My Mormon Story

I’m writing this post primarily for those who know me personally, but I’ll be including some contextual information for those who don’t.

For all intents and purposes (I was adopted when I was three days old, but that’s a whole separate story), I was born and raised in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You know, the Mormons. Other than a few years when I was a teenager, I was active in the church my whole life. I graduated from seminary, I served a mission in South Korea, I got married in the temple soon after returning from my mission, and raised and baptized 5 children into the church. Most of this happened in Utah; I grew up in Logan, then moved to Salt Lake City when I was 22, where I lived for another 10 years, before moving to the San Diego area in 2003, where I’ve lived ever since.

A Year of Growth

2008 was a pretty big year for me. My wife, Melissa, and I had been experiencing marital problems for years (which I’m not going to delve into), and at the start of the year, we separated, with the intention of using the time to fix things and hopefully get back together. I decided that the best way to do that would be to fully commit myself to the gospel and ensure that I was a righteous priesthood holder worthy of my family.

For all of that year, I fully committed to living according to the teachings of the church. I prayed constantly, I fasted, I studied the scriptures and other books, and I strove to develop a relationship with Christ and live in a way that God would have me live.

I also met regularly with a counselor from LDS Family Services. I went for marriage counseling, which was a little weird, since Melissa refused to join me, but I was at least able to discuss many of the issues we had been facing. One of the factors leading to our separation had been that Melissa felt that she could no longer trust me due to me having been dishonest with her, and so a big focus of these sessions was honesty. By the end of the year, I felt like I had a very deep understanding of honesty, and was able to better recognize when I was being dishonest with myself. In addition, honesty became profoundly important to me as a virtue.

By the end of the year, my relationship with Melissa had improved significantly, and she hesitantly agreed to let me move back in with her early the next year. I couldn’t have been happier. But then something major happened.

A Turning Point

Shortly after getting back together, Melissa told me something that rocked my world. At the time we separated, and I decided that I needed to become a much more devout Mormon, she went exactly the opposite way. She felt that she had lived a life devoted to the church and its teachings, and that despite that, she ended up with a terrible marriage and was miserable. Therefore, she no longer believed in the church, and had basically become an atheist.

This took some time to process. The church was a huge part of our lives. I’d spent more than 36 years as a member. We attended every week with our children, and almost all of our friends and our children’s friends were also Mormon. Being Mormon was part of our very identity. But my new-found appreciation for honesty required that I ask myself a very important question: Did I believe in the Mormon church?

The answer was a very clear, “no”.

Why I Don’t Believe

The Book of Mormon includes a promise near the end that if you read it and ask the Lord with real intent, he will let you know the truthfulness of it through the Holy Ghost. Put simply, this is a feeling, and nearly all Mormons use it as the basis for their testimony.

Throughout my life, I had tested this promise, many, many times. One example is still very clear in my memory. I was trying to decide whether or not to serve a mission, and I did not want to go unless I knew that it was all true. I spent days fasting and praying, desperately pleading with the God to confirm the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, or of the Church, or even to just let me know he was listening. Nothing happened. No feelings of warmth and love. Not anything. Eventually, I decided to go ahead and serve anyway, hoping that this confirmation would come. It never did. But I continued on, because I really wanted it to be true.

So here I was in 2009 lacking any kind of spiritual experience to use as the basis for my belief. In addition, over the years I had encountered troubling information about the LDS church. I detail some of them below. Examining these issues again without taking the truthfulness of the church as a given, I came to the clear conclusion that none of the truth claims of the LDS church were true.

The Aftermath

One of the first things Melissa and I did after realizing that neither of us believed was to inform our children. We did so as carefully as possible, and also told them that they could make their own decisions. Some of them had already arrived at the same conclusion. The youngest said that he still wanted to get baptized, so I continued to attend and remain worthy for another 5 months to do that, but that was the last time any of us attended. That was six years ago.

Around the same time, Melissa and I decided to get divorced. That’s also a big separate topic, but suffice it to say that it was a good thing. I went on to meet Amy – who is also a non-believing Mormon – who I am very happily married to now.

Since I stopped attending, I have been happier than I ever was in the church. I feel like I am living an honest and authentic life. My children feel the same way. There are ups and downs just as with anyone, but we all feel like our lives have improved by leaving the Mormon church, and only wish we had done it earlier.

