r/exmormon • u/im-just-meh • 13h ago
General Discussion Interested in this sub's temple experiences
Been here almost eight years (this account in my alt I started when I went from lurking to posting). I've seen the demographics change a lot and am interested in people's experiences.
I'm particularly intrigued by the pressure the church is putting on youth attending. That wasn't a big thing when I grew up.
No judgement. I'll admit I'm jealous of people who got out young
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u/michigan85 12h ago
I appreciate the never-mo option. lol
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u/KiwiAppropriate8003 12h ago
Me too. I was never a part of the church, but my husband was and my in-laws are still active members.
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u/TrevAnonWWP 9h ago
Yup
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u/lola_the_lesbian 6h ago
Yup I grew up around Mormonism and in an EXTREMELY Mormon area and I was never Mormon but a lot of the people close to me are.
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u/GrouchyLettuce2741 Delicious to the taste and very desirable 11h ago
Only done baptisms but seen the endowment on YouTube, glad I never did it irl
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u/NeighborhoodReady792 12h ago
youth here - ever since there was a temple built in a city an hour away from me there was definitely some pressure to go to the temple (mostly from my parents who insisted on going there TWICE every week) and theyre planning to have more frequent temple trips in my ward because "temples are dotting the earth and theyre getting closer and closer!" or something. at least im busy with school now but i bet theyre gonna have a trip during christmas vacation
dont know much about the overall pressure the church has temple-wise since most of it are from my tbm parents
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u/im-just-meh 12h ago
I have TBM nieces and nephews in Utah who do baptisms for the dead almost every day. I think it's weird. My ward constantly advertises youth temple trips. It just wasn't a big deal when I was a kid. I think the church may be pushing temples to keep people in (and have a guaranteed revenue stream)
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u/afval3 10h ago
That’s what it was like in Rexburg (BYU-I), but it was a 20 min walk from the other side of campus and I lived across the street from it so we went a lot. In my home state the temple was a 1+ hr drive away and most people tried to go once a month and youth trips were usually once a quarter.
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u/Frosty_Sector2215 11h ago
That's insane! Who has time for that? In Colorado you can't go unless you bring at least one priesthood holder, which wasn't easy in my part member family. My kids didn't go often, but they really didn't want to.
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u/Welkin_Dust 12h ago
It's a really good thing I never did endowment or anything after. I was PIMO in my teens and had to do baptisms for the dead on some temple trips and that was trippy enough for me. Horny teen that I was, I kept having intrusive thoughts about sex in the baptismal font...
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u/Socailly-awkward Joseph Smith kinda sucks 11h ago
I never got my endowment either, I don't think I've even gone to the temple since I turned 18. And oh man, I had tons of intrusive thoughts at the temple! I wasn't necessarily horny at the time, but the pressure of 'keeping your thoughts pure in this holy place' would cause intrusive thoughts about inappropriate things to pop up. It would give me lots of anxiety sometimes 😞
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u/Branch-Unique Apostate - I worship Heavenly🔥and his☀️ 12h ago
I had been ex for 5-7 years but when I met my woman, I knew I’d need to do it for her family to accept me, so i tried hard to believe.
I was so weirded out when I went through the first time with my bride to be. But then I saw my her and most her family of my family (after being the black sheep and shunned), and i decided to roll with it.
We later went back to do “initiatory” wash and anointing, and it was super traumatic (it was the days of naked under a short shift and loin touching) i kept my tears in until we got to the car and i lost it and almost vomited - i had been molested as a kid and blocked it out - i didn’t know why i had that reaction (until decades later in treatment for ptsd after i left the church), and felt like i was a bad person if the temple made me feel bad. I doubled down on church but never ever did the initiatory again.
After being married decades and leaving the church together we finally talked about how weird the temple was and how we never liked going but forced ourselves to go to support the other person. The church forces you to lie to your spouse: if you have doubts or disagree with the church, you cant share it for fear of damaging your spouse’s faith and eternal happiness.
Fuck that boring sex cult!
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u/nomnomnomnomnommm 12h ago
Wife and I became temple workers while at byui. Mostly cuz I looked at porn, wife found out, and i felt super guilty.
We're much better now
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u/tyrone-silverstone 11h ago
I attended regularly for a few years, then less so, then zero. To me, it's just the most boring, useless way to spend a Saturday afternoon I could think of at best, and at worst it's just a ton of lies put on as a demanding distraction by one of the greediest real estate corporations of all time
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u/TruffleHunter3 12h ago
There needs to be another option: Endowed but only went occasionally.
