If you came to my blog to find controversy against the Mormons you came to the wrong place. My story is to express my experience, and to help teach future converts like myself and the already huge Mormon community Utah already has. I'm going to give you a short background of my life.
My family was raised LDS, my sisters all grew up like most Utah kids and was baptized at the good age of eight.
At that time I was four years old and don't remember much of going to church or even being taught about the gospel at that age.
After my older sister was baptized we stopped going to church and I grew up knowing nothing about it. I was always a very spiritual kid, experienced things I never liked telling people for the sake of being weirder than I already am. I had my experiences with the dead, with the living, and grew up a very intuitive child that never New what the Mormon bubble was. I seen things as a kid that got my little brain a rolling and asking a million questions about life and our purpose. I guess when you spend a lot of time alone as a kid you have more than enough time for thinking. I was a odd kid for sure, never fit in with any click or crowd. I kind of just became friends with the kids most like me. Weird into witch craft and thinking I could fly ha ha I was ten ok and had a great imagination. 🦇
I got really bullied as a kid from a lot of kids in school. It didn't matter what school I transferred to there was always someone their with a mouth that kept going.
As I got older I kept my circle small. As much as I would have lived being a popular kid it wasn't in my cards. Wasn't till I got older and out of high school and realized I worried way to much about that stuff anyways.
With my childhood and teen years suffering hard from depression and anxiety and mentally not able to understand or analyze situations I became very childlike. I had a kid of my own already but mentally still suffering from my past, and all the mental, and physical abuse from situations I don't want to speak about because I have since moved on from that.
I was destroying my relationship with my husband and was drinking way to much and putting my responsibilities on the sidelines. I was selfish, and I honestly hated my life.
I found unhealthy ways to get attention and it all could have ended my marriage. So I knew I needed a change and I finally after a few years decided I needed to grow up and be responsible. I had a lot to loose and I needed to not be a jerk.
So I decided to stop partying and doing irresponsible things and wanted to straighten myself out.
I started saying my prayers which I haven't done in a long time. Well after a cigarette and a beer and a VERY long talk with the missionaries I decided to have them over for lessons. I never knew about how the religion became and I was genuinely curious about it. Now from my understanding they teach lessons for only a few weeks and then if you are ready you get baptized. Well I had so many questions in my head and they didn't have any answers for me. It became tedious to do these lessons because o wasn't getting a thing out of it. So we decided to send over the mission president to help out with my deeper questioning. After a month and a half of lessons it started to click and I was beginning to understand the religion better. I quit smoking, and drinking mind you I was 20. I was more excepting of the religion and the teachings. I finally decided after two months and countless blessings to get baptized. January, 17th 2009.
I went on doing church things and meetings and all the birthday dinners and fun activities ect. I met great people and had met some not so great people.
After about five years in the church and being sealed for time and all eternity with my husband and three kids everything changed.
In 2012 after my last son and miscarriage I fell ill and bedridden. I prayed Day and night to either be healed or to be taken home because the pain was so excruciating I didn't want to be alive. I analyzed every possible reason as to why I was suffering so bad. What did God want me to learn from all this? I was dying. I became so severely depressed but I wanted to be the best mom and wife that I could. I knew how much I would be loosing if I had given up. I prayed all day, all night and I felt like god had put me on mute. I became discouraged and started wondering what was the point in all this? Living, and our lessons ect.
I decided to think outside my Mormon trained mind. After countless blessing and prayers not being answered I began to doubt my faith.
I guess some people do? I haven't talked to a lot of converts.
I started doing energy work, EFT, prayers to the universe, using oils, practicing positivity and gratitude. That changed my life.
After all my misery I woke up one day with no pain and feeling completely euphoric. I knew then I was on the right path. Did this make me leave the church? No it didn't actually, it helped me.
What started pushing me away was the people. Yeah you read that right, the people.
After all that time being sick I lost a lot of weight. I was 5'4" and 119lbs. I know we always say we don't go to church for the people, we go for the gospel. Well guess what? When people are rude to you, it makes it hard to attend church period. You want to go and be at peace when you are there, not filled with anxiety.
People would come up to me and grab at my waist and say " you are just to thin." Or at relief society parties I was told "I was to thin and I needed to eat."
