The Witnessing to Mormons Seminar

Why Christians Must Witness to Mormons

It is very politically incorrect to do what we're doing this morning. It is the common viewpoint in our culture that as long as someone believes strongly in anything, that that's enough. That it is in fact an example of being close-minded, possibly bigoted, and certainly backwoods-ish.

To feel that there are certain issues that are so important that you should go to someone and say, I feel you have been misled. I feel you have been deceived. May I speak with you? Our culture does not understand that.

Our culture thinks that that is something that we should not be engaged in. But by the very fact that you're here this morning, at least you are interested in finding out whether that is in fact something that we should be involved in.

And maybe you're already as convinced as I am that it is something that we need to do in regards to the members of the Church of Jesus Christ, Latter-day Saints, and the Mormon people. Now, we may have some LDS people with us this morning.

We may have some people who are maybe former LDS, are searching for God's truth. I don't know. We've announced this far and wide and invited everyone to be here. Some of you may have heard the program we did on KFLR a few weeks ago in which we announced this particular meeting.

So I don't know. I'm not going to assume that everyone sitting in front of me goes to Calvary Community or that everyone sitting in front of me is a believer who would be right next to me standing out in Mesa or in Salt Lake City passing out tracts to Mormon people.

I don't know. So what we need to do, I think, first of all, before later on this morning talking about the specifics of how we can share the Gospel with Latter-day Saints, is first of all, we need to establish the reasons why we would gather here this morning, the reasons why for the past ten years I've been involved in evangelism of the LDS people.

And then I need to provide you with a foundation for those reasons, and that is we are going to explain the teachings and theology of the LDS Church. We're going to explain it so that you can understand exactly what Mormonism does teach, and I will strive with every fiber of my being for accuracy in representing the official teachings of the Church.

The Need for Accurate Understanding of Mormon Beliefs

Put yourself in a Mormon's position, and you'll see why I do that. Put yourself in a position where someone walks up to you and someone says to you, Well, yes, I am. I see you have a Bible there. Well, you know that thing's just a bunch of myth.

You know it's been disproven, and Christianity just doesn't, you know, it's untrue. Oh, really? Well, have you read the Bible? No, I haven't read the Bible. My Uncle George told me about it about 15 years ago, but I know Christianity's untrue.

What is that person's integrity level in your eyes right now? Do you really take seriously what they've just said about your faith? No, of course not. Reverse it. You go to the Mormon person, and the Mormon person says, Well, I really do believe that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the true Church, and I believe that God has restored His Church in these latter days, and I believe that Ezra Taft Benson is a prophet of God.

And you say, Well, you know, Mormonism, it's untrue, you know. Oh, really? How do you know that? Well, I saw a movie once. I saw a movie once on it, and, you know, that certainly should be enough for you, right?

Oh, have you ever studied any of the Mormon scriptures, the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, the Pilgrimage of Christ? Have you ever listened to any of our leaders speak? Oh, no. No, I haven't, but I know it's untrue.

If we're honest with ourselves, we'll recognize that if we're fair, if we are consistent, if we apply the same standards to ourselves that we apply to others, there is something required of us if we are going to go to the Mormon person.

And it's a four-letter word called work. I know, I'm sorry, but it is a four-letter word called work. We need to take the time to do two things. First of all, we need to take the time to know our faith well enough to communicate it effectively.

And you may say to yourself, Well, I know that. I know that. I thought that, too, until I spent my first two and a half hours with two LDS missionaries many years ago now. And when I got done with that conversation, how many of you have done that?

I see some people laughing going, Oh, yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. When I got done with that conversation with Elders Reed and Reese, I remember them to this day, I had some convictions in mind.

And one of those convictions was, A, I do not know my faith well enough to communicate it effectively to someone who does not already share all my language and terminology. And, oh, do we Christians use language and terminology?

We've got our lingo. We've got our lingo. And we've got to realize there's a huge language barrier that exists between us and the Mormon people. We're going to talk a lot about that this morning. The second conviction I had is, I did not know what they believed well enough to really talk with them intelligently.

