- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
So I just joined this site after reading a blog that recommends it. But that doesn’t really matter in the issue. I have so many issues with the church. I bet this topic will be long, so I’m sorry for the length.
I joined the church in may 2012 after meeting my now husband. Everything clicked and made sense. I had a strong testimony. I knew it to be the true church and blah blah.
Shortly after joining the church, we got married (one month after baptism). Then shortly after that we conceived a baby who is now 8 months old and the greatest thing that ever happened to me. And I thank all of that to the church.
However, after going to the temple, and really learning lds history that is so hidden from us, I hardly even want to go to church. I’ll explain where my issues started
I don’t care if this sounds stupid to you, but what had me start questioning the church is my calling. A couple months after baptism I was called as a ward missionary. I was super excited to have a calling. It’s been over a year now and I hate this calling. It is run so stupidly. Some lady in there constantly shoves her ideas down everyone’s throats and pretty much runs the show. Even though the ward mission leader is there. Always. I quit going to the meetings and asked the bishop for a new calling telling him I’d like a calling in primary so I can be a part of the program I missed out on being a convert. This was 2 months ago. Some of my friends have 3 callings in the primary. And I feel forgotten about there. Like some man who was called of God ignores my need to grow to strive my testimony more and more.
This topic got me searching for things like “feeling alone in the lds church” because I have 2 friends there and one just got baptized. No one even talks to me unless we’re forced to. But anyway this search lead me to a blog about someone who left the church. He explained how Tithing (in Canada at least but I’m in america) isn’t a charitable donation recognized by the government. I hate paying Tithing enough. Because my husband brings home sometimes $1200 a week. That’s $120 given to the church that I’d rather be a savings fund or more payment to debts. But I have to pay it to the church. And who knows who’s pockets that sits in.
Then I came across “doctorines” from Brigham Young. Like the blood atonement crap and the Adam God stuff. And how the church just acts like it never happened. If the blood atonement is true, then that discounts everything Jesus did for us. If we have to shed our own blood for sins, what was the point of shedding Jesus’s blood for everyone?
I also hate polygamy and puke at the thought. If the Adam God thing is true then there’s polygamy in heaven because the story of it said “Adam came down with one of his wives”. BY had so many freaken wives. I honestly dislike the man and if I continue to believe in the church, I cannot call him a man called of God. A prophet. He disgusts me.
I hate going to the temple. I feel so dirty there. Like I’m walking around naked and men can just grab me and rape me. I feel so used by men there. I feel so insignificant to men there. So gross. And if God is the God I think he is, he does not want his daughters that he supposedly finds so important to feel like that in his house. I hate how in the sealing ceremony, women have to give themselves to their husbands, but their husbands don’t give themselves to their wife. I hate how men can be sealed to multiple women but women cannot be sealed to multiple men. And no one seems to think it’s a problem. Because women have their “roles” you know slave to husband for all of eternity because Eve ate an apple. Only useful for raising children.
I want to get past all of this, I really do. Because of how strong my testimony was at one time. I just don’t know how to get over all of this. I feel so alone, forgotten about, and unequal to men here.
Britty152, Welcome. Sorry to hear that you are going through this. All I can tell you is that we perceive the world through our own set of glasses. Some people love the Temple, and it is their favorite part of the Church. Others feel very uncomfortable there. I bring this up simply to illustrate that we all project a lot of ourselves onto the the world and then look around and analyze what we see.
Britty152 wrote:I want to get past all of this, I really do. Because of how strong my testimony was at one time. I just don’t know how to get over all of this.
