Ex-mormon: Leaving the Church Part 1/3 - Ex-Mormon story

hey guys it's Chrissy from Chrissy's corner and today is the day where I will be finally sharing my in-depth story with me and church [Music] so this is the number one requested video that I have and I know that there are a lot of you that are very anxious to actually hear it this is part 1 part 1 is going to be mainly about my actual experience growing up things that I was taught basically kind of the way I thought as well growing up in the church and part 2 is going to be more of me leaving and actually what I studied and the material with that so that video will be the next one on my channel first off for you the viewer whoever is watching this I do want to make sure that whether you are LDS ex Mormon or you don't really know anything about Mormonism at all I want to be sure that you understand this story so and my experience as well so from that there is going to be a lot of explaining in this video and basically overall view of things just so people can have a basic understanding of how the church works there's also going to be a lot of references that I will put down below and all these references as well when you look at them most of them will be from the church's official website which is lds.org so for those of you that kind of question the things that I say look in the links because it's probably in there feel free to ask me any questions as well and just know that I am sharing my experience and my learning with you guys my experience is my experience and my experience only meaning you can't necessarily judge the church off of my experience or anybody else's experience just what you know just because I experienced something doesn't mean other people do ever and some people can relate to it very much so it just depends on who you are and also where you live so without further ado let's start this video so I was born and raised in the LDS Church in Provo Utah my entire influence throughout my childhood was from the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day saints and that is their official name and that is their preferred name however they are also known the Mormon Church or the LDS Church anyway so I grew up and everybody I knew my whole family was LDS all my friends were LDS everybody I knew at school was Elias again I didn't meet a non-member for the longest time at least not that I recollect and honestly most little kids me included when I was a little kid and also looking at the other kids around me they typically think that everybody is LDS because it's so big here over 62 maybe 64 percent actually of the people in the state of Utah are LDS so that's a big percentage right there the LDS Church how it began what the church will teach you from the history of it so it began with their first Prophet Joseph Smith who at the age of 14 in 1820 was questioning which religion to join he was very confused wasn't sure and he came across the scripture in James that basically just said if any of you lack wisdom let him ask of God so that's exactly what this fourteen year old boy decided to do and he went into the wilderness and he knelt down to pray and before I could really speak he was overcome by a darkness and this darkness was so strong it found him and he was unable to speak and just before he was about to give into this darkness he saw a pillar of light directly above his head where two separate beings came down one being got the father and the other being his son Jesus Christ and after they descended upon him the darkness dispersed and they answered Joseph's question of which religion to join which to Joseph Smith surprised was none of them he shouldn't join any of them God actually forbade him from joining any of them because they were all corrupt in the sight of God and that is like the first vision that's where everything begins is with that first vision with Joseph Smith wilderness about three years later I believe in 1823 is when he was visited by an angel Moroni who then tells him about this book called the Book of Mormon and he would be the one that would translate it from these ancient writings so that's where the Book of Mormon kind of comes into play again that would probably actually be brought up later most likely in part two though where I share things that I've learned about the church but that is what the church teaches you know beliefs that the LDS Church currently holds are things such as they are the restored gospel here on the earth meaning that they are the only church with a whole truthfulness the whole fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ and all the other religions have bits and pieces but they are the only one that has all of it then it was restored through their first Prophet Joseph Smith they also believed in having the power and the keys to the fullness of the priesthood which is God's power here on earth which is given to the twelve year old boys and you reach different keys as you progress in age as well they also have the plan of salvation which is where if you are baptized in the church and sealed in the LDS temple you will be able to live with your family in the afterlife those who are not sealed in this temple will be lost from their families until they do like a sealing for them in the temple and also in the temple they do perform baptisms for the dead meaning that you can go and be proxy for people who have passed on and baptize them into the LDS Church and also something to be worthy to enter the temple you must pay your tithing which is 10% of your income no matter how little you earn or how much you must give 10% that income to the church and I know I'm going to get this question so I'm just gonna say it yes they do have special underwear they're actually sacred garments that they have just remind them about their covenants between their spouse and God but yes that is a real thing and if you have any other questions about their beliefs I will put a link to their thirteen articles of faith that is something that the church puts out itself and you can look at that if you want again we're gonna actually discuss a lot of things as this video goes on but that is like the basic overview of things so now I just want to run over basically how the church is set up so they do believe in modern-day prophets as such they have modern prophet that's leading a church who God speaks to in order to lead his people he has his counselors below him he has the Twelve Apostles along with the quorum of the seventies and each subsection within the church such as something like young woman's or young men's primary has a council that's over that section that's in charge of the entire church as well and everything in the church is run similar to that as well so in each ward your ward is basically all the people that go to church at the same time you'll have your bishop and their counselors and below them for each subsection whether it's young women's primary nursery we leave society whatever it is there will also be that same setup with the president the counselors and the secretary as well so again it's very organized in that sense now when you go to church and you go into your ward church is only held on Sundays when I was going it was three hours and within these past few months I believe it was just changed to two hours everything I'm gonna talk about is going to be within three hours just because that's when I was really active in the church for three hours each hour would be a different class so one hour would be sacrament meeting and sacrament meeting is the only meeting where the whole ward will meet in the exact same room and during that meeting you'll basically have some prayers you'll do the sacrament of course and talks as well and any announcements for the