my beliefs about the truthfulness of the church.

That's when it all came crashing down.

I studied A LOT. Hours, and days, and weeks of INTENSE study.

I studied Brigham Young's endorsement and implementation of slavery in Utah Territory. Joseph Smith's multiple and vastly differing accounts of his first vision. Historical accounts of how the Book of Mormon was actually translated using a hat and a seer stone. The illigitimacy and inaccuracies of the Book of Abraham. The corruption, lies, coercion, and child brides during the years of polygamy. The innumerable changes to wording and doctrine within the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants. The countless times prophets contradicted each other, scriptures, and even themselves (Adam-God doctrine, the evils of birth control, etc.). The church's historical and current overt attempts to censor and cover-up information that damages its reputation.

This information didn't come from "anti-Mormon" sources--most of it came from neutral, peer-reviewed scholarly articles and/or church publications, including Journal of Discourses, General Conference talks, document scans of past church leaders' journals, History of the Church, archived Ensign articles.

The moment I first formed the words in my mind, "None of this makes sense because the Mormon church isn't true," I felt like a 10 ton weight had been lifted off of me. I felt free. I felt peace. I felt a happiness I hadn't felt in years.

Despite having had it drilled into me for the last 10 years that the Mormon gospel was the only way to peace and happiness, I came clean to myself that the church had become a place that made me anxious, confused, angry, and depressed, because in its most fundamental ways it was a contradiction to who I am and what I believe.

For the first time in 10 years I thought of leaving, and the thought filled me with unadulterated joy.

Telling my branch president--vocalizing the words--that I was leaving the church, was liberating. Leaving the church has been a tricky thing to navigate with family and friends who are still Mormon, but it's been an AMAZING decision for me and I have no regrets.

Life outside the church is good. Living your authentic life is good. Logic is good. Listening to and trusting yourself is good. You'll find that those who truly love you for who you are, and who are secure enough with their own beliefs and convictions, will stick by you.

I left the Mormon church a year ago, after 10 years as a member.

I'm happy I did.