My Conversion

From my earliest of years I remember thinking how lucky I was to be a member of God’s church and to have been born into an LDS family. I clearly was special in God’s eyes to receive such a great blessing.  Later as I learned more about the preexistence, it was comforting to know that when the war took place in Heaven that I was on Jesus’ side.  And by being on Jesus’ side in Heaven I had made the first right choice in God’s plan of salvation.  I enjoyed going to church and to Sunday school.  I loved to sing the primary songs, get to say the prayer and to feel important.  It was nice when I heard people say that they too thought that I was special and that God had blessed me with such a great spirit.

Even though I was born into an LDS family I remember struggling with my inability to choose the right consistently.  One of the earliest times in my life I can remember was I was about seven or eight.  My family and I had gone up into the mountains to a church camp for the week-end.  While at this camp, we went for a hike.  I thought I knew the way, but I ended up getting lost.  I remember feeling scared and alone and not knowing what to do.  So I did the only thing I could think of which was to cry out to God for help.
I remember pleading with God to help me find my way back to camp. 

As a young boy I’d developed a problem with using curse words.  In fact, I remember skipping home from school and I would sing a little jingle I’d come up with that was made up of several curse words.  I would skip and sing it over and over.  I’m not really sure why I did this, but I thought it was pretty catchy.  So when I got lost, I reasoned with God.  I promised Him that if He would get me back to camp, I would never swear again.

God fulfilled His end of the deal and got me back to camp.  Much to my surprise nobody even had noticed I was missing, and I was too embarrassed about getting lost, so I didn’t tell them.  I kept it between me and God.

I remember that I did not swear for quite a few days, trying to keep this promise I had made to God, but eventually I broke down and started swearing again.  I was ashamed that I could not keep up my deal with God after He helped me get back. 

As time continued I remember I was about to turn eight and I was excited since that is the age I could get baptized and become a member of the Church.  Baptism had been taught a lot in primary and I was ready.  Although I was excited to get baptized I was a little scared too, because I know that I was now going to be at the age of accountability in God’s eyes.  This scared me because by this point in time I had already mastered several curse words that I had learned in school from my friends, looked at several dirty magazines and knew how to lie and steal.

Regardless of my apprehension, I knew that once I was baptized it was all going to be washed away.   I would get confirmed with the Holy Ghost, which hopefully if I did my part, would help me straighten out some of those problems I had developed in my life.

I remember knowing that I was going to have to go and meet with the Bishop.   I was a little nervous, partly because he was the “BISHOP” and the other part was that was worried he might find me out and not let me get baptized.  I cannot recall the exact questions that were asked of me at the time, but I was really glad when it was over.  The Bishop had found me good enough to get baptized.

Back when I got baptized, they would baptize us on Saturday night and then we got confirmed the following day in Sacrament meeting.  Apparently from discussion with my family, they do it all the same night now.

After getting baptized I remember being disappointed that I did not feel any different.  I guess I had the expectation that baptism would change everything and I would have gained a new handle on life.  But, I didn’t get any new victory. In fact, the only thing I gained was the knowledge that now I was responsible before God and my free pass of non-accountability before God was gone.

Although I experienced this struggle, I knew from what I had been taught that baptism was the first step towards my eternal progression, and I did find some satisfaction that I had step one out of the way.
 
The next significant time of my Church life, I could remember was around the time I was in Sixth Grade. I was almost twelve, which is the age that young men are given the Aaronic Priesthood and confirmed as Deacons.   Being a Deacon was cool.  It gave me something to do during Sacrament meeting and I got to sit up front with some of the other guys to pass out the Sacrament (for non-LDS people this is commonly referred to as communion).   At my Ward, the Deacons were also responsible for carrying around a microphone during Fast and Testimony meeting to give to the members who wished to share their testimony.   In addition, since I was twelve I now was eligible to go on Temple trips, which seemed like a lot of fun.