board after that the remaining two hours you will be separated in between gender and/or age it just depends on which classes you have for the little children 18 months to I think like three as soon as they turn three is when they leave those children are actually put in nursery and nursery we'll talk about again later but it's basically like a babysitting service so that the adults can go to their classes or go teach uninterrupted from their little ones that is the only class that they'll actually stay for the two hours there they won't move from there so they'll go to sacrament with their parents for the one hour and after that for the remaining two they would stay in nursery and after that starting at three years old to 11 is when the kids start attending primary for one hour and then also all these are for one hour and then after twelve when you hit twelve depending on if you are a boy or a girl you'll go to young woman's or young men and after that they have Relief Society and priesthood and for the remaining hour for all of those then you go to Sunday school which is usually your age group and you just go into just smaller classrooms and you are taught the lesson for the day from your Sunday school teacher so that's an overview again we'll talk more about it as this goes on so let's get more into the experiences so when I am was growing up I again I was like born in the church my parents were LDS and so I was raised LDS and I was put in nursery as well and obviously I'm not going to remember too much about nursery since that is 18 months to like three years old but I do remember a very few things that looking back now I'm like oh that probably wasn't the best decision well a nursery how it set up it's basically to teach those little kids about the church about Jesus and about Joseph Smith and learn to love God they want to make sure that they build a good foundation for those little ones so as they grow in the church they will want to stay and it because it's good during nursery you're going to be watched by four woman an only woman can be called to this position because in the church is not in a man's gender role to be in the nursery and it may be different somewhere else but for sure around Utah that's how it is a man cannot be called to that position so you have four women watching you about and they will give you a five-minute lesson which is again super long for an 18-month old to the three-year-old that's just a really ridiculously long time even though it's super short they'll also give you a coloring page you can color there's snacks you'll sing songs and you'll practice things like praying basically how they practice is they'll ask somebody to say the prayer and they'll whisper in their ear what to say the child will repeat it until the end of the prayer just so they can get like a basis of how to pray but they're taught really how to pray when they're a little bit older anyway all of that may last for like 20 minutes at most I don't like I don't think it would ever go over 20 minutes and for the remainder of that two hours you just play there was like a playhouse there were toys a play kitchen a basketball hoop and that's what you would do for Sunday and I remember really liking it of course I was a little kid so I remembered times where I would just like be bawling and crying because I didn't want my parents to drop me off there and I loved it until they came back and then I just like start crying you know but this is what I do remember this is the main thing I remember so after two hours your parents would come and pick you up from the nursery well by the time that most of the 15 to 25 kids were picked up at the end of those two hours there would be about like two three four of us and I was usually one of the last to be there my parents were always a lot later than everybody else's in picking me up well there wasn't a need for all four women to stay for just like three four kids and so typically three of them would leave and there would be just one waiting well there was a time where I was the last one and I just remember the teacher being like oh well I'm just gonna go get your parents so I'm sure she was down with the three hours and she probably needed to go home well she left me there in I saw him again like I was probably like 1 or 2 and the only reason I remember this is because they had a small table and I would run back and forth on top of this table every single time there were multiple times that she left one time I do remember being caught and she said get off the table you can't be on that and so I freaked out you know because I got in trouble and my parents came in and they picked me up and so of course I kept doing it every single time she left well there was a time where I was running back and forth on this table and I fell off and when I fell off I tipped the table as well and I landed on my head and I just remember my neck was in so much pain and I started crying and then I got scared because I didn't want my teacher to be mad at me so this end part was kind of where it's blurry I don't remember if I put the table up before my parents walked in or I put it up and then they walked in I do remember my dad asking me are you okay I was like yeah I'm fine but that actually happened a lot every single time she left but looking back on it now and actually knowing that room because that room hasn't changed when I go in and I look at everything it's very dangerous in that room for an adult to leave a kid by themselves just because there's little scissors absolutely everywhere there's crowns little pieces walking past nursery you always hear kids crying that's just the normal thing but when you're out in the hallway and walking past this room you always think oh you know somebody's in there because they are called by the bishop to stay in there with these kids and she would leave me for like 15 to 20 minutes and there by myself so I wasn't normal for anybody just to walk in so I didn't really get any help from anything or from getting hurt until my teacher came back so now let's skip over to primary primaries the next stage for the little kids in primary you are in this big room and you sit with your age group so you sit with all the four-year-olds and then the five year olds are in another row six all the way to 11 now primary has changed constantly since I was growing up in it usually what they'll do they'll have all the kids before age 8 stay in the primary room and then the kids that are 8 to 11 will separate into their individual age groups and go to separate smaller classrooms to have Sunday school anyway so from ages 4 to 7 is the CTR classes which stands for choose the right because in that stage primary is supposed to guide those children towards baptism that is their main thing is to make sure that these kids understand baptism and that they want to be baptized and learn about the church learn about justice myths learn about Jesus Christ after that when they turn eight years old they are known as the valiant classes because they want to be valiant in keeping the covenants that they made when they were baptized and be worthy of that baptism now in primary there's things that I love things that I hated things I look back and I'm like oh my goodness that is so weird that I didn't even like notice that until I left the church but in primary at the very beginning they have like this opening which is basically led by the kids like four or five kids and those kids are chosen by the primary leaders a week before and they have a week to basically prepare for this there would be somebody who conducts there would be a prayer the theme scripture and a talk there maybe like somebody who conducts and leads the music it just kind of depends but that's how it