by request of a friend, i am writing this blog today on my religious beliefs and my stance with the LDS church. coincidentally, my friend bradin just blogged about the something very similar today. i will comment on what he wrote as well.

as most of you know, i was raised mormon just like most people here in utah. i had the standard mormom childhood, went to church, went to seminary at aschool, went to youth activities, etc.. although i went through everything the way that i was expected, i have never been a very spiritual person. i never recieved personal revelation. i never was good with reading my scriptures and praying regularly like i was told i should. but i went along with it because that was expected of me by my parents and friends at school. after i graduated i decided that i didnt want to go on a mission. eventually i told my parents and my friends my decision and my relationships with everyone changed. my dad told me that if i wasnt going on a mission then i needed to start paying rent to live at home and had to get a "real" job so that i could support myself and move out. then my friends started asking me questions about why i wasnt going. they assumed that since i wasn't going to be leaving, i had to have done something wrong. i must have broken a big commandment because that is the only way someone wasn't going right when they turn 19. had i broken any big commandments? no. i just didn't want to go. but no one could accept that. i felt like an outcast.

shortly after that i realised that life in happy valley utah would not be very fun for me if i stayed home. life at home would be awkward with my parents, alot of my friends would be leaving on their missions, and i couldnt get a date to save my life because girls only will date guys who are planning on leaving or have already come back from their missions. yeah, it was not what i had in mind. when the pressure from everyone got to be too much, i just decided to do it. i would leave and serve my mission and the biggest reason i did was to avoid the constant badgering from everyone about it. once i started preparing to go, things got back to normal. people treated me like a normal person again. i put my papers in and left as soon as i could. i went into the MTC 3 weeks after my 19th birthday.

i never got commited to what i was doing on my mission. i floated along and pretty much slacked off unless pushed to do something by my companion. looking back, i have realised that the reason i didnt work as hard as others was because i wasn't spiritually into it. at different times during my mission i really tried to gain a testimony of the church and its teachings. i would read the scriptures, i would pray, i would work hard, and try to convince myself that i believed what i was teaching. by the time i was to come home after 2 years, i had basically convinced myself that i believed it. i mean having tought, and had to eat, sleep, and live this religion non-stop for 2 years, its not too surprising that i thought i believed everything. when i got home i again went through the motions like i was expected. but i was doing everything just beacause it was expected. once i moved out of my parents house, for the first time in my life i wasn't expected to do anything religious. i didnt have to go to church if i didnt want. i didnt have to attend weekely ward activities. i didnt have to do any of it. and i realised that i didnt really want to do any of it. it wasnt enjoyable for me. the church, and religion in general is supposed to make people feel good about their lives and give them purpose for why they are here. all the church ever brought me was guilt and annoyance. it made me feel guilty because i never really felt the spirit. i never would get answers to my prayers and because of that it made me feel guilty like i wasn't living right so i wasnt getting the spiritual confirmations like everyone else. again, was i doing anything really wrong? no, but i always felt guilty like i had. so i stopped going to church and to the activities. i mean i didnt really want to be there anyway, why should i go just to make myself feel guilty for not being a good mormon?

after attending church less and less as the years went by, the guilt went away. i felt alot better about myself because i didnt feel the doom of condemnation hanging over my head. i felt free. but at the same time i still felt trapped because i didnt want to come out and tell people where i stood. i mean, how could i tell people around here in happy valley that i didnt believe in the church and that i never really did? i was certain that the same thing would happen like what happened before i left on my mission. i didnt want to become the outcast again.

over time i came to terms that to really become free i had to be honest with everyone else about where i stand with the church. i didnt want to lie anymore. but i knew that once i "came out" about it, my parents would have to know. so i kept putting it off. i didnt want to deal with them. i didnt want to find out what they would do.

then it was about 2 months ago my mom sat me down and wanted to talk to me about things. she was very inquisitive and kind of blunt about everything. she asked me about where i stood with the church and wanted to know what my plans were for my future with the church. i decided that if i was going to tell her this would be the best time. so i did. i was upfront with her about everything. she took it better then i thought. then after i told her it has been alot easier to tell everyone else. and doing so has been very freeing. very liberating. i never could have written this blog 6 months ago.

now that i am alot more open about my leaving the church, people want to know what i believe instead. i have been asked on more then one occasion the same thing. "if you dont believe in the LDS faith then what do you believe?" up until now all i could really say to anyone is that i dont know what i believe. the thing is, people expect you to know what you believe and if you dont know what that is, then they want to convert you to what they believe. in reading through bradins blog today he said this:

"I claim agnostic because I believe that it's okay to say "I don't know." I claim it because I believe in change and growth."

lately bradin and i have become alot better friends because we are both in similar places with the church. that and he can relate to my "coming out" with religion since he "came out" about a year ago that he was gay. i agree with bradin and where he stands with the church. i think that it is ok to say "i dont know" and to not have all of the answers in regards to religious beliefs. religion is an ongoing qwest for what your personal beliefs are, and for me, im not going to find them throught the LDS church. i dont know if and when i will ever find a religion that i fully agree with. until then, i will just say that i dont know what i believe.

and i am ok with that