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Hello all, I will apologize in advance for the novel. The first 2 parts are my history, the last is kind of where I’m at now. If you only read some of it, read parts 2 and 3.
Part I
I’ve been lurking this site for a couple of months now. I feel that many of you are already my friends and mentors in this journey we’ve seemed compelled to take. I say compelled because I truly feel constantly urged on along this spiritual journey. If it was simply a passing thing I would not go down this road as I do think it’s the harder one. But I have come to believe that it may also be the most rewarding.
As for me, I’ve grown up more or less in the church. Although I live in Utah now, I grew up in a neighboring state. When I was a teenager my father had a major mental breakdown and the story of my childhood pivots around that experience. Prior to it we attended church every week. My father was in the Elders Quorum presidency and had been for years. I believe he loved me, and we are great friends now, but at the time he was horribly abusive. It was rarely physical, but I endured more hurtful yelling and hurtful things then any child should have to hear from a parent. At the time I didn’t think about the irony of how our family worked in much detail. I do remember finding it odd that my dad’s reaction to me drinking caffeine once involved enough four letter words to fill the bible. I didn’t think Jesus would consider that a proper response
After my dad’s mental breakdown, brought on by work, everything changed. My dad was no longer loud or violent. He was medicated. He hasn’t really been able to work much since then. But this has brought us so much closer together. He has had an incredible journey to come to terms with the fact he will never be able to obtain the material successes of life in the way he imagined. But it has left him such a more rounded person. But it also has made it very difficult to attend church. In my late teens, I was often the only one attending in my family of 7. This was largely because many of my friends were are church. I was largely a good kid by church standard except for a habit common to most adolescent boys. That was a large issue for many years but I’ll save that for another post.
But then came the largest change in my life and perhaps the one that caused the most damage to my testimony–we moved to Utah. We moved right before my senior year, specifically. It didn’t take long for the cultural shock to get to me. Although I’d grown up Mormon, and had been one of the more active in my ward in the other state, in Utah I felt like an apostate. I didn’t dress the same, I didn’t talk the same, my music was suddenly bad. Fortunately I didn’t care too much. I was used to persecution…just generally from the other side.
But then I had a couple of experiences that still affect me. In seminary for some reason the class went off on this rant about how much better they were than other religions. I remember one comment in particular about a specific person who attended a church that one of my best friends had attended in the other state. I remember them discussing how bad they felt that this person was going to go to hell and not be as blessed as they were. But they didn’t want to hang out with this person because they didn’t have the same standards and blah blah blah. Suddenly I heard LDS kids persecuting someone in the same way I’d grown up being persecuted for being LDS. It shook me to the core. I don’t remember exactly where the conversation eventually went, but something was said and I got up in the middle of seminary and ignored the teacher asking where I was going as I walked out never to return. The seminary teacher called and tried to convince me to come back and apologized to me but I didn’t want anything to do with it.
A couple weeks later I just happened to be assigned to a group project with a foreign exchange student from Japan. We became good friends. He and I hung out a few times before he started asking why other people didn’t want to hang out with him. As he told me his story, it killed me inside. Basically he had been invited to go to mutual and went and then didn’t really want anything to do with it. Word had gotten around that he didn’t want anything to do with the church. That and his gauged ears probably did him in. Nobody wanted anything to do with him except me. The thought of inviting him to mutual hadn’t even occurred to me (probably since I wasn’t interested in going all that much either). I just saw him as a cool guy from another country that liked snowboarding. As a result of hanging out we had a few conversations about God. I had always been interested in other religions but this was my first exposure to eastern religion. He wasn’t especially knowledgeable, but he had a few insights that triggered a desire to learn.
Because of him I studied Japanese for years, I made friends with Japanese students at college. It became a large part of my life for a long time. After that experience in seminary I didn’t go to church for years. I forgot about things like the word of wisdom (still not fond of it) but I still had a deep desire to wait for someone special and I think deep down I still wanted a temple marriage and knew I would come back to the church.
My testimony hinges on some very spiritual experiences with prayer as a child that I’m unlikely to ever share. But suffice it to say that I will never be able to deny there is a God. But I also feel that God to be different from what Sunday school might teach.
