Faith After Mormonism: Brian's Testimony

Apologia Utah

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All right. Well, my name is Brian Brady and I grew up I was born in Ogden, Utah to my mother and father and They got divorced before I was even able to understand what a divorce was.

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I think I was six months old at the time and There were some accusations at the time that my mother had been unfaithful and that I was not even my father's son

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Thankfully for 23 and me we put those accusations to rest many years later my mom was faithful, but what happened is

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My mom was somewhat ostracized from the church but she believed in the

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Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints and So while she did not feel worthy to go there because of some accusations and lack of DNA back in the day

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She would send me to my aunt's house. My aunt Debbie Robbins was a very big part of my life growing up My mom would drop me off usually on Saturday nights usually so she could go do what she wanted to do

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And my aunt Debbie and my uncle Ken they would take me to church with my three first cousins

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And so that's how I was first introduced to the church. We first moved about the age of kindergarten or first grade and we went to Texas my mom got a job at General Dynamics and Just because of her upbringing the upbringing of her family

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She felt very strongly on my eighth birthday to make sure That I got on a plane for the first time in my life alone

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And I flew back to Utah to get the blessings from my grandfather my uncle and to be baptized into the

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Mormon Church And so that's kind of where it all began for me. I didn't really have a great

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Home Example of what the LDS faith looked like but through my aunt and my uncle and my cousins

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I mean they were devout they were faithful even if we did skip a few classes every every other

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Sunday or something like that and go out in the parking lot and Kick around a soccer ball or something But we we

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I grew up Mormon I grew up believing in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints the way

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I understood God and the gospel Under the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day

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Saints is not very much I understood the teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith a little bit better than I understood the

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Bible. I Understood that I was to follow the prophet and lead a holy life. I understood that That we were the one true church on the face of the earth

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In my little bubble of Utah and I did come back to Utah from Texas at around Sixth grade 12 years old and that was like a homecoming for me because I like to play sports

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We got into church basketball and things like that One of my best friends Willie Stewart His father was the bishop and they lived right across the street

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And so I really connected right away to get back into the church But I never had a theological understanding of doctrine.

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I grew up pretty ignorant I thought church was absolutely boring. I was there to play basketball

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During the season and for me I just until God really opened my heart in my eyes

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Till the Spirit quickened me. I had very little understanding I had read the Bible much later in life, and I think we'll get to that but I Had no understanding

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I was I was pretty dumb and Like I'm sure we'll get to my time in the Marine Corps opened my eyes getting away from the state of Utah getting around Evangelical Christians getting around even some

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Roman Catholics. I remember it was a Roman Catholic who Convinced me that the church was maybe not all that.

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I had thought it was growing up But through that experience in the

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Marine Corps Being as homesick as I was 18 years old on my own

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Was the first time in my life that I actually pursued the Mormon Church for me.

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I Wanted a slice of home. I wanted to be connected. I was lonely. I was cold.

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I was wet I was tired and I remember back then all we had was letters

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You know We would write so many letters on our one day off Sunday and what's cool about the

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Marines is they do not give you a choice Of whether or not you're gonna go to church You will go to church and they give you two choices

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Catholic or Protestant well, I Wasn't very smart of me. I think

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I got disciplined for this. I said, well, I'm neither. I'm a Mormon I'm from the one true church and I didn't go over too well, especially in Southern, California at the time

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They said you're Protestant. You'll go with the Protestants. Well, I had a Roman Catholic Good friend and I'd always kind of wondered what

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Roman Catholicism was all about And so he invited me to attend that and I actually got confirmed as a

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Catholic and I felt so guilty And it wasn't until I was in the School of Infantry lost lonely tired and I reached out to my aunt

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Debbie via letter she sent me a book of Mormon and she asked me to pray that if it's not true and I did that and A lot of people

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I don't I don't know I know people listening to this will say they don't feel a burning in the bosom.

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I felt a burning in the bosom I truly did I felt a warmth come over me.

