My General History especially in regards to the church.

I was born into a very Mormon family and grew up in a small town in Utah. I think I had a fairly typical childhood compared to other kids who would have grown up in a small town in Utah. My family dates back to near the founding of Mormonism. I have ancestors that date back to Kirtland area. I also have ancestors that would have come across later from England and crossed the plains to Utah. Most people growing up here have similar ancestry and for many of us the church was just a part of everyone's lives. I knew some kids that didn’t go to church. That was the exception though. I also knew some kids that lived close by in a neighboring polygamist community. Their kids went to our middle school and high school. They also had a belief in Joseph Smith and the restoration, but are still part of a branch that practices Polygamy. For me growing up there really wasn’t any doubt about the validity of the church. It was always true, it had always been true, and it always would be true. I didn’t have many spiritual experiences as a child, but I will relate two of them here. The first was my baptism. I vividly remember my dad baptizing me and coming out of the water. I immediately felt clean and happy. I remember going out to eat with my family after as well and still just feeling the same way. I don’t have a great way to explain it other than that. It faded fairly quickly. I do remember feeling terrible guilt probably the next day when I got into a fight/argument with my younger brother. I seem to remember a comment from my mom or dad after fighting where they chastised me for behaving poorly after I was baptized. I was no longer clean after that. I would need to repent. I don’t remember exactly if there was a comment from my mom or dad, but I do remember feeling extremely guilty after this fight i had. I knew after that I was never going to be all the way clean like I was after my baptism. I don’t remember a lot of things back then, but I do feel like I remember that day in particular pretty well. The next experience I had was probably around the same time as my baptism. I may have been younger. I don’t think i was any older than 9 though. My brother and I were climbing a tree in our yard that we had climbed many times. In this tree there was a fork between these two big branches. We would use one side of this fork to put our foot to move to the other side of the tree. One time while I was placing my foot in this fork my foot slipped down into the crack between the two branches. It became stuck and wedged there. I was able to sit on a close branch and wasn’t in any real danger, but I was worried that I couldn’t get my foot loose. I tried to pull it out. Nothing seemed to work. I did start to panic after a bit. My brother tried to calm me down and reminded me that I should pray. I remember thinking ‘Oh yeah. I should have thought of that’. I didn’t doubt at all that praying would work. I folded my arms and began to pray. Immediately after praying I felt a presence of someone. I don’t know how else to describe it, other than I felt like someone was there floating in the air next to me. I could almost see this person. I also felt complete comfort. I knew was no longer scared or worried anymore. I also felt someone placing their around my foot and twisting just a little so it was loose. My foot instantly came out. I then said another prayer thanking God for answering and helping me. I don’t know how to feel about this story now in my life. I always referred back to this story whenever I had any doubts. It really kept my faith going far longer than It probably would have without it. I know it is probably not anything really miraculous. In this case I could see my memory embellishing this story to myself over the years that it’s become this somewhat profound story to me. My foot most likely just came loose because I was sat and relaxed and just needed to twist my foot instead of pull it directly out. It has still remained with me and still I reflect on it from time to time.

Moving forward in time I never really had any doubts about the church until I was around 12 or so. At this time I had a few friends move away. I was a very quiet kid. I never had a lot of friends to begin with. The few I did have moved pretty close to each other when i was 10 or 11. I didn’t really make a lot of friends after that. I stayed at home mostly and that was fine, but I did want friends. My dad had an opportunity to move with his job when I was 12 or so. He was convinced I think that he was going to the job. It would have been out of state and would move us to the Oregon Idaho border. I was worried about it at first when my parents told me about this probably happening. We ended up taking a family ‘trip’ to go see the area and my dad was going to finish a final interview while we were up there in the area. I was worried about it, but I didn’t have many friends where I was living before. I thought it might be good to have a fresh start and move. I didn’t see myself becoming friends with anyone from the school I had went to my entire life. Everyone already had friends and I didn’t see myself changing anything in the future there. I prayed about moving and felt the burning in the bosom that we would move and it would be ok. I became convinced that we would move. We didn’t however. My dad did not get the job like he was planning on. This became the start of some doubting for me. I had prayed and done everything right I had thought. Why didn’t it happen? I didn’t know. I started to doubt a little. Over the next couple years I actually did make some friends. I became a lot happier with my social life with just a few friends. One friend in particular I started hanging out with more after school. We started cussing and swearing. I remember the first time I cussed. I was by myself. I had heard people swear but I never did. I knew God would be upset and it was a sin. I never did it. One day I was in my room and I just had to see what would happen if I did. All these other people were swearing and nothing happened to them. It took some courage and longer than it should have, but eventually I swore out loud in my room by myself. Nothing happened. No bolt of lightning or anything. I don’t know what I really was expecting. It was a little exciting though. I had this thing that me and my friend would do and nobody else in my family knew. It was a little step though into doubting. Why was I told it was so evil to swear when I did I felt great. It was almost liberating.

