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I grew up in the church and have been a member my whole life. Active and inactive. Mostly active. That is until 2 years ago when I stopped going to church altogether. I'll rewind from there and give you the full story. I grew up in Texas in a Mormon household with 3 siblings, and we had a great upbringing. My Mom was definitely more into the church than my Dad. My Dad mainly converted to make my Mom happy before they got married. Nonetheless, he took us to church regularly and served in various callings in the church. He saw the church as a good structure for us kids and supported our involvement even though he would never say the LDS church is the one and only true church or anything to that nature. I believed in the church growing up even though I never considered myself a very spiritual person. And I didn’t really pay much attention to the various lessons and talks all those years. I found church to be very boring as a kid/teenager. They were the longest three hours of the week. But I believed nonetheless because of the occasional positive feelings I would receive. I participated in the youth programs, went to seminary, went home teaching with my Dad for a period of time, prayed to God on my own initiative and read the scriptures occasionally. Although I didn’t prepare myself sufficiently growing up to receive a solid confirmation of the truthfulness of the gospel, I always felt a strong connection to my Savior and His atonement for us, and I always strived to maintain that positive relationship. I always had it in my mind growing up that I would serve a mission and not just because I knew it would make my Mom happy. I wanted to. Even though I wasn’t the most dedicated member, I felt it was the right thing to do. And I thought of how much more I would learn about the gospel and develop my own testimony. So I put in my papers and was called to serve in a stateside Spanish-speaking mission. 2006 I was excited as a fresh missionary. I felt grateful to be serving. I also enjoyed learning a new language. And then, early on in my mission, maybe 2-3 months, I started wondering how converted I was to the gospel. What spiritual confirmations did I have leading up to that point? I did have positive feelings of the church before, but I realized I had never taken it upon myself to follow the very advice we teach as missionaries: If you have questions, ask God, and the Holy Spirit will bear witness to you of truth through positive feelings. So I prayed asking if Joseph Smith was a true prophet. I prayed for quite some time. I would ask the Lord to please let me know if Joseph was a true prophet, then pause and repeat. I did this over and over again until I said “Joseph Smith was a prophet of God.” I stopped and thought to myself, did I just make a statement rather than a question? That seemed to me to be an answer in itself. I thought I had a good feeling from the prayer, but nothing amazing. I questioned if it was an answer or if I had just said it myself without receiving revelation since I had been praying for so long asking the same question. But it was good enough to keep me going as a missionary for a period of time. At the 5-6 month mark, I really began questioning what I was doing serving a mission. I had to be honest with myself at that point that I really didn’t know if the church was true. The only time in my life I had undoubtedly experienced the Holy Spirit was when I prayed to God for forgiveness of my sins and felt the merciful forgiveness made possible through Jesus Christ the Redeemer. After evaluating what I knew to be true, and what I didn’t, I made the decision to meet with my mission president. At the 9-10 month mark, I told the mission president I was ready to go home. How could I continue preaching the gospel when I hadn’t fully accepted it myself? I was miserable with the feeling of being a hypocrite. I didn’t want to be at conflict with myself anymore. I told the mission president all of this, and how I initially thought I would find my testimony after I came out to serve a mission, albeit I know that’s not the way you’re supposed to do it. I told him of my attempts to find the truth, and that I had decided I needed to call it quits. After almost a year of no improvement in terms of receiving a confirmation of the church, I thought that was a fair enough time to give it a shot. He asked if I would give it another 3 months to see if anything changed, and I agreed. Nothing did change and a little after I hit my 1-year mark I returned home to Texas. 2007 Once I got home I started wondering which church was the true church of God. I attended services of other faiths, studied other religions, and even took a world’s religion class in college. I decided I was a non-denominational Christian at that point, and continued looking for answers over the next 2 years. 2009 Funny enough, it was only after I had served my 1-year mission and after the vain attempts I had made at finding the truth that I discovered the Mormon Church was the answer all along! What wasn’t funny was how it happened. At age 23, both my parents died in a tragic way that left me and my siblings in complete shock. My youngest sibling was 14 at the time. Shortly after receiving the news, I received several blessings of comfort from Church leaders. On four separate occasions over the course of four days I met with different Church leaders and received the same experience each time. The Church leader would lay his hands upon my head and spoke through the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. Almost instantly I felt the power of Holy Ghost fall upon me as if I was on fire. I felt the warmth of the love of God within me. It was as if I was completely enveloped by this warm, radiating presence. It never left me, not once, for four days straight. I was able to physically and spiritually feel the warm radiance of the Spirit of God. So it was through the power of the Priesthood that my spiritual understanding was opened up and I was converted as a believer of the gospel. As for why I hadn’t received a testimony of the church previous to this experience, the truth is, I could have received an answer, but I had not prepared sufficiently, and my heart wasn’t broken enough for the Lord to reach me. But that experience alone established deep convictions within me of the church. And I have had many spiritual experiences since then reaffirming the same knowledge. I went back to church on a regular basis, attended the temple fairly regularly, testified of the power of the Priesthood often, did my home