I have written three times on this blog about my deconversion from the Baha’i Faith. I’d like the reader to compare my story with this one about a woman converting to Mormonism.

https://alittlelesspressure.blog/2018/02/02/my-conversion-story/

My daughter and I joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in February 2016.

Seeing this, I remembered my earlier blog entry about a mother and daughter becoming Mormons. Then they both died horribly.

To really get into the story, I need to back up a bit. I have always been interested in religion. I have studied several religions since I was a teenger, [sic] including Judaism, “Born Again” Christianity, and Jehovah’s Witnesses. The desire has always been there to be close to God, I just didn’t really know where I belonged when it came to picking an actual religion.

So it seems this woman was indeed exploring and seeking a good religion that would fit her life.

My cousin lived in Utah when we were growing up and I would go out there and spend summers with her and her friends. That’s when I first came into contact with “Mormons”. I have to tell you how deep of an impression these friends left on my life…there was something distinctly different about them. They were helpful and kind and they did not swear. I remember I got dressed up for a party and one of the boys told me he wished I “wore more clothes”. I was shocked! I was just wearing a spaghetti strap tank top and a skirt. I had always been one of the more modest girls of my group of friends, so hearing that came as a bit of a shock. I loved it though – the rest of the summer I felt good wearing regular t-shirts and longer shorts. My LDS friends were all so funny too. They all had this quirkiness about them that set them apart from other people I’ve met.

I can already tell this woman had a self-esteem problem as a little girl if she allowed a boy to tell her how she should dress when she was wearing something that she was already comfortable in. That’s how religious abuse often starts, by telling people that their own minds, feelings, and priorities are not really best for them. Sometimes that may be valid, but not when it comes to things that are not in themselves harmful, such as how one dresses.

Being in Utah means you get to see a lot of temples. They’re everywhere. I remember when I was younger, we went to the visitor’s center next to the Salt Lake City temple. I felt this incredible pull towards the actual temple. I felt that I needed to go there someday.

Yes, that’s why Catholics used to build those massive cathedrals back in the Middle Ages and why Baha’is have built several “Houses of Worship”; people are naturally drawn to huge and richly decorated buildings. But meanwhile, that means less money is used for charitable purposes, which I’d think religions would emphasize more.

When I was ten, I met a friend who we’ll call Sam (I haven’t asked if I can use her name for this blog, so I’ll just change it). Sam invited me to go with her to church. My parents said it was fine so I started going with her to LDS church. I remember really disliking the “first hour” (which is sacrament meeting) because…well, because I was a kid and kids don’t like to sit still for that long. The second and third hour of church were always so fun though, so it kept me going back. I loved primary and learning and singing. I felt lost half of the time, but I really liked being there. Sam would let me tag along to their activities when they had them at the church. Those were always so much fun! Those were the things I remembered most about the church.

Personal ties formed between people are very effective in luring outsiders to commit to a religion. That certainly happened to me when I was learning about the Baha’i Faith!

Fast forward to adulthood – I haven’t been active in any sort of religion or church for years. I had a bad experience with a church that turned me away from churches for a long time.

What was this experience? It would have been helpful if she had given details, including what denomination this church was part of.

My daughter had been asking about going to church because she had been watching this family on YouTube called the Shaytards. The Shaytards are a LDS family and they do a video blog about their day-to-day life. Something about them made Katie want to investigate the LDS church. I wasn’t all that interested in taking her to LDS church, so I just kept saying “maybe someday” and figured someday wouldn’t come. But, the Lord had other plans for us. So, Katie met a girl at school named Rosie and they became best friends. Rosie came over one day and we were all talking as I drove her back to her Mom. Turns out Rosie and her family are LDS so she invited us to come to church with her sometime. Katie was very excited about the prospect of going to LDS church.

I used to watch the Shaytards’ videos. I later lost interest in them and it should be noted that they never (to my knowledge) made an issue of their being Mormon in them. More recently, the parents’ marriage was jeopardized when the father was caught having an affair! Their YouTube presence was badly disrupted by this. I wonder what the mother and daughter of this story think about this now. Anyway, history repeats itself here, because the daughter is forming a personal link to a Mormon girl, just as the mother did when she was a child.

