Dear children,
It's okay. It's okay to read their complaints, their evidence, their viewpoints. It's okay if you feel scared right now. It's okay if you think life might never be the same again for you.
Take a deep breath. Say a prayer (because God is very real).
There are a few things I want to tell you.
1. I have read the CES Letter. All of it, pretty much - they might have added more since then. I was teaching seminary at the time and I wanted to make sure I understood what was in it. It did indeed make me anxious and panicky, like it is supposed to. Other things I have read: lots of ex-mo reddit threads that talk about everything under the sun, from Joseph Smith to the salamander letters, to polygamy (that's kind of an old school concern that was really emphasized and whispered about during my BYU days), to tithing concerns, sexual abuse by church members, and whatever is hottest at the moment. I don't enjoy reading these things, but I have been - since said days at BYU -very concerned with truth and with making sure I have truth.
2. I'm not the only True Believing Mormon or "TBM" who has read all of this stuff. I am also not the most educated one to have done so. I promise you that you don't even have to listen to just your mom here. There are many very wise, very experienced, very educated individuals who have read just as much, experienced just as much, and have thought just as much as anyone on reddit, or Mormon Stories or the writer of whatever anti-mormon TV show is currently a hit. I promise that my decision, and their decisions to stay in the church, are not because we are willfully blind or ignorant. These aren't secrets that, if you and your dad knew about, we would leave too. There is a 99.9% chance that I have all the information anyone you interact with has - I have just reached a different conclusion than those who have left. Panic is not truth. Unanswered or cleverly asked questions are meant to make you afraid of digging deeper or giving up, or they are meant to make you think you already have the answer.
3. Look some more. There are many public responses to the CES Letter that are full of better research than that document. Here is one of them. You will find that the CES Letter is not intellectually honest. It takes a shallow dig into "issues" - just enough to make them seem unsolvable. It doesn't actually keep digging to find the answers. I have found that many many sources cited by Ex-mos are the same way. They are full of passion, anger, and fear, and claim to be more truthful than they really are. I think some are intentionally deceptive, but others are not. I think some ex-mos are intellectually honest, while some think that it is fair game to use whatever methods they can use to bring down what they have come believe is a cult. By this point in your life, you have probably seen that loyalty-to-a-cause can illicit that kind of response - I have seen it when people defended our old adoption agency, I have seen it in the filmmakers of The Traffickers, I have seen it in politicians and their followers, I have seen it in patriots. You will see it on reddit because it is most often an echo chamber for like-minded individuals. They are no longer loyal to my religion, but they are extremely loyal to their own, and will (justifiably, in their minds), use anger and imbalance to prove their new religion.
4. On that same note, many many people are not being honest about why some people are excommunicated or why they chose to leave. John Dehlin, the master story-teller himself, told the public at the time of his excommunication that he just wanted "truth." He was an honest truth-seeker, living all the commandments but not seeing the truth. He admitted years later that he was, at that time, completely addicted to porn, had been for years, and had hidden it from his wife. Does that mean his motives were completely false? I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that his motives and reasons for disconnecting from the church were complex. I don't know that he purposely kept things out of his narrative to make it more compelling, but well, I have seen plenty of people who leave things to make their point stronger. People will argue that what they left out wasn't relevant, but well....why did they then? Again, I have seen people do it over and over again, and you probably have too. Excommunication stories can be super compelling because the person who had their membership revoked can say whatever they want. It will always be one-sided because of confidentiality policies in the church.
4. I am not ignorant, blind, or a sheep for following the living prophet despite not understanding everything. Everyone, whether they realize it or not, is choosing to follow someone. One time I was on a blog that questioned everything gospel-related, and they were asking everyone how they would re-do the plan of salvation to make it more fair and beautiful. They all, sitting behind their computer screens, gave input about what the plan got "wrong." Some sounded really inspiring and loving, and my heart got that racing feeling that maybe I had been wrong all along to trust modern prophets....maybe there was something I had "missed" in my thinking. Then I realized I was putting faith in strangers. Strangers who had the gall to believe that they understood the eternities, the whole point of life, the way we should treat other..... strangers who thought they had the intellectual, far-sighted, compassionate depth to create laws for all mankind that would be better than the ones given to us by God, through the authorities of the church. STRANGERS - I didn't even know if they were just trying to screw people up or actually believed it. I didn't know if they were people who actually tried to lead good lives or criticized others on the computer all day long. I didn't know if they were better-educated, more "spiritual," more interested in doing good than me. But I certainly knew they were less humble. I could not claim to understand all of it better than the prophets, but they did so without hesitation. Being humble... acknowledging that you might not totally get what matters for ALWAYS....isn't being blind, it's being self-aware and honest.
