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  Yediyd’s Testimony – A Mortal Test by Gale
  on May 18, 2009 | 5 comments
  Tags: conversion, convert, happiness, LDS faith, love, meaning of life, missionaries, true church

  My childhood was not pretty. I was raised in several “homes” and foster homes. Both my parents were alcoholics…in fact, they met at an AA meeting! Both of them had several failed marriages and relationships which resulted in various children. I have siblings, step-siblings and half-siblings, some of whom I’ve never met, even to this day. Others I was raised with on and off at different times and various circumstances. To say the least…it was a confusing, chaotic, and unstable childhood. Through all the chaos and confusion, there was one consistent thing in my life- that was the AV 1611 King James version of the Holy Bible.

  My father, (believe it or not) was a southern Baptist preacher! He would preach about the love of Christ and the peace which passeth all understanding, but my father never knew peace, nor did he have a clue about the meaning of the word “love.” (I struggle with the meaning of it myself) As my siblings all turned to drugs, alcohol, sex or insanity as an escape from the torment of our lives, I turned to the Bible. I started memorizing it at an early age. By the time I was 16 years old, I was carrying my Bible with me to school every day and quoting whole chapters. When I was 26 years old, I quoted the first 14 chapters of Matthew on a TV show called,”The Parade Of Miracles”. It was broadcast from a church called The People’s Baptist Church in Corpus Christi, Texas.

  I didn’t know Christ or His love, but I wanted to know him. I longed to know him. As I poured over my scriptures, I found reference to Christ in every chapter I could from both the Old and the New Testaments. I wrote poems, read books (many books),about Christ, New Testament times and Old Testament times. As I matured into adulthood, I started “church hopping”, checking out many different churches and religions, each one claiming to have the only truth. Each one claimed that they were the the true church, and with each new church, I came away feeling empty. Finally, after my marriage failed and I started raising my two children alone, I decided to give up on church altogether. Although I could quote scripture better than most preachers I knew, I still lacked an understanding of who Christ was. I knew about him, but I didn’t know him. My problem was 18 inches long. There are 18 inches between your head and your heart. I had Christ’s words in my head, but they had not reached my heart. If I missed Heaven…it was going to be by 18 inches!

  Then, one night I happened to see a commercial for a free Book of Mormon, another Testament of Jesus Christ. Wow! It had never occurred to me that the Book of Mormon was a “Testament of Jesus Christ.” I had the Old Testament and the New Testament, what was this? A third Testament? I had never heard of such a thing! Maybe that was the missing piece! I grabbed my phone and dialed the number! When the person on the other end asked if I would like someone to visit me, as well as receive my free copy of the Book of Mormon, I said,” yes!” I had my first visit in February 2004. God bless those missionaries! I sure gave them a run for their money! I knew we were in the “last days”, and the the Bible says,”Yea, let God be true, but every man a liar” (Romans 3:4). I did not trust them; I knew many false prophets would arise in the last days, but I gave them my word that I would not make any decisions until I had read the Book of Mormon.

  A funny thing happened as I started reading the Book of Mormon-I recognized my beloved Bible on every page! It didn’t start in First Nephi,either…it started with the introduction to the Book of Mormon and then the testimonies of the witnesses. I recognized God’s numbers, His “set” way of organization; I started pulling out God’s numbers-3,8,12-from the very first pages and I knew that this book was lining up with my Bible. As I read on, I decided that the Book of Mormon was either written by God or by Satan, but it could not have been written by any man! The wisdom was too deep. It lined up too well with the Bible, on so many levels. I knew that it was just not possible for man to have written this book. As I realized this, at first, I feared in my heart that the Book of Mormon was a counterfeit. Was this the strong delusion sent by Satan in the last days that my Bible had warned me about? Were these missionaries the false prophets that I knew would arise in the last days? I was sure in my heart that the Book of Mormon was a supernatural book, but to which end? I also knew that “ol’ smutty face” was a master of imitation and forgery. If anybody could make a “copy” of the Bible, yet twist it, he could! But the missionaries kept telling me to pray about it, and ask God if it was the truth. Satan wouldn’t advise me to ask God about anything! The Bible says in Isaiah 55:11 that God’s word will not return void and it didn’t. I had not memorized all that scripture for naught.

