As a 7th generation Mormon, I talk about my experiences being indoctrinated into the LDS faith, and how the programs and rhetoric of the church leaders make it impossible for young people to have informed consent when choosing church membership.

I offer unique insights into indoctrination tactics and why it is that millions of LDS members believe that they are not in a cult. Is brainwashing too harsh of a description for what I endured? You be the judge.

Visit www.third-verse.com/coaching to schedule a free 20 minute call with Megan!

Join the community to gain access to perks!

https://www.youtube.com/@Third_Verse/membership

About the Host: 

Megan Conner is the mother of 6 spectacular humans and a breaker of generational trauma cycles. She has spent the last 10 years overcoming the effects of child SA and other abusive relationships and cycles. She is the author of I Walked Through Fire to Get Here, which was written to give support and hope to other survivors. Megan is passionate about helping people make small changes that make their lives better every day.  

https://third-verse.com/

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=29623844

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdTAwWoBlyiAEDIdahq5U6g

https://www.instagram.com/third_verse/

https://www.tiktok.com/@third_verse

Thanks for listening!

Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode, please share with your friends! Buttons below.

Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment! Is there a topic you’d like to hear more about? Let us know!

Subscribe to the podcast

Get automatic updates of new podcast episodes and live alerts by subscribing on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app.

Leave us an Apple Podcasts review

Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. 

Legal Disclaimer:

The content presented on @Third_Verse ("Channel") is based solely on the personal experiences and opinions of the creator. It is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only and should not be construed as professional advice. The creator is not a licensed professional in any field and therefore the content should not be considered as authoritative guidance. Viewers are encouraged to conduct their own research and consult with qualified professionals before making any decisions based on the information provided on this Channel.

The views expressed on this Channel are subjective and should not be taken as evidence or factual statements. While efforts are made to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information presented, no guarantee is made regarding its completeness or suitability for any particular purpose. By accessing and using this Channel, viewers agree to waive any claims against the creator arising from reliance on the content provided herein.

Hello, beautiful humans.

Welcome to the Midlife Revolution.

I'm your host, Megan Conner.

And today's topic is going

to take a while.

This topic has been on my

mind since February of

twenty twenty three.

On February fourteenth of

twenty twenty three,

I sent in my official

resignation letter to the

Church of Jesus Christ of

Latter-day Saints after a

brief but also very long faith crisis.

I was spending Valentine's

Day with my partner,

and we were on the phone

with his aunt and uncle.

Samuel announced to them

that I had some big news,

and I told them that I

finally sent in my

resignation letter to the church.

And Samuel's uncle made a

really interesting comment

that I've been thinking

about ever since then.

He said, you know, Megan,

I always thought that you

were a very intelligent person.

How is it that you fell for

a big bunch of BS like that?

Now,

Samuel's uncle has grown up around

Mormon people,

and he lives in an area

where it's pretty common

for ranchers to hire

Mormons to do odd jobs and

to hire them in their

businesses and things like that.

And I've heard this a lot

from people outside the

church that they love

hiring Mormons because

Mormons are non-smokers.

They're non-drinkers.

They're generally very happy people,

very easy to get along with.

They're generally kind to others.

They have a good work ethic

and they tend to have

stable family relationships.

So Samuel's uncle has been

around Mormons and known

them for a long time.

And I'm sure at some point,

one of his employees or

somebody that he worked

with introduced him to the

missionaries or tried to

give him a Book of Mormon,

or at least tried to tell

him something about the church.

So I'm sure that's where he

got his impression that the

teachings of the Mormon

church are a big bunch of BS.

The only real answer that I

could give him at the time was that, well,

when you're born into it

and your whole family are members,

you don't really have a

whole lot of choice.

As I continued to think about it,

I thought about all of the

ways in which the Church of

Jesus Christ of Latter-day

Saints uses

thought-stopping techniques to

keep us from investigating

any materials that aren't

put out officially by the church.

We're encouraged to go on

social media fasts.

we're encouraged to only

read the materials that are

produced by the church.

And we are counseled that

because we live in the world,

but we don't want to be of the world,

that the majority of the

media that we're consuming

should be media that's put

out by the church.

They want us constantly to

be reading the church magazines,

to be listening to conference talks,

to be studying the scriptures,

and to be studying the

approved lesson manuals

that are produced by the church.

We're counseled by the

prophets and the apostles

who lead the church.

that we should be spending

our time in the scriptures

and nowhere else basically

we should only be reading

from the best books meaning

the books that are produced

by deseret

which is the

publishing house that's

owned by the church of

jesus christ of latter-day

saints the church owns a

news outlet called deseret

news that puts out

newspapers and articles and

information on the web

When we have a problem or a

question or a concern about

the doctrine of the church

or the teachings of the

church or the history of the church,

we are told by church

leaders to doubt our doubts.