It still took a month of thinking before we decided to go and check it out. At first I figured Katie would go and realize it was three hours of church and be over it. To my surprise, she was not over it after we went…she wanted to keep going. Months went on and we kept going. At first, I felt sorry for everyone. I felt like they had all be duped and it was so sad that they had bought into all this madness. Then, out of nowhere, a small voice whispered, “What if it is true?” That shook me. I hadn’t even considered that it could be true before that moment. At that point, I decided to really look into the church.

Different people have different tastes, naturally. If the daughter found three hours of church more enjoyable than the mother did, then why couldn’t the mother let the girl go with her friend and the mother just stay home rather than endure that time herself. It is equally wrong for parents to force their kids to attend church if they hate going every Sunday; I consider that child abuse.

Now the mother will do some serious examination of the Mormon teachings, but what is her criteria for judging what is right?

I looked at every single piece of anti-mormon literature that was online. I read the “CES Letter” and all the other things that are supposed to make people lose their faith. I also read the positives about the church. I started to read the Book of Mormon with real intent. One day, after a particularly long day of questioning and driving myself insane, I decided I couldn’t handle it anymore. If anyone had definitively proved the church was true or false, it would be out there online. It wasn’t. It was just a bunch of back and forth. I decided that the only way I would know for sure was to ask God. So, I got on my knees and prayed to Heavenly Father. I asked for peace if this was all true and to be left in my doubts if it was false. Immediately, a tangible weight was lifted from my chest. I could feel the peace flood over me like a wave. It was real, it was intense and it was immediate. I had an answer right then and there. I knew it was real. I felt so thankful to have that experience, because it has helped me get through some tough times that were to follow.

So after deciding that the cases for and against Mormonism were equal in nature (which is absurd; the burden of proof should always be on the ones making positive claims, including that Joseph Smith was a real Prophet, that Jesus of Nazereth was indeed the Messiah, or that there even is a God at all) this woman decided that some FEELING in her heart was all she needed to make a final decision! Please note, if something that tastes sweet contains arsenic and you eat it over several months and eventually die, the sweet taste does not matter!

From that point, I knew the Book of Mormon was true. I knew the church was true. I knew that this was where I needed to be. My daughter had already been asking about being baptized. I was still on the fence just because my husband was not a fan of the church. The whole thing caused quite a divide between us. It was one of the hardest things we’ve had to face as a couple. It was difficult, because we both had valid points.

No, you didn’t. You let something other than empirical FACTS cloud your judgement and threaten to disrupt your family life. It’s never worth it; cults often destroy families by pitting them against each other and demanding that loyalty to the cult outweigh family ties. That I consider to be evil.

For him, this is not what he signed up for. I was not religious when we met and I had no intention of being religious. We were on that same page until all of this happened. So, for him, he felt like it was a bait and switch.

Something tells me that this couple, or at least one of them, was not completely honest with each other about their spiritual desires, views and goals.

For me, I felt that I didn’t intend to deceive him. I didn’t intend to find religion at this point in my life (especially not after I had already studied so many others and had not found what I had been looking for). I felt bad about the entire thing because I knew that it upset him, but I couldn’t give it up. There were times we’d talk and I would tell him I’d stop going just because I didn’t want to lose him…and then I would feel so empty and ashamed of myself for giving up on something this important to me that I would promise him that it wouldn’t change things between us and he’d say I could go and we’d start the whole cycle over again. If there’s anything in my life that I wish I could change, it would be how he feels about the church. I wish that I didn’t cause him so much pain with this decision. It was a hard adjustment for the both of us. He felt cut out of the decision because I didn’t properly talk to him about it before Katie and I started going. I told him what we were planning on doing…but I didn’t really leave it open for discussion. He voiced that he didn’t like it, but I said it would be fine. To be fair, at that point I did feel that it would be fine. I felt it would be short lived and that Katie would go once or twice and then not feel like going anymore. I felt I owed it to Katie to allow her to grow spiritually in whatever way she needed to grow. One of the things I loved most about my upbringing was the fact that I could explore whatever I needed to explore. I went through so many phases and changes…but those things shaped who I am today. I wanted to make sure Katie felt that same support. I never imagined that I would want to join the church. It honestly did not seem like a possibility to me at the time.

