Can the LDS trust their feelings?

Apologia Utah

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Hi ladies, can we give you a gospel track tonight? You guys have any sort of faith background or anything?

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Yeah, we're members of the church. Okay, we're Christians from a local Baptist Church, and we're just trying to get in conversations with our

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LDS neighbors. Yeah, we we sometimes show our Christians friends like, you know, some of the dialogue we have and stuff like that.

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So it's pretty cool. Yeah. You guys, were you raised in it? And you're from Provo area?

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We're actually both from San Diego. Oh, I always I used to live in a

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Ventura County, northwest of LA. And when I visit, you know, friends or family you see the huge temple.

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The LA one? No, the San Diego one. It looks like it's like pretty majestic.

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Yeah, it looks like a big castle. Yeah, so I always remember that. Have you guys heard of...

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Oh, what's it called? Hold on, let me look on Instagram. It's like a non -denominational, like, they do like this thing on Sunday nights.

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Is it that Gary Johnson does it? These interfaith dialogues or something? Yeah, it's like...

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Intersect? I'm trying to think of what it's called. Let me figure... I think it's Intersect. I think it's called

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Warehouse Worship. Oh, that's different. I've heard of Intersect, but I have not heard of this one. Well, we always like to get, you know, our

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LDS neighbors' opinion about things like... There's these really obscure doctrines, but they're pretty significant in that they put a big divide between Christianity and Mormonism or Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day

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Saints. That would be like the eternal progression, you know, that as man is,

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God once was. As God is, man may become. That's Prophet Lorenzo Snow. You have the

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King Paul Discourse by Joseph Smith. He said you've got to learn to become gods one day. And so, I know in a sense that the

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Bible describes we are sons and daughters of the living

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God. We've been adopted in by Christ. We've been adopted by what

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Christ has done. And that Philippians chapter 1, He who began a good work in us will complete until the day of Christ Jesus.

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And we will inherit as Jesus leaves away. He leaves and He says, I'm preparing a place for you.

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I think it is my understanding biblically that He's preparing a place that we can glorify

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God and enjoy Him forever. And to be in His presence forever. The one true God.

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And so, when I look at the doctrine of eternal progression, I go, but that doesn't make sense.

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If we can take on the deity in a divine nature like God, then we've just become another

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God, right? Can I share my opinion with you on that? Yeah, yeah. So, I just wanted to say all that. Now you can, please.

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So, I mean, the best answer that I heard explained to me is... I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah.

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I'm super clumsy. So, I was just moving around from my... We were missionary companions. No kidding?

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Yeah. In Florida. In Florida. Wow. But I think my kind of understanding... And you're both from San Diego?

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Yeah. We didn't know each other before. We didn't know each other. That is wild. Wow. I mean, we were like best friends for Californians, you know?

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We were the only Californians in our mission. And so, we were like all the crazy people from Utah. Like, we can be the normal ones from California.

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The normal missionaries. You guys are intense. We're the fun ones. We're the fun ones. But like,

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I mean, my take always has been on it is... How can a mortal mind comprehend immortal topics, right?

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I mean, God is... I don't... To me, like the complexities of the afterlife are something that we're never going to understand in this life.

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I believe that God is our father, you know? That's definitely... I mean, I shouldn't say our.

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My, like, from my personal experience, my testimony, my belief in things. And so, you know, it makes sense.

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Children grow up to be like their parents. I mean, I watch myself. So many things

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I learned from my mom, you know? Like, I'm not my mom. But I'm very similar to my mom in a lot of ways.

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And so, I think that my mom... My mom didn't have me as a child and have the expectation that she wanted me to remain in the state of a five -year -old forever.

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She wanted me to grow up. She wanted me to be independent. She wanted me to do all these things. And so, I kind of think with God that...

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I don't think we're ever going to replace God. I don't think I'm going to be able to stand on a pedestal next to God and say,

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Hey, I'm the same as you. But I do believe that justice... I believe our pattern of parenting is reflective of it, right?

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That he wants us to grow. He wants us to progress. He expects us to become as he is.

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And so, I don't think... I don't think we replace the position of God. I think God will always be our God.

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But I think that... I don't think that our progression is in this life. I think that would be kind of sad to me, if you think about it.

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I think of my time during COVID, right? Sitting inside for a year was like torture. Because we're not doing anything.

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We're not going anywhere. We're not changing. Whatever. And I think an eternity of that... Then what would be the point of this life?

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It would kind of be meaningless. Okay, so let me ask you a follow -up. So, I've heard from other

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LDS folks... Almost exactly the whole... God wants us to be like him.

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Our Father wants us to be like him. Wouldn't our earthly fathers... They say that often, to be honest.

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And so, besides being trained in that... Besides hearing that and testifying to that at sacrament meetings...

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Or being trained in that in the missionary handbook or anything... Where do you come full on with that truth?

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Where do you see that as a truth in the Book of Mormon?

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Or the Bible? Or the DNCs? Or the Pearl of Great Price? Where do you go... You know what?

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I've heard this so much. And we all say it often. But where do we derive that?

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Is it just verbally from the prophet? So, what do you say to that? My opinion on it with anything is...

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I mean, yes. I could pull up scriptures for you. I have my scriptures on my phone. I have a whole list of things that...

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Yes. That'll support that? Oh, okay. But, to me... That's not what really matters.

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So, yes, we want to have primary sources to turn to. We don't want to just have opinions all the time.

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But for me, I feel like my relationship with God isn't based on what I've been told. Or what I've read.

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Because I read a lot of textbooks every day. And I don't have any connection to them.

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To me, everything having to do with God is having experience with God. Why do

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I read the Book of Mormon every day? Because when I read the Book of Mormon, I feel peace. And so, to me, I associate that with I'm feeling

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God. I see. And so, with a lot of these things, I... Just personally...

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You can share your opinion, too. But I feel like I take things to God in prayer questions. And that's how

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I come to find truth for myself. I don't... I mean, yes, there's a lot of supporting doctrine in the scriptures and stuff.

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That I appreciate. And I know those scriptures and stuff. Yes, I believe they're true. But I think it's more the experience that I have with my religion.

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More than someone told me to believe this, and so I do. Because if that was my pattern,

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I wouldn't do it. Because people tell me to work out. And maybe go to the gym once a month. We're told all these things, and I don't do them.

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And for me, that's how I always know. It's different because it's something that I want to do. I feel drawn to do. And I think it's because of that experience

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I have that's created my belief. Instead of a piece of paper creating my belief.

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So with that, what differentiates your experience of determining truth?

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You largely said that your experience in the prayer, and that assurance through that process shows you truth.

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What differentiates your experience from a genuine Muslim who says,

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We found truth. We found truth in the Quran. Jesus was just a prophet.

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He didn't die for sinners, and stuff like that. And so even the doctrine of the

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Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints, and Joseph Smith, the founder, would say all their professors are corrupt.

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He said that, of course, largely about the Protestant denominations in that day, and about the

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Roman Catholics. But I think that could apply for especially those who deny

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Christ outright. The Muslim says, I've had an experience. I know that God is true.

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The Jehovah's Witness says, I know Jesus. He was the first and best of beings.

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He's Michael the Archangel, which is not in LDS. So what's that?

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I guess what I'm getting at, real quick. We have to go, okay, there's a subjective, subjectives, and objectives.

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There's solid, rock, truth. And so there's a whole lot of this relativism going around in our world today, going,

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I've got my truth, you've got your truth. But if we both say we have truth, and we contradict each other in our truths, then one of us is wrong.

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I don't believe that one of us is wrong. I believe that God doesn't just love members of your church, or my church, or the

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Muslim church, or any church. I believe that God is our God. It's a God that we share. It's not just my

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God versus your God. But what about salvation, eternal life, though? So that's only promised to those who were found in Christ?

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But I believe that's available to all. Just really quick, you're asking, okay, so what makes my church completely true, and other people's partially true?

