Tired

 When I started out on this faith journey I had resolved that I would not leave the church.  I was determined to be the voice for the marginalized inside the institution.  I had a long conversation with a dear friend about our children that are LGBTQ and we both basically stated that this would not erode our testimonies.  

I went to church, I spoke up on social media, I made comments in class and taught lessons and tried so hard to be the voice on the inside.  For.  Years.

I even went so far as to several months ago approach my bishop and stake president about forming some kind of LGBTQ group.  Maybe a support group, maybe a friendship group, something ANYTHING to help these families navigate their reality and the church.  I told the bishop I knew of 7 families including mine that had LGBTQ family members in our ward alone and that didn't count the families that I knew about in the stake.  He only knew of 3.  Don't worry I didn't out anyone.  This just goes to show the leaders don't always have the most up to date info and it maybe shows that the leaders don't come across as a safe person to discuss these matters with. Literally all I wanted was for an announcement to be made at church about a group where families with LGBTQ members could literally just get together and have friendship over a freaking casserole.  Nothing fancy, nothing super "official", nothing forced on anyone.  I got an email back from my stake president and the bishop and the bishop even came to our home to discuss what my vision was for this group.  That was months ago.  Since then there's been crickets.  Nothing from anyone in authority to do anything like this.  NOTHING.  No emails, no communication at all.  When I get what the young people call "ghosted" I don't always go into squeaky wheel mode.  Sometimes I take it as a sign that they don't give a fuck.  So I walk away with my middle fingers held up proudly.  

Even my email to the bishop telling him that I was leaving the church didn't spark a question about starting a group.  It was basically ok bye.  

Those that are in it to speak up are tired.  At least I was.  I spoke up in word and deed and even dress.  It didn't matter.  It's been said the the church as an organization is about 50 years behind any social change.  I don't got 50 years to keep beating a dead freaking horse!  I have now, with my family to make it count.  I'm making it count here in my house on my farm in my life.  That's where I can actually make a difference.   Not at church.

If I had a dollar for every time someone said "oh well I'm gonna miss your perspective on things in lessons" or "I just love your comments I'm gonna miss them" I'd have about 20 bucks, but still this shouldn't be the norm.  I shouldn't be an oddity because I speak up, speaking up should be the expectation!  Pushing limits, asking questions, making changes and loving others.  

What I've learned in 42 years in the church?  No one in charge (or at least very few of them) listen to those of us just filling the pews and paying the tithing.   

  Truth BOMBS!

No Regrets?

 The thing I've been thinking about lately is regret.  How do I really feel about my years in the mormon faith?  Do I regret anything?  Do I wish things had been different?

That all depends.  

Let's start with what I don't regret.

I don't regret my years in the church.  I was a little kid when my family joined.  My parents followed the path that they felt was right for their family.  At the time it was right.  It helped a lot with some substance abuse issues that were getting worse (from what I remember in my 5yo brain) and the church gave us a very strong community.  Suddenly we had a purpose.  We had lots of friends, a support system and fun ward activities that helped grow that feeling of belonging.  

My parents were all in.  They stopped drinking and smoking and even drinking coffee.  They paid tithes and held callings and even decided to have more children based on the teachings of the church.  It was literally life altering for them and the whole family.  I was a very obedient child.  If my parents said something I was in 100% and I followed in all the footsteps doing all the church things.  There were times when I saw my mom questioning.  Not questioning the gospel per se but questioning the culture and the policies.  

Let's face it she grew up in the 60's and 70's.  Hippies were a thing in Southern California and feminism was a huge deal.  As much as mom embraced the role of wife and mother she also let her feminist side show often and I always thought that was cool.  For example, why do I have to be with another man when I'm in the church building, why do men have to accompany women on our campouts and retreats, why do men get to be in charge of the budgets etc.  Small things but big things at the same time. 

