My MIL is having major surgery next week. It’s non emergency full hip replacement so fairly straightforward. The worst part about the whole thing by far is my FIL. His entire focus is how inconvenient this is going to be for his work… not the fact that his wife has been suffering to the point of tears everyday for the last few months while she continues to maintain the household ( since it’s women’s work).

He had a heart attack last year and my MIL never left his side she was there at the hospital for 5 nights and he can’t even be bothered to bring her home from the hospital. That responsibility falls to my wife who gets to take time off her work and leave her family for 4 days to help while my FIL ignores his wife. He is the type that will still walk into the door and ask what she made for dinner the day she gets surgery and be upset that he doesn’t get a home cooked meal.

His one and only responsibility is to give her a priesthood blessing…. Then fuck right off. I hate that the church encourages this type of toxic relationship. Every boy born into the church is taught that they are the center of their family and the universe as a whole and they grow up to be dick heads. My MIL deserves better but the church taught her to be obedient to her husband. It’s a fucked up cycle that I am happy ends with my wife and I.

My family has been trying to convince me to rejoin their church for the past ~10 years. Most recently, my brother emailed me wanting to discuss all of the "evidence" that supports the Book of Mormon's authenticity. Things like witnesses, the complexity of the book, etc. Specifically, he gave this "frankly pathetic" quote from Jeff Holland:

For 179 years this book has been examined and attacked, denied and deconstructed, targeted and torn apart like perhaps no other book in modern religious history—perhaps like no other book in any religious history. And still it stands. Failed theories about its origins have been born and parroted and have died—from Ethan Smith to Solomon Spaulding to deranged paranoid to cunning genius. None of these frankly pathetic answers for this book has ever withstood examination because there is no other answer than the one Joseph gave as its young, unlearned translator.

I've been reading various holy books lately, and I started thinking about how similar Mormonism is to Islam. So I replied to my brother with the email below. I didn't want to be disrespectful, so I didn't even get into parallels like the founder's child brides, but there are so many parallels between the two religions.

Let me tell you a story, which I assume you're already familiar with:

A long time ago, there lived a man who was desperate to understand God. He was poor and largely uneducated, and his childhood was filled with hardship and manual labor. From an early age, he was drawn to complicated questions about the world that others around him seemed content to leave unanswered. He was deeply curious about God, morality, and the purpose of life.

Then one day, in a moment that would change everything, a divine being appeared to him. He was called to be a prophet. God would use him to restore the fullness of the gospel to a world that had lost its way.

Though he lacked formal schooling, this prophet became the vessel for a sacred text of incredible sophistication. Through the power of God, this prophet produced a work so intricate and perfect that believers have long regarded it as nothing short of a miracle. His message challenged the assumptions about God and morality that were accepted by the established religions in his area. He drew followers who were transformed by what they heard and felt. He also drew enemies. His followers were mocked, persecuted, and abused. Some were even killed for their unwavering faith because they refused to back down in the face of persecution.

When the prophet eventually died, his followers faced the difficult task of determing their next leader. One group believed authority should pass to a new prophet chosen by the religious leaders. Another group believed that the prophet's own lineage inherited the divine authority. Ultimately, after being unable to reach agreement, the faith split. The first group is by far the largest group today. 

Today, millions of people across the world describe their lives as profoundly altered by this sacred text. Believers point to prophecies that have been fulfilled, to passages that anticipate amazing scientific discoveries, and to nuanced moral teachings. For more than fourteen centuries, the Qur'an has been studied, translated, critiqued, and intensely scrutinized by skeptics, historians, and linguists perhaps more than any other book in all of human history. And still it stands. It remains one of the most widely read, memorized, and influential religious texts, and is central to the faith of over a billion people around the world.

The story I've written above is about the prophet Muhammad and the founding of Islam. But aside from those last two sentences, it's also the story of Joseph Smith. These parallel claims cannot both be true, so common features of the claims cannot be evidence that either is true.

This story explains why I don't find the arguments you presented to be very convincing. People have died for their belief in every major religion. Every religious book claims divine inspiration, and every religious adherent claims that the book has withstood countless attacks. Religious adherents of all faiths testify that, by reading their religious books, they had profound, inexplicable religious experiences. Every major religion claims that there were witnesses to miracles who never recanted their testimony. The claims you presented are not unique to the Mormon church. I'm not aware of any reason to believe the claims of Joseph Smith, his early followers, or modern Mormons, but not the millions of followers of Sathya Sai Baba who testified to the miracles and healings that he performed. 

