Hello, I'm Dave Johnson!
I was a Mormon but have chosen to be honest to myself and embraced my doubts by researching the truth claims of the church.
About me
I was born into the church in the Salt Lake area. I grew up in a very large LDS family and all of my friends were LDS. At 19 I dutifully went on a mission. In 1998 I went to the Olongapo Philippines Mission, which I loved and that is where I grew my own testimony in the church. My mission helped me be more outgoing and gain confidence. So I reasoned all the good things I had in my life were from the church so the church must be true. I later was sealed in the temple but we were both young and the marriage only lasted about two years. Before my second marriage I dated a lot more and gained more experience, but when I met my wife I didn’t hesitate to commit again to her and her son, gratefully they took me in. My wife and I were sealed as well in the temple. She too had serviced a mission and also she ended her temple marriage in divorce. We started to have children together, totaling 3 kids in all. We attended weekly Sunday service and always had various callings in our ward. We had full intentions to raise our kids in the church.
# Why I left More stories of 'Why I left' the Mormon church
We were happy in the church and we are still happy out of the church too. It all started on April 18, 2016 when I saw a Salt Lake Tribune article heading that stated in essence, “Man excommunicates the church from his life!” This was of course about Jeremy Runnells, the author of Letter To A CES Director. In short, I never heard most any of the claims that were being made and so I doubted its contents. But as I continued to corroborate the facts, it became more clear to me that the church is not true. My testimony was founded on The Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. And at this time my daughter was 5 years old, I couldn’t honestly teach her about a man that had done so many horrible things to young girls. I felt lied to and manipulated by the church I loved; I compare the hurt I was feeling as the feeling of betrayal when finding out about a secretly cheating spouse of several years; and worse yet, the church denied doing anything wrong and claims it’s my fault for not knowing. But my wife was a very believing member and I thought I might lose her and my kids if I told her I had doubts. Fortunately, she could see my worries and she asked what was going on. I unloaded onto her, all the things that I had read and she thought I was talking nonsense and she bore her testimony to me that she knew Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, but thankfully she said she would read the CES Letter with me. After work each night, we continued to research and watched videos til late into the night. And about a month later, we were both out of the church and we of course took our kids with us. I wanted the church to be true but I’m at peace not knowing what will happen after this life. I can’t believe in the self proclaimed modern prophets nor can I take seriously that the Bible is anything other than randomly compiled writings from ancient self proclaimed prophets that also had very limited understandings of this world yet felt the need to dictate how others should live their lives. I have since found many books to read that are much more valuable in offering purpose and direction to me in my life.