Car­son, I am not raised in the Church but rather I am a “con­vert”. In decid­ing, through much prayer and read­ing, I decid­ed to be Bap­tized ful­ly aware that I might not have all of my ques­tions answered and not expect­ing the full­ness of the gospel until some­time in the after­life… I, vic­ar­i­ous­ly, know you as your broth­er had dat­ed my daugh­ter, Lind­say Baugh, many years ago. I would hate for her to be led astray when she is so bright (IQ of 145) and can study and han­dle con­flict­ing infor­ma­tion just fine. I have three chil­dren and by the grace of Jesus Christ, all three of them have strong tes­ti­monies. Two of them have con­vert spous­es. I believe they have made the deci­sion, with an adult mind, to be bap­tized. I accept­ed the LDS teach­ings know­ing that much was yet to be revealed. I have admit­ted to my Bishop(s) that I do not usu­al­ly wear my gar­ments with­out fear. It has nev­er been a prob­lem except that it is some­thing that I need to work on. I’ve been to MANY Church­es seek­ing the right one for me. Many were hyp­o­crit­i­cal, or (as the Catholic reli­gion), too sym­bol­ic on an every week basis. Many Church­es had Sun­day mem­bers whose con­gre­ga­tions did not prac­tice what is taught any day but Sunday.

Part of my accep­tance of the LDS Church was the real­iza­tion that I can’t know every­thing in this life and I don’t expect to. The church has evolved and expect that it will con­tin­ue to do so. This will not turn me away. I believe in the core prin­ci­ples and don’t allow the “lit­tle stuff” to both­er me. Being quite bright myself, I would be very irri­tat­ed if some­one tried to hand feed me dis­crep­an­cies and con­tra­dic­tion. I don’t have a hang-up with them myself. I feel very sad for you, Marisa, and your fam­i­lies because you could have just quit going rather than becom­ing an apos­tate and try­ing to take oth­er peo­ple with you.

God Bless you, Marisa, and your fam­i­ly. God loves you all very much. I hope that I haven’t offend­ed you.


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Kristin
8 years ago

Susan,
I don’t know you or Car­son and this is not a com­ment to either of you on a per­son­al lev­el, only my reac­tion to your words. Despite your mean spir­it­ed post to Car­son you may typ­i­cal­ly be a kind and gra­cious per­son — I don’t know. In gen­er­al, I find it con­de­scend­ing and judg­men­tal when some­one tells some­one else they feel sad for them when that per­son is not expe­ri­enc­ing any­thing that makes them sad. It is disin­gen­u­ous. The per­son receiv­ing that mes­sage is unlike­ly to feel you real­ly care about them. It is not the same as offer­ing empa­thy to some­one who is strug­gling or going thru a dif­fi­cult time. Fur­ther­more, refer­ring to Car­son­’s con­cerns about the church as the “lit­tle stuff” is belit­tling, not lov­ing or respect­ful. I see noth­ing com­pas­sion­ate or Christ­like in your mes­sage to Car­son and his fam­i­ly, only con­dem­na­tion. I am cer­tain the church teach­es us that only God may judge a person.

Also, per­haps a pub­lic forum was not your best venue if you are con­cerned your daugh­ter dis­cov­ers your behavior.

Beau
8 years ago

Susan,

You just admit­ted to believ­ing things that arent taught by the church. Go tell your bish­op that and see how he responds…

Mike
Mike
8 years ago

Being raised in the church, serv­ing a mis­sion, hold­ing stake call­ings, and see­ing all the church hand­books have con­firmed my tes­ti­mo­ny. That tes­ti­mo­ny being, the Church of Jesus Christ of Lat­ter Day Saints is as true as any oth­er church on earth. They are all make believe. Best deci­sion I’ve made in my life…abandon fic­tion­al char­ac­ters and live for today. I’m a bet­ter hus­band and father because of it.

Sampson Avard
Sampson Avard
8 years ago

Lit­tle stuff? Like 38 year old Joe Smith mar­ry­ing a 14 year old girl by promis­ing her and her fam­i­ly eter­nal sal­va­tion? Hebephil­ia and accle­si­as­tic groom­ing are not lit­tle things.

