by Dan Riley
The film then paused, the lights raised, and the temple worker who conducted the ceremony demonstrated the signs and tokens that God was referring to. The people participating in the ceremony turned to one another and performed the signs and tokens, and the film resumed. This occurred several more times. I don’t recall all of the various names, signs, and tokens, but I recall that the signs looked like something a football referee would signal when making a call. The tokens took the form of various handshakes — placing a thumb in between the first two knuckles of the other hand, for example. I did my best to remember all of the names, signs, and tokens but was too overwhelmed to do so very effectively.
My mind was racing. How had I managed nearly 20 years in the Church without knowing about the odd costumes and secret handshakes? I knew the Scripture and the doctrine, and this wasn’t in it. Where had it all come from? I felt that I had been deceived.
The film ended, and the participants proceeded to the next room. The three rooms of the Endowment correspond with the Mormon idea that heaven is divided into three major kingdoms: the celestial, the terrestrial, and the telestial, associated with the sun, the Earth, and the stars, respectively, in degrees of glory. The room with the film is the telestial room, the second is the terrestrial, and the third and final, the celestial.
I later discovered that prior to 1991, the ceremony in the first room contained an explanation of the penalties for anyone who would break their covenants and tell someone else what happens there. The participants in the ceremony would pantomime disemboweling themselves and slitting their own throats from ear to ear. This tradition was removed in 1991, but since it is not permitted to discuss the ceremony outside of the temple, no reason was ever given as to why.
I entered the terrestrial room and saw an altar in the middle that resembled a short Greek pillar, about waist high, with a small closed box on top. My father whispered to me that this was where the names were submitted by members of the Church for special prayers. After entering the room, the participants stood in a circle, alternating genders. Each put their left hand on the shoulder of the person next to them and held their right hand up as if swearing at court. The temple worker leading the ceremony then said a blessing one sentence at a time, which was then repeated by the participants. I recall this being the most unsettling part of the ceremony. The women had lowered their veils, and repeating the prayer sounded very much like a chant.
After the prayer circle had concluded, we turned to face a large curtain that walled off one end of the room. The curtain, representing the veil that bars the entrance to heaven, had symbols sewn and cut into it, and I recognized the symbols as the same symbols that were sewn into the garments — the compass, resembling a V; the square, resembling an L; and a flat line below. I watched as one by one, participants approached the curtain. They would reach to the side of the curtain and hit a small bell with a mallet, as if ringing a doorbell. A temple worker standing on the other side, representing God, would ask who was there. The participant would whisper their second name and then proceed to give the various names and handshakes to the worker through the curtain. I didn’t remember all of the names, signs, and tokens, but a temple worker was standing nearby to whisper reminders to me when I needed them.
The celestial room is the most beautiful room in the temple. Everything from the carpets to the tissue boxes is in white or gold, and a huge crystal chandelier sits above the center of the room. No ceremony takes places within it, but members are free to sit within and contemplate and pray as long as they like. It’s also the only place where the Endowment can be discussed.
I passed through the veil to the smiles of my parents and grandmother. They were beaming with pride and happiness as my grandma asked, “Wasn’t that amazing? Wasn’t that just wonderful?” Feeling completely overwhelmed and wanting nothing more than to get away from the temple, I couldn’t think of anything to say. “I think that all of the men look like celestial chefs,” I blurted out. They laughed quietly, and we went back to the changing rooms and left the temple. The car ride back home was mercifully silent, and I didn’t speak to anyone for several hours after that. I kept replaying the ceremony through in my mind, trying to find any connection to the Church I had grown up in, believed in, and loved. I barely slept that night, lying in bed in the garments for the first time, cycling through various emotions. I felt angry at the Church for deceiving me — it felt as if my entire upbringing had been a bait-and-switch con. Realizing that there were huge portions of Church doctrine that I had obviously been completely ignorant about was terrifying, especially combined with the fact that I was due to sacrifice two years of my life, time, and independence to serve a mission to preach in its name.
The next few days went by in a haze. I couldn’t stop trying to find ways to square the ceremony with the culture and doctrine that I had been raised with. Not long after, I was walking through a Barnes & Noble and saw a book on display on the edge of an aisle. On the cover, I saw the compass, the square, and the very same green fig apron that I had seen in the temple. I snatched the book, found a corner of the room, and furiously tore through its pages. The book was an exploration of Masonic rituals, and as I flipped through page after page of the same symbols and handshakes I had seen in the temple, a narrative formed in my mind.
I sat on the floor staring at the ceiling. Suddenly, the Church no longer looked like a divine restoration of an eternal organization but a patchwork faith cobbled together from anything that Joseph Smith had encountered and found mystical. All the challenges, struggles, questions, and dilemmas I had suddenly made sense. I leaned forward, afraid I might vomit. In a world-shattering 15 minutes, I had decided that the Church was man-made.