At the end of my 10th grade year we did actually move away. We moved up to Portland Oregon. My dad went back and finished more Schooling and then got a promotion. This time however I felt very differently I did not want to move. I had actually made some friends and was very content with life. I had just turned 16 when we moved. I was able to get my drivers license in Utah before we left. This was another situation where I prayed and begged God not to have me move. Still we moved anyway. Before moving I had one experience that I feel to mention. When taking drivers ed we need to drive with an instructor 3 times. We also rode with one other student as well. I rode with one girl in particular for two of the drives. She was a girl I actually knew from my childhood but hadn’t really talked with for many years before. We were both very shy, but during the drivers ed car rides we ended up connecting again. I adored her after that. It really hurt that I had just turned 16 and was moving. I wanted to ask her out and I would have except we were moving and i didn’t see any real benefit besides potential heartache. We moved to Oregon the day after the last day of school. The school in Oregon was still in session for another week when we got there. We didn’t attend or anything, but it did leave me with the longest and loneliest summer of my life. I was bitter about moving. I was upset at God for seemingly knowing what I wanted and doing the opposite. Twice now. I still generally believed throughout all of this, though never as strongly as when I was younger. Oregon was a very different place than Utah. My school had a few members of the church but not many. Once school started I did make a few friends there. It wasn’t so lonely after that. I was still very awkward and shy. Being Mormon in this new environment was also challenging. I generally felt more welcomed by the non religious kids than the Christian kids. I do think most kids there were ‘Christian’ but most didn’t go regularly. The Christian kids that I am referring were the ones that were very much into being Christian. Many of them brought their bibles to school and read them during breaks. It wasn’t a big deal but that was my experience.

I really had two things happen in Oregon that have stuck with me. The first is pretty mundane, but has ended up shaping my life in unexpected ways. It was similar to the swearing experience I had when I was younger. It was the first time I watched an R rated movie. I think I was 16 at the time. We had been in Oregon a while, but probably not a year yet. The bishop of the ward needed someone to babysit his kids while him and his wife went out. They wanted someone older because it was going to be late before they got back. They mostly wanted someone like me to just watch the house and be awake and make sure nothing went wrong. Their kids were usually in bed by the time I would get to their house. I would stay there till 1 or 2 in the morning when they would get back. I would generally just watch movies. He had several R rated movies at his house. One of them was The Matrix. R rated movies were always bad. We weren’t supposed to watch them as Mormons. At this point it didn’t take much to convince myself to do it though. My first time swearing I had to gear up for that, but by now I had the opportunity and took it. I didn’t have any R rated movies at my house and no real way to watch them. I couldn’t rent them or go into a theater without adult supervision. I watched the movie and it was a good movie. I really enjoyed it. It probably wasn’t helpful to have the first one I watch be The Matrix. I had watched plenty of PG-13 movies that I would have deemed more offensive and inappropriate than The Matrix. From there I watched several others like The Patriot, Saving Private Ryan, and Braveheart. All of those I felt actually had plenty of redeeming qualities to them. They were historical fiction and I thought told moral stories. Why were they sinful and evil when you have a lot of PG-13 movies that wouldn’t have any redeeming quality other than entertainment. The other moment in Oregon that struck me was getting my patriarchal blessing. It was a very spiritual experience and I do remember feeling ‘the spirit’ during the blessing. I most importantly remember a very specific prompting I got when the blessing began talking about me getting married and having children later in life. I had the distinct impression that I would marry the girl from driver ed class and my childhood. I really hadn’t thought about her in a while. It wasn’t like I spent a lot of time thinking about her before this either. In drivers ed I really enjoyed getting to know her and we had a good time. At the time this felt like a true impression and revelation to me. There was still one thing that bothered me however about this. That was in my blessing it actually says ‘into your life will come a young lady’. When referring to the woman I was to marry it says she will come into my life, but if that was the case why did I feel this prompting that I already knew who i was going to marry. It stuck with me for my life.

