These are personal accounts of the negative consequences that inappropriate interviews have had on people.
It was summer and we had a large garden in Nothern California we shared with neighbors and ward members. My dad was a postman and money was always tight for our big family. I was not yet old enough to date – 16 years old. But I my lessons in young women’s taught me that…
I honestly can’t say that I know exactly where it all began. The trouble is that the fond memories intertwine with the inappropriate and drawing that line to decipher between the two was very difficult as a child, especially when I was too young to understand. The abuse and grooming was such an integral part…
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…
My ex-wife used to masturbate when she was a young woman until our marriage (she was 25). She is a true believer and claims that she didn’t have any bad bishop experiences. Despite what she claims, we had some sexual issues during our marriage and she always thought that it was because she was cursed…
I am a 41 year old life long male member of the LDS church. I was sexually abused as a young child by my Uncle who was 12 years older than me. I was offered no help or counseling as a young child to help me deal with the abuse I suffered. Adults were told…
We had postponed my daughter’s baptism for months so that her older brother could return from a sales job and baptize her. Days before the scheduled baptism we got a text from our bishop that our son was not ” worthy” to baptize his sister because he had masturbated that week. Our bishop encourages youth…
If you were with me in Utah right now, I would walk you out past my old neighborhood thru a farmer’s field about a quarter of a mile to the back edge of the field where an irrigation canal passes thru and a clump of trees still grows there today. One tree that’s there which…
My sister and I, at different times in our respective childhoods mustered up the courage to tell the bishop about our dad, who physically, emotional and mentally abused us and our mother. I went in when I thought he might kill my mom after watching him choke her. I told my bishop about how he…
This is my story for all the men and women who’s hearts and souls are broken because of men at church. This My story for you. I didn’t know who he was until he was my leader, before then, he was the new kid’s dad. He told us stories about him, about his violence. I…
I left TSCC in my early 20s almost 45 years ago. My parents were “pioneers” of Mormonism in a small Australian city, hence branch presidents and later bishops were well known to the whole family. I was asked as a 12,13,14 year old if I “self abused”. I did not know what that meant. It…