Up until the beginning of this year, I was content to simply no longer attend. But then I started becoming involved with online exmormon communities, especially /r/exmormon. Up until that point, I hadn’t really heard of or paid attention to the Mormon Stories podcast, but as some may be aware, its creator, John Dehlin, was excommunicated by the church. I felt that if Dehlin – who wanted to remain a member – wasn’t allowed to be one, then I – who had no interest in being a member – had no right to continue to be one, so I finally submitted my resignation, and as of a few weeks ago I received confirmation that I am no longer a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

John informs me that he’s now very happy to no longer be a member of the church. Just like me 🙂

Conclusion

I’ve shared this because I want my friends and family who are still members of the church to know where I stand and how I got here. I’ve attempted to be respectful to the beliefs of others, and hopefully I’ve succeeded. Many ex-Mormons have found that when they open up about their non-belief that believing members stop interacting with them. I fully expect to lose at least a few Facebook friends over sharing this, but it’s my hope that this won’t affect my relationship with the people I care about. Thanks for taking the time to read. Any comments are welcome. If you’d prefer to discuss anything directly, feel free to message me on FB, or ask me for my email address or phone number.

Appendix A: My Issues with the Church

In 2007, PBS aired a documentary called The Mormons. It included a lot of negative things about the church, particularly in regards to its origins and history, that I hadn’t really been familiar with before. These things troubled me, but I eventually decided to just ignore them.

A year later, while I was in the midst of my year of dedication to the church, I felt that my testimony was deep enough to take a closer look at some of these issues. In the process of researching, I came across the website for FAIR, which is an unofficial group of Mormon apologists. For every issue I had encountered, I found that they had a response. This was kind of a double-edged sword, though. Because they attempt to respond to virtually every criticism of the church, reading their website exposed me to many other issues that I hadn’t previously been aware of. Also, after a while, I begin to notice something about their responses. Rather than solidly refuting the criticisms, their tactic seemed to just enough doubt on the criticism to enable you to go on believing. Eventually, I found their answers mostly unsatisfying, and in the end, I managed to convince myself that God must have intentionally inserted problems so that you would have to act on faith. I now see how ridiculous that was.

So what are the specific things I found troubling? Honestly, there are too many to list, and the more I’ve studied the Mormon church and its history, the more I find, but here are the big ones:

• Joseph Smith’s polygamy. Specifically, the fact that the way he practiced it wasn’t even in accordance with the law that he laid out in D&C 132, that he lied to Emma about it and hid many of the marriages from her, that he lied to the church as a whole about it, that he married girls as young as 14, and that he married other men’s wives (some of whom were on missions at the time).
• The Book of Mormon. The anachronisms. The lack of archaeological, DNA, or any other kind of scientific evidence. The duplication of errors from the King James Bible. The similarity to contemporary books that Joseph Smith would have had access to. This is clearly a 19th century work of fiction, not a sacred, ancient record.
• The Book of Abraham. We have at least some of the papyrus that Joseph Smith allegedly used to translate what is now part of LDS canon. They bear no resemblance to what is contained in the book. The facsimiles don’t even remotely mean what he claims they mean.
• Racism. For a century and a half, black people were not allowed to enter the temple and black men were not allowed to hold the priesthood, and church leaders taught that this was because they were descended from Cain, that their black skin was a curse, and that it all stemmed due to being less valiant in the war in heaven in the preexistence. Then in 1978, God changed his mind and the church has tried to pretend none of this ever happened.
• Prop 8 and LGBT issues. As a member in California during Prop 8, I was unsettled by the way the church handled it, and the way they handle LGBT issues in general. I felt like the reasoning they put forward to support Prop 8 was dishonest, and the pressure they placed on members to contribute, canvass neighborhoods, etc., was unethical.

I could go on, but if you are interested in learning more, I suggest you check out A Gentle Awakening, or if you really want a comprehensive list, read the CES Letter.

Appendix B: Worthiness

There is a perception among Mormons that when members leave, it’s either because they have sinned or want to sin. Mormons are in general wrong about why members leave, which this video from Mormon Stories addresses.

I wanted to address the topic of worthiness, though, because I have heard that people in my last ward (and others) may have mistaken ideas about why I left and perhaps why I got divorced. Specifically, rumors that I committed adultery, fueled by how quickly I started dating Amy.

Melissa and I decided to get divorced in May 2009. I’m not going to get into the specifics, but it wasn’t because of anything either of us had done. We were just miserable together, and it was hurting us and the kids. At the time, we both agreed that it would be okay for us to start dating other people, since the divorce would take a while to process. For practical reasons, we continued to live together until the beginning of September, at which point I moved out. Two weeks later, I met Amy for the first time and we started dating. Melissa was aware of this and even encouraged me to do so.

