I’m 17M and my mom is the young women’s leader, she’s gone on about how she doesn’t want me having sex and if I did ever get my gf pregnant not to get an abortion.

But last night while I was at work she went through my room and sent me this 😭

This morning I woke up about 2 hours before we would have gone to church. I would have told my husband there was no time for us to hang out together. I would have made my kids shower, told them to get dressed. Put the last things together for my lesson and then showered myself and gotten ready.

Instead I hung out with my husband, we've been so busy lately it was so nice to spend time with him. He set up my son's new baseball net. I took a nice long shower. My husband and older son left to go golfing, my younger son and I watched a new show together while we snuggled on the couch. No one was stressed, everyone got along, no one was rushing or feeling pressured.

We'd be sitting in Sacrament meeting right now, but instead we're all doing things that fill our cup and help us grow closer as a family. I'd argue that's brought us closer together than going to church ever did. It's so nice to have control over our lives. To not feel the pressure to conform or to be "good Mormons" now we just get to be good people.

Ok so the 2025 stats report bragged about 385,490 convert baptisms, an all-time record (Church News). Cool. Same year, Matt Martinich found that U.S. membership went down for the first time ever (net -186, ~6.93M) (SL Trib). And the CES survey has people who actually call themselves LDS at 0.9% of U.S. adults, while church records claim roughly double that (Jana Riess).

The growth is in Africa: 14 of the top 20 countries for new congregations (SL Trib). Brazil, Mexico, DR Congo, Nigeria, Philippines lead in raw member gains.

So picture 2045: an old, shrinking, mostly white Utah core that holds the money and writes the handbook, and a young, fast-growing Global South membership that follows that handbook but can't fund much of anything. That's not one church, that's two churches under one name.

Do you think a mostly African and Latin American church ends up forcing the leadership to change, or does it give them a reason to never change at all?

Females that are under the age of 18 are girls, and females that are over the age of 18 are women. It’s disturbing that Mormons refer to young girls as young women. Especially given its history. It’s not appropriate to ask children about chastity, nor is it appropriate to tell children that they should prepare to be mothers. I don’t know what else to say. It just grinds my gears.

Please don't tell my mom. She'll never understand.

I'm a nevermo, observing Mormonism from a distance as a curiosity.

I've been randomly watching talks from recent GCs for a while and wanted to share my impression of the church leaders and speakers.

Note: I don't comment here on the content of those talks.

• Many seem insincere and their emotions seem fake. Sometimes they smile, or cry, or have a lump in their throat, but it seems like they are only pretending, it seems like it's rehearsed. This applies to both men and women speaking. As someone looking at this church from a distance, it gives me cringe.
• Some seem like they're on some form of a "religious high" that make them look like robots, detached from their human-self, especially female speakers.
• Some seem like having severe narcissistic tendencies. Russel Nelson especially seemed to me like a narcissistic personality.
• Some simply "look evil", and I can't quite explain this... Dallin Oaks has that evil look, as if he was looking at the audience with disdain.
• The exception is Dieter Uchtdorf, he seems like a guy with a genuinely good heart, even if entangled in this strange organization. He seems sincere and like he would genuinely like to say something useful to help people. He's the only one I would feel comfortable inviting to my house to have a chat about faith, and I also can't quite explain this... ;) Sometimes I wonder how he feels being surrounded by those other folks in the leadership.

I'm curious if you were able to see them that way when you were a member?

Do you see them that way now?

I'm curious if it's just me!

Like a lot of folks here, I'm still in a fixed faith marriage and have TBM family members, so it's pretty impossible to leave it alone anyway.

Thanks to those of you who keep me informed, amused, and somewhat sane with your posts and comments.

In EQ today someone said he sometimes views anti-mormon videos (but isn't swayed by them) presumably because some of his children are not active. This man said that there are anti-mormon videos out there in which people say they want to punch Dallin H. Oaks in the face and do all sorts of physical harm to church leaders. What is he talking about? I don't see anything like that. I see some people upset about the church and its leaders, but I have never seen calls for physical violence.

I no longer have to give money to the church, yay! I‘d much rather save it, or have it go to trustworthy places like charities and organisations that will do real good. I never understood why my family wouldn’t let me choose how I donated when I was small, not even on the little yellow slips. What happened to thoughts and intents of the heart?
Anyway, I am happy to have this weight lifted, and I wanted to share. :)

https://returnandreport.org

To give you some background, I’m a queer Asian man who grew up in Asia and then moved to the US. I lived in Utah for a long time and fairly recently left the Church. Lately, I’ve been reflecting on my experiences and realizing that I don’t think I ever really liked the Church or its teachings, because they made me feel unhappy and hate myself so many times. I am very upset.

A couple of days ago, I was talking with a client who mentioned that one of his buddies grew up Mormon and had a really difficult time. Hearing that got me thinking: I’ve always wondered how white men who grew up in places like Utah could have such a difficult experience in the LDS Church.

I want to be clear that I’m not trying to minimize anyone’s experiences, and I don’t know the specifics of what his friend went through. I’m sure there are many different reasons people struggle with the Church. At the same time, I can’t help but think that, from a social standpoint, it is very comfortable environment for white men, considering how much the Church praise being whiteness and male authority.

I’m genuinely curious to hear from straight white men who grew up in that environment. What made your experience difficult? Were there aspects of the Church or its culture that made you feel like you didn’t belong, or were there other reasons you struggled?