To become a Deacon, I had to meet with the Bishop again to determine my worthiness. When I was interviewed by the Bishop and he asked his questions, I felt pretty good since I only had to lie on a couple of questions, not too bad. 

Everything was going along as well.  I felt like I was doing my best and God was doing the rest.  I now had step two out of the way for God’s Plan of Salvation.  I only had one problem, I was looking around at the other people and I felt like a fraud.  They all seemed so much more worth then me, which created some concern.

But instead of dwelling on that for two long, I put it in the back of my mind and figured, step two down keep going you will eventually get there. 

Someone who is not LDS might wonder, why lie to the Bishop? I doubt that the people who were raised in the Church would ask that question since we all know the answer. It is easier to put on a mask, than it is to face the consequences of my actions.  For instance, in my case if I did not lie to the Bishop, I would be prohibited from going to the Temple.  My parents would then inquire as to why I was not going.  If I lied to them and told them that I just didn’t feel like it, they would make me go.  If I told them the truth, they would probably ground me or give me some other punishment.  If I told the Bishop the truth he would not let me go until he felt like I was worthy, and might give me some other punishment.  Given the alternatives, it seemed easier to lie and deal with the guilt. 

My teenage years were rough.  With puberty which basically makes a guy feel insane.  You begin to test the boundaries at home and school.  Not only do you find an interest in Girls but they find you pretty interesting too.  Unfortunately this did not help my standing before God.  It seemed like life was getting harder not easier.  The problems I had at eight now had company.  How was I going to get right before Heavenly Father?

When I was 17 I got to the point that I could not handle the guilt any longer.  My problems were no longer mine alone.  My morality had caused me to make some poor choices about my sexual choices.  A couple of indiscretions with a Girlfriend or two had finally brought me to my breaking point.  I needed to get rid of my guilt and shame.  Since I knew that my sins were beyond my ability to get forgiveness from God alone, I had to see the Bishop.  I contacted the Bishop and made an appointment to talk to him.  I then went and confessed my immorality.   The Bishop was kind, but followed Church guidelines, I was put on Church probation and my Priesthood responsibilities were suspended. Even though this was a little humiliating because I lived in a Ward with very few youth, I felt better.  Someone might be asking why does having only a few youth in your Ward add to your embarrassment?  Basically I was the only Priest in the ward at the time.  It had been my job to bless the sacrament each week.  If there had been more guys my age nobody might have noticed that I was missing in action.  But with me at Church, but not up blessing or taking the Sacrament it was obvious I was in trouble.  Oh well, I was prepared to live with the consequences of my actions.

I managed to keep pretty clear of trouble during my senior year.  I had a girlfriend, but we kept everything under control; or at least good enough so that I did not need to speak to the Bishop.  So my Senior Year of high school, I had a girl in my English class who would often talk about partying.  Well, by the end of February of my senior year, I was through listening and wanted to find out for myself what the fuss was about.  Let me tell you it was not a good choice on my part.  I’d basically exchanged my morality problems for issues with the Word of Wisdom.
 
I continued to experiment throughout the rest of my senior year of high school and into the summer.  At the end of the summer, after graduating from High School it was almost time for me to go on my mission.  I would be 19 in October and I needed to get ready.

I filled out my mission papers and had an appointment set-up with the Bishop.  During my meeting with the Bishop my partying came up and the Bishop told me that he wouldn’t send my papers in until I had stopped for about six weeks.  He said that we would need to meet then and determine if I was worthy to go.
 
During this period of time, I found that I was somewhat blacklisted by the girls I wanted to date.  Since I was 19, they expected me to go on a mission.  From the earliest ages of our life, LDS people are raised with the idea that boys must go on a mission and the girls must marry a return missionary.  This created a problem since I was kind of in that limbo state, where the LDS girls expected me to go, so they were not interested in me. I decided to turn to the dark side at this point and date outside the faith.

A few weeks went by as I was trying to get clean.  The thought of going on a mission continued to plague me.  I knew that this was a needed step if I was going to continue on the plan, but my life was not even close to where it needed to be for me to go on a mission.  In addition, I was carrying around a lot of guilt because I had not saved my money to pay for my mission, and would have to ask my parents and relatives to pay.

