This is not a story about a mandated bishops interview. But it does show the nature of the naive Mormon mindset that just because someone is a bishop, they are completely trusted with your child.
When I was a teenager, we moved across the country. The culture was very different from the one I had lived in before and adjusting was hard. Not only that, but I was quite popular at my old school and I definitely fell in with the “party” crowd. I drank alcohol, smoked a little. I never had sex with anyone but I definitely pushed the boundaries of what was considered ok in Mormonism. I had recognized my wrongs and felt bad about them. One night I closed myself in my room and cried out to God to forgive me. The most amazing, completely unexpected feeling came over me, as if Jesus was literally holding me as I cried. I knew I had been forgiven in that moment. There was no doubt. So I never felt like I had to go to the bishop “to repent”…. When we moved, I was trying to start my new life and school on the right foot. I was a very good Mormon girl, but I was the only Mormon in my school and I literally had no friends. My parents made good friends with our bishop and his wife so I was over at their house every weekend for family/friend gatherings because I had no friends of my own. I was so down and depressed. The bishop would hug me,take me in his home office and give me all sorts of advise. This turned into him later being quite playful and flirty. We would go on family trips to the lake with he and his family and he would tickle me, throw me in the lake, be super playful with me. At his house he would hug me long and in a deep embrace, twirl me around, just be super playful and flirty. This is the craziest part, he would do this in front of his wife and my parents and NO ONE said anything about it being inappropriate. I started noticing him being flirty with another lady who was newly married to a non member. She and her husband were also at his house all of the time. The bishop would take me on hour long rides in his 2 seat convertible and just talk and flirt. I grew to think this was completely fine behavior bc my parents absolutely trusted him and never gave pause at all when he would pick me up for these drives. Why?? Because he was the BISHOP! This bishop had no idea of my past and I’m always so grateful for that. My parents eventually found out about my behavior in our old town and were devastated. They thought I would continue to be like that in the new one and wanted to know if I needed to clear anything up by confessing to the bishop. I told them no, I had already repented and God forgave me. Thank God they didn’t make me confess to that man. Eventually, it came out that he was having an affair with the other lady I noticed him being very flirty with (he had been “counciling” her in his bishops office for a few months), he was having multiple sexual encounters with men and women and advertising himself and a coworker as swingers on a swinging website, and so much more! All while he was the bishop. I am positive he was grooming me for a sexual relationship with him. Had I “confessed” my past life to him, he absolutely would have capitalized even more on my loneliness and finally made his move.. He was grooming the “good Mormon girl” but had he known I wasn’t always so good, I think that would have given him the confidence to cross over his flirt line. I confessed my bishops behavior to a nonmember woman I worked for. I babysat her toddler every day after school. After telling her everything that the bishop had done with me and what was eventually discovered about him, she didn’t believe me that it never went any further than what I stated. I believe that night, she told her husband what I had told her and also told him there is no way I was telling the whole truth and I was probably afraid to admit I had been involved with a married man. Her husband, came home when I was babysitting his toddler daughter the very next day. He had never done that before. He talked with me and began to be kind of flirty. It made me uncomfortable. BUT, somewhere in my mind because of the conditioning I had been in with my bishop and my parents allowing it, I just shrugged it off as some married men flirt with teen girls and that is OKAY. He came back again the next day, got closer, got more touchy, got more flirty. Again, it made me uncomfortable but I allowed it to an extent. He came back again the next day. This day I could just sense this mans desire for me and it made me so uncomfortable. I grabbed his toddler and sat her on my lap on the floor the entire time he was there, acting oblivious. He left super frustrated. The next day he came again and this time he made his official move on me. He grabbed me from behind around my waist and pressed his body to mine. I broke free from him and yelled at him that I couldn’t do that with him. He stormed out of the house. He was emboldened because he thought I had already been with a married man. I am positive the same thing would have happened with my bishop if he thought the same thing based on a “repentance” confession to him. I never told anyone else about my bishop or my employers husband for a long time. I just quietly quit my job and moved on. I love my parents but their naivety towards the situation they allowed me to be in could have had a much different result. I feel LUCKY it wasn’t worse. Blind trust of religious leaders is DAMAGING. I’m positive many or even most bishops are good guys just trying to serve God. But Not all of them are. My parents were good parents, but they were blinded by a sexual deviant because of his calling in a church they’ve given their life to. I will never put my children in that position.