was when I was growing up what they would do is so the person who conducted the primary leaders would actually give a paper to them and they would just read what everybody else would be doing I was okay with doing that and I was also okay with giving the talk so the kids were supposed to write their own but growing up there were two types of kids and two types of parents it was either that the parents would sit those kids down and they wouldn't be able to do anything else until those children wrote their talk or the parents would write their talk and the kid would read it and probably I had those parents I had the second one my parents would write the talk and I would be able to just to go and read it in front of the class and that was like that was okay everything else I did not like because I didn't want to be wrong in what I said whether it was the prayer or sharing the scripture and even the same the same is just something that the church gives for the primary and that's kind of what they study during the year and it's usually something that the church actually wants those little kids to memorize as well and I didn't really want to mess up on what I said with that at all and I'll explain with a story and a little bit about why I was so scared of being wrong in front of this primary class as well but anyway I hated to be a part of that except for the talk and also conducting but I really enjoyed primary enjoyed the games that they did they did a lot of just fun games on being kind and being grateful also games involving like the Book of Mormon and remembering things from the Book of Mormon or from the Bible as well just depending on what we had to study for that year whether it was the Book of Mormon Old Testament New Testament or Doctrine covenants Pro of great price I also really loved music and that also come a little bit later within my experiences as well but I always loved to sing I love to memorize those songs and I actually didn't learn any nursery rhymes for a really long time when anybody said nursery rhymes I just assumed that they were the songs that they taught us in primary which they weren't but yeah I really enjoyed that I always wanted to be able to sing in sacrament meeting in the microphone by myself in the church they'll also do musical numbers every now and then for the congregation during sacrament however for the little kids it's a little more rare for them to take part in that and every now and then we would do that but I always wanted to share my belief in God and in the church through music that was the best way for me to share like my beliefs and things was through music and I wanted to share that with everybody and I wanted people to hear my voice in it as well I never got to sing in front of anybody by myself like that I did sing in groups but that was about it I still to this day actually know lots of primary songs and lots of hints as well from the church just because it was a pretty big part of my life and music still is but it was specifically music from the church I also really appreciate even to this day that they would teach us how to be kind and loving help those that are in need of it as well and be grateful I still to this day appreciate those concepts that they taught because I still value those as a human being so there are a lot of experiences that I can share with you guys considering primary just because it was from ages 3 to 11 and that's a long time to be in that same room in that same class but the main thing that I want to share with you guys is the way that they taught me and looking at it from within the church I didn't see anything wrong with it and now leaving the church and looking at it with a new pair of eyes basically I think it's very strange and very weird that they teach like that so I'm just gonna explain that with just an experience that I had as a kid and it will explain why I was so nervous about being wrong in front of these groups well it started when they were teaching us how to pray in the LDS Church like most other religions there is a specific way to pray and they break it down into four steps for you the first step is addressing the prayer meaning you say our dear Heavenly Father because that is who is for the second step is after you do that you need to thank God for everything that you are grateful for the third step is to ask God for that what you stand in need of and the fourth is to end your prayer by saying in the name of Jesus Christ amen because you can't get to the Father unless you go through the son so that's how they teach you to pray if you take lessons from the missionaries it's going to be the same thing along with that you also must use scriptural pronouns meaning you can't say you or yours you need to say sign thou things like that because that is the way you are respectful to God throughout your prayer and through this experience it's going to explain to you guys why I was so scared of being wrong in front of the class and that it basically kept me in check because I was scared of this happening again because it happened all the time but again this is the main example because this was the first time that I ever happened to me and it just happens all throughout my learning within the church well before I got nervous about being wrong I was called up to say the prayer and this was about the time that we were learning how to pray so I go up as a small kid and I start to pray and I end my prayer and my teacher looks at me and she's like well that was very very good but but I want to ask you a question and I was standing there and I was all happy and I said okay and she asked me how could you have been more respectful to God during your prayer and I just stood there like dumbfounded I had no idea what she was talking about I'm so confused and I just stood there and like I looked at her and I looked around at the primary class which was like easily like 30 kids I just like looked around and she just kept staring at me and so she ends up turning towards the primary class and asks how could she have been more respectful to God in her prayer and then all her hands just come up and they're like oh she said you she's not supposed to say that she was disrespectful she didn't say that she thanked God at the wrong time she wasn't organized in her prayer and they start like basically pointing out everything that I was doing wrong and honestly as a kid again I was so excited to pray in front of everybody in to pray to God and the teacher basically organized this thing against me where it was basically like your prayer was disrespectful to God I mean it was good but it was disrespectful and basically after everybody said whatever it was that I did wrong in my prayer I went and sat down from that moment that was when I was nervous about standing up in front of people and praying or giving talks reading scriptures because I didn't want to be wrong and that didn't just happened to me that happened to so many kids probably absolutely every single one and while I was in the church it was a good thing because I was thinking you know they are helping me to pray the correct way and I bet that was probably their intention but the way they went about it was very degrading because what they would do is they would ask you and then they would turn to the class and ask the class what you did wrong and that's how they teach you throughout primary that's usually how they would teach you on zoo Sunday school as well through young woman's and I can't say too much about the young men's just because I'm a female and I was raised in that gender role of the female maybe on a later video I may have a member who has left I guess so ex member of the church come in who is male and talk about their experience as well within that