  There was only one conclusion I could make about the Book of Mormon. My Bible came back to me and testified to me as I read each page of the Book of Mormon. The Holy Spirit was there too, and so were the missionaries…patiently putting up with my endless questions. I swam through a sea of confusion, but God knew my heart and he guided me back to him. Praise God!!! I’ve finally found the true church of Jesus Christ, and I can testify from my very soul that the Book of Mormon is the truth. It changed my life and it is the final piece to the puzzle of my life. The pieces have come together and I finally have the whole truth. I finally know Christ…REALLY know him, and I have felt his love for REAL this time. I’m home…at last!!!

  I was inspired to write this poem during our Stake Conference in November of 2004. I had been reading LDS poetry from a book that I had borrowed from the church library and I had this feeling of frustration that all the LDS poetry that I had read so far kept painting this “rosy” picture of happy childhoods and “goodly” parents and how the heroin’s had to find their own testimonies. I thought to myself, why doesn’t anybody write about not being born into this church, yet finding their testimony? I was thinking these thoughts while listening to Conference when the Lord whispered into my heart…”Why don’t YOU write that poem?” I wrote it that night after Conference.

  The Mortal Test

  A spirit I was, a mortal to be…
  The father came and spoke to me.
  You’ve kept, my child, your first estate
  and now it’s time to delegate…
  A mother to give you mortal birth
  a body and a place on Earth.
  I know you’d like your mother, “kind”
  but I have something else in mind.

  You see, my child, it’s easy to be
  in a holy family that pleases me.
  What’s not so easy and takes more grit
  is to be placed with parents that are unfit.
  A childhood filled with fear and unrest,
  you must endure and pass the test.
  As you struggle through confusion and pain
  Your efforts to find me again will not be in vain.

  I love you and I’ll guide you back
  if you will withstand Satan’s attack.
  Your progression greatly will be multiplied
  and I’ll be there waiting on the other side…
  with rewards beyond you wildest dream
  because you took the path extreme.
  The Earth will be your proving ground
  but Heaven is where you will be crowned.
  You will receive rewards so sweet,
  just toss them all at Jesus’ feet.

  You will then be allowed to look upon my face
  and once again receive your heavenly mother’s embrace.
  I know you can do this, I have no doubt
  because you’re a spirit Divine and devout.
  I’ve planned this life and task to do
  because I have great confidence in you.

  (1 Corinthians 10:13)
  I know God won’t give me anything that I can’t handle…
  I just wish He didn’t trust me so much!!!!!

   
• 

  KeithLBrown: In the Lord’s Due Time by admin
  on May 8, 2008 | 1 comment
  Tags: book of mormon, mormon church, mormon missionaries, religion, true church

  In the Lord’s Due Time

  By Brother Keith L. Brown
  First Counselor, Annapolis Ward Bishopric

  This sacrament talk was delivered to the congregation of the Annapolis Maryland Ward of the Annapolis Maryland Stake of Zion of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Sabbath Day morning, 20 April 2008.

  In 1 Nephi 19:23 we learn about likening the Scriptures unto ourselves “that it might be for our profit and learning.” With that thought in mind, I would like to turn to the Old Testament book of Jeremiah, chapter 29, verses 11 through 13 and share a few thoughts with you this morning as to how the Scriptures found there apply to my own personal life and perhaps to your own lives as well.