In 2005 I was called to serve in the Iowa Des Moines mission. When I first got the call I was pretty devastated actually. In my patriarchal blessing it also said I would be called to a mission in a foreign land. That’s what I was planning on. When I opened the call and read Des Moines I was a little emotional and tried to hide it. I think people thought I was feeling the spirit when I was really broken up and confused as to what this meant. Was I not worthy? Am I being called to the wrong place? Mostly I felt like I had done wrong and was not worthy of the promise in the patriarchal blessing. If that was the case then would I not get the other blessing promised there as well. I didn’t tell anyone anything. Never mentioned my worries to anyone. I just kept quite and went on the mission. My mission still stays with me to this day. It was a very impactful two years that helped shape the rest of my life. I would absolutely not be the same person today if I hadn’t gone. That being said I don’t think I would go if I could do it over again. Even while I was still believing I never looked back and thought it was a good Idea. I could write a lot about my mission and everything that happened. I may do that at some point, but for now I’ll relate a few feeling and takeaways I learned on my mission. I only had one baptism on my mission that I felt I could count as mine. I had 2 others that I could possibly count, but the one person I taught start to finish. It deserves a longer story, but to keep it short this young man came to church one day. He asked to meet with us after sacrament meeting. We didn’t know who he was. He was evidently somewhat dating a girl that was now going to BYU. He wanted to get baptized. He had already read the Book of Mormon and knew it was true. It felt like a done deal really quick. After initially setting a baptism date he told his parents and they objected to the whole thing. The baptism went on hold for a time while this young man met with other ministers and ‘concerned family friends’ to try and dissuade him from joining the church. For the next 6 or 8 weeks we met with this young man once or twice a week to discuss everything he was being told from the other people he was meeting with. We went through pretty much every ‘anti’ Mormon concern there was. We discussed the Adam-God theory, Polygamy, racism, blacks not getting the priesthood, multiple versions of the first vision, and the concept of blood atonement. I went through it all as best I could. This is still a very early time of the internet. We had email on my mission, but had to go to the library. It still didn’t have the wealth of information that we have now. I relied heavily on Mormon Doctrine by Bruce R. McConkie, Answers to Gospel Question by Joseph Fielding Smith, and Jesus the Christ by James E. Talmage. On my mission I got to know most of the ‘anti’ Mormon rhetoric and talking points. I was able to refute them, or at least give what I felt were reasonable answers to those questions. I think there are two points in favor of making this work. One of them is that we are debating with other Christians. The debate is never with the bible itself and the historicity and infallible of it’s texts. It’s sub doctrinal points one way or the other. If you look at the bible you can pretty much point to some verse somewhere that will help illustrate the point you are making. When the debate is just what parts of the bible are more true than others it ultimately breaks down to faith and feelings. The next point is that we were able to only need to refute one item at a time. It’s fairly easy to dismiss multiple versions of the first vision as just a one time scribal mistake by Joseph early where he was just jotting down what he thought was important at one time, then is just expanding the experience more fully years latter in the ‘official’ history. That’s what we did with this young man. Every week we tackled a different theology or issue and was able to come up with a satisfactory enough answer at the end. Ultimately though it comes down to faith anyway. We met with this young man and worked through issue after issue and after a while we said we were happy to continue discussing these things, but we can’t go back in time and know for sure of any of it. We know it’s true because of the spirit. We bore our testimony and that was it for the most part. After that a few weeks later he was baptized. For a long time this was another piece of evidence that the church was true. We were able to work through these issues and ultimately the spirit is what converted him. I look back on this experience different now. I should have seen more of the issues back then, but I just looked for confirmation in what I believed. At least for me the issue was I believe much more in the doctrine of Mormonism than any other Christian sect that I am aware of. Christianity has a mess of it’s own issues. Comparing the two I would still much more gladly embrace Mormonism than bare Christianity. Ultimately I appreciate two things from my mission. The friendships and relationships I gained while on my mission. I still talk weekly to a few of my mission buddies. We hang out occasionally when we can. The other thing I do appreciate was the knowledge I gained while there. I really began to enjoy some of the oddities and more esoteric and hidden things of the church. It seemed like there was some hidden meanings lurking everywhere in the scriptures, from the early church prophets, and temple symbols.

My first faith crisis really appears a year or two after my mission. I had moved to Cedar City at the time. I was trying to go to school there. My parents were still in Oregon. They were coming down to Utah on a vacation trip to see friends and family that were all still in Utah. They were going goin back to visit our town I grew up in. I drove up to meet them. They were stopped visiting the family of the girl I drove in the drivers ed car with. I am basically able to run into this girl again and have the chance to go on a date with her, and we do. We went to a family reunion event they were doing at their cabin. I spent the night with her and really ended up spending about 2 weeks together. I didn’t end up seeing much of my family because I was with her while they were here. I was in love instantly. I wanted to spend all my time with her.

After the 2 or 3 weeks though she called things off. She wasn’t forceful about ending things and it was really so new it felt weird in a way to even call it breaking things off. We had really been going out for like 2-3 weeks. She had an ex that started talking to her again. He had found out she was ‘dating’ someone and whatever. I am not really sure what was going on in everyone else’s heads. I was broken though. It hurt a lot. I still tried to text and call occasionally. It resulted in less frequent responses back over the next little bit. after a few months I stopped texting and trying.

On my mission I had a dream about this girl as well. At the time I had all these little prompting after moving away that she was the one. I told God and myself that if i ever ran into her again I was going to ask her out and see what happened. It didn’t make sense to me why I was dreaming about this girl and having promptings to marry her when I was in a different state. We didn’t even talk. I had moved away. We had an enjoyable time in the drivers ed car, but that was it. This really broke me in more than one way. At this point I had gotten to know her and I didn’t want to be with anyone else. It also felt like God was laughing at me. Why set up this elaborate chain of events that led me to this girl and watch me get blindsided and crushed.