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Right, because that's their claim. You've got to be baptized in our church. It's a true church. There's so many answers to it.

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I mean, it sounds like you're very well -versed in our doctrine, so I'm sure you're well -educated. No, I'm really not, actually.

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One of the ways that we always describe it to people on our missions that seem to make the most sense to me is, you know in the

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Bible, like, okay, Matthew, Mark, Luke, Jesus is there, right? I guess they're eyewitnesses to it.

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So there, Jesus is actually present. They're writing about people who have met Jesus, okay?

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So like, Jesus establishes this church. I mean, Jesus was baptized. We baptize using the exact same words that Jesus was baptized by.

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I'm sure you do, too. A lot of people do. Matthew 20, baptizing in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Ghost, yeah.

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And so, we have all these things. And so we always kind of describe it in an analogy, just because that's how I visualize things.

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But if you visualize, like, when Jesus Christ was there, it was a perfect glass table. And so, like, the four legs of the table, you can imagine being prophets, apostles, priesthood power, and Jesus Christ.

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And so that's kind of what we visualize is those four important supporting legs, whatever.

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So, obviously, Jesus Christ was taken out. Eventually, the prophets and apostles were killed, left the earth.

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So then the priesthood's gone, and the glass table falls. I've actually never heard this analogy before. Oh, okay. Good. Okay, cool. So then, you know, the glass table hits the floor, and it shatters, right?

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And so there's all these pieces of truth. And so, I don't think God would ever, like, abandon people completely.

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And so I believe that without that prophetic leadership, that there wasn't someone to help explain what the truth was.

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And so I believe that people came and picked up pieces of these puzzles, pieces of this glass, and tried to build their own table.

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So Buddhists, everyone, you would say? Everyone, yeah. Atheists, even? Everyone tries to find truth. They try to build truth for themselves.

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But without all four of those elements, you can't have the full thing. So I believe that when Joseph Smith came, that he was able to restore that glass table.

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And so that's my answer of why I believe we have the current. You know, as I'm sure you've heard, we believe our restoration is ongoing, right?

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It's not done. It's not finished. It's continual. And so, I mean, I believe that that glass table's still being perfected today.

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But that's kind of my understanding of how we have all these different… Because our religion believes…

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I'm in a New Testament class at BYU. I can't believe how many things are so similar in our religion to Judaism.

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That there's so many similarities that I never knew about. I was not well -versed in the Bible. I had no idea.

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But I think that, to me, that kind of explains how we have all these pockets of truth and that we needed a prophet again.

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Why would Jesus call prophets and not call prophets now? It's not, you know, the processes of God don't go out of style.

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It's not like, oh, prophets don't matter. You know, that I think that Joseph was called as a prophet to be a prophet.

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We have a prophet today just to continue, just as Jesus had to come and establish his doctrine for us.

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I believe that. I don't know if that makes sense. No, that makes sense. And you made me think of, with the glass table thing, almost about like Romans 1 and Romans 2, where it says, basically, you know, it talks about,

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For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness.

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And they exchange the worship of the creature rather than the creator. But it goes on to say, even though they know

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God, they do not regard him as God. They don't worship him as God anymore. And then it says in Romans chapter 2, it says that the law of God is written on their hearts.

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So that would be my understanding is that it's not that truth is scattered everywhere and everyone has a little bit of it.

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It's that God has made us in his image in Genesis chapter 1 and 2. He says,

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I've made men and women in my image. And with that, he's written his law upon our hearts.

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And so that intrinsically, inside of us, even on an island in Papua New Guinea, who've never heard the gospel or read the

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Bible, there's even someone who's murdered another tribal member, and they know it's wrong because God has written his law upon their hearts.

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Yeah, the light of Christ, right? Yeah, yeah. So that's what I would say. And then the prophecy thing in modern day prophets, we would, of course, disagree with that.

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Hebrews chapter 1 says that Jesus Christ is the final prophet in these last days. God speaks for Jesus Christ.

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He's completed his revelation. But do you guys have anything else to ask these nice ladies? I don't know.

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I'd say in terms of the glass table, he's talking about almost like the great apostasy, right? The falling away, the breaking.

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Oh, okay. The Bible states in Jude, it says, earnestly contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.

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And it also says in Matthew that on this rock I'll establish my church and the gates of hell will never prevail against it.

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And Jesus himself says, don't be sad when I leave. For one is greater than I is coming.

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The helper is coming who will guide you into all truth, right? The Holy Spirit is coming. So just because Jesus goes away doesn't mean one leg of the table is gone.

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Actually, he leaves us the gift of the Holy Spirit, the spirit of Christ that dwells within us for all who believe in Jesus.

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So the question is, how do we know that the prophecies and the revelation that Joseph Smith gave is actually true?

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That's the question. How do you know? I think my big thing when it came to understanding

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Joseph Smith. So I grew up, my parents, both members, their parents members. My family is actually directly from Brigham Young.

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Wow. So when I kind of came to it, it was kind of like this thing that I felt was like engraved on my brain.

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Like, you have to believe this. Right, right. Everything that's taken, it's only doctrine. And I thought my parents were crazy.

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I was like, how is that only? Like, I don't get it. I don't see that.

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Like, how would God only like limit his word, like full word, just to one church? Like, why isn't it to everyone else?

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Like, that doesn't seem fair. So when I graduated high school, I went on my own little hunt.

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I went to many different religious meetings, Protestant. I went to a Lutheran meeting, a

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Catholic meeting. I actually had a friend who was Jewish, and I went to one of her meetings. Yeah. I can't remember the other ones because there was a lot of them.

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Yeah. But I went on this big old long trail trying to figure out where I felt was right. Now, I think my biggest mistake that I made was

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I took out all forms of doctrinal -based things, meaning any form of scripture. I took the Book of Mormon away.

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I took the Bible away. Any other churches, if they had the Quran, whatever it was, I just got rid of the

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Word of God and was like, all right, I'm going to figure this out on my own, and I'm only going to go through what I feel, which

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I think I was wrong for doing. I think I should have continued to take as many of the documents as I could, actual doctrinal, because for me now -

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To test them and stuff. For me now, I look at scripture no matter what it is.

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If it's scriptural -based, if it's about Jesus Christ, then that's where I can find Jesus Christ is through actual hardcore, like, a book

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I can hold. Oh, yeah. Or on my phone if it's the app or whatever. But I remember sitting in a

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Protestant meeting. Not a Protestant, Presbyterian. I always get the words mixed up. That's a Protestant denomination.

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They're all Protestant denominations. Anyways, yeah, keep going. I'm listening, I'm listening. So I was sitting in a Presbyterian meeting with one of my friends, and I was listening to,

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I believe they called him a reverend. I can't remember exactly what they called him. So I was listening to him speak, and he was talking about charity and how we need to love our neighbors and kind of that big classic spiel that I think everyone hears.

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And I was just sitting there, and I was like, I love everything this guy is saying. And I feel a lot of peace, but I feel something missing right now.

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And I don't know what it is. And I remember I went home and prayed that night, and I was just like, all right, listen.

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I've gone to all these churches. I feel really good in all of them. I haven't found one that I feel is weird or anything.

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They all feel great. I feel Jesus in all of them. But why don't I feel like he's there with me?

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I just feel like I'm there feeling good. Why is it I don't feel Jesus sitting next to me?

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And I remember that next Sunday I went to church with my parents, and I was sitting there, and all of a sudden

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I could feel like someone was next to me. And I'm like, this is where it's at. And I sat there, and I was like, you know what?

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I feel like this is where I need to be at. And from there I was then directed to go on a mission. I went on a mission not having a testimony of anything in the church besides the fact that I thought families could be together forever, and that was about it.

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And I went out there, and I was like to everyone, I'm like, listen, I don't even know what I'm saying, but I just feel like God told me to come here.