Anyhow,
Several years later my Japanese friends had moved away, I was just messing around in school and not getting anywhere. I’d had a series of girlfriends not want to marry me because I wasn’t an RM…or even active. But I knew the type of girl I wanted to marry would always want an RM. Basically I’d become lost. I didn’t want to change the type of girls I was looking for so I decided to change myself. First, I did something that I’d been putting off for years and got my patriarchal blessing. I knew from a young age my patriarchal blessing would tell me to go on a mission. Whether they all do is another debate… Anyways, I’d accepted it was going to say that and I’d conceded to God that it was something that I was willing to do if He asked me. I had been expecting something relatively ambiguous and up for interpretation though. What I got was not that. more than half the blessing is completely specific about going on a full-time mission. Feeling vindicated because it said what I knew it would, and because I’d already decided to do it, I began to prepare for my mission.
I feel like this needs a break here…both because this is a novel and because the story of my mission is another novel unto itself… So if anyone want to read this part later, I’ll understand.
Part II
Anyways, I decided to go on a mission, God wanted me to go. I figured he’d just roll out the red carpet to get me on this mission thing. Nope. My bishop was concerned I wasn’t mentally capable because of my family’s mental health problems and my lengthy inactivity. My ward had also had a problem with missionaries coming home from the MTC because their girlfriends had gotten pregnant right before they left haha… So after months of talking to counselors and such I was finally deemed stable and turned in my papers sure that my experience with Japanese, my Japanese friends, and the fact that my 2 best friends were RMs that served in Japan would get me sent to Japan.
Nope. Stateside Spanish-speaking. I’d studied German and French in school in addition to Japanese. Basically I was avoiding learning Spanish my whole life. So I was shocked. But whatever, I’d already decided to do this. So I left on my mission.
They say they’re “the best two years.” I call bulls$@$ on that haha. They were the two hardest, most conflicted, testimony-challenging, patience-growing, eye-opening years of my life. And that was just with my companions which with only a couple exceptions were a long series of the Utah Mormons I’d learned to hate in high school. This was made worse by the fact that I was 24 when I got to the field. In my time away from the church I’d learned about it from various websites/books/south park episodes/etc. and I’d gotten past most of the big issues. I accepted that the church wasn’t perfect, but that there was good in it that could be used to help some people. According to my companions, however, this was not a sufficient testimony. With a couple of exceptions, my companions were black-and-white, TBM, aspiring-bishop, my-uncle’s-an-apostle types. And according to them I was defective because I didn’t think the church was perfect. I also had no problem listening to what other people had to say to us. I served in the south and lots of people had things to say to us hehe. Anyways, apparently my willingness to listen was dangerous because it might poison my mind and weaken my testimony. Whatever. I never bought this line of thought because I figured I should be just as willing to listen to someone else’s point of view as they should be willing to listen to mine. We could find common ground, build each other’s testimony and if they wanted to learn more about my faith, then they would. Needless to say, my lesson numbers were never stellar and I had less baptisms than most, but the ones that I baptized wanted it so bad. They had learned all they could. And I never shed away from hard topics.
Basically I was not what they thought a missionary should be. I saw myself more as a wandering Buddhist monk looking to do service while on my quest to enlightenment while imparting knowledge to those who desired it. My companions tended to see themselves fast-talking, block your door with my foot, door to door salesmen obsessed with numbers. Needless to say it made for challenges. I was always astonished by their lack of knowledge. I remember a companion arguing with an investigator for an hour that the Book of Mormon had never been changed because it was perfect. He practically thought I was Satan when I later corrected him on that point.
Perhaps my biggest “fault” was that I never listened to the rule about only reading approved books. I read anything I could get my hands on about any religion. While on my mission I read different bibiles, JW magazines, a priest’s manual from the Catholic Church, baptist publications, etc. ut not only that. I read the Tao Te Ching, The works of Confucius, the Bhagavad Gita and the Koran. I was fortunate that my mission president privately encouraged me. My companions would often call him about me and they’d be told to worry about themselves. In fact his laissez-faire methods as president had some missionaries accusing him of being apostate haha. Had I had any other mission president I doubt I would have stayed the whole 2 years. I had a different president the last 4 months and I basically ignored his crackdown on things like that until I went home. He took to pairing missionaries who had been out a while together to avoid spreading our “bad habits” to the newbies.
So that was my mission. I was always the weird one who apparently didn’t have a strong testimony. The one who would knock on doors all day but not “try very hard to get in them”. The one who read books on meditation as much as those by GAs and listened to bamboo flute music or Gregorian chants as much as the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. The one who accepted the “false” claims that others made about our religion as partially true.
But I wouldn’t change it. I grew so much personally on my mission. It changed my study habits, my work ethic, and my relationship with the church. I’m so much better for it.
