Looking Beyond the Horizon

The contents of this article are sensitive and I want them to not be misunderstood. I’m not really sure where to begin and seeing as I am a poor writer this all might be jumbled in a sense as this is a reflection of the past few months that have transpired.

I wanted to start off and express how blessed I am. I have a beautiful, healthy and amazing family. We’re very fortunate to have a home, a great job and afford the necessities in life. I’m privileged to be able to attend school, have transportation, the list goes on and on temporally speaking. Emotionally, my wife and I are madly in love with one another and always try to spend as much time together. We enjoy being open/ honest with each other about anything! We both have a strong belief in God and Christ. We love the gospel and the happiness that it brings. We value the morals we were brought up with especially in a world where it’s important to know where you stand and not be tossed to and fro like a leaf in the wind.

Getting to the point, I’m not active in the LDS faith anymore. What does that exactly mean? Well, after sincere study and pondering I’ve come to certain conclusions about my faith and where it stands in the church. Basically, my wife and I have prayerfully left activity in the LDS Church. To be made clear though, I still believe in Christ, I believe in various teachings in the LDS Church too. It’s something ingrained in me I couldn’t ever run from. We were never looking for a way out or liberty to do things the church didn’t allow or approve of. We still pray, read the Bible and go to sacrament meeting (every now and then). Getting back to myself though, I was never confronted with anti-mormon teachings or ideas. I was never offended by someone within the LDS faith, so on and so forth. Still sounds a bit confusing right?

I began a personal interest in history from my father who always raised my family with historical movies, stories, games, etc. That interest in history led me to LOVE doing family history work and learning about my ancestors. It also led me to a sincere interest in the LDS Church’s origins and foundations too. With that being said, as of the past few months I found myself at home and at work listening to audio books, reading and researching about the church and it’s foundation. I think really due to the fact that we moved to Utah and I began working for the LDS Church and so I became very curious about things. In the initial part of this journey I had told myself, “I’m going to answer those tough questions, then I can be a defender of the faith”. I told myself this partially because of something my patriarchal blessing stated. I continued discovering new things I had no idea about, things that shook me to the core. Things I didn’t want my wife to know about because I didn’t want to put doubts or concerns in her head about me or the church. My wife eventually confronted me, she knew something was wrong and desired me to be open and honest with her like we always had been. This was different, I had so much anxiety about this. Could this ruin our marriage? Will this push our families away from us? If I open up about my findings would I be excommunicated? Would I be separated from the Lords flock and not enjoy the blessings of eternal salvation? After fervent prayer, I opened up to my wife, for the sake of our marriage and being honest. I began sharing my discoveries, I had made notes and remembered where I found them. I told myself from the get go that I would not read material not published by the church or sold in Deseret Book Stores. I would read credible sources and try to understand the context of each thing. It started with the Joseph Smith Papers. From there it led to church essays on LDS.Org. Then I read a book sold in Deseret Book Stores titled, “Rough Stone Rolling”. A book written by an LDS historian and scholar, described as an extremely non-bias view into Joseph Smith’s life. I showed my wife articles and quotes from Times and Seasons, Book of Commandments, original versions of the Book of Mormon, Journal of Discourses (which used to be approved material from the LDS Church). I even read into the very apologetic FAIRMORMON website which has answers to a lot of questions and concerns people have about the church. My wife and I then discovered the CES letter and that we weren’t alone in all the red flags and discrepancies we were encountering. It was a letter written to a director of Church Education at Church headquarters by a Mormon who read into the LDS Church’s foundation and had sincerely asked for understanding.

I digress, my intention isn’t to share with people who may still believe or are struggling, etc. and lead them away from their faith. Again, I didn’t even want my wife to know about any of this. So I won’t take up this article sharing my specific findings and/ or things that made me come to my conclusions.

After all the research my wife and I began to uncover, it soon became difficult to view the church the same way. I opened up a little to a close knit of friends and family who offered some help. I’d taken challenges to read and pray again about the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon I strongly relied on and was my crutch at any time of doubt. I was shown talks and articles online to help me in my struggles. We had gone to talk to our stake president about our concerns. I even spoke to someone close to me within the Church Education System. It was just impossible to see things the same anymore. Pressure increased from those around us and we were told that Satan was deceiving us, we never had testimonies of the church, etc. I prayed daily in my studies to not be deceived and to be led by the spirit. I intentionally avoided things that seemed anti-mormon. We were never looking for a way out of the church. I loved the church, I loved the Book of Mormon, I loved serving a mission, we were faithful, active members! I really felt like if I was wrong prove me wrong, I want to be wrong. We knew we weren’t going to get answers to everything in this life and that was okay but certain things were just not okay.

After opening up a bit, certain individuals gave us support and love even if they didn’t agree. We were encouraged to just relax and not beat ourselves up. In the end, my conclusion was that God loves us. He would never damn my wife and I for being honest seekers of truth. I do not believe our judgment when we die would be like that. God understands what each and everyone of us is going through. He will listen to our thoughts and prayers. Based on what we do with our circumstances given, we will be judged.

So this is a slice of our story. We hope to move forward and with the faith we do have in Christ and in His gospel continue to find joy in this life. We just won’t be doing that anymore in the LDS Church. We desire not to offend those we hold dear like family and friends. With this, just receive the one thing we ask to be able to move forward, respect our decision.