Hi, my name is Robert!

I was raised in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, so it was natural that I had questions about the Church and its teachings. As I matured, I struggled with questions that it seemed could never be answered. I was told that I just needed to have faith, or that the answers to my questions were not important to my salvation.

Some people might get the wrong idea and assume that my constant questioning meant that I was not living by the standards of the Church, or that I doubted because I was sinning. That was not the case. I lived up to the Church’s standards to the best of my abilities and was a good son growing up at home–which is not to say that I was perfect, but I tried my best.

On my mission I expected to learn a lot and grow a lot, which I did. As a part of my missionary zeal, I studied a lot about the Church and its doctrines. But the more I studied, the more unanswered questions I had. Believing that my Mission President must be closer to God than most, I brought my questions to him, hoping that I might find some satisfying answers. However, his answers were the same as regular members and my previous bishops’ answers were. There never seemed to be this “meat” or deep doctrine that we were promised would come.

About 2 years after my mission, I felt that I needed a break from going to church–I needed some “me” time to get things sorted out in my own life. There was always so much pressure to conform to a certain image of a Mormon: get married young, have lots of kids, live happily ever after. During this time away from the Church, I never planned on leaving the Church because I still had my testimony that is was true. For quite some time after my hiatus from Church I would always defend it against all attacks, whether they came from my friends or from TV shows like South Park. However, after a while I wanted to see where people were getting these outrageous claims from. The more I studied on my own the more I realized that most of these bizarre things I was learning about the Church and its history were not only true, but that most of it came directly out of Church literature–things recorded by some of the early prophets and apostles.

After learning that most of the things I thought were anti-Mormon were facts, I felt betrayed and lied to. I knew that there were many good things I had learned growing up in the Church; however, I could never go back to an organization that is based on lies and that covered up its “little flecks” of history.

I believe in honesty and integrity, my name is Robert and I’m an Ex-Mormon.