My Experiences at Mormon Church

Hello! I am a Japanese and was raised mormon. I was the most active child in ｍｙ family. I thought my family was so special and chosen people and I had been told by my parents how blessed I was being born to the church.　But eventually I found out that I had been brainwashed by mormon church and had been a slave to it. I would like to show how I found out the truth and became a happier person. 

 The first shocking fact-polygamy

 When I was 12 years old, my Sunday school teacher taught me about polygamy. I just could not believe it! To me, it was disgusting. But the teacher said it was a commandment from God. I struggled but I had to believe in it. This is the only true church, so, this polygamy must be a good thing, right? I had to reconcile somehow so I thought of this woman in my ward. She was a very old member, well-respected and was so nice, even to me. I thought, if this woman believes in this church, it must be so. After all, I was a child. I never knew how people would make a child. But still, this thing was back in my mind all the time.

 Another shocking fact - number pursuing mission

When I was on my mission, at one meeting, the mission president said, there were only two converts in this entire mission this month. What have you been doing? I got scolded by the higher authority. You can do better! Please! My reaction was what is wrong with two converts? We are in Japan, not in South America! We are serious people. Baptizing someone means entire change in her/his life! We were working so hard. I felt sorry for the mission president and was angry towards whoever told him to get more baptisms. Why don’t you come here and do it yourself! 

【Halloween party in Japan, we missionaries hosted a haunted house】

Great confusion -nonmembers are sometimes nicer than members

I was married in the Tokyo temple and had a couple of children. Our children had very bad egzima, itchy skin. They could not sleep during the night, scratching all over their bodies and screaming. If I could sleep 3 hours in a row, I was lucky. This lasted four years. People in our ward helped us a lot. Some came to clean our house, cooked for us and took our children to the church so I could get some sleep. Back then, my husband was so busy or away from home with his work. Now, we bought a little condominium and moved to a new ward. There, our children kept suffering. Days and nights turned upside down. I was so sick, too. I slept whenever possible. But members in this new ward did not help us that much. There was one sister who was kind. She bought an egg-free cake for our children. Other members told me to come to church, do the callings but would not even try to understand how difficult for me to do that. Then one day, our daughter had asthma in the church for the first time. She was not feeling well that day but I took her and mormon god did not help her at all. She was hospitalized that day and I felt so scared seeing her almost stop breathing. While she was hospitalized, our neighbors helped us a lot. They offered to take care of our son while I was visiting my daughter. The mormon members did not offer any help. Instead, they bohtered me to attend the meetings and do the callings. This was the first time I experienced non-members more loving and caring than mormons. 

【Baskin Robins in Japan. In Japan, we calls it "31 Ice Cream Shop."】

 Tokyo Rush 

We moved to New York because of our husband’s work. One day I happened to see the site, English Speech Contest in Japan. It was government funded event and the winner would be granted to visit BYU for free. Then, I saw some opposition to it. They critisized mormon church. They said that mormoms were trying to convert those winners by brainwashing and this contest was for propaganda. There was much hatred in it and I was shocked. Why are these people so mad at us? Then, I found out about Tokyo Rush. From 1978 to 1981, mormon missionaries baptized thousands of people in Tokyo area. But the most of the converts were not taught about tithing, church attending, words of wisdom etc and never came to church after that. Some honest members opposed to this but were silenced and sometimes excommunicated. In schools, teachers warned the students not to talk to mormon missionaries since they were so dangerous. The missionaries with high baptism numbers were invited to the mission home and were treated fancy dinner. If you do not get lots of baptisms, you are threatened to be sent back to your country. Some missionaries went to the graveyard and wrote the names of the dead people and pretended they were alive! They were desperate! This is not a lie. I heard it from missionaries who had witnessed this. People called it mormon swimming school. When people were baptized but not converted and did not want to write their address in the membership card, missionaries forced them to write the fake address. This gay, who was a bishop at the time had a big fight with the missionaries and told them to stop this! But the missionaries told him to shut up. It was so bad that he had nerves breakdown and could not go to the church for 4 years. No wonder some people are angry towards mormon church! I felt so bad and wanted to save those victims with bitter feelings so I first wrote to Elder KIKUCHI who was a leader of Jpaan and Korea missions at that time. A lot of people said that KIKUCHI was the one who had started this number-persuing mission. KIKUCHI is a Japanese and was one of the Seventy. He wrote me back and said that he was not responsible for that and missionaries did that on their own. I wrote him back, this time, with some evidence that he was a cause of this. KIKUCHI wrote back and said, I did nothing wrong but I admit that my action and words were misunderstood and things kind of got out of hands. He also said that I was like Uzzah in the old testament, meaning I have no right to criticize him. In Samuel 2 chapter 36;6, when the oxen stumbled, Uzzah steadied the ark with his hand, in direct violation of the divine law,, and he was immediately killed for his error. Bishops and clerks in churches in Tokyo were having hard time. They had to call all the ghost members if they had will to come to the church. This man I talked to said that one time he had to call a 12 year old boy. His parent answered the phone and yelled at him what a cultish religeon it was to baptize his son without his parent’s consent. I wrote about that in a letter to KIKUCHI but he did not even apologized about this. I was so offended by KIKUCHI, so, I wrote letters to all the 12 apostles and president Monson and his counselors about this. I asked these prophets to apologize to the people in public and tell the members what had happened. The stake president came to our house and said that L Tom Perry had ordered him to come here. The stake president told me that Elder Perry feels very sorry about Tokyo Rush and apologized me for what had happened. I said that apostles should apologize not to me but to the actual victims by publicly announcing it. That might soften those angry people’s hearts. The answer was NO. After setting apart people with callings and they did anything wrong, the church is not responsible for their actions. I was shocked. Why can’t they just apologize? They teach that in primary! I could not agree with that. This is not what I signed up for! So I decided not to attend mormon church on Sundays. By the way, my bishop in New York was an honest man. He told me everything he knew. He said that he was a missionary in Korea at this time. The rumor of Tokyo Rush was heard in Korea, too. KIKUCHI would come to Korea and every time he spoke, he said you have more baptisms, more, more! My bishop said that KIKUCHI’s speech was so bad that investigators who heard KIKUCHI’s speech never came to the church again. Missionaries in Korea carried a small baptismal font so they could baptize people whenever possible. Even though I did not believe that mormon church was true, I participated in activities. I brought food to sick women, cleaned the church, and helped with Christmas party, etc. I was a cub scout leader, too.

