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Hello Everyone. Here is my short (bare with me) semi-sweet story. I grew up going to a random Christian church with my mom and sisters (dad is cafeteria Catholic). Moved far-far away after high school and met my now DH. Never even knew what a Mormon was at that point! To make it short we met, feel in love .. Boy leaves on mission..Girl gets baptized..They get reunited..Get civilly married..Eventually get sealed..Have a beautiful baby. Fast forward-I am now a convert of four years. I started “researching” what MY religion was all about b/c I realized I didn’t honestly “Know” much at all. Two things brought this about : 1. My new baby-What am I exactly bringing her into-What do I agree with –What do I not agree with-Exactly what is even going on here? 2. DH brings up the word “Sugarcoated” while defending RSR with the FIL/ MIL.
I came upon some random site (Not anti just random quote-mining and a large emphasis on the “Weirder” practices/revelations etc. ) and was jaw-dropped. I told my DH about it and was pointed to the direction of FAIR. Big mistake(Not on his part! Just the site itself). It completely turned my “Testimony”, of mainly authority, from sweet to sour among other things. Apologetic “answers” killed me-slowly day by day .. Worst way to be killed!-When all else failed testimony was bore-But I don’t really have a “Real Testimony”?-Do I just use yours for now?…-That is what got me into this mess in the first place! All the while losing precious time with my baby while trying to “fix” myself back to the way things were.
I have recently come to my DH with my disaffection. I have introduced him to Faceseast and also to NOM. He is taking it well I believe but to make things work, for now at least, I fear he might have to step out of his comfort zones and help me along the way to answers(whatever that means), not completely but at least minimally.
I think I should edit to add that currently I have issues with:
1-Wearing my garments-I have never felt a “spritual connection” with them. They make me uncomfortable at times-I feel as though I never made a covenant to wear them..more like was handed them with a list of instructions. I now feel they are used for control. Control of my life down to my underwear(which I no longer believe God cares about)-I still believe in my eternal marriage and don’t mind dressing by “Church Standard” .. most of the time anyway.. Have always had problems with the WOW as well-just think it is nit-picky and needed to set a strict tone …. to stand out among others etc.
2-Being told to pray harder, pray with the right intentions, obey all comandments, trust my leaders, read more scriptures. The BOM does not answer my questions. I still hold faith that it is inspired of God..not sure if it is a true historical account anymore but..On a good day I do!
3-“The Church” I feel as if it is all about quantity and not quality. Keep people in by feeding them half stories. Sometimes I feel as if “The Church” is becoming the middle man between God and myself. At times I am so confused as to what exactly “The Church” even is anymore. I feel as if all that is important is that I am following the leaders ..Following the words of the prophet..B/C they can not lead me astray-But it no longer feels right. I am starting to dispise the Middle Man wedging his way between myself and God. ( to the point of I don’t even trust my own revelations/answered prayers anymore-and constantly re-praying)
4-Church. I find it boring. I find it next to impossible to sit through much of the history being basically white-washed while biting my tounge.Some of the members seem so close minded and ancient in their trains of thought at times- My children in Church. – I want them to have open minds .. I want them to think for themselves .. Take responsibility for their actions and not play the blame game on Satan-I am uncomfortable with them being 3 years old and saying “They KNOW’ things when they really don’t.
5-And of course the History. I have honestly come to terms with most of JS’s mistakes .. Which I believe is a good step. Still get a feeling like he was a huge fraud from time to time with good intentions .. But other days I feel like God really choose him to translate the BOM. – PH-Ban-I believe the reasoning was non-sense and don’t understand why they can’t just come clean about it. And recent History with gay marriage..I believe gay people are born gay..If they wat to get married they should be able to, it is their life .. and if I want to vote on their behalf .. I want to be able to do it based on my own personal revelation. W/O GA’s looking down upon me.
Some Poistives:
1.I love multiple speakers instead of one pastor/priest etc.
2.I love that we (no longer) speak ill of individual Churches from the pulpit or in our teachings.
3.The WOW is great advice/counsel.
4.I love the emphasis on family/eternal families.
5.I love many people in the Church wards I have attended.
6.I like the concept of tithing-Even if I want to give it ALL to Humanitarian Aid.
7.I love some GA talks.
8.I love emphasis on family prayer. (Even though we are not perfect with it)
9.I love Jesus Christ and believe the Church does as well.
