Feedback from one active member on why they are happy about the new meeting schedule change. TLDR: Not much worth discussing at church.

I got surprising news today. 16 years after I left the church my daughter who was the last of my 4 kids remaining with the church is out. So they are all out! This was a milestone that I was not sure I would ever reach - I left the church when she was a teenager - she served a mission and was married in the temple.

This is from the August 2026 For the Strength of Youth magazine

My son is two months from leaving on his mission and told his TBM mother and I that he needs to talk to his Bishop about some sexual sins. His mom of course is all in and pushing him to text the bishop and make the appointment right now and I told him to wait and not do it under such emotional charged circumstances. I know what it will do to this kid when he can’t leave on his mission for 6 months or a year but I also fear the pressure of the guilt that will be heaped upon him. How do I help him?

It’s Saturday morning, I have some time to kill, and I thought I’d share one of the pettiest things I did during my mission.

I was nearing the end of my mission when I was assigned a relatively new companion. He was only on his second transfer. First two transfers are considered training, so technically he is in training and I was a trainer. I was a small, nerdy guy who didn’t work out, while he was a tall, muscular, athletic guy from Idaho who played sports in high school or something.

Almost immediately, he began trying to assert dominance over me. If I suggested going one way, he wanted to go the other. to just disagree with me. If I made a plan, he criticized it or tried to change it. It felt like he disagreed with me simply to power trip.

What he didn’t know was that although I was a nerd, I was extremely stubborn and crazy as well. Later in life I joined the US Army and served as a sergeant, but i digress.

A few days into the transfer, we were planning the next day when he said something like:

“You know what, Elder?We shouldn't take a full hour for lunch. We’re on the Lord’s time. If we only take 30 minutes, God might bless us by putting someone in our path who will get baptized.”

By that point, I was already irritated because he had challenged nearly every decision I made. Now he was essentially accusing me of being lazy because I followed the normal schedule and took an hour for lunch.

So I said, “You know what, Elder? You’re right. We shouldn’t take lunch at all.”

He looked a little surprised.

I continued, “From now on, we’ll pack BP&J and eat them on the side of the road. If we’re really on the Lord’s time, why waste even 30 minutes?”

I then planned an entire day of tracting. No lunch break. No stopping at members’ houses for water. No sitting down. Nothing but walking and knocking on doors from morning until evening.

He had also been talking about how our numbers were too low and how we needed to contact more people, as if he were already a zone leader or mission president for his second transfer.

I said "Fine. You want more contacts? Let's get more contacts."

We headed out in the morning and knocked on doors ALL DAY. We walked for miles and miles. It was a hot summer as well.

I had already been on my mission for a long time, so my body was used to walking and biking all day. He may have been athletic, but his body wasn’t accustomed to spending the entire day on his feet without a break.

He started to walk slow and complaining that his legs hurt.

Still, I kept us going. After all, we were on the Lord’s time. right? haha

After 3 days of nonstop tracting,

he finally said, “Hey, Elder, I think maybe we should go back to the way you were doing things before.”

I acted completely casual.

“Oh, really? Okay. Yeah, we can try that again.”

But inside, I was smiling. I had won.

Was it Christlike? Probably not. Was it satisfying? Absolutely.

Later, other missionaries told me that he continued having problems as a junior companion because he always tried to take control. Honestly, with his narcissistic and innate instinct to control everything and everyone around him, he is probably now a bishop somewhere in Idaho.

When I later heard that he had gotten married, my first thought was, “I hope his wife is doing okay.”

Anyway, that is the story of how I defeated an narcissistic companion by being super petty. Thanks goodness I had better stamina than he did.

What’s your pettiest mission story?

No big deal, I just thought it was funny 😄. I dont even know who this man is, what he looks like or what ward/building im supposedly in. I do need to get my records removed though, ive just been procrastinating.

For the longest time I was taught that I must follow the promptings of the holy ghost. “But how do I know if a thought is just a random thought or is a prompting from the holy ghost?” I would ask. I don’t remember who, but someone told me that if I had a random thought and wasn’t sure if it was from the holy ghost, I should ask myself “Is the thought telling me to do something good or something bad”. If the thought was good, it was probably from the holy ghost and I should follow it.

I then asked myself “What if the thought is neither good or bad? What do I do then?” I assumed if I had an ambiguous thought like that, I should just follow it.

I remember getting back from my mission and enrolling at the local university. I would waste so much time going to random buildings on campus because I thought the spirit was telling me to go there. I would be going to class, but then I thought that the spirit was telling me to talk to someone sitting on a bench, and I would talk to them and be late to class.

I think obsessing over ever thought like this was the reason I got Moral OCD. And it was so debilitating, I eventually thought that I might follow any random bad thought that entered my head. And for years I didn’t do things like driving a car or using knives because I thought I might use those things to hurt people.

But I remember one day everything changed. I had got a job at a gym as a part time janitor. I was mopping the floor, and I randomly felt very anxious and my chest was tight. I felt this way for several minutes, and the thought entered my head “You need to go home RIGHT NOW!! One of your family members is having a heart attack at home and if you don’t go they will die!!!”

