The Tale of Sir Joseph: Part 1

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Anne's Journey

This is my story about how I got to be where I am today. I've seen complaints from people who read these types of stories that, “they all start the same,” referring to the fact that most people set forth their Mormon Pedigree. But let me tell you why we do this: because there are common accusations that are lobbed at people who leave the church. The most common of these epithets are that “they never REALLY had a testimony,” or “they just didn't read their scriptures and pray enough,” or “they were just too lazy to keep the rules,” or even, “they just want to sin.” John Dehlin (who has gotten much more famous recently due to his pending church discipline) interviewed over 3,000 people who recently left the LDS church and polled them on their reasons and summed it up in a very informative YouTube video. The reason we set this forth is to show that we really gave Mormonism a fair shake, and really believed it until we found out the truth.

So on to my pedigree/story. It’s quite long because I am including a lot of details that were “red flags” even though I didn't recognize them at the time. Camilla Kimball introduced the concept of "the shelf," where good latter-day saints put their unanswered questions and concerns to worry about later (by which she meant the afterlife). Things that went on my shelf will be in red. Also, I mention several different bishops and stake presidents, so I've named them something that distinguishes them from each other, but obviously not their real names. 

My Story

I was born in the covenant (BIC) to a good, multi-generational LDS family of 5 boys. Both sides of my family were LDS, and for the most part active. Family gatherings often involved the usual discussion of their respective wards/stakes and the church as a whole, infrequently mixed in with the latest faith-promoting lie. Occasionally the family history charts would come out, or a very interesting discussion on any recent fulfillment of any “signs of the times,” which more often than not were just rumors that scared people into being more faithful. Growing up in eastern Oregon, there were enough members around to have multiple wards, a singles branch, and a Spanish branch in a small town of about 10,000 people. A rough estimate puts my town at about 7 to 8 percent active LDS members. We were prevalent enough to warrant a dedicated seminary building across the street from the only high school in town, complete with release-time seminary so we didn't have to get up at the butt crack of dawn.

That’s not to say that Mormons were welcome in every setting. Prior to the seminary building being bought, apparently there was a public showing of The Godmakers in the high school gymnasium, for what I assume was for the purpose of preventing the seminary building sale from going through. Also, after being built there was a threat phoned into the seminary’s answering machine stating that any high school students caught wearing a CTR ring would have that finger cut off (though this story may have been embellished by my seminary teacher – I have no proof of it happening or not).

I would say that I was somewhat naïve and sheltered, and didn't learn much about religion other than my own. I always had a liking of science, and like any boy, immersed myself in the world of dinosaurs. One day while watching a video on them, I experienced some cognitive dissonance with how the ages of the dinosaurs fit with what it says in the Book of Genesis. I was always an analytical thinker and came up with a solution that solves the issue and presented it to my mom. I was shot down pretty quickly, and thought I needed to go back to the drawing board on that one. I continued to work on the problem of reconciling a young earth with what science said about the Big Bang, evolution, paleontology, and geology until my early twenties (but more on that later). Each time I think I had a way of keeping both beliefs it was usually dashed to pieces by something said in General Conference.  

When I was around 10, one night my family was watching Jeopardy! A question came up on a religion founder who had multiple wives. The contestant responded with, “Who is Joseph Smith?” When Alex Trebek didn't correct the man, I looked at my parents like, “WTF?! How can they let that show get away with spreading lies about him like that?!” Instead they confirmed that Smith had, indeed, participated in Polygamy. Later I told that to some of my friends at church but some didn't believe it.

One day while looking at the religious awards in my Cub Scout book, I found out about the RLDS church, but learned no details other than it was a “splinter” group.

I had been "inoculated" against a few of the typical "anti-mormon" lies and common criticisms of the church. I learned to tell people the temple was "sacred, not secret," and that we didn't have horns on our heads. Multiple times I had learned about the Three Witnesses leaving the church, but it was not a big deal because they never denied their testimony of it. I refuted that pioneers used to throw their extra wives off the temple roof into the Great Salt Lake. That was about the extent of what I assumed the outside world thought of the mormons. Other than that, we were a great, family-first church with nothing to hide.

I occasionally asked questions to my church leaders and parents that didn't have good answers. I kinda perused through books like The Miracle of Forgiveness for the story on Cain being the Sasquatch, or through McConkie's Mormon Doctrine. I also remember asking the question about the word, "Adieu" being in the Book of Mormon, but being reassured that it's because it was the best word that Joseph Smith could think of for the Hebrew word that was originally written.