It sounds like there are many elements of the Church converging and gaining momentum of discomfort all together. Doctrine, temple, gender roles, callings, etc. This can be very overwhelming. I suggest compartmentalizing these things. Realize that the Adam God Doctrine is not related to your family. Realize that the loud woman in your ward mission group is not representative of others in the Church. When you can compartmentalize, it’s easier to put things in their own context. For example, you asked to get a new calling a couple of months ago. It hasn’t happened yet. If that were your only concern, it would be easier to be patient with the Bishop, who receives no pay for what he does, and may have a different set of priorities than you do.I would suggest starting with what you can most easily control. For example, don’t go to the Temple for awhile. Get to a comfortable state yourself. You might find that once you get past your current discomfort, that the Temple isn’t so bad. Or you might decide that you never go back to the Temple… either way, don’t force yourself to go right now. Next, I’d suggest working on the calling. You don’t like your current calling and it seems like it is a factor in pulling you down. So, stop doing it. Inform the Bishop that you aren’t able to do it anymore, and I would mentioned feelings of discomfort as the reason. You don’t really need to ask to be released… I mean, you do, but you don’t need to wait for a ‘release’ before you stop performing any work in that calling. Just make it clear to the Bishop that you aren’t doing it anymore.
Those two things should give you some breathing room. Then start looking for the things about the gospel that you do believe (if any). Put more weight on them. Develop a core for yourself and your family that is based on these most important things. Then, if you can find that the Church helps in those areas, you can learn to operate within it. In other words, don’t let the culture of the Church, the people of the Church, or even the Church itself determine your relationship with God, the gospel, the scriptures, your family or your spirituality. It should be the other way around.
This is a bit of a crash course on navigating a faith crisis, but boiled down, that’s what I’ve done since my own faith crisis about 2 decades ago.
Britty152 wrote:I want to get past all of this, I really do. Because of how strong my testimony was at one time. I just don’t know how to get over all of this. I feel so alone, forgotten about, and unequal to men here.
Hi, Britty152 – You probably will get past it, but not by going “back.” The great thing about this site is that it helps you go forward keeping the good. Congratulations on your new marriage and baby, too.
Ward missionary. Ah, ward missionary. You got me started, so watch out 
I initially had the calling for several years. During that period the calling went by the name of stake missionary. I was in a constant state of guilt for all of those years. At the time there was an expectation of spending a minimum of 10 hours in the calling per week, time I just didn’t have. I always felt like I wasn’t doing enough, and as a consequence I always felt like garbage.
I was eventually released, called to something else for about a year or so. In that year our bishop was released, a new bishop called. The new bishop soon called me to be a stake missionary. Largely the same result, feelings of inadequacy. I was right back as ward missionary after only having been free of it for about a year.
I spent way too much time as a stake/ward missionary, more than I reasonably should have. At the time I viewed callings as coming directly from the Lord, so I told myself: I keep getting called to this calling because I stink at it and have to learn to be better. I’m also an introvert by nature, so that doesn’t help matters when in a calling like that. I also told myself that I’d get released in the Lord’s time table. Truth be told the new bishop wouldn’t have called me to be a WM if he had known and I was probably left in there as long as I was because people forgot how long I had been in the calling.
Thankfully I served in a few other callings for the next decade or more but wouldn’t you know it… I was called as ward mission leader about a year and a half ago. One key difference this time, I had gone through a faith crisis since the last time I was involved in the ward mission efforts. I simply didn’t believe the one true church claims anymore and was largely duking it out to support family. Not a cool calling to have when in that position, but then again what calling is? I asked to be released, but the release didn’t come. In our case our unit was stretched very thin and there was an honest and simple problem of finding a replacement. I stuck around in the calling more to help alleviate some of the bishop’s burden more than anything. Over 6 months after requesting a release (still no replacement) I asked to not be released, largely because this site helped steer me down a path were I could once again reconcile service in a missionary capacity. I’m still new to the 180 I did, so I still have very difficult days were I’d much rather just walk away and be done with it.
I can empathize with your distaste with the ward missionary calling. Cumulatively I’ve had that calling for… 6.5 years, 8.5 if you include the time I spent serving a mission. Keep in mind I’ve only been a member 19 years, so yea… I want to be DONE with that calling but I’ve probably got another 1.5 years of ward mission leader to get through…. then a new sheriff will come to town and call me as ward mission leader again.
đ Sorry, my rant places my post in the only about me category. I’ll drop my whining.
I can also empathize with the feeling of being all alone. I’ve been in large wards where I had no friends, just acquaintances that would offer up a how are you? in the halls but not really care about the answer. I realize that true friendship requires effort from both sides, but I just wasn’t feeling it in some of those fish in the sea wards I’ve lived in.
