I’m not sure anyone even knows I left the Church. I continued to go through the motions of activity long after they had ceased to bring me the joy and peace I had known in the gospel most of my life. This sensation of finding darkness and confusion in the very places and activities that had formerly been a source of light and surety was so overwhelming that I finally had to acknowledge to myself that in my heart, I had been gone for a long time.

Robyn Burkinshaw is the secretary of her stake Relief Society, and a gay woman. She was raised in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and has always had a love of the Gospel. When she left the Church as a young adult and struggled deeply with depression, she felt a devastating distance between herself and God, believing herself to be unworthy of His blessings. Time, family, and tiny miracles led her back to the gospel and after a twenty-year hiatus, she returned t

In 2016 I had a series of events that created spiritual doubt and skepticism in me. I never struggled with my faith before, but found myself skeptical of certain principles and worried that the Latter-day Saint faith was more based off of “blind faith” than truth.

I left the Church due to an unhappy marriage and divorce and certain people in the local Church leadership. I never lost my testimony of God or Jesus Christ, just distrust in the Church. Then I met my soulmate and love of my life. We were happily married for 30 plus years. He had some experience with the Church but was not a member. We were extremely close and happy. We occasionally attended other churches but they seemed hollow to me.

I was the young lady that attended every meeting—first to volunteer to give a talk or help with whatever was needed. I was referred to as “perfect,” which is hard to live up to. I guess I just decided to go astray. No one influenced me or tempted me. I made the decision to start doing all the wrong things. I do not want to dwell on the stories of my past, but if it was wrong to do I did it. I was 17 and feeling unworthy, and I stopped going to my church meetings.

I was never particularly aware of how many pillars there were in Washington until being asked to give this speech. The anxiety at having to define my faith was such that it was infinitely easier to analyze pillars.

I “quit attending” when I was about 16 due to a job that had me work Sundays. When I finally quit the job and started back to church, I felt like a stranger. I thought people would be happy to see me but I didn’t get much response. I had both great and horribly bad examples of members in my youth, and my family wasn’t a righteous example—although they weren’t terrible either. I guess I was left to my own devices. So I chose my best friend who was Mormon, and we partied heavil

I have not walked a traditional or simple journey of faith. I love the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but struggled with inactivity for almost thirteen years. This is the tale of my return to activity.

Due to an early childhood sexual experience, I did not consider myself clean before the Lord—especially when I recited the Young Women’s motto each week during church. This lead to my not valuing my virtue, and being raped by a recent convert to the Church. This is how I began my sexual life.

I was raised in an LDS home with good parents. Life hit hard for me in my early years. From the ages of 8-12, I was repeatedly sexually abused by a neighborhood family. At age 13, my father suddenly died of a brain aneurysm. Within a year of his death, my mother remarried. My abuse, my father’s death and my mother’s new marriage brought chaos, confusion and heartache in my teenage years, and I was unable to completely process all the traumatic events that had taken hold of my

A job loss. A family member’s illness. A cancer diagnosis. All difficult trials, made even more difficult when they all happen at the same time. Olivia Luk and her family faced this unimaginable series of events in 2002. They met their challenges with tears, prayers, and faith—the kind of faith that Olivia had developed when she joined the Church as a young woman in Hong Kong. And she found that Heavenly Father responded to her family’s needs in unexpected ways.

Raquel Cook’s biography so far might read like an adventure novel—living and working in Korea, meeting the Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa, studying at Oxford University, surviving the violence of 9/11 in New York City—but she’d rather you wrote your own adventure. Now a professor of education, Raquel reflects on her unique path and how she encourages her students to get out and see the world. And she explains how her study of world religions helped her better appreciate her ow

As a wife and mother in a part-member family, Peka draws on the inspiration of her mother — who was also a “single parent in the gospel” — to support her husband as he learns about the Church and teach her daughter what she believes. Issues of race have proven challenging for her non-white family, and Peka discusses how much she appreciates member friends who embrace her husband for who he is and not for what they want him to be.

When Pam Shorr decided to stop attending church, she doubted she would ever go back. She recalls thinking, “I really want to find who I am and what I believe. I just want to do my own thing for a while.” But eventually, Pam found herself prompted to return, and an inspired Relief Society president showed her the way. She describes her reactivation in the Church as difficult, terrifying, and inspiring. “When I returned,” she says, “I was ready for the whole thing, and I have n

Tina knew from a young age that music was her life’s calling and she is a professional saxophonist in New York. It took longer for Tina to realize that she is gay, but a period of inactivity from the Church didn’t stop her from paying her tithing every month. It was appreciation and practice of Buddhism that led Tina back to the Church in her remarkable journey back into activity.