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Long story short. 4th,5th generation LDS. Married/sealed 20+ years, teaching EQ on JS, was disturbed by validating the destruction of the expositor printing press. Dug deeper, couldn’t stop. Eyes were opened (polyandry…. really ?). Kept it to myself, finally broke down with my wife. Turns out she really loves and trusts me enough to listen. Now we are both on the same page, but taking our time processing and seeing where to go from here. We want to make sure we take the good from everything we can, and are glad to find this site and all of you.
Funny…… It all seems like the Matrix now.
Trinity:I know why you’re here, Neo. I know what you’ve been doing… why you hardly sleep, why you live alone, and why night after night, you sit by your computer. You’re looking for him. I know because I was once looking for the same thing. And when he found me, he told me I wasn’t really looking for him. I was looking for an answer. It’s the question that drives us, Neo. It’s the question that brought you here. You know the question, just as I did. Neo:What is the Matrix? Trinity:The answer is out there, Neo, and it’s looking for you, and it will find you if you want it to. Morpheus:Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself. Morpheus:Let me tell you why you’re here. You’re here because you know something. What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. Welcome. I haven’t thought about the movie in your avatar for years. Thanks for the memory.
:clap: What to do?
GO SLOWLY.
Everything else flows from patience.
Welcome! Glad you found us! It may sound strange but I think one of the most productive moves of my life was letting go of the illusion of having answers. . . . Yes, we need to learn all we can learn, but when we force it all to “make sense” to us we remain empty handed in important ways. In my opinion some of the people that hold onto that need to be resolute in their answers end up flipping to the other side of the same tenuous coin. My personal lightbulb:
You cannot prove spiritual things.
That doesn’t mean you need to believe what your neighbor believes. But I believe you should give him room to fill his own vessel with whatever he pleases. It’s the 11th article of faith. I mourn for those who feel a need to prove the church is a fraud. In my mind their new certainty is as fallible as the old. They missed the point, they still desire that familiar comfort of universal “truth” in areas that cannot be known. Yes we can honestly say: “my personal expectations have been blown to bits” — but that is a statement about our individual imagery, not universal truth.
Belief is a wonderful and powerful force, but we need to let it roam. I think we harm what it is when we try to conform it to our present understanding — and that applies to both sides of the fence.
Yes, welcome … and I agree with Ray and Orson. Something struck me in your intro post…
Crooked_Sky wrote:We want to make sure we take the good from everything we can
This is very wise, IMO.
In my experience, when I started looking into some things, and like you, learned there was some validity to these doubts (not just anti-mormon slander, but real issues) … I chose to hold on to things that I felt were good, things I like about mormonism.
That is why a cafeteria-style approach can be useful. It doesn’t have to be ALL or NOTHING … instead, you can hold fast to the good you find, and shelf or discard the things that disturb you, as you move forward studying and thinking about faith. I have found lots of good in the LDS church, and I don’t want to throw out the baby with the bathwater, so to speak.
I think you’d like going through Fowler’s Stages of Faith (Part 1, 2, and 3) on the SayLDS.com main page, as well as Wendy Ulrich’s article which can be found in the Additional Resources section of the website.
It was interesting to me that my feelings were not so unique … it is good to find a forum and support group that has similar questions…not so we can get together and tear things down or criticize…but so we can validate our feelings and then share how we move forward with hope and faith and love.
Welcome to the Forum! I look forward to learning from your posts.
Welcome! Glad to have you along with us on the Nebuchadnezzar. Now that we have you safely on board, we are retracting our transceiver and continuing onward to Zion. 
Love those movies
Fwiw, the Seminary lesson I taught yesterday was on the Articles of Faith. I pointed out that there are NO qualifiers as to source for the last statement that: Quote:“if there is ANYTHING virituous, lovely or of good report or praiseworthy, we SEEK AFTER these things.”
Two things:
1) According to our own capstone Article of Faith, virtuous, lovely, good and praiseworthy things exist that we won’t understand unless we actively seek for them.
2) The implication (to say it as softly as I can) is that the LDS Church does not have a monopoly on those things – that we have to SEEK AFTER some things to find them.
I love that aspect of “pure Mormonism” – and remaining active in the Church while seeking truth from all sources is a balance that works for me. Some members think they are at odds, but as long as I can do both, there are no conflicts in my own life.
It’s getting to the point where they aren’t personal conflicts that is the heart of the journey, imo.
Thanks everyone. Lovely, good, praiseworthy. Thats excellent, and I would also add “hope all things” because I believe just shy of talking to the Savior himself, thats an honest testimony.
Now, moving slowly its time to re-think where we place the most emphasis for our kids. How about centering on the love and example of Christ above all other things? It seems like that alone would let the other stuff to just collect dust on the shelf.
Hey, wait a minute. Wasn’t The Matrix rated R? I’m not sure we want your kind around here. 
Priceless, Doug. Just priceless! 😆 :clap: Crooked_Sky wrote:How about centering on the love and example of Christ above all other things? It seems like that alone would let the other stuff to just collect dust on the shelf.
Yes, yes, yes …yes, Yes, YES!!
:thumbup: 
:clap: 
The greatest commandment is to love, it all makes sense. On the two great commandments hang ALL the law.
Quote:The implication (to say it as softly as I can) is that the LDS Church does not have a monopoly on those things – that we have to SEEK AFTER some things to find them.
My husband was teaching a SS lesson and brought up a Near Death Experience he had recently read. Everyone had a shocked look on their face like he had just crossed the line into apostasy. After the lesson, an older gentleman came to him and said, “I know those NDE’s are not true.” My husband asked, “How’s that?” He replied, “If they were true, they would all have joined the church.”
There is more than one way to get to heaven, but sadly most LDS don’t realize it.
Quote:Crooked_Sky wrote…Long story short. 4th,5th generation LDS. Married/sealed 20+ years, teaching EQ on JS, was disturbed by validating the destruction of the expositor printing press. Dug deeper, couldn’t stop. Eyes were opened (polyandry…. really ?). Kept it to myself, finally broke down with my wife.
So good to have you! Your story is a lot like mine, except I have only been married for 18.5 yrs. It is so hard when you realize that there is a lot of Church History left out of the “approved” version. I find comfort in that you value truth more than tradition. It still hurts, going on 3 years out of the box. Isn’t it amazing how much there is to learn after all these years. Welcome.
f4h1
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