My mission ended up resolving the rest of it – somehow I ended up running into the answers even though I wasn't looking for them because I was focusing on serving others. Investigators would have the same question and my companion or district leader would know, or I would find something on lds.org or in the scriptures, or the Spirit would just illuminate it for me.I think it's okay to doubt and even publicly express the doubts, and it's definitely not against our covenants to doubt. But I think it is against our covenants to ENCOURAGE others to doubt what the prophets have said in favor of believing our own personal opinion. Like, you'd probably get a weird reaction from the ward for saying something like "I think the Church is wrong to deny women the priesthood" over the pulpit in testimony meeting, but I don't think you're breaking your covenants. Looking up sources that fight against the Church, sending them to your friend, and trying to convince them that the prophets aren't inspired and they should share your view, IS against covenants, in my personal opinion. One of the articles I read said something to the effect that heresy is about belief, but apostasy is about action. The Church doesn't really care about heresy in most cases, but it does care about apostasy. Taking active action to try to get other people to follow your opinion over the prophets is fighting against the prophets.
I find it especially problematic because I think people need to approach questions as they're ready for them. The essence of the Church is that the Doctrine of Christ and authority to administer its ordinances has been restored, which leads people to salvation. That's the point. These other issues are not the point, but it can cause people to distance themselves from these core doctrines. I think eventually, every member should want to get their testimony to the point where they can look at any of these issues, and find the answers. But if they aren't at that point, looking at answers CAN cause them to doubt or fall away - not because the answers aren't there, but because they're not ready to understand them. Then people can fall away. So you may be strong enough to have this against-the-prophets opinion and still be active, and that's good. But the other person may not be, and you're jeopardizing their salvation by trying to actively sway people, as well as crossing the line from heresy (believing and expressing personal opinions) to apostasy (trying to get others on your side).
As an example, as a kid the idea of the endowment confused me and I couldn't understand it. It actually really upset me that I didn't know what was going on and it really stressed me out. My mom eventually told me I wasn't mature enough to understand the answers to the questions I was asking and stopped talking about it with me because it just wasn't going anywhere productive. Five years later, I still hadn't gone through the temple, but I understood the point and it didn't bother me. Nothing had changed except my maturity. Spiritual maturity and difficult gospel questions work kind of the same way.