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I don't know why, but God said, get a name tag on and get out there. And I went, I guess if you're telling me, okay,

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I'll go. And I went home learning, okay, I think I know where I'm going.

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And I'm still in that process of having completely firm truth because, like she said, I think it's an ongoing thing.

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I'm constantly learning where I feel whole. And so far, I haven't found it anywhere else.

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I know that I feel whole within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints because that is where I have felt closest to Jesus.

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And I think reason being, like when you mentioned the Holy Spirit and everything, when I was baptized, like they gave us the extra thing of you have the

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Holy Spirit with you everywhere. I think that's how it is for all of us. We all have the Holy Spirit. I don't think there's one person that is exempt from having the

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Holy Spirit. It might be less depending on the things you're doing, but everyone has access to the

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Holy Spirit. And I think because of that, we all have an ability to hear

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God. And whenever God comes to you to say where it's supposed to go, that's where you're supposed to go.

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I think no matter who you are, if you can do anything to get close to Jesus, whatever it is, I don't really care.

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Get close to Jesus. That's all that matters. Yeah, yeah, no, I appreciate that. I accept the experience.

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But the question, for example, I'll use like a scriptural foundation. I appreciate what you said too.

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It would be stupid if I said, Oh man, you didn't experience something that you obviously experienced. How do we know that what you experienced is actually true?

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Is the question. But I think that's what faith is, right? How do you know that there's a God? Question for you.

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And I like placing it like this. Just a little bit about my background. I had two stake callings before I resigned.

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And I turned missionary, went through the temple, all nine. I actually got a stamp of approval by Elder Uchtdorf to teach

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Mormon doctrine. So I actually do know your doctrine. Hey, you can help me out. I just got called as a Sunday school teacher yesterday.

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Like, you can help me. You won't want my help at this point. But let's just take this post for an example.

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Okay. So we're talking about. I know, I was like. We're talking about Jump to Truth. The wiggly one.

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Connor has really good books. I know. I tell him all the time. So if we take this poll, for example, it's a free country, right?

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So you're talking about all the different religions. I could sit here and worship this poll, yes? Sure. I mean, if you're going to worship the polls,

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I don't. Yeah, go for it. Okay, but I can worship it. If that's what you want to do, you go for it. Now, but here's the bigger question. And this is what we're talking about with truth.

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If I were to call this poll Jesus Christ, does that make me a Christian? No, she didn't, but.

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Why? What's your definition? What truth is your definition foundation on? A person is not a poll.

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You know, it's kind of like. But if it's my experience that that's Jesus, then how is that different?

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Well, I don't think I can tell you what your experience is. You know, standing as an outsider, no, I don't think this is

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Jesus Christ. I think Jesus Christ is a person. And I think that it takes a person to make you feel something. You know, like,

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I don't, I don't feel any connection to this poll. You know, maybe you do or this hypothetical person does.

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But I don't think that that's something that. I don't think I can tell you you're wrong because it's your experience.

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It's your opinion. And I can only tell you for me. How do I know that Joseph Smith is a prophet?

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It's because of something I felt, you know, and it's. Right. And that's what we're saying is it says in the

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Bible that you need to test the spirit. So it says that even if an angel comes down from heaven and preaches you a different gospel than what has been preached, let him be accursed.

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So it's not, we're not talking about like demons or anything else. We're saying even if an angel were to come down and go, hey, this is a different thing.

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Let him be accursed. So are you familiar with the Bereans? You take a

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New Testament. You will get to know them. I'm three weeks in now. Okay. So in Acts, Paul goes and visits the

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Bereans in Thessalonica. You're familiar with Thessalonians? Yeah. Okay. So this is Bereans. So when he goes and speaks to him, right?

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Most people are like, when he speaks, they're like, oh, this is Paul. Oh, Paul says, I got to listen to Paul.

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This is an apostle, right? You know what the Bereans do? And he calls them the most noble people. Do you know what he does?

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You know what they do? They listen to him for a second and they grab the scriptures and they're like, hold on a second. And they go back and they read it.

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They're like, no, no, no. It matches up. We're good. Continue. And he goes, I love y 'all.

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He's like, because you didn't take me at face value and go, well, just because you are

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Paul, what you're saying is true. No, you went, let me test you for a second. Hold on. Okay, you're good.

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Continue. So my question, and it was brought up before, is the King Follett discourse where Joseph Smith, when he said that you can learn to become

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God, so I'm going to pull back the thing that God has not always been God. I'm going to pull back that veil. He directly contradicted things like Isaiah 43, 10, where it says there's no

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God formed before me, neither shall there be after me. In the sermon in the grove, he actually said that God was once a man who was exalted into the current position he's in.

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That's a direct contradiction into those scriptures. So when I'm faced with that because of my standard of truth, which

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I would say objective is the Bible, and I take that as my standard of truth, I look at that and go, sorry, that doesn't add up.

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Whether I feel something or not, that doesn't matter because I know in Jeremiah it says your heart is deceitful and wicked above all things you shall know it.

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So my heart can deceive me. Let's just take BYU as an example. You know, crazy Utah Mormons. I get it.

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Okay. But how many guys on that campus right now are praying about a girl that they're supposed to marry? More than I wish.

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And how many of them, how many of them are going to get a no?

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I never went to BYU. Not a lot of them. And why? My ex did. But how many of them are, but most of them, will they get a no?

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And it's not because, and it's not because they're praying and connecting. It's because they're feeling hormones and they're feeling feelings.

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And they're like, oh, God tells me. And I'm like, did he though? Should we test this just a little bit before you decide to go propose?

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Let's not go on the BYU super date, you know, go out for yogurt and take him to the temple and propose. He knows.

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I don't even know what he's talking about. This is some Utah stuff. All right. Coming from California to here with BYU.

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I bet. Okay. But here's the thing though. And you can already see it coming from California.

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Other places. You're the minority. And I get that. I've been in those.

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I've been in those places too. And when you're the minority, you kind of hunker down. You get a little bit closer together, but you're going to be a little bit looser on stuff because the central authority, if you have any church, the central authority, the further away you get from Rome, Catholicism is going to be a lot different.

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But if you go to Rome, it's going to be like, yeah, very, I mean, they still do. They still do masses in Latin in Rome.

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The further you get away from Salt Lake, you're going to have some differences in what's going on, but we can know, but what do we know from the scriptures?

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We can test things by their fruit, right? Utah and Idaho, the way these LDS people are here, it's the fruit.

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They're in greater majority so that they don't have, they're not checked by anybody at that point.

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They're not. I mean, the laws that are made here are made from members. And so there's no checking that goes on.

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There's not that outside force going, guys, maybe we should check this. And so you can see it. So my question is, so you can see these things.

26:21

So in order to have objective truth, objective, which is what we're talking, not subjective. Subjective is, I feel this. Objective.

26:27

Okay. Because I could have someone that comes by that feels like it's okay to punch Pastor Wade here.

26:33

And he's like, it's been in my experience that you punch Wade. Okay. And he's like, I feel great about it. Buddy.

26:39

Let's not punch people. We need to talk. Let's not punch people. And we have objectives of why we, I can even bring up scripture.

26:45

It's like, you don't. Let's not. Okay. But without a moral standard to stand on that, then you get things like atheism, which there, any atheist that tries to claim a moral standard doesn't have it.

26:57

It's pitiless indifference. There's no good or bad in their thing. They're just bags of meat fizzing at each other. Yes.

27:04

Yeah. So if you're subjective, if you're subjective with doctrine or with truth when it comes to the

27:12

Bible, because I know the eighth article of faith, we believe in the Bible as long as it's translated correctly. We also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.

27:17

I don't remember what it was for a second. It's been way too long. I got you. But if you believe, but if I were to line up, but if I were to line up 30

27:25

LDS people and ask them, fine, which parts of the Bible are mistranslated? It's all subjective.