I just didn't know. And they, being the young men they were, were not all that good at necessarily explaining it. And, of course, they didn't know my faith well enough to explain it to me. And so we sat there talking past each other for about two and a half hours.

And I'm afraid that's what frequently ends up happening. We end up sitting there speaking different languages. And so the two things we need to do is we need to know our faith. And then this morning, we need to gain an accurate knowledge of the fundamentals of the Mormon faith.

Now, I'm going to tell you something right now. And this is where I differ some from some individuals that may be involved in this type of ministry. And that's this. I would rather have five people with me in Salt Lake City who know their faith backwards and forwards and are able to explain it than 50 people who can shred Mormonism but have nothing positive to give in reaction to what the Mormon then says.

That's very important. There are a lot of people who will, you know, oh Joseph Smith was this and Joseph Smith was that and here's this false prophecy and there's that false prophecy and here's this contradiction in the Book of Mormon and zing, zing, zing, and I can just take that Mormon missionary apart and leave him laying on the floor.

But they've got nothing positive to give in response. I'll never forget talking with an LDS missionary, a return Mormon missionary. He had spent two years on his mission, not in Zimbabwe, not in Guatemala, not in Antarctica.

He had spent his two-year mission right here in the good old U .S. of A. And we spent two and a half hours talking about the Gospel. And I'll never forget what he said to me. I did not take it as a compliment.

After two and a half hours, he said to me, this is the first time that anyone has ever explained to me the difference between what you folks believe and what we believe. Now this man had gone door to door in the United States of America for two years.

And I had no reason, I had no reason at all to distrust what he was saying to me. The simple fact of the matter is we cannot assume that just because an LDS person speaks often of the Gospel, that they've ever heard it.

Think about that. If I am right, and I intend to demonstrate later on this morning that I am right, in saying that the Mormon Church preaches a false Gospel, we cannot assume that any person that we encounter, no matter how religious they may be, no matter how active they may be in their church, has ever actually heard the Gospel.

Some people say to us, you go up to Salt Lake City to where all the return missionaries and the mission presidents and the stake presidents and so on and so forth, all these people are going to General Conference.

These are the hardest of the hard. And you go up there every six months to pass out tracts of witness to people? Isn't that a waste of time? And my response always is twofold. A, you cannot assume that these individuals have ever had the Gospel, the Gospel of Grace, adequately explained to them.

And secondly, my God can save anybody. No matter how hard someone may think that they are. And so, there is no neat little program to where I can give you five or six verses to memorize and boom, you're ready to go.

You can walk out there amongst the thousands of LDS missionaries and just, ooh, it doesn't work that way. There's no pills, there's no programs, there's no easy way. You're going to be challenged. In fact, I'm going to warn you right now.

I shouldn't do this before the break, but I'll trust you. I'm going to warn you right now. After we go over the theology of Mormonism and the teachings of the LDS Church, we're going to close by doing something called role plays.

Role plays. Role plays. Okay? And that means I will be the Mormon and you will be the Christian. And you know why we do that? We do that for a number of reasons. First of all, when we go over the theology, when you look inside your handout here and you look inside the very front cover, and I'm going to put this up on the overhead in a moment, and you look at the eternal law of progression, and we're going to go over this step by step, point by point.

It's the central aspect of LDS theology. It's going to allow you to sort of tie it all together. Hopefully when you leave you're going to understand what this is all about. When you go over this, there is a frequent reaction amongst Christians, and that is, how can anyone believe that God was once a man who lived on another planet and that Jesus is the spirit brother of Lucifer?

How can anyone hold the Bible and believe that men can become gods? How can that be? And what you need to realize is there's an awful lot of well-read, very intelligent, very sincere LDS people out there.

And many of them can turn you inside out with your own Bible. We're talking about serious stuff here, folks. We really are. It's very serious work. It requires preparation, and that's hopefully why we're all here this morning.