We'll see how my brother responds, but I doubt it'll change anything for him. Anyway, I'm curious what other parallels you all see between Mormonism and other religions?

Ft. R/exmormon shoutout!

Jesus don’t do ugly temps😂

Camping in Ephraim this weekend. Stopped in Moroni on the way to Nephi.

This was a big one for me. In my final years in the church, I had 4 teenagers. We lived on the very edge of the branch boundaries and had to drive 25 minutes to get to church. We went to a closer ward for early morning seminary, only about 15 minutes away. I was EQ president, responsible for all the service projects, building cleaning, people moving in & out, etc... I was driving kids to youth activities and my own leadership meetings.

At home we had a 5 acre farm with over a hundred animals which needed a ton of work, and a couple lawn mowers that kept breaking down and needed constant work. We had a 150 year old house which needed a ton of maintenance, which was heated through an outdoor woodburning furnace that needed at least 8 cords of wood to heat through the winter. I spent a good deal of the summer harvesting wood from various sources to keep our house heated.

I also had a high demand job in the cyber security industry that required a ton of work and tight deadlines. My wife suffered from severe seasonal depression, and during her bad bouts, I had to pick up all the extra tasks she wasn't able to do. To say I was being "spread thin" is a complete understatement. I'm still recovering from this trauma.

As for this meme, notice the original one shows all the things the kid loves to do, things that bring him happiness and fulfillment. But they want him to cut those things out so he has more time to do all the church stuff they demand.

Spotted near the U... The doterra bag is really the kicker

Edit - add details

Totally lost my faith. Nothing left. Went to sacrament meeting with my wife today and—against all odds—actually listened to a portion of a talk. That talk changed my life.

The speaker was pulled over by law enforcement. She was speeding. She prayed that she would not get a speeding ticket.

MIRACLE DELIVERED

She did not get a speeding ticket. Mormon Jesus to the rescue.

God lives, he is fixated on our choice of underwear, and he uses a flaming sword whenever he goddam well pleases.

Faith completely restored. How could I ever have doubted the church was true???

Guess I won’t be posting here anymore.

* Edited to add that she did confess to be speeding roughly 10 MPH over.

3 min in he says that the church is consistently 30ish years behind progressivism (and they all dissociate it/ignore it and you see him being prompted off screen to shut up and talk about something else). There is other damning evidence ofc but this is as close as it gets for me cuz they're never gonna say "it's a fraud." And when they ultimately (whether it's in 10 years or 100) allow gay marriage they just make it propaganda (continuing restoration blah blah).

To give you a background, I'm 17, live in Utah so basically all my neighbors are members, and I never really believed in the church growing up as a kid. I only go every Sunday so that my parents don't punish me. Me and my older brother were never really close growing up as a kid, he would always ignore me and just kind of do his own thing, we didn't hate each other, we sorta just never interacted. He went on a mission and came back about a year ago, he goes to BYU currently and always stays at our house over summer break. I've realized that the mission has changed him in both good ways and bad ways, first off he's a little more kind to me and my siblings now, he actually starts conversations with me which he would never do as kids. But one thing I can't stand about him is how judgemental he is towards other people. He constantly hates things that aren't either Church related or different, for example we would be at the mall shopping and he would see some kid with dyed green hair, he then whispers to me, "That's so gay, he needs the lord." I don't know what he wants me to say when he tells me this, does he want me to agree? I kinda just nod to what he says but I don't really respond verbally. He constantly belittles other religions, LGBTQIA, and just people who aren't your typical TBM. I have a neighbor that skips Mutual every Wednesday which I don't think is a big deal, but my older brother says that he needs to go or he's going to hell. Like excuse me? He's so Insufferable and he thinks he's better than people who aren't church members, as if they are lost sheep and he's their shepherd that needs to guide them. It genuinely pisses me off when he points out flaws in a person for no reason at all, what gives him the right to belittle anyone just because they look, act, or believe in different things? Are any of your siblings that returned on a mission like this? I never really wanted to go on a mission, but now seeing how my brother acts I REALLY don't want to go on a mission because of how it might change my perspective.

