The desperate acceptance of Mormonism. It doesn't have to be this way

The desperate acceptance of Mormonism, it doesn't have to be this way, is the title of this post.

What do I mean by the desperate acceptance of Mormonism? My parents became Mormons when I was ten years old. As a family we all had the lessons from the missionaries who all had those little portable reel to reel tape recorders/players with the small-sized tapes reels that fitted on the top. I remember that when their was a quiet passage on one of the tapes the electronics in the tape player (they must have been incredibly badly shielded!) would pick up short wave radio transmissions. Often, ironically, Radio Moscow!

We all believed, my mother more so than anyone, I think, and we were all baptised. But when I was baptised I felt a strange, unpleasant feeling in my chest. It was as if something was wrong, very badly wrong, but I did not know what. In fact, it was not the baptism so much as the Confirmation that made me feel this way. I later rationalised this by telling myself it was the power of Satan trying to disturb my, or something.

When I was 16/17 I began to notice things that weren't quite right with the Mormon Church. But, as people say, I put them on a shelf and ignored them. I became an elder, served as a primary teacher, became Ward Executive Secretary but when I was in my early to mid 20s, I began to have doubts, serious doubts. But I internalised these. It was, I felt certain, all my fault. If I pray, all would be well. But I felt that there was something wrong with me. I had what I can only describe as a desperate acceptance of Mormonism. If Mormonism was not right, then what was?

Then one day I received an answer to my many prayers. I then knew that Mormonism was a fraud. It was like a heavy weight being removed from my shoulders. Like a yoke filled with sacks of cement being taken off. That was in 1981/82. It wasn't until the late 1990s when I found RFM (I had realised I might not be the only ex-Mormon and searched using the term ex-Mormon, imagine my shock and joy when one of the first sites I found was RFM!) it was a long and continuing process of learning and discovery, of finding out that not only was Mormonism not true, but a deliberate fraud and the damage it has caused -and causes to this very day- in the lives of millions of people.

I gave up my quiet, desperate belief in Mormonism. It wasn't easy. But as the first man to swim the English Channel, Captain Webb, said: "Nothing worthwhile is ever easy."