Documentary: Losing Faith

On your side (ABC)

Peter Michelsen said when he was young, his life seemed normal. It wasn’t until he was older that he came to believe his community was far from ordinary.

Growing up in Carson City, Peter Michelsen said he loved his childhood.

“Good memories from my childhood, like the park that we’re sitting in, we came down here a lot to play in it. We grew up on Elizabeth Street, right by a creek, and my sister and I would go down there a lot to play in the creek. It was, it was a simple country town life, but we really had a lot of fun,” said Michelsen.

His family joined the Church of Carson City before he was born. He said when he was young, his life seemed normal. But as he got older, his ideas around his community began to change.

“I knew we were in a religion, but that was all I had known as a kid. Eventually, when we moved out to the country and I got a little older, things just didn’t seem right in the community that I grew up in,” said Michelsen.

He said the church followed the teaching from the King James bible, and required certain practices like women and men dressing modestly, no use of internet, TVs or smart phones, and only following directions from leaders.

Michelsen also says people inside the community owned businesses in the area, and if someone needed a job, they were only allowed to work at business owned by people in that community.

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