and things that they see as well but we'll just see how this video goes anyway but that's how they teach there's always a right and a wrong answer and in the right answer there's always like the right answer and the most correct and this right answer is okay but it's still wrong because you want this most correct one you want to be the most correct so that's what you aim for so if you just say this right answer they'll point it out and they'll ask basically the class or you why that isn't the most correct answer and how we can be more correct so there wasn't a lot of room for openness in that sense and if I remember right after that experience with the prayer I would never do the prayer again really in primary I very rarely did it if they asked I'd say no like right off the bat because of that because I was so scared everything else I felt like oh you know I don't necessarily have a reason to say no because that happened with the prayer thing it did keep me in check with the church and following those guidelines because I was scared of being wrong so that's basically how they taught and again looking back on it and having that foundation of being taught that way within the church is more run by fear and fear of being wrong or fear of being made fun of being a little in the church because you don't see the most correct answer something else I need to talk about as well is baptism so a baptism within the church happens at eight years old that is the age of accountability now if you don't know this the Mormon Church looks down on child baptisms and they also believe that it is an insult to God to baptize little babies or kids under 8 years old it's basically like a mockery to God and they do not support that they believe that eight years old is the age of accountability meaning that when a child hits that age they are old enough to understand the church and make their own decision with being baptized and they can also decide right from wrong now when I was seven years old I was really excited to be baptized what would happen in Sunday school when we would go in our age groups to the smaller classes our teacher would specifically make every lesson towards baptism until everybody in the class had been baptized because that is the main goal for the seven year olds who are turning eight is to make sure that they are baptized in the church so what she would do like consistently every Sunday if she would typically look at all the baptized kids and for 10-15 minutes she would spend time on praising them telling them how amazing they are and how loved they are that they did the right thing that they are very pure for making that decision God's happy they're happy their family's happy the teachers happy everybody is so happy and they love them so much for making that decision and after she would do that she would basically look at his non baptized kids and be like you know you want to be like them you want to make the same decision that they did because that was the correct decision was to get baptized in the church but you have to want to be baptized so then she would basically ask us so when somebody comes up to you when the bishop finally comes up to you because you are eight years old and he asks do you want to be baptized what is the correct answer and we would basically yell like yes we to be baptized and that was that and that was during Sunday school and well when my baptism came I was so so excited to answer that question I was so excited to be asked do you want to be baptized and I could say yes yes I do I really want to be baptized I know it's the right thing I'm going to be baptized and I was never asked that question my parents never asked me do you want to be baptized my bishop my leaders nobody ever asked me do you want to be baptized I was never asked and I was so disappointed because I actually felt guilty because I wasn't sure if everybody knew that it was my choice or if it was basically like my parents making me get baptized so I always had this guilt because nobody ever asked me if I wanted to be baptized and right before you get baptized do you actually meet with the bishop and it's usually alone as an eight year old sometimes the parents go but typically for us and at least it was for me my parents didn't go was just a meeting between me and my bishop and so my bishop again he didn't ask when I went in he said we are so happy for you because you've made the decision to be baptized you're here because you want to be baptized and while it was true that I did want to be baptized I didn't feel like it was my decision because nobody ever asked me baptism came I got baptized and then the following that Sunday which is the first Sunday of every month my bishop called me up to stand in front of the congregation during sacrament and announce that I was baptized I believe I shared one the articles of faith before I sat down he said make sure to go congratulate her on her righteous decision for being baptized and that's how it was for every kid the bishop would bring them up in front of the congregation let them all know that this trial had been Tice and chosen it and that everybody should go seek them out and congratulate them so that's what they did and it was so awesome while I was in church to receive kind of that love for being baptized in it there were a lot of older people that I didn't necessarily know who they were yet congratulating me and I would be like oh that's cool like they know who I am now that's my experience with being baptized in the church now looking at it again with a new set of eyes having left the church the Sunday school experience when I really look at it was basically putting all the kids who were baptized on pedestal and us like below them but there was basically a set of stairs so we could be on this pedestal with them and I know that that probably wasn't their intention but I do know that it was used they were used as an example as something that we should follow and we want to be like them so there's that also with the baptism thing me not being asked even though I would have said yes again but me not being asked I wonder how many kids especially in Utah are really asked do you want to be baptized or are they told you need to be baptized in the church and whether they say yes or no it should be their decision and it's better to ask them then just to assume that they want to be baptized because if they do and you don't ask then they might have that guilt of wondering do they really know that this is my decision because they're just baptizing me and if they say no then you know that's a whole separate thing so that's the overview of primary let's go to young men's and young woman's young men's and young woman starts for boys and girls at the age of twelve years old they no longer attend primary they actually separate into genders and go to their separate classes because in the church the church has very specific gender roles so a woman's role within the church she is not supposed to work she is supposed to stay at home have and Ray children within the church and also support her husband so man's role within the church he is supposed to have and hold the priesthood he is also supposed to be the breadwinner and be the head of the household and if any of you have an issue with me saying that I will read a direct quote from lds.org I will put a reference down below and it's just listed up quotes with the gender roles that the prophets have said concerning the female and the male within the church and it's mostly I believe considering the females working so here is a quote the husband is expected to support his family and only in an emergency should a wife secure outside employment her place is in the home to build a home into a heaven of delight numerous