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Hello all I have been lurking on your site for quite some time now and couldn’t agree more with most of you
A little about us me and my dw joined the church while living in a small fairly progressive lds community in nv about a year after joining we moved to the the midwest and experience culture shock…. As isolated as we were in our little branch the women were extremely strong and self reliant but once we got to what seamed like a huge church with two wards we felt a little lost heck our kids thought the church we were in was bigger than the whole town we used to live in.
To the main point the families we got to know concerned us greatly in fact the our vt showed up alone a few times to visit my wife while i was on the road at work and was severely derogatory toward his wife (whom my dw actually liked quite a bit) , after my wife got severely turned off by this behavior and listening to the women in her rs meeting comparing what meds they were on to deal with their spouses she started to dive into church history with reckless abandon….As parents of 7 kids mostly girls this cultural shift was unacceptable and she blamed quite a few of the historical issues with by and other writing she found …not mention some of the racial teachings in our history(her being black too) didn’t help……
To the point she went through with having our names and our children”s names removed….but like any good story it must have a few twists . Once out side of our much missed community in nv and also away from our not so missed larger community we found our smaller mayberry type community and began our search for a spiritual home. We tried a assembly of god and a baptist church(wife kinda of with aog i kinda ok with baptist) but never really felt at home. Heck even before joining dw and I allways had put our family first and neither ever drank more than maybe a handful of times and smokefree etc .We were allways committed to providing our family with the structure and stability our upbringing lacked and definitely fell right into the ideals regarding self reliance and hard work, but all that is a little off topic here. After a year and a half dabbling in these churches we had an ah hah moment. In a mothers day service at the baptist church the preacher made a rather ignorant statement about mormons ….My dw was stunned, and highly offended, needless to say we never went back. I asked her why it offended her so greatly if she was no longer connected or as i thought felt kinda the same way.
Well a little while went by and we ran into a missionary at a eatery ….turns out there was a very small branch in the next town over ….We took a few months to talk together and study a little and came to many of the conclusions that some of you have here and decided to return …..The branch feels much more welcoming and a little more progressive….The branch president here seems to be extremely welcoming…I was more open about the reason for our disaffection in vague terms and the bp didn’t really press any of the issues specifically ….Funny thing we are supposed to go through this in depth process with the stake president etc according to a few of our tbm friends from nv, but the bp is researching our records hoping for a typo or something or that someone in SLC didnt strike us …..if not we have to be rebaptized which he wanted to do asap to get us back on record….Needless to say we are getting a very friendly welcome back this time with eyes wide open and feel much btr for it…..anyways i don’t see much info on peeps removed from records returning and we are pretty sure we are completely removed, my wife was quite thorough and we got confirmation from SLC that we were removed. We would like some info on what we might expect in this process to get back on record.
Sorry for the long winded post it’s time to wake all up got 25 loads of laundry to catch up before i hit the road for work this week ..thanks all for your openness
Welcome, gman!! Great to have you here!
I resigned (name removal) last year and was told that to return you had to get re-baptized and then there is a priesthood blessing which restores all previous covenants, including temple covenants.
Not sure about priesthood hierarchy, start over at Aaronic, return to previous???
Good luck and keep us posted!
I don’t know the process, but it sounds like you have good people on your case. 
Welcome. Looking forward to hearing more about your journey.
What an interesting story. Welcome and glad you’re here. I have also had different wards in different areas and see how they can all be so…well, different. I always wonder if some wards are less welcoming because of leadership, or because of personalities in the ward, or if it is just me and my preferences…but find it interesting how different they can be.
Ultimately, the teachings of the church can be a blessing, despite the people. I hope your new branch is able to give you what your family is looking for. Thanks for sharing.
Welcome, gman. I’m glad you decided to de-lurk and introduce yourself. Your story is fascinating, and I am happy you found a degree of peace. Wow! Now that’s a different story, gman! So you want to be members again? Wow. Just wow. Welcome to the Stay LDS community. Whether you are members or eternal visitors, it’s that decision to try staying in the fold for some higher purpose that makes us what we are here. Wow, gman. Thanks for sharing your story! Having been in many different wards outside of Utah, this is a more common story to me than to some of the above commenters. I know of many who left and even had names stricken from the records, but who ultimately returned. I particularly enjoyed where you talked about what felt like home and what didn’t. I think we underestimate the importance of finding our community sometimes. It can be very difficult to feel like an outsider. Anyway, welcome! Welcome Gman707, What an interesting journey you have been through. I am glad to have you with us here in our community. I would love to hear how things turn out as you go through the process.
I am a ward clerk and to answer some of your questions. If your names have actually been removed, and if you got confirmation from SLC then they have been, you will need to be rebatized. The missionaries can teach you the discussions but your baptism will be need to be approved by the SP. It may take a little time. I dont think your request has to go to SLC unless you left under questionable circumstances. IE you were apostates or had major issues with the church. Once you have been a memeber for year all of your blessings will be restored. The dates of original baptism and ordinations remain the same. Your 2nd baptism will not be recorded.
I am writing this form memory and do not have the GHBI in front of me so there may be some slight inaccuracies, I have seen it done about 4 times so I think my description is fairly correct. The biggest hold up happens if the Bis or SP changes while you are in the process.
If anyone sees any errors, please feel free to correct them.
But welcome back. I, myself, am at a fork in the road and not sure which path to take.
Hi Gman We’ve come onboard about the same time and I thought I would say hello. The small ward I have lived in virtually all my adult life is one of those friendly, helpful places even if I feel a bit distant there is always support when you really need it. So enjoy, hopefully you can get the rebaptism done fairly quickly because it really helps to be serving someone else in order to help your own recovery. I look forward to sharing with you.
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