There are some really, really good threads on tithing on this site. I’ve seen new perspectives on tithing here, whereas I’ve only ever been taught one method of paying tithing in all the units I’ve lived in. Again, this site has some good information about tithing but for the sake of brevity, the official policy of the church can be boiled down to “it’s between you and the Lord.”
I apologize for making most of my post a long tirade about the ward missionary calling – oops. You can probably tell that I’m going through stuff with respect to that myself. Anyways, welcome! I joined this site about 6 weeks ago and I’ve felt a measure of happiness come back into my life as a result of reading some of the material in the forums. Good luck, and hang in there.
There is some crazy people and stuff in the church. You don’t have to believe it all if you don’t want. Take what you want, throw out the rest. It’s OK. Welcome, Britty 152. I just want to point out one thing right now, and I hope you think about it seriously:
Quote:I hate going to the temple. I feel so dirty there. Like I’m walking around naked and men can just grab me and rape me. I feel so used by men there.
Probably nobody who attends the temple when you are there has any inclination whatsoever to do that. Not only are they nearly all good, sincere, loving men, but that is directly against the covenants they make while there.
Therefore, it’s really important to ask yourself why you feel that way – and it’s not as simple as saying, “The ceremony is sexist.”Yes, in a couple of important ways, it still is. However, there absolutely is nothing in it that would justify rape – there or anywhere else. Nothing. I have no idea, when it gets right down to it, why you feel that way – but it has to be deeper than the temple. I know quite a few Mormon women who struggle with the temple because of the sexist elements, and I even know some ex-Mormons who are incredibly, unhealthily bitter about the temple, but I have to think really hard to come up with even one that has phrased it the way you did. Again, it’s really important to ask yourself why you feel that way – why you word it like that.
There could be lots of reasons, and I’m not qualified to make any kind of clinical diagnosis (especially since I don’t know anything about your life prior to joining the Church), but, as much as anything else, I think you need to try to understand why you wrote what you wrote (and why it is more than just the temple) if you want to find peace and closure – not just in the LDS Church but in life, generally. I suspect, perhaps, you thought the new peace and joy of your new life would allow your past to no longer impact your life the way it had previously (and we don’t need to know any details, if that is correct to any degree), but it almost never works that way (and if I’m wrong in that, please forgive me).
Please, along with everything we can try to do to help you while you are here, seek professional help for that particular issue.
Having said all of that, I am glad you found us, and I hope we can help in ways that will be important for you. God bless you.
You can get past this and find your own way, Britty. Everyone needs to find their own way, and it’s not easy. In Pres. Uchtdorf’s October conference address he mentioned that everyone has questioned at one time or another. Some of us have more and deeper questions, but questioning if OK. If a 14-year-old boy had not questioned we wouldn’t be here (yes, I know that if God didn’t work through him he would have used someone else). There are others here who share your questions and have found their ways to deal with them and still be active members of the church. From an administrative standpoint ward missionary makes perfect sense as a calling for you. You’re a fairly recent convert who is now sealed int he temple and by all appearances you are a real success story in the church. I know this is cliche, but the church really is made up of imperfect people. The church would be great of it wasn’t for the people. You need to get past the idea that every calling is inspired and that you were literally called of God. I believe some (very few) are, but the rest really are administrative. Your bishopric made a decision they thought was best (like the D&C says), and finding no objection from God (surprise, surprise) extended a calling they felt right about – they did this out of goodness without ill intent. For the most part the members of the church and church leaders are sincere people just trying to do their best. The wheels of the bishopric sometimes turn very slowly. I know it’s been two months, but give it a couple more, then talk to the bishop again of nothing has happened. My personal opinion is that primary is not the best place for newer converts because your interaction with adults is limited there. Maybe your bishop feels the same way and has another position in mind. There is a domino effect that happens when a change is made, maybe he’s just dealing with that part.
There are some good tithing threads here, find them and read them. Tithing is a charitable contribution in the US, but if you can’t itemize your deductions it doesn’t matter.
Doctrinal issues can be sticky. Figure out what you believe and ignore what Brigham Young believed. pres. Uchtdorf in that same talk also mentioned past leaders have made mistakes – take that to heart. I do not believe all of the minute details of LDS doctrine, and I dare say no one who has really thought and studied them does.