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One year later

It’s been about a year since I started consistently weight training again, so I thought it would be interesting to look back and see what kind of progress I had made.

“Consistently” needs a little bit of a qualifier. I had several weeks here and there when I wasn’t able to train, largely due to travel; although I’ve done better than ever at finding gyms when I’ve been out of town, sometimes it just wasn’t possible. I also had my training impacted a bit by a shoulder injury that caused me to not train upper body for about a month.

I’ve been training using Jim Wendler’s 5-3-1 program, which I highly recommend to everyone who wants to increase strength in a straightforward way. One of the great things about it is that it pushes you to set new personal records every time you go to the gym, which also makes it easy to track progress over time. I took my calculated 1 rep max for each of my major lifts and put them into a chart:

Deadlift (280 to 468: +67%) – The deadlift is by far my favorite of the big lifts, and I’m quite happy with how much progress I’ve made.

Squats (250 to 373: +49%) – I took a break from heavy squatting starting in September, because I was experiencing hip pain, and I wanted to work on my flexibility. Despite the break, when I resumed squatting last week, I immediately set a new PR, and then broke it again this week.

Bench press (233 to 304: +30%) – Due the shoulder problems, I hadn’t bench pressed in years, but I decided to start doing them again midway through the year, and I’m making great progress.

Military press (140 to 180: +25%) and push press (180 to 215: +20%) – For overhead pressing, I started the year doing military presses, then switched to push presses (where I can obviously move more weight), then recently back to military presses again.

Goals for 2014

I’m not typically one for New Year’s resolutions, but I do have some things I want to accomplish this year, that I’m going to throw out there for accountability purposes:

• Weigh less than 210 by the end of the year. Possibly 200.
• Be able to carry on basic conversations in Spanish
• Be able to surf
• Brew a drinkable batch of beer
• Develop more of a social life

Stupid comments

I regularly make the mistake of reading comments online. Sometimes, I respond to them, but frequently, there are so many ignorant comments that I just can’t respond to any of them without feeling like I should respond to all of them. So instead, since I feel the need to rant, I’m going to occasionally do that here.

Today, the comments in question are from NBC 7 San Diego’s post about Amazon wanting to use drones for delivery:

https://www.facebook.com/NBCSanDiego/posts/10152054690274609.

Note that I’m not weighing in on the idea either way – there are a number of legitimate problems with it. What annoys me is the ability of people to think critically. I’ll call out a few representative comments:

Someone might shoot down the drones and steal the order

Yeah, they might, but that would be a serious crime that would be very likely to be noticed, and since the would-be thief wouldn’t know the contents – and thus value – of the package, it doesn’t seem like it would happen very often. It seems like it’d be easier and more profitable to hold up a FedEx truck. Besides, theft is something that happens with existing delivery mechanisms, and both consumers and retailers manage to deal with it.

does anyone really need their pkg that fast?

Gee, I don’t know. Is every single purchase you make something you’re willing to wait 2+ days for, or are there some things that you actually want right away? Thought so.

how many more jobs shall we take away?

This one really gets to me whenever it comes up, and it’s part of a bigger problem with people being generally ignorant of economics. Yes, technological advances can cause short term job displacement, which sucks for the people affected, but in the long run those people are freed up to do other things which ultimately improves everyone’s standard of living. Look at all of the types of jobs that people have today that didn’t even exist a couple of decades ago. I, for one, am glad for the technological advances that allow me to work as a software engineer, rather than having to spend my whole day growing food for my family.

Sorry, but I don’t think this is true. Please check your sources.

This blows my mind, but there are few comments like this. Look, I’m all for people being skeptical of things they read online – I wish more people were like that – but this story is easily verifiable.

I really need to stop reading comments.

Back, Maybe?

I’m feeling somewhat motivated to start blogging again. Not that anyone will notice.

A lot has happened in the past three years. I married Amy at the end of 2011, and she moved to California. We now live in Encinitas. I also found my birth family last year, and they are amazing! Sadly, I also experienced the death of both of my adopted brothers. I’m probably going to post a bit more about those things soon, but in general, my posts going forward will be less of a personal nature, and instead focus on fitness and the occasional political rant.