  In Jeremiah 29:11-13 we read these words, “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.”
  (More …)

   

• Yediyd by admin
  on April 19, 2008 | 2 comments
  Tags: book of mormon, mormon missionaries, mormon scriptures, true church

  My Testimony….the Mortal Test (poem)”””’

  The Mortal Test

  A spirit I was, a mortal to be…
  The father came and spoke to me.
  You’ve kept, my child, your first estate
  and now it’s time to delegate…
  A mother to give you mortal birth
  a body and a place on Earth.
  I know you’d like your mother, “kind”
  but I have something else in mind.

  You see, my child, it’s easy to be
  in a holy family that pleases me.
  What’s not so easy and takes more grit
  is to be placed with parents that are unfit.
  A childhood filled with fear and unrest,
  you must endure and pass the test.
  As you struggle through confusion and pain
  Your efforts to find me again will not be in vain.

  (More …)

   
• 

  Steve Frampton by staff
  on April 19, 2008 | leave a comment
  Tags: book of mormon, mormon church, true church

   

• President Thomas S. Monson: I know that my Redeemer lives by staff
  on April 19, 2008 | leave a comment
  Tags: jesus christ, mormon church, true church

  My brothers and sisters, we laugh, we cry, we work, we play, we love, we live. And then we die. Death is our universal heritage. All must pass its portals. Death claims the aged, the weary and worn. It visits the youth in the bloom of hope and the glory of expectation. Nor are little children kept beyond its grasp. In the words of the Apostle Paul, “It is appointed unto men once to die.”12

  And dead we would remain but for one Man and His mission, even Jesus of Nazareth. Born in a stable, cradled in a manger, His birth fulfilled the inspired pronouncements of many prophets. He was taught from on high. He provided the life, the light, and the way. Multitudes followed Him. Children adored Him. The haughty rejected Him. He spoke in parables. He taught by example. He lived a perfect life.

  Though the King of kings and Lord of lords had come, He was accorded by some the greeting given to an enemy, a traitor. There followed a mockery which some called a trial. Cries of “crucify him, crucify him”13 filled the air. Then commenced the climb to Calvary’s hill.

  He was ridiculed, reviled, mocked, jeered, and nailed to a cross amidst shouts of “Let Christ the King of Israel descend now from the cross, that we may see and believe.”14 “He saved others; himself he cannot save.”15 His response: “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”16 “Into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.”17 His body was placed by loving hands in a sepulchre hewn of stone.

  On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James, along with others, came to the sepulchre. To their astonishment, the body of their Lord was gone. Luke records that two men in shining garments stood by them and said: “Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen.”18

  Next week the Christian world will celebrate the most significant event in recorded history. The simple pronouncement, “He is not here, but is risen,” was the first confirmation of the literal Resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The empty tomb that first Easter morning brought comforting assurance, an affirmative answer to Job’s question, “If a man die, shall he live again?”19

  To all who have lost loved ones, we would turn Job’s question to an answer: If a man die, he shall live again. We know, for we have the light of revealed truth. “I am the resurrection, and the life,” spoke the Master. “He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.”20

  Through tears and trials, through fears and sorrows, through the heartache and loneliness of losing loved ones, there is assurance that life is everlasting. Our Lord and Savior is the living witness that such is so.

  With all my heart and the fervency of my soul, I lift up my voice in testimony as a special witness and declare that God does live. Jesus is His Son, the Only Begotten of the Father in the flesh. He is our Redeemer; He is our Mediator with the Father. He it was who died on the cross to atone for our sins. He became the firstfruits of the Resurrection. Because He died, all shall live again. “Oh, sweet the joy this sentence gives: ‘I know that my Redeemer lives!’ “21 May the whole world know it and live by that knowledge, I humbly pray, in the name of Jesus Christ, the Lord and Savior, amen.

