I’m a 16 year old Latina Mormon, and I’m fed up with my ward’s lame Young Women’s Program. Help!

Dear AMG:

I live in an area where there aren’t many Hispanic LDS members. I go to a Spanish branch and I’m the Young Womens class president. I really hate it. The leaders don’t listen to our suggestions and for Mutual we are always doing crafts and that’s it. We don’t go out or try to change things up a bit. I personally feel like if you are a leader it’s your responsibility to be keeping tabs on the girl’s goals and their progress and what they’re thinking and none of them do any of that. They just go on Sundays and have a last minute mutual. I’m getting sick of this because Young Women is what’s keeping these girls from doing drugs & going into gangs yet they’re being led away from it because there’s nothing happening. I’ve talked to the leaders and they get mad or they just shut off when I tell them and I’ve talked with the branch president and he doesn’t do anything about it. Please help me I don’t just want to give up on the girls but I’m sick and tired of everything.

MR

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I’m a Mormon mom, and I don’t want my gay daughter to bring her girlfriend home. Am I being unfair? What about my beliefs?

Our 20 yr. old daughter told us 2 1/2 yrs. ago that she was gay. Considering she had just broken things off with a not so great relationship with boy and she has always dated boys, this was a shock. This was during a very rebellious time in our daughter’s life and she left home twice. We are LDS and have lived our faith and been very involved and active in the church her whole life. No one can believe she’s gay. We continue to support our daughter in those positive endeavors; college, sorority, she comes to dinner every Sunday and I send her little cards with positive, uplifting things written and we go to lunch, shopping etc…but for me this lifestyle is wrong and so I don’t want it in my face or around me…which means I prefer she not talk about it, partners are not allowed to come over, etc. We let her know that she gets to choose the lifestyle she wants to live – it’s her life. But we also get to decide what we will or won’t allow around us – it would be hurtful to her father and I to see her with another girl and out of respect to us we feel she should not bring them around. The church doesn’t have any clear-cut guidelines for How Parents Can Best Handle Dealing with this type of situation…and I wish they did. We really feel like we’re trying our best to keep our family together and strong in love but I see that not being enough on down the road. I fear that as each year passes and we continue to stand firm that no partners are to be brought around – our relationship will begin to deteriorate
and we don’t want that. We extend our love to our daughter always – but will not allow her to bring her partner to things – will this further alienate us from her? Are we not being fair? What about respecting our feelings and beliefs?

DT

Ask Mormon Girl: I’m no longer an orthodox believer. How do I tell my parents?

Dear Ask Mormon Girl,

I don’t know how to tell my family that after years of doubting, praying, reading, pondering, and finding support and justification from Sunstone and Mormon feminist havens like fMh and Exponent, I no longer believe. My heart was in a constant state of breaking while I was trying to be Mormon. And that’s to say nothing of the cognitive incongruities that also spurned my agnosticism.

I’m a junior in college right now (going to BYU worked wonders with my fledgling deconversion), and my ideological distance from my parents is beginning to affect me even more than the geographical. I claim to have left for moral reasons, yet I’m basically lying to them. Lying is painful. But telling the truth will be even more painful. I’d hate for them to wonder what they did wrong when in reality I’m the way I am because of what they did right, like encouraged open-mindedness and sensitivity.

I know there’s not a way I can break this to them easily, but I desperately need suggestions of how to do it in the least painful way possible. Thanks.

Sincerely,

Honest