My Exit Story

August 7, 2005

In the Beginning:

I was born to goodly parents who did not attend any religious services. My father was force fed religion during his youth and swore he would not set foot inside another church when he was old enough to make his own decisions. As far as I know, he made good on that promise; except for weddings, and other special occasions, I don’t remember him ever attending any church services.

My mother would have attended church, but deferred to my father on matters of religion. She didn’t attend church either, while my father was living. After my father died, at the age of 67, my mother started going to a Presbyterian church with my sister and her family.

In my youth, I was not motivated, by my parents, to attend church. However, I did have a very good friend, while growing up, whose family was very active in the Assembly of God church in my community. For about six years from 8 yrs old to about age 14 I attended church with them and was immersed in their religious philosophy.

At about the age of 14, I could no longer accept the premise that the only people who would ever get into heaven were those that attended Assembly of God churches. I stopped going to church after the pastor of the church told us that all Catholics were idol worshipers and were all going to hell. The thought that there must be a “true church” somewhere in the world stayed in my head though, and I just knew that, someday, I would find the real true church. God would not leave us hangin without the true gospel would he?

Spiritually Treading Water:

I stayed religiously absent until I met the girl I was later to marry and make my bride and partner for the next 39 years and counting. She and her family were active in the Presbyterian Church and I began attending with her. When I told my mother that I was attending church she revealed to me that I had actually been baptized in the Presbyterian Church shortly after I was born (guess my dad went to church a time or two), and I was a member of the Presbyterian Church.

This made me instantly popular with my wife’s parents. This was a good thing because I was in the Army in Germany at the time and my wife was a colonel’s daughter and I was an enlisted man. Enlisted personnel were specifically warned against associating with officer’s daughters. I was under a magnifying glass by my own company officers and even told to stop seeing her, until her father ordered my company commander to his office and told him to mind his own business. Never heard another word from them about dating “the Colonel’s daughter.”

My wife and I were married about a year and a half after we started dating and about seven months after I was discharged from the Army (in the Presbyterian Church, of course). We continued our allegiance to the Presbyterian Church and attended the same church as my sister and her family. I was very active in the church and we were quite content.

About eight years and two children later I accepted a job in Colorado (Lakewood Department of Public Safety) and we uprooted our family and moved to the Denver area. It was a traumatic experience to remove ourselves from life long friends and family and we quickly sought out another Presbyterian Church. Having found a church that we both liked, we submitted a request to have our “letter of membership” transferred to the new church.

One night, late in the evening, when I was in bed (working the 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. shift), two men and a woman showed up at our door and announced that they were from our newly chosen Presbyterian Church. The men looked like the blues brothers and they all were quite formal. They advised us that we would have to attend new member classes; I told them that we had already been through that and we had a letter of membership and just wanted to get it transferred. They told me that THEY were different and WE would have to attend their classes. I told them they could exit immediately through the same door through which they had entered.

I then became religiously absent once again, which was upsetting to my wife, because she felt our children needed a strong religious connection. I didn’t disagree but did not want to go on another church hunt so I assigned the task to her. That didn’t work very well and we stayed pretty much dormant, spiritually, for about a year.

Finding the True and Everlasting Church:

During this time I noted that some of my colleagues ( Drug Enforcement Administration) were active in their religion and four or five were affiliated with the same church. Going forward, I learned that they were Mormons and were anxious to share their religion with me (imagine that). We were invited to one member’s home for “family home evening”.

Two young men, called missionaries, just happened to be there as well and we had a pretty enjoyable time. No lesson, just fun and games with them and their nine children (and the mishies). My wife commented, after we left for home that evening, that she thought this church was some kind of a cult (her gramma had told her so). I should have listened to her!

A few weeks later, a stake missionary and his wife came to our home to introduce themselves. He and I ultimately became very good friends, although he eventually was excommunicated and left his family, and we lost contact with one another. He and his wife invited us to their home for another family home evening. Lo and behold, another pair of missionaries was there too! What a coincidence…we had a lesson.