Since the mission thing was not looking very probable, I got a job working nights at Micron.  It was not great being part of the production line, but the money was not good for 19.  For anyone who has worked the production line knows, the nights were pretty boring.  My job was basically looking at parts to make sure that they passed inspection, and if they had defects to try and fix them.  Looking back I think they really could have almost trained a monkey to do the job.  The one upside of my job was that a lot of the job involved sitting around at a big table with several other people doing the same thing. This provided the opportunity to pass time by talking to other workers about whatever was on our minds.  Mostly sex, drugs and religion.  There were these two Born-again Christians who I would often times get into discussions over religion.  They would ask me about Mormon beliefs and I would point out how the Bible alone was insufficient.  I felt pretty good about this argument too, since in the Book of Mormon I had read a passage in 2 Nephi which said that only a fool would say that they only need a Bible. 

Many nights after having these conversations, I would go home and talk to my mom about the discussions.  I would tell her how crazy I thought these people were and that I would never become a “Born-Again Christian”. 

It is ironic, even though I was not leading the life I knew I should be leading, I still believed that Joseph Smith was a Prophet, that the LDS Church was God’s “true church”; we had a living prophet, temples, apostles and the restored gospel.  Even though I was not walking close with God, I kept thinking that one of these days I would get it back together.  I firmly believed that if I would try a little harder, I could merit God’s righteousness.  And if I didn’t ever get it back together, I would still get one of the lower kingdoms of heaven, which was described as being better than this world.
 
As time went on I continued to date a non-Mormon girl. In some ways it was kind of nice since she clearly did not have the same expectations of me.  At this point I felt like I had some three big problems preventing my happy existence, my parents expected me to go on a mission, I was still living with my parents and they had a ridiculous curfew and rules, and I needed guilt-free sex.

Given my young and naïve way of thinking, I came up with a plan, I would get married.  I figured that this would solve three problems,  if I was married no one would ask if I was going on a mission,  I would get out of my parent’s home and I would be able to have guilt-free sex.  I had my plan, now I just needed to execute it.

Although the girl I was dating was not Mormon, she was willing to take the missionary lessons, and I totally expected that she would join the Church.  But just in case she decided not to join I had a back-up plan.  If she didn’t become a member, I would wait a couple of years and then divorce her.  At that point I would get my life back together with the Church and find a nice young Mormon girl to marry.

So I proceeded with my plan and got married. We moved into an apartment and started our new journey of life. 

After getting married I was able to get on the day shift at Micron which helped with my marriage.  The day shift was significantly different than the night shift.  Although people would engage in conversations, it typically did not involve sex or drugs, and very little religion.  On day shift you had a lot of the managers and administrative staff around so conversation was pretty mild.  This was ok with me because I did really care to talk a bunch of religion anyway.

Well, being young is being dumb; I thought that the whole religion thing would kind of go away after getting married.  However, it didn’t even take a couple months for my new bride to decide she was not going to become Mormon and even worse she decided to go back to the church her and her parents had attended when she was in high school.  Needless to say I was not happy about her decision.  I kind of felt duped.  And even worse, after attending her church a couple of times, some people from her church showed up and wanted to talk to me.  I was in no mood to discuss with people who had a form of religion talk to me about their “easy-grace”.  In order to avoid being rude, I listened a little and finally they left.  I made sure that I was clear with my wife that it was fine if she wanted to attend her church, but I did not want any one else from her church showing up at my door. 

Things went smooth for a couple of months, until the time that one of my friends got back from his mission.  He was doing his homecoming talk at the church and so I went to listen.  I was very much touched by what he had to say and felt very guilty about my life.

After the service ended I went home very distraught.  I spoke to my wife about how my life was not where it needed to be.  I explained how I really felt the spirit at the LDS church and needed to get my life back in order.  I felt terrible about the mistakes and choices I had made with my life.