10.I enjoy reading the BOM-not all of the time-but I enjoy it when I do happen to read it.
Just needed to level things out a bit!
Sorry if this is a bad Intro-But just to put out there exactly what I need some help/advice with.
The most hurt I feel is with DH at this point. I like to think he married me b/c he loved me. With my doubt, comments have risen that maybe we should have never gotten married. I like to think that he really did marry me for love not just b/c we were now a male and female of the same faith-who happened to be single-and on the straight and narrow…But I’m not really sure anymore. Now my lists of concerns is endless (Mainly “The Church” less Gospel) and my heart is smashed .. As I try to put on a happy face for my baby if no one else. -And now this is extremely long ..
LaLa, Thanks for sharing and welcome to the forum.
It sounds like you have a test of faith before you, and with a new family, finding hope and peace is pretty important.
My path has been different in that both my wife and I were born in the covenant, but we still had things to work out in our marriage (especially recently). After 15 years of marriage and 4 kids, one thing we’ve learned is to try to first remember and build on the positive things in our relationship and marriage, and remember things we both share and believe in. Her standards of keeping the sabbath day holy were different than mine, we’ve argued about expectations we had in raising our kids a certain way, but in the end, we have to be willing to break away from what our families were like growing up, it is now important to decide our own family rules and traditions based on how we both feel, not who is right or who is wrong.
I think at the core, I know I need to love my wife, and always love the kids.
Just a question, have the two of you studied things together to research what the religion is all about?
Welcome, LLL. Fwiw, I’m sure he married you because he loved you – and I’m sure he still loves you. This can be hard on both spouses; try to be patient with him.
I hope this site helps. Feel free to introduce him, if he is willing – and if you want to do so. It should be a less threatening place than some others. I rarely play the “calling card”, but it might help him to know that I have a very visible calling. That kind of makes me the anomaly, but it shows that those who explore and seek difficult answers aren’t excluded from active participation in the Church. It can take a while, but it’s possible.
LLL, I’m so sad to read of your difficulties, and especially picturing you there with your baby doing your best to be cheerful, may heaven bless you. You did just fine with your forum post. Regarding “that man behind the curtain”, we here have seen what you have seen, and known what you have known. Now, like you, we are trying to be true to the highest ideals as we forge a new reality and relationship. I believe that our good faith endurance for love, light, and truth will be a blessing to all. Quote:My children in Church. – I want them to have open minds .. I want them to think for themselves .. Take responsibility for their actions and not play the blame game on Satan-I am uncomfortable with them being 3 years old and saying “They KNOW’ things when they really don’t.
Welcome to the site, LLL! A couple thoughts about the kids – you are raising them, and if you want them to be open-minded freethinkers, they will be – genetics and the home environment trump Primary. And ALL 3 year olds say they “know” stuff that they don’t. BTW, they also believe in the tooth fairy and that their stuffed animals can talk. The freethinking comes as they grow up. A couple of examples from my own kids:
– the cat went missing, and my six-year old wanted to pray to know where the cat was. Well, her older brother had just said he thought the cat was in the alley by the house, so that was suddenly her “answer” to her prayer. When we found the cat under her bed, she quickly converted the “answer” to “I knew the cat was okay.”
– another six-year old prayer: in the middle of the prayer, she stopped and said, “Hey, I have a question. Do you guys celebrate Easter where you are?” We all agreed that was a good question, and we didn’t know. The next day she said: “Yeah, I’m still waiting on the answer to that Easter question.” Then she said she got an answer that they do celebrate Easter “up there.” My 14 year old asked her how she knew that was the answer, and she kind of hemmed and hawed. He rolled his eyes a little, but mostly we just thought she was cute.
In short, they’re just kids!
Thanks Hawkgrrrl! I guess I just get worried with the “Bad Flashback” stories members have of uncomfortable meetings with bishops-from their younger years more of the 8+ range I guess. I’m not sure about what children do in Church, or any of the processes b/c I did not grow up in the Church. So I guess it is natural for me to wonder and worry about the whole process up to adulthood. B/C now I am a mother and it is my job! Maybe my ward back at home is an exception but many very small children are brought up at f/t meeting and told what to say word for word (I’ve heard through the grapvine that this should not be done?) and I just can’t see myself ever doing that! You are right I am the parent and I trump everything – That is exactly what I want for my kids to just be kids 
LaLaLove wrote:small children are brought up at f/t meeting and told what to say word for word (I’ve heard through the grapvine that this should not be done?)