I would go home and cry because I was so sick and people knew that and yet they still were so mean about it. One problem here is the gossip and the clicks within the church. That has got to stop, it makes me sick.
The church teaches to love one another as I have loved you and yet I have never felt so out of place and judged till after I have been in those walls for a few years. Yes I have tattoos and a history much like we all do but when people look down on you for it that's when I have issues.
After the skinny incident I stopped going to church. I would go every Sunday even if I went alone until then.
After going to a new ward I tried to share my testimony with strangers and then I found out they all were gossiping behind my back and saying I had cancer. I just laughed and blew it all off because I knew that wasn't true but that made me not want to go there anymore. At the time I was diagnosed with MS. People got that twisted big time. I don't like being the talk of the town . I like being quite but I will talk when I need to.
Over time I got to thinking about how flawed everyone is especially in the church. We are all broken but we don't need to be eachothers punching bags. We are supposed to be able to lean on eachother for help. After a lot of thought about the last couple years and going through my head my experiences I became really sad. I realized I had more anxiety, more depression and way more weight on my shoulders to the point it literally was hard to breathe. I just didn't fit in or fit that Mormon mold. It didn't feel right anymore and I felt like I was forcing myself to be someone I wasn't. I would have to be a different person when I was out and put on a front just to look like a good church going lady.
I did learn a lot and I grew over the years to be a better wife and more understanding. I matured a lot especially after three years of personal counseling.
After a while peeling back the fake layers of who I thought is had to be made me feel like the weight was slowly lifting off me. I found that just being outside in my garden, in nature, using my oils, crystals, and meditation from my own space made the word of difference with my health and wellbeing. I found that Mormonism isn't for me.
What I did find is that there are lots of religions and a lot of souls that are each on a different path with a different purpose, and we all aren't going to be able to be the same. We weren't born to have the same lives, the same religious beliefs, nor are we to have the same trials either. We aren't meant to be the same.
There are 7.4 billion people on this planet 🌎
And Buddha taught that love can cure the hate.
We don't need religion either to be respectful, kind, loving or understanding. We just need to be ourselves, do what we feel is right for ourselves because we are spirit beings on a journey of our own. I think a lot of people forget that. Some people search for religions to help them understand the world better but we can't understand the world better if we don't understand ourselves and truly love ourselves for who we are. Some people find comfort in knowing the past and how we became who we are but history is history for reason and what we need to be focusing on is the present because what happens in the now and how we feel right now is what is going to determine our future and how this world will be in the decades to come.
Humans have been around for hundreds of thousands of years, each with their own purpose and meaning.
I do not want to push people away from the church by any means the point of this post is to help people to understand that bullying can happen even inside the church walls and also to remind everybody that you don't really need religion to be happy unless that is what fills your heart with happiness and what helps you to be a better person. If it helps you to grow to be kind and understanding without truly judging others then that is a great achievement for you. Please do not push your beliefs on other people that do not want it at that time not everybody is meant to be a part of your religion because all of our beliefs are different and all of our purpose' here are different. No two people are ever going to be the exact same way some people have a very strong faith and some are still struggling. so for those of you that are Mormon open your heart and be a little bit more kind and understanding to others situations. Do not judge others because they do not join the church. Be nice to those that are a part of the church and be more excepting to those that aren't either. people can love other people and have relationships with other people it does not have to be based off of religion. I was told that several kids growing up couldn't be friends with other kids or play with other kids unless they were LDS and I think that's where some people are getting their religion twisted.
Please be courteous of other people's paths in life regardless if they're like yours or not I think people of our generation need to be more open minded and more understanding because we will never ever ever be the same.
Now that I have taken the path that makes me the most who I am I feel like I finally found my purpose in life.
No I no longer do find myself a part of any religion I do believe in ominism and that there is good with in all religions. I meditate, burn sage, and do yoga daily, and I have found more peace within myself I'll because of it. I believe in God and Jesus Christ all the same but I do believe in the universe, energy, and light work.
Just some advice continue to love yourself love your neighbors be more compassionate do more gratitude and be more open-minded because we are all human we all bleed the same color, and we are all on a journey.
🕉☮️❤️
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