After this I felt done with the church, really just God at that point The church hadn’t done anything in particular. I still actually felt like God was there, but he must not care about me. He may have enjoyed watching me suffer for all I knew. I stopped going to church.

After a few months though I felt like school wasn’t working out down there. I was paying out of state tuition to go and i was trying to work my way through and pay for it. I got a job up in Provo. I moved up there. I roomed with a mission buddy up there. I did go to church with him in the singles ward. It was really more social than anything. I would say I was agnostic about the church. I didn’t really have a reason I felt to completely abandon it. I also didn’t see any reason to devote much time or energy to a thing that I felt punched me in the gut.

Later that year I was on Facebook and got a message from this girl I was in love with. We chatted again for a bit and made plans to go do something. I was still very cautious about getting my hopes up. It was nice just to talk and be with her again. At this time I had also made arrangements to work a summer job in Las Vegas with a few other guys I knew from the mission. It was ideally going to be more money than what I would make where I was at. I contemplated backing out of the job just because she was talking to me again. I decided to still go however. I figured I could still go and continue to talk over the summer, but if I stayed and she ghosted me again I would feel like an idiot who got played twice.

I moved to Vegas and it was rough. We ended up chatting on the phone almost every night. I ended up driving up to her at least every other weekend. I was almost never in Vegas on the weekend. I pretty much spent all my money I made on gas and travel and dates with her.

I think it was the right decision to go. It probably wouldn’t have worked out if I had stayed. I also felt terrible about how I had handled the situation with God in the previous year. I had given up on God, but I didn’t know the full story. I repented and came back to church. This really became a sign to me that God was there and did have a plan. I should have just listened and followed. Why did I doubt?

I moved back to Utah after the summer. We got married in the winter of that year in the temple.

My marriage has really been almost nothing but happy. Early on when money was tight it was a little rough and we had a few moments of arguments disagreements, but nothing ever too bad. I feel very fortunate for my marriage and my life because of it.

We went to church pretty much every week. We participated in callings. We paid tithing. We went to the temple. Our kids have all been blessed and taken part in all aspects of the church.

My feelings on the church since marriage had gone back to the way I felt about it before. I think doctrinally there are odd things. I enjoyed trying to piece them together if I could. I also didn’t delve too deep though. There didn’t seem to be much to be gained by looking too closely. I did look at things like the Adam God theory and tried to piece how that might somewhat fit or apply itself. I really convinced myself that Brigham was probably wrong on the entirety of the Adam God theory and Blood atonement, but he must have gotten and inkling correct. I had similar ideas about Adam down to Noah. There isn’t a lot of direct evidence for them historically. The world is obviously more than 6000 years old so how does this work. Maybe these were people from a more ancient culture and a part of a more advanced ancient civilization. I always thought there must be some thread or truth out there that could help explain inconsistencies.

I never felt like I got a lot out of going to Sunday School and Elders Quorum every week however. I generally felt that the messages there were always a different version of ‘be good’. That’s the greatest takeaway I always got every week was to ‘be good’. I would have loved delving into more things. I don’t know where the meat of the gospel was. It didn’t ever seem to be at church. I would have these moments when reading something where I would have this epiphany and think ‘oh yeah, that makes sense’. I would a mental note of it and keep it with me. I always felt like I got something out of reading, but in church itself it’s the same basic lessons every 4 years. A cursory reading of some scriptures and why the teach us to ‘be good’.

Before my deep dive into the 1820’s to 1830’s of the history of the church I really started to have more real doubts about the church once I stared trying to read the old testament in Hebrew. Or really read other scholars and their interpretation of the Hebrew old testament. I did look and have tried to learn some Hebrew along the way, but I am no where near even a novice at the language. Trying to look at the Hebrew of the old testament is a wildly different look at it than what I have ever understood before. There were a few reasons that caused me to be interested in doing this.

First I have always been interested in Aliens, ancient ruins, mostly just different theories for historical events or anything paranormal. I never bought too much into any one thing. Mostly just fun to think about. I did have a rationalization in my mind about God the father being a master physicist, chemist, or scientist in general. Someone who was omniscient because they had learned everything there was to know over an extremely long period of time. Evidently one of the Untitled. God was able to do anything, but really only what could be done according to physics. If there was something he could do that seemed supernatural then it was just something that we don’t currently understand. He is so far beyond us that he has gained an infinite amount of more intelligence then what we have. If this is all true then to me God is nothing more really than a super intelligent being. If we were to see him today we would think he was an Alien of some kind. How that all works or specifics I had no idea, but that seemed to make some sense to me.

