When I started writing, I realized then for the first time that I had a voice, and people actually seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say. Women who grow up Mormon aren’t always free or experienced in expressing their thoughts and dreams and views. It was heady and I have made many very good friends through the internet, many of whom I’ve been lucky enough to meet in person. I’ve enjoyed debates and discussions online about the culture found within Mormonism and the effects Mormonism has on the lives of its members, and I hope to engage in the discussion here this weekend and in the future as well.

My blog suffered a blow as I divorced my husband and navigated parenting plans and such. I hope to blog about that soon, but lately I’ve been distracted by my move to Texas from Montana to be with my fiance and best friend, Equality. I am currently spending my free time creating art which I plan to sell. It’s been a dream of mine for decades to be a fine artist and I guess we’ll see if I’ve got what it takes!

I have lurked on this blog and Jana’s over the past few years and have always been impressed by your style, grace, and eloquence. I have been reading up on the posts regarding your letter that arrived on your anniversary and am about to read the most recent posts written since this one. I’m glad you’re sharing this experience and it’s fascinating to read the differing viewpoints being expressed.

I’ve been reading you and Jana for maybe 2 years. I have a grown daughter who is a cancer survivor and that’s likely how I found you two.

I lived in Japan during my adolescence; it was a time of spiritual and cultural awakening for me. My folks (and I) left the Catholic church during that period, presumably because there were no churches nearby. I missed the ritual of the then-Latin Mass, but not the hyperbole, loved the purity of the Buddhist and Shinto sensibility.

I’m back to school reinventing myself as an art therapist, having been in high tech for many years here in Silicon Valley. One area of interest for me as a therapist involves the psychology of spirituality, and healing the damage inflicted by organized religion.

I have a sense of connection with your family on several levels, and thank you for sharing yourselves, writing so elegantly about such timely topics.

Regards,
Deb

I am a 30-year old single scientist working in drug development who loves to spend time with my extended family, work on my house, travel, practice yoga, bike, read, and think about the complexities of religion. Although I have stepped away from the LDS church in terms of both my beliefs and practices recently, many people I know, regardless of background, would identify me as a Mormon given my adherence to the word of wisdom and my involvement in the church. I was raised in an active family, graduated from BYU twice, served a mission, have held numerous leadership callings, and was an ordinance worker until last summer when Prop8 toppled my testimony.

For a variety of reasons, I find myself going back to church after “hopping” over the past year (going once a month) but am trying to be open about my frustrations and lack of faith in a variety of issues. I recognize I am still very much on a journey.

I am more interested in being a good person and serving my community and living and loving life. I blog under a pseudonymn given I am privileged to be named after one of the three unusually named women of the Book of Mormon and don’t want to be found in an average Google search for professional reasons (although I don’t consider my online identity a secret).

Someday i really would love to be as open with my own dear family as I have been online. I don’t think they can handle such information though.

So Helmut, I’ve been reading your stuff on FLAK for a while. I posted there under whitendelightsome. I consider you fairly brilliant and among some of the best writers in the exmo community.

I didn’t think about my full name being used when i signed on here. Now that it’s out there I guess I’ll just take the chances and see what comes up. Stalk me if you will but know that I have a Cocker Spaniel and know how to use her.

My story can be found at Signing for Something and I am a moderator on an exmo discussion board. Other than that I am an unemployed residential designer who misses the job and the money and the prestige and am bored out of my skull while I wait for the right thing to come along. I have a garden, art, literature, hiking, etc. and three grandbabies but still miss my career. I was pretty good at it. Dang it.

Till then, I’m dicking around on the net and found yet another place to blather and read.

It’s going to take me some time, but I’m looking forward to clicking through and meeting those of you I haven’t met yet. And some of you I haven’t visited for a while (apologies), and I can’t wait to come a-knockin’!