I don't regret my early years. I don't regret my teenage years either.  I was one of the few young women in our ward that didn't have an unwanted pregnancy, I didn't drink or smoke and I pretty much obeyed my parents so those things made it pretty easy to live life as a teen.  

Early 20's was good too. I got a good job, didn't party, only dated good men and had a ton of fun enjoying the singles community in the church.  Without the church I would never have met my husband and had the children that I have now.  So no regrets there.  

Early mom years...this is where the regrets come in.  I was rigid.  I was so strict with my kids.  I followed the church guidelines about what my girls could and couldn't wear and still be considered modest...LITTLE children had to be dressed modestly, ridiculous.  I monitored what they watch very tightly.  We kept the sabbath day holy, we didn't watch anything on TV that was not what the prophet told us we could watch (ie no rated R or even some PG-13 movies).  My girls couldn't have more than one piercing in their ears (cuz the prophet told us that was wrong).  Books and music were heavily monitored.  They attended all church meetings including early morning seminary through high school. I wish I had been more relaxed, I wish I hadn't pushed so hard for the "perfect" LDS family, I wish I had paid more attention to what they were doing than to what they shouldn't have been doing. I wish I had relaxed. 

I regret baptizing my kids at 8 years old.  That's too young.  They had no idea what they were committing to.  More on all that mess in another post.  I regret forcing seminary on my oldest and girls camp and youth conference.  The messages they heard about purity and modesty and a woman's duty is so frankly wrong.  

I want them to have been comfortable with themselves. For them to have been able to dress they way they wanted and go the places they wanted to go.  I'm not saying that they would have had NO rules but showing your shoulders isn't sin and even having a coffee on the way to school isn't a sin as well.  

I regret the time I spent doing my high demand callings instead of hanging out with my family.  

I completely regret the loads of money I donated to the church for literally nothing.  

I regret the judgment I had for others. 

I regret being young womens president and lecturing those girls instead of just enjoying them and loving them.  Man I was a terrible leader. 

So while I don't regret growing up in the church I do regret the things it taught me were "wrong" and the judgement and rules I placed on my kids and those I served due to those teachings.  I wish I had focused more on Jesus and his love than what the prophets were spewing from the pulpit.  

This weekend is conference.  Instead of watching like 10 hours of garbage go serve someone, go spend time with family, go visit a friend.  There are literally millions of other more worthwhile things that we could do with our time than listen to false rhetoric. 

 I really hope no one misinterprets my motivation for making this blog or "announcing" my departure from the church.  I'm not looking for any kudos or sympathy or pity.  

My motivation for this is to be a safe person for anyone struggling with the same faith issues.  It's hard to sit in a congregation and feel like you're the only one questioning.  It's hard to sit and feel like if you speak up or question you're going to be judged or become a "project" Trust me mormons love a good project.  We love praying for people, doing service and telling people how the choices they are making or the questions they are having are just satan's way of getting to you.  How many times did I see someone who left the church and thought those same thoughts...so many times.  Gosh I hate to even admit this but even the times when I was genuinely kind and still maintained a friendship with "less actives" I was still secretly hoping that I could somehow get them to come back to church.  The underlying ulterior motive, so disgusting! Shame on me!

So my motivation is just to be there if anyone else needs to vent or a shoulder to cry on.  Text me, call me, email me, stop by my house (although I'm not guaranteeing it's presentability LOL).  Just like I hope that I'm a safe place for LGBTQ folx, I hope I'm also a safe place for well basically ANYONE!  

Just to be clear though if you're a conservative I may still have the underlying ulterior motive to convert you to the liberal side. lol...

Stop It!

 Now that I've stepped away from the church I have let myself enter into the "ExMo" world on social media, podcasts, tv and anything else I can get my hands on.  I say "let myself" because everyone in the mormon world knows that consuming any kind of media that is the slightest bit contrary to the church results in immediate testimony loss and apostacy...insert eye roll...I figured since mine was already gone I may as well dive in head first.