Again, it would be perfectly OK for the daughter to go with her friend and the friend’s family and the parents to stay at home if the father really felt that going to the Mormon church was not for him. Or even for the mother and daughter to go and the father to remain home.

I struggled with whether Katie and I should be baptized. There were a few experiences that led to us being baptized, but this one sticks out the most for me. I had a dream one night about the temple. I went inside and saw a bunch of people. There were several fonts of water spread around. The people were walking around and celebrating. It seemed like a party. I was still walking silently, taking in the beauty of the temple. (Mind you, I had never actually been in one yet.) I saw white everywhere, baptismal fonts and people dressed in white. I walked up to one of the fonts and I was deciding if I should get in. Suddently, a woman came up behind me and picked me up and very gently set me down in the water. I went into the water in the fetal position, eyes closed softly, and I let the water wash over me. When I woke up, I realized those people who were celebrating were my ancestors. At that point, I knew that we had to be baptized. So, on February 11, 2016, Katie and I were baptized. The following day we were confirmed members of the church.

Dreams, of course, can be highly symbolic of one’s subconscious desires and feelings, but are not proof of anything outside of themselves.

It hasn’t been easy. Giving up coffee was really difficult for me. I struggled with the fact that I wouldn’t be able to drink alcohol anymore. I strugged with finding my place and what being a “Mormon” really meant.

I would not mind giving up Dr. Pepper if a religion that could be proven true with clear evidence commanded me to do so (I drink that soda every day). What I find objectionable is being asked to give up objective truth in exchange for delusions.

There were people who didn’t understand the decision. I didn’t really open my conversion up for conversation. I kept it off Facebook and I kept it to myself for quite a while. Close friends and family knew, but it wasn’t something that I broadcasted for everyone to know. I felt that I was in a fragile state in the beginning, and it was best to keep my faith to myself until I was stronger and better able to fight off people’s opinions.

I had the same issue in reverse with my leaving the Baha’i Faith: “I composed that letter [denying my previous faith in Baha’u’llah] on my computer and then mailed it in January of 2005. A few weeks later, the NSA replied that they had accepted my resignation and expressed hope that I would one day decide to return. That looked like denial to me, so I dismissed it and threw away the letter. Then I cut completely all personal ties to the Baha’is in the Fort Worth area. Despite this, I stayed silent about my defection from the Baha’i Faith until October 19, 2007, when I posted my first blog entry attacking it.” Yes, it took me 2 1/2 years to build up the courage to denounce my former religion, but once I started I was like a lion chasing down prey! Fear never again was an issue when confronting falsehoods of any kind! Including MORMONISM!

Katie was absolutely glowing on the day of our baptism. Her friends came and rushed up to hug her when we arrived at church. People who we had never met showed up to support us. My Mom and my husband’s Mom and Step-Dad came to the baptism. We felt supported and loved. When it was Katie’s turn to be baptized, she was so peaceful. She was ready. She understood the decision she was making and she was so happy that it was happening. I have never felt the Spirit as strong as I did in that moment. Katie was so happy and it was very evident. I loved having that experience with her.

I went through a ton of love-bombing when I declared my faith in Baha’u’llah and that made me feel great about my decision to embrace his Faith. It’s amazing how similar these apparently different cults are in manipulating people!

I am thankful for the church because I feel that it has bonded us closer than we were before. Honestly, that’s saying something because Katie and I have always had a very close relationship. Somehow, being a member of the church and doing family scripture study and the family activies [sic] that the church encourages has really changed our relationship. Fast forward to now and we have been members just about one whole year. I go to the temple pretty soon to receive my endowments and I couldn’t be happier. My life has really changed for the better because of this decision.

You say “bonded us closer”. Would that include the husband and father who was against Mormonism? I notice you stopped mentioning him. And I think your life would be improved by being a part of ANY religious community, because it is the COMMUNITY itself that really matters, not the irrational dogmas that are used to justify its existence and often set different communities against each other!

You can even have a religious community without dogmas of any kind. Like this:

Unitarian Universalist Association.