We continued to meet with the missionaries and stake missionaries and after or during the third lesson we were challenged to be baptized, which I accepted. I felt that I had finally found the one true church on the earth, it all made sense to me. My wife, being smarter than I am, didn’t buy in right away, but decided to follow me just to keep unity in the family. At least I was going to go to church again.

Leaving LDS, Inc:

Over the next 29 years and four months we were all very active in the church. I really don’t have any horror stories similar to those I’ve read on the internet. I’ve had many good experiences in the church. I have served on the high council, as both first and second counselor in Bishoprics, elders’ quorum president, ward mission leader, scoutmaster (six years) and many other positions.

My wife has served in many leadership positions as well, including, relief society president, 1st counselor in the stake relief society presidency, young women’s president, and others.
My son served a mission and has married in the temple. My daughter married a returned missionary and was also married in the temple. Both of my children graduated from BYU.

My first traumatic experience in the church was when we went for our temple endowments after our first year in the church. I was stunned and slack-jawed over all the symbolism in the ceremony. I couldn’t believe that we actually had to simulate gutting ourselves and slitting our own throats, while promising we would never tell anyone about the ceremony. I’ve been to the temple many times since and have never once enjoyed the temple ceremony. While I found the celestial room very peaceful at times, the ceremony is in conflict with the peaceful physical environment of the celestial room.

That being said, I managed to repress all of my doubts for years because this was the true church and some things just had to be accepted on faith. Looking back now I can see that I really didn’t have a clue; I just wanted to live the gospel the way the prophet directed.

I suppose the cracks in my testimony started about seven years ago, but, at first, even I didn’t recognize them. My most stressful experiences have been the constant pressure/guilt I’ve felt to “do all” and “give more”. As ward mission leader I was told I should commit to spending 20 hours per week in my calling. At the time I was working one full time job and three part time jobs just to stay afloat (we lived in Hawaii). I was also stressed by the constant reminders that I wasn’t going to get all the blessings that were in store for me if I wasn’t a 100% home teacher or wasn’t regularly involved, in some way, with the missionary program.

When I lived on the East Coast I commuted to and from my work a total of four hours daily. Add to that eight to twelve hours at work and it didn’t leave much time for missionary work or home teaching. Not to mention quality time with my wife; it seemed that all I was doing was eating and going to bed, then starting the cycle again. During this period I was on the high council, which required a large time commitment. Additionally, my wife was serving in a stake calling and we rarely saw one another on Sunday until the evening (that never made any sense to me). During the years we were members of the church I don’t recall a time when we actually drove to and from our meetings together on a regular basis. Even Stake conference was in separate cars, because I usually had some kind of assignment like putting up taking down chairs.

Recently, we moved to an area served by a small branch. Not big enough to justify even part time missionaries. The pressure to be involved in missionary work within the branch was significant. One new “program” was to assign members to a geographical area and when someone ordered a video or BOM from a TV commercial, the members assigned to that geographical area would be responsible for delivering the video or book and attempting to initiate lessons. Considering that I spend about 12 to 15 days on the road with my work each month, and another four or five days with administrative responsibilities, this was not something that I was particularly excited about.

Home teaching in this area is usually a Sunday afternoon event, using the branch building as a launching pad, since home teaching visits average traveling 30 miles and often further. Add to that a 34 mile round trip from home to the branch building and you can see that home teaching can be a test of faith, especially when those you are visiting aren’t particularly happy to see you.
It was in this branch that I first (guess I had my head buried in the sand up to this point) saw women being treated with disrespect. This being a small branch in a rural part of North Carolina.