That did lead me to enjoy watching/reading ideas in those arenas. Ancient Aliens, Graham Hancock, Skinwalker Ranch, and Timothy Alberino were a few of the shows, books, or personalities I enjoyed hearing from. Just to be clear, I didn’t/don’t think what most of them propose are actually true. I do think there are lots of holes in Mainstream ideology about anything, but it’s really the best that we have right now. Most of the consensus around experts is probably true. The more I have actually dived into more of the research and claims about especially around the bible I have found the scholarly consensus makes a lot more sense then the apologetic true believing Christian or Mormon side. There is still a lot of room for different events happening and even a God, but I don’t see any Mormon or Christian God out there anymore.

The next thing is my Dad has always been someone I have looked at for trying to understand the bible or really anything. He has always been a very intelligent and Insightful man. Whatever he is into though he is really into it. He was always a very devout member of the church. He read his scriptures every day in the morning. We went to church every Sunday. We did all the things. He was a bishop, he was in the High Counsel, and Stake Presidency. Because of him i had dinner with Dallin H Oaks and Dieter F. Uchtdorf when i was younger. It was a large group of people, but I sat at the table and listened to them. Here are few examples to illustrate how focused he would be on a subject. When I was on my mission my family found out that my younger brother had Crohn’s disease. They completely changed their diet in those roughly two years. They went extremely vegan. Especially my dad. It was really to try and help my brother. They had done whatever research they had done and decided this would help. In doing the research they also decided to go all in themselves. When I got home the world had changed. They no longer ate any meat. We went out to salad restaurants only. This lasted for a long while. I think 10 years or more even. At some point I believe in 2020. I can’t remember if it started before covid or after, but he started having heart and health issues. Anyway he actually went 180 degrees and decided the carnivore diet was better. This is an extreme example of going all in on one thing and dramatically changing. He has always been this way to some extent. Whatever he feels or “knows” to be true he follows. For a while especially in the 2010’s my dad got really into Isaiah and end time prophecy stuff. He was really into Avraham Gileadi books Visions of Glory as well as other. I can’t remember all of them. I know there was stuff about Obama not allowing elections and becoming a dictator because of a near death experience from someone. I scanned through and briefly read some of those books, but I never got that into them. My dad was convinced that the end times were close and we would need to pack up at some point and move to the mountains. He cashed out at least some of his 401k at some point early. He bought a big tent and stove, there was food storage that could be taken. He went to a lot of prepper conventions. He was into it. At some point he was also believing that the Church had probably fallen away to some extent and there was going to be some Davidic servant that would show up and that’s who we need to follow. At this point he was still going to church I believe and he was making a bit of a raucous there. I know he was having issues with the Bishop and Stake president to some extent.

At some point he started looking at the Hebrew of the old testament and really got into that. That’s what ended up breaking my dad of his faith. I think it also started to disillusion him of his end time prophesy and all the Mormon end time stuff because of the Hebrew in the bible. It just doesn’t really point to any of that stuff. At some point after that he had a breaking point and the bishop and stake president talked with both him and my mom. I don’t know for sure if he was actually excommunicated or if they just requested their names be removed from the church. Regardless they are both no longer members of the church. This did shake me a decent amount. Of all people I never would have guessed my dad would completely leave the church like that. He has been talking to me about a lot of this stuff for a while. I’ve never bought into what he has said before. I look at Avraham Gileadi for example and just see a convoluted mess. If you read Isaiah in a certain way and take other information from different parts of the bible into account you can get these certain prophecies that aren’t directly stated, but are definitely there. For a lot of these guys it feels like the end times are always just around the corner and they all have some proof from the bible that proves it, but it never comes. I actually didn’t think this Hebrew thing would really lead anywhere for me either. I was curious, but didn’t expect much from it.

The last major thing that caused me to reevaluate things was when our cat went missing. He went out one day and never came back. He slept in the garage every night. During the day he would run around the neighborhood outside. Occasionally he would miss a night and be stuck outside for the night, but he always came back home within a day or two. We would let him come in if he wanted, but he was very content to be outside. One day he didn’t come back home, after two days though i started to get a little worried. He was usually back by now. I started keeping my eye out and drove around the neighborhood to see if i could see him. I never did. The days kept going and no sign of him. He never came back.

I am not much of a cat guy, but he was a good cat. The kids loved him. It really broke my heart for my oldest son especially seeing him grieve over the cat. I remember as a kid going through the pain of my pets dying. At least I always knew what happened to them. This felt so much worse and more cruel to not know what happened to our cat. I also felt deeply responsible for letting it happen. I should have been the one to protect our cat and keep him safe. I should have been able to protect my oldest son from that pain for a while longer. I prayed deeply for days and weeks, even months I felt that somehow God would bring our cat back, or at the very least show us what happened. My prayers were never answered.

