I have had some long standing goals that I have been working on and sitting around commenting on the Church wasn't helping me achieve them, so I decided to curtail a lot of my online activity to focus on those goals. While I was away, my sister invited me to live in Portugal with her. Now, I love my sister, but that's not going to happen. For one thing, my sister is a recovering alcoholic and for various reasons needs the structured support of the Church. We would not be a good match. However, my sister has been a marvelous sister to me and I felt she deserved more of an explanation than my telling her that wouldn't be a good idea. So, I sent an email to her and all of my siblings telling them I no longer have a testimony of the church. I gave a very brief explanation as to why. None of them could refute it. None of them argued and the response was unanimous continued love and support.
So, woohoo! That's terrific! I now feel I can be more authentic with my entire family.
There has been some fallout, but I think it's been relatively minor and creative, but I continue to draw boundaries. Luckily about 40% of my parents' offspring don't believe and so I have some support for those boundaries should someone get it in their mind to try to breach them.
There have been times when I have been, frankly, sitting on my hands not posting. However, I did promise myself I would wait until after conference until posting here to check in. So, I'm saying "Hi".
Hi
