This is something I posted to a Christian group I belong to. I edited it a bit and added more details. I omitted some more personal stuff that I don't wish to share with a broader audience. I hope that what I write is taken in the spirit of love and not the spirit of contention. I realize that if I don't present this to you with love, then what I write will make no difference. I love LDS people. Culturally, I am still a Mormon, I have a pioneer heritage that goes back six generations. I bear no ill will toward LDS people. I simply wish to share my experience in an effort to promote my Savior, Jesus Christ. I do not desire to glorify myself or gain praise from anyone for what I've done. I know I use a lot of "I", "Me", and other first-person pronouns in this. I still believe that a person can pray to know the truth, but I also believe that they must back that up with proof.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." - 1 Thessalonians 5:21 KJV 21.
I'll start out by telling you that I served an honorable full-time mission in the Brazil São Paulo South mission between 1989 and 1991. I thought I had a testimony of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon but people kept telling me that there was a great feeling I'd feel when I prayed and that feeling is the spirit. I prayed a number of times and didn't feel anything overwhelming or powerful. I didn't feel anything bad either. I thought maybe if I read my scriptures more, or prayed more I'd feel it. I thought maybe I wasn't worthy to feel it. I wasn't sure, but I keep praying for something that never came. I wanted to feel it so bad that sometimes I would pretend that I felt it.
I even told investigators that I felt it, but I hadn't felt it at all. So yes, I lied. Later in my mission, I changed my focus from Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon to Jesus Christ. I didn't have a testimony of Joseph Smith or the Book of Mormon but I did have a testimony of Jesus Christ, so, I started asking Jesus Christ if he would walk with me personally and I did start to feel him walking with me. I found myself in an effort to bring up Christ as much as possible and minimize the amount of time I talked about Joseph Smith. We had set discussions, so this was pretty tricky.
There are a lot of details between 1991 and 2013, so I'll just cut to the chase. In 2012 I was feeling really bad about a lot of abuse that had occurred in my life. These ranged from being locked in a trailer and being abused by three neighbor boys when I was four-years old, to having a cousin urinate in my soda, to having a relative bash my head against a wall, to having my ex-wife hit me and insult me.
I also didn't feel entirely worthy of God. I felt like I was very wicked for things like having bad thoughts, getting angry with my wife and kids, and a plethora of other things large and small. I tried to repent but felt like it was never enough. The Mormon scripture 2 Nephi 25:23 says we're saved by grace AFTER ALL WE CAN DO.
Well, I thought I had done all I could do, but still didn't feel like I was saved. I thought God had given up on me, I felt like I was in a deep dark place and I figured that if I killed myself, I'd either relieve the burden I was feeling or I'd be in a place that was just as dark as where I was.
Later that year, I made a number of new friends with some Christians in my workplace as well as online. My Christian friends encouraged me to read my Bible and challenged me to read it in a year. I really wanted to understand the Bible, so I put down the King James Version (the version the LDS church uses) and picked up the Contemporary English Version (a version written for non-native English speakers and on a 2nd grade level.) Now, I'm not stupid and maybe I dumbed my Bible down way too much, but the plain language of the CEV hit me in a way the KJV never did. I read in Ephesians 2 that we're saved by grace and not by any works of our own, because we'd boast about our works if we were saved by them. At this point in time, this scripture resonated with me because of how I'd felt just a few months prior.
I started asking about Christian churches in the area. I was scared to go to one, I didn't know what to expect. Someone told me about a non-denominational Christian church called The Springs. So on January 27, 2013 I drove out to find The Springs. I thought they still held service at Desert Hills High School so on this foggy morning I started driving one of the multiple routes I could take to Desert Hills High, there are three options, each about the same distance. The morning I did this, it was unusually foggy for St. George. As I was coming up to the on-ramp for the freeway, I saw a small sign that read, "SMCC - The Springs" with an arrow pointing to the right. I wasn't certain they were still meeting at Desert Hills High so I took a right instead of getting on the freeway. I arrived about 5 minutes into the Pastor's sermon. Everything he said that day resonated with me. (This is a link to the sermon - http://smccutah.org/springs/archives/cpt_sermons/my-piece-of-the-pie-courageous-part-4-pastor-tom-mertz )
I filled out a response card and e-mailed the Pastor, asking him to contact me by phone. The next day, January 28, 2013, Pastor Tom Mertz called me around 10:00 AM. We had a very long talk about a number of things. He answered many questions that my Christian friends didn't know the answer to. They all made a lot of sense. I found out too, that there are a lot of misconceptions about mainstream Christianity that are perpetuated by Mormons, but I will go into that another time.
After chatting for around an hour, the Pastor invited me to ask Christ for forgiveness and ask him to save me. I took it one step further and asked Christ to let me know if there is a difference between the Mormon Christ (who is the spiritual brother of Satan) and the Biblical Christ (who is God in human form).
The next morning a peace came over me that I'd never felt in my entire life. The peace didn't last a day, it lasted over a month (40 days and 40 nights). I made the decision on my own that if Christ could manifest himself to me in this way without the intervention of an LDS priesthood holder, then the LDS priesthood must be false. I also decided that since I had made a distinction between the Mormon Christ and the Biblical Christ and it was the Biblical Christ manifesting himself to me, not the Mormon Christ, that the Mormon Christ is a false god. I started having a number of questions about what I was feeling too. I was learning not to rely on my feelings alone, so I started searching out answers in The Bible and all the feelings I felt were validated by scripture (another topic for another blog post).
Two weeks later, I had my name removed from the records of the LDS church.
So, my question for my LDS reader is this: Why do the missionaries ask people to pray to know that the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God, but never ask them to pray to know that Jesus is the Christ, the risen Lord, the Messiah? Why don't they ever ask people to pray to know the Bible is true? They just assume that people already know they're true. Wouldn't it stand to reason that if you get a witness from the Holy Spirit about Christ or the Bible that you'd get the same feeling about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon if they're of God?
I know I never challenged an investigator to pray about Christ or the Bible as a missionary. I have my own feelings on why this is, but I will expound on them in another blog post another day. I would like you, my reader, to ask yourself these questions and come up with your own answers.
Furthermore, I challenge you to pray to God asking him if there is a difference between the Mormon Jesus and the Biblical Jesus and ask for a relationship with the Biblical Jesus. I know you're probably already thinking, but the Mormon Jesus IS the Biblical Jesus. My challenge to you would be the same one I'd give as an LDS missionary, and that is you have to want to have a relationship with the Biblical Jesus and admit that there is a distinction and be willing to accept what will happen if you find out you worship a false christ.
I'm not able to promise you that you'll get the same results I did. If you do, I'd like to know about it. In conclusion, Mormonism did not bring me the happiness it promises. It brought me guilt, a feeling of inadequacy, a feeling that the church was always in my house and my bedroom, and a feeling that I had no control over my life. I'm now free of all that, I'm happier. I desire for other people, who may feel the same way about Mormonism, to know that there is a way out.
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