Freedomain Radio

I was 14, and my father was very pissed at me. I was an atheist at the time, born and raised. My dad's girlfriend, knowing my dad wanted to kick me out, found an acquaintance willing to accept me into his home. That acquaintance was Mormon.

Before I left, my father's girlfriend told me, "Go with an open mind." I wasn't an atheist out of reason, I have to clarify. I was an atheist by default. I had no reason really to stay an atheist. Plus, I already sort of accepted much of Christianity because of the culture in which I grew up: reciting the Pledge of Allegience and singing Christmas songs about Jesus and shit, I was already convinced that it was real before I went.

The first day I went to church, I decided I was a believer. I didn't have any background of rational thought, so it never even crossed my mind that what they said could possibly be untrue. I accepted it right off the bat.

My father still technically had parental control over me, thank God. As much as I wanted to be baptized, he wouldn't let me. I despised him for that at the time. Now I appreciate the decision possibly more than I appreciate anything else in my life.

I was a very pious guy. The very week before I left to go live with the Mormons, I was cussing in every other sentence; the very week after I got there, I was disgusted by swear words, almost to the point of nausea. I prayed often, believed everything I heard from their mouths, loved praising God (haha), etc. I even mildly evangelized at my school. I imagine I thoroughly disgusted a few people. I taught myself to play the piano, and I began playing hymns during the men's meeting at church, for everybody to sing along with. I went to seminary, and was one of the main people involved in the theological discussions. I asked my bishop if I could become a home-teacher (home teachers are men and boys, in groups of two, who go out once a month to visit other assigned Mormon families and discuss with them something inspirational, generally, about the church, or something along those lines). I was the only non-baptized home teacher I, or anybody else at my church, had ever heard of. I was rather proud of that.

Throughout the whole nine months, the one thing I couldn't overcome was masturbation. I had to do it. I couldn't help it. The interesting thing to me is, though, that I rarely felt guilty about it. At one point in time, the man of the house, who I learned to consider my father, had a conversation regarding masturbation with me: "In school, they try to teach you it's normal and healthy. Guess what: it's not. Don't do it. You don't need to. God doesn't want you to..." etc. I still did it. I still rarely felt guilty.

Before I became a Mormon, I smoked marijuana fairly regularly. I started the summer before my freshman year. I of course stopped when I became Mormon, and for the full 9 months, did not do it. The moment the 9 months ended was the moment that I got high again. Here's that story:

I went to visit my father for Christmas. He asked me to watch a movie that he really liked. It was rated R, and I told him I couldn't watch it. He insisted. I watched it. At that point, I already felt soiled. The next day, I visited one of my old friends, the one that used to smoke me out. She smoked me out then. I didn't even protest. After watching a rated R movie, I felt like I was already in the whole; might as well get high again. It was when I was high that I decided to leave the church. It wasn't rational thought that made me stop believing; it was pleasure, induced by rated R movies and drugs, that inspired me to think that maybe, just maybe, Mormonism isn't true. It wasn't rational at all.

I went back to the Mormons' house after Christmas. A couple of months later, they found a pornographic video in my drawer. They kicked me back out, to go live with my father again. That was the end of my Mormon experience.