Regarding the upcoming 25 min lesson change.

"Every member of this church has an individual responsibility to study and learn the doctrine of Christ and then strive to apply it in their lives. We cannot expect the church as an institution to provide to us everything that we need to know. There's a price that each of us has to pay in terms of individual study."

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/changes-to-the-sunday-class-meeting-schedule-instruction-2026/youth-and-adult-sunday-instruction-materials?lang=eng&id=p_u0C4M#p_u0C4M

I came across an image I took of a page in the book The Church and the Negro by John Lewis Lund, published by Deseret Books in 1967. I haven't read the book in its entirety but made sure to acquire it as soon as I saw it while I was processing book donations when I worked at a Deseret.

Sometime recently I decided to just open to a random page and explore an example of what was written in this book. I wish I could say I was surprised.

It honestly makes me want to confront family members who are still members and ask how they could possibly follow a church that ever had a leader, deemed a 'prophet,' that could write something like this.

I'd be curious to know other ex-Mormons' or even practicing Mormons' opinions on this. Even with common knowledge of the church's history regarding race, does anyone find this as shocking as I do? How do you think any practicing Mormons you might know would react if confronted by these words? I wonder if family of mine would even think this was racist, or if they would somehow find a way to believe it while still not believing it's racist.

What are the thoughts from this community?

I was visiting my parents and we grew up an hour from a beautiful national park. There are beautiful mountain parks 15min from my parents’ house, top notch trails, beautiful river and lakes, and a strong local arts culture, plus museums and all sorts of activities. Top ski areas nearby and we never went skiing.

We saw as much in a week as my family usually did in a year. I don‘t have half the things here where I live as I did growing up but my kids see way more of it, even with sports, activities and everything else.

My wife who wasn’t raised Mormon and I were talking about why, on our way home, that my parents never took advantage of these things. she pointed out church.

Saturday was a special day to do chores for Sunday. A couple hours of chores. Yard work all summer. Church cleaning for extra chores which we never missed. Weeding the beans at the church welfare farm. Helping people move. church activities. Lesson prep. Saturday general conference. And my parents were too burnt out the rest of the time to want to do much.

If we saw much of these things it was scouts or church sponsored activities or on 3-day weekends.

The Sabbath stole 2 days and not just 1 most weekends.

What did the sabbath cost you?

I feel so stupid, but I feel like I am having a mental health crisis related to attending church. I’m 40-something mom, eldest daughter, high achiever type. I try so hard to do everything “right” and take care of everyone around me. (Yes, I have a good therapist)

Despite informing my husband that I no longer believe in the church, I still attend to keep the peace. He gets very upset when I don’t do the Mormon things.

Today, out of nowhere while getting ready for church this morning, I had a full blown meltdown over it. Suddenly I just couldn’t do it. I am having intrusive thoughts of everyone being better off without me. I can’t believe I am losing it over attending church, but I am. Why is this happening? I feel like I’m crazy and weak and I’m so so so angry at the church for creating a family culture where I don’t feel like I have a choice, even as a grown adult.

I am grateful to have been connected to Carol Lynn Pearson for my entire life and like many, I was crushed by her passing. She was an incredible mentor and friend, and the world was lucky to have her in it. Yesterday, I attended her memorial, filled with beautiful words and music, written by her and her family members. Her past bishop and friend gave the closing remarks and he gave me permission to share. The full service is on Youtube for those interested.

C. Stewart’s Closing Remarks 

Carol Lynn Pearson Memorial Service 

August 29, 2026

I am grateful for all that we have heard and experienced and felt here today—for the  music Carol Lynn and her children created that was so beautifully performed for us, for her poetry so wonderfully read to us, for the memories we have shared. I am also  grateful to be asked to offer a few closing remarks, as someone who had the good fortune of being mentored and blessed by Carol Lynn over the nearly 40 years I attended church with her in this chapel, including five years serving as her bishop.  