5. You can talk to me about these things. I might have some insights you haven't considered. Yes, I have come to my own conclusions, and they might be different than your own, but I'm not going to kick you out of the family, I'm not going to disparage you to others, I'm not going to treat you with less love. I believe that truth is truth, and I believe that if what I have is truth, whatever you believe isn't a threat to it. If it's uncomfortable, we will still get through it. I will love you just a dearly and truly if your conclusions are different than mine.
6. If you don't want to talk to me about these things, that's fine too. Many people don't want to talk to their moms or dads about it because there is such emotional weight behind it. It's scary. Plus, Dad and I aren't perfect. We have our own baggage. We've screwed up many times and you doubtless carry the baggage of those screwups. I try really really hard to make things right, but I know I might not feel like the safest person to talk to. But if you do talk to others, give them at least the same level of scrutiny that you give us, please. We really really really do care about you.
7. I already stated this, but God is real. I have experienced Him over and over again in my life, and I would be a lying liar who lies if I told you differently. You really can pray. You really can accept knowledge from the Holy Ghost. It's a legitimate way to learn. If you haven't turned to Him for help on this yet, please do. Please kneel down and talk to Him about your fears. Please ask Him how He feels about you. Please give the scriptures at least equal time to the ex-mos. Please give God a chance. He is real. His Son is real. This isn't about me wanting you to follow me. This isn't about my control over you. This isn't about making family gatherings more comfortable, or carrying on the traditions I was raised in. This is about a God who knows you and loves you, who I am trying to give you a connection to - a connection greater and more powerful than the one I have forged with you. I want you to trust HIM more than me. His love is pure and perfect.
I love you (however imperfectly) and always will. -Mom
Paul and Joseph were two men that taught me about feeling God’s peace in the hardest of times.
Before I can tell you about them, let me give you a little backstory. In January 2013, my husband and I both told each other that we thought we should make a decision whether or not to adopt. We had thought and talked about it off and on for ten years - every time we had another biological child - and it seemed the time to decide once and for all if we should. We decided to take our question to the temple the first weekend in February.
In the celestial room, I experienced one of the strongest and clearest answers in my life. Both my husband and I came out of the temple feeling very strongly that, YES, we should adopt and that it should be soon. We both felt an intense urgency. After scrambling and stressing over paperwork for the next month and a half, we were matched with two little sisters from the DR Congo on March 27, 2013. We saw their faces through pictures, and again prayed and felt that they should be our daughters.
At that point, our agency let us know that the rest of the process would take 9-12 months, which seemed so unbearable. How could I watch these little girls grow up through pictures for up to a whole year? I told myself that we knew God wanted us to do this, so He would definitely help us zoom through the process. Maybe, I thought...maybe they would be home by the end of 2013. Maybe by Christmas!
By October 2014, they still weren’t with our family even though they were legally our daughters. The entity of their government that handled immigration would not let them, or any of the other hundreds of adopted children, leave the country. They had said they were suspending the process for a year, but that year had come and gone and there was no end in sight. We hired a foster family to care for our girls and, having no idea when they would join us, I decided to visit them.
That month I got to travel to Kinshasa, the capital city of the DR Congo, where my daughters lived. I spent a week with them. It was one of the hardest weeks of my life - the exhaustion of traveling met with sickness, the difficulty of visiting a third-world country where I didn’t speak the language, the overwhelming task of getting to know and caring for a 3 and 5 yr old who didn’t know me or trust me.
It was also one of the best weeks of my life - seeing those pictures that I had watched for months actually living and breathing, hearing their laughs and adorable voices jabbering away in French, taking them swimming for the first time in their lives, feeling their little arms around my neck as they giggled in the cool water, snuggling close to them all night and just enjoying having them with me.
