I had just turned 12 and was incredibly excited to finally get the chance to go to the temple with all of my friends. They were all older than me, and had therefore been going on temple trips quite often with each other. I was also fascinated by the temples and what they meant. They…
From a young age I have felt a disconnect from church. I moved to a new ward when I was 6. Due to marriages connecting families or families living close together the members of the ward were inseparable and had a long rich friendship with each other. And I was a new, weird, poor kid…
I was abused by the boys in my neighborhood when I was 4-6 years old. I didn’t understand it at the time. But I was coerced and sometimes physically forced to do things with my mouth which no child that young had any business knowing about, nonetheless doing on a repeated basis. Most of these…
Long story short; When I was 11, I was molested. At 15 I was raped. I told the bishop and he told me I was going to hell and it was my fault. Then he proceeded to tell me that everything that happened was my fault and how premarital sex was a sin. I was…
When I joined the church as a teenager, a week later the Bishop met with me and conducted a worthiness interview that asked a long series of inappropriate questions using terms I had never heard before (masturbation, petting, anal sex, grinding, heavy petting, wet dreams, pornography, etc.) I asked that he explain many of the…
I had previously dated the son of the bishop of our neighboring ward. We were sexually active, I had a lot of guilt and tried repenting and met with the bishop. There were many times I had said no, but he proceeded to still touch me and it eventually led to rape and it happened…
My first two and a half years after I when to collage about four people saw the inside of my apartment. I could barely tolerate having anyone in my apartment for an hour much less allowing someone to touch me. I got off easy all things considered, only probing questions like “Are you sure you’re…
I don’t pretend that my story is as bad as many others however it may be more common. The worst part about my story is that it wasn’t my bishop or councilors that caused me pain but rather an ex-bishop and ex-stake president. This man happened to be my father. I love my father and…
When I was a young teenager, I had a bishop ask me if I masturbated. I wasn’t even sure what that meant. I don’t completely remember how I responded. I just know I was thrown off guard and felt terrible about the question. I was already nervous about going to interviews for the first time…
Technically, this meeting with my bishop did not happen when I was a child, but it still happened when I was young. When I went to college and decided I would like to serve a mission for the church, I knew there were things of sexual nature I needed to disclose to and clear up…