In the strictest sense, the word exmormon simply refers to someone who chose to end his membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Members of the Church are sometimes referred to informally as Mormons, and so an ex-mormon is a former Mormon. However, the term is more commonly used to refer not to people who simply left and moved on, but to those who then devote themselves to attacking the church.
Personal Response by Todd
“I know the Church is true…” I’ve heard the phrase many times growing up in the Mormon Church. Thousands of members of the Church say those words each day and millions each year. When I was in high school I started to doubt. I didn’t remember ever having spiritual experiences like so many talked about. It was hard to believe that my family and friends were really experiencing what they claimed. I grew up in South East Texas where the Mormon Church was a minority. I remember wanting so desperately to fit in, to be just one of the guys. However, one day as I was with a group of friends, I felt a powerful impression to befriend another kid at school who no one talked with. It kept pushing and pushing me. Of course I fought back. I’ve since come to recognize that impression to be the Spirit “which inviteth to do good…, and to persuade to believe in Jesus Christ…wherefore ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of God” (Moroni 7:16).
That was the first time I felt something different. Simple I know, but it was the grand beginning of a witness. I will never forget the feeling of something beyond me encouraging me to ignore the attitudes of worldliness and seek for the world of a better. I knew at the very least that God was out there. Over the years I started to see God’s hand in my life. The principles of the gospel began to make more sense and I became addicted to learning and absorbing the doctrines taught over the pulpit and in the scriptures. My life seemed perfect. I found that I was much happier. Life’s burdens seemed lighter as I was trying to live like Jesus Christ. (more…)