The Middle and High School Years

When I turned 12, I faithfully did my church duties, and never complained about passing the sacrament, prepping it, or blessing it. In fact, I was usually the one to do most of the prepping and blessed most often because my dad liked to get to church early. Like all the LDS kids in my ward, I had regular interviews with Bishop Postman, some of which included asking me about masturbation.

I Went to Boy Scouts, and earned my Eagle (with the push of my mom, like a lot of LDS boys). I went to seminary every day except a couple days my freshman year and never missed after that. I saw some of the less devoted kids skipping class, or pulling the usual shenanigans and couldn't understand why they didn't want to be there. I know some of them felt forced to attend, but I never felt that way. During my time there I was made Class President one year, and later appointed to be a member of the Seminary Council.

In church, I was taught about how what a good mormon girl wants is an Eagle Scout, faithful Aaronic (and later Melchizedek) priesthood holder, return missionary, and temple marriage, and that I was to control the “factory” going on inside of me. By saving myself (kisses included) I would be a “great catch” and should have girls swarming all over me once I got home from my mission.

Around age 15, I started reading the Book of Mormon on my own (in addition to the regular family study we did). I had a pretty good understanding of the narrative, and soon had no confusion about which characters were where, and how all the different plates fit together. I prayed about it and got what I assumed was the answer. It was odd, though, because my answer felt just like when I pulled the Master Sword out of its pedestal on the Legend of Zelda games, or (later) when Rudy took the field for the final two plays of the game, or when Sauron’s Tower was going down. Why is it that these movies and games could so accurately mimic the spirit, if that’s what it was? Every once in a while I would have a thought that would trouble me based on the Book of Mormon text. I used scriptures in Third Nephi to base my opinion on abortion (Jesus talked to Nephi the day before he was born). I also came across a scripture that started talking about Jesus' ministry in the past tense, only to read the next sentence that said he was talking about things as though they already were (Mosiah 6:16).

At school, I had a few of different “cliques” that I hung around with. One was the really good mormon kids who went to seminary, one was a group of good Christian kids who all went to different churches, and occasionally it was the boys from my ward. But mostly I hung out with the Christian kids and was the token Mormon in their group. Occasionally religion would come up and we’d discuss the differences and similarities of our denominations. Several times they drew a chart that showed which churches split off from which and when. I thought it funny that they all knew their church wasn't the original (Catholic) but didn't think that it implied theirs wasn't the “one, true” church. The concept of the “one and only, true, living church upon the face of the earth” had been taught to me so much that I assumed everyone felt that THEIRS was the only one. Later I would learn the folly of my naiveté when I researched other Christian faiths. They never attacked the church per se, but had questions that I tried to answer and defended it as much as I could.

As a way of extending an olive branch to 2 of my friends, I would accompany them to see their Youth Minister at their church which happened to be right behind the school. Once I even gave him a copy of a triple combination because he was curious about the Book of Mormon. I had hoped that they would return the favor and come see the Seminary building/teacher (they never did). But I always remembered to put the best spin on everything because it was my responsibility to bring them the truth. It wasn't like I was a completely different person around “non-members,” but there were a couple things that I would let my guard down about when I was hanging out with the boys from my ward or whatever. I also never drank a caffeinated drink because it was impressed upon me that it was against the Word of Wisdom.

When I was 16, I got my Patriarchal Blessing. I was curious about the process, and was going to use it as a way to “test” his fortune telling abilities. I hadn't planned on giving him information beyond the normal pleasantries, but my mom had accompanied me and in the course of our conversation revealed quite a bit to him that magically appeared in my blessing. I've since learned about what hot and cold readings are in the psychic business, and this was definitely a hot reading. (Years later, my brother was kind enough to type up all of the Patriarchal Blessings for my family, and oddly enough, they were all pretty similar. By contrast, my mom and dad’s were both different from ours, but similar to each other's because they had the same patriarch, naturally.)

My dad started going less active, after having been a strong member (in the YM and SS Presidencies most recently). I'm not really sure what started it all, at some point I felt that it was my duty to be a good example to both him and my brothers. When my brother turned 8, I performed his baptism ceremony. 

I had the opportunities to go to EFY and such, but never wanted to. I was dedicated enough to attend church/seminary faithfully, Mutual/Scouts almost every week, as well as the youth firesides they held every once in a while, but going to even MORE church didn't seem like a lot of fun when compared to a Super Nintendo. One fireside I remember had Del Parsons, the painter of the most famous picture of Christ in the LDS church, speaking about his experiences as a church artist. He told us flat out that the faith-promoting lie about the unveiling of that painting was utterly false. This was a little disconcerting, since I had felt the Spirit™ when I had heard the story originally. Also, during that time period, I became aware of the Facsimiles in the Book of Abraham and looked at them during sacrament meetings and wondered deeply about their interpretations and the parts that had not yet been revealed.