divorces can be traced directly to the day when the wife left the home and went out into the world into employment two incomes raise the standard of living beyond the norm two spouses working prevent the complete and proper home life break into the family prayer create and independence which is not cooperative causes Distortion limits the family and frustration of children already born come home wives to your children born and unborn about the motherly cloak about you and unembarrassed help in a major role to create the bodies of the immortal souls who anxiously wait when you have fully complimented your husband in home life and borne the children growing up full of faith integrity responsibility and goodness then you have achieved your accomplishments supreme without peer and you will be the envy through time and eternity again that is a direct quote that is mostly about the woman and it also says somewhere in those references as well that a man should never ask his wife to work ever because she is supposed to stay at home um so that's why they have those different things the woman can't hold the priesthood and the men can but the men are not supposed to stay at home and raise their children so they have these different gender roles so they split up and teach you specifically about the best ways to go about those again I can't say too much about the young men's or a male in the church because I was raised as female within the church so I can't say too much about that everything I'm going to say is going to be about young woman's now young women's and also young men are divided into three subcategories they are divided to 12 13 year-olds 14 15 year-olds 16 17 18 basically until you are old enough to graduate that's how long you stay in this third group so from the youngest to the oldest these age groups in the young woman's are called beehives my mates and laurels and for the young men youngest to the oldest they are called the deacons teachers and priests and for the young men those names come from the type of priesthood that they hold well when I was going to turn 12 years old I was so so so excited that I was going to finally be able to be in young woman's my sister was in young woman's and she would tell me that it was pretty fun she would come back with all these cool things and all these new skills that she had learned with an young woman so it's really excited to go she also did mention now that I remember this but she also did mention you know it's not as good as everybody says but it's pretty fun and I was like oh she doesn't know what she's talking about well I wanted a young woman's and for the first like week it was pretty good and I really loved it everybody was very welcoming after that week especially I know that this happens mainly in Utah it happens like through school too but it's like a Utah thing is what I've heard but after that week ended I realized that there were cliques if you do not know what a clique is this is what it is it's a group of people who shares some sort of like or interest and they only hang out with each other and they do not readily accept other people into this group so it's basically like a nice gang if you want to think of it that way and I was never part of any clique at least as far as I know I really did make an effort to try and make friends with those girls and it just never really happened it did kind of disperse the cliques kind of stop more as we got older but they were still there and I did not like this because in Sunday school or in young woman's they would be the ones that were saying we should reach out to all these people that are shy or timid or whatever and feel left out and so me and like all the other girls would like look around and they never did what they would actually do is they would make friends with the other cliques and make like a bigger one and so all of us like Outsiders were just like Outsiders from the beginning of young woman that was a thing that I struggled with the most however even though my situation was like that I knew that my learning of the church was not dependent on other people and my learning everything that I would learn was because of me because I studied because I prayed because I listened in Sunday school and young woman's and sacrament wherever we were and so I understood that even though it made me sad I was there to learn about the church and I was there to learn about God interesting story as well with this whole being like the outsider there was time in beehives which is the first class 12 to 13 year olds where I believe there were five girls and so in each class the bishop will choose one of those girls to be the president of the class and then that girl's supposed to choose her two counselors along with the secretary everybody who is in that president see how to say and what lessons they are going to be doing or in what they're going to do for their mutual activity which is an activity you do on Wednesdays and all the youth the 12th to like 18 year olds get together and have like an activity we'll talk about more later but um they would decide what to do on that day the lessons they would go out and do specific projects together being the presidency and I was the only one in the class who was not part of this presidency and I remember how bad that hurt because during their Sunday School lessons they would be like remember when someone so shared this experience or this or this at our meeting or at this place or doing this and I was the only one there and that didn't go you know my leaders had to be part of it like the older adult leaders along with the girls you know and I just sitting there like I don't know what you're talking about and I remember like after like three months of this happening and I'm thinking they really don't understand like that I'm not there they start talking about this again in our like young woman's class and I raised my hand and I was like I don't know anything about that because I wasn't there I was a really sassy sassy little girl and they like just stopped talking and looked and they're like oh and they kind of laughed and they like pause for a while because I just said that randomly during this lesson so then a few weeks later actually after that they were like oh like we realized that you're not part of these meetings and you're the only one that isn't a part of it so we want you to come to these meetings and actually during that time is when one other girl came in that was part of this clique and that's when it happened so I don't think it was because of me and I think it was because that other girl that was in there click like that's why they made the decision but yeah I don't know too much about what they were thinking during that or like if they did on purpose or not I just know that it happened that was my introduction to young woman and it was pretty hard at first and then I really started to love it when I got older like 15 16 17 18 all up there I made an effort to actually make friends with those younger girls within the class just because of the experience that I had they are the best girls I know more than half of them actually don't talk to me anymore because I left the church and some still do and honestly they were like amazing girls and they like were my best friends during church and when I went now things that I love about young woman so again with the gender roles being our job is to be a wife a mother and having raised kids they would teach us a lot of homemaking skills and I still to this day appreciate that because they taught us too so they taught us to cook they taught us to embroider and they taught us to do like creative skills how to clean manage bills like things like that and that is still too a stuff that I appreciate