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I felt that the church was true I'm the first time in my life at 18 years old Alone and cold

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I decided that I would I would actually Dedicate myself to the Mormon Church because it was true based on what

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I had read I read the Book of Mormon not everything but I read a lot of the highlights that my aunt

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Debbie had sent me Wasn't a great scholar back then wasn't a great reader But I did read everything that she had marked for me and then if I had insomnia,

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I would read some other stuff but when I got to Virginia for My specialty training

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Again, I just felt more Disconnected more lonely more homesick But I had the one thing that most of my other fellow

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Marines didn't I knew I could pick up the phone dial a number and two young men about my age would come over and Most likely they would be from the state of Utah or they'd know a lot about it

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And so that's how I kind of cured my homesickness is with home studies with the

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Mormon missionaries Like I said, I was baptized back at eight years old. So now it was more just a rededication to the faith and I Just genuinely believed that that was the one true church.

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But now I'm in Virginia Beach and later, North Carolina, and I'm around kind of what would somewhat be considered the

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Bible Belt and When I would tell somebody I was LDS Latter -day Saint a

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Mormon I would get Ridiculous things like well, where's your horns? Where's your wife's just the standard stuff that people say?

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They didn't know a lot, but I did run into sergeant of mine that he was

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Roman Catholic and you know I mean we can talk about that and and how maybe they're a little bit similar in some ways

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But he really knew the Mormon faith. He had been educated and He started telling me things that I just had never learned growing up.

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Like I said, I was I was not very smart I was not very Into it in the beginning. I was now just kind of clinging on to something because it made me feel good and He opened my eyes and he actually had some tracks and he had some he had some stuff that he revealed to me

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And I just remember saying you're a liar. You're an absolute liar. This is not what my church teaches and You got to remember this is 1995 1995 96

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I think back then you had to pay by the hour to get on the internet if you wanted to research this stuff like He had done you had to go to a public library.

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And so for me, it was just I dismissed it I totally dismissed everything.

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He said thought he was just making crap up and You know, have a nice day, sir.

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I remember that it was the polygamy with Joseph Smith I remember it was a failed bank I remember it was the false prophecies and just stuff that you know

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The church now has come out and recently in the last decade has said is somewhat true the seer stone and things like that I mean man, this guy was prepared.

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He he must have had a Mormon family. I don't even remember his name I really don't

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I remember him being just a great commanding not a commanding officer But like a sergeant a squad leader somebody

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I looked up to we actually held the same rank for a little bit But I was nowhere compared to him He was he was a godly man as far as Catholicism would take him

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But I just really I dismissed almost everything he said because there was no way to fact -check back then

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I mean the word fact -check if you had said that 95 people to what are you talking about?

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What's a fact -check? What's fake news? We don't know what that is The Marines have a saying if we wanted you to have a wife we would have issued you one

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So I got married and Immediately, I tried to convince my wife that you need to be a

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Latter -day Saint. You need to get baptized This is the one true church. We should go through the temple families are forever

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I don't even know if I believed half of that But she was also wrong came from a Roman Catholic family knew nothing about Mormonism And I would invite the missionaries over all the time to talk to us

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Maybe out of homesickness and maybe just because I was somewhat desiring, you know a relationship with God I believe that everybody knows that God exists that You know another

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Marine saying there's no atheists in a foxhole, you know when you're under fire You're gonna start praying to somebody when your kids don't come home from school.

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They're an hour late You're gonna start praying to somebody you're gonna hit your knees And so it was just something that I desired to maybe make my marriage better But I was such a poor husband.

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The Marines controlled my life one day I came home and everything was gone and then is when

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I really kind of fell into a life of debauchery and sin alcohol ism and Fighting, you know,

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I mean you name it whatever the Bible defines Drunkenness as that was me at that time because I had just failed in a marriage

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My mom had failed in five and I'm like, here we go We're just keeping the old same same old same old and so it was it was an eye -opening

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Experience and and it wasn't good there for a while. I Walked away from the church.

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I knew because of their standards that I wasn't worthy I just gotten a divorce like my mom had gotten a divorce

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I kind of felt a little bit of the shame that she had maybe felt I knew it was my fault

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I don't even think I ever truly loved the girl. I was just lonely and It was just amazing to Process all of that go through some of the deepest and darkest valleys of my life and then

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The good news is I get back to Utah and on day one literally almost day when I meet my current wife of 23 years and We Hit it off.

