NOM

A couple months ago I had my big coming out about my disbelief in the church to him and my parents and sister on a 6-hour drive. During our discussions I mentioned some of the church history stuff that is out there and how I hadn't been taught about most of it growing up, and I brought up the essays and none of them had heard of them, much less read them.

Fast forward to a few nights ago when I was watching the NBA Finals with a friend and my brother, a nuanced believer and a TBM respectively. We like having lively discussions and we were talking about the left vs. right talking points regarding President Trump. Then out of nowhere my brother said he had started reading the essays! My friend's wife was there and I don't think she is aware of my disaffection, so I told him that was great and moved on to another subject for my friend's sake.

Later we chatted a bit about it and he said he has only started just one of them and doesn't really have any thoughts about them yet. But I thought that was cool, that he internalized our discussion and poked around at the essays.

Very cool. I would love to have adult and respectful conversations about those essay topics with my family and in-laws.

At thw same time I dont want to be the guy who pushes them on anyone. My wife is doing some evangelizing about them with her mom and sisters.

Family reunions this year could be epic.

MalcolmVillager wrote: ↑Wed Jun 14, 2017 2:28 pm Very cool. I would love to have adult and respectful conversations about those essay topics with my family and in-laws.

At thw same time I dont want to be the guy who pushes them on anyone. My wife is doing some evangelizing about them with her mom and sisters.

Family reunions this year could be epic.

I totally agree, I have avoided being the guy that throws stuff in people's faces. So far the stuff has come up in relatively normal conversation. My family has never shied away from tough topics, for better or worse, and I think we are slowly getting there with the church stuff.

Of course, my sister did plan a family-wide "someone in the temple every day of the month" for next month and specifically mentioned testimony issues in the family as one of the reasons. So they are still all in and hopeful for me to turn it around. But I understand that from her perspective this is her way to show that she loves me. And I would much rather be invited and know that it is happening than have them feel like they can't be open with me about it.

Thats great your brother is reading the essays. I hear all the time comments made on the forums about TBM reacting to them and calling them anti when they are right on the churches very own website. They are powerful though to someone who is willing to take off the blinders and see. My nephew used to live in Utah and had several roommates who were all TBM. He read them, passed them on to his roommates, then the girlfriends, etc. Last I heard almost all no longer believed.