I know the temple is uncomfortable to many women and some men, but I have never heard the reason you stated. As Ray said, I’d encourage you to figure out why you feel that way, there is nothing in the temple to indicate this.
Thank you everyone for all of the responses. It brought good light back into the church because I feel like there are Mormons like me out there 
Addressing ray on why I worded my feelings in the temple like I did-
I honestly don’t know why I feel that way. I’ve never been raped. There were times in my life prior to joining the church that I allowed things to happen that I regret now, but not really classified as rape. I’m sorry if I made it come off like that. When I go to the temple, I think about how it says I need to listen to my husband. I think about how it’s possible my husband has many wives in heaven and I’ll just be there to bear children again (I really hope we aren’t pregnant all the time in heaven). It’s Not the men there that make me feel that way. It’s just everything. It reminds me of this Uncle I have that (he has never done anything to me), when he looks at you, he makes you feel naked. I don’t understand why for so long women are just OK with “harkening onto their husbands”. And anytime anyone ever says “well your husband does have the final say…” it makes me so upset. Because he doesn’t. We agree on everything before it’s done. I don’t like the church telling me how my marriage should be done. I don’t like how it makes me feel inadequate to men, and it’s not the priesthood thing. I don’t even know where I stand on that. It’s the fact that everywhere it says that mothers are to nurture their children and father’s preside over their families. No. Husband and wife preside over their children. The husband does not preside over the family, because the wife is involved there. Anyway, I don’t really know what this has to do with how I feel in the temple. It might even be because my underwear is the same color as everything I’m wearing. I just feel that way. And it’s not the men. It’s really not. I probably shouldn’t have worded it that way, but I at least feel naked in the temple.
I’m sorry if you can’t make sense of all this. I can’t make sense of it myself. I just hope that someday, I can be a happy lds again. And even going to the temple. Because I like it so long as I don’t pay attention to the stuff that pisses me off. And the newer movie has made a difference, but ive only gone once since then.
I just thought of it. I know why I probably worded it like that. I think it boiles down to polygamy. The temple is the reason polygamy could be practiced. And polygamy is the ultimate abuse of women (not really ultimate, but yeah). And I do think of that there sometimes. Because I want to know why it was practiced. I dunno. This is probably why I have no friends lol.
I’m rambling now. I’ll stop. But I hope this allows you to step into my mind a little more. Because I don’t have my thoughts organized. And I should probably try organizing them.
Britty152 wrote:
Shortly after joining the church, we got married (one month after baptism). Then shortly after that we conceived a baby who is now 8 months old and the greatest thing that ever happened to me. And I thank all of that to the church.
First, congratulations â enjoy the little one and your husband. My children are growing up too quickly and before long they will be out on their own. It’s all about family and loved ones even if we and the church forget that.
Britty152 wrote:I don’t care if this sounds stupid to you, but what had me start questioning the church is my calling. A couple months after baptism I was called as a ward missionary. I was super excited to have a calling. It’s been over a year now and I hate this calling. It is run so stupidly. Some lady in there constantly shoves her ideas down everyone’s throats and pretty much runs the show. Even though the ward mission leader is there. Always. I quit going to the meetings and asked the bishop for a new calling telling him I’d like a calling in primary so I can be a part of the program I missed out on being a convert. This was 2 months ago. Some of my friends have 3 callings in the primary. And I feel forgotten about there. Like some man who was called of God ignores my need to grow to strive my testimony more and more.
I tend to cut bishops more slack. Most do the best they can with too little time. A simple reminder might be in order â itâs possible they have something âin the worksâ and itâs possible theyâve forgotten. Sometimes a calling that seems easy to âswap outâ with another calling turns out to be complicated.
Britty152 wrote:Then I came across “doctorines” from Brigham Young. Like the blood atonement crap and the Adam God stuff. And how the church just acts like it never happened.
There are lots of doctrines that donât ring true for me. I more or less ignore them. Some days they bother me more than other days, but I try to remind myself that those doctrines shouldnât affect how I live my life. I try to remind myself that Jesus cares about how I live and less about what I believe.