  (General Conference, April 2007)

   

• Nombuso by staff
  on April 19, 2008 | leave a comment
  Tags: book of mormon, jesus christ, mormon church, mormon prophet, true church

  I would like to share my testimony by telling anyone who’s going to read this that I know the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter – Day Saints is true. I know that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ did appear to the young Joseph Smith and that the Book of Mormon is another testament of Jesus Christ. I know that Heavenly Father loves each and everyone of us and that He knows us by name. I love the Savior because I know that He sacrificed His life for you and me. I know that the more we read our scriptures, its the more we will draw closer to Heavenly Father.I know that Gordon B. Hinkcley is the True Prophet of God and that the church is directed by God and His only Begotten Son, even Jesus Christ. I love the Savior so much. I say and write all these words in the Mighty Name Of our Lord and Savior, even Jesus Christ. Amen.

   

• “Seek and Ye Shall Find”: My Conversion to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Commonly Known As the Mormon Church) by staff
  on April 19, 2008 | leave a comment
  Tags: bbok of mormon, mormon missionaries, mormons, true church

  As a Child…

  I still remember standing at the top of the stairs as a child wondering who I was and why I was on the earth. I hungered for that knowledge like no other, and I felt spiritually starved. I attended a Christian church but asked what to them were unanswerable questions. I posed a few like these: “Well, who lived in heaven and took part in that war besides Jesus? (If there was a war in heaven, as taught, then there had to have been more than two people there, I reasoned.); Why do I have to confess the same sins twice?” and “How can God and Jesus be the same person?” I lived as if on a daily spiritual fare of milk and toast, not knowing there was a buffet table divinely set and beckoning me.

  What’s My Purpose?

  Questions about the purpose of life sprang up as consistently as crocuses do in spring, any time I was willing to allow them to pop through the soil of my soul. At one particular point in my life, I began to despair that I would never know my purpose or the answers to the questions of my heart. Without those answers, the desire to live waned. The world looked cold and senseless. How could I function from day to day without knowing ‘why’ I was functioning? I couldn’t tick if I didn’t know why I was ticking.

  Lacking Some Key to the Universe

  Lacking some key to the universe, I sat despondently on the edge of my studio bed, staring at a bottle of sleeping pills. I thought about my circumstances. I had little impetus for moving forward from day to day. I was tired of fumbling for house keys in the cold, of working for work’s sake, of studying theories spilled over in classes without a rod to evaluate them. So I planned to give up on life. At that time, though, I was caught by surprise- by a gentle but profound strain of impressions from a loving Father through what I now recognize as His Spirit. I was told, through those welcome whisperings, that “every moment of love and every moment of discovery in my life had not been wasted” and that I “must have the courage to live on.” I was also told, in fact spiritually guaranteed, that I would find the purpose of life. I accepted with confidence those impressions though I didn’t quite comprehend their appearance on the screen of my soul.

  Receiving a Spiritual Witness

  I spent the next months contemplating my life. On one remarkable occasion, as I was jogging around the neighborhood under the exquisite light of a full moon, I received what I can only describe as an injection of truth–a stunning, indelible witness that God lived. I recall sitting down on the curb, sobbing, tears of joy. I was changed instantly. I felt loved, and I felt an overwhelming inclination to love like never before. I knew there was a God which thing I hadn’t known for myself just moments before. I knew, at last, I had a purpose. This was so delicious to taste. I longed to know more about God, his plan for me and my duty and responsibility towards Him and others.

  So Which Church Is True?

  I borrowed a Bible from a Catholic Church, lay out in the field behind the rectory, and read through the New Testament for the first time. I marveled that this book had been preserved for me– and anyone else looking for truth. I particularly recall pondering the word, “saved” and the atonement of Christ. I was filled to know that the Lord, who had just literally saved my life physically, had also died to save me spiritually. I knew that I had an advocate in whom I could completely trust.