Most people in this community, and there is a community surprisingly, call what they are going through a "faith crisis".  You can call what you are going through whatever you want.  For me though faith crisis doesn't feel right.  I like to call what I am experiencing a "faith JOURNEY".  I feel like it's something I've been on for years without really knowing it.  It started when I was baptized and had to wear a jumpsuit instead of the usual baptism dress since all the dresses were being worn by the other 5-6 girls getting baptized at the same time.  We lived in a large ward and stake in Southern California so the LDS population was pretty large.  Every person I saw that day or who saw my pictures from that day comment on me wearing a jumpsuit and not a dress.  Like it matters to Jesus.  Like a girl wearing a jumpsuit was scandalous.  That was probably the first thing that struck me as "hmmm".  Many things struck me funny over the years but I always swept it away and justified, justified, justified.  So my journey has been long, longer that I really wanted to admit for a long time.  

Once things really became evident that I needed to make a drastic change I didn't have the big crashing moment like a lot of exmembers do.  I don't feel in crisis.  When I was 25 and had a tumor blocking my intestines and I almost died that was a crisis.  When I was 27 and my mom was diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension and we didn't know the prognosis that was a crisis.  When I was pregnant with my 6th baby and my husband became deathly ill THAT was a crisis.  This faith shift doesn't seem at all like a crisis.  It seems like a natural progression of learning and growing.

Maybe this is a product of my neurodiverse brain.  Several of my kids, ok maybe all of them, have some sort of ADHD, Autism, Sensory Disorders and they get it from their mom.  Maybe it's because I haven't lost my family over this process.  Maybe it's because it's not something to actually go into CRISIS over!  There are so many other things in this world that are ACTUAL crisis' that I don't find that me deciding to stop attending church as a huge deal in the grand scheme of the whole freaking world.  

So call it what you want but I feel that journey is a more positive word than crisis and my brain really likes the calmness of the word journey.  It's like I'm heading to a new destination and even though sometimes it's a bit unnerving and maybe even a little scary I know that I can navigate it just fine for myself.  

Tithing and it's many lies

 I mentioned in my tithing post that most people who read this or who are still true believing Mormons probably think "she probably never had a True testimony".  That's what we are taught as members of the LDS church that anyone who questions or leaves the church either never had a testimony, was offended by someone at church or we just want to sin.  That's what I thought when someone left the church.  It literally never occurred to me that they may have left because they found out it wasn't true.  I was that mormon apologist, making excuses for all the flaws in the doctrine, history and culture...they didn't mean it the way you're taking it, you read it wrong, you took it out of context, that's just how it was back then...etc.  

I wanted it to be true soooo badly.  

I loved my true believing self and the comfort and surety it brought to my life.  So much easier than this not knowing and trying to think and figure it out for myself.  I still want Heaven to be a place, I still want to be with my family when I die, I still want God to be a thing (although God definitely looks different in my mind now) I want my marriage to be eternal.  

I did all the mormon things baptized at 8, young womanhood recognition, early morning seminary, girls camp, stake dances, singles ward, Relief Society President, institute class, temple attendance, temple marriage, LOTS of kiddos, young women's president, many relief society callings and activities committee, fasting, praying, scripture reading, word of wisdom obedience, no sex before marriage, take my kids to church, blessings of babies, kids baptized, visiting teaching, support hubby in his high demand callings, sustain leaders, trust the prophet...ALL THE THINGS! I was so in.

I wanted it to be true soooo badly.

Then came the shelf break: tithing as a payment to get into the temple. LGBTQ discrimination, CES letters, truth about the prophet Joseph Smith, reading church history, abuse scandal, gospel topics essays, polygamy, patriarchy, all the secrecy and deceit when it comes to our past and where our traditions come from, against the ERA.

It happened quickly.  It happened unexpectedly.  It happened completely.  

I wanted it to be true soooo badly.

