Hello! I'm Natalie. I'm 31 and I live in Louisville, KY.
I've never been LDS, but I've been, um, investigating? for something like 15 years. I've taken the discussions, but back then, the idea of giving up drinking, smoking and premarital sex was just too much. I always figured I'd eventually make my way back and be baptized.
Then along came the internet, and I started learning all sorts of things I'd not known about the Church. Tithing, for one thing. Call me crazy, but when I was talking to the missionaries way back when, they never mentioned that it would cost 10% of my income for me to be part of the club. That seems like sort of a big thing, and I was a little upset that they were going to let me get baptized before I found out about that little detail.
The Angel with a flaming sword part of how polygamy came about threw me for a loop too - my Mormon BFF when I was growing up told me very clearly that polygamy came about because there were so many women widowed when the Saints were making their way to Utah, and the men had to take on multiple wives in order to support all the women that otherwise would've been left helpless. To a 16 year old girl who didn't want to do library research and who'd never heard of Google, that answer seemed pretty reasonable. Learning that the practice in fact came about via Joseph Smith himself, and the threatening manner in which it was delivered to Emma (D&C 132), and, of course, the Angel with the flaming sword bit - well, it colored my impressions of the truth of the Church greatly.
I'm still fascinated by the Church, though, and its members. I still wonder in the back of my mind if it isn't true. I came here with the hope of learning more of how things really are.
So, again, Hello!
