If anything will be done about it remains to be seen, still it's nice to be vindicated

Jk. They probably could.

Just capitalizing on any chance I get to dress as least Mormon-y as possible these days.

To the women taught we could be walking pornography, endowed with the power from on high to control the thoughts and actions of men:

Fuck
That
Shit.

Our shoulders and legs and stomachs and clavicles deserve to be seen and shown and treasured and valued exactly as much as we do or do not wish. This decision, of displaying skin in celebration of our bodies? May it forevermore be ours and ours alone.

“My body may be a temple but I am the god to whom it is devoted. Do not presume to tell me how I may decorate my altar.”

(Edit: Reddit. I beg of you. Please install the feature to edit post titles, at least once, after they are posted. “ . . . they MAY take our [shoulders]. MAY.”)

https://read.cesletter.org

So I was talking with an ex mormon friend of mine and he encouraged me to read the CES letter. I'm still reading the letter because there are a lot of sections but from what I've read so far, there were so many things I didn't know about. Joseph Smith made multiple accounts of his first vision, the Book of Mormon, the godhead, and polygamy/polyandry. I know there's more. I'm still reading it. I've heard of some of those topics before never thought much of it. I'm relieved that I'm not questioning my faith anymore. However, I can't help but feel so betrayed, hurt, and lied to my whole life. It's a lot to take in. If you've read the letter before, how have you handled it? Any advice on what to do? Because I still go to church to be with my family. And plus I have a disability and I really can't be at home by myself for too long. I don't know what to do

I was just reading something and it got me thinking about the few things that we were allowed to do as kids but weren’t supposed to tell anyone in church about. My grandmother (who I grew up with) was an absolute true believer and super Mormon. We followed all of the basic rules with the exception of a couple of Words of Wisdom guidelines. My grandmother was diabetic, so fast Sunday was out. Which meant we could all skip it. Granny loved her Tab, which was a diet soda with major caffeine. Again, it was hard to find diet soda that she liked, and so her medical condition allowed it. The rest of us drinking diet Mountain Dew was therefore allowed. This was the seventies, water was not a beverage anyone considered 😂

There’s one more that isn’t so much a rule as it just seemed to me at the time to be completely hypocritical, especially since I wasn’t allowed to go watch the movie Grease when it came out in the theaters. I did see it, but that’s not the point. I had a strict bedtime, so that Granny could stay up and watch Benny Hill. Granny immigrated from England when she was fifteen, and I’m sure it made her feel closer to her birthplace. However, Benny Hill often had women in bikinis and sometimes topless. It was just a lot of misogynistic jokes, and sometimes actually funny stuff too. Now it’s funny to think about, but got me wondering, what kinds of things were you guys allowed to do growing up that were not exactly approved by the Church?

Anybody have any funny bishops stories/interview questions?

Before I got married, my (now ex) wife and I were having issues with the law of chastity (because we are human and that’s what our natural bodies want to do), so we were frequenting the bishops office. When we got close to the end, right before we were going to get married, he gave us a bunch of unsolicited sex advice and tips and tricks on positions, etc. it’s absolutely crazy they’ll just let completely un qualified men be responsible over people and young adults in such crucial times in their lives. While I believe there are good people in the church, this should not ever be a topic of discussion. Thank god my kids will never go through this.

This honestly made my blood boil. Sent to 12-18 year olds. Reads like the Nancy Rigdon happiness letter. “Ignore your intuition, what might look false is true. Satan is trying to deceive you. Who can you really trust anyway?!? Here’s some optical illusions that will help you distrust your gut when you see things that CLEARLY show you the church isn’t true…”

Hey MFMC…if your church was true you wouldn’t this absolute horseshit in your youth magazine. Freaking cult garbage. Ughhhhh.

Just wanted to share that I officially submitted (to quit Mormon) my resignation. I realize my records are still technically there as of this moment but submitting the notarized paperwork feels good. I’ve been out ten years but knew they still have records and info on me. Thinking of the MFMC using me as a statistic in anyway gives me the ick.

My deconstruction process has been long and hard. It may never be over but I think the worst is behind me and now officially resigning feels good, light, freeing. It’s over. 🥹 ehem….

it is finished 😂😂😂

Ever since leaving, I’ve realized even more how crazy this church is. I used to baptize myself for dead people??

And I’ve started becoming judgmental of my still believing family. How can they believe that a church that forces 12 year olds to talk alone in a room with a 50 year old man who has power over her, about masturbation, is true?? How do people actually believe Joseph smith was a good person? And that God talks to them? It all feels ridiculous to me and it gets more and more ridiculous the more I think about it.