We are FAMILY.

 Family...that's a HUGE theme in mormonism.  Like HUGE...like the be all and end all.  Families are sealed together for eternity in the temples, couples are encouraged to have as many children as they can as fast as they can, marriage is the ultimate goal of all single people in the church etc...

Many people that leave the church find themselves standing at a crossroads with their families.  Some lose their spouses, some have children that don't speak to them, extended families are often alienated.  The mantra that Families are Forever is very important because if you aren't a true believing member with all your covenants in a row then you're not going to be with them for eternity.  You're basically jeopardizing your eternal salvation by leaving the church.  On social media platforms of ex-mormon's I see so many posts of people struggling because leaving the church meant losing their families in one way or another.  

I am one of the lucky ones.  Lucky in the fact that my family is pretty rad all around AND they also respect others decisions and are mostly out of the church.  My husband left the church around 8 years ago.  I'm not him so I'll just speak to what I know and things I've gleaned about his exit.  He didn't have a "faith crisis" that I'm aware of, but he did have a lot of anxiety around church attendance after a very traumatic illness that he had in 2014.  After his recovery he never really picked back up attending church.  I struggled for 6 years to get the children to church each week fighting them on church clothes and bath time and getting in the car to make the 40 minute trip to our ward building.  They were naughty in sacrament meeting and begged to go home the whole 3 hours.  It was not a fun or relaxing day of rest for me at all.  Around 2019 (right before Covid) I decided to let them be.  They saw Chris staying home each week and of course staying home and watching cartoons looked a lot more fun than attending church where they had to sit still and obey lots of rules.  I stopped making them attend and honestly they came about once every few months and that was enough for them.  My older 3 kids were already out of the church by the end of this time.  I decided that church was going to be about MY spiritual life and focused on that.  I attended church alone for about 2 years (zoom during Covid).  

During this time I was a teacher in the Relief Society.  This is a calling that I LOVE.  I waited my whole life for this calling and finally when I got it is when I started questioning it all...funny how that works.  I asked hard questions of those women, I started uncomfortable discussions and made some really good friends.  At the beginning of the summer I decided that I was just going to attend Relief Society.  I wasn't going to attend the other meetings and I would just be with the sisters and try and make a difference where I was.  That lasted about 2 months before I realized that I just needed to be out completely.  

Anyway back to family.  My hubby and kids were already out.  My brother left the church when he was young so that was a non-issue.  My mom accidentally found out that I had left on a Facebook post I made on a page we are both members of.  I  had totally forgotten she was on that page and I felt really bad.  My parents are still members.  They attend via Zoom since my moms health is not good, however when I told them I was leaving the church they totally understood.  It's hard for my mom sometimes, I think, because we are taught that we won't be an eternal family now.  However I don't believe that for one gosh darn second!  My beliefs have changed so much over the last few months that if there is a heaven and we are eternal beings then it stands to reason that there is a way and a plan for us all that doesn't necessarily involve us all being members of the same church.  Anyhoo...I digress...

So over all I think I'm pretty fortunate with my family and their acceptance of me no matter what I choose. I am saddened for those that don't have that same privilege.  And yes I do know that it is a privilege.

This post was updated, edited and added to on February 21, 2023 after listening to a podcast about tithing.  I had so much more to say and felt the need to just edit instead of making a whole new post.

 So let me tell you a little about my tithing experience in the church.

I'm sure reading the first few posts have gotten you thinking "she probably never even had a true testimony of tithing" or "she doesn't understand the reason for tithing"

That's completely wrong. I had a very strong testimony of tithing.  I have been (up until 2021) a very faithful tithe paying member.  When I was a child if I got a dime for doing something around the house or my mom had given me her pocket change I would pay tithing on that dime.  There were weeks when as an 8yo I would hand the bishop a tithing envelope with a penny in it and know I was doing what the Lord wanted me to.  