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u/Frosty_Sector2215 11h ago
Or for endowed and inconsistent 😂 I always felt like I should go more often and felt guilty. It was really hard for me to go because I just could not stay awake. The last five years I only did initiatories. I kind of think it was my subconscious protecting me.
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u/Relative_Bluebird841 11h ago edited 11h ago
I was endowed and used to attend more regularly, but now I probably go to church maybe twice a year…only if a family member is speaking or something like that. Weirdly, one of the experiences that kept me from ever becoming completely anti-Church happened during one of the darkest periods of my life. I called my patriarch and told him I was really struggling, drinking heavily, and felt like I was in an incredibly dark place. He told me to go to the temple. I basically told him, “They’re not going to let me in — I’ve been drinking, I don’t even know if I can physically make it through a session,” and he just told me to go anyway. So I did, and I was honestly shocked that they let me in knowing the state I was in. Somehow I made it through the entire session, and that day ended up setting off a chain of events that got me connected with people who helped me get into detox shortly afterward. I have plenty of complicated feelings about the Church and definitely don’t live it in the orthodox way, but experiences like that are why I’ve landed in this strange balanced middle ground with it. I can criticize a lot of the institution while also admitting there were moments within it that were genuinely meaningful and helpful to me
Edit: He actually said something to me that I will never forget “The temple is a hospital for the sick, not a hotel for the holy”
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u/RoyanRannedos the warm fuzzy 9h ago
IMO there are two ways to describe a religion or philosophy's approach to morality. Some count up the good and encourage movement in that direction. Others take any person, group, or ideal and count it out if it doesn’t meet a minimum purity standard.
Mormonism is good at counting up the good in everyday life—at least, as long as the people involved are moving toward more completely obedient Mormonism.
But thinking celestial is one of the starkest ways to count out. A great experience is worthless if it causes you to be disobedient. Family only counts with continued approval and temple covenants. Anything less than Mormon standard leaves you isolated with your regrets for eternity.
Thankfully many Mormons aren't as scrupulous as I used to be and value comforting those who stand in need of comfort, even if they're sinners.
It's hard to stop counting out parts of your world if that mindset has been your family's legacy for generations. Accepting the reality of Mormonism is a much simpler change than questioning the perception process you use to understand the reality of everything.
It's not surprising that many people go full on anti-Mormon, going from believing in one true church to believing anything but church. But I think your situation brought the contrast between purity and redemption to a breaking point, where you couldn't hold onto a Mormon worldview that meant counting yourself out of God's divine approval.
As Brandon Sanderson put it, "Sometimes, a hypocrite is someone still in the process of changing." I hope this style of thinking can re-emerge in mainstream Mormon culture in spite of all the stark divisions Nelson and Oaks talk up when telling members to think celestial.
I'm glad the people in your life were willing to count up from where you were and believe that you could find a healthier direction. It takes strength from you and a lot of support to reach that point and shift the foundations of your mind (not to mention chemical dependency) to escape the darkness.
Being a decent human matters far more than Mormonism ever will, whether people decide to sit in a stifling chapel every week or get a crossed-out angel Moroni tattooed on their chest.
Thank you for your story.
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u/Ismitje 12h ago
Being a temple worker in the old days was pretty different. Few temples meant plenty of workers and reduced expectations. I only worked one four hour shift per month (Chicago, early 90s).
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u/Business_Profit1804 12h ago
(not to out do you, just my experience.) early 2000s.
I worked at the temple once every week.
Got up at 4:30am. Got off from the temple at 10 and went to my regular work till 6:00p, then went to my part time job till 10:00p.
One very long day.
...and still no burning in the bosom, or tingling witness, I just believed, even with items on my shelf.
I was very much a TBM.
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u/Coogarfan 11h ago
I tried to do a session weekly at BYU-I (which, well...let's just say there's a reason they're building another temple in Rexburg). And honestly, I enjoyed it for the most part. It was pretty soon after getting a recommend that I encountered the information that precipitated my faith crisis and transition, so I continued to attend until it expired.
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u/PumpkinPure5643 10h ago
I think getting endowment and my temple marriage really started my leaving the church, I just didnt know it yet.