And so that's why we're going to do the role play, because I get to represent to you what Mormonism can present to you, and how the Bible can be used to try to support some of these things. And I'd rather have you hear it here, in this context, where we can then stop and say, now here's how we should have handled that, rather than in a context where you're talking with the LDS person and you're left going, well, I had never seen that passage before.

1 Corinthians 15, 29, baptism for the dead, I hadn't seen that one before. I don't know. There's nothing wrong with not knowing, but it's better to find out about it now, when you have an opportunity of preparing, than later on, when you're actually in the middle of a witnessing situation.

So, especially those of you who sit right down front, you might want to be, after the break, no one's going to be in the front section. Everybody's going to be back there. Don't worry, I can see everybody in the room.

You'd like to do that, right? Come on down, we'll have a little role play together. No, but I hope you'll be thinking about that. And I also mention it so that you'll pay close attention for the next hour or so, so you'll be well prepared for that situation.

The Mandate to Share the Gospel with All People

So, here's the game plan. I believe that we have a requirement. I believe that we have a directive, a mandate from God, to share the gospel with all people. And that includes people who already have a religious faith.

The New Testament is plain that the apostles, when they went out, they would go right into the synagogue, and they would proclaim the gospel. Paul went right onto Mars Hill and proclaimed the gospel to the people there who already had a religious faith.

We must do the same thing. We must share the gospel with all people, even with individuals who would say, I am a Christian. I believe in Jesus Christ. But if I, this morning, am able to fully demonstrate that when the Mormon says, I believe in Jesus Christ, their faith has been placed in a false Christ, then we as believers, if we care for them, and that is the only reason to do this, we'll share with them the truth.

And I hope the emphasis came through there. If you're hoping this morning to be able to learn how to absolutely dazzle those young Mormon missionaries when they come to your door, and nothing more, I don't know if we have some donuts or stuff outside, or the sun's playing, or whatever, there might be something better for you to do, I'll be perfectly honest with you, because that's not what I want to do.

I don't want to just have people out there who want to win a debate. And if you're LDS, I want to explain to you the reason that I do what I do. The reason that I have done this for as many years as I've done this is because I care about the LDS people.

I want to see God glorified, and I don't believe that God is glorified by the teaching of falsehood. I believe that Mormonism is untrue. And therefore, on that basis alone, I must stand against that teaching.

But God places within our hearts love and compassion for those who have been deceived, because you know what? There's not a person sitting in this room who, if it were not for the grace of God, could themselves be just as deceived.

And so I'm not better than any Mormon person. I'm not superior to any Mormon person. By God's grace, He has kept me from that deception. He has allowed me to see what that deception is. And if I love Him, and if I love other people, then I will share with others why that is deception, and how they too can escape from that deception.

That's why we're here, because we care about LDS people. Not because we want to win a debate, not because we want to be able to pull our big theology sword out and get it nice and bloodied out there in the field of battle, but because we care about folks.

Okay? So, with that said, I need to lay the foundation for saying that Mormonism, even though it claims to be the only true church on earth with which God is pleased, claims to have the only priesthood authority that God recognizes, claims to be the only true church that can act in the place of God, the only church with the fullness of the gospel.

Even though Mormonism claims this, I believe that Mormonism is not a Christian church. Even though it uses the terminology, I believe that Mormonism directs people to the worship of a false god, a false Jesus Christ, and presents a false gospel.

Those are hard words. Those are straightforward words. Mormon leaders have been just as straightforward in their condemnation of Christian beliefs. I hope no one will be offended if we just put it all on the table and say, Mormonism is untrue.

And if Mormonism is true, I'm obviously false. Okay? There it's all on the table. Now let's discuss it. And to do that, we need to understand what Mormonism is teaching. And that's what we're going to do this morning.

I'm going to wander over here real quickly and turn on the overhead. And if you will look at the inside of your handout, you have the same thing there. But with a handout, you can make notes for things that may not be as clear for you as you would like them to be.

The Eternal Law of Progression in LDS Theology

Now, obviously, it is impossible for me to cover the entirety of LDS theology in just a short matter of hours. And so what I am trying to do here is to provide you with the central aspects of LDS theology.