Speaking of fitness, after reaching a low weight of 197 about 3 years ago, I started gaining it back. By the time I got married, I was up to 225, and by the beginning of this year, I was up to 253. This was all pretty much due to me falling off the wagon, both with diet and exercise. Since the start of the year, I’ve been weight training pretty consistently, despite a nagging shoulder injury (tendinosis and impingement), and my diet has been more on than off. I currently weigh 234. My goal is to get down to 215 by the end of the year. I’m pretty motivated to get stronger and lose some fat.

Weightlifting goals

Here are my short and longer term weightlifting goals, relative to my body weight. I hope to reach the short term ones by the end of this year, and the long term ones sometime next year. The plan is to do this both through increasing my strength and dropping some fat.

	Short	Long
Squat	1.5 x BW	2 x BW
Deadlift	2 x BW	2.5 x BW
Bench	1 x BW	1.5 x BW
Overhead	.75 x BW	1 x BW

My new favorite protein shake

I started making this recently, and now crave them all the time:

2 scoops of vanilla whey
1 frozen banana
1 graham cracker square
Water based on the consistency you like

It tastes like banana cream pie.

Calories: 375
Fat: 3g
Carbs: 38g
Protein: 50g

A couple weeks of milestones

The last couple of weeks have seen some significant milestones.

On September 13th, my kids moved to Italy with their mother. Perhaps “moved” isn’t the best word for it, because it’s a temporary thing; they’ll be back in 3 months. I’m excited for them to experience this adventure, but I miss them. Their internet access is sporadic, so I can’t talk to them very often. I AM going to see them in a few days, so that will be good.

September 16th marked a year since my first date with Amy. I still remember it vividly, especially the nervous excitement I felt. I already knew I liked her from the conversations we’d had, and the first time I met her in person, there was an immediate attraction. We spent several days together, going to a Weezer/Blink 182 concert, the Wild Animal Park, SeaWorld, the beach. I was so unhappy when she had to return to Utah, not knowing what the future would hold due to the distance, but I knew that I wanted to spend more time with her. Since then, it has been an amazing ride. I still feel the same nervous excitement when I’m about to see her, and the same sadness when it’s time to part. She made the last year the best in my life so far, and I’m excited to see what the future holds for us.

The 20th marked the date that my divorce from Melissa became official. There was no particular sadness associated with it. We first decided to get divorced nearly a year and a half ago, and I moved out more than a year ago, so I had processed it, and we’ve both moved on (obviously). We chatted briefly when she was at my place with the kids, and we both acknowledged regret at the things that went wrong, but we’re both happy now and wish the best for each other. Looking back, I was definitely unhappy, but the good times stick with me more than the bad. I’m especially thankful for the 5 fabulous kids we had together, and my only significant regret in all of this is that I don’t get to see them as much as I’d like now.

Finally, today, after what seems like ages, I broke the 200 pound barrier. I don’t remember for sure the last time I weighed less than 200 pounds, but the most recent it could have possibly been was in 1994, which was my first year of marriage. I had initially hoped to break this barrier on September 1st, and I got within a couple of pounds of that, but a trip to Seattle and 10 days with my kids derailed me a little bit.

So what’s next? I knew that at 200 pounds I’d still have a little fat around my middle, and I do. My best guess is that to get as lean as I’d like to be, I’ve got another 10-15 pounds to go. Possibly more. Part of me wants to focus on building muscle for a little while, but I’m pretty sure that if I do that right now, I’ll gain a lot of fat at the same. So for now, I think I’m going to continue to focus on losing fat, but a bit less aggressively than what I’ve been doing. I’m going to just continue to eat healthy, be active, and weight train without a specific goal until the beginning of November. Then I’ll see where I’m at and set my next goal. Ideally, I’d like to finish losing before the holidays, so I can use them to start my bulking cycle 🙂

Weight: 199.5
BF%: 22

Jan 1st starting weight: 232.5
Starting BF%: 31

Gymtards #1

This is a post that I’ve been wanting to write for a long time, but I kept getting hung up on wanting to make it as comprehensive as possible. Then it occurred to me that I can just make this a recurring theme, so here’s the first.

I’ve been working out on and off (more on, lately) since I was about 12. I’ve done a lot of different things, lost (and then regained) a lot of weight, and I like to think I’ve learned quite a bit, especially over the past 5-6 years as the Internet has made access to reliable training and nutritional information readily available.

Over the years, I’ve seen a lot of other people, especially at commercial gyms, that I tend to think of as “gymtards.” This term is probably a little harsh, but it does drive the point home: many, and perhaps most, people working out these days are making major mistakes. This may just mean that they’re not progressing as well as they could, but it could mean that they are doing things that are entirely contrary to their goals. I probably wouldn’t care if they didn’t frequently prevent me from using equipment I want to use.

