coming to join you

I was referred to this site by someone from NOM. I think I’ve dealt pretty well with my emotional rollercoaster of learning about real Church History. I do not believe the Church is true but believe that it does have truth (this has nothing to do with lack of faith but rather what I perceive as evidence). Church History is actually not what brought me to that conclusions but since many of you may not have gone further that that I won’t go into any more detail on the matter. I’m in the process of checking out this site as well as the NOM one. I have started a file on my computer where I put some of your quotes that mean something to me and provide me with the support I need. My purpose for wanting to join you is that I feel very strongly about being a member of the church. I believe that it has been a great benefit to my life and I have received many blessings because of my activity in it and belief in its principle (of which I still cherish). I want to focus on the positives and benefits not the flaws. I want to be able to get the most out of my church experience even though I don’t take it in a literal way anymore. So support in how to proceed with that is what I am really looking for.

Here’s a little about me: I grew up in an LDS family with parents who were both converts and where joining the church was a great blessing to them. Our family was the only active members in our school. I was lucky to have friends who respected my beliefs but at the same time I sometimes missed out on “joining in their fun”. I definitely wasn’t a “perfect little angel” growing up but how many of us really are during the teenage years? However, I never really had a major crisis of faith. Preparing for my temple endowment and the ceiling to my wonderful husband was a monumental time in my life. My bishop was shocked at the amount of knowledge I had. I studied any church available material on the subject and scripture references my RM husband-to-be guided me to. So I didn’t feel like I was being given any surprises when I went. Since that experience I have been pretty stalwart which has built a special relationship between my mom and I (especially since many of my siblings are not active.

I have 4 relatively young children. I know it will be a challenge raising them in the Mormon religion. They will be taught un-whitewashed church history by us. My kids all are very proud of their own seer stones and my oldest is already aware of polyandry in the early church and the problems early saints faced with overly large polygamy families. We will be exposing them to other religions (couple of weeks ago we went to the Catholic Church with some friends) for the purpose of helping them really understand others and be open-minded to others’ beliefs. I hope my children will feel my full support in what ever path they choose for themselves when the time comes to do so. In the mean time I hope to be able to focus on the good things of the church and educate them in an open-minded way about the questionable stuff so that they don’t have to go through the same kind of crisis I did.