I will fill in some of the gray areas a little bit later on when we talk about the LDS scriptures and a few things like that. But I want to provide you with this central aspect because I firmly believe that if you understand this, then other statements that Mormon people make to you will sort of start to fit together.

If you understand the central direction of LDS theology, then you'll have an understanding of why Mormons believe what they believe about God, about salvation, etc. That's why we need to understand the eternal law of progression.

This does not exhaust everything that Mormons believe, but it certainly provides you with a central aspect. And before I even begin, some of you may ask, do all Mormons understand this? Well, that's like asking when you walk into any evangelical church on a Sunday morning and if you sat everybody down, would everyone in there be able to give you an accurate doctrine of the Trinity?

Probably not. So you're going to encounter LDS people who will know all of it. You're going to encounter LDS people who know some of it. And you're going to encounter a few LDS people who think you just landed from another planet when you say this is what they believe.

I remember very clearly an LDS person with whom I spoke that I gave my book to and they were absolutely amazed. It wasn't so much that my book amazed them, but when I'd start citing from LDS leaders and LDS scriptures, he was like, I didn't know this.

And this person had converted to Mormonism. And so they started taking these books down off their shelves. They had the books right there, they just never read them. And ended up leaving the LDS church because they didn't know that this is what the church believed.

They had converted from a Protestant denomination and thought it was sort of like the difference between being a Methodist and becoming a Lutheran. Basically the same thing, just a different flavor. No, it's not that way at all.

There are fundamental differences. And so you have to find out from the Mormon person you're speaking to, exactly how much they know of their own theology, recognizing that in our own churches you're going to find people who are more or less aware of the central doctrines of the faith.

And the same thing happens in regards to Mormonism as well. Now, this is sort of a, it's sort of a circle. I mean, it's sort of hard to lay it out really, really well, but it's sort of a circle. And it starts up here in the corner, up here in the left-hand corner, with the two eternal things in Mormonism.

The two eternal things. And I suppose you could actually make a case for a third, but we'll stick with the two eternal things. Intelligences and matter. Intelligences and matter. Well, what are intelligences?

Well, Mormons disagree amongst themselves. In fact, I've met some fairly well-read Mormons that aren't even totally sure of the concept of intelligences. But intelligences might be likened somewhat to the mind, to the thoughts, to almost a proto-human being, I guess you might say.

Not a spirit, because intelligences are placed into spiritual bodies and are made spirit children. So it's not the concept of a spirit, but it's sort of the essence of who we are, you might say, would be an intelligence.

And matter is matter. You know, the physical matter that we see around us. And in Mormon theology, there's a rather interesting concept of spiritual matter and physical matter, but we're not going to spend the time to get into all of that right now.

These are the eternal things. And one, like I said, might make a case that the concept of the priesthood is actually eternal as well. But intelligences and matter are the two eternal things. You'll notice God isn't.

God isn't. We're going to find out where God comes from here in a few minutes. Now, you're going to have to trust me for a moment as to how intelligences become spirit children and where spirit children come from.

You'll notice this is where the circularity of the graph comes from because you have spirit children here and spirit children up here. This is where spirit children come from. Spirit children are the offspring of celestial parents.

But since we don't know where celestial parents come from yet, you're just going to have to trust me for a moment as to how they come into existence. But intelligences are placed into spirit children.

Spirit children have spiritual bodies. Most Mormons would view these spiritual bodies in an almost physical sense in the idea of growth, in the idea of hands, in the idea of being recognizable physically, eyes, nose, so on and so forth, in a spiritual sense, but without physical matter being associated with them.

According to Mormonism, we all existed as spirit children. I'm going to apply all of this to here on planet Earth when we get done doing a run-through of what is going on here. We're going to avoid this little sideline for the moment and come back to Satan and the demons a little bit later on.

But most of the spirit children enter into what's called the mortal probation, and that is as we are experiencing it right now, human life. All of us live here upon a planet, and we all are experiencing the mortal probation.