Since then I’ve remained ambivalent about actually attending church. I met my wife because of my mission (although not on it) and we are now expecting our first baby. She is largely a TBM although she grew up far away from Utah and isn’t very judgemental. I wouldn’t trade her for anything. But I don’t think she’s ready for the journey I’m on. She accepts what she knows about my feelings but I don’t want to shake her testimony with too much of my thoughts on the church. She moved to Utah after we got married and her eyes are starting to open a bit on their own anyways.
Thanks for reading this much. Part III will just be sort of a summary of where I’m at spiritually.
Part III
So that’s my story for the most part. It’s been an interesting journey for my 28 years. I’m still a student. One of my favorite quotes is engraved on the side of a building here: “There is only one good, namely knowledge, and only one evil, namely ignorance.” I think that sums up much of my world view. I think the pursuit of knowledge is the purpose of life. I like Joseph Smith because I believe that he also had a constant thirst for knowledge. I’m aware of his failings, but when I read much of what he wrote, I feel that desire to learn. I think we all make missteps on our paths of learning, but that doesn’t change how far we’ve come. And the church today is SO different from when he was alive.
I believe that the gospel is absolutely true. I don’t believe the LDS church has a complete monopoly on it, however. The same way my companions told people they were wrong for confining God to one book, I think it’s wrong for members to confine him only to one church. I think God can inspire anyone. I believe the LDS church is where I belong. I believe Mormonism at its core is the most enlightening thing I’ve ever experienced. I think that what is taught at church every week is not Mormonism at it’s core…more like some scripture mingled with the philosophies of men, if you will.
I’ve been fortunate enough to travel. I’ve been to cathedrals in France and England. I’ve been to Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines in Japan, I’ve been to Jewish synagogues, Methodist chapels, and others. I feel the spirit in all of them. Perhaps not equally or quite the same…but it’s there. God works through all of them to help people find peace. Likewise there is bad in all of them.
Perhaps my most precious belief is that in prayer. I was literally accused of being a “heretic” by a companion for this. One of my most disliked teaching was that of the LDS prayer. The example was that it’s like writing a letter to God with an opening, body, closing, blah blah blah. And then he’ll write back. Then they emphasize calling him by the correct name and always close in the name of Jesus, etc… reminded me of the JWs saying you had to address it to Jehovah or else it would get directed to Satan. I don’t think God cares what we call Him. God, Father, Lord, Buddha, Allah, Vishnu, Thor, Zeus, Jupiter, whatever. Because I don’t think God is limiting. Likewise I don’t think the church teaches how to get answers very well. I think many of us figure it out as we go, but I wish a more meditative form of prayer was taught.
My “heretical” belief was that prayer is not like emailing God and waiting for him to sort though his inbox to get to our email and write a response. For me prayer is more like accessing a universal Wikipedia. As we pray, we separate our conciousness from the temporal world and connect to this vast store of universal truth. It doesn’t really matter what religion you’re from, I really believe anyone who seeks comfort in this way can get it. Does the LDS prayer work? Yes. Is it optimal (at least for me)? no… I think God wants us to search for the answers as we communicate in the spirit, not wait for him to tell us what to do. Waiting for him to direct our every move contradicts the very reason for the “plan of happiness” or whatever it’s called these days.
Now imagine the look on my companion’s face as I explained this haha. I wouldn’t have but he kept insisting I shared what I’d learned. He was the “if we just pray enough then God will give us baptisms” as if God was denying someone salvation because the elders had only said 103 prayers that week and if they’d only said 107 prayers then it would have been OK… I will NEVER understand that line of thought.
Which bring me to the name I chose. Wuwei. I’m not Chinese and I don’t speak it. But this word is found in the Tao Te Ching. I believe Wayfarer is fond of it.
My biggest struggle right now is Sunday meetings. The church is so exclusionary and I can only take listening to self-aggrandizing rameumtum talks so much. But I struggle more because I find myself thinking I’m better than them. It’s a paradox that I feel pride because I’m “less prideful than they are”. It’s a thought pattern I struggle to change. I guess part of accepting that there are many paths is accepting that the path of TBMs can work as well. But every time I attend, I learn to temper those thoughts a little more.
Anyways, thanks for those that endured to the end of my post. I have more to write but I’m sure I’ll be posting more.
I feel like I already know many of you, hopefully now you know me too!
No time right now, but I want to welcome you – and thank you for such a detailed introduction. Welcome Wuwei! You’ve had quite a journey! It was a long post but worth the read. Congratulations on the upcoming addition to your family! I look forward to hearing more from you!