teaching, held various callings including serving as 2nd counselor in the Elder’s Quorum presidency, and really enjoyed all of it. I even dated a non-member who ended up becoming a convert, and we are currently happily married with a 9-month old baby. 2015 So to throw a wrench in the story, the reason why I stopped going to church two years ago is because I haven’t been able to break my addiction to pornography (sorry to kill the upbeat tempo). Not that quitting is hard. It’s like Mark Twain said about smoking, “Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I've done it thousands of times.” I think I might have even read a version of that quote on this site somewhere the other day. I was first exposed to pornography when I was 11 years old. 20 years later and I still haven’t been able to get away from it. I was always open and honest with church leaders about the issue, followed through with all their advice (that is, of course, everything but the forsaking the sin part), but I could never find the resolve to stay away for very long. Besides when I had served my 1-year mission, the longest time I was able to stay away from it was for a 4-month stretch. There is nothing more I would like to accomplish in this world than to break this habit once and for all. I just don’t know how to do it. I’ve met with numerous bishops, went to a church psychologist on my own initiative, and made I don’t know how many promises to myself and the Lord to put it all behind me. Some people say pride is the greatest tool of the Devil. I would say that is definitely not true in my case. Despair has been far more effective. It was two years ago that I made some conclusions that really got me down. I’m 29 years old at the time realizing I haven’t been able to kick a habit that’s been affecting me since adolescence, and I think, if I haven’t been able to break this habit by now, I’m never going to change. I came to the despairing conclusion I don’t have enough resolve. On top of that, the Church tells us how monumentally important it is to obey the Law of Chasity. Think of how uniquely often the Law of Chasity is commanded of us to obey. I believe the Lord puts so much emphasis on the Law of Chasity because the sacredness of the power of procreation goes well beyond this life. Do you truly think God would entrust someone with the powers of divine and eternal procreation who does not does not end up mastering the Law of Chasity in this life? I understand the Lord is merciful and grace makes up the difference for what we fall short of, but I also understand the Law of Chasity is held to a much stricter and less lenient standard than most commandments. That said, I firmly believe the Law of Chasity is the main defining test the Lord will use in sifting the wheat from the tares, i.e, those who will receive Celestial glory versus those who don’t. I have conceded that it is very unlikely, to the point of hopeless despair, that I will ever make it to the Celestial Kingdom. Two years ago was the first time in my life I had ever conceded to anything less than the aspirations of wanting to return to live in the presence of God. The final conclusion I made was, if I can’t make it to the Celestial Kingdom based on my inability to quit looking at porn, why should I even go to church? What’s the point? If I’ve already pegged myself as ending up in the Terrestrial Kingdom (see post on Few Will Find Celestial Glory), everyone who ends up there isn’t required to do all tasks expected of a Mormon, so why should I? And there it is. Despair ultimately destroyed my optimism of obtaining Eternal Life, and has left me with my sad, pathetic acceptance of mediocrity. 2017 So here I am, two years later, and although I still know the Church and the gospel to be true, I’m at a loss feeling I’m just not good enough to make the cut. I know the gospel works, but I’ve proven to myself I’m not determined enough to allow the gospel to work for me. I’m left with admitting I’m not good enough for the Celestial Kingdom because I lack character and resolve. I know it’s not impossible to obey the Law of Chasity. I personally know maybe 10 to 15 men who strictly follow the Law of Chasity. I look up to and respect these men in the highest regard. One was a former stake president of mine. Counseling me one time, he said when he was called to his position as stake president, the general authority looked at him right in the eyes and said, “brother, do you have any involvement in any shape or form with the viewing of pornography?”, to which he confidently responded, “No, I am clean.” What I would give to be able to say that. I’ve been so down about this that I’ve had zero interaction with the church the past two years. But now, for the first time in a long time, I’ve started to feel bits of hope come back to me just from joining this website a week or so ago. I’ve received some really great feedback to questions I’ve had a very long time, questions I’ve never fully vetted with anyone before. I think the members on here who are truly trying to help those in need are really great missionaries and friends to this community, and just great people in general. So thanks to the creators of this website and its contributors. I’m someone who knows that "the Church is true” (I’m using this phrase sincerely and also in honor of @Vort and @Carborendum). This is based on me receiving the witness I did of the power of the Priesthood, and also other experiences I had within the Church from 2009 – 2015. I have a long ways to go if I can ever dig myself out of the hole I’m in, and I also have a few kinks in my testimony, but it was nice the other day to feel a bit of hope again. I wanted to write all this to clear the air on who I really am and where I come from for the benefit of people like @Grunt. I know I have a lot of questions that are phrased differently than what a typical member might ask, but they’re not intended to come across as negative, and they especially aren’t meant to come across as attacking the church. The only thing I’ve attacked is a small piece of the culture that has grown around the church. For the most part (like 95 percent) the church has a great culture. And also understand that I know a lot of my posts might not have answers others can provide. I’m mostly seeking perspective in a lot of cases. And I don’t need to find answers to every single question in order for me to have a testimony of the church. I already do have a testimony of the church regardless. Your answers and perspective only help strengthen my testimony of the church (at least from most of you, okay maybe half haha).