In most cases this was always fine. Sometimes i would pray and not get an answer. That’s the way it would go sometimes. I was ok not getting an answer for myself, perhaps my faith was too weak. My prayer wasn’t that important. If my prayer was for myself i could respect that. I haven’t prayed like this since i was a kid though, perhaps ever. My prayer was for my son. I wanted to have closure for him. I was always able to bury my pets. This was lack of closure was much worse. I begged and pleaded with the Lord and God everyday for months.

One of the hardest aspects for me was I was always taught that God is a loving father who sometimes needs to watch from a distance and see his kids struggle. I understand this sentiment. It’s hard to know how much you should let your kid struggle or go through hard times. I only would allow it though if I thought they would be better for it. When I was younger I remember my dad forcing me to do things i didn’t want to do. He could have done them easier, but it was important for me to learn and grow. I probably don’t do that as well for my kids, but I try and let them fail occasionally hopefully to grow in some way. I was always taught and believed that God was like that. He was a loving father that allowed us to suffer so we could learn, grow, and overcome. This was the first time I couldn’t put myself in Gods shoes and see a better good. I wasn’t even asking for our cat to come back, death is a part of life and at some point we need to deal with that fact, but I wanted my oldest to have some closure and know what happened. There was no funeral or any saying goodbye because he might still be out there.

Usually when a prayer isn’t answered or a prompting goes awry in my life I can place myself in Gods shoes and see a potential reason for it. This time I really could not. As a father I would and did try to do everything I could to find some answer. I would have done anything to know what happened. I couldn’t put myself in Gods shoes and justify not giving us something. I no longer saw a loving heavenly father. He would have known how painful I found losing animals as a kid and it happened too many times for me. That’s really why I didn’t really want the cat to begin with. To me pets just die. I tried to close myself off to death and just joke about it. Now this is happening to my son. I can’t do anything to help him. I think the best way to describe my feelings about God at that point were disappointment and I lost a lot of respect for him if he is there.

It was really after this that I started looking at my own religion and deciding what do i really believe. There is this idea I have had that I heard from someone about investing where every year to look at your portfolio and ask would I still buy this stock or investment for the price it’s at right now. If you would, hold on to it and reevaluate again in another year. If you wouldn’t buy it at the current price then think about getting out and moving into another asset that you think is a better value. The same concept I think should be applied to multiple aspects of life. Would I keep this same ideology today if it was presented to me? Should I keep this same job? Really if you wouldn’t do it now then maybe think about changing.

I have thought about this and religion from time to time. Never very aggressive or in depth. I’ve thought about other religions and what’s good and bad about them. Comparing other Christian denominations I’ve always felt that Mormons have a better argument and it makes more sense to me. I’ve tried to think about atheism, but still comes up short for me in many regards compared to Mormonism.

All these things happening around me I did feel like I needed to be sure what i was believing was true. I still never counted myself as a true 100% in believing Mormon. I had to renegotiate a lot of problems with it. On my mission I came across a lot of anti-Mormon literature and attacks. I had heard and read about the multiple versions of the first vision. I knew about Adam-God doctrine. I knew the attacks about the godhead vs the trinity. I knew about the allegations of treasure seeking by Joseph Smith. I don’t think I knew about the trial in 1826 however. Did Joseph translate with the seer stone or Urim and Thummim? I knew and dealt with it. I think there is a big difference between arguing Christianity as a whole vs Mormonism. No one really came about attacking the church to me through a non Christian lens. At that point it’s really just about who do you want to believe. If you believe Joseph Smith really saw God the father and Jesus then everything else that comes after has to line up. There is some reason we just don’t know why we don’t have all the information. Treasure seeking was just preparatory to teach Joseph how to use the translation instrument. Ultimately Joseph wouldn’t have risked his life and his brothers life for a lie. Or you believe that the bible is the word of God completely and all the professors and clergy in the middle ages were correct in passing down their knowledge. One fantastical story or another. Pick what you want. If you break down each of the issues one by one you can give yourself enough wiggle room on each item to justify the whole thing.

It’s really not until I started to dig deep into the Old Testament that I started to doubt. It really all started to crumble for me at Genesis 1 and 2.

Prior to digging into the Hebrew deeply I read two books for fun and because they are about aliens, which is always fun, but they both come with a lot of use of the bible. They were Gods of the Bible by Mauro Biglino, and Birthright by Timothy Alberino. They both call into several parts of the Old testament and point out the Hebrew behind the text while giving their own interpretations. I really enjoyed them. At this point they are less interesting to me. After doing more and more research into the subject of the Old Testament I am not sure I really agree with them as much. They did get me more interested in the subject of the Old Testament and the Hebrew behind it.