What is the mortal probation? Basically, most Mormons would express it that we are being tested. Our faithfulness is being tested to see if we are worthy to return and live forever in the Father's presence.

That would be the missionary explanation, if I can call it that, the basic explanation of what's going on, that we are being tested. It is a time of probation. We are given opportunities to choose and to demonstrate whether our love for God is as strong as it should be.

We are in the mortal probation, and during the mortal probation, the gospel plan is presented to these spirit children who have taken on bodies of flesh and bone here in the mortal probation. Flesh and blood bodies, as you and I have, spirits pre-existing, being placed into these bodies.

We are now presented with options, and the main option is to accept the gospel as it is proclaimed by the LDS Church. And that is the option that is seen here in this smaller arrow that goes up toward Paradise.

And you notice the letters A and B that are defined down below here on the overhead and on your paper as well. A and B, the four fundamentals of the gospel is letter A. The four absolute necessary things to enter into celestial glory, faith, repentance, baptism, and laying on of hands.

To be more specific, faith and repentance, we're familiar with the concepts, though exactly how they play out in LDS theology is a little bit different. Baptism, by someone holding the proper authority.

By someone holding the proper authority. And where is that proper authority found? But only in the LDS Church. Only someone holding the priesthood authority, the LDS Church. The Aaronic priesthood, absolutely minimally, most time Aaronic priests do not baptize, but if there is absolutely positively, nobody else around, they theoretically could.

But baptism, by immersion, by a person holding the proper authority, laying on of hands to receive the Holy Ghost by someone holding the Melchizedek priesthood. And according to Mormon theology, the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods are available only within the confines of the LDS Church.

The prophet and leader of the church holds the keys of the priesthood. And this priesthood allegedly was restored to Joseph Smith in 1829 and was necessary for the founding of the LDS Church. Just for those of you who are really into trivia and taking notes, historically, when the LDS Church was founded April 6, 1830, the concept of the priesthood was foreign to Joseph Smith.

It was a later addition, an evolution, that he came up with and in fact then went back and changed some of the scriptures that he had written to insert the concept of the priesthood into it. That's a historical issue that sometimes you might want to get into if you're having a real long conversation with someone in a written form or whatever else it might be.

But, be that as it may, these are the four fundamentals of the faith. Faith, repentance, baptism, laying on of hands. Those are the musts. But they're not all. There's much more beyond that. If you wish to gain the highest level of celestial glory, if you wish, in fact, to become a god, then there are other things that are required.

Mentioned here in B. Continued obedience to gospel rules and principles. What does that mean? Well, that can vary in regards to the particular individual LDS person you're speaking to, who your bishop happens to be, etc. etc.

But, minimally, for the LDS male to gain the highest level of celestial glory, one must go through and receive one's endowment. And this takes us into the LDS Temple Ceremonies. Now, I'm not going to spend a lot of time on the LDS Temple Ceremonies.

You must realize that Mormons are extremely sensitive to this. Mormons believe that the LDS Temple Ceremonies are secret and sacred. The term secret having been removed after 1990, but it was part of the endowment up until 1990.

In fact, in April of 1990, there were some substantial, massive changes in the endowments. They initially had been 90 minutes long, and then when they came back with the new version in April of 1990, they were now 60 minutes long.

So, 30 minutes worth of the endowment just sort of, poof, disappeared. A number of things that were very offensive to Christians, the mocking of the Christian pastor, various signs, tokens, and penalties were removed just a few years ago.

And now, when you talk with those young missionaries at your door, it's far enough removed that most of them never went through the pre -1990 endowment. None of them did, really. And hence, they're not even familiar with those things.

They were once a part of the Mormon Temple Ceremonies. But the concept is still that the Mormon Ceremonies are very sacred and very secret. And hence, the fastest way to escalate a conversation with a Mormon into a fist fight is to mock the Temple Ceremonies or bring them up in a disrespectful way.