I had to comment on this as an Iron Rod Mormon at heart. This falls in the category of things that are periodically addressed through letters and instructions from headquarters, but nobody out in the wards follows through on for very long. A few years back (and I don’t believe this was the first time I had heard this same instruction) a first presidency letter was read in sacrament meetings expressing that children should not be carried up and “helped” to bear a testimony. The general idea was that only those who are old enough to express their own personal feelings should be speaking in fast and testimony meeting. Immediately following the reading of the letter, there was no onslaught of kids before the grown-ups. But little-by-little, it was mostly forgotten and the old practice returned. Some wards have always made an effort to mix up the ages, and as with all things, local results vary. I always have loved hearing the little kids.
As Tom says, it boils down to the local leadership. In my own ward, I don’t think we’ve had anyone under 10 or 11 speak in Fast & Testimony Meeting for a long time – and I can’t remember the last time someone whispered words to someone at the pulpit in that setting. Our Bishop does encourage members who are shy or have a hard time speaking extemporaneously in public to write out a simple testimony beforehand and read it if they feel inspired to do so. I’ve heard the kid being prompted, but I haven’t heard it often. Maybe my wards have just been better about it, but that’s not been a huge issue. It bugs me to death when it has happened, though. I think this may have more to do with parenting styles than with anything that goes on at church. LLL, welcome to the forums. I hope to hear more of your thoughts.
Thank you for all of the comments regarding the children. With that subject, unfortunately I might be stuck in the “little kids get brainwashed” stage. Hopefully I can either get over it or just let it not bother me! Parents have the right to teach their children the right thing to do .. and I’m no one to say what the right way is. I really loved the little kids in f/t as well, now it bugs me but I still love them .. and the parents only mean well. I need to add that my DH is an amazing man. I am treated like a queen. He is deployed currently and all of this started getting really difficult about half way into his deployment. I can’t even imagine how he must feel. All I know is that I love him and I am happy The Church makes him happy.. and I hope we can learn together when he returns and become one. I can’t wait for his wisdom and support in real life instead of over the phone! He is a real rock in my eyes no matter the “shortcomings” he believes he has. I have been so busy the past few days it has been hard for me to find time to check the forum… maybe that was what the bishop was hoping for when he gave me this new calling 😮 .Anyway, sorry I am coming so late to welcome you here! WELCOME! Your intro is great and I think we have a great deal in common, especially in both the things you like and dislike about the church. I think it is wonderful that you are still able to appreciate the good that is there in the church, especially when you are feeling angry about the bad.
I am curious if any of your extended family is LDS? I am assuming your inlaws must be, and perhaps that has an influence on how your husband feels about the church as well. That might be another area where you might have to tread softly in order to keep the peace. My husband’s family are TBMs who seem to have a great deal of influence still over my husband, even though we have been married for 15 years and live very far away from them. I think my DH feels that if were ever anything less than a solid iron rod mormon he would be letting his parents down.
Anyway, hope you find this forum helpful… I know I have already, and I am still very new here. I look forward to hearing more from you.
BTW, I HATE it when kids get up and bear their “testimonies”, but maybe that makes me a grumpy old scrooge.
Your post resonated with me. Especially the parts about telling your husband of your discovery of the really difficult historical and doctrinal issues. With my DW I have found that I must carefully pick words and ideas to talk about. If the collection of troubling thoughts come out too fast, Mrs. Buscador can’t handle it and asks or tells me to stop. So I do. I have accepted that all the issues cannot be dealt with at once, so I don’t try. It is too overwhelming.
The good news is that having this information really frees up the believer (or almost believer, or formal, or partial believer) into a liberated approach to Mormonism and doctrinal/historical exploration. I am no longer worried about what I may find out. I am more patient with the grey. In fact, I like the fuzziness of my evolving understanding of truth.
LaLaLove, I want you to know that you are not alone.
I definitely understand your concerns about the children. I have wondered myself whether I want my children raised in the Church, fearing that they will one day have to go through the trial of faith that I have. But I am now comfortable knowing that if they are taught something I don’t agree with I can be sure to let them know.
Hang in there.
Buscador wrote:In fact, I like the fuzziness of my evolving understanding of truth.
I absolutely
lovethis!
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