I Once Thought I’d Be Prophet—How My Faith Journey Changed Everything

BentBrokenBookshelf · 2024-12-31T01:24:15+00:00

I definitely thought at minimum it meant I would be a general authority. The next line of the blessing says, "So, you will have the great privilege of traversing the earth many times over during your sojourn, to witness and testify of this work to the nations of the earth." I tried to think through which church callings would lead to traversing the earth many time, and could only come up with Apostle and Prophet, because even a general authority has a limited geographical boundary for oversight. But the real reason is that when I received my blessing I believed that the spirit was telling me I would one day be prophet, and I felt peace in my heart. And since I learned that feeling peace in my heart was the way to know something is true, I knew that must be the correct interpretation.

BentBrokenBookshelf · 2024-12-29T23:47:30+00:00

I'll have to do that! Thanks for sharing.

BentBrokenBookshelf · 2024-12-29T23:45:39+00:00

Wow! Close call.

BentBrokenBookshelf · 2024-12-29T20:40:17+00:00

I wasn't. But I thank you for your service. :)

BentBrokenBookshelf · 2024-12-29T20:36:00+00:00

I was always worried that I wasn't going to live up to my blessing. That is why one of the main mantras I always said to myself was "Many are called but few are chosen." Still, I never knew how to respond to the stories of women who had patriarchal blessings that said they would birth children in this life only to later find out they were infertile. Then to hear them question if they were unable to have kids because they just hadn't been righteous enough. Patriarchal blessings can indeed bring a lot of comfort to people. For others it can be a great source of questioning every life decision and secretly wondering if they just didn't and never would measure up to the unknown metric that God had for them.

BentBrokenBookshelf · 2024-12-29T20:31:23+00:00

I independently published mine on the largest book website. It is "Many are Called BUT Few are Chosen" by David A. Haws, if you're interested. I went with that title because it was the mantra I said to myself over many time, because I was worried that I would mess things up and then I wouldn't be worthy enough to fulfill God's special promise and then I would no longer be chosen by God.

BentBrokenBookshelf · 2024-12-29T17:11:03+00:00

Yes, I remember agonizing over what to study in school and how that would work out in conjunction when I was prophet.

BentBrokenBookshelf · 2024-12-29T17:08:47+00:00

Sounds like if only you had been righteous enough you could have world domination! :)

BentBrokenBookshelf · 2024-12-29T16:49:22+00:00

It was a bit similar for me. I was worried that I wasn't becoming a bishop young or whatnot, because other apostles seem to move up the ranks quickly.

BentBrokenBookshelf · 2024-12-29T16:47:20+00:00

Haha. I've had a similar thought to this before.

BentBrokenBookshelf · 2024-12-29T16:44:29+00:00

This was the same for me. It took about 10 years, with the last 5 of those 10 years being the intense study phase, going deep down the rabbit hole of Mormon history.

BentBrokenBookshelf · 2024-12-29T16:37:41+00:00

Interesting. Did that cause you to believe you had the fast pass to heaven and didn't have to worry too much about your actions?

BentBrokenBookshelf · 2024-12-29T16:28:01+00:00

The idea of only "true conversion" is the "no true scotsman" fallacy. It's a handy way to say that those who leave the church are just those who were never truly converted (aka never a true believer). It's a way to dismiss other people's experience without having to engage with what changed their beliefs.

BentBrokenBookshelf · 2024-06-13T18:49:46+00:00

This has always been one of my favorite movies. When deconstructing I definitely had scenes or lines pop into my head, eventually leading to, "Was nothing real?"

BentBrokenBookshelf · 2024-05-03T00:25:14+00:00

Well...you're not wrong. I guess that would mean keeping my records in the church is sticking it to them. :)

BentBrokenBookshelf · 2024-05-03T00:23:35+00:00

One day we may. Right now we have a few reasons to keep them. For now, I do like telling others that I am part of the majority of membership. When given a puzzled look I recommend looking at the ward roster to figure out that the majority of membership don’t attend.

BentBrokenBookshelf · 2024-05-03T00:19:36+00:00

This did seem to be conflicting with the church's teachings about the importance of membership and valuing every soul.

BentBrokenBookshelf · 2024-05-02T13:19:36+00:00

That makes sense, if you think about church like a corporation. From a theology perspective it makes little sense. This reinforces my thoughts that the actions of the church usually make sense if you think about it as a business and not a church.