Meaning if we have doubts,

we're supposed to question

the doubts before we question our faith.

We're counseled to pray and

read our scriptures.

If we don't understand something,

pray more, read more.

so whenever i had a question

about something that was

being taught in church that

i didn't understand or i

didn't agree with i would

go to the approved sources

i would read my scriptures

i would pray i would fast

so that i could okay

My purpose for doing an

episode on indoctrination

is to help people outside

the church understand what

it's like to grow up in a

high demand religion and

how difficult it is to break away.

In order to do that,

I feel like I almost need

to give you a vocabulary lesson.

I almost feel like I have to

go through the entirety of my life.

This feels like such a daunting task.

How do you explain this to

somebody who's never

experienced it before?

So I'm going to do my best.

in.

When you're a member of the church,

you're led to believe.

God, I can't even.

I would say let's start from the beginning,

but it's hard to say what

the beginning actually is.

Do I go all the way back to

when Joseph Smith claimed

that he saw a vision of God

and Jesus Christ?

Do I go back to the

formation of religion from

the dawn of time?

It feels like such an impossible task.

I was born in California in

nineteen seventy four.

My dad was in the Air Force.

My parents had met at BYU

and married in the Logan Temple.

Shortly after that,

my older brother was born

and then I came along.

And then my dad was

transferred to Louisiana,

where we lived for the next

six years in two different places.

My younger brother was born

in one of those towns and

my younger sister was born in the other.

After those six years,

my dad got a job with

Citibank and was

transferred to Sioux Falls, South Dakota,

which is where I was

baptized at the age of eight years old.

By the time I was eight years old,

I had endured

thousands of hours of indoctrination.

So when I went into the

bishop's office for him to

ask me the questions about

my quote unquote choice to be baptized,

I had already been

completely brainwashed.

And I'd like to explain what

that experience was like

growing up as a child.

and being forced to join the

Church of Jesus Christ of

Latter-day Saints.

You might think forced, brainwashed, cult.

You might think that these

are all really harsh

descriptions and that they don't fit.

In fact, when I was a member,

I definitely would not have

believed that the LDS Church was a cult.

I definitely didn't believe

that I was brainwashed.

or indoctrinated,

and I definitely didn't

believe that any of what I

went through was harmful.

But now that I'm on the

other side and I've been

through a great deal of

therapy and processing

other harmful relationships in my life,

It's difficult for me to

accept that I stayed for so long.

And why was this, of all things,

one of the last things for

me to deconstruct in my

long life history of

enduring abusive and harmful situations?

Why was this the one that

lasted for so long?

It took me over forty years

to get out of the church.

That's a long time.

Some of my first memories as

a child were in our two

different homes in Louisiana.

I remember the huge pecan

tree that was in our front yard.

I remember going to

preschool and learning

about the letter people.

I remember pulling the fire alarm.

I just wanted to see what would happen.

I remember my very first day

of first grade because it

was pretty traumatic.

I remember singing in the

talent show in first grade.

And I remember walking to church.

I remember working on the

church welfare farm, pulling weeds.

I remember going to primary

and Sunday school.

I remember some of my

teachers and I remember

some of the people in the

church that we met and some

of the people in our

neighborhood who were members.

But mostly I remember what

happened in my home.

and the expectations that my

parents had of me and my siblings.

Indoctrination is simply the

process of teaching someone

a set of beliefs and

expecting them to accept

those beliefs without

thinking critically about them.

Thinking critically,

meaning whether or not

those beliefs are moral or good or right.

I know that many people can

identify with the idea that

when you're growing up,

you think that everything

that's happening around you in your home,

in your school, in your community,

that all of those things

are what everybody experiences.

As children of a young age,

we don't really have the

ability to imagine beyond

our own circumstances.

Until we get presented with it,

in some form of media advertising.

I remember the first time

that I saw a commercial

about children starving in

Africa being one of the few

times that I had ever

considered that there were

kids growing up who didn't

have food or clothing or shelter.

And of course, growing up,

I knew that there were

other kids in my school who

weren't Mormons,

who weren't members of the

Church of Jesus Christ of

Latter-day Saints.

And I knew that other

families had other traditions,

that they ate different

food and that they had

other ideas about the world.

But what I was being told in

my house is that our ideas

about the world were correct.

that other people's ideas

about the world were at the

very least incomplete and

sometimes in some cases

completely wrong when you

grow up believing that you

belong to a church that has

all the answers and that

it's the only church with

the correct answers

It leaves you feeling like

other people are

experiencing life in a way

that's less than ideal.

