Friday, September 23, 2011

The Last Day of My Life !

So today is the Last Day of my Life !
Isn't that what people say when something horrible or terrifying is about to happen ?
Well, today I have to go to court to fight for full custody over my 4 year old son, because his biological dad, who is Dutch and lives in Belgium is convinced that he would make the better parent - at least, that's what he officially claims. In all reality, what he wants to do is hurt me and what better way to do so in moving my son down to Belgium/the Netherlands !
I would call him a deadbeat father, who has no job, no education and no apartment of his own. But, he keeps telling the court that if only he gets custody, the Belgic State is going to help him with all of this and he is going to receive a lot of funding; now that, I call an incentive to get a child: MONEY!

Already now, he has never paid child support and he only comes to visit our son on a regular basis when other people pay for his trips !

Aaaaaarrrgh !

I have been cleaning up my life: I changed my life style dramatically, got a good apartment, am enrolled in University, got married and we both have an income. "Why on Earth would the Danish Gov't hand the child over to that guy!?" You are asking ? Well, that's because it is Denmark and the Municipality is convinced that I am a bad mother (long, mostly private/personal story). I guess, all you need to know is that anything they have complained about before is not valid anymore !

I shall pray to God to be with me during and after the court session, so that I will be calm enough and talk rather than scream! :(

God, grant me the Serenity... Amen 

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

An Eye for an Eye - An Intermediate Post


So yesterday my husband and I had to attend a meeting at the municipality. Turns out, someone had called anonymously to say horrible things about me. Well, it was anonymous as far as no name was left goes. However, this person knew intimate details about me and what really gave it away was the fact that this person knew that I had broken all contact to people. This is only partly true, for I had broken off all contact with Mormons (except for a fare few) and only they knew!


So in the end, figuring out who the caller was, proved to be easier than expected. In fact, it was my husbands best friends !


Okay, backtrack.
Back in April my husband (well, then he was my fiancee) told his friends in trust, that we had broken the Law of Chastity*, meaning we had sex before marriage. Being good (!?!) Mormons they did their duty and informed the Bishop, even though he had told them that he was going to have a talk with him soon.
I won't bore you with the details, but the end of it all was that both of us almost got excommunicated only 2 months before our actual wedding, even though we both talked to our respective Bishops !


I guess the worse part is that they don't even find anything wrong with their actions for according to "Mormon Rules" Members are supposed to spy on one another and report any mishaps to the Bishop or even Stake President/Mission President if they see fit!


This is a very simple but effective way to keep the Members on a short leech. This way there is no use for surveillance by the "Dictator"** for the Members themselves do it gladly for him!


Interestingly enough, I should have known seeing as I spent a lot of time with Missionaries. After their trainings camps (aka MTC = Missionary Training Center) they are let loose as totally brainwashed and overzealous teens who spy on one another and even warn one another: "If you break even one rule from the White Handbook*** I will tell on you to the Mission President !"
Worse case senario: they will be sent home without honor, meaning they will be carrying a scarlet letter on their chests and no woman is going to be interested in them marriage wise or otherwise… they then have to move to another city or even another State !


For us the consequence is that my husband seems a broken man: his life long friends went behind his back, told on him to the Bishop --- back stabbing amongst best friends !


I need my husband, my son needs him and he can't take care of us due to overeager Mormons ! 


Sorry for the excessive usage of the exclamation mark, but I felt like screaming this out to ease my soule… 




*note of the Blogger: next to Murder, the Law of Chastity is the worst law you can break !
(Well, according to the Members that is, for if you read the official handbook, it's a whole different story)


**By "Dictator" I mean self proclaimed Prophet and President of the LDS Church


***The White Handbook is the Book of Don'ts if you will, just for Missionaries

Sunday, August 28, 2011

A Leap of Faith - or merely the Beauty of Serendipity


I know, I was going to tell you the end (or rather point of new beginning) of my story and then work my way back. However, when I thought about how my next blog was going to be in structure, I realized that for the next one to make total sense, I would have to go back half a year, when I met my husband.

I had only been a member for a few months. Missionaries arrive from the States in groups and at that point, one of the guys was about to return home and I wanted to say good bye. At that point, he was serving his Mission in Aalborg (which lies about 1.5 hrs north from where I live) where he also was going to die*. Hence, I decided that one Sunday, I was going to simply attend Church up in Aalborg - easiest way to see him.

When I came to Aalborg i discovered the some Wards simply have their own real personal "style". Three talks were given: One by a woman in her 30s who pretty much right away started crying, overwhelmed by the intensity of her feelings, one man, who also cried pretty much right away (due to is extraordinary "spirituality", as I came to know much later, and one man who walked up to the pulpit carrying at least 5 thick books, to emphasize that he was very educated and well read - the talk he gave was very dispassionate and impersonal though... not surprising if you ask me...
After this utterly eerie experience I had but one intention: Run !

But then this very handsome man came up to me, shook my hand and introduced himself. He was tall and had a very kind face, dark blond with a hint of reddish hair and bright blue eyes. He had brought shoulders and was very tall, at least 10 inches taller than me and I am tall for a woman, and he was wearing a white shirt, a gray sweater and a blue tie. I really wanted to talk to him more, also because I thought he was real good looking, however, in the Mormon Culture you will find that men and women marry very young compared to the rest of our society, so after Mormon standard, according to his age, he should have been married and had three children already !

So I went with he Missionaries instead. After yet another lesson on "The Word of Wisdom", the bell rang (well, figuratively speaking, of course) and the class was over. The guy I mentioned earlier stepped into the classroom and we had yet another chat. I invited him to come along, for the Missionaries and I were going to go our for lunch. He then proposed that we should come join him instead and meet with his family...

That we did do and this is how I met my husband !

Well, according to 1 COR 10:13
"There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it."
My following blogs are going to prove Paul wrong ! lol


*note from the blogger: "to die in one specific town" = Missionary lingo for "finished his Mission"

Thursday, August 25, 2011

In Retrospect

I have thought about it for a few days now and I think, maybe I should start by explaining or sharing my current state: My name is Nicole, I am 29 years of age. I am a wife, a mother of a four year old beautiful boy, I own a crazy black kitten, I am working on my degree and I'm an Ex-Mormon !
Isn't that how people describe themselves? The way they sum up who and what they are, and what they stand for?
Well, I believe that instead of focusing on an organized Religion we ought to share our values and our faith, so here goes: I believe that it is essential that we are all good people, that we treat each other with respect and don't expect more from others than we ourselves are willing to offer. I am Christian, that is, I believe in God, our Heavenly Father, I believe in Jesus Christ, his son and the Holy Ghost and that he died for our sins, however, I do not belong to any specific denomination. If I have learned anything in the process of getting baptized and leaving the same Church it would be this:
1COR 15 (KJV):

"Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand;
 By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain."

Believing in vain... I was raised in Germany, so my mother tongue is German. When I read the same verse in Martin Luther's translation from 1571, it reads "ill-advised" - that it what happened to me: I joined an organized Religion ill-advised, and I am not going to make the same mistake again. In the Catholic Church conversion is a very long process and can take up to two years or even more ! 
Well, that's my story or rather how it ended, but from this point on I am going to work backwards to try and convey to you why I made my choices and what the consequences were; good and bad.