I'm Dan living in the beautiful state of Utah, in Murray.
I love the outdoors. I love ham radio :-) I love to do public events. I was a mormon.
About me
I grew up in the church. The church was my life.... let me repeat that... the church was my LIFE. I ate, lived, and breathed the church. My father started out teaching seminary, and in 1969 became an Area Director for the Seminaries and Institutes of Religion. We moved all around the US with him making sure the seminary and institute programs ran the way they should.
As you might guess, myself and all my siblings would wake up in the early hours before school and read the BoM (mainly), but also the other scriptures held dear to Mormons. As a matter of fact, I read the BoM I believe 24 or 25 times BEFORE my mission! I knew church doctrine like the back of my hand. You could not pull the wool over my eyes with any church question. I was extremely versed in all things Mormon.
Any type of "anti-mormon" literature was immediately placed in my mind where Satanic things went. I didn't read them to study them, but to become an apologist.
When I got married I married in the temple. I have 4 great kids and 9 grandchildren.
# Why I left More stories of 'Why I left' the Mormon church
It wasn't until I came across the SEC debacle with the church that I really paused to ask questions. Up until then I assumed all anti-mormon stuff was just printed by people who hated mormons and didn't have anything better to do. When the SEC fined the church, well, that added some weight to the subject! I studied the SEC findings with a fine-tooth comb. I was appauled by how the church was hiding its financial dealings with not only the members (that would be ME at the time), but from the government.
I was pissed! That's when I started my 6-month journey to unpeel this huge onion... and the more I unpeeled, the stinkier it became.
My stake president and I are good friends... even today. I would meet with him maybe once a month to discuss my "questions". I sent him the SEC resolve and told him that I wanted to discuss this IN DETAIL. We met and I could tell right off the bat he didn't read any of the marked paragraphs that I wanted to discuss. He simply said that he doesn't know everything that went on and had faith. The first presidency and presiding bishopric needs more than that for me to give them a pass on this one.
Ultimately, I didn't want the church to have the satisfaction of excommunicating me. I resigned myself, and am glad I did!