Salt Lake CityUnited States

Salt Lake City is the global headquarters of the LDS Church and the densest concentration of active and former Mormons anywhere on earth. The temple square is at the literal center of the city; the Church Office Building looms over downtown; and the streets are still numbered as a grid radiating from the temple. About half the metro is LDS at any given moment, with the other half a mix of ex-Mormon, never-Mormon, and the growing population of people who came to Utah for tech work and never had a religious dog in the fight.

The texture of leaving the LDS Church inside Salt Lake City is unique because the institution is everywhere. Your neighbor probably went on a mission. Your boss might be a bishop. Your kid’s soccer coach might be the Young Men’s president of his ward. Stake conferences happen in the building you used to play basketball at. And yet — unlike Provo or smaller Utah towns — SLC has a real ex-Mormon and post-Mormon community that is large, visible, and organized. Sunstone, the Salt Lake Tribune’s coverage of LDS issues, the various ex-Mormon meetups, and the broader urban culture of the Avenues, Sugar House, and downtown make it one of the easier places in the world to leave the Church without leaving the city you live in.

The pillar page on the LDS Church is the obvious starting point. The page on the spouse who still believes is especially important here, since mixed-faith Mormon marriages are common in SLC. The page on raising kids without religion is also high-value, because the cousins, the schools, and the family events all assume a Mormon childhood that you may not be giving your kids.

Elder X has been through the religious exit himself — the family rupture, the guilt that would not stop, the psych wards, the isolation of being the person nobody in your family understands anymore. If you are in Salt Lake City and that description lands, reach out. Not therapy. Personal advice from someone who made it to the other side.