Hello and welcome to not so Molly Mormon podcast. This is Katie. Thanks for being here. I have a great letter as always for you today, and I am just going to dive right in. Here we go. This letter is from Lindsay. I was born and raised Mormon. My mom was raised in the church. My dad is a convert.

I am the youngest of four siblings, one sister, and two brothers.

I did the normal things every young kid in the church did. It started with being baptized at eight,

going through primary, being so excited when I reached young women's.

I went to all the Wednesday night church

activities, attended three hours of church every Sunday, went to church dances. Oh,

church dances, man. That triggered me. Okay. I attended girls camp, went to EFY during the summer, had early morning seminary

classes before school started, got my patriarchal blessing, went on youth temple trips, and so on

and so forth.

The first time I really started to question the church was around the age of 16.

I specifically remember sitting in young women's and the lesson that Sunday was prayer.

Up until this time, I had never once received an answer, quote unquote, to a prayer and thought

that I was broken. Every time I asked a leader of the bishop or the bishop why, the only answer I got

was try harder, listen harder, be more faithful, etc. Every time I asked a question,

I was told not to question. Oh, how true is that, right? Like, I went through that same thing. And if it's like,

if you're not getting an answer, quote unquote, or you don't feel that special feeling may tell you

you're supposed to feel there's something wrong with you and you are doing it wrong um which i hate that

it just makes people feel like something's wrong with them okay i finally started to just skip

sunday school classes i would wander the halls or run around in the church parking lot. As I neared my senior year of high school, I was very much faking everything. I just didn't care enough. There was a handful of Mormons in my high school. I think it was five total, so I felt I still had to always have my guard up.

Being in high school and still at home, I had to be careful not to do something too out of the norm

or my parents would catch on.

I told myself that I could get myself through high school and I could move out and not have

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