Hi, I'm Landon.

(Content warning: abuse, human trafficking, and other triggering topics ahead)

I was very religious growing up. Until it had been determined to be an offensive term, I was occasionally called Molly Mormon or Peter Priesthood. Interestingly, the nickname went from innocent to offensive because of the word Mormon rather than the commentary on my personality, but that’s neither here nor there.

As I grew up, I did all the right things, as far as my young self could tell. All of my friends belonged to active families. I was baptized the day after my eighth birthday, and I started going to Cub Scouts that same week. I was encouraged to share my testimony in primary, and despite not understanding any of it, I recited the familiar lines: “I know the church is true, I know Heavenly Father loves me,” and so on. When I aged out of primary, this became second nature.

I remember receiving praise from my family because I had made the decision to be baptized and receive the priesthood. I enjoyed the praise, but I don’t remember making any decision. The church simply expected me to want to participate. When I learned the expectations that came with these milestones, I started feeling guilty about everything.

When I remember church in my early teenage years, the emotion that dominates my memories is fear. I was terrified of messing up, doing anything that wasn’t perfectly Christlike. I walked around middle school anxious that hearing one too many f-bombs or dirty jokes would make me evil. I didn’t dare let myself have a crush on someone, since my leaders’ loose interpretation of Matthew 5:28 combined with Alma 39:3-5 implied that being attracted to someone was as bad as murder, especially before you turn 16. It was not until my 20s that I learned that this nervous voice in my head was clinical anxiety telling me I wasn’t good enough, not the Holy Ghost keeping me safe from sin.

In the same way the church assumed I wanted to be baptized and receive the priesthood, they assumed I wanted to serve a mission. It was made clear to me since primary that I would disappoint my parents and likely be berated or shunned by members if I didn’t serve. I was told I wouldn’t find a wife if I didn’t serve a mission, and I knew the young women in the church were taught to only date returned (with honor) missionaries.

I attended mission preparation classes and went to the “mission prep” activities (where leaders taught us how to sew on a button or cook a grilled cheese sandwich), but I still felt unprepared. I had spent my whole life in the church, but I still felt that its doctrine was so convoluted that I couldn’t make sense of it. I had prayed about the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith, and the truthfulness of the church. I never felt anything, but I figured God was holding off or I was not righteous enough to get a response. If everyone around me said the church was true, it must be. Certainly, I was the missing link.

At 17, I received a phone call from the ward secretary asking when I would like to meet to start mission papers. I was not given a chance to opt out of this meeting, and when I arrived, I learned my papers had already been started. I was given a list of tasks to complete along with a deadline, and I was told what to set as my availability date.

My mission call was the same template letter many of my friends received. I was to serve in the Honduras Tegucigalpa mission. After some research, I learned it was statistically one of the most dangerous places in the world. I heard from someone who served there that the church often provided inadequate food, medicine, and housing to missionaries.

Then, of course, came receiving my endowment. I was one of the first people endowed in the Idaho Falls temple after the renovation, so it was a disorganized, confusing experience to say the least. I received no explanation of what to expect, and it was traumatizing to be expected to make huge promises without any indication beforehand of what those promises would be. Either way, we had made a special trip out of going to the temple, and I didn’t want to upset or disappoint anyone, so I received the full endowment. Everything was disorienting, and all of my ordinances were performed “for and in behalf of Landon, who is dead.” It wasn’t until later that I learned they had a different script to read if it was a living ordinance, and I spent the rest of my time in the church wondering if my endowment was even valid. I became anxious that this was God’s punishment for some sin I hadn’t remembered to repent of, throwing away my shot at exaltation.

When the time came to leave on my mission, I met other missionaries in the Salt Lake airport, and we made the red-eye flights to Guatemala City, where we arrived early the next morning. None of us had gotten any sleep since the previous night.

When our bus arrived at the MTC, we were handed a folder with an itinerary stapled to it and told to take our bags to a classroom. We were ushered in a single-file line into a cafeteria, where we were served breakfast. As we stood in line, we met the MTC president, who informed us when he shook our hands that he could tell a lot about what kind of missionaries we were just from a handshake. He also let us know that we were expected to eat every bite of food we were served, even if we weren’t hungry.

A secretary walked along the line collecting our passports. He indicated we would get them back when we needed to leave for our missions. He told us they would be secured in a locked safe and that we could not access them until we had to leave.

My stomach was too upset to eat, but I hadn’t had anything since Salt Lake, and I didn’t want to disobey the MTC president, so I ate a few bites before running to a restroom to throw them up. When I got back, I found out that several other missionaries were in a similar predicament, so we hid the extra food under napkins and threw it away. As we did, we were confronted by the MTC president again, who said something I interpreted as a chastisement for ingratitude.

We all sat in worthiness interviews (after several months of similar interviews with our bishops and stake presidents), then the MTC president greeted us and introduced us to the MTC. He informed us that we were not to leave or we would lose God’s protection. He told us there was a guard at the gate who was instructed never to let a missionary leave. He further indicated that we could not move freely in the halls of the MTC and that there were cameras that could read our name badges. He listed a few other rules and stated that those who didn’t obey these rules would face serious disciplinary action. This was repeated at least weekly during the six weeks I stayed at the MTC.

Several missionaries had severe mental health challenges in the MTC and were quickly dismissed by leaders. When a missionary in my group asked to be sent home, the MTC president refused, indicating that God would support him.