I’m not claiming to be any kind of authority on training, but I have spent a lot of time reading information and research from leading trainers and coaches, and applying those things to myself, so I have a pretty good idea of what works and what doesn’t. My intention here is to draw attention to many of the common mistakes that people make, and in so doing hopefully encourage some of them to better educate themselves.

So with that introduction out of the way, I want to get to what inspired me to finally get this posted: the leg press.

The leg press is not a useless exercise. The biggest problem with it is that people use it instead of squatting and deadlifting, rather than as a support exercise, which is what it should be. What’s worse is that many of the people I see doing it aren’t even doing it properly. Lately, I’ve witnessed a number of people who load the leg press up with as many plates as possible, and then move it through a tiny range of motion, as illustrated in this video I captured last night:

If this guy were to actually attempt to go though a full range of motion, the ridiculous amount of weight that he’s using would drive his knees through his chest and into the pad behind him. He may feel like he’s accomplishing something, but the truth is, he’s probably getting more out of loading the weight onto the leg press machine than he is out of the tiny movements he’s doing.

There is a time and place for using a partial range of motion, but this is an advanced technique, used by people who are legitimately moving massive amounts of weight and trying to overcome weak points. Most people should be using a full range of motion, and if you can’t do that with the weight you’re using, check your ego at the door and reduce the weight. You’ll benefit more in the long run.

My Fat Loss Philosophy, Part 3

Okay, this has taken longer than I initially intended, but here’s what I believe will be my last post for now regarding my fat loss philosophy. In this installment, I’ll deal with what to eat.

Foods

As much as possible, I try to eat whole, real foods, and avoid anything processed. These are the things that I eat freely:

• Beef, pork, chicken, turkey, lamb, fish, etc.
• Eggs, including the yolks
• Vegetables, especially green leafy ones like broccoli and spinach, but not corn (which is a grain) or legumes. Most of the time I avoid starchy vegetables (like potatoes).
• Fruit, especially berries
• Nuts, except for peanuts
• Limited dairy (yogurt, cottage cheese, cheese)
• Green tea and water, with the occasional diet soda
• Coconut and olive oil, butter

The things I avoid:

• Everything grain-based, including breads and pastas
• Anything sugary
• Most vegetable oils
• Legumes
• Processed foods
• Almost everything soy-based

I don’t shy away from saturated fat or cholesterol at all, because the science shows that they are actually good for you, contrary to conventional wisdom.

All of this means that my diet is high in protein, high in fat, and (relatively) low in carbs. I don’t pay a ton of attention to calories. As you’ll recall from my first post on this, if you’re trying to lose fat, it’s essential that you eat fewer calories that you use. But I’ve found that eating this way, that just kind of happens naturally. I have tracked calories occasionally just to get an idea, and I am careful with fruit, limiting it mostly to training days, but that’s about it.

This works very well for me personally. I think that some people might do just fine with grains and legumes (and if you eat them, it’s probably going to require paying closer attention to calories), but for me, it’s easier to attain my goals if I avoid them as much as possible.

Supplements

In an ideal world, I’d be able to get ample supplies of all of my nutrients directly from food. But because of convenience and cost factors, I use some supplements as well:

• Protein powder: I try to get at least 150 g of protein a day, and this is much easier to do if I throw in a protein shake or two. There are a LOT of good protein powders on the market now, many of them quite tasty. I recommend something using whey or casein protein. Avoid soy.
• Multivitamin: I take one because I have a couple of huge bottles that I haven’t used up yet. Studies seem to show that our bodies don’t really absorb the nutrients in a multivitamin, though, so I’ll probably stop using them once my supply runs out.
• Vitamin D3: There is a lot of research lately showing the importance of Vitamin D, and most people are lacking. I try to spend some time outside every day to get some from the sun, but just to be safe, I also take 5000 IUs every day.
• Probiotic: I just started doing this. The idea is that antibiotics and the effects of the typical American diet have caused most people to be lacking in the healthy bacteria that make up our intestinal tract. Probiotics and fermented foods can help correct this.
• Fish oil: The benefits of fish oil cannot be overstated due to the fact that most of us are sorely lacking in Omega-3s. I typically pop 5-6 capsules a day.

Weight: 202
BF%: 23

Jan 1st starting weight: 232.5
Starting BF%: 31