Family?

I feel hurt and frustrated. I thought the Church believed in promoting Families and bringing them closer together, and no matter WHAT the issue I can't understand Family being used as a wedge or "carrot" to try to encourage change in a person. Susie and I love the gospel. We are faithful and honest and we are happy with our lives. We hope some day to raise up children who are cultivated in the type of home we feel they should be provided with. We desire with all of our hearts and souls to be able to serve together in The House of the Lord. I want Susie to have the opportunity to receive her Temple Endowment. I want to be there for her. I want her parents to be there when she goes through as well. I want it to be to her a place where the comfort of family exists. After she receives her own Endowment, I want to serve with her so that we can enjoy that part of the core of our religion which it has to offer, so that we can relate to one another better, and so that we can be equally yoked.

Articles of Faith 1:11 says,

We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.

Well, Susie and I desire the privilege of worshipping God in the Holy Temple, together, as a family. How? By our participation. Where? The Temple. What? God.

Because of what I have read I know that excommunication is sadly an increased possibility for anyone who engages in writing or publishing of any type in our Church. Many good people have been excommunicated for bad reasons. Many bad people have remained in the Church who were never excommunicated when they should have been. The problem when the Church excommunicates a faithful believer is that the believer is left distressed, often without very good Family support due to peer pressure to not affiliate with the individual (on spiritual matters especially). Furthermore, such excommunications serve no purpose except to degrade and damage the good name of the Church. They are an affront to the Lord because when they occur they show unrighteous dominion, and more people are spiritually hurt by even reading about these (I know I have felt hurt by it) than anyone could ever be saved by being put through the process. Additionally, those who have a Testimony of the Restored Gospel will not be put to silence because of the process of Excommunication. Taking for example D. Michael Quinn, he became more vocal and less censored in his publishing as a result of his excommunication. This seems to have been the case with some other people I'm aware of, as well.

If it ever came down to excommunication, I feel that I would stand according to the examples of the past, both in the Church: Jesus Christ, and Joseph and Hyrum Smith, or in Masonry: Hiram Abiff and Jaques DeMolay: To rather die than to lose my integrity. "Rare integrity, fortitude most grand." Joseph Smith was eloquent in his expressing this belief:

However, it was nevertheless a fact that I had beheld a vision. I have thought since, that I felt much like Paul, when he made his defense before King Agrippa, and related the account of the vision he had when he saw a light, and heard a voice; but still there were but few who believed him; some said he was dishonest, others said he was mad; and he was ridiculed and reviled. But all this did not destroy the reality of his vision. He had seen a vision, he knew he had, and all the persecution under heaven could not make it otherwise; and though they should persecute him unto death, yet he knew, and would know to his latest breath, that he had both seen a light and heard a voice speaking unto him, and all the world could not make him think or believe otherwise.

So it was with me. I had actually seen a light, and in the midst of that light I saw two Personages, and they did in reality speak to me; and though I was hated and persecuted for saying that I had seen a vision, yet it was true; and while they were persecuting me, reviling me, and speaking all manner of evil against me for so saying, I was led to say in my heart: Why persecute me for telling the truth? I have actually seen a vision; and who am I that I can withstand God, or why does the world think to make me deny what I have actually seen? For I had seen a vision; I knew it, and I knew that God knew it, and I could not deny it, neither dared I do it; at least I knew that by so doing I would offend God, and come under condemnation.

Any true Latter-day Saint would rather give himself up to death than deny the things of the Spirit. This personal integrity policy is grounded firmly in scriptures: In fact, denial of the Holy Ghost is the unpardonable sin. The only thing that can never be forgiven in this life or the next. This is the type of condemnation that Joseph feared. Not man, but the condemnation of God.

I am sad and at the same time tired of seeing good and true men struck down from the Church when they could become instruments in the hands of God. If we strike out all of our best men, anyone who has any natural talents, God given gifts, that make them such a person as would considered relatively formidable in the formative era of our Church, how should we ever expect to grow greater, and perform and become all the things that have been prophesied?

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Sorry, I'm just so frustrated. People need to wake up and stop shooting themselves in the foot. The Church is true, more true than most anyone could even know.

This is wasting my time... I really need to be working on other things. I was perfectly happy in the spirit, having a good family life and I don't know why people feel obliged to try to screw it up for me. I suppose persecution is given to us to make us grow.

I have never been able to feel a genuine Brotherhood left in the Church and that's part of the problem. We need to take the time to get to know each other, to really know each other. To compare, in my Lodge I feel genuine brotherly love. I would trust any of those guys with my life. I don't feel that I need to defend myself from them, but that I would trust them with my very life if it was on the line. The Church may have lost the concept of being "on the level" in our quorums and seems to be so cliquish now that it makes me feel sick to my stomach.

HELP ME, PLEASE.