1) How it all began

I have been a member of Mormonism aka The church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints entire life, born n bred. Baptized at 8 by my Dad, i attended young womens i went to mutual every  Wed. I attended the Temple at age 12 doing baptisms for the dead with all the youth. Oh and mingled in all these years i was sexually molested but our family just carried on like any other in a tiny Utah town.

      Eventually my parents divorced, in the middle of all that i picked up and moved to St. George Ut. I was depressed and lonley, i spent a lot of time journaling on the temple grounds.  I decided i wanted to serve a mission, so i went back home to NM so i could leave from a familiar ward with my family close by. When i got back home i reconnected with my old boss, and i asked her about her son Alan, We dated breifly in high school. I was given his email and we reconnected. Long story short he moved back home and we started dating and quickly fell in love and wanted to get married. I toiled with the choice to either get married or serve a mission.  In the end it just wasnt hard to decide. I was in love and i didnt want to risk
 Coming home and Alan not being avaliable.

        In 2007 Alan and i married in the Manti Temple. It was a beautiful day, everything really was perfect. The next several years were hard. We had 4 kids and dealt with some heavy heavy shit. We stuck together and hung in there together trying to do what we believed the Lord wanted us to do. We worked with church leaders to resolve the sins and problems we were facing.  There is a lot of guilt within the church when you sin or do anything they concider wrong. Im not talkin the big 10 commanment sin most every other religion teaches. No, mormonism takes ALL your free agency and dangles it in your face. Oh we believe in free agency they say, BUT if you break the rules or dont fall in line you will be punished, shamed, guilted, kicked out. Sometimes your eternal salvation is even at stake.

       You cant drink coffee, tea, alcohol,  get a tattoo, wear " immodest" clothing, have sex, be gay, accept gay marriage, swear, say God, question church leaders, say no to a calling, say no to saying the prayer in public, have fun on sundays,   hell now days you cant even be baptized if your parents are gay.  Free agency? I think not. There is NO free agency in Mormonism. None. True free agency would allow us to make choices, learn as we go without punishment.

       Fast forward to 2017. We took our family to a ward activity at a park in Aug. They had water games , so we came prepared for the kids to get wet. Katie my daughter who was 7 at the time. She was soaked from head to toe when it came time to leave. As we were gathering our things, this man in our ward pulled up and walked toward us. This man is CREEEEEPY! He is the type to invade your personal space and be a little to hugy. Hes older and so eveyone just deals with it and give him a pass because it seems easier and honestly nobody wants to cause a scene or confront him. Now i never saw what happened, i was to busy getting my boys together. My husband however he heard it. Then tunred and saw him with my daughter.
This man went up to hug katie but he pulled her into him face forward, not a side hug or pat on the shoulder. Also keep in mind we are not friends with this guy, we are not close. After he pullled her into him like that he kissed her on the forehead. Umm..... WTH??? I dont even do this to my neices and nephews. That is so not okay. My daughter told us exactly how it happened and showed us when we got home since we didn't see it from the beggining.  We contacted our bishop and in this meeting Alan told him what happened. He didnt offer any personal help in the way of agreeing to talk with him. He contacted our stake president and set up a meeting.
In that meeting we relayed the story, he listened intently asking for details. He seemed to really want to know what happened. Then he asked " what would you like to see happen"
In my head i was screaming " I WANT SOMEONE TO TELL HIM TO GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE AND NEVER SHOW HIS FACE AGAIN!" But i know that would NEVER happen, after all the church is for everyone right? 🙄 unless your gay, then no place for you!
So i told him, " well he needs to stop greeting people at the door. He needs to go in sit down and keep to himself. " okay agreed,done
I said "He also needs to stop wandering the halls. He needs to go to his class and stay there. " okay agreed,  done. But wait..... who is going to make sure he does that? Does some poor soul have to be given the task or " calling " to follow this jerk?  Yeah didnt think so. He was ALWAYS wandering around, sometimes even near the primary kids. Yuck! As i kept chugging along attending my meeting, going to church, serving best i could i started to let my true feelings for him show. I hated him, i hated sitting in sacrament and looking at his ugly head, i hated that i was the one who had to just deal with it. He gets off scott free, walking around being a creep making women and kids feel uncomfortable and upset but i am expected to forgive, to leave it to God. I have to cheerily push along doing my duty.  Umm No. I tried pushing along for a year. Finally i allowed myself to be pissed, i gave myself permission to healthily deal with the issue and feel all the feels. I was pissed, i was bitter and i I hated him. I was frustrated with the church, i started looking for God and Jesus there and guess what? He was nowhere to be found! Well then you are not paying attention and you need to repent they will say. Satan has a hold of you, you need to pray more, be better, do better, YOUR NOT GOOD ENOUGH!
Yes thats right, shame shame, shame. You cant be upset some creep kissed your daughter and he gets to roam freely in the very halls your kids walk. I went looking for God. I looked for Christ in church. All i found was Joseph Smith. All we sang about was Joseph. Now i know thay this isn't the story in every ward, but im not in the other wards. In MY ward that is how it went.

           There is a family that left the church about a year before all this. We are friends on FB, i followed them closely because deep in my core i was curious. I was curious how someone who served as a Bishop and held a stake calling could leave. It took a while until i was ready to really listen to there story and understand, When i was ready, my life changed forever.