One incident that stays with me was when the relief society (RS) president came to me asking for a meeting to discuss ideas that she had regarding visiting teaching (VT) and home teaching (HT) that might make the process a little more effective. I was at the time 1st counselor in the elder’s quorum (EQ) (EQ and high priests (HP) were combined in this small branch). I told the EQ president about the RS president’s request and the EQ president reluctantly agreed. We convened the meeting and the RS president stated her ideas, which I thought were pretty well thought out (this woman has two masters degrees and is very well spoken). The EQ president spoke next and stated that he was in charge of the HT program and would make any changes he felt were necessary and that ended the discussion. I was embarrassed for the RS president and angry that he had disrespected her by discounting everything she had proposed without some much as a discussion.

Another event that blew me away was when I heard the 1st counselor in the branch presidency telling a joke in the chapel that had the “F” word as part of the punch line.

It was during this time that I found myself having “hot flashes” regarding the church and my testimony. Some days I’d go to my meetings and have a very good time and feel spiritually fed, while on other occasions I would sit with my head in my hands wondering what I was doing there. I don’t know if there was a trigger event that motivated me to seek out other light and knowledge; maybe it was the frustration that finally boiled over.

At any rate, while surfing the internet one Sunday evening, we (wife and I) came upon an “anti-Mormon” website and were surprised to learn that all the poison that I was warned about was really well documented church history in most cases ( whatismormonism.com ) From there I read Charles Larson’s book about the origin of the Book of Abraham. I then visited the FARMS website to see what they had to say about the allegations made by Larson. Surely they would be able to clearly explain my concerns.

After reading Gee’s response, I found myself scratching my head and saying, to myself, “what did he say?” I then found Edward H. Ashment’s rebuttal to Gee’s position, which made sense out of Gee’s writing and poked some pretty big holes in Gee’s theory and explanation. Actually, Ashment’s article blew Gee out of the water.

I continued to research topics that I’ve accepted on faith for years and found that the general authorities (GA) have been keeping information from me that is contrary to what the church has been teaching all these years. I’ve read on topics such as polygamy (this was the big issue with my wife when we joined, and darned if she wasn’t right after all), temple ordinances, origin of the BOM, and restoration of the priesthood, the first vision and others. Needless to say I became very angry, especially when I read Boyd K. Packer’s talk to church historians where he said it was perfectly acceptable and counseled historians to withhold historical information from members so as to protect “fledgling testimonies”. He told them to lie for the church!

I advised my branch president of my feelings and impending decision and he brought in the big gun from the stake high council. They showed up at my door one Sunday afternoon and were beseeching me to cast off my wayward attitude. I asked the high councilman why Joe Smith would wait nearly four years to announce that he and Oliver had received the priesthood from Peter, James and John. I told him I couldn’t fathom that he wouldn’t, immediately, have shouted something like that from the housetops. The reply from the high councilman was rather unbelievable and left me speechless.

His reply was that Joe was probably very busy trying to form a new church and had a lot on his mind and the event probably had just slipped his mind.

Our children remain associated with the church. I’m sure they feel that we have abandoned them and that we will now never be together in the celestial kingdom. I’ve tried to reassure them that we will be together again, but, at least one of them is still trapped in the lies of the church and refuses to examine any of the data that I have researched. It is my hope that they will find the courage to read some of the things that I have read and that they too will see how we have been lied to all these years.

Out of LDS, Inc

I think one of the bright spots in all of this, for me, is that my wife and I entered together and left together. It is a testament of our commitment to and our faith in one another. We submitted our letter of resignation in July of 2005 and have received acknowledgement that the letter was received. Against our direction, the letter has been forwarded to our stake president who will forward it to our branch president who will probably want to have another discussion.

The jouney continues…

August 5, 2006;

We received our letter telling us our names had been removed from the church in October 2005. I don’t even know where the letters are and had forgotten that our one year anniversary is imminent. The church is a non-entity in our life (except that one deeply beloved member is still stuck in Mormonism) and I have spent many hours studying religious history from authors like John Shelby Spong, Marcus Borg, Bart Erhman, Karen Armstrong, F.E. Peters and others. My view of religion has changed significantly over the months that we exited the Mormon Church and I find myself much more at peace with myself, my spirituality and my relationship with my dear wife and family. Life is good.

Hamar