I attended the Provo MTC in July of 2007. I had a past that others in my life were unaware of and I was under the false assumption that I could fake my way through a mission. Feelings of guilt immediately overcame me after being there for a few days and I came clean to my branch president. One of the kindest men I have ever met. He followed procedure and took me to the office of a member of the MTC presidency. I don’t recall his name but I remember his face and I remember how he treated me behind closed doors (it was NOT the MTC President). We sat in a chair, he pulled out a tape recorder and a notepad and began asking questions about what I had just confessed.
I had multiple sexual encounters with a girl I knew from high school prior to entering the MTC. I had thought that would be enough of a confession. I knew I was going to be sent home and I was ready for the consequences, but he didn’t see it that way. He asked me every last detail about every single encounter I had with this girl. Locations, meeting spots, number of times we had sex. He asked me to describe in detail how each occasion went down. Asked how many times we had oral sex, if I had placed my mouth on her vagina, if she had sucked on my penis. Yes the way I’m describing it sounds childish, but these were the exact phrases he used. He asked if there was penetration and if so he wanted me to describe “how deep”. He claimed all of this was standard protocol and followed my confession with a 10 minute session of shaming about how I had broken my covenants and betrayed my Heavenly Father. I had lost my virginity, I had made myself undesirable to my future spouse.
10 years later, I realize none of this was done properly. Its caused severe bouts of depression throughout my adulthood that I never had to experience before this one encounter. This is something that needs to change. I was a 19 year old kid, I was impressionable, I thought this was how it was supposed to be.