and a lot of that has turned into my hobbies so I really appreciate that and that they teach those skills now there are some experiences that I want to share with you guys and there's no really easy way to like go into these experiences I thought of the best transition into them but there's not necessarily a good way so even though there are a lot of skills that I really appreciate that the young woman's program has taught me there are some things that really stand out to me and I was an active in the church after this happened however when I was deciding to leave looking back on those experiences that I had witness the things that I read have made more sense again like I said before a little about mutual mutual is for the ages 12 to 18 for the young men's and young woman's for us and was held every single Wednesday at 7 p.m. and we would be divided just depending on which Wednesday it was we may just stay with like our beehives class or just our my mates class we may combine with the age groups for the young men meaning the beehives and the Deacons my mates teachers laurels and priests and you may be combined that way you may be combined with just all the young woman than all the young men or just everybody it just depended well for these activities for the young woman's I remember my class I don't remember what when I was in I might have been my maids or laurels but I was one of the older girls and we wanted to go horseback riding and we were so excited to do it our leader actually had horses so we didn't really have to pay anything but we did need to get permission from the bishop so everything is done through the bishop and so my leader goes to the bishop and asks hey can we go horseback riding and maybe two weeks we really want to go and so the bishop answer's no you can't go that's way too expensive we can't afford that and then she's like oh it's okay I have my own horses and the girls can come and we can ride our horses and then he like just like looks at her and then says no it's too dangerous for women you cannot go horseback riding and literally after that conversation the next Sunday the boys actually who the bishop was in charge of so was priests the bishop is in charge of the priests so I was probably actually Laurel anyway they changed their activity literally the day before is what they said to go horseback riding on that day and we're just like looking around being like wait are you serious because when he said we didn't have money for it and then apparently it's also too dangerous for us girls and that was kind of the first time that I was more thinking about you know maybe the bishop isn't perfect because they teach that in the church of Bishop isn't perfect but he is called of God to lead this church meaning that he like is perfect but he's not if that makes sense another experience is with this exact same bishop now every summer the girls would go on a camping trip for like four five days and we would sleep in cabins and there would be like a separate cabin as well for all these priesthood holders because we couldn't go camping with just girls we had to have the guys there as well we raised money for that and we raised so much money that we had a lot of extra money now if you don't know this the male's have more funding than the females do within the church but we raised extra money and we were so happy and I believe we actually had another separate fundraiser just so we could get more funding for the young women's well young woman's leader was very persistent every Sunday and saying we have this amount left we have this amount left what can we do that will use this money because she told us that if we do not use it by the end of the year the bishop will actually take it and spread it to the young men's and we're like will we raise this money and you know through our own hard work and so we start doing like all this stuff and basically what happens is she ends up moving away and the bishop like literally the following Sunday after she moves away comes in and basically tells us how crazy she was because she went haywire on the spending and we're like we raise this money for us and then basically all the young men started going on some crazy awesome trips and we couldn't go anywhere because we didn't have any funds and along with this camping thing so we only had that one campout well we wanted to go on like a weekend campout like the boys did like just go backpacking Friday and come back some time on Saturday and that's what we wanted to do while the bishop when we brought the idea to him said no that is way too dangerous and besides you wouldn't need some priesthood holders so our leader goes and she goes and finds like more than enough priesthood holders that would be willing to come with us on this so she goes back to the bishop and says hey can we go we have these priesthood holders and he said no it's too dangerous for a woman to go like camping like that we're like okay then and she actually had a cabin um and she's just says you know what if that's too dangerous can we at least go have the sleepover in my cabin and he said no because there's no priesthood holders and she's like well they said that they'd already be willing to come I'm sure they can come and he said no that's still too dangerous like I don't even know but those experiences happen and that's concerning more sexism and the things that like I thought were unfair but I didn't think the church taught them however later looking at the actual doctrine and what the Church teaches is very different than kind of what they say as it's not sexist you guys just have different roles another experience I want to share as well is concerning racism the first intro I guess to racism that I ever really had or the first experience I guess to say is from the LDS Church itself now I know not every church is like that and yes a lot of racism is depending on the people however the LDS Church does have a racist past which I will go over as well in a later video but I will put a reference about that below from Elias org anyway so I grew up in a very white neighborhood and everybody that I went to church with was basically white and there was a family that moved and I believe from the Dominican Republic if I'm remembering right and so they were black and they moved into my ward it was a mom her daughter and her two sons and the daughter was actually my same age and so I befriended her she was less active and I actually brought her to church a lot now for the sake of this story I'm going to change her name to Mariah so basically what would happen is when their family came to church whether it was with my friend Mariah or not or she stayed holding that day it was always her mom her mom was always there and every now and then she would be there with her brother it just depended anyway in sacrament meeting I would sit in the back on this left side so the left section is a lot shorter the middle section is really long and then the right side is really short so Mariah's mom or her family when they came to church they would sit in the very back in one of the middle sections that were very long and I would be on this site now whenever white family came in and they saw where that black family was sitting they would be in this aisle which I like was this far apart it wasn't a big aisle the chairs were pretty close together but there were two aisles but whenever white family came in and saw that family sitting there they would say to each other we can't sit there because this family sitting there and they would try and go out of their way to find a different spot they would climb over like a million people just to get maybe two chairs and maybe they had two kids and so they don't have enough room for their kids to sit but