My dad pointed me to Jeff A. Benner to learn the biblical Hebrew. From that I got access to several video’s, courses, and other resources. In these you learn more about how the ancient Hebrews would have thought, and the way their language works compared to English. Everyone knows Gen 1:1

1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

I’ve read it a hundred times, but Benner has a mechanical translation of the Torah and he is translating it as

In the summit Elohiym shaped the skies and the land,

There is lots of things to go into and compare and debate with the Hebrew interpretation. There is also the Greek Septuagint to deal with. I was aware of the Septuagint. I knew it exists and is the old testament in Greek. That was about it though. I was also aware the old testament would have been originally in Hebrew. I was pretty much unaware of how the document came to be and when they were written. There is also this word Elohim/Elohiym/אלֹ הים in the old testament. It’s all over. As a Mormon I know that Elohim is God the father, right? I was also aware that it’s really a Hebrew plural word for God or really Gods. I had read Mormon Doctrine and read McConkie’s version on it. I am also aware of the King Follet discourse and Joseph’s interpretation of Genesis 1:1. Mauro Bilino’s book speaks about this word. I thought I knew what Elohim meant. Looking at it in the Hebrew is another thing entirely. Chapter one of Genesis I can sort of understand in this context. Elohim is the only use of that word. Once you move onto Chapter 2 though there are a few things that get introduced. Here we start to see in verse 4 YHWH Elohim. It’s no longer just Elohim it’s the YHWH Elohim. YHWH is Jehovah the one true God of Israel. As a Mormon I am not really sure how to take this. Generally when we see God in the Old testament it’s really Elohim. When we see Lord God it’s usually referring to Jehovah the Elohim. There are also times when it’s just Jehovah or Lord. There are also a few instances where Lord isn’t really Jehovah, but more likely a human lord. The problem becomes for me however is how do i negotiate Elohim here. He is clearly not God the father in the old testament. There are a few passages that you could maybe read into it being God the father, but there is nothing in the text that would allow for it. Pretty much across the board Elohim is referring to Jehovah, unless we are talking about an Elohim from another nation. Reading it this way just introduces several problems with the temple. I start to not be able to justify what i am reading with my religion.

This is all troubling to me. I start doing more research on YHWH and ancient Israel and Canaan from a historical perspective. I started studying Mark S. Smith’s The Early History of God. Reading through several academic papers, and listening to lectures on the topic.

I spent 8 months or so studying the old testament and Hebrew trying to get a better understanding of the text itself. During this time I was trying to not read/listen to anything that was overtly anti Mormon. I still wanted to believe in Mormonism. Even with the issues of the Old Testament I think I could convince myself that it’s really old, it’s been modified so much that by the time it was written down we lost all relevant data and what we have now is propaganda from back in the time of King Josiah. There is still a world where that is true to me. I do have this idea though that I am going to have to read the church history and dive into it at some point. I also wanted to look at the new testament as well. It was also sort of there in the background. Some things I was coming across also delved into the new testament as well, but I was predominately focused on the old.

When I decided to tackle church history I first turned to Richard Bushman’s book Rough Stone Rolling. I had never read it, but heard that it was accurate and still faithful. Bushman is still and active member of the church and a believer. I read through his book and it was good, I think it was as honest as a book could be and still leave you open to believing. I did notice several instances where I checked sources and thought he wasn’t being completely honest about them. If I had just read his book without fact checking and doing more research into his sources I might have been able to stop there and been satisfied. I still wasn’t taking very good notes then. I wish I had discovered Notion earlier.

At this time though I discovered Notion and decided I should write my own timeline of events. I would also say that AI started to play a huge role in my study at this point as well. I started taking pdf documents and passing them into AI agent I could ask questions about the documents. It made fact checking much easier and helped me find any relevant details inside the texts. I also came across Dan Vogel’s Joseph Smith: the Making of a Prophet. I started reading that book about the early life of Joseph up to 1830. Went much more in depth and by now I had access to all the documents that were being referenced in the book. I uploaded them to AI agents and started asking questions. I also just started using AI to help build out my notion databases and for summarizing events. I actually think without AI I would not have been able to study and research nearly as well without it. Especially without the internet.

What ultimately broke me was staring at my timeline of events and trying to piece together how the first vision could of happened. What I saw just makes no sense. I could make an argument for an Angel vising him in 1823. I could make an argument that he really translated plates. They aren’t good, or convincing arguments, but there are arguments that I could have told myself to justify it.

What I can’t get over though is the nature of the Godhead. For me I always felt a very strong conviction that the first vision was at least the most honest interpretation of the Godhead. To me it makes sense that God the father, and Jesus would be two different beings, both with bodies and independent entities from one another. ‘As man is God once was, As God is man may become’. Always seemed to make sense to me. When i was in the MTC I remember reciting and memorizing the first vision. I remember feeling the spirit then. It was confirmation that it was true. It had to be.