And it leads you to believe

that if they would only

listen to you and accept your ideas,

that there would be less

suffering and there would

be fewer problems in the world.

Imagine if the president of

the United States was a Mormon.

Imagine if all the world

leaders were Mormons,

then there'd be no suffering.

There would be no tragedy.

God would never be angry

because all of his people

would be worshiping him the

way that he wanted them to.

These are the kind of ideas

that I grew up with as a child.

And who was telling me all

of these things?

Who was putting these ideas into my head?

It wasn't just my parents.

It was my Sunday school teachers.

It was the other people who

spoke in church,

the other adults that my

parents associated with.

It was my aunts and my uncles,

my grandparents.

It was in all of the family

stories that I was told

growing up as a seventh

generation Mormon.

My fifth great grandfather

was one of the first people

to join the church in

Missouri when the church was brand new,

just two years old.

there are a lot of people

who are native to Missouri

who didn't like what the

Mormons brought to their state,

didn't like what they

brought to the communities,

didn't like what Mormonism

was teaching or what they had to offer.

The people of Missouri were

naturally upset by the idea

of polygamy that Joseph

Smith was already starting to practice.

They didn't appreciate that

Mormons only did business

with other Mormons.

There were a lot of reasons

for what church members

call persecution in Missouri,

but Mormons started to be

driven from their homes.

And the governor of Missouri

actually put out an

extermination order on the

Mormons where he made it legal

to kill a Mormon on sight if

they refuse to leave the state.

This is part of the Mormon

persecution complex,

which is a vast topic that

I will cover another time.

But my fifth great

grandfather and his family

had been driven from their

home for the third time

during a cold season.

Winter was coming on and my

grandfather had ill health.

And in their search for housing,

he got sicker and sicker

and eventually died and was

buried by the side of the road.

Before he died,

he made his children

promise to stay true to the faith.

Then Joseph Smith was killed.

The leader of their religion,

the man who said that he

had seen God and Jesus Christ,

who had been sent to prison

and persecuted for his

faith in their eyes,

had been killed along with

the patriarch of their family.

My fifth great grandfather's

sons took up the mantle of

moving the family to be

with the saints and

ensuring that their mother

had what she needed to live.

They took their job very seriously.

My fourth great-grandfather

was one of the people who

helped the Saints move from

Missouri to the Utah Territory.

They experienced a lot of

sickness and death on the trail.

Many,

many people lost their lives due to

exposure and bad planning

and many other circumstances,

which again is a rabbit

hole for another time.

But when my fourth

great-grandfather arrived

in the Utah Territory.

He established a little community.

He was a faithful Latter-day Saint.

He became the sheriff.

He also went on missions for the church.

His name was mentioned many

times in the journals of Brigham Young,

who was the president of

the church at the time.

So he was a fairly prominent member.

He also practiced polygamy,

which he served jail time for.

And he ended up with over

three hundred descendants

sometime around his ninetieth birthday.

shortly before he died,

he said to his children,

tell my grandchildren that

if they don't pay their tithing,

they cannot come where I'm going.

And so my third great

grandfather and my second

great grandfather and my

great grandfather and my

grandfather all practiced the same faith.

They lived in the same place

and they continued the

tradition of indoctrinating

their children into

believing what Joseph Smith taught.

That was my maternal

grandmother's side of the family.

My maternal grandfather's

side of the family was also

fairly prominent polygamists,

also very involved in the church in Utah.

And until my parents,

all of their descendants lived in Utah.

In fact,

all of my mom's siblings also

lived in Utah and most of them still do.

I think it was only because

my dad was in the Air Force

that took us away from living in Utah.

And I'm so grateful that I

grew up outside of the Mormon bubble.

My dad's side of the family

joined the church more recently.

his father was also in the Air Force.

And so they moved around quite a bit.

But at one point when their

family was living in San Antonio,

my grandmother was tracked

out by a set of young

Mormon missionaries.

She listened to their

message and she decided to

get baptized and join the church.

My dad was too young at the

time to be baptized and his

father wanted him to wait

until he was a little older,

but eventually he was

baptized along with his siblings as well.

My dad served a mission and

then he went to BYU,

which is where he met my mother.

My parents were married in the temple.

And so my siblings and I are

considered what is called

born in the covenant,

which means that my parents

made promises to God in the

temple and that we were

covered by those promises,

my siblings and I. And so

in the eyes of the church,

we are considered to be a

family that is sealed

together for time and all eternity.