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I'll make a long story short. We've been married. We've got two beautiful kids, but I remember driving with her one day and I had brought up the subject of the

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Bible and I lied to her I said I've read the entire Bible all of it and you're not going to heaven, but I am

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And the next words out of my mouth. She's like, what are you talking about? I'm a good person I said, nope, it's not what the

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Bible says. So I did know enough about the Bible I said Bible doesn't say you need to be a good person.

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It says that you got to put your faith in Christ And I said, I don't think you know him because you've never read what

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I've read. You're not as smart as I am I remember we were on the corner of 40th and Washington Boulevard and she will back up that conversation

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She was so mad because I told her that her and her family won't go to heaven But I will and she's like you've gotten a fistfight two days ago at a bar

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Going to heaven and so it was just really weird. It was really weird I kind of knew a little bit of theology

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Maybe from the Roman Catholic who had drilled it into me that it's by faith alone in Christ alone but I also, you know had studied the

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Bible a little bit and Yeah, that's that's how it kind of in that time frame

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I was still living an absolutely crazy life Hanging around the wrong people.

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I had kids at the time knew I needed to grow up, but I also just knew that God was real and I had read just enough to know that all

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I had to do is put my faith in him now was I saved? Absolutely, not. I believe that when you know, you're not worthy then they know you're not worthy

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I believe that that's true in life. I you know if I've had a fight with my wife or a

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Spout with my kids or something like that, man. I can't even walk into Smith's and feel good about myself I feel like everybody's looking at me like we know what you did.

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I know the Holy Spirit knows what I did, you know and so Yeah, it's it's it's just a weird and It might not you might be having a great week, but maybe you didn't

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Go door -to -door and collect the you know offerings that week or maybe you didn't you know?

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Serve at the temple maybe everybody. It's a status System and there are the people that can really play the game well and know all the rules and abide by them

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They kind of tight fist their way, you know into that celestial glory Do they believe is true and there's others of us that I believe truly have a broken and contrite spirit

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Who know that we're not worthy who know that deep down? Even if I can fake it outwardly,

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I know what I did. God knows what I've done, you know my thoughts my texts my

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Searches on the internet Then I just could never be that type of person I could never be that person that could go in and shake everybody's hand and be like welcome brother

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The Lord be with you. I Knew what I did. And so I had a hard time

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Compartmentalizing My real life with the way that I you know knew

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I needed to behave the way Christ Met me is a is kind of a funny story

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I was calling myself an agnostic while telling my wife that I'm going to heaven.

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So it tells you a lot about My consistency to say the least and Now we did have the internet.

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Okay, my One of my best friends to this day David Gunther f -16 pilot hero served several tours in Afghanistan and Iraq He had a baby and we had already had two and they were brand new to the state of Utah Hill Air Force Base and He had just got stationed here and I said to Tori one day.

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I said man, they got nobody. They just moved here She's like nine and a half months pregnant when she has the baby.

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Maybe you could help her out Tori's like no, I don't I don't know her. I'm not going across the street

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Well one day Heather Gunther knocks on the door bawling and she's like,

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I don't know how to breastfeed So my wife says well, come on in we're gonna be best friends from here on out

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So I wasn't home but they just took a great liking to each other and Tori took just a

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She just loved Olivia, you know, which was their firstborn daughter Well, Tori had grown up a very secular family that believed that all you need to do is just be a good person that kind of a universalist mentality everybody gets to heaven so long as you're good outweighs the bad and She had been offered an invite to go to an evangelical church for Olivia's blessing and Dave and Heather they were never pushy

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They would come over and have a drink with us and stuff. And but they said hey man, this is important to us

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We have no family in the state of Utah we're going to this church up north and we would really love if you guys would be on stage with us as Our family while we dedicate

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Olivia to the Lord. I Said absolutely not not a chance. I'm never darkening the door of another church

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I've got the Bible which I understood almost nothing of maybe a teeny bit. I said,

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I don't I don't need that I don't need organized religion Tori having really never gone to church in her life says

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I'm gonna do it for them They're our friends. So I remember I got on a train that day I drove to Green River and I could not wait to talk to my wife

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I couldn't wait to just rub it in her face. Ah, you had to go to church How terrible is that? You know,

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I couldn't wait to just like poke fun at her I get on the phone and It wasn't my wife

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She goes Brian, I loved it and I'm going next week and I'm taking the kids I Said, okay.