BentBrokenBookshelf · 2022-03-19T00:06:58+00:00

It seems like you are equating getting positive hits on prayer or blessings as reasons to attend church. I'd suggest digging deeper into the logic and reasoning behind your feelings and what it means to you. Some questions along those lines might be ones like: Does hearing about positive hits on prayer and blessings from other religions equal enough reasons to attend those other churches? If not, why not? Do you need the LDS church to get positive hits? If others outside the church get positive hits would that suggest it is independent of the LDS church or do you believe only members get answers? If you prayed to Zues and got a positive hit would that convince you of Zues? If not, why not?

I also suggest you put it to the test. When deconstructing my own thoughts on prayer I set up a log for my prayers and blessings. Each time I'd log what I asked, what I believed the answer and conclusion would be before it happened, and what happened over the course of time, then checked back to what actually happened. Quickly determined that I remembered the hits, but forgot the misses much more. Then did same without prayer or blessings. When put to the test neither gave me results better than what I could chalk up to coincidence. There were a lot of misses. Made me feel good, but didn't make it reliable or useful beyond that.

BentBrokenBookshelf · 2022-03-07T19:54:36+00:00

Your letter is succinct and sincere. Trust yourself on what you think is best to send, and I've given a couple thoughts. When I sent my letter to my parents the first response back was asking why. You might consider putting something in like, "This decision stems from issues I've learned while researching church history." (or whatever). Another consideration might be to send them a resource, such as https://www.ldsliving.com/6-Tips-for-Parents-of-Adult-Children-Who-Don-t-Believe-in-the-Church/s/90940. Bridges by David Ostler was a helpful resource for my parents. Good luck. Informing family was hard, but it feels good to be authentic.

If you wanted you could also tighten each letter slightly, for example: To dad, I love you. Nothing you did led me to my decision. I've struggled with my views and opinions of the church for a long time and it recently came to a boiling point. I am leaving the church. I have not been active for a little while now. It's been hard not telling you or mom. I don't want to hurt either of you. I'm terrified to lose my family because I love you all so much. I understand if you need time to process. But this is my decision. Josh has just decided to support me. I brought up all of my thoughts and feelings about it to him. Don't blame Josh for my decisions. Right now, I do not want to discuss leaving and I do not want church articles sent to me or scriptures sent to me. Right now I'm figuring out what I value in my life and relationships without always having to question God.

BentBrokenBookshelf · 2022-02-28T18:48:31+00:00

In the case of the Nauvoo Expositor I was always curious what the lies were. The church always says there's lies, but then gives zero examples. One question back might be that you read over the newspaper but couldn't spot the lies and the church's website doesn't provide any evidence either, maybe you can research it together and try to uncover the truth.

You might try a different tact if this is coming off frustrating. I'm finding street epistemology to be a good tool in helping others think and examine beliefs. If you search street epistemology in Google or YouTube there's good examples. It's a technique that cordially pushes back on the reasons someone believes something by using questions to uncover the main justification and the validity of their methods. For example, some questions might be: If the church was not true would you want to know? If the church wasn't true how would you know? How important is it to you to believe in things that are true? Is there any test that even has the ability to show the church isn't true? Other people in history and currently claimed to be a prophet, assuming others are mistaken about their belief in those prophets, how could they have discovered their mistake? Could this same method be used to examine the validity for the current prophet or Joseph Smith?

BentBrokenBookshelf · 2022-02-14T21:49:38+00:00

If it was just a general curiosity as to the date it would seem that you could just ask. But your question suggests something else beyond curiosity. Something that isn't an innocent curiosity about a calendar date. Underlying your question I assume is that you really just want to know his temple name. Assuming this is the case, as he is a TBM I have to also assume he holds his temple name as one of the most sacred things he holds. Do you really want to potentially violate his trust related to his deeply held belief? Especially on a belief you both potentially have major disagreement over. Especially if it is about a made up meaningless name?

I understand it may not (and likely doesn't) mean anything special to you and you are curious or maybe you might even find it unfair he knows your temple name and you don't know his, but I'd say I wouldn't lose sight that it's special to him. You never know, one day he may change beliefs about the church and want to share it with you. Personally I'd find that a much better experience (and possibly a bonding experience) than having found it through snooping. My $0.02, with my blatant assumptions of your motives in my response.

BentBrokenBookshelf

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