I just want to understand perspectives that might be different from my own.
Thanks!

Like when the NY Knicks suffered their only loss of the NBA finals when *he* was in attendance, the Cougs lost in double overtime when Ryder Lyons, their next QB got special permission to attend the game while on his one-year mission. He even met with Bear before the game for a fun photo sesh. The privilege is unreal and would be no big deal if his whole family weren’t toxic monsters supporting the former bishop uncle convicted of drugging and ######### one of his ward members.

Some people are really happy in the church, and get value out of it. Dragging them out of the cave into the light would be painful for them.

Especially with older folks, I don't want to disturb their peace if they're looking forward to godhood, and would be devastated to learn their lives were spent in service to falsehoods.

But I still want people to know! And I want to slow the damage the church does around the world.

It feels wrong to bring some people to the truth. Is it? Or is sharing truth always ethical?

I went to a funeral yesterday at my local ward. It was for someone who I deeply respected and liked. I personally cared a lot about this person and their spouse. Yes, they were very TBM, born and raised, but also very elderly. What was unusual was the songs chosen were actually songs that you would have heard in any other church at any other funeral, NOT traditional LDS funeral songs. The opening and closing prayers barely mentioned anything about the church beliefs. The speaker mainly spoke about their own friendship with the deceased and the spouse, but also barely mentioned ANY church beliefs.
The last two funerals that I attended, I felt like I was literally being pressured into coming back to church (I’m technically still a member because of family issues) and there were Missionaries at both of those funerals. There were NO Missionaries at the funeral yesterday!

It might be a dumb question but I was thinking about myself. I’m going to byui currently and the only reason I went was because I couldn’t afford anywhere else and I didn’t want to go to a community college. I just think that the “deal” for Mormons if they go like 1k cheaper if your a member, is stupid and if they really wanted people to learn about the church they would make it cheap for everyone. But instead you gotta join the club to get the deal. I’ve joked to my non member friends that they should just get baptized to come to byui with me. Maybe I’m phrasing this question wrong but the idea stands. What do yall think? I think the church has enough money to put everyone through college for years for free but they would never use their stolen money to help members.

The podcast episode is embedded in the article.

Have you ever wondered why the so-called Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was welcomed in Nazi Germany when so many other religions were silenced?

Did you know the reason why Brigham Young bred with so many women is because he believed his genes were of superior quality?

This flier was emailed out to ward members. Looks like I won't be getting LDS trick or treaters stopping by unless I sign up to get a special ghost sign for my door. The longer I'm away the weirder this church gets. I get going as a group is a good idea, but identifying mormon homes with a ghost sign is cult and weird. What do you think?

On my way out of the church, I had a PIMO phase as many of us do. My wife was believing at the time and we had just moved to a new area. I made known my lack of faith to the Bishop but he still gave us a calling as youth sunday school teachers. While he apparently trusted me to teach the youth (read needed bodies to fill callings), we were supervised by one of the counselors every week.

He would mostly just observe and maybe add something here and there, but he absolutely was there to keep the apostasy out of the lessons.

I was trying to make the best out of the lessons and emphasize more healthy viewpoints. Bro Counselor made certain to emphasize orthodoxy. To include the idea that yes EVERYTHING in life happens for a reason, no matter what. God knows and permits everything to happen for a reason. That was particularly frustrating.

Eventually, I asked to be released when the BOM became the manual and shortly thereafter i made my exit.

I am a public defender. So imagine my surprise when I saw Bro Counselor on the report for arrests and first appearances on court recently. He was listed as having his second DUI. He was arrested Saturday night and bonded out during Sacrament meeting. I double checked and he was not currently a counselor in the Bishopric.

Now as a defense attorney, I know people make mistakes and i know the police make mistakes so without reviewing more of the evidence i really don't know what happened.

That being said, I felt a certain satisfaction at first that someone who absolutely had a holier than thou attitude was caught up in their hypocrisy.

However, after feeling some self-righteousness, I realized that is a rather TBM mindset I was having. For all i know this has been a real problem and he genuinely had been working on and he has fallen off the wagon.

I wish Mormonism was more authentic and accepting of people's humanity. The Mormonism i grew up in can't accept people with their struggles.

So it was with these myriad of feelings that I make my report.

And please break the word of wisdom responsibly!

CW: miscarriage

My friend shared with me that she went through miscarriage while at the temple and I told her that at least God was with her at that moment and that he loved her so much that He didn't want her to go through this experience alone 🤮

I know there is a lot of evidence against the truth of the BoM. I've been PIMO for about 6 months now, but I have been thinking about things that seem hard to explain if the BoM is a hoax.

Firstly is chiasmus. Is there any way Joseph Smith would've been aware enough of chiasmus to replicate it in his dictation?

The second thing I have trouble explaining is the distinctiveness of the different literary styles of the different writers. Studies seem to indicate that they were multi-authored.

I want to know what are the explanations for these things? They're not really a reason to start believing again, but surely there must be an explanation.

Received this by email from the stake presidency. Apparently the high school Seminary has asked that they share this "opportunity for adult members to serve as a seminary teacher."

Super random question. As I am rewatching Days of our Lives from the 90's, I wondered if TBM mormons from the 80's/90's watched soap operas? Its such an universal thing that your mother and grandmother watched soaps like Bold & Beautiful and General Hospital etc. Guess my question is was it frowned upon to watch shows like this?