Wuwei, welcome. First, I’m delighted to find another lover of the eastern philosophies. I have only recently discovered them, having been working as an expat in China for the last year. We have so much to learn from their wisdom. I find it significant that for 2000 years God does not seem to have made a concerted effort to impose the Abrahamic religions on the region. Hinduism, Buddhism Confucianism etc offers so much. It’s saddening when I hear western christians talk about India or China ‘being in the dark for 5000 years.’ I can also empathise with your sunday school frustrations. I fear that I’m creating an internal pedestal and too quick to look down my nose at them.
Once you graduate it sounds like you’d benefit from getting away from the bubble (did you say you’re in utah now).
Your observations on prayer were very pertinent. And have reminded me how much I need to make that a stronger part of my life. I feel I’ve been walking a long way from God lately. When I think back on my most meaningful prayer moments, it has been in less conventional scenarios and methods. I personally begrudge the ‘thees and thous’ that the handbook still instructs us to use.
I sincerely look forward to your upcoming contribution.
I think this site is the most compassionate place on the web for LDS…. this post exemplifies that This is really interesting. I hope you and wayfarer and others meet in person sometime! I’m grateful when someone helps me feel positively towards Joseph Smith. Your comment about reading him and being inspired to learn…. Thanks.
Welcome Wuwei! I read the whole thing, I love the last part – especially this: wuwei wrote:I think God wants us to search for the answers as we communicate in the spirit, not wait for him to tell us what to do. Waiting for him to direct our every move contradicts the very reason for the “plan of happiness” or whatever it’s called these days.
…I struggle more because I find myself thinking I’m better than them. It’s a paradox that I feel pride because I’m “less prideful than they are”. It’s a thought pattern I struggle to change.
Amen and amen!
為無為而不無為天之道。wei wuwei er bu wu wei, tian zhi dao. practice “wuwei” and nothing will remain undone…this is heaven’s way.
welcome to the journey of a lifetime. the journey of 1000 li that begins beneath our feet!
Hello wuwei, and welcome. I really enjoyed your intro especially your comments about prayer and communicating with God. I look forward to hour insights and think I could learn a lot from you.
Ive only studied Latin derived languages and uou remind me how much we can learn from many cultures.
Welcome, I’m excited to see you start posting. Quote:As we pray, we separate our conciousness from the temporal world and connect to this vast store of universal truth.
This is the single best definition of prayer I have ever heard. Thanks.
DBMormon wrote:I think this site is the most compassionate place on the web for LDS…. this post exemplifies that
+1
I’m done with other forums but this one for a while. This is the one I leave feeling the most enriched and uplifted. The rest just tend to wind me up (on both sides of the fence).
Welcome, Wuwei. I really enjoyed your incredibly detailed story. I don’t tend to study much about other religions, but I have tons of respect for them. I did also serve a mission. I served in Las Vegas, Reno, Sparks, and South Lake Tahoe, Nevada. I used to think lots in black and white, but my mission changed some of that. I didn’t convert spiritually to the church or to Christ until I was 20. That was before I decided to go on a mission. I had my faith crisis several years ago. I am recovering from sex addiction, so that had caused some of it. The rest was caused from being limited in some of living skills due to mild mental disorders I have and anti-Mormon websites. I like many people in the church used to use the phrase, “The church is perfect but the people are not.” The funny thing is I don’t hear our prophet or the general authorities say that at all. I don’t use the term any more. I still have a strong testimony of the church and Christ and am still active in the church. I just now believe that the church has all the principles and ordinances we need for our exaltation, but that doesn’t mean that the church teaches all truth that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have. We can learn more from other religions and other ways of life. I believe now that even though the general authorities and other church leaders are called of God, he will allow use to make all sorts of mistakes in doing his work. Even if Joseph Smith wasn’t really inspired by the Holy Spirit to practice polygamy. Although I still believe the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is Christ’s only authorized church, I believe the Lord can prompt others to leave his church or not join it, if he wants somewhere else. Again, welcome. Quote:I’ve been lurking this site for a couple of months now. I feel that many of you are already my friends and mentors in this journey we’ve seemed compelled to take. I say compelled because I truly feel constantly urged on along this spiritual journey. If it was simply a passing thing I would not go down this road as I do think it’s the harder one. But I have come to believe that it may also be the most rewarding.
I know that I was compelled forward on this path and for me this had everything to do with physiological responses to crisis. I know this to be true because it happened to me, but I do not know how much of that might apply to the journey of others. I was very comforted when I read about the concept of an “assumptive world collapse” and found that my process was normal and understood in humanity in general and had nothing to do with Mormonism at the fundamental level.
