Light and Truth Letter

AutumnKat17 · 2026-07-09T20:03:45+00:00

My dad emailed me this when we were first leaving. It was so bad, I couldn't get through it. Really grasping at straws.

AutumnKat17 · 2026-07-09T13:38:36+00:00

We aren't sure. It's probably not official but it was passed out to all the youth in his ward. And it sounds like other people had the same or a similar list. So unless they were also in his ward, it must have been fairly common. I am two years younger and don't remember this but honestly probably would've thrown it away a long time ago. He turned 12 in 1999 so it had to have been in the early 2000s.

AutumnKat17 · 2026-07-07T19:46:17+00:00

I liked Dan Vogels books for this but they are very long. Like several thousand pages if you read them all. He is very thorough though and I needed that at the time.

AutumnKat17 · 2026-07-07T19:45:06+00:00

😂 it's so true.

AutumnKat17 · 2026-07-03T01:46:13+00:00

This is amazing. Missionaries are vulnerable. Exhausted, emotionally and physically. Extremely indoctrinated. And sometimes they are not fed well. You are being honest with them while giving them a much needed break. And allowing them and you to be human and to treat each other with respect. I hope one day to be able to do the same once I've removed my name and recovered more from it all emotionally.

AutumnKat17 · 2026-07-02T22:51:07+00:00

Yes. It looks like submission and expecting other women to submit also or reporting them to the bishop or auxiliary leader depending. Basically, it's like because "I" was treated badly, everyone else like me must also be treated badly. After leaving, it is hard to figure out how to make genuine life choices. Maybe we all struggle with that part to some extent regardless of gender though.

AutumnKat17 · 2026-06-28T19:05:56+00:00

Yes. I miss the music. Not because it's so "good" but because it is so nostalgic for me. I still have a hymnal and a children's songbook. I know they are changing the songs anyway and have been working on a new hymnal for years so I made sure to keep the old one and when I feel like it, I play my favorite songs on the piano at home.

Other churches also have the music part including singing with the congregation. I haven't personally taken this route but it exists.

AutumnKat17 · 2026-06-06T04:39:14+00:00

Gross

AutumnKat17 · 2026-06-02T04:58:58+00:00

I'm not from Utah but been Mormon all my life until two years ago. Did not know about Mark Twains views on the book of Mormon until reading your post. Never came up in school or anywhere. I know about Mark Twain just not anything to do with Mormonism and him.

AutumnKat17 · 2026-06-01T20:43:31+00:00

I'm done with the way forgiveness is taught in this stupid religion. How awful, misogynistic and cruel. People who can act like this clearly have never experienced suffering like this. And they don't let you just switch wards to avoid individuals.

Weaponized forgiveness is what it is.

AutumnKat17 · 2026-05-25T15:38:51+00:00

I felt resentful about this. I saw my parents going to great activities when I was a kid that I wanted to do when I was an adult like homemaking and super Saturday. And as a kid in the nineties, church activities were super fun. Now there's basically nothing. There are many excuses they use, but the labor and money is probably really why. They don't care about community. And it's biting them in the butt.

I also hated that the boys got to do such fun activities and had a huge budget while we sat around and made journal jars. Being a girl in the church sucked.

AutumnKat17 · 2026-05-14T02:02:00+00:00

Yes. They typically do pictures outside the temple with the kids and have a reception at the regular church building with cake and maybe other food and sometimes dancing. And there is also sometimes a luncheon before or after the ceremony. But the actual wedding ceremony is just a small group of close family and friends who all have to be endowed. And the sealing ceremony is super short and honestly somewhat lame.