27:31

Yes. And in my experience, when I'm out here talking and having these discussions, a lot of times the ones that are mistranslated are when we bring up like Isaiah 43, 10.

27:41

It's like, well, that's mistranslated. I'm like, well, I can bring it from the Hebrew if we, if we want to talk, but that, but so what

27:49

I'm saying is if you're subjective with that, it really puts you in no better position than the atheist of having that.

27:56

Where's the moral standard coming from? You have to have the objective thing to test things by. Unlike what the world will tell you.

28:02

The postmodern, your truth is my truth world. You have to have something to base it on because we're talking about salvation.

28:08

We're talking about everlasting life. This is something that this is bigger odds than anything in Vegas right now.

28:15

So you have to have something to base that on. If you do not, other than it feels good, let's take feeling.

28:23

Right. So, so what? But I feel like a little bit, I'll just, I'll, I'll be completely honest. I feel like, you know, as missionaries, we had a lot of these conversations and as I'm sure you'd expect, we're in the deep

28:33

South of Florida, right? Like we're back in the swamp. Yeah. And I guess like from my experience and, and maybe you have different experiences, you're doing the same thing we were doing, but we always called it like Bible bashing when we'd like read scriptures back and forth to each other or whatever that we did a lot that like,

28:51

I felt like no good came from it because in the book of Mormon, I'm sure you're familiar with us.

28:57

Contention is of the devil. Well, but, but I mean, we, we believe that like you can feel the spirit, the strongest when you're testifying personal experiences.

29:09

And so maybe you're going to call it subjective, but I think a little bit, it's kind of,

29:15

I have my beliefs, you have yours. I feel like it's a little bit silly for me to pull out a bunch of scriptures to read to you because you, you don't believe what

29:21

I believe in the, in the book of Mormon. I do believe in the Joseph Smith translations of the

29:27

Bible. Maybe I'm going to be wrong one day, you know, maybe we're going to be before the judgment of God and I'm going to be totally wrong.

29:32

But I think for me, like in having this conversation, it makes more sense to discuss experiences rather than because we do.

29:40

I mean, a lot of these things that you're talking about, I'm really familiar with a lot of like modern conference talks or modern prophets have addressed these issues and answered them.

29:46

And obviously you're not going to take president Nelson's word for it. But you know, that's the same as, you know, any other guy on the street saying whatever.

29:55

And so I guess that's just kind of my opinion. I think it's something we, you know, my mom, she's a convert. Actually, both my parents are converts to the church.

30:01

And so I asked my mom a lot, you know, how did you know? Like what, what was the difference?

30:06

And she just said, her realization is when she started meeting with the missionaries and she started reading the book of Mormon and she started praying that something in her life changed, that she was noticeably happier.

30:16

And when they invited her to be baptized, she just made the decision that, that the church would make her life better, you know, and by living things like the law of chastity, she could avoid so much pain and she had not lived the word of wisdom before.

30:32

And when she started living the word of wisdom, she saw such a big difference in her life. And so she said she decided that she could feel that it was right.

30:39

And my mom's a pharmacist. And so, I mean, there's, she sends me articles about COVID all day, every day.

30:45

Like there's solid proof for everything. And so she said her proof was a feeling, which is something she was not used to having in the past, that she was used to having hard documentation of this is my answer.

30:57

And that, that, that, that changed and that she decided if I'm totally wrong on all of this, that I would,

31:05

I'm living better and a happier life because I live this than if I didn't. And so, so what you're talking about is

31:10

Occam's razor. Are you familiar with Occam's razor? Nope. I have the intelligence of about a fifth grader.

31:16

So he, he, Occam was a philosopher and he actually became a Christian, but his razor argument was exactly what you said.

31:23

He's like, I'd rather live a life as a Christian forgoing these things. Cause even if I'm wrong, it's going to be better off than if I were to not believe it and have it be true.

31:35

I'm risking a lot more than if I'm going the other way. Right. And I think the other misconception too is,

31:42

I think sometimes like we feel a lot more divisive than we really are. I think we're very similar on most things.

31:50

I mean, I, I think that good Christian belief to me is good Christian belief that at the end of the day,

31:57

I mean, why are you out here? You're here to help and serve people. And like, if you bring, that's what they told us on our mission. If you can bring one person to God, you've done your job.

32:03

And if that person's yourself, you've done your job. And so I think like with that, like you're doing the work of Jesus Christ, in my opinion, you're serving other people, you're loving them.

32:12

You're looking to, to give them hope and light. You're doing exactly what Jesus Christ would have you do.

32:18

And you know, are our in church ceremonies and practices a little bit different? Yeah.

32:23

Do we have a little bit of different, you know, beliefs on small doctrine points that, yeah, we do.

32:29

But I think at the end of the day, how would you define a small doctrine point? That's, it just came to my head.

32:34

So I want that. I mean, to me, and this is just my opinion. I don't know if this is our church doctrine.

32:39

This is life according to Alyssa, but to me, like. Valid. I don't know about that, but you know, when

32:46

I think of. Well, it is, it is your gospel. So it is valid. The Gospel According to Alyssa. It's the newest book.

32:53

Coming soon. I'm not reading it. Stop reading my Instagram. It's just going to be screenshots.

33:00

That's funny. I just, to me, okay, what are small things?

33:06

I guess I could identify big things easier. What is big to me is that I have a Heavenly Father who loves me.

33:11

I have a Savior who died for me. I can be forgiven. When I pray, I feel peace and God gave me the gift of the

33:18

Holy Ghost so that when I feel completely lost in life, there's some sort of divine connection that can be with me to help me feel whole.

33:26

And so. I just don't want to keep you ladies all night. You've been really sweet talking with us.

33:33

At the end of the day, you know, I would say when he talks about big differences and stuff we see in the book of Galatians that you have this atonement of Jesus Christ.

33:47

The Son of God goes on a cross, takes the wrath of the Father upon himself that was meant for his children and he absorbs it and he appeases that wrath.

33:59

And now all who are in Christ are saved. And so you have that perfect atoning work of Jesus Christ on the cross.

34:06

He dies, buried, rose again from the grave, proving he has conquered death in the grave that we can have eternal life.

34:14

That was the seal that really showed it. So we have that work. And what we see in Galatians, Paul says,

34:26

Galatians, you are you are listening to the Judaizers who are coming around and they're bringing you a false gospel and they're taking this perfect work.

34:35

And all they were doing was adding circumcision. They said, you have this.

34:41

And the Judaizers said, if you have this and circumcision, then you're saved. That's the package, right?

34:48

If you have Christ and circumcision, you're saved. And Paul says, and you can look it up later.

34:53

Look up Galatians chapter one. And he says, you know, I can't believe you're so quickly turning away from the true gospel.

35:01

You're believing a different one. Right. And all they were doing was trying to add circumcision. So when I look at the

35:07

LDS church, when I look at people who have left it, when I know people in congregations here in Salt Lake City who have left it and they've experienced peace with God through Jesus Christ, they said with this

35:21

LDS, they don't even call it a church anymore. They call it an organization. That's how it feels to them, like a corporate model.

35:28

And they say it wasn't just this perfect work of Christ, which is what we're trying to say. It's just the perfect work of Christ.

35:35

By his grace, we're saved. That perfect work, not cheap grace, his grace. And then what the

35:41

LDS organization, they say, puts on top of it is this almost expectation of perfect obedience and the word of wisdom and temple endowments and being baptized into the church as the one true church and playing the part in your neighborhood and making sure when you're assigned roles, you're doing them to the fullest and you're doing all those things and all those good works.

36:05

Jesus says they don't they don't earn anything by the works of the law. No flesh shall be justified in sight. And those good works, he says in Ephesians 2 10, are prepared beforehand by him that we would walk in them.

36:16

He's the author of the good works and that the love of Christ that we have would compel us to do them, not in a sense earning it.

