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Thought I would share. We get these emails from folks now and then. Everyone here that helps run this community makes a difference in the lives of hundreds of people every day.
To all who contribute to and maintain the document “How to Stay in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints After a Major Challenge to Your Faith”:
I just wanted to make you aware of what a great help this document is to me as I find myself transitioning from orthodoxy into something else (I have no idea what) at the moment. I have lived my life for 30 years in the LDS church and to find that what I had grown up believing and being taught is not, actually, the whole and complete story has shattered my faith and belief. My husband is not ready for this journey (and may never be) which leaves me, at the moment, very invested in making staying in the church work for me. I appreciate all the advice and tips in this document and all the (I’m sure) hours and effort that went into it.
Thank you for being such a wonderful resource to people like me. Thank you, from the very depths of my heart.
Sincerely,
Christine
Thank you, Brian. I remember you posted another letter a while ago (but have no idea when). Let’s make this a participant feedback sharing post. That way, we won’t need separate posts for each one we want to share.
I appreciate hearing these from time to time. I’m sure there are many others who read and lurk and feel the same and don’t take the time to post a thank you. We don’t need to post every one you get, but periodically is nice. Thanks Brian. Cool! I like Ray’s idea of a maintaining a common thread to store these letters. I will try to remember to post them here whenever I receive nice letters of thanks from people. Latest letter received this morning (she is referring to our site and the links in Additional Support Resources to Fowler podcasts:
Hi
I just need to send a short email in response to the above podcast which I am aware is a few years old…
You comment on being vocal about your process and causing pain to others .. I wish to point out the flip side to that.. I have felt what you are describing for years and yet didn’t know how to reconcile it. I didn’t want to hurt family or friends so kept leaving and just had what I said to my family was a personal relationship with MY Heavenly Father who was so different I thought to everyone else’s. I had no where to go. Periodically I would attempt church again and go back to it being personal and stay away.
On having a child and discovering my non LDS husband had no faith I felt I owed my son the great base I had to develop that personal relationship. I have appreciated your explanations that these different levels are all necessary as my son is now 7 and love primary (and I can influence whether he grows up to be bigoted ) my husband has found a HF and had experiences he didn’t know were possible and I have found you and realized I’m not alone in my journey and that I can progress beyond the troubled dark place I have been stuck in for so long.
Through your podcasts I have also discovered that my mother feels exactly the same way as I do.
You are doing great things and giving comfort and information to those of us that didn’t know where to look for it before.
You are an answer to my prayers.
As LDS we need learn to see the good in ourselves instead of questioning it just because it doesn’t conform because as James Talmage said… If there is any true lovely and if good report and praiseworthy – we seek after these things.
Fond regards
Amanda
This stuff really does give me a reason to continue efforts to help others. Some days are easier than others, but these types of letters are a great reminder. Here was the FB IM I had with my prior mission companion:
You’re hawkgrrrl??? I love your posts! They’re so brilliant and insightful. I confess to lurkerdom. I’ve turned into a lurker on everything since I started school. I hardly even go on FB anymore…it kinda sucks. I like to check out staylds at least once a month. I was lurking on another site NOM, but found it too acerbic. Is it true John didn’t stay LDS?
Jenny
We bow to the HAWK!! :ugeek: An almost, kinda-sorta, rumored, indirect acknowledgment top brass at central command: PM sent to me from someone at NOM. I’ve never met this guy in person, but had online interactions in the past, and I am pretty sure he lives in my area.
hey man,
i know people have talked about whether or not the GA’s read these sites or anything. my dad is the bishop in elder holland’s ward, and holland spoke today as a surprise. he mentinoed stayLDS and had been reading. Holland’s commentary is that we shouldnt advertise why we STAY lds, but rather talk about why we could Never ever ever leave, ever.
anyway, i thought you might be interested in this. unfortunately i cant post it in public because it could be too easily to tie to my real identity, which i am currently hiding for professional reasons. anyway, just FYI
I’m taking that with a grain of salt. I know personally that this site is read by people in SLC(along with every other “major” group discussion site that isn’t strictly private – and probably some of the ones that are – as well as many smaller sites that have decent traffic – including my personal blog), but that just doesn’t sound like what Elder Holland would say in a sacrament meeting. It might be true, but . . . I’m not buying it with only that input. If Holland said that (which I too kind of doubt), it just shows me why he would not reach people on sites like StayLDS. If you can articulate why you would never, ever, ever leave, then you must just lack an imagination. What about amnesia or a brain tumor? What about someone threatening to kill your family if you didn’t resign? Obviously Holland doesn’t watch enough television. From a recent user who registered (Scooter):
I really believed that leaving the church would be the only option that
would make me happy long-term due to the ‘church must be either true or
false’ idea. I couldn’t really see the value that the Church provides in
terms of spirituality and community until I found this forum. In the very
few days since I’ve discovered this forum, my perception of church
attendance, home teaching, scripture study has changed significantly
Nice letter I received from a family yesterday that our site helped. I wrote back a personal response to their questions.
Dear StayLDS.com,
We just wanted to send a huge THANK YOU for your “How to Stay” essay that we found linked on the NOM website, and ask one question.
We have both been active members of the Church for (almost) our entire lives, married in the temple and have six children aged 9 years to 3 months. In the last year we “stumbled upon difficult church history” in totally legit ways and have since suffered our own crisis. Luckily we are facing it together as a couple, which we think is making us stronger. The ultimate end to our crisis has been “well, what are we going to do about it? Are we going to not baptize our son next year even though we have baptized his two older siblings? Are we going to leave the Church?”
Your essay was the answer to literally 99% of our questions, and for that we are SO GRATEFUL! The reconciliation strategies were absolutely written for US, especially the sections on understanding the brethren’s dilemma, cafeteria Mormons, and most importantly raising children. You have given us so much to MOVE FORWARD with, rather than looking back. We loved the essay so much we decided to print out all 33 pages to use as a ready reference!
If it were possible, we would recommend this essay to everyone we know! But, as you know, that won’t be possible…just know that if we could, we would…
We did have one quick question, asking for advice really: there was not a section in the essay regarding home and visiting teaching, what do you suggest in this matter? For example, not feeling comfortable anymore teaching a VT lesson or receiving VTers that ask questions (Amber’s issues), or not feeling “connected” with HT companion or families and therefore not placing priority on it, but not having the guts to tell your HT companion or supervisor (Aaron’s issues)?
Again, thank you so much for your essay, it has truly been a life saver for us as we (kind of) easily see the path to staying “in the Church but not of the Church.”
Sincerely,
Aaron & Amber Waite
North Salt Lake, UT
Thank you for sharing these, Brian. They give me a lift every time I read them. Yes thanks, and these always bring back so many memories. Looking back I can see how my taking an official break from HT and all callings gave me the space to regroup and start to construct my new belief system in a productive way that eventually enabled my full activity again. It would have been hard for me to do that “on the fly” feeling pressure in situations when I didn’t know how to respond. It also gets me thinking about the phrasing of a faith crisis in personal terms: “MY expectations have proven to be in error – I have some sorting out to do.” That small change eliminates virtually every wall that will go up if phrased in more general terms against the church.
Is this point made in the essay?
Yeah, Orson, it’s really important to get to the point where that’s the focus (my expectations and my ability to change them).
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