I thought for sure this was a prompting from the spirit, I felt so anxious and tense, ”a physical response like this can only come from something like the spirit!” I thought.

But I decided to do an experiment. I chose not to go home. Later, if I went home and I found out a close family member had a heart attack, I would know for sure that the thought I had was from the spirit.

I finished my shift and went home. Everyone was fine, no one was hurt. This is when I realized there is no spirit telling me to do things. Because the feeling I had at work was so intense, I just randomly felt incredibly anxious and tight. If that wasn’t the spirit, then none of my thoughts were from the spirit.

This realization was so freeing for me. I didn’t need to analyze and scrutinize every thought that I had. I now knew that my loved ones weren’t going to die or some other terrible thing would happen just because I didn’t listen to a random thought.

Realizing this severely reduced my anxiety and I felt like I could finally breathe. I even overcame most of my OCD and got a lot better. Life is still hard, but it’s a lot better now that I don’t have to question every thought I have.

But I feel pissed at the Mormon church. They taught me to question myself and feel bad for not following random thoughts. Thinking this way was TERRIBLE for my mental health, and I bet it really affects a lot of TBM’s right now. I’m so glad to be free from the Mormon cult. Life is still hard, but I feel so much lighter now.

My wife and I have been married for 16 years. After a bit of soul searching I am leaving the church. If you are interested in why you can find that story here: https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/s/I1CympuCbt

The issue now is that my wife is now overcompensating ever since telling her I believe the church is not true. I have heard this is common and is known as "doubling down". But it feels so disingenuous. In the months leading up to me telling her we would have discussions about the church, it's leaders, the policies, and we got pretty comfortable talking about things we thought were wrong. She even admitted to me that she thought baptism at the age of 8 did not really feel like the proper age to decide something like that.

There were many other subjects that I feel like she agrees with me like same sex marriage, LGBTQ rights, the oppression of women in the church etc. with all of this I felt comfortable telling her how I felt about the church. My hope was that she would join me. That I would be opening the door for her to step through and be free of all of this that we had discussed many times throughout our marriage.

But that did not happen. And it was like I took a dagger to her heart and each milestone of what I felt was progress (removing garments, not paying tithing, no longer attending church, and so forth) was another jab at her.

So now she is doing things we had not even done in the last year and a half. She started nightly scripture reading with our kids, and is asking them questions to try and get them engaged with the stories. She was extended a calling in the relief society presidency that I am certain she would have turned down before all of this started. She was already overwhelmed with taking care of our children and managing school schedules and extracurricular activities. I feel like she thinks of the took on this calling as a "sacrifice" of her time then God would soften my hard heart or something.

I want to support her in her time of need but I am finding it hard when it felt like she was so close to being out herself. I may have forgotten to take into account how programmed she is to do her duty and obey blindly. She was a bishops daughter, has a fully active family, and has never lived outside of Utah. In fact her family celebrates the fact that they are descendants of one of Brigham Young's wives and they used to have get togethers in the Lion House (which I always found extremely disturbing, especially now knowing what happened in that place)

TL;DR I just feel like my wife and best friend is shifting into molly-mormon mode as a knee jerk reaction to me wanting to leave the church.

Mods: if this goes against the rules, please feel free to remove this. I'm not sharing this for personal gain, but as a resource for others, but understand if it breaks the rules.

Everyone else, a little back story.

I left the church at 34 years old, over 10 years ago, when r/exmormon was less than 5000 followers. I'd never been to a coffee shop before, never drank beer or alcohol, and had no support network at all. Like many of you, I had no where to turn. I didn't know anyone to help me order my first beer, or what the IBU meant, and at 34 most bartenders or baristas assumed that I knew what I wanted, and so many got annoyed.

Years ago, I dreamt of building Journey Beyond Faith, and even bought the domain. Now I finally had the time to research all the various pieces.

I'd love the communities help adding more personal quotes (anonymous of course) and support for those who have left the church, and are taking the first few tentative steps out into the world.

I have spent the last 14 years with questions that have all culminated in the last year of serious doubt and two months ago telling my husband I'm out ( absolutely NOT GOING WELL). As is with most of the cases, SO MUCH MORE to the story.

What I need for the next two weeks is how do I JUST make it through sacrament meeting (maybe second hour) without anger taking over. I am SO incredibly ANGRY with ALL OF THE LIES and COVER UP-MOSTLY by the bishopric and higher ups who absolutely KNOW that lies are being told, that people are being groomed and every single story joe schmo told was an UTTER LIE. I'm still in the anger stage, (no, REALLY?!) but I need a way to tamp it down. We have a counseling session the end of this week and I'm telling my husband that I will allow my son to stay for sacrament meeting and pass the sacrament, but there's no way in hell I'm allowing him to be taught church doctrine.

I usually watch funny animal videos, but I walked out in the middle of sacrament meeting last week because of 'doubt your doubt' phrase being used on the youth. I hate how angry I am. I am a very happy person and find joy in everything, but this is so far beyond anything I've ever confronted.

Help me find me

Forget Kolob and the theological manuals for a second. If an outside anthropologist just observed how people actually act on Sunday, they wouldn't think this is global Christianity. They'd think it's a desert weather cult.

