Alyssa Grenfell on what leaving cost her

Contested

LDS scholars have a real answer here. Say so before your friend does.

Who she is

Alyssa Grenfell. A BYU graduate, now an ex-Mormon writer with a YouTube channel of about 570,000 subscribers.

Her book is How to Leave the Mormon Church: An Exmormon's Guide to Rebuilding After Religion, from 2023.

What she describes

Three things. That ward representatives keep contacting and visiting after a member has stepped away.

That wearing the garment every day works as a kind of bodily check, so stopping is a visible and costly signal. And that deconstruction costs you identity, family and friends.

How much of it is checkable

The pattern is. Continued contact after leaving matches what the resignation and QuitMormon cases document.

Garment expectations are set out in the church's own General Handbook, at 38.5. Specific incidents in a memoir are one person's testimony, and should be labelled that way.

Their answer, at full strength

The church does not reply to individual memoirs. Its standing position is that members who step away are still loved and welcome.

Ministering visits are voluntary pastoral care, and they stop when a person asks or resigns. The garment is a sacred private covenant freely taken in the temple, not surveillance.

Apologists would add that a monetised ex-Mormon media career has its own incentives, and that one story should not stand for a church of 17 million.

How strong is this argument?

Genuinely arguable, and use it carefully. Her core claims are corroborated at the level of pattern, by church policy documents and independent reporting.

The individual incidents are not independently verified. Treat her as a representative voice, not as proof.

What to say

"Have you heard how people describe the first year after leaving?"

A diagram of the two-piece temple garment, the daily practice her account describes giving up

Two Latter-day Saint missionaries — not Grenfell, who served her own full-time mission before leaving

How they answer this — at its strongest

The church does not answer memoirs; visits are care, and the garment is a private covenant.

The church does not answer memoirs by former members. Its standing position is that a member who steps away is still loved and still welcome.

Ministering visits are freely given care, and they stop when a person asks, or resigns. The garment is a sacred private covenant, taken freely in the temple. It is not a way of watching anyone.

Apologists would add two things. A paid ex-Mormon media career has its own pull. And one life should not stand in for a church of 17 million.

The verdict

Use with care: the pattern is documented, but one memoir is not proof.

Her main claims hold up at the level of pattern. Contact after leaving, garment rules at General Handbook 38.5, and the social cost of going are all backed by church papers and by outside reporting.

The book itself is one person's word on particular events, and it is badged that way here.

It belongs on the site as a voice for a pattern that is documented. It does not stand as proof on its own.

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