After talking to my wife I felt a little better, or at least good enough to push my guilt to the back burner.  We continued on for several more months, without a single religious incident, which I thought was nice. 

Being 19 and married was not what I’d expected.  I was very immature, my wife and I fought a lot, I was using drugs when I wasn’t working and did not really have any visions for my future about where I wanted things to go.  I felt like a real loser with very little hope.

After being married for about a year, the whole religion thing started to come up again.  My wife would ask me questions periodically about what I believe.   Sometimes she would bring to me a scripture and ask me what I thought about it.  Most of the time I would tell her that I did not have the answer, but I’m sure if I asked the right people I could get one.  Although my answer had no substance, it was sufficient for me.

Looking back, it is fascinating that even though I had not attended church for over a year, I still held fast to my beliefs.  I still believe that the LDS church had the only way to God and celestial glory.  In addition, I’d found a tactic that I thought worked pretty well.  When the topic of religion would come up from my wife I told her that the only reason she held onto those beliefs was that was what she was taught by her parents.  In no way did that make her beliefs or church true.
 
I knew that the LDS church was the true church and had the restored gospel.  Her church had incomplete doctrines and the Bible had lost many plain and precious truths as it was translated since the time of Christ.

However, the questions and my inability to come up with solid answers to her questions plagued me.  Something in my head kept calling me a hypocrite.  How could I say that she was wrong because she believes what her parent taught her, when I was really no different?

So I decided that I was going to find out what I believed on my own.  I was not going to allow anything or anyone to influence my beliefs outside of God.  I decided the best way to test my beliefs was through reading the Bible.  Although I though many plain and precious truths had been lost, I still believed it to be a book from God.  In addition, I had reasoned out in my mind that if God doesn’t change, the Book of Mormon would have to back up at least the truths held in the Bible.  The Book of Mormon was another testament of Christ, not a replacement for thee Bible.  Since the Bible Chronologically came before the Book of Mormon, I would start with reading the Bible. 

Since it was easier and shorter, I started in the New Testament.  To keep everything on an even playing field, and since I believed that the LDS church was true, I would only use my LDS KJV bible.  This was the Bible I trusted and had been told was the most inspired. 

When I started out, I prayed to God to show me His truth; fully expecting that the views I was taught as a Latter Day Saint would come shining through. 

After reading my Bible everyday for about three months, I got to the Book of Galatians.  For those who have not read Galatians lately I highly encourage you to read it soon.  In a nutshell, Galatians is a letter written by Paul.  His purpose was basically to warn people about false doctrines, specifically those based on works.  Paul carefully explains the purpose of the old Law and how its purpose was to be a Schoolmaster to lead people to faith alone in Christ. 

As a Latter-Day Saint, this had some familiarity to what I’d been taught.  However, there were a couple of key differences.  One of the first differences I found was in Galatians 2:21.  In this verse it tells us that if we could do anything to merit our own salvations Christ died needlessly.  It further goes on in chapter 3 to describe that the Christ came to fulfill the old Law and bring us a new law based on faith.  What was contrary to what I’d been taught growing up Mormon was that my good works do not contribute to salvation through Christ.  The Bible clearly states that it is either Christ’s sacrifice that makes us righteous or it is ours.  Unlike what the Book of Mormon teaches in 2 Nephi 25:23 where it states “it is by Grace we are saved after all we can do”, the Bible tells us in Galatians 5:1-4 that if you think you can do anything to merit salvation Christ is no benefit to you.  This teaching changed my life forever.
 
Growing up as a Latter Day Saint we had tons and tons of rules.  Don’t go to stores on Sunday, keep the Sabbath day holy, don’t swear, keep the word of wisdom, keep yourself morally pure, pay a full tithing, wear a white shirt to church because that is the sign of reverence and holiness, go to the temple, be baptized, don’t lie, don’t steal, don’t; take the Lord name in vain, do you temple work, make sure to fast and pay fast offerings, etc… 

My whole life as a Mormon I tried to earn my Heavenly Father’s approval by choosing the right.  I felt like God when I chose the right, God was happy and satisfied with me, but when I didn’t he was sad and disappointed. 