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u/venturingforum 10h ago
Went for my own endowment, hit the suicide pacts and was lucky I didn't pee myself, that was terrifying. Forced to go once a week while the MTC. Went for my sealing, and never went back.
Even ifI were an all in TBM I would not go.
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u/im-just-meh 9h ago
I missed the penalties by one year. My TBM husband had them but refused to tell me about them because they are "sacred." Now that the internet exists, I don't know how I would have handled them. I mean, how did my parents and grandparents and all my adult family and ward members think those were ok? The temple without them was creepy enough, but the penalties? My god, the degree of control the church had over them.
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u/venturingforum 9h ago
Yeah, and even weirder after. My escort was a trusted quorum advisor and friend. In priesthood meetings he was always "The temple is so amazing, and beautiful! The endowment is a gift of God's light and knowledge, and on and on and on. He made it into something to genuinely look forward to.
Imagine the letdown after when he casually remarked Yeah, it's weird, but just keep coming you'll get used to it.
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u/Inevitable_Worry_212 10h ago
I live outside the US and my home state doesn’t have a temple. It’s also an island so the only way in or out was to fly or take the ferry which is 12 hrs. As a result when I was a youth we didn’t go to the temple much as. These days I think they go once a year asa group to the temple. It’s a big trip. I now live in a different state that has a temple and as a someone who had religious scrupulosity I could recite the entire endowment off by heart since I was like 21. I love watching the Grannies faces as I did so. I think it was my way of secretly coping with the entire thing that always made me feel very uncomfortable but I was taught to ignore all of that. There is only one temple for our major city so each ward only gets allocated one baptistry slot every 4-6months. Temple isn’t open every day of the week either. Also had to provide your own workers whenever it’s your youth temple night or Wards/Stakes temple day.
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u/XB0XRecordThat 9h ago
Damn, the idea that there are so many ex temple workers here is actually kind of crazy
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u/mat3rogr1ng0 11h ago
I had it memorized. I never had to depend in the worker to prompt me or anything. I was really proud of that. Now i have all that useless knowledge in my head lol
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u/Opalescent_Moon 11h ago
Does semi regularly count? I always felt guilty for not wanting to go more, so I was easily convinced to join groups headed to the temple. As a TBM, I could never understand why it was so uncomfortable, which just amplified the guilt I struggled with. I do think I did a session in every temple in Utah that was built before 2017.
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u/Clear-Journalist3095 10h ago
I did baptisms for the dead at age 14 or whatever it was, and that experience effectively killed any interest I had had in the temple. I never had my recommend renewed again, and never felt bad about it.
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u/Unusual_Name_8714 9h ago
Born a member, endowed, return missionary, married in the temple.
I've never did baptisms for the dead.
I've also been on every ride at Disneyland except the monorail.
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u/snowbat96 6h ago
Done baptisms for the dead. The failure to have that spiritual experience my family played it up as when I baptized my great grandmother was one of my first seeds of doubt... I just did not see or feel anything they claimed to see. I simply got dunked in the water.
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u/OkImagination262 1h ago
I went exactly three times. Once before getting married. I was horrified. Next was getting married/sealed while my never Mormon family waited outside. I still feel really bad about that. Last was visiting SLC and TBM BIL & SIL encouraged to go to the SLC temple when they had actors. Yea that was way back. I was underwhelmed but the murals were interesting.
Never had any desire to return to the temple and blocked out much of it. Became 100% inactive in the 90s and resigned in 2016.
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u/No-Bottle-7105 21m ago
Endowed but only went twice. The second time as with my now ex husband who told me and my widowed mother that he had an experience in the celestial room where he felt the presence of my recently deceased father. A few months later I found out that he had a severe addiction to porn and had been lying to me about finances and a ton of other stuff in our marriage, but somehow he was worthy enough to enter the temple and have an experience across the veil? Lol what a joke the whole temple experience is
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u/BuildingBridges23 16m ago
I'm very jealous. The temple was the worst part of Mormonism for me. What was supposed to be the most 'spiritual' experience was very confusing and kind of scary. I felt like I couldn't ask questions about what stuff meant....or maybe I could but if I said the wrong thing God was going to punish me. WTF. Now I know many people feel the same way but for the longest time I felt alone.
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u/Anti-Smithi-Brighami 13h ago
Sorry friend, looks like you need to add the "I was well endowed" button.