they would much rather sit there then by this family and that happened so many times with so many people in my ward another example of that as well which really sticks out to me in my life because what happened I wish I did more but it's one of those situations where I look back on and I think you know from that situation and not doing as much as I could have if that situation were to happen again I would definitely do more so just learning from my past experiences well we were at a church Ward barbecue and every and then the church has like potlucks and barbecues and they get together and just enjoy each other's company basically within the ward and it was in the summer I went to this barbecue with Mariah and her brother and cousins as well if I remember I actually went to their house and asked if they would like to join me in going but I can't remember I was there with them and I spent the whole time with them well that same day it was a very important day in college football for Provo basically because it was the BYU game against the Utes and they are rivals and their rivalry is intense well we of course had to put this game on during our barbecue so we put a projector out and had it play well Mariah's brother was walking past it and he just routed and said go Utes and this other guy who was actually the same age as Mariah's brother Mariah's was the same age as me and her brother was maybe a few years to three years younger than us and this guy David comes over who's the same age as Mariah's brother and David basically just says like you're wrong you'd suck BYU is amazing right and so Mariah's brothers just like nah man and so what ends up happening is David spits on Mariah and start spinning on Mariah's brother as well and starts calling them a bunch of slur words well from that Mariah's brother was about to start something and defense of them because they weren't sure what was gonna happen with David after he did that now Mariah held him back and said no it's not worth it don't start it especially not here being this religious gathering basically you know and David yelled some slur words at them and he leaves and immediately Mariah her brother their cousins turned to me and look at me because I that was like the first time I ever encountered anything like that and they're like getting at me like are you okay I was like are you guys okay is everything okay that's not right like that shouldn't happen and they're like it's okay it happened well we're over it now and so we kept going on with our day well we decided that we were going to go to a market that was near this park where the barbecue was up now just how it's set up there's the park and the church is literally right right here and they share the same parking lot now this market that we were heading to was maybe like a block away it took like five to seven minutes to actually walk there so we decide you know like let's just leave this barbeque let's go to the market let's go get like some food or something there and so we start walking and we are in the parking lot literally right in front of this gathering that was happening with all these people in our ward and we see David and David's coming from like this side of the parking lot and we're walking this way and as he gets closer we see that he is holding a plank of wood and all of a sudden like there's a fight breaking out between David and Mariah's brother and Mariah's brother is more on the ground with his arms up because David is trying to beat him with this plank of wood again this is at a church gathering basically what ended up happening is Mariah goes in with her cousins and David actually bring a friend who started going into this fight as well but Mariah was just trying to pry everybody off and they're all getting like hit and that was it that was the end Mariah just yells at everybody just stop calm down and David stops he turns around and he says you know they're not worth it and walks away and right after Mariah turns around and asks me if I'm okay me I didn't even do anything like honestly during that again that is one of the experiences that I have learned from and that I have really learned to do something about problems that happen but after that fight broke up Mariah's brother starts to walk to the market still and we walk behind him as well well the thing is that David's house is actually on the way to this mark so as we are coming up on the house we see David's dad come out basically naked and he is yelling all sorts of things all sorts of slur words and really degrading things - Mariah's brother and Mariah turns around and looks at me she's like I want you to go back to the barbecue please go back to the barbecue or go back home I am going to grab my brother and we are going to get home as soon as possible and so she leaves to go help her brother and I linger there for a little bit really surprised because Mariah and her brother were both very respectful to this basically naked man that was yelling all sorts of terrible things at them and by the end of the conversation she was like sir we are leaving goodbye she takes her brother and they start walking home from that then I start walking back to this barbecue because my family's still there and I didn't necessarily want to leave and so as I get closer when I get right in front of the park somebody runs up to me and says hey the police are here and they want to talk to you and I'm like oh my goodness are you serious and they're like yeah he's right there so they take me over to this policeman who interviews me about what happens and he asked me who started it and I said well it all started with David he spat on them and then I said and then it went away I was like after that we were going to go to the market and David starts walking towards us with a plank of wood and basically starts trying to beat them with it I don't know exactly what happened because I wasn't there but from my friend Mariah she actually got contacted by the bishop who told her that he was the one that sent the police to her house so again I'm not sure exactly what happened with this but basically the bishop told the police man where they live what their names were all the information he could about them and sent the police there and I obviously don't know about David I never heard anything about that as far as I know he was fine but the bishop sent the police over to Maria's house and from that moment on that is when I really questioned specifically that Bishop I did not like that Bishop for that reason and it wasn't fair what happened to them and Mariah told me about it the day after and I was confused because I thought why would God put a person like this in charge of our church I was the number one witness and for some reason the bishop saw it was his idea and his duty to tell the police where these people live and that it was their fault anyway that is like a huge thing that I had Mariah and I actually are not really friends anymore she actually moved away and I wish we were still really good friends but when I look at the situation without being in the LDS Church when the Church teaches you to bring members into its religion and share the gospel with them the number one thing that they say is make sure that you are their friend if you are their friend you befriend them you're kind to them you can invite them to these church activities and they're more likely to go if you are their friends so befriend them and bring them to church well what ends up happening is that people like really just make friends with non-members to bring them to church and if that non-member decides no like this isn't something that I want to do especially here in Utah they all of a sudden get like cut off right away because they don't want to be