All the talks and lessons during the MTC conveyed one message to me: if I was not an exactly obedient, perfect missionary, my safety was immediately in danger. If I failed to obey any of the mission rules or commandments, my parents were in danger of never seeing their son again.

On top of all of this, we were closely monitored as we wrote home. There were several staff members in the computer lab at all times while it was unlocked, and we were told that if we were struggling, we should not include that in our emails home. These staff members made it clear they read our emails over our shoulders. Everything was to be faith-promoting, and we were given half an hour per week to write home. This struck me as extremely strange: God trusted me to represent Him in a huge capacity, but He didn’t trust me to email my mom. Because of all of this, I didn’t dare write home about how awful I felt since I believed disobedience would put me in danger (or at best earn me some kind of punishment), and I didn’t need to stress out my worried family even further.

At the end of our stay in the MTC, the secretary returned our passports, and a few of us left for Tegucigalpa. We did not have enough information to give customs when we arrived, but the agents were thankfully familiar with the mission office and helped us fill out our papers. When we passed through customs, we were greeted by two missionaries who introduced themselves as “the assistants”. I was still unfamiliar with the mission hierarchy, so I thought that was a strange way to introduce themselves.

The assistants greeted us with hugs, and then immediately asked for our passports. They let us know that if immigration officers asked to see them during our mission, they would have to call the mission office. The passports would stay in a locked safe in the mission office, to which only one secretary plus the mission president knew the combination.

We met the mission president and his wife, who were extremely friendly. They took us to the second floor of the airport to introduce themselves and show us what Tegucigalpa looked like. Then we all piled into their cars and left for the mission office. We were immediately interviewed again, and we took a photo to send to our parents.

During the remainder of my mission, I became extremely anxious. I didn't have access to sufficient resources, so I lost a significant amount of weight and lived with an infected foot for the majority of my mission. While I had great relationships with a couple of companions, I survived emotional and physical abuse from multiple companions without any option for recourse from the church.

When riots started, we were told to stay in our homes, but many of us didn't have sufficient food and clean water. We used gift money we had received from home to purchase some emergency food and supplies (against the instructions of the mission president).

At one point, we lived in an apartment complex with large dogs who had bitten a missionary before we arrived. It took a great deal of convincing to get the mission to approve a slightly more expensive (and dog-free) apartment for us.

When I served as assistant, I started seeing major issues with how the mission was run. I was expected to do the job of a mental health professional when missionaries called in distress. I saw how little the church did to help missionaries who were robbed or assaulted. And I noticed the lack of discernment that went into assigning mission companions.

As a recently returned missionary, I did not understand anything about trauma. I had no clue about mental health. So I did not recognize many of my quirks as trauma responses. I thought it was strange that when I went on dates (alone with young women), it was not normal to feel panicked the entire time. When I couldn’t carry on a conversation that wasn’t about the church, I thought I was just especially interested in religion. When I felt guilty about every single thing I did, I thought I was just adjusting back to life.

I attended the singles ward for just over a year before I got married. I never felt welcome in student wards, but I figured it was normal because I didn’t fit in when I was younger anyway. I became disappointed when I tried to make friends or date within my ward and stake. It was taboo to talk about a mission, but it seemed to be all I could think about. It was apparently only acceptable to be casually invested in the church. Too invested, and you were staunch or prudish; too uninterested, and you were a heathen.

My wife and I met and started dating very quickly after our first semester began at Utah State University. By Christmas, we were “official”, and by the next summer, we were engaged. I still laugh when I think about how many family members told us we were rushing into things compared to how many told us we were dragging our heels. We were married about a year after we started dating.

Because we started dating just before COVID-19, we were married at the height of the pandemic. We were sealed in the Logan temple early in the morning, which was confusing and a bit traumatizing thanks to our lack of expectations. We were disappointed to learn that the only part we played in our own marriage ceremony was the word “yes”. The temple worker instructed us before the ceremony; he said he would ask us one question, and the answer was “yes” and not “I do”.

I was a caretaker for someone involved in medical crisis after medical crisis over the course of a couple of years. They prayed and received dozens of priesthood blessings. During every blessing, I remember feeling like I should make big, faith-promoting promises. I believed God would heal this person. They tried and failed medication after medication, and before each, they indicated that they felt like the drug would finally be the one that worked.

I remember feeling betrayed every time a promise in a blessing was not fulfilled. I felt like I must have been unworthy to give the blessing, or perhaps I wasn’t listening to the spirit like I should have been. Gratefully, this person has since found a medication that worked, and as they decided to leave the church, they noticed a significant improvement in their overall health. This, in part, caused me to really start questioning my beliefs.

My wife and I had to decrease our church activity for a few reasons, including time constraints and health limitations. One of the most noteworthy, concerning, question-sparking parts of our experience was when we were serving as primary teachers but were unable to attend for a couple of weeks in a row. The primary presidency stopped by our apartment when we were both sick with a cold and asked to visit. We said they could stop in for a few minutes, and their first question was about what they could do to get us back in our calling.

We stayed polite, but this got us thinking about the intentions of the church as an organization. A great deal of factors impacted my decision to leave the church, and a great deal of other factors impacted my wife’s decision. These factors are discussed much more thoroughly throughout the rest of this document, but I will summarize my experience. As my wife has become a therapist and learned a great deal about trauma, we have each processed trauma caused by the church. This is an abridged version of my story; I shared the complete version at elementalepistles.com/letter/1/…