  I then began to identify and list in my trusty silver notebook, points of doctrine Christ had espoused and the characteristics of his Church. A little like Joseph, I wanted to know which Church taught the truth about the Savior. I learned much from that first scriptural immersion. But three ideas particularly prepared me for the fullness of the gospel. First, I knew that we could become perfect even as God is, for the Savior Himself taught the doctrine of perfection to his apostles as recorded in Matthew 12:48. Secondly, I anticipated more revelation than the Bible for the Lord told His apostles (in Mark) that there was more to be revealed that they were not ready to bear. Thirdly, I embraced the truth that there was only one, true way to salvation as the scriptures indicated: “one faith, one baptism.” In fact, I envisioned a time when all quarrels among churches would end, and all denominations would be subsumed under the one true church. I decided to begin a search for the true Church, thinking, again, that it was, likely, not on the earth. After visits to dozens of churches–from Swedenborgian to Methodist–and reading through many books and pamphlets, comparing their teachings with those I learned in the scriptures, I always came up empty. No one, it seemed, scored on every point. There was always some disappointing deviation from what I learned from the scriptures to anticipate in Christ’s Church.

  Finding Truth in the Strangest of Places

  During another investigative visit to a different denominational church, I found myself, again, disappointed. This time, I was on the brink of abandoning my quest altogether. It was too painful to think that so many who professed the Christ did not know the full truth about Him or about the ways He indicated we should administer his ordinances. Just then, on my way out of the building, I discovered an “anti-Mormon” brochure on a rack in the vestibule. As I was in the habit of collecting whatever I could grasp on various religions, I clasped it eagerly and tucked it away to read at home. When I arrived at the Baptist minister’s home, where I was a guest, I began to devour this pamphlet. I read eagerly some of the claims of the Church, namely, that we could become perfect (”As God is man may become.”); that there was additional revelation than the Bible (something called a Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants); that there was a code of health (which I ‘d anticipated through the Spirit); and more. The critical comments seemed superfluous, and I recognized those “Mormon” claims as true from my own reading of the New Testament.

  I was electrified and knew I had found something more than a kernel of truth. I searched for a Book of Mormon and found one in a small library in Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania and took it home with a half gallon of ice cream. I dipped into both that night and hardly slept. I knew it was true. Before I found the book, I located in a different library a file of pamphlets on the purpose of life left by a missionary whom I do not know but will one day embrace. In there, I found the purpose of life clearly explained. It thrilled me and I barely contained my emotion. It was all I could do to refrain from squeezing the whispering librarians stacking the shelves. I recognized it immediately as the truth.

  I eventually looked up “Mormons” in the phone directory, and read, “See The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” It made perfect sense to me that the Savior would reserve His full name for His true and living Church. I eventually called the Church and, through a wonderful Australian family, the Lovelands, later met the missionaries. I read the Joseph Smith record of the first vision and knew that he had written and described truthfully his search for truth and his unexpected beautiful answer in seeing personally the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. I testify his account and experience are true. I felt in some small measure that I understood his search, for I had made one myself, for the same reason. I felt gratitude, for his prayer was answered in a marvelous way, to bring back the light that I had only to accept.

  I entered the waters of baptism a short time later and received the gift of the Holy Ghost, and feel like the lights have been turned on in my life as the lights of the gospel were turned on through the restoration of Christ’s Church. I have come to love Joseph more and more for his willingness to stand alone often and immovable against mobs, opposition, and persecution in order to defend and sustain the kingdom. I love him for his love of the Savior and for his understanding of the gospel and of temple ordinances. I love him for being true, even to death, that we might know Christ through his restored teachings.

  I love the Savior and know that He is perfect in every attribute. I know that He loves each of us and that He has a plan for our lives. I testify that He lives as a glorified being, that He is separate from the Father, and the Holy Ghost, though they are one in purpose, mind, and will. I testify that the Savior actively intervenes in our life through His word, Spirit, and living oracles—including twelve apostles and a living prophet. I testify that His Church is upon the earth, even The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and invite all honest truth-seekers to investigate for themselves these eternal doctrines.

  For more information, please feel free to visit http://www.mormon.org, ldsblogs.com, MormonWiki, or http://www.moregoodfoundation.org.

   

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