And when Mormons talk about sealing,

It's a ceremony that is

attached to the marriage

ceremony that's performed

by somebody with priesthood

authority who basically

declares that you are

married for time and all eternity.

If you decide to get divorced,

you have to have your

sealing canceled or you're

going to be with that

person for eternity is

basically what the Mormons believe.

So I grew up believing that

I was sealed to my parents

and my grandparents and my

great grandparents all the

way back to the first one

that joined the church and

that we would all be

together in heaven forever

if we remained faithful.

So what was it like growing up as a child

as a seventh generation Mormon.

The expectations are set

upon us from birth.

When I was born,

I was given a blessing

during one of the

congregational meetings on

Sunday where my dad held me

in his arms and a circle of

men stood around.

Some of you have seen baby

blessings on shows like the

Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.

I don't know exactly what

was said in that blessing,

but during my

forty-five-ish years in the church,

I found those blessings to

be very formulaic.

For girls, mostly,

we were blessed that we would be faithful,

that we would learn the gospel,

that we would get baptized,

and that we would find a

worthy young man to take us

to the temple.

And I'm certain that that

was part of my baby blessing,

although I'd have to go

back and ask about it,

but I don't really want to.

Most likely I would have

been blessed to have

children and that my

children would be sealed to

me and that we would be together forever.

That happened when I was an infant,

probably just a couple of weeks old.

So from the time of my

infancy until three years old,

my parents would have said

prayers together as a

family every morning and every evening.

They would have read

scriptures to me and my siblings.

They would have taught me to pray.

They would have taught me things like,

Jesus loves you.

You're a child of God.

And they would have taken me

to church every single

Sunday for three hours

where we would sit together

as a family during the main

sacrament meeting or communion.

And during the second hour and third hour,

I probably would have

stayed with my mother while

she went to her two final meetings,

one a women's meeting and

one a Sunday school for adults.

My family also would have

attended a lot of social

gatherings that involved

other members of our church congregation.

For example,

every holiday there would have

been some kind of an

activity or dinner or other meeting.

I also probably would have

accompanied my mom as she

went to visit other members

of the ward as part of her

visiting teaching assignment.

Now visiting teaching is a

program by which everybody

in the church gets assigned

an adult woman who travels

in a pair with another adult woman,

and they once a month are

to visit the people that

they're assigned to,

usually three to four different families.

And these sisters would visit together.

They called each other

brother and sister in the church.

So these sisters would visit

together about what was

going on in their lives and

what needs they might have.

And it was an organization

that was meant to just make

sure that everybody's needs

were met and that people

were fellowshiped into the gospel.

See,

this is why I feel like I just have to

give a whole vocabulary lesson.

Being fellowshiped just

means that people are

encouraging you to go to

church and attend your meetings and

encouraging you to say your

prayers and have your family prayers.

And in the seventies,

the leadership of the

church instituted a program

called Family Home Evening,

where every Monday night we

were expected to meet

together as a family,

have a song and a prayer

and a lesson and a song and a prayer.

And if we were lucky, a treat afterwards.

So even before the age of three,

I probably already would

have endured hundreds and

hundreds of hours where I

was a listening ear to

everything that was going

on in Mormonism.

At church on Sundays,

on my mom's visiting teaching visits,

at the social activities,

And in our home every single day,

praying twice a day as a family, saying,

reading scriptures together

every day and praying over

every meal as a family.

At the age of three,

I would have been allowed

during the second and third

hour of church to attend

Sunday school with other children my age.

And that's where the real

indoctrination continued

and strengthened.

Sunday school for young

people is called primary.

It's for children of the

ages of three to twelve.

And what happens in primary

is that this is the real

place where kids get brainwashed.

And I don't think that I'm

being too harsh with that word.

We were taught songs.

all of which reinforced the

ideals of gospel principles,

reinforcing the idea that

we are the one true church,

reinforcing the idea that

temples are the most important thing,

that our goal should always

be to go to the temple and

to be with our family forever.

The songs would reinforce

the idea of Joseph Smith as

a prophet and as a martyr,

There's even a song that

names all of the prophets of the church.

So yes, to this day,

I still know all of the

names of every single

person who has ever been a

prophet of the Mormon church.

Memorization was really, really important

so i became a good memorizer

they wanted us to memorize

all of these songs because

once a year the primary or

the children's organization

would put on a show during

the main sunday meeting it

was called the primary

program so once a year the

children's organization

would take over the whole meeting

And we would sing all of the

songs that we had memorized

and each one of us would

have a part that we would

speak from the pulpit.

So the primary program always had a theme.

For example,

The theme could have been

families can be together forever.

So everything in the program

would be specifically about that theme.