Should I still go on a mission? I had wanted nothing more in my life than to travel abroad, and I had purchased a ticket to Singapore. My whole life had been building to this climax, and there were more than 300 people at my church who were all proud that I would fulfill my destiny and serve a mission. I still felt like a Mormon. I determined that even if the Church wasn’t perfectly inspired, it could still be of God and good for people. I decided that I would go, despite my new conclusion. However, having determined that some of the Church rules had no moral justification short of the virtue of obedience to God, I decided that I might not need to follow all of them.
I was in a relationship with a girl in high school, and we continued to date long-distance while I was at BYU and she was at her college several states away. She was Protestant but open to discussing faith, and I had hoped that she would wait for me to return from my mission, after which she might convert, and we could get married.
I was set to fly to the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah, on the 16th of June, and she would be arriving home from college on the night of June 15th. I called her not long after going to Barnes & Noble, and I told her all about the ceremony, how I felt confused and dismayed, and what I had concluded. Feeling suddenly freed from the moral constraints of the Church, we decided that before I flew out, we would lose our virginity together.
The 15th came, and my parents allowed us half an hour in the living room to say goodbye. We did so, and everyone went to bed not long after. Being a resourceful Eagle Scout, I had procured some climbing rope, created hand-holds, and had tied it to my bed frame. Near midnight, I opened the window and rappelled from the second floor to the ground.
Realizing that the garments would probably not be the most mood-appropriate attire for the occasion, I had stashed a pair of boxers in the backyard. I changed into them in the backyard, stashed the garments in the wheel well of my car, and snuck over to her house and into her window. I flew out to the MTC at 6:00 AM the next morning.
The MTC is where missionaries go prior to entering “the field.” There, they spend every waking hour studying Scripture, learning the lessons that they will be teaching, praying, singing hymns, and learning the appropriate language for their mission. Missionaries in the MTC also regularly attend the temple and oft
en take shifts responding to phone calls and online chats from Mormon.org.
Each missionary is assigned a companion, a fellow missionary, to accompany them everywhere — even standing outside the bathroom when the other needs to go. Mission rules are quite strict, and every missionary has a little white book affectionately dubbed the “white Bible” that contains most of them. Rules include a blanket restriction on personal communication, with the exception of one letter sent to family once per week and one short phone call each Christmas and Mother’s Day. There’s also a restriction on all music and entertainment except for hymns and other Church-approved materials. Exercise, laundry, and household chores are all to be done on a single day of the week. Somewhat ironically, missionaries are given the title of “Elder” while on their mission.
I was incredibly apprehensive coming to the MTC, which felt simultaneously familiar and foreign, comfortable and bizarre. I believed the Church to be good and had such strong faith in it for most of my life that I was eventually able to immerse myself in the experience and set aside my misgivings. The brotherhood that I experienced with my fellow missionary companions was incredible, and our sense of purpose was crystal clear. I have heard Mormon war veterans compare the MTC to boot camp, with the kicker of a divine destiny in addition to the collegial camaraderie. We knew without question what was good and what was evil, and we were setting out as soldiers in the army of God to save the world.
I loved being at the MTC. I was praying at every opportunity and studying Scripture 10 hours a day. The longer I was there, the more I felt my shaken faith begin to heal. I began to realize that I had been in the faith for my whole life, my parents had been in the Church for decades, and most of the people who I knew and respected were members. I asked myself, “If they all had made sense of it and stayed faithful, how could I be so arrogant and rash as to throw it all away in the course of 15 minutes at Barnes & Noble?” I began to feel reaffirmed in my divine cause and was so excited to leave Utah and get to Singapore that I soon became known as “Elder Can’t-Sit-Still.”
It’s a running joke in Mormonism to refer to the MTC as the Missionary Torture Chamber, since the missionaries are put through an emotional wringer. If you had ever done anything wrong, guilt compounded every day; we saw missionaries having emotional breakdowns on a regular basis. I began to feel incredibly guilty for having premarital sex. Every morning, every class, every prayer, the thought of my horrible transgression ate at my conscience.
Three days before my group was to fly to Singapore, I felt the need to make a decision: if this was the true faith, if my parents and everyone I loved and respected were right, then the only honest thing that I could do would be to confess my sin and bear the consequences, hoping that I would still be permitted to go. Gathering all of the courage that I had, I confided in my companion, and we walked together to the mission president’s office. I sat down in front of the president, I immediately began to cry, and I confessed what I had done. I told him how sincere my desire to be righteous was and begged him to allow me to continue to serve. He gave me a hug and asked me to wait outside while he consulted the other mission leaders. After what felt like years, he stepped out of the office and told me that I would need to return home and repent before I could continue on my mission. He handed me a phone, instructed me to call my family to let them know what was happening, and left the room.
To this day, I have never done anything as difficult as dialing that number to reach my parents. Remembering the heartbreak and disappointment in my father’s voice brings tears to my eyes even now, years later.