Britty152 wrote:I also hate polygamy and puke at the thought. If the Adam God thing is true then there’s polygamy in heaven because the story of it said “Adam came down with one of his wives”. BY had so many freaken wives. I honestly dislike the man and if I continue to believe in the church, I cannot call him a man called of God. A prophet. He disgusts me.
I donât disagree with your assessment of polygamy. Iâm far from an apologist but I think thereâs some truth to the notion that Brigham Young might have been the decisive leader the Saints needed at that time. I think that a lot of people suffered because of polygamy and I also think BY will have to account for some of the things he did / taught. (Tangent) This is one reason I think that Heavenly Father has more love, patience, and forgiveness than we sometimes give Him credit for. Iâve also lowered my expectations of prophets, both past and present.
Britty152 wrote:I hate going to the temple.
If you find other aspects of the temple less troublesome perhaps you can perform those ordinances. I used to dislike the endowment more than I do now and for doctrinal reasons until I started to believe that itâs meant to be figurative and symbolic instead of literal.
Donât know if any of this helps you, but itâs another perspective to consider. Welcome, and best wishes.
I don’t mean this flippantly (not at all), but if you can accept the Bible and our common Judeo-Christian history without accepting much of the cultural crap (and even really bad stuff like genocide in the Old Testament), then just don’t believe in polygamy now or in the future any more than you believe in it from the ancient past. Chalk it all up to imperfect mortals floundering around in our collective ignorance, trying the best we can to be more like God – more like the people we want to be. (Also, fwiw, I abso-freaking-lutely don’t believe spirit children are created the same way mortal children are. I flat-out reject eternal pregnancy. It simply makes no sense whatsoever to me. If I can find an old thread about that topic, I will bump it up for you to read.)
You joined the Church because something resonated deeply with you – and it brought you love and joy until you realized the perfect vision you had of it wasn’t accurate. I think that’s the core issue here:
You thought you had found perfection but realized it wasn’t close.
Again, not to be flippant, but . . . Oh, well. It’s not exactly what you thought it would be, but absolutely nothing about your experiences has changed. Now you have to work through the process of figuring out what you really love and what is just cultural crap – of building your own personal faith now that you realize you still need to do that even in the LDS Church.
That absolutely isn’t an easy process, but, dear God in Heaven, it’s worthwhile.
Thank you again for the responses and advice. Today I went out and bought “No Man knows my history” after reading good reviews from both sides of the church (in or out). I’m hoping it’ll help with all of the historical gaps I see. And I know it isn’t nessicsrily approved by the church, but I don’t want sugar coating.
I decided to hold off on garment wearing for a while. And for the first time since June (when I got my endowment) I feel good about how I look. I can wear a shirt that I couldn’t wear with garments (it’s not immodest) and I don’t have to tuck the sleeves of it into my shirt all the time. I don’t know if I can be a faithful member of the church without wearing it constantly. But as I read on an old thread here maybe “wearing it throughout my life” means something different to me than it does to someone else. I don’t know when I will wear them again. Maybe when it’s made into a tank top because showing my shoulders is not immodest. And when the bottoms can hold feminine hygienic items. They didn’t make me remember the covenants I made anyway. They just made me feel unsexy. And after having a baby I can feel that way on my own just fine
đ And here I am rambling again. I’m glad I’m not alone. And I might pick up on becoming a “buffet mormon” hehe
Quote:I hate going to the temple. I feel so dirty there. Like I’m walking around naked and men can just grab me and rape me. I feel so used by men there. I feel so insignificant to men there. So gross. And if God is the God I think he is, he does not want his daughters that he supposedly finds so important to feel like that in his house. I hate how in the sealing ceremony, women have to give themselves to their husbands, but their husbands don’t give themselves to their wife. I hate how men can be sealed to multiple women but women cannot be sealed to multiple men. And no one seems to think it’s a problem. Because women have their “roles” you know slave to husband for all of eternity because Eve ate an apple. Only useful for raising children.
It’s not completely one sided. Women participate in every stage of the temple, and I think that if women are in the temple it means that they effectively have the priesthood.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.