I know it’s wrong but I’ve started struggling with thinking that I’m better than members, or smarter than them. Idk how to get rid of this thinking. Am I the problem or do others struggle with this as well?

Y'all my dad watched this movie called "The Amish Stud" and the plot revolves around a man pressuring his wife to break Amish rules around sex (specifically oral sex). He started going off about how weird and restrictive it is and that, "at least the church isn't that bad" 😐 I mentioned the letter and he tried brushing it off with classics like, "well, it was part of the culture" and "maybe it was just taught incorrectly on the local level".

Does anyone know where it could be found on the church's website, if at all? I thought I'd check here first before I waste my time since it's such a maze.

I was able to find the original document online, but you know how these things go. It's not a credible source unless it's on the (definitely impartial) church's website 🤪

Nevermo, but reading a lot of Joseph Smith's writings for something else and I keep coming across specific instances of him berating someone for killing a non-aggressive snake, using the hunting of prey animals for consumption as one of his MAIN EXAMPLES of what was evil about the Lamanites, clarifying explicitly in the Word of Wisdom that meat should only be consumed "in winter or times of famine"

Like it takes very little reading comprehension to understand that the only reason Joseph Smith himself was not a vegetarian was because he'd have starved.

I'm sure an amount of it is the fact that most mainstream mormons are americans first, capitalists second, and mormons third, but this still feels like an odd thing not to practice.

Imagine how interesting it would be if Bruce R. McConkie became President of the LDS Church—just the sheer amount of damage control they’d have to do.

You already know the PR cadence would be nonstop: “It was just his opinion. He was speaking as a man.”

McConkie's "dOcTrInEs" are already a headache to Mormons. Imagine if he taught and instituted them as a President.

The McConkie talks are awful for their rebranding in order to try to appeal to Mainstream Christians.

McConkie's also probably spinning in his grave right now.

While he was reactionary asf, I can't help but find the church's departure from his ideas to be fascinating.

This is the second ad for institute that I've received in the mail, however this time they didn't even say what it was for! The back side had a big address printed and a tiny institute label that had been stamped over, making it hard to read. I didn't take a picture though, as I would have had to black out half of it to avoid doxxing myself.

The people pushing these conspiracy theories (thanks to YouTube Channels such as We The People Utah) want us to believe that Satanic Ritual Abuse is real the same way the LDS Church wants us to believe their church and the Book of Mormon is divine and true.

They don't want to give us physical, tangible, investigatable evidence that satan worshipping cabals are ritually abusing children for special powers the same way the LDS Church cannot give us evidence anything in the Book of Mormon is more than 19th century spiritual fiction based on the Bible.

They just want to give us stories, and then ponder on our feelings to see if they're true. I'm sorry, that's absolutely bullshit.

Sorry, it takes more than spooky stories, "witnesses" claiming on words alone what they've seen is true, and feelings/vibes to believe that what you're saying is true.

It all boils down to lack of evidence and the philosophical burden of proof. It's annoying that this shit is having a resurgence online for political and spiritual clout by self proclaimed God warriors, both on the believing and non believing forums.

I need to stop fighting with the SRA pushers online but people also love to eat this shit up. I'm not trying to be callous towards victims of sexual abuse which makes talking about this topic candidly hard.

However at the end of the day, there has never been any credible evidence EVER produced of organized groups sacrificing, mind controlling, and molesting children for special powers on satanic altars in Utah. Full stop. No, some lady sharing a sad story online is not evidence of these organized satanic cabals mind-controlling children either.

From Bryant S. Hinckley’s ’That Ye Might Have Joy’. Hilarious double standards.

And I blame him, the church, the bishop and the stake presidency. They talk to him on going into a mission. At first he didnt want to but then he left because it was the "right" thing to do. And now we are stuck with a big debt that specifically my mother has to deal with.

My whole family basically rejoiced him when he decided to go, my grandparents, uncles, aunts and even me. I thought look how he goes into a mission, when I never did. And 2 weeks later he told us about his debt.

Now I feel like a mess and betrayed, I always thought if someone went to a mission then that means that he would be doing his own things and there was nothing to worry about but no. What if he never went and paid of his credit debt like he supposed to but no, looks like God had other plans, serve me and fuck your family.

Dear All:

In response to the April 2026 announcement by the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints titled “Young Women Age-Group Names,” I am elated to propose the following group names for Mormons who have faith-transitioned, beginning the moment they turn against the aforementioned institution:

• Kickers of Pricks—a Kicker of Pricks helps put the Church in its place through their courage, wits, and inquisitiveness, which inspire and enlighten others, even when it is hard (see Acts 9:5; 26:14; D&C 121:38).