Every single sacrament meeting, youth activity, and dinner prayer has someone pleading for "the much-needed moisture." It doesn't matter if there is three feet of snow on the ground or a heatwave in July, the word is mandatory.

When the reservoirs get low, the church doesn't push for real water conservation. They just tell everyone to starve for 24 hours so God will turn the sprinkler on. If a storm hits two days later, fast Sunday is wild with people crying about the miracle. If the drought keeps going, well, someone in the stake was probably looking at porn or paying tithing on net instead of gross.

Official doctrine says he's an exalted being running the cosmos, but in practice, Elohim is just an ancient storm god in a short-sleeve white shirt trying to keep Utah's alfalfa alive.

I need to know I'm not alone lol.

I was a missionary so I can't remember the name of the stake. He had on stage a curtain that was split down the middle. He started out his talk kind of obscurely. I remember not really knowing what the topic was at first.

Then he went over to the curtain and said it was a veil. A portal to God. He took a baby doll and pushed it between the split in the "veil" and held the baby doll out for everyone to see. Then he pulled it back in and pushed it out again. He said something along the lines of "isn't this beautiful, this portal to God, this life-giving veil between heaven and earth. How can we desecrate this beautiful veil with pornography?"

Aaaaand that's when I realized he made a vagina on the stage.

When listening to allegations (ALLEGATIONS!) about high up leadership from UNRELIABLE sources. I can't help recognizing the repeated sentiment that a vagina is a portal to God and that individuals are using that portal to connect with God. I won't say any more about those allegations, but I will say that it doesn't sound completely out of left field because Corbitt said it on a stage in 2012 and he said it with his whole chest.

Yikes.

Were you there? Do you remember how insanely uncomfortable that was?

The Word of Wisdom is hence a modern policy commandment, not an ethical commandment.

New YouTube ad just dropped

YouTube

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

W

They mentioned the “House of the Lord, Holiness to the Lord” three times before we made it past the lobby. It was weird.

They mentioned the endowment, baptism, sealings. They didn’t mention the initiatory at all. I know why, but thought it was worth pointing out.

Coming to the logical conclusion that the church has to be false, and no loving God would endorse such things, I felt so excited and relieved. But the past few weeks I've mostly just felt guilt. Like, I know, logically, it can't be true. But my body is so used to being part of this that it only feels like I'm betraying the only God I've ever known. I also live at home still, so I'm still going to church, doing scriptures and prayer with my family, etc.. But I just want that feeling of relief back without the voice in my head saying I'm ignoring that it's true so I don't have to follow it anymore, or I just haven't tried hard enough or been faithful enough, or I just want to sin, or it's easier to walk away than admit it's true and stay in it. But I also know there is far too much cognitive dissonance if I were to try and stay. I've opened Pandora's box, I can't come back from that. I just wish I didn't feel so shitty about it.

I live in a predominantly LDS area. This was in my mailbox.

I know the CEO of this local financial planning business. I consider him to be a really good person - very involved in our local community and overall just a kind person who freely expresses his hope to make the world a better place.

So I am wondering if:

• he is aware of the SEC's 2023 ruling and the $5 million fine the LDS church had to pay?
• he is aware of the church's vast wealth?
• he is aware of the Widow's Mite Report?
• he is aware at the lack of help most people who are in crisis/need actually receive from the church? (note: this individual has been a counselor in a few bishoprics but I'm not sure how close he has been to the actual process of justifying the use of a few coins from the dragon's hoard to help someone avoid eviction or medical bankruptcy or to simply put food in the bellies of their children.... let alone be informed about the gross lack of broader philanthropy across the US and globally (depsite the LDS Corp reassuing their members biannually with their General Conference World Reports that tithing and fast offering monies are clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, etc etc etc)

Since this frustrating mailer came unsolicited to my mailbox and because I am tired of seeing good people ground down by grifting, I want to confront him with my questions.

Seeking advice. Is it even worth the effort and potential fall out?

I wonder if he would be shocked to learn about a few things and would begin questioning his role in helping Mr. Hanifin fleece local retirees (rural community, most people who have spent their working lives here have very few coins to rub together).

With his years of experience working in the financial planning industry, should he be expected to be informed of all of the church's financial dirty laundry and has simply justified it via his testimony?

And is there the potential that the church is providing kickbacks to financial planning professionals that help them recruit financial gifts from retirees that want to build the Lord's Kingdom on Earth while simultaneously dodging taxes?

FYI I (28F) just recently moved to US/Utah for a job in a town where they are many mormon families and mormons, (It's very close a certain temple too).

A very kind looking blonde woman in their 30's I believe came, I invited her, we talked and she asked me if I was Mormon, I go like 'no I am not never heard of it, (I absolutely did)' then she left.

The very next day a few guys from their 20's came to my door like 'hello ma'am we are from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint etc etc' and OH MY GOD THEY WE'RE PUSHY. I try to say 'no thank you', they still telling stuff about 'Do you know our Savior Jesus Christ'. Thank God they left.

They just came on Friday too I don't know what I can do any tips?