And then each class would

get to recite the things

that they were learning

that year that related to that theme.

So when I was three years old,

my part might have sounded

something like this.

I have a family who loves me

and we can be together forever.

That's it.

Then they would pass the

microphone to the next kid

and the next kid would say

something different like,

my mommy and daddy were

married in the temple and I

want to be married there too.

Now,

maybe those parts were probably more

like for a five-year-old

because three-year-olds,

their parts were usually

just two or three words

like I'm a child of God.

As you got older,

your part would get a

little bit longer and a

little bit more complicated,

but you were expected to

memorize it and you were

expected to know how it fit

into the context of the theme.

And the memorizing doesn't end there.

We were also taught and

encouraged to memorize

scriptures from the Book of

Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants,

sometimes from the Bible,

but not very often.

So from the age of three to

the age of eight,

the entire purpose of the

primary program is to

prepare children for baptism.

Joseph Smith taught that

before the age of eight,

children can learn right from wrong,

but they aren't yet

accountable for their choices.

Meaning that whatever sins

they commit or things that they do wrong,

Don't count against them

before the age of eight.

Then once you decide to be baptized,

you're given a set of

commandments that you need to follow.

The rules.

How you're supposed to behave.

How you're supposed to do life.

In addition to the Ten Commandments.

Then if you break a commandment,

you're supposed to repent.

Repent.

meaning that you pray to God

and you ask for forgiveness,

you promise not to do it again,

and then you try your

hardest to do better in the future.

We'll get back to that

concept in a little while.

But right now,

just focusing on from the

age of three to the age of eight,

it is the job of the primary organization,

your Sunday school teacher,

and the leadership of the

primary organization

They want to prepare you to get baptized.

They want to prepare you to

make promises to God and

then to keep those promises.

When I was a kid,

baptisms were a big celebratory deal.

A lot of people had some

kind of a party or celebration.

Just after the baptism was over,

in the church building,

they would have cake or

some other kind of a treat.

People would bring you

presents or give you money.

You were expected to, for the first time,

pay tithing as an eight-year-old child.

I remember being

disappointed at my baptism

because there were some

converts who were being baptized,

meaning some adults that

had worked with the missionaries.

And they were being baptized

at the same time on the same day as me.

And I remember being

disappointed because all of

the other people that I had

seen get baptized, it was just them.

It was their special day.

The whole thing was about

them and their baptism.

And they got to celebrate

with their people and get

all the presents and

everything like that.

So I was sad that my baptism

didn't feel as special

because there were other

people there getting

baptized on the same day.

Now, it's a good thing that as a child,

I didn't overthink things

too much because I'm a very

visual person.

And one of the ways that I

remember things well is I visualize them.

And we're taught that when we get baptized,

our sins are washed away.

And I sort of thought of

that in a literal sense.

And I was wondering how

black the water was going

to turn when I got baptized

because of all my sins.

But I was relieved in

visiting the baptisms of

some of my friends in

Sunday school who turned eight before me.

I was relieved to see that

the water didn't turn any

color so you couldn't

actually see the sins.

But on my baptism day,

I had to share the font

with these two other people

who were adults.

And man,

if I would have thought for a

second about how many sins

they had and how sinful the

water was before I got in it.

I don't remember if I went

first or second or third or what, but

It's a good thing I wasn't

obsessing about those things.

But just the fact that I had

to think about the water

turning black means that at

the age of eight,

I was already indoctrinated

into this system.

I also remember very

specifically one time.

that as I think a seven year old child,

I stole a cookie.

My mom made cookies pretty frequently.

And we almost always had

homemade chocolate chip

cookies in a little cookie

jar that sat on the counter.

And I love cookies, who doesn't?

So I think one day I stole a

cookie and my mom found out about it.

And I think I lied about it too, because

In my household growing up,

it was not really safe to make a mistake.

There was a lot of yelling.

And I remember always just

wanting to do whatever I

could to keep from getting yelled at.

And so I'm sure when she

asked me if I took a cookie, I said no,

because I didn't want to get yelled at.

And I remember my mom saying to me,

that I had a lot of

repenting to do if I wanted

to get baptized when I turned eight.

Looking back on it now, first of all,

one of the reasons I

remember that comment is

because it really hit me.

It really stayed with me and

it really hurt.

My mom was suggesting to me

that I was sinful and that

if I wanted to get baptized,

I needed to repent.

Which,

if you understand what Joseph Smith

taught,

that the age of accountability is eight,

meaning kids younger than

eight can learn right from wrong,

but they can't be held

accountable for their choices.

Or in other words,

they can't be punished for

their sins before they're

eight years old because

they don't fully understand

the choices yet.