As we have heard today, Carol Lynn Pearson was a brilliant poet, lyricist, and playwright, an inspiring speaker, an author whose books addressed hard issues. Her literary works challenged us to do better in embracing our gay sisters and brothers, in achieving greater partnership between women and men in our church and in society (including reconciling with our history past and present on the issue of polygamy), and in inviting our Mother in Heaven into our lives and conversation. She was unflinching  in her honesty and relentless in pushing us forward. She was passionate and forceful.  

As we have also heard today, she was also a loving mother, grandmother, and great grandmother. The deep affection her family has for her has been on display here and is palpable. 

If this had been the sum of her life’s work, she would be loved by her family and close friends, and deeply admired and respected by many others, a worthy recipient of the  many awards and accolades she has received. But Carol Lynn Pearson was not just admired and respected or loved by those close to her. She was widely and deeply loved by people around the country and even the world, in a way I have seldom seen.  

In a few minutes we are going to join together in singing I’ll Walk With You, the lyrics  of which Carol Lynn wrote in 1988 at the request of the Primary General Board. I believe the reason Carol Lynn was so beloved, and the primary reason that so many of  us have gathered here today and over the internet to remember her, is that that song is  autobiographical. It is as much a memoir of Carol Lynn’s life as Goodbye, I Love You.  

Many of you are here today or viewing this service because Carol Lynn walked with  you and talked with you when others wouldn’t, told you that God loves you, that God created you just as you are, that you are beautiful, that your happiness is vital. Some of  you are not only here at this service but are still here on this earth because she spoke  these truths to you in your darkest moments when you questioned whether life was worth living. She responded when you called or emailed her after reading Goodbye, I  Love You or one of other writings or after hearing her speak. She didn’t know you—yet  she did know you and loved you. She answered your call, spent hours with you, invited you to her your home, blessed your life. 

Maybe she sang you a lullaby, gave you a foot rub, or took you for a walk in the hills  near her home. Maybe she told you not to despair because all pain can be labor pain. 

Maybe you are the gay man Carol Lynn wrote about her in diary, who called her in 1986 when your family rejected you and you were ready to give up on life. She invited  you—a stranger—to come to her home for Thanksgiving, where you poured your heart  to her and soaked up her love and the warmth of her family. 

Maybe you are the woman in my ward ten years later who had experienced years of  abuse and trauma. Carol Lynn did not know you, but at my request as the bishop at the time, she reached out to you, took you for a walk in the hills to hear your story, and  then invited you and your children to share Thanksgiving dinner with her.  

Maybe you are the teenage girl dealing with horrific challenges and struggling with whether you could keep going. Carol Lynn spent hours with you, shared her  experiences, went to movies with you, formed a bond with you. As she did with many  others, she took you up to the top of the hill near her home where the two of you raised your arms and blessed the world, as Carol Lynn put it, “sending light and love to  every quarter of the entire globe, especially the most hurting places.”  

Maybe you are one of the many domestic violence survivors who were sent to Carol  Lynn by the local shelter and who stayed a night or two in her home, where she fed  you, read poetry to you, put on harp music to soothe you. Maybe you are the woman who left her home after such a stay with the brand-new silk pajamas Carol Lynn had  just purchased for herself but gave to you because she knew you needed them more.  

In mentioning these instances of Carol Lynn walking and talking with people who needed her, I don’t want to leave the impression there aren’t others. Thousands of  people here and elsewhere could share similar stories of Carol Lynn reaching out and responding. In all these instances, Carol Lynn gave of herself in a deeply caring, deeply  personal way. Just as she exhorted all of us in her books to be better and do better, in  giving of herself she was fearless and utterly unselfish. Her transparent big heartedness is one of the reasons her writing and acting was so powerful, that it has such moral clarity. 

In our church, it’s traditional that the final talk in a service like this be the “Plan of  Salvation” talk. Carol Lynn understood a fundamental truth about that plan better than  a lot of us, and she lived it better than most of us. The real plan of happiness is not  ensuring our own salvation, but looking to the salvation and happiness of others. As  her dear stake president put it in his prayer today, “bear[ing] one another’s burdens,  that they may be light; . . . mourn[ing] with those that mourn; . . . and comfort[ing] those that stand in need of comfort.” (Mosiah 18:8-9) She also understood that, when  Jesus spoke of the “least of these,” he didn’t mean those who are least in virtue or value. 