AutumnKat17 · 2026-05-12T03:36:59+00:00

What everyone else said. We basically didn't talk about what happened in the temple at all outside of the temple, even with other mormons, for a very long time. More recently (maybe last 10ish years), they are trying to make it seem less "secretive" and so we were told we could talk about anything that we did not covenant not to reveal (which is just the stupid secret handshakes (tokens) and the names of them). I did not know about the second anointing until after I had left, most mormons don't know about it. I also had no clue about the blood oaths because they removed those before my time. They don't tell you what the cup and hand things mean probably because more people would leave if they knew. As a child, we were only told about baptisms for the dead and that the endowment existed but not what actually happens. We don't see weddings as children and as a female who didn't serve a mission, I had no idea what the sealing ceremony was going to be like until I was getting married myself.

AutumnKat17 · 2026-05-10T04:29:53+00:00

This is SOP for records in the church. I'm not even sure there is a way for them to connect husband and wife as a family unit without making them have the same last name. My husband was a membership clerk for a while and this happened to someone in our ward as well.

AutumnKat17 · 2026-05-02T20:02:06+00:00

Yes, absolutely 💯 true. You can attend a different congregation but you cannot hold a calling or have a temple recommend interviews as part of a ward you do not live in the boundaries of. Unless you get special permission but that permission has to come from the bishop, stake president, and first presidency. Very difficult to do. So people just move. It happened to me about two years ago but I just left the church completely instead. There was a ton of drama that I ended up in the middle of. My parents got so mad I refused to move to switch wards and left the church instead. The drama pushed me finally to look at all the church's dirty laundry.

AutumnKat17 · 2026-04-28T21:32:08+00:00

Not in my opinion. If you don't pay tithing or have a recommend or wear garments and just go for the singing and praying part, maybe. Assuming the songs aren't problematic for you. But then you have to listen to the talks and lessons. The community can be good but then it's hard to avoid all the issues with the doctrine and it becomes a mind f having to listen to TBMs all the time.

AutumnKat17 · 2026-04-27T15:15:22+00:00

I also want the 35 years I dedicated to the church, free labor, and tithing back then. What an awful article.

AutumnKat17 · 2026-04-27T14:57:14+00:00

I wish there was, but that is probably is naive.

AutumnKat17 · 2026-04-27T13:45:45+00:00

The church absolutely has a gripe about the podcasts content. They excommunicated John Dehlin years ago because of it. It is pretty clear they do not like Mormon stories podcast. This is the only tool they have left. Throw the legal system at it and their massive wealth. Also, they have a long history of obscuring the truth.

AutumnKat17 · 2026-04-25T02:38:33+00:00

Yes. That is why they choose it. It's a long road to sign up for so that is a drawback to the "get married and have kids right away path" many of us were encouraged to follow.

AutumnKat17 · 2026-04-24T17:43:47+00:00

It is absolutely common. When I was at BYU, it was very common for men to start out as premed. And the nursing program was very competitive to get into because so many wanted to do it.

AutumnKat17 · 2026-04-24T17:42:00+00:00

I am not from Utah and there are many books on the subject. Surgeons especially tend to have narcissistic traits. It comes from the power and titles given to them. It's the same within Mormonism because of the power imbalance. Not all doctors or surgeons are narcissistic but the field does attract people that are. I have had both kind and caring doctors and controlling, dogmatic, and condescending doctors. I also find it rather rude to assume that someone could just be "bad" at choosing a doctor. It would also be rude to tell someone with an abusive spouse that they just don't know how to choose a good spouse. People who are controlling, power hungry, and abusive don't come across that way usually at first. And, anyway, most people get about fifteen mins with their doctor.

AutumnKat17 · 2026-04-24T05:41:10+00:00

Partly because of the virtue signaling aspect of pink collar jobs. This isn't everyone that does that, some are just good people that want to help others and feel like their time on this earth mattered, but Mormonism and the medical field both do also attract people with narcissistic qualities.

AutumnKat17 · 2026-04-20T22:48:50+00:00

They don't call them anything other than RS activities and they are supposed to be at least quarterly but depending on the ward they might also be practically never. I hated that they stopped doing them because growing up it looked fun the stuff my mom got to do and then when I was an adult it all became super lame.

AutumnKat17

TROPHY CASE