36:24

So that's what that's what they say. And that's what I see when I test it. It's like it's

36:30

OK, it's Jesus. Then all these other things stacked on top and all the Galatians were trying to do was that circumcision.

36:36

Well, and that's where I would encourage you to to look rather than to look at like the cultural practices.

36:45

Do you ever feel that way, though? Do you ever feel like you're not measuring up? You're not doing the Mormon part, the

36:50

LDS part? Honestly, personally, no. OK, because I feel confirmation. I read my book

36:56

Mormon religiously like every morning. What if you missed it? How would you feel? I missed it this morning and I read it at noon.

37:03

I believe in a God that says be therefore perfect. Eventually, I don't I don't believe in.

37:08

There's a talk by Elder Holland that talks about that. And for me, that's I believe in progress. I I believe that a loving

37:15

God wouldn't hate me for not doing everything I'm supposed to do. You know, I do believe in the principle of accountability.

37:21

I don't believe I can just go do whatever I want and have no consequences. I don't agree with that.

37:27

I don't agree with that in any form of life. I don't think that's how it ever happens. But in terms of, you know, if I'm late to church and I miss the sacrament, do

37:35

I feel like I'm going to have a horrible week? God's not going to answer my prayers? No. I mean, I think that that's crazy. And I think that if you look at I think looking just at people who have left the church, obviously they've left and are very angry.

37:49

They're not they're not leaving peacefully. And so, of course, you're going to get one opinion. Is that right?

37:55

Yeah. I'm sorry. I should have clarified. It wasn't just their opinion. It is what we see in the Bible that I would just like,

38:01

I don't know. I think for I don't think I'm going to convince you tonight that my church is true.

38:07

And you're going to convince me. No, no. Totally. I don't want you to lose your faith. I want you to maintain it. But in Christ.

38:13

Conversations are important to build our faith. And I think I'm a huge believer in asking questions. I believe that my faith exists today because Joseph asked a question.

38:21

And I believe that we are to ask questions and we're to ask them to their resources. I don't think that I don't know.

38:27

I mean, I just went through a brutal breakup and I can tell you, I did Google like how to get over a breakup and that wasn't really helpful.

38:33

Probably not. I'm just being honest. What does Teen Vogue have to give me? Like, okay, nothing.

38:39

Absolutely nothing. Nothing of sustenance. And I think that, you know, even talking to my friends, like, what do you do? Like, okay, that didn't help me.

38:45

And so I think like. The Pineapple Ben and Jerry's did nothing. Sad. That was good for about 10 minutes.

38:50

And then the chick flick got to the love part and I was crying again. But I just think like,

38:57

I don't know. I think with a lot of that stuff that it's important, you know, just as you're telling us, like, turn to the Bible for these doctrines.

39:03

I think to understand what we truly believe, it's important to go to prophets and apostles. That's our true, you know, unblemished source.

39:11

I think that. Unblemished. We don't know what we're talking about. Even though they've changed things over and over.

39:17

I believe things change over time. You know, I don't think that. I believe it fits through God. God has the right as being the

39:23

God to say what he wants. So when they didn't let blacks in the priesthood, weren't they wrong then?

39:30

You can have one. Oh, thanks. I. So why do they need someone to come and correct him if he was a prophet of God?

39:36

Right. I think something else. We don't have answers to this. I mean, on the church website, there's an essay on it and it literally says, like, we don't know.

39:44

And I don't know. I mean, I'm a microbiology student. Is it OK for me on an experiment to try?

39:50

I have no clue. No. So how is it OK in religion? I don't know. But like, I have faith in so many other things that I just kind of have to like a question.

39:58

I actually met with the general authority, one of the 70s on my mission, and she was there with me. And we asked him some hard questions of things that we personally don't understand.

40:09

And he told me his logic. Did he speak in King James English? I wish. Well, actually,

40:14

I wouldn't have understood any of it. Verse 2, it cometh to me, ladies. So my question for that, because you're talking about ongoing revelation.

40:23

But again, we talk about having a standard. So we talk about Hebrews, where it actually tells us that Jesus is the last prophet.

40:29

And if you go further in, it actually says that he's the last high priest. He's actually the last one that maintains the

40:34

Melchizedek priesthood. So Peter, James and John actually would have lost it when they died, according to the

40:42

Hebrews. According to what is written, they would have lost their Melchizedek priesthood. So they wouldn't have been able to restore that to Joseph Smith because they have lost it.

40:51

It would only be Jesus Christ himself who could have restored that. But that's not the story that is given in the church.

40:58

And also, with Joseph Smith, and like I said, so you have the Peter, James and John. You have these things. He said plenty of times, restoration is finished.

41:06

That line has actually been used up through almost Hinckley. The restoration is finished. The ongoing restoration, that was actually used in Monson and Nelson.

41:15

They're like, the restoration is finished. This church is restored. This is the truth. That's how they would present it.

41:20

Everybody else doesn't have the truth. We have the truth. And Hinckley kind of broke it down when the

41:26

Salt Lake Olympics came, unfortunately. And I think he was trying to lighten the blow a little bit with the weird stuff.

41:32

When he's like, guys, did you see the Larry King interview with President Hinckley?

41:38

Watch it. Oh, I think I saw a couple. Because they asked him, do you guys believe in eternal progression?

41:44

Do you guys believe in God? He goes, I don't know if we really believe that. And he kind of went like that.

41:50

But if you listen to General Conference after that, he basically told the membership, he's like, guys, we totally believe it. Pearls before swine, guys.

41:56

If you listen to his talk, he's like, no, no, no, no, no. He reaffirmed it. But I think he didn't want people coming to the

42:02

Olympics and being like, what's going on? They can become gods. But unfortunately, what happened in that process, and I saw it myself being a member, is people stopped holding on to truth.

42:14

Back when I was growing up, it was in the 80s and 90s. So it was a different time. One, where we weren't afraid to call ourselves

42:19

Mormon, for example. Well, you're losing the name of Christ. But Joseph Smith said it means more good himself.

42:27

Joseph Smith owned it. And in fact, the first name of the church did not have Jesus Christ in it. It was the Church of the

42:32

Latter -day Saints. I'm just telling you from my personal eyes. And I understand where you're coming from. If Jesus was standing here, and I was like, it's your church, but I'm going to forget about you and put you in the back seat.

42:40

So that's just a thing for me. I get it. But what we would also do is we wouldn't fold to truth.

42:46

And what I say to that is, for example, if I were to speak to someone who was a Baptist, I'd be like, well,

42:52

Joseph Smith said you were apostate. You're abomination. Your professors are corrupt. We have the restored truth.

42:59

Let me tell you what the truth is. It's like, do you believe people become gods? Yes, we do. And this is where it is. There wasn't a, eh, maybe.

43:06

No. We believe that. It's much softer now. It's a lot more softer. Have you seen that change? And it's become a lot, it's come into that postmodern, it's the postmodern

43:15

Mormonism now. I say Mormonism just because the label, but postmodern where it's like, eh, we're all

43:21

Christian too. Your truth is your truth. My truth is my truth. Everything's fine. But the problem with that is it comes back to that same pole.

43:30

You said, if I call that pole Jesus, I can't be Christian. But there is a why that you have to give to that.

43:38

There has to be an objective standard. So there has to be a line when, even when it comes to Mormonism versus Muslim versus Jewish versus all of these, where you have to go, this is why, guys.

43:48

This is truth. And this is the objective truth to base it off of. Now, we can say that with scripture, with Bible, but with feelings, we can't say that, unfortunately.

43:59

Because, like, again, someone could feel like they want to hit, wait. Feelings can change, yeah. So I do have a question, though.

44:06

So, you know, for example, something recently in my life,

44:18

I want to go to law school, right? And I found this really great internship. And I already have a job where I'm working 15 hours a week, and I'm taking 16 credits.

44:26

And I got this, like, great internship. I got hired. And I'm like, what do I do?