Once I started having kids I'd write the tithing check and have them go deliver the envelope to the bishopric to teach them how important it was to pay that tithing.  All my life I had wondered if we were supposed to pay tithing on our gross or our net income.  The answer I always got from leadership was "do you want gross or net blessings?"...obviously gross!

When we moved to Illinois in 2006, we were so poor.  We had to pay for two households since my husband came to Illinois and lived in an apartment while we stayed in California to sell our home. We had exactly $250 in our bank account and the house payment and rent were coming due but that money was our tithing money.  I put it in an envelope and went to the mail box to send it to the Bishop.  I stood at the mailbox for 10 minutes trying to decide if mailing this was the right thing.  Back and forth KNOWING that was all the money we had and I didn't have any groceries either. I hesitantly put the envelope in the mailbox and walked away crying.  

That evening Chris called me and told me that his company had given him a $2500 moving bonus that day and we could pay the bills and buy food.  BAM I was hooked.  Paying my tithing had paid off 10 fold! There was no way I was ever going to question or hesitate paying that tithing again.  

Now moving to Illinois was very stressful.  We left all our family behind in California, I had never lived in another state and we had 3 small children.  Also our finances weren't as good as we had hoped and while we had enough for our bills and home we didn't have a lot for food or any extras.  After a few years (all the while paying thousands in tithing every year) we had 3 more children and the budget was even tighter.  The food situation was getting grim, to the point I went to bed hungry a lot because I let the kids have the extra or larger portions.  I finally broke down and applied for government food assistance.  This was such a blessing for us.  We had plenty finally for our needs.  However this came at a price.  The price being my self worth.  It was humiliating to me that we needed to use assistance.  I would pull out my card at the store and swipe it as fast as I could in case anyone saw me.  I NEVER mentioned it to anyone, not my parents, not even our own kids.  I worked a few part time jobs in the evenings, I did daycare in our home and even tried teaching sewing lessons and starting my own business to make ends meet.  Still we struggled.  I was too ashamed to go and ask the ward for assistance.  If I had needed them to buy groceries there would have been some of my friends in the loop that the Clark's had no food and they would be in charge of judging what we needed each time we had a grocery need.  I couldn't do that.  I couldn't go to church and know that my friends were that included in my families finances.  It was humiliating.  

There were 2 times when we needed to ask the church for assistance for paying our house payment and both times the Bishops gave us a hard time...as full tithe payers they gave us a hard time about needing assistance twice in the last 30 years...hmmm...  Each time we asked them it was during times when I or my husband had major medical issues which required extended stays in the hospital and loss of wages.  

Fast forward to 2021/2022, I had 2 children come out to me as LGBTQ.  I knew that I would support them with all my everything.  I came across an article, I don't remember where I'm positive it was a "church approved source" since there was no way at this point that I was going to look at "anti" sources.  It talked about BYU being subsidized by the church and tithing money.  This gave me huge pause as I had also heard stories and read articles about BYU and their anti gay policies and programs.  How could I pay to a church that supported these institutions that actively hurt my kids.  After this realization I went down a rabbit hole of other things the church pays for with tithing and was completely shocked.  Prop 8 in California, multi million dollar temples, legislation stopping LGBTQ rights from passing, salaries for the general authorities the list goes on.  I knew I had to stop paying tithing immediately.  I needed my limited funds to go to better places that kept my kids safe and were more in line with my beliefs in human rights and social issues.  

A few months after I stopped paying tithing our Bishop came to our home to do temple recommend interviews.  I was blindsided by this meeting as my husband didn't tell me this was what the bishop was coming for and I had not discussed with my hubs about my lack of paying tithing.  I had, at that time, a small part time job and my own small bank account I paid from on my own.  My husband was not attending and had not been attending church for 7 years prior. (we had kept up on tithing until this point).  During the interview I answered ALL the other questions honestly and correctly.  I had a testimony, I sustained the leaders, I believed the brethren to be prophets, I am honest, I kept the word of wisdom, I am chaste, I believed the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.  ALL the other questions were perfect, then the tithing one came up and I answered honestly.  I told the Bishop that I could not in good conscience donate to an institution that actively fought against and hurt my family but I still did donate my funds to other places that I felt better aligned with my beliefs. 