【】

Joseph Smiths 34 wives 

Then one day, I was researching the genealogy and found the church website showing that Joseph Smiths wives. What’s the heck of that?! Wasn’t Emma the only wife? I called the church genealogy and found out it was true! How come I did not know this? I knew that Brigham had wives but he was wealthy so he could provide his wives, right? Turned out that Brigham had over 60 wives and he neglected some wives. Joseph Smith was not wealthy so he would not be able to support these women! He was very busy so he would not have time to be with them. To me, his polygamy did not make sense. Nevertheless, I wanted to believe that it was from God. I called genealogy center in Utah. I asked I would like to know who these women were, what they did. If they were given to Joseph Smith, they must have some missions to help him in any ways. However, the answer I got was we do not have any records of Joseph’s wives except for Emma. I called the other, new bigger genealogy center and the answer was the same. My response was, this is so rude to those women! By this time, I had been married so I knew what it would like to share my husband with other women. It does not sound beautiful, These women must have struggled and suffered. They should be remembered and honored. Instead, the church treats them like they had never existed! I searched the internet and found some documents about Joseph’s wives. These documents said that Joseph married women with living husbands! I asked my stake president about it. He was a really nice gay. He took time for me. He said that Joseph had never married women with living husbands. I believed him and thought that those documents were anti-mormon and not true. Sadly, I would find out that my stake president had been wrong. I do not think he had lied to me. He simply did not know, I guess. I asked my bishop about it. And do you know what he said? He said this church is not the only true church and polygamy is not from God. My ancestors had practiced polygamy but nobody was happy, all the divorces and jealousy! I was surprised. I had been taught that all the people who had practiced polygamy were happy. After this, I could not even attend the activities of the church. 

【Seven Deities of Good Fortune】

New experience at a different church

We came back from New York to Tokyo. I could not go to Mormon church anymore. But I wanted to go somewhere. I started to attend a protestant church nearby my house. Our son loved it. My husband continued attending mormon church. I felt much better in this new church. Nobody said that this was the only true church or I know this church is true. Children did not have to stay with the adults and listen to boring stories. This one time, each child drew a picture of an animal and they came down to the chapel to show them to us. The teacher said these are God’s creatures. Then, one boy yelled. Are they really? Really? He kept screaming but nobody stopped him. They were all smiling. In mormon church, if a child did that, the child would be surely taken out of the room and get scolded. I have seen lots of parents slap their children when they misbehaved. The meeting lasted only an hour. (Mormon church meeting lasts 3 hours!) After that, we had tea time. I was offered cookies and lemon tea! I was really shocked! LEMON TEA!? We should not drink tea! God says no TEA or COFFEE is bad for you! It is wicked! I was really shocked. But then, I thought so what? These people are not wicked at all. Just regular people. They want to be good so they come to the church. 