44:31

And so I prayed about it and was like, okay, what do you think, you know? Like, obviously, I'm going to talk to my parents about it.

44:37

You're probably right. I'd probably go into it with some degree of my own opinion. But I also think that's why God gave me a brain, right? So I can, like, come down with a decision and say, like, you know, and I said, like, okay,

44:46

I have this great opportunity before me. Do you think that this is something that I'd be able to handle? And I felt like I got a feeling of peace and confirmation of, like, you can do this.

44:56

And so if we say that revelation – Is that revelation, though? We believe it's personal revelation, that you're having – you know, what is revelation?

45:04

It's communication from person to you. We believe it's personal revelation that God can directly talk to. So my question to that is if you had a revelation that directly contradicted the word of God.

45:16

Okay, just directly. Let's just say your personal revelation at that moment was,

45:21

I'm going to open a brothel in Provo. Good luck opening it. But I'm going to open a brothel, and this is totally where my path should lead, and I feel peaceful about it.

45:32

We're going to open a brothel, okay? Now we can look at the scriptures and go, hey, hey, no, okay?

45:42

But we can look at a standard and tell you why. But if you hear that – so that's my thing. Yes, would

45:48

God tell me something? Yes. But would he ever contradict his word in what he's telling me?

45:54

No. I don't think – and I'll be completely honest with you. I was nine when President Monson became the prophet, so I've read the teachings of Gordon B.

46:04

Hinckley, the book, but I can't tell you. I'm from there, realistically.

46:13

But I don't – that it really contradicts –

46:20

I mean, I don't know if you have specific examples of things, but with a lot of these things,

46:26

I believe that – So how many specific examples would I need to bring up to have you legitimately – you're in New Testament now.

46:33

Yeah. Legitimately read the New Testament as a child. And what I mean by that is read it without the textbook, without the cross -references, without someone telling you what it's saying, but true exegetical – you familiar with exegesis?

46:48

Yeah. Okay, true exegetical work. Exegesis. So true – Passed one religion class last year.

46:53

There you go. Well, have you ever seen the eisegesis, exegesis thing? There was one with Prince Charles not too long ago where it was like – where it was like eisegesis, and it looks like he's totally flipping off, and it's like exegesis.

47:04

It's like, oh, it's fine. So – but to truly read the New Testament as a child and go, what is this saying?

47:12

Not, what are they saying? Not, what am I saying? I did that last year. But what is it saying? It was pretty cool.

47:17

Well, and I – What did you get from that? I honestly just gained a greater relationship with Jesus Christ.

47:23

I felt like I understood him better. I felt like I understood more of where he was coming from.

47:29

So what I did is I – because I've always – the Bibles that I've always grew up with, they always had the footnotes. They always had all the things of, here's this, cross -referencing, da -da -da.

47:38

So I went and I found just basic Bible. For me, I've tried reading other, like, translations of the

47:45

Bible, and I only understand the King James because that's what I'm used to. I've tried doing it other times, and I just –

47:51

I can't get it. But unless it's King James, then I'm like, okay, I can understand this more. So I just got a basic King James Bible –

47:57

Bible? Bible. Sorry, horrible with my words. And I just was like, all right,

48:03

I'm just going to read this. I have a really hard time understanding the Bible. Don't even get me started on the Old Testament. I do not understand a word that it says besides Genesis.

48:11

I can get that as far as that. But when I got to the New Testament, I just remember feeling – or I just felt like I understood more of Jesus Christ.

48:20

I felt like I could see Him more. Actually, you asked me this question a while ago.

48:26

Who do I have a better relationship with, God or Jesus Christ? And I had always said God. I felt like I knew God more.

48:31

And I felt like I recognized Jesus Christ as my Savior, as my brother, but I felt like I didn't know

48:37

Him. Like, it wasn't as if He was, like, my buddy or anything like, you know. And I took to the

48:44

New Testament because that's where I know 100 % that He was there. Those are actual accounts of Him being there in the flesh, actually teaching people.

48:54

And I just felt more and more closer to Him. And I felt like He was there.

49:01

I felt – I don't know. It was the whole, like, coming back to a child, the mindset of a child.

49:08

I felt like I was learning Him for the first time, that I could see who He was. And I could see His doctrine more clear.

49:14

I could see faith. I could see all these things coming from Him. I could see His atonement. I could see where I could change and become better.

49:20

Because my whole goal, just with my life in general, I just want to be a good person.

49:25

I want to be as close to Jesus as I can. I look at my grandma, who is, like, the best example to me in my life. And she's the ultimate

49:32

Jesus woman. Like, she just – she knows Him so well. She'll be walking around and just start laughing.

49:38

And I'm like, what's going on? She's like, I just told Jesus it was a joke. Like, she has this such personal, like, connection with Him that it's like,

49:47

I don't know. She's just this amazing Jesus woman that I just want to be as much as I can like her because of how close of her relationship is.

49:55

And she did the same thing. She told me to do the same thing. She's like, read it like a child. Just clear your mind. Take everything you know out and just read the

50:02

Bible. Read the New Testament. And go for it. So, it reminded me of the earlier thing that you said earlier on in this conversation.

50:09

You said you went to all these different churches. You were looking for truth. And the truth that you would find is if you felt like He was there.

50:18

Wherever I feel like I am with Jesus Christ, that's where I know I'm in the right spot.

50:23

So, you felt that when you read the New Testament. So, the New Testament has spots that would contradict doctrine.

50:32

So, my question with that is, if you're feeling Jesus there, why not use that as your standard of truth to judge truth?

50:42

I feel like I do. I feel like I use that. I mean, I said it earlier.

50:47

Whatever you can do to get closer to Jesus, do it. Whatever you feel like it is to get closer to Jesus for you, do it.

50:53

I don't care what it is. And that's what we're saying. So, she was asking about big doctrinal differences and small. So, like a big doctrinal difference would be, for example, we wouldn't believe that Jesus Christ is our elder brother just from the

51:05

Bible. He is actually in Colossians. He was the one that created everything, visible and invisible. He actually created

51:11

Lucifer, so that he was an angel, which is a different species. He's not another brother of ours that fell.

51:18

He was an angel that wanted God's throne and God cast it down. So, knowing these things, and if you read the

51:24

Bible, you get these things. So, that's what I'm saying, is you have contradictions. How do you balance those with truth?

51:31

I mean, I might have to change my opinion too. But I feel like my testimony is firmly rooted in the

51:39

Book of Mormon. Honestly, I don't know if anything could really change me from having that connection.

51:48

When I read the Book of Mormon, there's a quote by, I think it's President Benson, but I'm not sure. And he says something along the lines of, there's a power that comes into your life the day you begin a serious study of the

51:57

Book of Mormon. And that was something that I experienced. And so, because of that, yeah, there's things

52:03

I don't get. Yeah, there are probably contradictions between the Bible and the Book of Mormon. But for me personally,

52:09

I've made the choice that I have a personally, and I know it's what we're calling subjective, whatever, opinion of whatever, however it is.

52:21

But I have such a strong testimony of the Book of Mormon that when I read that, then my life is different. I can see a noticeable difference there.

52:27

Like you said, do I do it every day? I try to, but are there days I miss? Yeah. And I can tell you there's a whole new level of chaos in my day.

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Maybe it's coincidental. I don't think that it is. I don't believe in a God of coincidences, whatever. But I do believe that when

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I read it that I can have a spirit with me in a different measure than I can when I don't. And so, for me, that's what grounds me.

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That's what keeps me. There are things in the church I don't understand. I'm not going to lie to you and tell you I'm 100 % game with everything.

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I totally get this. I don't, and I believe in eternal progress. I don't believe that I'll get it in this life.

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And that's something that I've come to terms with and I'm okay. Maybe I'm wrong for believing that. I'm going to try to find answers to my questions, but I'm also,

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I'm not going to probably know everything that I need to know. Can I challenge you real quick?