And that's why that comment

hit me so hard is because I

thought that before the age of eight,

I was sinless,

but I was confused by the

fact that they said that

the baptism washes away your sins.

So it was all very confusing

doctrine to me from the very beginning,

but I didn't,

but I wasn't able to

question it because

everybody in my family was

living this way.

All of my aunts and uncles and cousins,

all of my ancestors, well,

for the most part,

especially on my mom's side,

they were all living this life.

They had all been faithful

Mormons from the day they

were born until the day that they died.

So who was I to question it?

If all of the adults in my

life that I trusted

believed that this was true,

it must be true.

And that's why Mormonism

goes beyond brainwashing

because it's your entire

family system and your entire community.

Even for people who are only

second or third generation Mormons,

If you grow up with the idea

that your parents, well, first of all,

I think all children have

an idea up to a certain age

that their parents are infallible.

They believe their parents

know everything.

They believe their parents

are superheroes.

And it's really

disillusioning as a child

when you find out that's not the case.

But you learn to accept it

because then you realize, well, I guess,

they're human beings and all

adults are human beings who

make mistakes.

But when I was growing up,

I remember my mom telling a

story about going to the

movies on a Sunday when she was a child.

is not really allowed when you're Mormon.

You're supposed to keep the

Sabbath day holy,

which to Mormons means that

you don't work on Sunday.

You don't do yard work or chores.

A lot of people are not

allowed to do homework.

I wasn't.

You're supposed to only do

things that honor God.

So you're supposed to go to church.

You can read your scriptures.

You can read other church magazines.

My dad only played classical

music on Sundays,

which is where I developed

my love of classical music.

So I'm not really mad about that.

But in my mom's house growing up,

hanging out with friends on

Sundays was not allowed.

And going to the movies

where you were spending

money was definitely not allowed.

Spending money on Sundays is a sin,

in case you didn't know.

But these friends of my mom

invited her to the movies,

and actually they must have

been Mormon too,

because she grew up in small town Idaho.

So my mom asked her dad, my grandfather,

if she could go to the

movies with these friends,

and I guess she was old

enough that my grandfather said, well,

You know what we believe,

but I'm going to leave it up to you.

You get to make the choice.

And my mom was probably like, sweet.

So she chose to go to the

movies with her friends.

But she felt so guilty and

so terrible about it that

she knew it was the wrong choice.

And when she got home,

she apologized to my

grandfather and she repented.

And that's the only...

story that i have of my mom

making a mistake when she

was growing up so i really

did think she was

infallible and certainly my

dad couldn't make any

mistakes because he's

smarter than my mom because

if you didn't know men are

smarter than women they

have the priesthood so they

have more authority they

have more power they have

to be even more righteous

because they constantly

have to be ready to use the

priesthood power anytime

somebody is sick or

Any minor inconvenience happens.

So when you believe that

your parents are infallible

and that they know

everything and they're

choosing to live a life in

Mormonism where you're

constantly told that it's

the only true church and

they use your emotions

against you to confirm

these things to you,

you believe it more and

more and more and more as you get older.

And you're encouraged to

seek out experiences where

the Holy Ghost witnesses to

you the truth of these things.

So it's more than brainwashing.

It's more than indoctrination.

When you grow up with a

family that's Mormon,

it's total immersion in a total culture.

And the only reason why I

didn't get more

indoctrination is because I

didn't live in Utah.

Although I've heard a lot of

people from Utah say that

growing up outside of Utah,

you have a bigger

responsibility to be

faithful and to keep the

commandments because

everybody's watching you to

see what Mormons are like.

And they will choose to join

the church or not join the

church based on how you

live your life and whether

or not you're a good enough Mormon.

So at the age of eight, I was baptized.

And then once you are

baptized from the ages of eight to twelve,

there was at the time, not anymore,

but at the time there was a

program called the Faith in God Award.

And who doesn't want to win

a Mormon award?

I mean, this is what we all strive for.

because it would prove that

you were a good Mormon,

that you were doing

everything that you were

supposed to be doing.

So we had this little pamphlet.

It was, it was like a threefold card.

And on the outside of the

card was a picture of the

faith in God award.

Hold please.

Ah, thank Jeebus for the internet.

So I was mistaken.

The Faith in God Award was just for boys.

The girls version of that

was called the Gospel in Action Award.

And it ran from nineteen

eighty two to twenty twenty

for Mormon children under

the age of twelve.

Thank you to Haley Labrum

for this way back machine.

We got a little card just like this.

It was a threefold pamphlet

that looked like this.

And yes,

I would have written my name on it

with a heart as well.