 I almost killed myself

I told my father that I was attending a non-mormon church. My father was furious! He started screaming. He said that I was under Satan's influence. I tried to explain why I could not go to mormon church but he would not listen and yelled constantly. I managed to ask "Do you want me to go to mormon church and miserable or do you want me to go to a different church and happy? He said, "You should go to mormon church, it is the only true church!" I was devastated. I was very sad. Here, my own father, saying that he did not care if I was unhappy! He said that I had some people issues, not the teachings and said that I should remove my name from the church. He would not let me talk and said, "if you leave mormon church, I will come after you. I will call your husband what he is doing!" I was so scared. After he hung up on me, I was shaking. I started going to mormon church again, but miserable. I felt like a hypocrite. Every time someone said, "I know this church is true", I was screaming in my head, "NO, IT IS NOT!" I asked the mission president for help, but he said, "I don't want to get into your father-and-daughter situation", I asked my stake president for help but he said, "nothing can stop your father, all we can do is it pray". So I asked several members in my ward who were close to my father to pretend that I was attending the ward if he asked them about me. I had explained them about my situation and begged them to do so, I know I was asking them to lie to my father but that was the only way I could live. Surprisingly enough, all of them but one agreed. I appreciate that even now. But this one member, whom my father respected a lot, older and higher in church position than my father, refused to help me. He said "family matters are so sacred that we should not talk about that to the outsiders. Your father had helped so many people over the years you should not talk about your father that way, Seems like you are kind of person who cannot keep things inside you." So my last hope was gone. Sooner or later my father would find out that I was not going to mormon church and he would come after me. For about 6 months after that, every time a phone rang, I thought it was from my father. My heart beat so fast and I thought it would stop anytime. I was afraid the call might be from my father. Besides, I thought I was not a good person. If I am not a good person, because I blame my father or speak bad things about him, I should be not here. My husband who is a faithful mormon might deserve a better wife with his faith. My children would be better off with some mother who is more mature. I started thinking about killing myself. It would be nice to be free from all the fear and troubles. One day, I had decided that I would take pills and leave this world. There is not god, I thought. I was walking along the river side. It was a beautiful, warm day. A perfect day to say good-bye to everything. Then, something hit me and I looked up. There was a city hall in front of me. Then I remembered that they offer free counseling. I went inside and made an appointment, The next day I went to the counseling and told them about my problem. Then, do you know what they said to me? They said that I had every right to believe in whatever I wanted and my father had no right to force me to go to his church. They said that the police would help me. I had never imagined that I would have to report about my father to the police and hesitated, but they said it was important in order to protect me. So I told the police about my father and his address. If anything happens to me, they would question my father first. I wrote a letter to my father about me reporting about him. Since then, my father stopped calling me. I finally became free! I went to several counseling. I asked the counselors, "suppose your husband is a prophet of god and he comes home and say that he was told by god to take another wife, what would you say?" To my surprise, one of them said, "I would kick him down the stairs." The other one said, "I would divorce him but I would also suggest him to go to the mental hospital." Another counselor in a different session said that polygamy is such an evil thing and my church is just a crazy organization. First, I had thought that I was selfish being not able to accept polygamy but gradually I was about to feel that there was nothign wrong with me but mormon church is the crazy one. 

【In Japan, people go shopping on bikes.】

 What mormon chruch was hiding from me

I started researching more about mormon church history. I wanted to know what I had to die for. Then, I discovered a lot of nasty things! Joseph Smith marrying young girls and having sexual relationship with them behind Emma’s back. Joseph Smith establishing a bank illegally and went bankruptcy and brought so much misery to his followers who had invested in his bank Joseph Smith stealing from some girls Joseph Smith excommunicating anyone who were against him Josph Smith could not get prophesy right in so many occations. Black people were treated very badly over the years Polygamy brought so much misery to so many people LDS church takes money from poor members and spends it on building malls in Utah. LDS church builds so many fancy temples LDs leaders were deceived by mere member, Mark Hoffman through his forged documents. LDS had killed so many native Americans and did not have intention to share the land with them Tokyo Rush and other number-persuing, fake baptisms are performed everywhere Mormon leaders killed 120 innocent people, called Mt.　Meadow‘s massacre.  I can go on forever.

【Popular Japanese Snacks "Pokey."】

 I became happier 

I asked about these issues to church leaders in Japan. But in most of the cases, I was told not to ask those questions or told that they did not have any answers. This one person said that I was under Satan's influence, so I stopped wearing garments and tithing! My children stopped going before that. Then, to our surprise, my husband stopped going. I had never expected it. On Sundays, now we can spend time together. It is so nice! We go bike riding, hiking and eating at a restaurant. My son says that I used to be hurry and mad all the time. I am a more relaxed person. My husband has a black belt in Aikidou(Japanese marshal art).Now he does not have to go to church on Sundays so he can go to Aikidou camps. He raally enjoys it. I started drinking coffee and tea. I like lemon tea. I don't have to pay tithing so I work only half a day now. I can spend more time with my children. It is wonderful! I can go to the shrines and temples. I do not have to worry about my children marrying in the temple as far as they are marrying a decent, honest people. We all resigned from the mormon church. We are so happy that we discovered that our salvation does not depends on what we believe. If we want to be together in the next life, we can. We can be good people without religion.