During my senior year at Seminary, my seminary teacher was teaching about the New Testament. We ended up discussing the conception of Christ and he told us that God works in natural ways, but not to think too deeply about it. Meanwhile, I had started learning about the internet worked. I found out about mIRC, a chat program. I quickly found the #mormon channel and started participating in the board. Occasionally I would help defend the faith when people would come on asking questions or trying to “bible bash” with us. I made quite a few good online friends that way, and one of them was a man named Demosthenes, who was a virtual walking church history book. But I later found out that he claimed that he was Mormon, but not LDS. He belonged to The Churchof the Firstborn, another splinter group that didn't come west. I didn't know about any splinter groups other than the RLDS, so I was confused and asked Bishop Librarian about it. He went into some deep doctrine from the D&C which confused me more until he realized I was talking about a splinter group.

My Seminary teacher started the concept of “Missionary Week,” where we would wear church clothes to school all week long as a way of getting our proverbial foot in the door. The plan was that when people would ask us why we were dressed up we could use it as an opportunity to tell them about the church and seminary. I’ll admit that I wasn't looking forward to it. I liked the concept of sharing the gospel, but I was always worried about rejection or what someone would think of me that I never wanted to make the first move.  I figured once I was in a foreign country that fear/concern would go away (it did). Anyway, the first day I had a classmate who started making fun because he noticed it was the three mormon kids in class who were dressed up. He asked sarcastically if it was Joseph Smith’s birthday or something. My teacher (non-member), to his credit, stepped up and ripped this guy a new one. I liked that this kid got put into his place, but it further served as proof of the “persecution” I was told to expect. I’d had a few other experiences like that, such as when someone made fun of the kids who were walking across the street to the seminary building. Other times there wasn't really persecution, but I saw it as such because I had been conditioned to look for it. All of those experiences confirmed that this was, in fact, the Lord’s true church™ and that is why Satan is persecuting it.

One night during the summer, I was up late watching whatever was on basic cable TV and came across a curious program. It was about Mormons, and had video footage of ultra-righteous members talking about the “weird, deep” doctrines like Polygamy in the afterlife and being eternally pregnant and seemed to be oblivious that it seemed weird to the world. It also showed some of the Freemason rituals and talked about how the LDS church uses them as well. I realized that it was an “anti-mormon” program, and I saw how this was not the best spin on things, but what struck me was the mason stuff. I had never heard about it but they were making these claims. I figured it was one of the “lies” told about the church to discredit it. I had learned about Ed Decker's methods, and figured that he epitomized all anti-mormon tactics. 

I had come into contact with “anti-mormon” literature when I happened to be in a Christian bookstore one time. Like a lot of it, it was geared towards telling an already Christian believer why they should never join the LDS church because it goes against the bible in a bunch of ways. It didn't do any good to a Mormon audience as far as convincing them they were wrong; all it did was further enforce the persecution complex and cause them the dig their heels in deeper. The TIME article concerning the church’s finances came out, further entrenching my persecution beliefs.

Ricks and Mission to Japan

During the summer after graduation, I got the chance to meet some of the online friends I had made. In one case I had to ditch a family reunion to do so, but I did it and made my way from Bountiful to Provo using the bus system. My mom wasn't terribly thrilled with me on that one. But I think I latched onto these online friends because we shared religious beliefs (obviously) but they were more like me than most of my friends back home were. Geek hadn't quite come to be chic yet, but here were people who accepted me.

The next fall, I enrolled at Ricks College in Rexburg, Idaho (now BYU-I). I had a blast, and like high school, had 2 or 3 groups of friends I hung out with. I went to the weekly devotional with them as well as football games and other activities. I have fond memories of “Killer Uno” games in the girls’ dorm, and all-night sessions of Goldeneye 007 in the boys dorm. Through sheer coincidence, 4 of the girls from my home ward were also in my Ricks ward. I continued to meet with online friends in roadtrips to Provo, and my online girlfriend would occasionally show up and stay with one of my female friends when she was in town. Incidentally, this is where I first learned about the “mormon spy network,” when my mom left me a message that she knew my girlfriend had been in town.