I didn’t think much about Mormonism for 20 or so years until one day I Googled Mormon, just to see what was on the internet. whoa. That began a renewed interest in studying Mormonism, which led to an interest in studying Christianity. Long-short of it, I eventually was baptized as Roman Catholic.

I never removed my name from the Mormon membership list. I didn’t know it was an option until a few years ago, and now, I figure what’s the point. I haven’t considered myself Mormon for a very long time (decades). Someone told me that being baptized Catholic was grounds for a Mormon excommunication. I don’t know if this is accurate but I think it would be more devastating to my still-Mormon family than it would be to me. (To me, not at all.)

God bless you on your journey.

I’m not going to give my name because it’s distinctive and when you google it you will only find me. My mom is very TBM and would be greatly distressed by my internet tendencies.

I’m a 37 yo SAHM with 4 children (3 girls and 1 boy). I haven’t attended an LDS meeting in 20 years. My mom has high hopes to change this.

I found your blog via an online forum I frequent and have been reading on and off ever since but haven’t been big on commenting. I just felt that this was a time that a little extra emotional support might be helpful for you and your wife.

I was raised to ambiguously believe in god, but despite a few years in high school when I really wanted to have more friends and the local Presbyterian church provided them, it never really stuck. Of course, the next ten years took me on a path through all sorts of other religions and philosophical meanderings, but in then end, I’m an atheist.

While I mostly lurk here, I love your insight and a lot of what you write about resonates, which is why I keep coming back.

I’m Elissa, a college English instructor and fiction writer. Born and raised LDS, as was my husband. Both of us are from good old, plains-crossing pioneer stock. We met in junior high–he served a mission while I finished college and we married just before I started grad school and he finished college.

I was very active my entire life, but I can’t remember a time when I did not harbor serious doubts or was not frustrated every week on Sunday. I was always able to talk myself out of that, or push it aside, with the help of a caring and similar mother and very understanding partner.

What finally made me ready to break away and live my own truth was my father’s diagnosis and subsequent death from brain cancer. I have a vivid memory of sitting next to his bedside in the ICU, this 54 year old man who was so vibrant and alive, and thinking: “I can go at any minute. And I want to be authentic while I’m here.” I thought about all the inner turmoil I felt regarding the church, about the hours spent devoted to callings each week and the money gone toward tithing. And I decided to live the life I had secretly wanted to live since I was a child: as a person who did not believe. I turned to Quaker meetings and founds what I had been looking for for so long.

That was over four years ago. My husband left the church a year after I did. I found Jana’s blog and felt strongly that I had found a kindred spirit who had walked a similar path as mine, and I found John’s blog through hers. I’ve never met them, but I feel I know them and have gained much inspiration and courage by watching them share their beliefs and journey so publicly.

I served a mission in Calgary, Alberta, from 1986 to 1987, then was transferred to Spokane, Washington, where I finished up, after a little brush with the law. Having been a miserable missionary, I drifted away from the church in the years after my return. In 1995, I moved to New York City and really started studying church history. That’s when I realized I was out for good. This was, for me, a much easier step to take in New York than back home in Utah. (I pretty much broke off contact with my family for a couple of years after that, though we’ve long since reconciled and reached a detente on the topic. It’s helps that four of us out of eight siblings have left the church! My poor parents haven’t had a great batting average.)

But I was so exercised by what I learned in my studies that I started a web site to talk about it and my reasons for leaving. It wasn’t the first such site (I think exmormon.org holds that distinction), but it was right up there. A fraction of that old material is still available at my site, but most of it I retired early in this decade (though you still can find that stuff in the Internet Archive, if you’re curious). The arguments it started were getting repetitive, and I just didn’t have the same interest in continuing them. My status as a recovering Mormon had become less and less relevant to my daily life, and it was time to move on.

I still write and comment about Mormonism from time to time, and I’m shopping around a book about my missionary experiences, but John’s is the onlyrelated site I visit with any frequency these days. I admire his writing on the subject because he’s far more compassionate and patient about it than I ever was!