When he told me right then that he could not give me that recommend a huge lightbulb went off in my brain.  I had to pay the church for my temple blessings, for my salvation, I had to pay the church for my family to be together forever.  I know lots of people would say "it's about obedience to God not the money" but I was obedient.  I had prayed about this and gotten personal revelation that what I was doing in NOT paying tithing was the right thing to do.  I also know from other friends of mine who have lost their temple recommends that our stake president had a habit of looking up our tithing amounts and if they didn't seem to him like they could be 10% of your income he'd deny recommends even if you answered the question in the affirmative.  So I knew that I had no chance to even say "yes I pay" even though I was technically paying to other places.  

This brings up a huge point.  All my life I was taught that giving our money to charities other than the church was dangerous because they used most of their donations to fund the operations of those charities.  Very little of the money goes to actually helping people.  This is complete and utter garbage since we know the church is worth hundreds of billions of dollars and gives less that 1 billion to charity...math don't math.  I'm required to give 10% of my income to the church but the church gives way less than 10% of it's income to help others.  Nope, not gonna fall for that again.  

Another huge issue for me now is the fact that as members we are taught to have as many children as God will give us.  Doesn't matter your financial, physical or emotional state.  Have those kids and also give us 10% of your income.  

Another question is why is tithing connected to temple attendance?  Well temple attendance is the highest form of worship we have in the church.  It's the main goal of everyone in attendance.  It's how we get to keep our families, it's how we save our ancestors, it's how we heal people and show love and learn how to get into Heaven.  So let's make giving the church money a requirement to get into the temple to receive all these blessings, it's kind of brilliant.  Now they have a guaranteed stream of income from followers who WANT those blessings and promises.  Kind of genius.  Mostly disgusting.  

I also found out the prices that the church will pay for temples.  Millions of dollars per temple.  We are talking hundreds of thousands of dollars on the carpet for each temple...CARPET! Hundreds of thousands on ONE chandelier...ONE!  When I think of all the people that they could clothe and feed it literally makes me sick.  Even all the hours I spent in the temple when I could have been helping actual LIVING people or spending time with my LIVING children.  Maybe lets focus on the issues living breathing suffering people are having instead of issues that we maybe think our dead are having.  What would God want us to focus more on?  

Another point I want to make is the way the church makes you feel that by paying your tithing you're somehow better off.  Like if you didn't pay them the 10% of your income you'd be more destitute...I really believed that if I stopped paying tithing I would have less money.  That's how indoctrinated I was.  I believed that it wasn't my money in the first place, it was God's, and that I was somehow indebted to him so I needed to give that money to the church.  I look back now and just sigh in disbelief that my brain was so washed that I did these things with blind obedience.  It took my children suffering for me to understand.  

Since stopping paying tithing things have been so much better.  Not perfect but better.  We still struggle sometimes with emergency things that come up as we don't save like we should.  However my husbands income has almost doubled in the last year and a half.  Our business does well,  We are still "blessed" even though we do not give away 10% of our funds to a church that misuses them.  Yes, I said misuses them because after I wrote this I found out about the church's criminal behavior which led to an SEC investigation and fines of $5,000,000. So they are intentionally hiding money from the government and also not reporting it to the members.  Maybe they should have their temple recommends revoked too.  Goose/Gander situation.

The Bishop then asked if I thought I'd like to maybe start paying again to get that recommend and that was a HARD PASS.  The damage had been done.  If I had not had this experience with tithing I would not have done any other research about the problematic issues of the church.  I would today still be a full member in good standing.  So maybe I should be thanking him, because without the question of tithing in my brain I would not have discovered that it's all just a big hoax anyway. 