Although I’d been taught about forgiveness, I never felt completely forgiven.  How could I, when the repentance process was set-up as a series of rules and steps to prove I was actually repentant.  And if I ever committed that same sin again, I was taught that God did not forgive me the first time since someone who is not so weak as to ask for forgiveness one day and fall the next.

But through reading the Bible I found that what the LDS Church had taught was not based on God.  The majority of the teachings that the LDS church has taught are straight from the pit of Hell.  I will admit that the LDS Church has some good programs for families, teaches strong moral values and helps with the poor.   But just like counterfeit money, what makes it counterfeit is not all of the things that make it look like the original, but it is the things which are not like the original. 

This is what Paul was trying to say in Galatians, who has bewitched you.  Do you think that the Galatians were making choices which were morally opposed to God?  Of course not, there sin was not their action, but with their heart.  They had abandoned the sacrifice of Christ by trying to prove their righteousness through their own works.
 
Galatians is teaching us, that to trust in anything other than Christ for our righteousness is putting us under a Law.  The law does not make anyone righteous!  The law only proves how bad we our, so that we cry Abba Father and trust God alone.

As a Mormon this is great news, but hard to accept.  But the Bible teaches it and I believe it.  Christ came to set us free from the law through faith.  When I read this passage in Galatians 3, it changed my whole way of thinking.  I confessed to God that I no longer wanted to be under the Law.  I desperately wanted to be righteous and since He said that Jesus Christ’s sacrifice makes me Holy before Him, I accepted it as the complete payment for all of my sins.  I was Born-Again!

Now I know that as a Latter Day Saint we’ve been told that this type of salvation is cheap grace.  The devil is trying to lead people astray by making them believe they don’t have to do anything.  But if God said He makes us righteous by our faith, Ephesians 2:8-9 how do we deny that? 

But for argument sake lets say that it is our good works that saves us, and we must do all we can to get God’s grace.  Have you really done everything possible?  Do you think you are good enough to stand before God?  Put yourself in the presence o f the creator of all things, the perfect sinless God who has never known sin.  How can you possibly think that if you died today and were standing at the pearly gates and God asked you why he should let you in you could say it had anything to do with you?  Think about long and hard, why should God let you into Heaven?

Unlike the things I’d been taught as a Latter Day Saint, Christ’s payment was sufficient for all my sins.  No where in the Bible does it teach that I have to do anything else but believe in Christ.  The Bible does not teach that we have to pay back Christ, unlike what the LDS Church has taught.  You can never do anything to earn your righteousness before God.

Often times we think that if we could just quit this sin, or stop doing that, we would be ok before God.  We can do it!  Try a little harder! Do a little more!    But the Bible teaches that before we are saved we are enemies of God. 

So to answer the question,why I am a Christian the answer is simple. I am a sinner! 

I am incapable of making myself righteous before God.  Only God can satisfy the righteousness that His Holiness requires for us to dwell in His presence when we die. 

My efforts to obey the laws, comandments and ordinaces are insufficient to make me righteous before God.

If I did not accept Jesus’ payment for my sins and receive his imputed righteousness I would be going to Outer Darkness.

Trying to earn my way into Heaven was not going to work.

Since leaving the LDS church it has been a painful experience.  My heart breaks when I think of the torment my family and LDS friends live under.  I see the struggles that they all experience.  They are trying to appear righteous so they keep their sins secret, for fear of condemnation. 

I often times struggle with the pain and real possibility of my family going to Outer Darkness.  I keep praying for God to change their hearts. That God will show them that their works are insufficient to merit salvation.  Just like it says in John 3:16-18, God so loved the world that He sent His Son to die……But those who are condemned are condemned because they do not believe in the One God sent.  Not because they did this sin or did not choose the right, but because of their unbelief in the One who saves.