I walked as slowly as I could back to my room to pack my things. I wanted to remember it all — how it all looked, how it all felt, even the smells. Despite the utter confusion of the events prior to my arrival, I had found simplicity and peace in the MTC, and I knew that I would be returning to turmoil and shame. When I got to my room, I took a small piece of paper and wrote a promise to myself that I would return to the MTC and not let anything get in the way of fulfilling my divine mission. I signed it, sealed it with a prayer, unscrewed the faceplate of a power socket, and slipped it into the wall. I then said a tearful goodbye to my companions and flew home, completely broken. My parents met me at the airport and hardly said a word as they tearfully hugged me. If we spoke at all on the car ride home, I don’t remember it.
The weeks that followed are now a blur to me. I lived in my own personal hell. My little brother, in middle school at the time, had been vocally proud of me and my mission to his peers. Upon my return, he had to explain to his friends why I was back home. My little sister wasn’t quite old enough to understand the gravity of the situation, but she provided the kind of unconditional comfort and love that only a little girl can. My parents didn’t know what to do with me other than to make sure that I was fed and going to church. I met with all of my local church leaders and begged them to let me return, assuring them that I had repented and was ready to serve God. They had known and loved me for years. Believing my sin to be an uncharacteristic mistake, they told me that if I continued to repent, they could consider sending me back in as soon as three months.
Three months. It seemed an age away, but at the same time, I had been warned that it could take up to a year. If I could last for three months, then I could get away from the shame. Soon, I realized that if I truly wanted to be able to return and serve in earnest, I needed to be able to accept the Endowment ceremony as part of my spirituality and faith. I began carefully investigating the temple, asking leaders and friends for Church books and other material on the subject. There wasn’t much — members are prohibited from talking about the ceremony outside of the temple. I was also quite hesitant to turn to the internet for information since I knew that I would be bombarded with anti-Mormon propaganda.
Mormons actively revile materials that are critical of the Church. Labeled “anti-Mormon,” simply “anti,” or “spiritual pornography,” they’re believed to be the tools of Satan as he attempts to destroy the faith of the members. Since the Church is of God, anything that attacks, criticizes, or otherwise discourages it must be from Satan. It is entirely inconceivable to most Mormons that someone could have a legitimate concern or grievance with the Church or its doctrines.
Mormons believe that because their faith is the fullness of truth, if people leave, it is because there is something wrong with them — perhaps they were too prideful or too weak to abstain from sin, for example. It’s fairly common that Mormons who had painful experiences within it leave the Church and become disdainful of it, thereafter saying or publishing negative things. These attacks are taken as proof that they actually know in their soul that the Church is true and have to constantly and stubbornly reinforce their rebellion against their God-given nature: “They can leave the Church, but they can’t leave it alone” is an oft-repeated phrase.
I had always imagined “anti” to be metaphorically covered in a black tar that would crawl up my arm and taint my soul if I were to ever touch it, so my research on the internet began only by browsing official Church websites. Turning up nothing, I began to look at the blogs and websites of Mormon apologists. They had some interesting content, particularly on the connection between Mormonism and Freemasonry, but that only served to pique my interest rather than satiate it. At some point in my investigation, I got an e-mail from a cousin in California. I knew that he was in a questioning phase with the Church, and he had heard that I had had difficulty with the Endowment ceremony. He referred me to a particular website run by an active member called MormonStories.org and told me that he would love to talk to me if I had any questions or if I just wanted to talk. It was comforting to know that someone in my family might understand what I was going through. I went to the site cautiously and found a video called “Why People Leave the Church.” I plugged in some headphones and hit play.
It began with John Dehlin, the man behind the website, introducing himself, his background, and his intentions. He said that he was an active LD
S member and wanted to help bring understanding and compassion to those who were struggling with the faith. As the presentation continued, he brought up a number of things that I had never heard before. I had known that, at some point, black people had not been allowed to hold the position of priesthood or go to the temple, but I did not know that the ban hadn’t been lifted until 1979. I had known that polygamy had been common for a phase in early Church history, but I didn’t know all of the facts about Joseph Smith: he had 33 wives in total, some of whom already had husbands, the youngest being a 14-year-old. The room began to spin, and I felt dizzy and weak. I paused the presentation and walked away. It was the same feeling I had had in the temple — the feeling that there was a completely different side to the Church that I hadn’t known about, a dark side that had been hidden from me for nearly 20 years. After taking a brief walk around the block, I returned and finished the presentation. I don’t think I read a single thing for days afterward.
After I finally resumed investigating online, I began to discover an entire segment of the Mormon population that I hadn’t known about before — the “fringe” Mormons. Their stories were usually similar to mine — faithful members who chanced upon something that shocked them about the history of the Church, began researching, and found a hoard of facts that didn’t match the official teachings. Some left, but some stayed active in the Church, though their beliefs morphed into very non-traditional forms. Prior to the internet, they stayed connected through two key magazines/discussion groups known as Dialogue and Sunstone. Afterward frequently known as “Sunstone Mormons,” they supported each other, often in secret to avoid repercussions, as they struggled to cope with life within the Church. The internet has allowed them to connect more directly through sites such as MormonStories.org, the Further Light & Knowledge forum, and NewOrderMormon.org.