Genuinely crying a little bit thinking about my great great grandpa who was the mayor of his town in Switzerland and immigrated to the US in the 1920s when he was in his 60s because the missionaries encouraged him to.

After they immigrated he struggled to learn English and was only able to get a job in the kitchen at LDS hospital. Growing up I was always told this as a faith promoting story. "He was so strong in his faith that he was willing to give up everything for the church!"

But as I've transitioned out of Mormonism, his story has gotten sadder and sadder to me.

The town they left behind is a town where my ancestors have lived for 800 years. The church that Henri and Corinne were married in stands on a site where the first recorded church was built in the 1100s. It's where my ancestors were baptized, married and mourned.

He left his friends and extended family behind and would never see any of them again before he died twenty years later. His daughter, my great grandma left her childhood sweetheart behind. She ended up marrying my great grandpa who left her with three kids under the age of 8.

She never spoke in public if she could avoid it because she was embarrassed of her French accented English.

One of the single hardest things for me about leaving the church is the pressure I feel from those stories. The stories of my ancestors who left everything behind to join the church and come to Utah.

But ultimately I'm thankful for that. The stories of their bravery in leaving the only things they had ever known for what they believed is a guiding star in my life.
If they could leave their village and centuries old church then I can leave Mormonism.