When the week was over, I took them back to their foster home and somehow said goodbye. My younger daughter was hysterical and had to be pried off of me. I felt a peace that could only come from my Heavenly Father as we drove away, back to my hotel, but my heart ached for her. I wasn’t leaving until the next morning, and that night, all alone, I had a lot of questions for my Heavenly Father as I knelt in prayer. What it all boiled down to for me was this thought:
What if we had been wrong to start this whole crazy process?
I could trust that it was all going to be okay if I truly knew that God wanted us to adopt. But what if He hadn’t? What if we had been wrong that day in the temple? What if we were just messing up our daughters’ lives even more by making them live in this limbo? How could I know this was what Heavenly Father wanted when it was going so badly? I couldn’t see His hand in this mess.
I felt comforted that night, but received my real answer the next morning, as I was leaving my daughters’ city.
The airport experience in Kinshasa is intense and chaotic, and several other adoptive parents recommended that since I was traveling alone I should hire someone to help get me and my bags checked in . His name was Paul. He was Congolese and spoke at least four languages. I had met him during the week as we had hired him to go a few places to translate. So that morning, Paul and his driver loaded my suitcases. Before we even left the courtyard, Paul turned to me and softly started talking about what a hard day it was for me. I will never forget what he said.
“Your children may feel like you have abandoned them right now. They don’t understand why you can’t be with them. They don’t understand what you are doing to bring them home. But you know.
You may feel like God has abandoned you right now. You can’t see what He sees. You don’t know what is going to happen. But He knows.”
As I nodded my head and agreed wholeheartedly with him, he let that settle, and then we talked a little more about God, and he continued.
“Look at Joseph in the Bible. He had a dream when he was a teenager. That dream did not come true for many many years. Even as he tried to do what God asked him to do, it was not easy for him. He was sold as a slave. He was accused by Potiphar's wife. He was thrown in jail. And we know that it all worked out because we have read the ending. But while it was happening to Him, he didn’t know how it would end. He might have wondered if he had really dreamed that dream or if it was from God.”
I can still see the busy Kinshasa street we were on when Paul said this to me. Time stood still as he taught me, from the Bible, and the Holy Ghost manifested to me that what Paul was saying was a direct answer to my prayers the previous night.
I knew, in that moment, that my Heavenly Father had answered my prayers, not just from the previous night, but in the temple back in February 2013. He knew me so well that He had sent an almost-stranger to speak the very words I needed to hear, halfway across the world, in a language that wasn’t even native to him.
I thought about Joseph many times in the long months that followed. Every time we got bad news and it felt like our daughters would never join us, I tried to remember that God knew the ending, and He had not abandoned us. He had asked us to do this work, and His promises were always sure.
We continued on in faith, even as many of our adoptive friends either gave up or illegally paid smugglers to sneak their children out with false documents. We visited Washington DC three times to meet with congressmen, representatives from the Department of State, and the DR Congo ambassador to the US.
We kept serving in callings, praying, going to the temple, and paying our daughter’s foster family.
Elysee and Simone finally flew to join our family on June 8, 2016, more than three years after we had first been matched with them. They were sealed to our family six months later.
Now, after five years, I’m sure that people look at our family and only see the victory, the happy ending. They don’t know the agony and uncertainty that clouded our lives during those years.
If you’re in that agony right now, please know that God has not forgotten you or abandoned you. Even when Joseph was in prison, Genesis 39:21 tells us: But the Lord was with Joseph.
God is with you.
You haven’t reached the end of the story yet.
It’s not over.
God knows you.
He is working on your behalf in ways that you may not realize for years.
We can always trust in His promises.
That’s what Joseph and Paul helped me understand.
In the car, wearing a mask, was Carina Coleman and her friends. They were on the way to Forest School. When they got there, they went to park the car, and they all got out. They played over by the lake for awhile. Then Carina's mom told them to come make their foil dinners. While the dinners were cooking, they sang. After the foil dinners were made, two were burnt. They played in nature for awhile and then it was time to go back home.