I can guarantee you that. I've watched it happen. It's not what I would suggest that anyone do. I have brought up the Temple Ceremonies in various contexts only when an LDS person was unwilling to own a certain part of their theology that is plainly taught within the Endowment Ceremony itself.

I don't suggest that that be something that you do on a regular basis because, like I said, you do not want to artificially raise the emotion level involved in any of the witnessing situations. But the LDS male goes through these Endowment Ceremonies and receives the authority of the priesthood.

The Endowment Ceremony is required of that LDS individual and to gain the highest level of exaltation, the LDS man must be sealed to his wife in the Eternal Marriage Ceremony. And the Eternal Marriage Ceremony, of course, assumes that you've already gone through the Endowment Ceremony as a prerequisite to it.

And so, these things come under this heading of continuing to be as to gospel rules and principles, receiving one's endowment. And, of course, to even enter into the temple, one must go through what's called the interview with one's bishop, get what's called a temple recommend.

And the specifics of what you're asked and how you're asked it differ from bishop to bishop at times, some bishops being a little more lenient than others. But you're asked concerning your faithfulness to LDS beliefs, your tithing record is examined, etc., etc., to see if you are worthy to gain access to the temple even to start with.

And so, this also would fall under the concept of continued obedience to gospel rules and principles. And then, even once you've received your endowment, once you've been sealed in the temple to your wife, there is this lifelong demonstration of your worthiness that is required of the LDS individual to eventually gain celestial glory.

Just because you've received your temple marriage and you've received your endowments is no guarantee in and of itself that you are, in fact, going to receive your exaltation to Godhood. The concept of having an assurance of that is not something you're going to find too many LDS people expressing because it is constantly emphasized that it is faithfulness unto the end that is the final demonstration of your worthiness to do so.

So, that is the line that goes up here. The LDS person who has gone through these things, then before resurrection, and please notice the shaded line here that is the resurrection, that is where after death you do not have your body of flesh and bone, you are a spiritual individual, everything here in paradise, everyone here in paradise, this is prior to resurrection.

That's important. We'll see why it's important in just a moment. But an individual who takes advantage of these things goes directly into paradise. Now, obviously, and of course, the lines are not meant to be exact in their size, but you'll notice that this line is not nearly as big or thick as this line here.

There are, let's say, approximately 10 million Mormon people today, members of the Mormon Church, and certainly the vast majority of them would not be considered temple worthy, but let's say we just went with 10 million people, that's still a fairly small percentage of the human population on earth today.

So, obviously, the majority of individuals, when they die, when they leave the mortal probation, are not going directly to paradise, they enter into what's called the spirit prison. And if you are a Christian here today, you're not a Mormon, this is where you are slated to go as well.

You go into the spirit prison, awaiting the resurrection. Now, what happens in the spirit prison? Well, faithful Mormons, from up here in paradise, we must remember that Mormonism has always been a missionary-minded church.

And in fact, being missionary-minded extends even after death, to the point where faithful LDS people are able to come down here to the spirit prison and proclaim the gospel to those who did not accept the gospel while on earth.

Now, again, you'll hear differences of opinion amongst some of the individuals that you would be speaking with who are LDS. Some of the more, I've had, very hard-line, I guess the term would be crusty-type Mormons, who feel that if you had the opportunity while you were on earth to hear the gospel, and it was sufficiently explained to you, no second chances.

And I've had some elderly gentlemen up there in Salt Lake City express this very forcefully. Let's put it that way. It's a family time, so we don't want to say it's exactly the way they said it to me, but let's just say they told me to go there.

Okay, right down there in the lower left-hand corner, just straight in there, and we'll just leave it at that. But there are other LDS people that are a little more liberal, shall we say. Some who have even said that someone such as myself, who obviously understands, I've read the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, Broderick Price, and I've spoken with thousands of LDS people.

I've even had some who say, even I will have a second chance in the spirit prison to accept the gospel and gain access out of the spirit prison. But you'll find some disagreements amongst folks in regards to issues like that.