• Piercers of Souls—a Piercer of Souls carries daggers to the soul, telling wickedness and abominations as they are, speaking with boldness and plainness, and cutting through the pretense of peace and love, even if doing so might burden and grieve their own soul as well as others’ (see Jacob 2:2–11, 35).

• Preventers of Sins—a Preventer of Sins promotes true, fervent charity toward their fellow human beings by stepping in responsibly when others face imminent danger or harm, by being anxiously engaged in scrutinizing existing safeguards, and by keeping the Church accountable for negligence that exposes vulnerable people to physical, emotional, or spiritual harm (see JST 1 Peter 4:8).

The group names proposed above are not presented in any particular order, and the groups may overlap freely. No matter how one feels about these group names, no one needs to feel compelled to be referred to by them. Everyone is also at liberty to come up with further group names as they deem appropriate. When possible, keep the names scripture-based, but feel free to put your own spin on what they mean if you personally disagree with the “authorized” interpretation.

Sincerely,

Thoughtful Doubt

I had been keeping an eye on FB posts, assuming that I would find out when the funeral was planned for, but it was silent nothing about the death from any family members to clue me in on the funeral plans, but after seeing a new update yesterday, I now know that my family's intent has always been to exclude me, it could have been dangerous to try to just attend the funeral, but it still hurts to not be included - that's another thing I have a problem with about the "family is forever" BS that TSCC dishes out... It's clear now that I have no real family on earth, the only person who gave AF about me was my dad- I'd be happy only if he's the only family member who I have to interact with for eternity...anyone know what the MFMC has to say about what if you have a shitty family and being around them for forever would be legitimate torture & punishment? 🤬😪🤬

Obviously, you can't be Mormon and post about a funeral on social media without including shitty quotes from past General Conferences, so I guess I didn't miss anything by not taking a long plane flight!🙄

I feel like I keep hearing about more swingers, events and places that are popping up in Utah.

Is Utah the best state for swinging or does it just feel that way?

Curious…would love feedback

The thing about prayer (especially Mormon prayer) is, the answer is inside us the whole time. But if you're stressed or anxious you aren't gonna get anything and just feel more stressed because of it.

But with tarot you can gently get the answer out of you without having to force anything. You can even get multiple answers instead of just one! Mormon prayer seems to tell people "go with the first answer you get" which isn't healthy once you realize that the answers are inside of you and not from a god.

I also like how it has to be an intentional event. I care about my cards so I'm not gonna do it half awake before bed or in front of a cluttered desk. When I feel like i need to do a reading I'll clear space on my desk or make a note to sleep on the worry then read tomorrow with mental clarity.

Also I recommend looking up your birthday cards even though there isn't anything magic about it, since having a reason for personal attachment to certain cards is just useful for introspection.

So this actually came from a reply that I’ve made to a comment earlier from another post about a story from my personal experience, but then it got me thinking and I wanted to tell it.

Many years ago I went on an overnight youth conference that was a couple hours away from where I lived at a college campus. I can’t remember how long it lasted, but it must have been about a week, but I could be wrong. I don’t remember a whole lot though, because I spent most of the time being sleep deprived and I’ll tell you why.

For starters, I knew something was off the first time when I looked at the schedule for activities and classes and I felt something wasn’t right. When I saw the sleep schedule it said it only gave us five hours of sleep from 12 a.m.- 5 a.m. when it was confirmed that it was real, I was like “ you gotta be kidding me.”

All of the days would be spent doing all these activities, but I was mostly tired after the first day. Everybody in my group kept falling asleep, especially me, and I remember the adults would get mad and yell at us, lecturing us why we shouldn’t fall asleep. But I was like it wasn’t our faults. You only gave us five fucking hours of sleep!

Even during an assembly, the speaker got pretty pissed when he saw everyone falling asleep and his yelling actually woke me up out of it. He called us all out on it and said “ why are so many people falling asleep?”

I’ll tell you why good sir: five fucking hours of sleep.

None of us could help how tired we were and our bodies were crying for rest and sleep. We just couldn’t help it.

But then the other time, there was actually only one adult out of all who was pretty chill and understanding about it. When he saw that we were falling asleep in his class, he was nice and just told us to get up and stretch and he stretched with us. He was the first and only one who didn’t give us shit about it, which is why I liked him.

But anyway, looking back, I see these adults getting mad at us kids for being so tired, even though it wasn’t our faults and we had no control over it. I wondered why they weren’t tired either and how they were able to stay awake, since Mormons don’t drink coffee. I wondered if they were also cranky too from lack of sleep, and were probably bitching and complaining about it and just taking it out on us, but who knows.