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Well First no, you're not Taking the kids. I can't stop you from going but my children will not be raised in any religious system

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I said and if they are really raised in any religious system whatsoever It will be the

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Mormon Church So all of a sudden I started grabbing on to like something that I had, you know,

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I said the Internet it was now here I had done the research that my friend had asked me to do five years prior. I Had looked into a lot of things.

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I found Utah Lighthouse ministry I found a lot of you know, James White debates and things like that I knew the truth, but for some reason

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I could not let go of You know just my upbringing just my you know

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What I was comfortable with and I thought every other church's faults on its face because that's what

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I was taught that's what I was whispered to in the crib and You're not going and I okay if you go then they can't go and this lasted three months

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I was at home with a one -year -old and a four -year -old For three months for about an hour and a half to two hours every

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Sunday or maybe you know If I was out of town, they went to grandma and grandpa's house I did get my way on they can't go and I I decided you know

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What the internet proved to me a lot of truths about the Mormon Church I was able to kind of do a deep dive find some credible sources

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Maybe I can find some sources on her church and I found out they had a podcast

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I started listening to their podcast and Immediately I was on a train and back then we could you know, listen to our headphones and stuff there was no cameras and I remember that one of the very first things that shook me as I heard him say that baptism is not necessary for salvation and I'm like These guys don't know a thing

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I'm gonna easily refute this Google away, you know

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Old internet dial -up back then took a took a minute. I don't know if Google is there Yahoo search engine or something and Yeah You know,

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I'm the one of the only churches that believe in a workspace salvation the true evangelical church believes that you know

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It's Jesus plus nothing. It's his perfect life and his sacrifice

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Sacrifying death and that propitiation that's given to us as this great exchange a free gift and I remember

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I just kept listening just kept listening going through sermon after sermon. I finally got to first Corinthians 27

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I remember the pastor preaching and While I'd have some things to say about his teaching style today back then it was perfect for me and I remember he kind of compared it to like A dodgeball team at school where you get picked, you know first or last and first Corinthians 127

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Basically says that God chose the foolish to shame the wise He chose the weak to shame the strong He chose the things that are of not

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Do you know to bring about his glory to bring about you know to magnify him? And he said it if you've got it all together

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Then God doesn't even want you or need you because a you're lying and be God doesn't pick teams like that And I was just remember

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I was crying in my car in the garage And I'm like God would take me on his team broken sinner.

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I remember also in that same sermon He went through a lot of the Old Testament people

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I'd never heard that David had committed, you know adultery and Murder, you know,

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Noah was a drunk all these things were these things were hidden from me. I didn't I thought everybody I literally remember being told and I don't think it was by an authority or anything like that Maybe a cousin that in order to write scripture you had to be perfect and we need to be perfect like them

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And so the prophet was perfect. And yeah, I remember when he broke it all down I was just amazed that I'm like, well,

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I've done that too And and you're a man after God's own heart and God will use somebody like me to magnify himself

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Man, I was all in I was all in from that day. I walked up to Tori in the morning

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I don't remember what day it was. It'd be cool If it was a Sunday for the story, but I have no idea but I just remember telling her

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I'm going to church with you next Sunday She kind of looked at me like okay

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You're gonna start a fight with the pastor As a man named Steve pastor

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Steve is preaching I knew his voice so well because of all the audio I'd listen to I'd listen to about nine months of their sermons

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Sermons, it would take me a lot longer to listen to your sermons But his sermons I could get through in about 25 to 30 minutes

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So I could just keep rolling keep rolling and I walked up to him and I said, my name is

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Brian Brady I think I think I'm a Christian Kind of looks at me weird he goes, okay.

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Well, what do you mean by that? I said, well, let me see if I get this straight It's Nothing that I can do that.