It says, let's see on the inside,

here we go.

Requirements.

To obtain the award,

choose a goal in one of the

four general areas listed on this card.

After choosing a goal,

complete the following steps.

One,

discuss the goal with your parents or

your primary teacher.

Two, write the goal in the space provided.

Three,

work on the goal by yourself or with

your family, friends, or primary class.

Four,

record the date when you accomplish

the goal.

Five,

share what you've done with your

parents or teacher and have

one of them sign your card.

Follow the same steps to

complete one goal in each

of the other three areas

listed on the card.

In addition,

complete the articles of faith

requirement in the third

column on this card.

Then your teacher will make

an appointment for you to

tell the primary president

what you have done.

The primary president will

tell you when you will

receive the gospel in action award.

So one personal area,

you can choose one of three goals.

Improve in living a gospel principle.

Develop a personal talent

and share it with someone.

I'm sure that's what I chose.

I probably chose singing.

Three,

list ways you can become a better

friend and practice some of them.

So you write your goal down here.

You write the date that the

goal was accomplished.

You have to share it with

your parent or your primary leader.

and they have to sign off that you did it,

okay?

In the family area,

you could choose one of these goals.

Complete a personal pedigree

chart that includes your

grandparents and give as

much information about them as you can.

So this is the family

history aspect of Mormonism

coming in at a real young age.

The pedigree chart would have been,

here's me and my date of

birth and the date I was

blessed and the date I was baptized.

And here are my parents and

their dates of birth.

Their dates of blessing, baptism,

attending the temple,

and being married in the temple.

And then here are my grandparents.

If they're still alive,

you list the same thing as the parents.

If they've passed away,

you also list their death date.

And that's what a pedigree chart was.

Number two is keep a

personal journal for at

least three months.

Number three,

plan and carry out an

activity with your family.

And she puts family night here,

which means that this child

would have been in charge

for selecting a song,

choosing someone to say the

opening prayer,

choosing someone to give a

lesson or giving the lesson themselves,

choosing someone to say the

closing prayer and having a

closing song as well.

So family night was a pretty

formal affair.

We had an agenda.

And then in the church area,

you could choose to either

read the scriptures daily

for at least one month or

choose and present a way to

share your feelings about the scriptures.

Like they would say,

bearing your testimony,

where you could stand up in

a testimony meeting and say

something like, my name is Megan.

I believe that the church is true.

I know Joseph Smith was a prophet.

I know the Book of Mormon is

the word of God.

In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

That's what that would have been like.

Or number three,

have a personal prayer

daily for at least one month.

So they're trying to get you

into these habits that are

going to further indoctrinate you.

Then in the community area,

plan and complete an

individual family or class

service project.

And service projects were

things that we did all the time.

It was things like singing

Christmas carols at a

nursing home or collecting

goods for donation or

collecting food for the food

bank or things like that.

Then the articles of faith,

repeat the thirteen

articles of faith and

explain their meaning to

the best of your ability.

So most of the time we were

required to memorize the

articles of faith.

And then in my case,

I had to go into an

appointment with the bishop

where I had to recite the

thirteen articles of faith from memory.

And I had to give my

testimony and I had to

basically tell the Bishop

about all of the goals that

I had completed in doing

this little project.

Then I'm going to go back to

this screen because I love it so much.

I would get the gospel in action award.

and you can see on the front

of this pamphlet there's

this is a pin for a tie pin

for a boy and this is a

little pendant for a

necklace for the for a girl

and i earned my little

medallion and i wore this

necklace to church every

sunday to show people what

a good mormon i was

So the church is full of

these types of programs

that help children to

further indoctrinate

themselves into Mormonism.

So I memorized all thirteen

of the articles of faith.

In fact,

I could probably still recite them today,

but I won't.

I also memorized a ton of scriptures.

I also memorized every

single primary song.

I still know all of them.

I could probably sing all of

them for you right now.

Because I was so good at memorizing,

I also memorized the temple ceremony,

but I will not repeat that

either because I'm trying

to let that part of my

brain just die away.

In fact,

I'm on an active mission to kill

my Mormon brain cells.

Anyway,

I wanted to earn the faith in God

award because I wanted to

be a good Mormon.

And so I did.

completed all of those

activities that were listed there.

And part of it was in an

effort to become acceptable

to my parents and to gain their approval.

Because the messaging that I

got at home all the time is

that I was inherently a

sinful being that

constantly needed to repent.

And every time I did something wrong,

I was displeasing God.

And every time I messed up,

it was because Satan had

influence over me.

And every time I argued with my brothers,

that I was serving the devil,

because contention is of the devil.