Even though this was all supposed to be spiritual, or whatever you call it, I don’t I think I ever actually recall learning something from it. Because I was too tired.

I’ve never gone on another youth conference after that and thankfully this was my last one.

I’ve actually heard that once I’ve realized the church is actually a cult, I’ve come to realize that they do use sleep deprivation as a tactic for brainwashing and control and it made me wonder if that’s what they were doing. I think already have the answer to that.

I’m rereading No Man Knows My History by Fawn Brodie, and she notes that the Book of Mormon contains about 27,000 words that closely parallel the King James Bible.
The Church has always been good at PR, so I assume there’s a standard talking point missionaries and apologists use when this comes up.

If the Book of Mormon is an ancient record, what is the current explanation for why it contains the actual King James wording, including the italicized words added by the KJV translators?

I’m looking for the strongest answer missionaries or LDS scholars give today, not a strawman. I’m genuinely interested in understanding how this issue is addressed from a believing perspective.

TLDR; I realized that trespassing for Jesus wasn't cool, and curious to hear your experiences.

Picture this... It's nighttime. Two missionaries nervously laughing and dripping sweat, running up stairwells and elevators, evading security guards in a large apartment high-rise.

Why are they running? Trespassing.

This was the game I was taught by my trainer from day one, and I never questioned it.

In Taiwan in the early 00s (can't speak to current day 100%) EVERY missionary did this. Multiple times a day. Common mission practice, as common as street contacting.

Find a high-rise complex (some of these buildings in 2026 can fetch over $100M in market price) that you want to knock out, and you do what you gotta do to get in. ("Families' salvation is on the line" of course.)

The first tactic we would use was ringing residents on the outside building intercom and oftentimes not even saying who we were or what we were doing (cause if they knew we were missionaries, the answer 99% of the time was "no"!) So we would say stuff like, "Uh...please open the door" (hoping we'd pass as a resident who just got locked out.) I regret to say that on occasion I'd even change my voice to sound elderly and confused.

Many buildings had a dedicated security guard(s), and as soon as they saw us trying to go in, the majority of the time they would immediately kick us out. So oftentimes we'd keep a watch out on the guard stations, and when we saw they were off their post, we'd seize the opportunity and haul ass into the stairwell or elevator to get to the top floor asap so we could start knocking out each unit. We always knew this was on borrowed time because a resident would inevitably report us to security and we'd get kicked out. (Of course the resident who ratted us out was the one "led by Satan", stopping "God's work"). We'd even try to get into the same building multiple times in a transfer if we saw there were different security guards on duty. Cause after all, "THAT specific security guard hadn't already told us to leave."

There were certain buildings in each area that were almost impossible to get into undetected, and those were the ones that we would PRAY that we'd coincidentally run into someone on the street that happened to live there, who we could teach. That was usually the golden ticket! If a resident invited us there to teach a lesson in their home, then we had a free pass to bypass the security guard.

It was well understood that once the lesson was over, we were supposed to exit the building, but more often than not, we would just start knocking the floor below our investigator (so they didn't see us knocking on their neighbor's door across from them).

We would knock as many doors as fast as we could before we would get kicked out by security.

We even tried to be smart about it and would purposely be less pushy to the other residents, in hopes they wouldn't report us.

This was all just "the mission" and part of what was normal. It was seen as "faithful" and "hard working" and was viewed as a way to "reach that one person that the previous elders for decades, "hadn't been able to talk to".

Flash forward to last night, I was reminded by a podcast just how problematic and extreme people can be when "God is on THEIR side" or when people believe they are sharing "God's message."

I thought back to these shenanigans, and recognized that at the time, because I was 100% convinced I was doing God's work, that all those "silly rules" made up by lowly security guards pailed in comparison to the importance of me staring into the eyes of a random stranger on other side of the world, and telling them that "in 1820 a 14 boy in New York blah blah" (as if there weren't multiple conflicting versions of that story, even down to the age of the boy).

I look back now and think about how, even from a secular view, how embarrassing that was for the organization (we thought we were the heroes for), being careless kids, trespassing, and trying to be sneaky to get into these buildings. Not a good look. Hell, sometimes residents would ask, "How did you get in?" And the answer without even thinking was, "Somebody let us in" (even if that 'somebody' was yourself).

I even remembered back to writing my buddy, who was serving at the same time in Brooklyn, NY. We would swap these kind of stories, and he told me that he had gotten good at picking lock gates and doors to be able to get into places to tract, and he was often dealing with security guards too.

It got me thinking, what did you do on your mission that was either illegal or gray because "the message was so important at the time"? (Or seen missionaries do)

PS Yes one of those is me in the picture!