I grew up in Australia, where members from the USA, and especially Utah were highly regarded, honored, and looked up to in my childhood Ward. When I was 14, and my father was the Bishop, a family from Utah moved into our Ward. The father of which, who would have been 34, was soon after…
When I was 12, I went in for my first Bishop interview. When it got to the part about chastity he asked me if I masterbated. I had no idea what it meant or what it was and I told him so. He went on to explain in detail how I may have masterbated… with…
After being raped at 15. I felt like I was in the deepest darkest hell you can imagine. I talked to my bishop who said “why were you out with a boy before you are 16?!” “Are you sure you weren’t tempting him”, “where you keeping the modesty standard when he saw you?!”. I asked…
When I was 13, I was a very devoted little Mormon girl. I prayed every day, read my scriptures, dressed modestly, and got good grades. One day, I was thinking and realized that in previous years, I had intentionally viewed some things that were considered pornographic and masturbated on occasion (although at the time I…
My story isn’t much different than the hundreds if not thousands that have already been told, with one big exception. I am a 60 year old male. I was born and raised in a small Mormon town in Utah. Upon reading some of the testimonies on the website, memories of my youth and my young…
As a teenager my parents found out that I was having relations with my boyfriend and forced me to see the bishop to confess my “sins”. I find it interesting that they refused to discuss anything with me and just wanted the bishop to be the barer of my news. When I went in to…
“When I was 7 and my little brother was 4 we were molested by an “upstanding” male church member who was recommended to babysit us by other church members including ward leadership. The bishop knew that this young man had been raped by his own brother as his other family members had told church authorities…
I grew up in an inactive household. I was still baptized at eight. Never having been to church before or after that until the age of fourteen. I naturally discovered masturbation at the age of ten. It never felt wrong to me. Having not gone to church. When I turned fourteen I moved out and…
My experience with “confessing” to my bishop at an interview came in teens. I was 16 years old. I wasn’t a child, but it affected my life and who I am today. My then-boyfriend and I, both being active and devout followers of the LDS Church, kept “toeing the line” of the lds rules. We…
I was extremely suicidal my freshman year. I left my house at 6am for seminary and got off the bus at 4pm followed by sports and lessons. As a 14 year old kid pulling 11-12 hour days was brutal. As the oldest in my family I tried so hard to be perfect, because “the natural…