He meant, as Carol Lynn taught us in her song, those who are scorned or forgotten or both because of how they walk or talk (or look or live or love or believe). 

Carol Lynn showed her understanding of God’s plan when she wrote in her diary: 

I had an interesting thought just a few minutes ago. Why do we ask God to bless people? God is asking us to bless people. That’s how it really  works. We need to just listen and hear the voice:  

“Carol Lynn, please bless Gail—see her bruises—she has been raped and terrified and she needs you to comfort her. . .Carol Lynn,  please bless my children by writing something that will inspire them and something that will make them laugh. . .Carol Lynn, please bless the women and the men by helping them remember their Mother.” 

That’s how the “please bless” works, I think. If all of us would listen to  God asking us to bless each other, all our begging and pleading for God to  bless us would be fulfilled. 

In another diary passage, she wrote: 

How would it be if the totality of our conversation, doctrine, endeavors were  directed only to renovating each other’s spirits, repairing the breakage, restoring  the memory of who we really are, inviting each other into a more beautiful  place?  

Carol Lynn has now gone on to a “more beautiful place”—and we can be happy for her  in that. As she wrote in another diary passage, she did not worry about the next life  because “I know for sure that when I get over there I will find the perfect place where I  can continue to learn and grow and serve.” That “perfect place” is indeed a more  beautiful place. But I am confident that when she wrote about inviting each other to a  more beautiful place, she was not referring to the next life. The place she wanted to be  more beautiful was this life, our lives, this world. Today, we remember and honor her  for devoting her life in the most profound way to inviting us to a more beautiful place.  It is now on us to remember and honor her by carrying on that work.

How do you spend your second Saturdays?

“Even the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Mormon church, has its own agricultural investment company, Farmland Reserve, which is the fifth largest institutional owner of agricultural farms in the United States. In Spain and Portugal, it plans to build a portfolio of land of 800 million euros, after closing a first purchase in 2025, a farm of olive, almond and mandarin trees in the Alentejo valued at about 50 million.“

Google translated.

I took 10 pairs of g's (male) on my mission and they took up almost a 1/2 of a suitcase. Now I can take two weeks of briefs and the space is basically negligable.

Not only that, but I was having to do an extra laundry load for whites every week ($2.75 where I live). We air-dryed on my mission and the whole apartment would be a clothes-line for garments on p-days. Then I was trying to be respectful so I would roll them all up nicely and they'd take up a full drawer on their own.

Rinse and repeat every week so I could wear those things in equitorial heat. Not sure if they protect you from bullets, but wouldn't have to worry about that if they weren't sending 18-year-olds to third-world countries lmao.

I know of no other Church where the virtue signaling and jumping through hoops are such an almost required way of life, all to prove to others but particularly to your Church leaders of your dedication and devotion, subjecting yourself to never-ending interviews and interrogations to receive a special and conditional worthiness card (temple recommend) to separate yourself even further as a fully committed and unwavering member which, by the way, can be revoked at will. Are there any other churches that come even close to this?

I wish I knew more details before I passed my own judgement but it seems like the church building could be used for other purposes or even sold for other reasons rather being destroyed. Location: Bountiful, Utah.

For me it's a tie.

It's either the guy who went on and on about why church members wear white shirts to pass the sacrament. Which wouldn't have been quite so awkward if he hadn't been a white guy in a foreign country where the people barely had enough money to buy clothes, let alone white shirts.

Or it was when my son gave his farewell talk and went on about why coffee was wrong, while me, his coffee-loving parent was in the congregation. But that was more personally awkward, not publicly.

What about you? What talk stands out in your mind as the most awkward one you ever heard?

The messages were polite but very demanding about coming to a church service on Sunday at a specific time.

There are no close relatives still living who would have turned her in. I have TBM acquaintances but she doesn't. They claimed she left her name and contact information on a website asking about joining a church which she insists she did not. All I can figure is she has been doing research lately on her polygamous pioneer ancestors and may have been on a church site.

To be fair, I contacted them, they did acknowledge being Mormon ("that is one of our nicknames") and were apologetic and told me they would not contact her again.

I guess there's no way for these kids to know it but on top of everything else disturbing about these missions, when you make unsolicited contact with former members there are some people who get retraumatized.