The church is not a charitable institution it is a corporation.  Big difference.

 I know writing here may not ever find its way to a reader other than myself, but even if one person finds it and feels not so alone in this religious deconstruction journey then I'm good with that.  

I mentioned in my first post that tithing was the first thread that I pulled in the unraveling of the nice and secure sweater I had woven myself in the church.  The second thread I pulled was church history.

Now we are taught church history in the church.  We are taught many many things that I'm finding simply aren't true or that were so watered down that now that I'm uncovering the details I feel like I've been really duped.  Now I'm usually a pretty good judge of character, but for some reason when it came to the church I was really quick to sweep a lot of what I had heard over the years as nonsense and just satan trying to cloud my mind to the truth.  Yes, I was that girl that would defend the church until my last breath.  Not anymore.

Searching only in good sources is also something that we are taught as members.  If a source, book/movie/magazine/newspaper etc etc, said something against what we were being taught at church it was automatically deemed "anti Mormon" and we'd be encouraged to look away and disregard that particular thing.  Little did I know that so many GOOD sources are out there that simply tell the truth and aren't written by satan and aren't "anti" they are simply just TRUE.

My first go-to was to hit the podcasts.  I love me a good podcast and am very excited when I find a good LDS deep dive podcast or something with true crime...but I digress.  I started listening to podcasts by women who by all accounts are members of the church in good standing but just have those lingering questions most members are afraid to ask like "what's the deal with polygamy?", or "why is this thing run by ALL men?", or "why can't women have the freaking Priesthood?".  Simple questions really but things that I didn't know the answers to and just swept them under the rug for way too long.  My favorite podcast is hosted by 2 women who are asking the hard questions and saying a lot of the hard things out loud.  They are not the reason I left the church but they are so wise and kind and really challenging the status quo.  This opened my eyes to feminism, more liberal thinking (which I was already pretty liberal) and thinking out side of the box about who God is.

All of these "good" sources led me to internet searches about Joseph Smith.  They led me to TikTok accounts about exmormons and books written by great theologians who are both in and out of the church.  These sources led me to the CES letters (yes, I know cliché), checking out the things written in the Gospel Topics Essays and watching documentaries and series' on TV about the church.  That's where the second thread unraveled.  Once tithing went and Joseph Smith went it wasn't hard to pull the rest and make my warm, cozy, comfortable church sweater a puddle of yarn on the floor.  

So many feelings

 So when I said my next stop was emailing the Bishop that may have been postponed for a few days.  

I set out to do just that...message the Bishop, ask to be released, tell him I'm stepping away from church, seems pretty straight forward.  Except it wasn't as straight forward as I was thinking it was going to be!  I didn't expect so many feelings to creep up on me.  I think sometimes I think I'm pretty stoic and unfeeling, at least that's what my mother-in-law tells me...but that's a story for another blog post, however I'm pretty dang emotional when it comes down to it.  Sending that email was hard, I had to stop and take a beat, the beat lasted several days.  Then Sunday I finally got the courage to send it out.  Simple, too the point and direct.  No fluff, no explanations, just release me and I'm not coming back.  It took a day for a response.  Our Bishop is a good guy, I really like him and his family and I didn't expect any drama, and there wasn't.  He just asked if I had been offended or if something had happened at church, which are typical responses, but of course I haven't been offended and nothing "happened at church" (unless you count the sexism, homophobia, racism, etc etc of the whole entity but I digress).  So far I have not received any response back from that and that's totally fine with me.  I also texted my friend who is the Relief Society president to let her know what was happening, I didn't want her left in a lurch when I just suddenly stopped doing my calling.  

