Hi. Thanks for having me here.

My name is Beth and I’m a mom to a little boy who is about to be baptized soon. I had gone inactive once before because a) the branch president at the time made me feel like I was unwelcome and rejected a temple recommend on me not once but twice for issues that I had been forgiven of prior to my baptism. I felt I wasn’t good enough for either the church or the temple if they were going against what Christ says that if you confess then it is forgotten. I have also not received any of the blessings of tithing and it did not work the way I was told it was going to and in effect, tithed myself into debt. I am on a fixed income and have a hard enough time making ends meet as it is. Then when I went to the church to get my house fixed up, or a bit of help, again, got rejected. At the time I was a tither, active in my calling, did my home teaching the way I should, had perfect attendance in the church, never missed any of the Relief Society enrichment meetings, or any of that. After certain members found out I had tattoos, they went from being friendly to cold. I suddenly felt unwelcome. Going inactive got visits from the missionaries several times a week….and I flat told them, “I appreciate you telling me I am welcome but I don’t feel welcome there anymore.” It was compounded by the fact that I had seen the movie “September Dawn”. I researched it to see if it was true and was shocked to find out that it was…my trust in the church was shattered.

I went back to the church though, right after my mom died…we have a different bishop now but from time to time I still have members treat me like a second class Mormon…I still can’t get a temple recommend to save my life, but that’s OK…I went back because I DO have faith in Christ…and to me that’s all that matters. I have been able to get useful stuff from the church such as: good ideas for service projects. Good ideas to save money, live frugally, and the words of wisdom really are wise…except for the iced tea part of it…I admit I still enjoy that once in a while and research had not been done at the time to find out how healthy of a drink tea can be. I think that has changed a bit in past years.

We have a small ward and it helps that no matter how I personally feel, some of the people there are friends no matter what.

The only thing is I do sometimes do not see eye to eye with one of my TBM friends who thinks I should stop watching R rated movies and talking to my homosexual friends. (I am in a sticky situation with the R rated movie thing, considering there are a LOT of Mormon actors and actresses who star in R rated films….and many times very benign films are assigned this rating unfairly by the movie industry itself….I have seen G and PG stuff that’s more graphically violent than some R stuff. Oh and I work for an actor too, so it’s kind of hard due to my employment to get away from that entirely anyhow.) I also got chewed out because she stopped by and wanted to know if I needed anything from the store and I said yes…but did not change first. Was wearing a pair of pajama pants and a big t-shirt and she was appalled that I dared go to the store that way and asked me if I had any self-respect. Sure I do…I just do not care what other people think of me seriously. If I am working on my boss’s website all day and am cool and comfortable, (It was about 105 degrees that day.) I am more interested in comfort rather than style at that point.

But as a whole, the church gives me a good diversion from everyday life. I do enjoy many of the people who go to my small ward and Sunday is often the only time I get to see any of them. (I talk to them on Facebook but that’s not the same thing.) The church has helped my son get involved in scouting and this in turn has helped me to learn to spend more quality time with him. Family Home Evenings are good, because it may not be church themed stuff we do, but we set that aside and play board games and such. Without the church’s guidance and suggestions it probably would not be that way. Members of the church have helped me with firewood, lawn care and stuff I could not do by myself. I’m disabled and it’s hard for me to get around BUT, I try to do what I can on my own through the church’s recommendations of self-reliance. I have always been a smart shopper but have become even a smarter one thanks to the Relief Society’s meetings. Family history has always been something I’m interested in even without the temple endowment stuff that can be done for these people. Through doing genealogy I have learned interesting things about myself and where I originated from. My aunt who was not Mormon learned a lot of family history stuff from her Mormon neighbors when she lived in Arizona and Utah. So it helps me as a member of the church to carry this on. She’s the only person living on my dad’s side of the family other than myself, my brother and our respective children and a few cousins. If anything they live on through the stories contained in those massive notebooks my aunt mailed to me here a while back. There’s nobody else interested in being the family historian, may as well be me. Oh and as for the church’s encouragement to develop and strengthen our talents, I have taken up needlework again. The church has different reasons for encouraging this but I still find it relaxing and enjoyable nonetheless.

So I do take the good with the bad. My testimony about the truthfulness of the church isn’t what it used to be obviously, but I can find stories in the BoM, Bible, DC, etc…that might be useful and that I can apply to every day life. Parts of the Bible are fictional: they are just parables that Jesus used to illustrate and inspire good conduct in people. That’s how the scriptural works of the church can still be acceptable to me. They are an interesting read to say the least.

Then there are the potlucks, campouts, firesides, service projects, and more. They are fun and enjoyable. I have been to other churches before I decided on becoming LDS and I have always felt that the LDS church has always fit my lifestyle I already had prior to joining it….and it’s where I am most comfortable.