One interesting thing I noted about being absorbed in a totally LDS environment is that I wasn't required to keep my "armor" on all the time. I wasn't in the mode of constant defense of the church or being a "light unto the world," and I felt my testimony shrink a little. My friend from Montana told me the same thing, as if a significant portion of our testimonies were based on fighting the perceived persecution and the need to constantly reassure ourselves that we were fighting the good fight. 

Other than coming back a little late for curfew a couple of times, I never broke the rules/honor code at Ricks, nor did I complain about them like a lot of people did. I had friends whose church attendance was spotty or non-existent because they didn't have a parent present to force them to go or to be their alarm clock. I only missed once, and that was because my roommate had locked me out Saturday night and I had to sleep in the laundry room (don’t ask).

During Christmas break, my mom had pre-scheduled a bunch of meetings with Bishop Librarian and President Raconteur to get the ball rolling on my mission papers, and also got me an appointment to pull my wisdom teeth. Some weeks later, I got my call to serve in Japan in the Tokyo North mission. I was excited to go to Japan because I had wanted to ever since my freshman year in high school. But the reality set in that I would be out of the country soon, and my studies didn't seem important. I stopped going to class and failed everything that semester. Looking back, I think it was because I saw the mission as an impending but necessary obstacle I was required to overcome before being taken seriously as an adult or being able to really start my life on my own. In preparation for it, I was trying to get in as much fun time as I could because I knew I wouldn't be having a lot of it for a couple years.

I drove home to go to the Boise Idaho temple in March. It appeared that my impending mission and first temple experience was going to be what finally brought my long-inactive aunt and uncle back to full membership in the church (they had recently become active again, but not yet temple-active). But they didn't end up making it. Anyway, I thought the temple was a little weird, but comforted by the fact that I was surrounded by family who thought it was normal, so I put it out of my mind. The next day I overheard my mom talking on the phone about the aunt who didn't come and heard her mention that this aunt had been freaked out about the penalties. The penalties combined with the thought of having to pay all the “back-tithing” had kept them out. My mom said she had reassured that they wouldn't have to pay back tithing, and that they had taken the penalties out. I thought about the whole “penalty” thing but was too caught up in the mission prep that I forgot about it for about 4 years.

A week after my 19^th birthday, I entered the MTC and began going to temple weekly. I have a penchant for memorizing movies and it started to get boring at the temple. While I was there, I was able to give my first blessing, which didn't work. I soon adapted to the daily grind but had trouble sleeping because I wasn't physically tired, nor was I allowed to have my usual sleep aid (music). I tried asking about the Japanese people’s religious beliefs so I could understand them better and form more effective ways of approaching them, but my teachers told me to not worry about it and focus on my knowledge of the gospel and everything would work itself out. It also bothered my how many of the boys there hadn't read the Book of Mormon even once. I had read it at least 5 times as a family, and at least 4 times myself. I certainly wasn't going to be one of those missionaries who went unprepared. 

When I got to Japan, it was the first time I encountered a culture beyond my own. I had a little culture-shock, but I soon adapted. Truth be told, I was glad on the days when I had a sick companion and I got to stay home. I looked forward to P-days when I could relax and stay home, but most of my companions wanted to do stuff those days. I came to the conclusion that I wasn't the most dedicated missionary in the world (mentally), but I was nowhere near the least. I figured that at worst, I was being an enabler for my companion to do work. In other words, I wasn't hindering him in any way. But I did my duties without complaint and followed the mission rules as best I could and became a Zone Leader near the end of my mission.

It was during the mission that I stopped praying. I just didn't see the results or the point anymore. I looked forward to night because I could listen to my music, especially Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables . I also stopped reading the scriptures for study, and instead read books like Jesus the Christ and others because I was bored with the scriptures. I came across the “Tools for Missionaries” book that talked about how they used these techniques to make the Tokyo South mission hugely successful, but by that time I knew about the atrocities that had gone on during the “Groberg Era” in that mission. I also found a book that made a point very clearly that stuck with me: If the BoM is True, then JS was a prophet, etc. If it is false, then everything is false. It all came down to that one issue, which is why it has been called the keystone to the mormon religion.

At some point, I wrote letter to Bishop Librarian about Masons because it had been bothering me recently. He wrote me back and gave me enough of an apologist response that I was able to forget about it for a while. On my farewell address, he called me a deep thinker, and I was thinking deeply about a lot of things while in the Land of the Rising Sun. Overall, I loved my mission experience, and had slightly more success (i.e. baptisms) than most Japanese missionaries (though, some of them came just after I left the area).

Continued in Part 2