I think the biggest worry I have is not having any community.  What really tipped the scales for me was last week a group I have been attending for about a year start back up for the fall.  It's a Connection group (that's what they call it) ran by a Mennonite minister who is a friend of mine from our small town.  That same night I also had a committee meeting for Relief Society.  I had to decide what would benefit me more, attending a Relief Society meeting or attending Connections. Now Connections is sometimes just my friend and I, sometimes it's a couple other women from our community, but every time I get SO much out of it.  We talk about God and our families and spiritual things and questions we may have.  I would LOVE to be able to speak openly in Relief Society like I do in Connections but I know I'll be judged and I know the outcome of speaking your mind at church.  So I decided that Connections was the best way to spend my evening and it showed me where my priorities needed to be.

So I'm hoping I can find community somewhere other than church.  We live in a very conservative community out here in the middle of nowhere Illinois so that makes it hard too.  I am not conservative and find that those friendship lines cannot be crossed with much success anymore.  

Still figuring out this ex/non Mormon lifestyle is weird and exciting and eye opening.  

What the What?

 I'm not sure where I'm going to be going with this whole project. It's not something I ever thought I'd be writing about. My past blogs have been about my family mostly, containing all the things we were doing including church callings, temple attendance, activities etc. This won't be that. Even though I currently still technically have a calling my next stop is texting the Bishop to remedy that.

My name isn't actually Molly Mormann. I do however feel a connection to that name since it was actually my grandmothers name. Now my gramma wasn't a member of the church, far from it. She was a child bride, married at 14, had 2 kids by the time she was 16, smoked 2 packs a day, drove long haul truck from the time I was 10 until I was 18, and married a 24 year old man when she was 48. She lived an interesting life. Molly was outspoken and pushy and got what she wanted when it came to her order at a restaurant or confronting some other innocent bystander about something she felt slighted on. A phrase in our family is "I'm gonna go Molly Mormann on them" and we all know to back up and get out of that persons way! So I named the blog after her because I feel like I'm about to go Molly Mormann on the church.  

I've been a member my whole life basically. My family converted when I was 5, so I was baptized at 8 and passed all the appropriate LDS milestones with flying colors. I'm now 47 and things have taken a turn, so much that even a year ago I didn't know this would happen. I'm going to just write today about how it all started.

I have 6 children ranging in ages from 24 down to 7. This last year 2 of those children have come out to us as LGBTQ. This was not a shock at all since I had suspected for a while that they were queer. I also suspect I may have more kiddos that fall on this spectrum but I'm letting them take the lead and waiting for them to choose their moment to let us know.  

Having kids that came out wasn't a big testimony shaking incident for me like it can be for some families. I know that sometimes it rocks family dynamics and can ruffle relationships. For us it wasn't a big deal. We still love them, we support them 100% and frankly my only hope for all my kids is for them to be happy no matter where they are in life, so if these queer kids find happiness I'm all for it. I happily wear my pride pin on my sweater to church, I also wear converse shoes with my skirts with rainbow shoe laces. I'm an out and proud ally. I've gotten some really great feedback and made some really great friends by showing my LGBTQ support.  

My shelf started cracking a little bit when I realized how the church spends my tithing money. I guess I just always figured it went to temples, buildings and helping the poor. I was so naive. I started realizing that my funds when to places like BYU and other church schools who are openly hurting LGBTQ students with their policies and codes. I was shocked to hear how much money and effort went into Prop 8 in California, even though I should have known that one long ago. Also money going to anti-LGBTQ legislation and lots of other places I'm not comfortable with it going. So I stopped paying. I still donate my funds where I see fit but because the church doesn't see those funds my temple recommend was pulled. Even though I answered every other question correctly, even though I still believed all the people were all the things (prophets, seers, etc etc). I still was barred from attending the temple just because I didn't pay the money.  

This left a really bad taste in my mouth and it was the thread that I started pulling that had everything else unraveling around me.  

Now here I sit. Not wanting my calling anymore, not wanting my kids exposed to mormon rhetoric and feeling more at peace that I have in a long time.