And so being the naughty

little Satan serving girl that I was,

I had to do things to make up for it.

I had to make sure that I

was as good as I possibly could be.

And repentance,

I promised I would get back to this later,

but for a child,

repentance looks like praying,

telling God you're sorry,

and then promising to never do it again,

and then trying really hard

to change your behavior.

And what we were taught

is that if we committed a

sin and we repented of it,

that the Lord would forget about it.

He would not remember it anymore.

But let's say that the sin was,

for example, lying,

which was a big deal in my house.

I lied about stealing the cookie.

I lied about a lot of things

because I did not want to

get yelled at and I did not

want to get spanked and I

did not want to get sent to my room.

Because those were all the

things that happen when you

do something wrong at my house.

And so I lied about a lot of

things because I didn't

ever want my parents to

find out that I had done

something that they

considered to be bad or wrong.

And there was a long list of

things which I also will

not go into because, again,

trying to make those brain cells die.

So let's say I told the lie

about the cookie and I repent.

God forgets about it.

But let's say that the next

week I tell another lie

about something else.

Well,

now I've also broken my promise to

God because I promised him

that I wouldn't lie.

I said I was sorry for lying,

but then I lied again.

I promised him I wouldn't lie again,

but then I lied again.

So now the teaching in

Mormonism is that that first lie,

that sin comes back to me.

The Lord remembers it again.

So this time when I repent,

it's harder to repent.

It's harder to gain forgiveness.

And it's harder to stop

doing that thing again.

So I go through the process again.

And then a week later,

let's say I lie again about

something else.

Well,

now all three of those sins are back

on my head again.

And I feel worse about

myself because I failed and

I broke a promise to God again.

And if I keep breaking promises to God,

he's not going to trust me

and he's not going to bless me.

And that means that bad

things are going to happen

to me and I'm going to be

miserable and sad.

And anytime something bad happens to me,

it's because I wasn't

obedient enough and it's

because I sinned and it's because I

God couldn't trust me with a

blessing because I broke my

promise to him.

So I hope that you can

understand the terrible,

painful cycle that I went

through as a child every

single time I did something wrong.

And especially if it was a repeat offense.

If it was something that I struggled with,

like arguing with my brothers,

I just felt terrible about

myself all the time.

And I thought that the only

way that I could redeem

myself or be acceptable to

my parents and to God was

to Mormon harder than any

other Mormon ever Mormoned.

And so I accepted every

assignment that every

teacher ever gave me.

I bore my testimony every

time that I could.

I helped out with family home evening.

I said my prayers.

I read my scriptures.

I went to my Sunday school class.

I knew all the answers.

I memorized every single

thing I was supposed to memorize.

I memorized all the words to

all the songs and all the

scriptures and the articles of faith.

And I learned all of the

names of all of the

previous prophets of the church.

And I also learned all of

the names of the current

prophets and apostles.

And I also listened to

General Conference twice a

year from Salt Lake.

General Conference would get broadcast.

And when I was a kid,

we had to go to the church

building to get the

satellite transmission.

And then later on,

we were able to get

conference on TV if we had cable.

And so that was a huge blessing.

But we were intended,

we were expected to attend

as much conference as we possibly could.

Two sessions on Saturday and

two sessions on Sunday, two hours each.

So over the course of the weekend,

eight hours.

And then during the year,

when conference wasn't going on,

we were expected to read

the conference talks again

when they got put out in the magazine,

in the church magazine.

And we were expected to

listen to them on tape or

CD or however they were

available so that we were

always learning the words

of the current prophets and apostles.

Now,

we were taught that these men were

people who spoke directly to God.

The apostles were special

witnesses of Jesus Christ.

So when they spoke,

it was as if scripture was

being spoken and we needed

to learn everything that they taught.

And so I felt a huge

responsibility as a young

person to listen to all of

these messages as much as I

could to read all of the

church magazines.

And so if I had any spare time,

I really shouldn't be

watching TV or hanging out

with my friends.

or doing anything else fun.

I should be reading

scriptures and conference

talks and memorizing things.

So I did all of that stuff.

And then as a young woman,

once you turn twelve,

you graduate from primary

and you go into the young

men's and young women's organization.

So from twelve to eighteen,

you're in a new Sunday

school class with kids your age.

And then you're also in the

Young Women's Organization.

And in the Young Women's Organization,

there is a heavy,

heavy influence on going to the temple,

preparing for the temple.

So we're always preparing

for the next Mormon thing that comes up.

And in the Young Women's program,

there was another award

that you could get called

the Young Womanhood Medallion.

Doesn't it sound glorious, everyone?

Please hold.

I will find it for you.