These are personal accounts of the negative consequences that inappropriate interviews have had on people.
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…
When I was a very naive 12 year old, I attended my first bishops interview. I was scared & really had no idea what to expect. I was intimidated by anyone in a leadership position. I think it all started out fine and then was hit with a question that I never imagined being asked.…
This is not my story. This is my sister’s story. But she is not here to tell it. My younger sister LeeAnn became a “special project” of her Bishop _____ in Florida. She was neither his first nor his last victim. Bishop _____ convinced my blindly obedient mother that LeeAnn needed to come live with…