That is the way I feel about it. Our whole strength rests on the validity of that vision. It either occurred or it did not occur. If it did not, then this work is a fraud. If it did, then it is the most important and wonderful work under the heavens. - Gordon B. Hinckley October 2002

Nothing on which we base our doctrine, nothing we teach, nothing we live by is of greater importance than this initial declaration. I submit that if Joseph Smith talked with God the Father and His Beloved Son, then all else of which he spoke is true. This is the hinge on which turns the gate that leads to the path of salvation and eternal life. - Gordon B. Hinckley 1998

I grew up hearing these talks from President Hinckley. Of all the claims of the I believed most in this one. I believed Joseph at the very least believed he saw God the Father and Jesus Christ.

Now After searching the accounts, and the history I can not find anything that would point to this being true. I think Joseph may of had an experience, but the 1838 record is a faith embellished story at best.

So what do I do with this? I can justify a lot. Like the David Whitmer not knowing about the conferring of the priesthood until much later. It’s odd, but maybe. The changes in the D&C I would still have a problem with. They would bug me to know. I would think something shady was going on, but if the first vision was true I could get around it. I just can’t see anyway the 1838 official version could be the true one. If it’s not true how can we know the nature of the Godhead. Evidently Joseph didn’t know the nature of God in 1834. How could this be. It seems to me to be a version of the Godhead where all three are separate and distinct, but God the father is a personage of potentially just Power and glory. Something that is beyond description or definition. The son is a personage of Body. If this is true then why change it shortly after to what we have now. If it’s not true why was this the doctrine at the time? Even then what made Joseph change the doctrine? Since he isn’t consistent it’s not clear.

One day it clicked that the first vision wasn’t real. Once that happened for me everything changed. I felt several things all at once fear, dread, hope, excitement, and liberated. I felt the weight of the world crush down on me. God isn’t real. My whole life has been a lie. What do I do now. There is no going back to before. What’s my wife going to say. How do I raise my kids. Utter panic. At the same time however I felt another weight lift. I no longer have to invent or look for these crazy theories to justify the world. I’m not crazy and their are legitimate issues I have been seeing. The church isn’t special and it’s like every other organization in the world. It’s ran by people who are all acting in their own interests. They may believe what they are doing is right, but at least that makes sense. I can judge each individual act for what it is. I also felt the same spirit I have felt all my life. I felt a burning in the bosom and it feels like this is right. It’s also exciting that I feel like the world is open to explore. I can explore different ideas and decide my moral framework. I don’t know what that looks like, but I can explore anything. I don’t have to feel guilty about not reading the Book of Mormon. I’ve read it so many times. I can actually read some other books now.

The next step is what do I do now. I no longer believe the church is true. I’m married and my wife does. She had told me on several occasions her biggest fear was me leaving the church. Especially since my dad did. My brother had left earlier and was much more anti. I felt like I had to avoid him for a while because of it. My sister and her husband also left. I did feel alone for a while. How could I bring this up to her? I debated for a couple months how to bring it up. At this point I stopped paying tithing. No reason to do that anymore. That’s how it really came up. She asked if I had been paying our tithing. I had to say no. That was a rough conversation. She took it better than I thought she would. I was pretty terrified of telling her. It was a big weight off my shoulders.

We have talked about things a little here and there. To some extent she gets it. She hasn’t delved deep into some of the subjects like I have. I don’t want to be the reason for someone loosing their faith. I think it’s far tougher to be outside the church than inside the church. The church does provide some stability and support. Without it I am not quite sure what to do myself. I don’t want to cause someone to lose that if they aren’t ready. My wife still needs that I think for the moment.

For now this is where I am. I am still going to church. I’m not paying tithing. I don’t wear garments anymore. I still have a calling. Last year I told the bishop I wasn’t a full tithe payer in a text message. No real talks about anything since then. My recommend expires in November. I’m not renewing that. I can’t(won’t) go to the temple anymore. It would be so painful to go now. My wife’s family is all very much active and they have a nephew going on a mission this summer. He’s getting his endowments out soon. Nieces are getting married later this year as well. Her family doesn’t know anything about me not believing. At least I haven’t had any conversations about it with them. Maybe my wife has, but I currently don’t know her thoughts on that.

I really don’t know what to do about church now. I think the kids need something. I don’t want them to hold in a lot of the guilt I felt growing up though. I also think guilt is a useful tool for us as a society as well though. I don’t want my kids to stray too far or become too Nihilistic though. Does keeping them somewhat in the church help or hurt? I don’t know. Socially I like everyone in my ward. I have a lot of friends there. Most of my friends I’ve had throughout my life have been through the church. Even when I was in Oregon it was much easier to meet friends in church than school. Is that enough of a reason to keep my kids in though. I really don’t know. It all depends and since i am no prophet or future teller I can’t know. There is the issue I see living in Utah and not being LDS. Especially in a small town where most of the neighborhood is. None of these are easy questions to answer and only time will tell it seems.

I hope the church is able to change and is able to fill a role for good in peoples lives. I don’t see the leadership changing or being honest anytime soon though

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