But be that as it may, the faithful LDS people preach the gospel down here. Now, realize you're a spirit in the spirit prison. And if you think about the four fundamentals of the faith, what are they again?

Those four fundamentals? You must have faith, repentance, baptism, and laying on of hands. Well, you're a spirit. So you can do number one and number two. Spirits can have faith and spirits can repent.

But have you ever tried baptizing a spirit by immersion? And try laying hands on the head of a spirit? Not easily done. So, what must happen? What has to happen in the place of those down here in the spirit prison who accept the gospel, they believe, they repent, but they can't be baptized and they can't have anyone lay hands on their head.

Well, that's why you have what's called baptism for the dead. How many of you are aware that the LDS church practices baptism for the dead? Most of you are, some of you aren't. If you go out to Mesa, and there is one temple in the state of Arizona.

It's out on Main Street in Mesa between Hobson and Lassure. There's only one temple. The ward chapels or the stake centers that you see dotting the neighborhoods, those are not temples. There's only one temple in Arizona.

There are a number of temples in Utah. There's a temple in Dallas. They're building temples rather regularly these days. That temple, if you go out there, and let's say you were just to stand outside and just sort of observe things for a while, you would see that during the week, you'd see a number of people, frequently elderly people, but not always in any way, shape, or form.

But you would see a number of people going in, and frequently, they'll be carrying a bag with them, a small suitcase-type bag, satchel-type thing. And they'll go in, and a while later, they come out, and they get in their cars, and they leave.

And you may wonder, what's going on here? And then you may look across the street, and you'll find a big genealogical library. And you may have, in talking with Mormon friends at work or something like that, you may have discovered that Mormons are fascinated by genealogy.

And they're the ones who basically bought everybody else's genealogical libraries. In fact, if any of you have attempted to do research into your own family history, or into any type of history, in the early history of the United States, you may have discovered that to, for example, get microfilm records, like I did a study in regards to Joseph Smith in the 1820 census in upstate New York, and you know where the microfilms came from?

They came from Bountiful, Utah. And you may discover that almost everything that you need to find will come to you from Utah. And the reason being, the LDS people are deeply involved in genealogical research, and have basically bought everybody else's genealogical library.

And so if you want to get genealogical information, that's where you're going to get it from. Why? Why this fascination? Well, the Mormon Church believes that one of the functions of the church is to serve as saviors of the dead.

To serve as saviors of the dead. What does that mean? Well, because you have to be baptized, and you have to have hands laid upon your head, the only way that people can get out of the spirit prison and up to paradise is through baptism for the dead.

Specifically, the LDS individual will research their own family history, and then will go to the temple and will be baptized in the place of their dead relatives. And then after they're baptized, they're taken into another room, and elders lay hands upon their head in the name of their dead relatives, so that by doing substitutionary baptism, if perchance in the spirit prison those same individuals repent and have faith, they have then been baptized in their place, had hands laid upon their heads in their place, and they can be released from the spirit prison and go to paradise.

Now, that would mean that LDS individuals are going into the temple, they have a list of names. Of course, now the Mormon Church has computerized all of this. It used to be done by hand, but now it's been computerized.

And so, in especially the older temples, some of the more modern temples, this isn't the case, but in all of the older temples, the baptismal font was built below ground. And it was built, and it is built today, on the back of 12 oxen, the statues of 12 oxen, of course.

You can see this, by the way, how many of you have ever been to Salt Lake City and gone through one of the visitor's centers up there in Salt Lake City? A couple of you. There is pretty much a full-scale model of what a baptismal font looks like in the South Visitor's Center at the Temple Square in Salt Lake City.

You don't even have to go in, there's a big old window, you can see the whole thing. And it's built on the back of 12 oxen. And you have a person who's doing the baptism, and you also have a recorder, an individual who is basically checking off the names as you are baptized, this individual.

And you can be baptized 50 times in a shot, where you're baptized in the name of such and such a person, you come up, and they're starting on the next name. I mean, just a couple years ago, they did 398 ,000 endowments for the dead in the Mesa Temple alone in one year.