Ex-Mormon Stories

This is part two of Rainfeather’s journey into, and then out of, the LDS Church.  If you missed part one, please check it out here.

The first hiccup that I had which tested my testimony occurred in the late 1990s. They passed around a petition for us to sign concerning same-sex marriage. First of all, I was absolutely floored that they would pass around a political petition in Relief Society. I’d thought the Church didn’t get involved in politics.

Secondly, I didn’t agree with it. I was shocked that the Church would teach us the absolute sacredness of agency, and yet here they were trying to interfere with the agency of others. The majority of the people we would be affecting were likely not even LDS.

When the petition reached me, I held the pen in my hand and stared at the petition. I did not want to sign that thing. A friend noticed my hesitation and whispered to me that I should just decide to be obedient. Still I hesitated. Again she said that I should just decide to choose to be obedient to the Prophet, even if I didn’t understand why I was being asked to do it.

To this day, I’m still haunted by the fact that I signed that infernal thing. On that day, I was not true to myself, but I vowed that such a thing would never happen to me again. I vowed that the next time I was asked to do something which went against my own integrity and personal principles, I would not back down.

Although it continued to bother me, I managed to do what many LDS folks do. I put it into my mental file folder of things to ask Heavenly Father about, when I some day got to talk to Him, and continued on.

Another big moment of pause came after the horrible events of September 11, 2001 in New York City. It hit me that there were people out there who believed so strongly in their faith, that they were willing to die and to kill for it. I thought to myself, “Oh my gosh. That would mean that a Jew, a Muslim, a Catholic, a born-again Christian, etc. could all bear their testimonies and be just as certain that they had the truth as Mormons were that they were God’s only true church upon the Earth.”

That really shook me up. I’d never stopped to think about that before. It suddenly felt extremely arrogant to decide that we were the only ones who had the truth. Just who did we think we were? How dare we?

The next crisis came when I was unemployed and desperate for work. Even though it was a great distance for me to travel, I accepted Church employment in the local Facilities Management Group. I thought that was my dream job. Wow, working for the Church. No one will swear. Everyone will be kind to one another.

It’ll be great…or maybe not so much.

I’ve never worked for a ‘company’ where the morale was so low. Perfection was expected, except that we weren’t given enough time or resources in order to achieve this perfection. They called our Bishops every so often, to make sure that we were keeping temple worthy. There was equipment attached to our computers which made sure we couldn’t visit non-Church-approved websites.

We were told that if one of us received a bad job performance review, that we alone would be responsible for bringing down the scores of our entire office. In fact, we would be responsible for bringing down the scores of our entire Region. But why stop there? We alone would be responsible for bringing down the scores of the entire country. That’s what they told us.

I dealt with several employees calling in from the various chapels we looked after, where they’d be practically in tears because they felt they couldn’t complete their jobs on time, or didn’t have the resources in which to achieve the expected perfection. Every time their chapels were to be inspected, their stomachs would be tied into knots.

This is where I learned that the Church is really not a church at all. It’s a corporation. It’s a big financial organization which needs to be run, just like any other corporation does. That shook me up quite a bit. There were several times when I nearly walked out and told them just what they could do with their job.

The only thing which stopped me was the wonderful people I worked with. I do have to say that they were the kindest people and were a joy to work with. I hated the job, but I loved them, so for their sakes, I stayed until my job was completed.

Being so strictly controlled brought out a rebellious streak in me though. I’m hardly the rebellious type. I’m about as goody-two-shoes as they come. I’m 50 years old, am still a virgin, and will likely remain so. I still don’t drink coffee, tea or alcohol and I’m pretty sure I never will. I’ve never tried smoking, nor would I ever be interested in that either. I was like this before I ever even heard of the Mormon Church. I was just born that way. No one taught it to me. It’s simply my nature.

But anyway, I went out and got a tattoo. I guess that was my way of being in control of at least something in my life. It has a lot of personal meaning for me as well. One of my friends thought that I just wanted to disobey the Prophet. I said that it had absolutely nothing to do with him whatsoever. It was just something that I needed do for myself.

The travel to work was very expensive and took up a lot of my paycheque. Because of this, I was falling a bit behind on my tithing. Then because of the fact that I was trying to deal with my feelings towards the ‘Corporation,’ my attendance was also starting to suffer.

Instead of having a little compassion, and asking me how they could help me, at a time when I was struggling with my testimony, they put me on probation from my job. That hurt. I was told that although I was worthy enough to attend church, I was not worthy enough to work for the Church. I’d been a member for almost thirty years and this was how I was treated?!

Because I only had a few months left to work on my contract, I managed to complete my employment without being fired. But once I left Church employment, I quickly went inactive and have not returned since then.

Come back tomorrow for the story of how Rainfeather finally decided to leave, once and for all: Things They Don’t Teach You in Sunday School.

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