in the church and so when I made friends with Mariah me going in and going and visiting her was to bring her to church because in my head and while I was there and really religious and really involved in the church that was the right thing to do and if I am going to be completely honest with myself that's kind of how like things started like this friendship if it was a friendship to her I am not sure but it was because I was taught to do that and I was taught that it was right and so I went and saw her to bring her to church and to Mutual those Wednesday activities and from there we did build more of a friendship and she was the person that I always hung out with and I really enjoyed her company but for her I'm sure she saw that and wasn't sure if I was her friend or not and so being out of the church I would just say you know make friends with people because of the person they are not the religion they are not just to bring them into your read Allegiant like that's just kind of selfish and there will be references about that below but anyway those are the main like super strong in my mind experiences about the church concerning sexism and racism but I will be addressing that more later so now that I have shared those experiences with you guys let me also explain how involved in the church I was on Sunday I would go to church for three hours plus choir plus any meetings that I had as well as bring all the inactive members I could to church on Monday was basically family Scriptures and we would study Wednesday I would be going to mutual and again I would take all the time that I could to get those less inactive members to mutual with me on Fridays I went to the temple every single Friday and before I went about averagely three hours before I would spend a lot of time reading my scriptures reading general conference talks things from the prophets along with any book that was put out by the LDS Church along with writing in my journal about my experiences as well then I'd go to the temple I would always walk to the temple and I would have earphones in I would be listening to hymns and then on my way back walking home I would also do the same thing and then I would come back and read my scriptures again Andry general conference talks and during the week Monday through Friday I also had seminary seminary was a course that here in Utah I don't know about if it's everywhere in Utah but definitely in the Provo area I was able to take seminary which is a church related class that you can take just basically during the days of the week and I took that as one of my actual classes during school so I did that as well I was very very involved in it so much to the point that what I wanted to do when I grew up music was again a huge huge part of who I was while I was in the church and it actually still is but in the church I would write a lot of songs for the church and about God and about the principles of the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day saints so much that we actually sing it in young woman's a lot we sing it in front of sacrament meeting I sing at firesides which are talks given on Sunday by people where the whole state can go and I was actually offered to go to a professional recording studio from somebody who is LDS so that I could make a CD and sell it so that was one thing I wanted to do then the next thing was I wanted to also be in charge of the young woman's over the entire church so I wanted to be in the young woman presidency over the entire church in my patriarchal blessing which is a special blessing given to you and this blessing is for this life and the life after it basically says that that would be what I would be called to do and so I wanted to do that so much anything outside the church I did not want to do because the church was who I was and it's kind of more what it like to find me I wanted people to know that I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day saints because I felt so connected with it and so true I've also read the book of Mormon way more times than I can count in my personal study so that's not including reading it in seminary reading it as a family reading it in church I am talking about just reading it myself way more times than I can really count along with the Bible I never went on a mission but what I did do is my word had the opportunity to teach with the sisters who were serving over my ward and I would actually be the ones to tell the sisters this house is inactive this one and this one and this one and I would actually tell them everything that we knew about them which you know some we knew more some we knew less and I would go with them I would proselyte with him I would go to those inactive members houses teach with those missionaries if they could not meet that person because that person was just never around I spent days out of the week just trying to knock on their door and seeing if I can come back with the missionaries and not if I guess I should say I I would always say you know we want to come back and would there be a time that would work and they would give us a time in and most of the time they would make sure that they weren't home but that's what I would do I was so involved in it and I really started to study the church and there were a lot of things that I learned that didn't coincide with Who I am as a human being but that will be in the next part of this series now there are some things that I want to again clarify with you guys and tell you guys before I sign off the first thing again these are my personal experiences meaning that you cannot judge the church solely off of what you hear from me do your own study about the church find out the good find out the bad and really make an educated decision on what you think about the church because no matter what the choice is yours and nobody can make that choice for you to stay or to leave so do that the next thing is to please please please make sure you follow me on social media I have an Instagram and Facebook I recently got a snapchat and a Twitter as well I've never used Twitter so if you follow me there I'm working on it but I will put links down below please do that because on there I asked your guys's opinions on these videos so much and I keep you updated on when these videos are coming out so please please don't follow me there because you will be notified about what's going on with my channel also if you have any questions leave them below I am wanting to do a Q&A pretty soon and that is going to come out so please if you have any questions for me or questions for me just being an ex-mormon put Q&A down in the comments and just put your question I'm going to do two different q a's one for specifically an ex-mormon and just another one for just who i am as a person or advice or things like that so please do that as well and subscribe subscribe subscribe because you will know when the next video is coming out you will get notified about that as well and thank you guys so much thank you so much for watching this video for supporting my channel and for having conversations with me as well I love hearing from you guys and if I can I love giving you advice as well but again any questions you have for me leave them in the comments and subscribe thank you guys so much and I will see you in part two bye [Music] [Applause] you

Channel: Chrissys Corner

Views: 120,248

Rating: 4.6208811 out of 5

Keywords: Exmormon, LDS, leavingthechurch, chrissyscorner, religion, quitmormon, whyileft, growinguplds, nonmormon, mormon, exmormonstory, anotherexmormonstory, whyilefttheldschurch, mormonreligion, leavingreligion, part1, growingup, crazyexmormonstory

Id: LbDQylMBp6s

Length: 65min 1sec (3901 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 07 2018