53:14

Yeah. Just because I respect how your testimony is so firm. If it's so firm, I would challenge you to test your testimony to what the

53:21

Scripture says about what makes someone a true prophet. So I bet you guys might have never heard these tests of a prophet in Scripture, but you can look them up.

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If you're so firm in your testimony, if Joseph Smith is a true prophet, he should pass, right? There's Deuteronomy 13.

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It says, if a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you, so if it looks legit, but if they lead you after other gods, gods of which you have not known, do not believe in them.

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First test of a prophet, Deuteronomy 13. And he passes. We could go into that. And then

53:49

Deuteronomy. I'm just giving you my opinion. He passes, he leads me to God. There was a little card that someone gave us on my mission because they had the same thing.

53:57

And they gave me this little card. It had the same Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy 13. And then there's also

54:03

Deuteronomy 18. It says, if there's someone who is a prophet who says they speak in the name of Yahweh, Jehovah, but if they speak presumptuously and that one thing doesn't come to pass, that they're a false prophet.

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If there's one false prophecy, the Bible says they're a false prophet, and then it says, kill them. That's how strongly

54:21

God takes someone speaking in His name. Right? So, I challenge you to test

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Joseph Smith to Deuteronomy 13. I can give you examples in Deuteronomy 13, how he utterly failed. The Shema. Hear, O Israel, the

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Lord our God, the Lord is one. Isaiah 43 .10. Before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. Isaiah 44 .6.

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I am the first. I am the last. Beside me there is no God. Look around, I know not one. Right? There's thousands.

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That's just a few. Jesus, in John chapter 1, it says, in the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God, and the

54:53

Word was God. All things were created through Him. There was nothing that came into being unless it was created through Him.

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That would include Lucifer. It also says that Jesus is Elohim. Jesus is

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Elohim. The Holy Spirit is Elohim. The Father is Elohim. The Father is Yahweh. The Spirit is

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Yahweh. Jesus is Yahweh. One God existing in three persons eternally. Jesus Christ says this in John 8.

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He says, unless you believe that I am the eternal name of God. This is Jesus. You will die in your sins.

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Jesus is so strong about who He is because He came to show us and died for us so that we could actually know with certainty, not with our feelings.

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God loves us so much that He gave us His Word. John 17 .17. Sanctify them by the truth.

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Thy Word is truth. That we don't have to follow our feelings because our feelings can lead us astray.

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Right? Think about the garden, guys. Right in Genesis 3, we have Adam and Eve being tempted, right?

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How did Satan first tempt Eve? He said, did God say that? He made her question

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God's Word. Let's hearken back to the teachings. The Bible's missing many plain and precious parts.

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Did God say that? And then what does Satan promise Eve? He says, you will become just like God. That's why he doesn't want you to get the fruit of the tree of knowledge, good and evil.

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It's the same promise Joseph Smith gave. But the Bible says otherwise. Jesus says, heaven and earth shall pass away.

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But my Word by no means will ever pass away. My God is so strong. My God is so big that He can preserve

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His Word throughout time. So that we could actually know and rely and believe in Him. He says, you are my servants, declares the

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Lord. The servants who I have chosen that you may know and believe that I am He. Beside me, before me there was no

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God formed, neither shall there be after me. Right? So there's massive differences. Even in false prophecies, guys.

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Just being completely honest with false prophecies. Joseph Smith, it says, I prophesy in the name of the

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Lord God of Israel. Unless the United States redresses the wrongs committed upon the saints in the state of Missouri.

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And punish the crimes committed by her officers. That in a few years the government will be utterly overthrown and wasted.

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And there will be not so much as a potsherd left. He says that there will be the destruction of the

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U .S. government. But that never occurred. He even gives a prophecy where he says within... Is there a time frame on that though?

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A few years. There's a prophecy within a few years. He says... A lifetime is a blink of an eye to God. Well, real quick.

57:17

There's a prophecy where he says, yay, within 57 years Christ will return. He gives an exact number. Honestly, I'm going to be completely straight up honest with you.

57:24

I don't have answers to your question. No, no, that's great. I don't know. I mean... No, no, that's fine. I think kind of in the same way that... I'm saying test it.

57:30

Absolutely. And I was going to tell you, I would encourage you to do the same with the Book of Mormon. I mean, I would read it from a child's perspective.

57:37

Don't look for errors. Don't, you know, read it and... Here's the thing. But you can't, right? I mean, it's possible.

57:42

If I'm going to read... This is what the Bible tells me, though. In James, when we're reading it, it says, if any of you lacks wisdom, right, pray so that God may reveal it to you.

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But wisdom is different than knowledge. You have to have knowledge to exercise wisdom. And why would

57:57

God reveal to me something that contradicts what he's previously said into his Word? But what about the Scripture in Ephesians about two sticks?

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That there's the stick of Judah and the stick of Joseph? So he was talking... And any time you hear that... And I also hear the other sheep then used as...

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And just so you know, that's an eisegetical proof text. We're talking about eisegesis versus exegesis, right?

58:17

What he's actually talking about in that moment is when he first came, he... Where did... Who did he come to? The Jews. Okay. So when he said, other sheep

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I have, it wasn't the Nephites. Other sheep that I have is Gentiles.

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Because he said all power... When he gave the Great Commission, that same thing, he said, all power is given to me on heaven and on earth. Go out and preach to the world.

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But he was talking to... Acts chapter 1 to Samaria, to the Gentiles. We see it all throughout

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Acts. He was not talking about any other land. He was talking Gentiles. I feel like personally with things like that,

58:48

I don't think we can put limits on Jesus Christ. Like you were just... I don't know.

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And clearly, I mean, yes, I've been taught. I'm not going to lie. Like I... Same way you guys have probably been taught.

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It wouldn't really make sense to me, I guess, that... Why wouldn't Jesus come to the

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Americas? Why wouldn't Christ come to everywhere that there were people at that time? Why would he want there to be people without the gospel?

59:16

I mean, I think it's kind of the same way you're out here tonight is because you know... Because if you read the Old Testament prophets, it actually said that he would come to the

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Jews. Like if you read the actual prophecies, there are things that he would say. But there was no...

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Because that's the reason there was prophets in the beginning, was actually to testify to the Messiah so that you knew who the

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Messiah was. Once the Messiah came... Once the Messiah came, there wasn't a need to continually do that.

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Because that's what it says in Hebrews. That's the whole point. It says in the past we spoke through the prophets. Now he speaks through the

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Son who has come. It's done now. Now, we used to do this, but it was for this purpose.

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Now that that purpose is done, he's here. Now you all should be able to read our prophecies in the

59:59

Old Testament and go, Oh, he fulfills these. Okay, we get this. But that... Once he's here, it's what he's teaching.

01:00:06

And it's... So basically what we're saying as a whole is if you add... And like he said in Galatians, if you add anything to Jesus and say that...

01:00:15

So it's Jesus plus anything, then it basically equals nothing as far as salvation goes. But if you add nothing, it's

01:00:21

Jesus plus nothing, that's when it truly equals everything. That's when it's saving grace.

01:00:27

That's when it's everything. So it's a contrast. Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi where it says grace is sufficient for you after all you can do.

01:00:35

Now I'm well aware of Brad Wilcox's talk. Okay? It's a good talk. The unfortunate part of that is Brad Wilcox isn't a general authority.

01:00:43

Well, he wasn't when he gave the talk. He wasn't. He wasn't an authority. The problem is the authorities would have disagreed with him in that moment because they say there is things you need to do.

01:00:53

So the problem is... I get that quoted to me all the time. The problem was he wasn't in a position...

01:00:59

And you know this. You guys believe in priestly keys. I obviously would not. But you would say that only the prophet has revelation for the whole church.

