I was probably toward 8 1/2 when I actually joined the church and was baptized - and, my God, did I take it seriously! I was a zealot who irritated every one of my third-grade friends. They didn't beat me up, but I got labeled "the preacher girl."
The notion that the church, the press, and the universities should serve the state is essentially a Communist notion. In a free society these institutions must be wholly free - which is to say that their function is to serve as checks upon the state.
Nowhere nor in anything, except in the assertion of the Church, can we find that God or Christ founded anything like what churchmen understand by the Church.
If the world grows to worldly, it can be rebuked by the Church; but if the Church grows to worldly, it cannot be adequately rebuked for worldlyness by the world.
I rejected the God that was portrayed as masculine and judgmental and cruel at times. The concept of us bring not worthy to receive him is something I used to say every Sunday in church, and eventually I just couldn't say it with any conviction.
"President Monson, I may never see the Prophet. I may never hear the Prophet. But President, far better, now that I am a member of this Church, I can obey the Prophet."