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It was Jesus's perfect life and That he died the death that I deserved on the cross

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And then if I look up at the cross and I put my faith in him I don't have to be perfect I'm probably not gonna be perfect.

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I don't even know the word sanctification at the time those Christian ease would all come later But I said,

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I just understand that it's kind of that simple that he would take a sinner like me that he came to earth

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He emptied himself for people like me Knowing that that you know was and at the time

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I thought I was walking the aisle I thought I was choosing Christ, you know putting my faith into Christ I now know that God had regenerated my heart that he had used all of these people in my life from The sergeant and the

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Marines who opened my eyes a little bit He you know planted the seed

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Dave came along and watered it Tory stomped no But you know what?

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I mean, it was just all these events all these people to finally understand the true

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Gospel which is that it is by grace alone through and that not of yourselves a standing man should boast

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You might want to cut this out, but I'll tell you exactly what I think it was I Truly believe that that was the enemy that that was the enemy with maybe not as last attempt at You know keeping me in the dark

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But the Bible says that we're gonna get there real soon and I John ate that, you know, the devil is the father of lies

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You know, he's a liar from the beginning. He's a murderer and I believe and I apologize if this offends anybody that Many Latter -day

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Saints are just truly deceived. I do believe because it is my experience that they have

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Had emotional feelings Towards the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints and I will say for one thing man

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The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints is full of amazing people They are my family.

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I don't hate you. I love you guys but a

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Sincere belief can also just mean you're sincerely wrong. We have people that constantly are

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You know, they believe all sorts of things but how do you test that you got to test it next to Scripture there's a lot of things in Scripture that I have had to come face to face with and realize that My way is not correct that this is

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God's perfect word. Am I gonna live it to a perfection? Absolutely, not.

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It's unattainable perfection is unattainable only in Christ He's the perfect one and he gives that as a gift to us.

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And yes, we're sanctified you should be able to look at your life down the road and many

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Mormons completely outdo many evangelical Christians with I quoted

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Ephesians 2 8 9 earlier man 210 is what Mormons do they live out those works and righteousness prepared before us by God But if you're doing it

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You Know faith faith has to have a object

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What is the object of your faith if you? If your object is is off just a little bit.

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We talked about this word sin. My friend asked me yesterday Where's the word sin come from? It's a it's an archery term if you miss the bullseye one degree to the right

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It's called a sin one Two it's a sin two so it's just not being perfect and none of us are perfect.

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We know that and so What I would say to my latter -day saint friends is if you have the wrong object of faith if you put your faith in a

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Jesus that We have so many Jesus's we have the

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Jesus of Mormonism He's Lucifer's brother he was a created being we have the

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Jesus of Islam Who did not die on the cross who was the last greatest prophet? we have the

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Jesus of the Jehovah's Witnesses who was Michael the Archangel and we have the Jesus of Christianity biblical

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Christianity who was eternal from everlasting to everlasting

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He's the creator of all things Well, I don't think anybody if if you just came here from another planet and you understood my language

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You would understand that all four of those cannot be correct. Yeah, that's an impossibility that They could all be wrong, but they cannot all be right

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And so that's where I'm going with that your faith in an object if you put your faith in the wrong

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Jesus Christ Then it's misplaced faith and it doesn't matter how much you believe in a false, you know

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Christ It cannot save you Jesus says he is the way the truth and the life in John 14

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And that no man can come to the father but by him and this is the true

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Jesus And so I would just implore my latter -day saint friends to explore the

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Bible like a Wilder I believe he's a he's a Returned missionary from Utah turned evangelical

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Christian he just says read read the read the Bible as a child

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I know that a lot of Latter -day Saints believe it's got to be the King James Version There's a lot of great versions out there

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And if you want to study the original languages or get a program like Logos man, you can really go down a rabbit hole but I mean 90 % 99 % of these

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Bibles are great translations read it in a language that you can understand read it with the eyes of a child and Read the gospel of John and just keep going.

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You're gonna get bogged down if you start in Genesis Exodus Leviticus numbers

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Deuteronomy Just start with John. We're studying it right now. We've been studying it for eight months go back and listen to those studies and see who

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Jesus is the word the Logos The one who tabernacled amongst us