01:01:08

Brad Wilcox would not at that moment have revelation that he could give of that caliber to contradict 2

01:01:16

Nephi where it says by grace you are saved after all you can do versus contrast that to Ephesians 2, 8, 9 where it says by grace you are saved not by works lest any man should boast.

01:01:27

And I know you've been in Utah. So I'm just going to leave this for you as an example. I know you've been to fast and testimony meetings.

01:01:34

Okay? You've been in Utah. Fast and testimony meetings. Tell me you have not seen this person.

01:01:40

Okay? And if you tell me you haven't, you're lying. Okay? I'm just throwing it out there. So my family...

01:01:46

He's bold. No, I'm just telling you because I've been to... You know how many sacrament meetings I've presided over? Okay? Come on. My family...

01:01:54

So the new prophet book just came out. We read it this week. Oh, and by the way, we did 100 hours of service. My family, we did all of this.

01:02:02

Yeah, we're good. Boasting. They're boasting in their own righteousness and that's something that would be antithetical to the actual gospel.

01:02:11

Of course, and I believe just as I couldn't come to you and say I'm a perfect reflection of what the church teaches.

01:02:18

Like, no, I'm totally not. And so I think that when people do that, are they perfect? No. I mean, no, you shouldn't boast.

01:02:25

And how do you know a true Christian? To me, it's by their heart. You can tell when you talk to someone where their heart is.

01:02:31

You can tell if their heart is contentious... So, am I just angry? Because that's what you said earlier.

01:02:37

Right now? Because I had left the church. You said that we were just angry. No, but I... Well, what I was saying then is if you...

01:02:43

It's like, okay, you leave the BYU -Utah game last weekend and is anyone going to be in like a super...

01:02:49

No, when you leave the church, you left for a reason. You have negative feelings towards it. And so as much as...

01:02:54

It was purely doctrinal, just so you're aware. No feelings. But, okay, you have negative opinions of the doctrine.

01:03:01

No, I tested the doctrine like he was telling you. And that's the heart of the conversation. So I tested it.

01:03:07

It wasn't that I had a will, but I tested truth and went... Wait, hold on a second. Test the words of the prophets, all the failed prophecies.

01:03:15

They're countless. Every prophet down through the centuries, they failed them. So many failed ones.

01:03:40

We're not trying to tear you down. I know it's kind of wearing, right? But we just want to challenge in a loving way.

01:03:48

I have realizations during this. I'm versed enough in the scriptures to have textual proof.

01:04:01

In a challenging circumstance, is textual proof going to keep me close to God? No. I mean, maybe I'm just a woman with way too many feelings, but like, it's going to be my emotional closeness to God.

01:04:11

I'm just being real with you is what is going to keep me. And so, but I do think though that that is a good point.

01:04:18

And I'm honestly, I mean this completely sincerely. I'm grateful that you three are out here tonight. And we saw that as missionaries so much that, you know, at the end of the day,

01:04:27

I don't know what the afterlife looks like. I don't know. I have my opinions, but I don't have knowledge. But I'm so grateful though for people like you though that are out here and doing this because any person we bring to God, we're going to have a better world.

01:04:38

I mean, I'm better because of it. I'm sure you're better because of it. It brings us inner peace.

01:04:43

When we have inner peace, we're kind to people. We serve people. We help people, which is ultimately, I believe, what we want.

01:04:49

So the challenge I would give you on top of what he was saying, the test. Let me give you two hypothetical situations.

01:04:56

Because like I said, I've been on both sides. Yeah. So I know the doctrine. Okay. Like I said, stamp approval.

01:05:02

You got it. To teach Mormon doctrine. Okay. You actually can know by the

01:05:09

Doctrine and Covenants what the afterlife looks like for them. It describes it perfectly. So in a hypothetical situation, let's just say

01:05:17

I'm wrong. We're wrong. You're right. It is the true church and whatever.

01:05:23

Okay. And I don't mean that dismissively. Absolutely. I get it. There's a lot there. I don't need to go through the whole thing.

01:05:29

No, you're good. So if that were true, if I were to die, I would end up in spirit prison.

01:05:35

Let's be honest. That's what the Doctrine and Covenants says. Due to how I live my life, I would end up in spirit prison. Now I can guarantee my family.

01:05:44

Guaranteed. Because a lot of them are still in. Will do my work for me. 100%. I can guarantee it.

01:05:50

I don't have to worry about it. When that work is done, if I'm staring at it in the face, there's no way I'm going to be like, yeah, maybe not guys.

01:05:57

No, I'm sitting there in spirit prison. Of course I'm going to be like, all right guys, yeah, let's do this. And I'm going to leave. And I'm going to do whatever.

01:06:03

Now, unfortunately, because I didn't choose in this life, as it says in Doctrine and Covenants, to do that, then I end up in the terrestrial kingdom.

01:06:10

Now, in the terrestrial kingdom, it actually is described in the Doctrine and Covenants as a place where Jesus dwells and people are like angels worshipping

01:06:18

God for eternity. That actually sounds a lot like evangelical heaven. Now, let's hypothetically turn the same tables.

01:06:26

And this is why we're out here. This is the truth. Because we do this out of love. Honestly, if we hated

01:06:31

LDS people, do you know how easy it would be to walk by? I have a lot of homework. I'm going to seminary right now.

01:06:38

I have homework I could be doing. I have other things. And I could smile and wish well and be like, you can go to hell.

01:06:45

It's okay. We're good. Okay? And I walk by. But the truth of the matter is this. If we flip the tables, if we're right and you're not right, the biggest doctrinal difference there is you're worshipping a false

01:06:55

Christ because the Christ that's described in that doctrine is not the Christ of the Bible, which is why it's said to read the

01:07:01

New Testament like a child and find him, which it sounds like you've come close to. When you do that, that is how you're saved.

01:07:08

If you don't, then it's the Matthew situation where you, where you go to where the people go to Jesus after Judgment Day seven and they go, didn't we perform all these works in your name?

01:07:17

Didn't we cast out devils? Didn't we do all of this in your name? And what does he tell him? He says, depart from me, you workers of iniquity.

01:07:24

I never knew you. So it's the post. You can call what you're worshipping Jesus, but you have to have a standard on who that is.

01:07:32

Because without knowing him, that like he said, unless you know, I am, you're dead in your sins.

01:07:39

And that's why we're out here. So truly challenge. And that's the challenge is truly test those things because what you're gambling, it isn't, let's be nice and let's do this and let's go.

01:07:49

That what you're gambling on is in the next life. Where am I going to end up? Right. So important.

01:07:55

Jesus died for it. Right. Is Jesus a create, created being, created in the pre -existence and finally progressed to Godhood himself?

01:08:07

Or is Jesus uncreated from eternity all the way this way into eternity?

01:08:13

Jesus has been God. And it's not that an elevated man could go on a cross and take the sins of the people.

01:08:20

It's that God himself died on the cross and took the sins away from his people.

01:08:26

And he took the wrath of the father. It's that God had to die. Jesus is

01:08:32

God. And the LDS church would say that he's, he's not. He's, he's elevated to that, that he was created.

01:08:40

But it says in Colossians one, John one, as we said, he created all things. He's the creator. He says,

01:08:46

I'm God. So anyways, we appreciate you ladies. Yeah. Great to talk with you guys.

01:08:51

Thank you. What's your name? Yeah. Andrew, can I get to meet you? Melissa. Morgan. Wade. 13 and 18.

01:08:57

13 and 18. Do you have one of my, do you have one of my cards? Oh yeah, here's one of these. I gave her,

01:09:03

I gave her a card. Oh, if you ever have questions, uh, yeah. I'm a pastor of this church,

01:09:08

Apologia. I mean, if you ever just, look, we're not telling you, please come to our church or whatever.

01:09:14

If you ever had a random question, the evangelical perspective, if things are clicking for you as you read the

01:09:21

New Testament, just email or text that number. So yeah. Thank you for all your time.