I enjoyed your story (I like novels
:thumbup: ). I am only a few years older than you but it seems that you have had much more experience on this path and generally getting comfortable in your skin.I am glad you found us here. We are all different, yet very much the same. Welcome to the Isle of misfit toys!
Thanks everyone that read and responded! It’s amazing how cathartic writing my story has been… Validation goes a long way. I’ve always felt like a misfit at church. I probably always will but at least I know I’m not the only one! 
mackay11 wrote:DBMormon wrote:I think this site is the most compassionate place on the web for LDS…. this post exemplifies that
+1
I’m done with other forums but this one for a while. This is the one I leave feeling the most enriched and uplifted. The rest just tend to wind me up (on both sides of the fence).
I agree! That’s why i signed up here. I feel the spirit here. I don’t on the other sites I’ve been to. There isn’t a lot of anti stuff here. It’s constructive, not destructive.
Ilovechrist77 wrote:I like many people in the church used to use the phrase, “The church is perfect but the people are not.” The funny thing is I don’t hear our prophet or the general authorities say that at all. I don’t use the term any more. I still have a strong testimony of the church and Christ and am still active in the church. I just now believe that the church has all the principles and ordinances we need for our exaltation, but that doesn’t mean that the church teaches all truth that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have.
I agree. Somewhere along the line we’re taught the church is perfect and the BoM is perfect, etc. etc. None of it is really doctine though. It was a real awakening when I realized it wasn’t. Joseph Smith may have called the BoM the “most correct”, but for all we know that just means it’s 46% correct and the Bible is 43% hehe.
BTW I grew up in Vegas and Henderson. I was avoiding telling exactly where I grew up but I’ve realized my intro was detailed enough that if anyone that knows me reads it they’ll know it’s me anyways. It’s an interesting place to grown up as a member of the church, that’s for sure…
Wu Wei, Wow! I feel very uplifted by your intro. You have articulated many things that I am currently experiencing. A kindred spirit!
Quote:I feel that many of you are already my friends
I feel this way about Stay LDS. Although I sometimes drop into lurking status every few weeks, I really love the people here.
Quote:In seminary for some reason the class went off on this rant about how much better they were than other religions. I remember one comment in particular about a specific person who attended a church that one of my best friends had attended in the other state. I remember them discussing how bad they felt that this person was going to go to hell and not be as blessed as they were.
Hello! Haven’t we read Alma 31 lately? When I first read of the rameumptom, I though it was a statement about “other” religions. I currently wonder if the rameumptom story was included in the BoM so that Mormons would take heed not to become as the Zoramites. BTW, Do Mormons even believe in the kind of hell discussed above? I don’t think our doctrine says that…
Quote:I accepted that the church wasn’t perfect, but that there was good in it that could be used to help some people. According to my companions, however, this was not a sufficient testimony. With a couple of exceptions, my companions were black-and-white, TBM, aspiring-bishop, my-uncle’s-an-apostle types. And according to them I was defective because I didn’t think the church was perfect.
It was absolutely devastating to me to discover the church wasn’t perfect. I had built my testimony on the Church and not on Christ…a house built on sand… I’m having a really hard time with the Church, especially with Sunday meetings. We’re still “married”, but we barely talk. I suspect that the Church doesn’t even have to be perfect to fulfill its purpose. I love Eugene England’s talk about this:
http://www.eugeneengland.org/why-the-church-is-as-true-as-the-gospel Wu wei, I love your comments about prayer. I have struggled for years with it because of the constraints we Latter-Day Saints put upon it. For example, I still feel a bit guilty when I use “you” and “your” instead of “Thou”, “thee”, and “thine”–but it just seems more intimate, and I want that. I’d like to make my prayer more meditative. I think it would be incredible to meditate while playing the shakuhachi, like the Zen Buddhist monks. Playing an instrument as a spiritual practice…that really calls to my soul…
Quote:My biggest struggle right now is Sunday meetings. The church is so exclusionary and I can only take listening to self-aggrandizing rameumptum talks so much. But I struggle more because I find myself thinking I’m better than them. It’s a paradox that I feel pride because I’m “less prideful than they are”. It’s a thought pattern I struggle to change.
This is me right now. Ugggh!! “Beware, lest we ascend our meta-rameumptoms!”
I love your thoughts. I’ve been trying to incorporate
wu weiinto my life, since my default mode is “anal perfectionist”. I need to learn more about it. I am looking forward to more posts from you.
Kore kara yoroshiku o negai shimasu!
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