Marisa Calderwood
Marisa Calderwood
8 years ago

Susan, I’m try­ing to pin down why I feel both­ered by your com­ment and I think one rea­son is that you said you “feel very sad” about the way we left the church. It seems like you feel more frus­trat­ed or angry because you’re say­ing we’re doing some­thing bad. We see some of the teach­ings of the church as harm­ful and there­fore can­not have clear con­sciences if we don’t tell oth­ers. Infor­ma­tion was hid­den and much was lied about. Because of this there are many bright, knowl­edge­able mem­bers of the church such as your­self (and myself of 2–3 years ago) who still believe the church is true, not because they are stu­pid or eas­i­ly fooled, but because they have been lied to and that’s not their fault. But it would be my fault if I dis­cov­ered the lie and did­n’t say anything. You say you accept the core prin­ci­ples — I still believe in all of those, such as love, com­pas­sion, hon­esty, integri­ty, kind­ness, a search for knowl­edge and truth and char­i­ty toward oth­ers. But I can believe in all of those things with­out believ­ing in the LDS church, or even God. You say you don’t allow lit­tle stuff to both­er you — if by lit­tle stuff you mean the stance against LGBT then say that to a gay teenag­er. They can’t just look past the “lit­tle stuff.” Those of us in a priv­i­leged sit­u­a­tion need to see how psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly harm­ful many of the beliefs and prac­tices of the LDS church… Read more »

Carson Calderwood
8 years ago

Sis­ter Baugh, I’m glad we can have this vir­tu­al online dis­cus­sion as it serves as a great way to clear up some com­mon mis­con­cep­tions that you and oth­ers have about us and some infor­ma­tion you lack about the church. This reply is more hasti­ly writ­ten than I’d like. First off, I remem­ber Lind­say very well. She was such an intel­li­gent, beau­ti­ful and fun per­son. I real­ly want­ed things to work out with her and my broth­er because I want­ed her to be a part of our fam­i­ly so much. Also, I remem­ber very well my broth­er talk­ing so high­ly of you guys after his trip to Wash­ing­ton. So, with those mem­o­ries I am assum­ing you are a kind and won­der­ful per­son that just has­n’t received the cor­rect infor­ma­tion about our sto­ry or the com­mon con­fir­ma­tion bias­es that come up when cog­ni­tive dis­so­nance rears its ugly head have kept you from under­stand­ing ful­ly what we now know. I’ll try to explain those bet­ter here and look for­ward to dis­cussing this fur­ther with you if you so desire. You start off by men­tion­ing that you were bap­tized despite not hav­ing all the answers to your ques­tions. I assume, and please cor­rect me if I’m wrong, that you are sug­gest­ing my dis­af­fec­tion from the church came because I did­n’t get cer­tain ques­tions answered. Its actu­al­ly exact­ly the oppo­site, I had some very clear and unde­ni­able answers to ques­tions. Answers that I can’t unknow now and answers that many choose to ignore and not learn.… Read more »

James Allred
8 years ago

Hel­lo Susan. I don’t know you or Car­son. I am also just an invis­i­ble per­son on the inter­net that you will nev­er meet in real life, so I would­n’t blame you for stop­ping read­ing this right now. But for some rea­son I feel com­pelled to share my tes­ti­mo­ny with you. I would hope that you may some day be able to have a hum­ble heart and see the world through oth­er peo­ples eyes and tru­ly try to under­stand their bur­dens and not just “feel sor­ry” for them for the choic­es they have made. Through your com­ments, you indi­rect­ly imply that the issues with the church are “lit­tle stuff” and why would any­one every leave over lit­tle things when there so much good. I would ask if you could have a hum­ble heart for just one moment and con­sid­er, that maybe they view these issues as major and direct­ly relat­ed to the church’s truth claims and not just “lit­tle stuff”? I am not ask­ing you to agree that they are big deals. But just ask if you have the capac­i­ty of humil­i­ty to acknowl­edge that they might view them as such? Do you have this ability? As for me I have had many per­son­al spir­i­tu­al expe­ri­ences with the Book of Mor­mon. So I have a spir­i­tu­al wit­ness of it. But I take my faith seri­ous­ly. When the church teach­es that the Book of Mor­mon con­tains the ful­ness of the gospel, I want to know what that means. Because of my study, I also have an intel­lec­tu­al tes­ti­mo­ny that the… Read more »

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