Quoting Mitz Nelson:
I think it is a process. I don’t think too often they get that one big “ahah!” moment. But it is a process.
And that is what you guys have to remember: You are a part of that process. Just because someone doesn’t have that “ahah!” moment with you doesn’t mean what you did wasn’t completely profound in their life.
My daughter was prayed for at Pageant — oh, four years before we left. A Christian woman tried to talk with her. She wasn’t really getting what she was saying. But then she just said, “Can I pray with you?” And she prayed for her. And that stuck with my daughter. It didn’t pull her out. It didn’t change her entire life right then, but it was part of that process. God used that woman to pray with her then, which just validated her later, where she had those things to look back on.
So don’t get frustrated. Be bold.
And remember, they are captives. They are the beautiful walking dead. They are. It’s a beautiful religion. It’s a beautiful people. It’s a beautiful organization. But they’re dying. And you guys know the only Physician that can heal them.
There were a lot of things that had to happen before I could find my way out. However, there were a few friends of mine that helped me out and they didnt even know it. One was Roman Catholic, one was Presbyterian, on was Nondenominational. They all were wonderfully kind and loving and had beautiful families. They never tried to convert me or take me out of Mormonism. They were just my good friends. I hear that many people convert to Mormonism because they love the close families, the values, and the service oriented community. But I found that my three friends all had that, and they weren’t Mormon! That might sound silly to some. But I have heard a few Mormons tell me that they were surprised that they found that other faiths contain the things that they thought were unique to Mormonism. What I noticed about my friends was that all three of them seemed to be way closer to God than I was. I could just feel it when I went to their homes. I could hear it in how they talked about Christ. They talked about Him openly and often. I was doing everything the LDS Church told me to do, reading scriptures, praying, FHE, fulfilling callings, attending meetings, etc. but I just couldn’t seem to find the relationship that my friends had. Not that I didnt have any relationship with Christ, but it was just not where I wanted it to be. Something seemed to be lacking. I was so confused on how someone “outside Christ’s Church” could be so close to God. I felt their love for Him and I felt Gods love for them. And I knew, that they had no interest in Mormonism. What did it have that they didnt already have? I started to think that if I made it to the Celestial Kingdom I’d want to give up my spot to them, I felt that they were more deserving. This alone didn’t get me out but it was a big thing that got the wheels turning.
I am sometimes discouraged by the lack of visible change in the Latter-day Saints whom I have befriended. Thanks for this reminder that, although I may not see “results” now, my efforts are not in vain.
It took a total of 4 years for my Husband to officially leave the church and another 6 months for him to give his life to Christ.
We had been married for a little over a year.
I prayed every single night for some form of truth to penetrate… And eventually it did.
We were just talking about this last night. I asked him “Do think there was a single moment when you knew it wasn’t true”.
He said that when he was about to turn 19, he was praying to see if he should go on a mission. He knew God/Jesus were real but he wasn’t so sure that the church was true/real. Like Jaxi he had many non LDS friends who seemed to genuinely know God and have a relationship with Him. He just stopped going to church and put it in the back of his mind. It was too hard to face the possibility of disappointing his family. When he moved away from them, He just kind of fell away from all church, God, or thoughts of it. It was really hard for him.
When we met and started dating, we both just assumed we believed the same things. I was ignorant as to what Mormonism was. I lived in Utah but all I saw were the pretty faces, loving and large families, modest clothing, and devotion to church. I knew there was probably something wrong with the church but I chalked it up to the fact that it’s a large religious institution.
When we met with my pastor as we discussed marriage he told us he wouldn’t marry us. This through us both for a loop.Up until this point, he had been going to church with me and we discussed things lightly. He asked about what “being saved” meant. This was a big struggle for him. He couldn’t come to grasps with how a murderer could be pardoned and allowed to live with God through faith in Jesus yet someone who was a “good” person that hadn’t accept Christ would go to hell. He couldn’t understand how I could be sure I was going to heaven and knew I would be with God. Neither of us knew that it was because he had a lifetime of indoctrination that told him a completely different version of heaven, salvation, and the purpose of life. One day we finally had a very big and ugly talk about it. I was devastated when I finally understood how different our beliefs were. I was in such denial. I wanted him to be a Christian, I wanted his families religion to be true and good. I knew it wasn’t and I think he did too. This talk lasted literally all night. We discussed heaven, hell, salvation, the trustworthiness of the Bible.
It was interesting how everything I said seemed to bounce right off of him.
When I started learning more about the church and church history, I would bring what ever I learned to him.
He just would say the typical things like “thats just information from an “anti- Mormon” site, or “as far as it’s correctly translated”. This went on for at least a year. One day he and I sat down, I pulled out the BOM and the Bible and I said “lets figure out which one is true, like we are learning about both for the first time”. He began to read the Bible and I read the D&C/BOM/POGP. I brought up problems I had, he brought up his.. We did a lot of research. About a month later we watched “the Bible Vs. the BOM” on youtube. After watching it he got really angry and said he felt like he had been lied to his entire life. He went on FAIR and FARMS and tried to discredit the films but the more he read their flimsy responses the more he got frustrated with the Church. It was hard for him, he said he felt like a fool for ever believing it. I came home the next day and all of his LDS related materials were in the trash. About 6 months later he gave his life to the lord and has enjoyed a relationship with Christ ever since, It’s been about 2 years. Up until about 6 months ago he wouldn’t even admit to people that he was ever LDS.
It’s interesting the pattern I see with a lot of people who leave the church. At first it’s denial, then it’s anger, then it’s shame, then it’s peace.
By the way, those 6 months between leaving the LDS church and becoming a Christian were critical. THey were so hard for both of us. He had so many questions and he had very little trust. He had to learn to trust God’s word. He also had to “deprogram” himself. So many things he was taught were not biblical and he had no idea. I can see through his transformation why so many LDS become Atheists upon leaving. It is incredibly hard. It’s like your life and all truth have been turned upside down. We didn’t even have the added pressure of a disapproving family. His family has never said a word about it. They just say they are happy for him.
God worked an incredible miracle in my hubby. It’s a masterpiece when I look back but I remember going through it thinking he would never change and he would never know a relationship with Jesus.
It took a very long time and a lot of prayer.
If your witnessing to anyone, don’t give up and don’t forget to pray for them. It works wonders.
Also, don’t forget to love them. It’s not about you being right and them being wrong. It’s about them being deceived and years of indoctrination really do act like scales over their eyes, ears, and hearts.
Patience, love, and grace need to be given abundantly.
Jaxi, Brewed, thanks for sharing your experiences . I can identify with Kenneth , so I appreciate
your comments . I have always felt that the Mormon people are a decent people . Many are
people who were striving to serve God but were detoured by men into embracing a imitation
gospel . The field of harvest to reach the Mormon people with the truth about Jesus is here
and thankfully there are many christians who are reaching out to them in love with the truth
about the difference between the religion of Joseph Smith and a relationship with Jesus Christ.
Jaxi/Brewed.
Good stuff. Thank you for sharing it. It’s a real encouragement and also very instructive. It’s interesting how former Mormons tell similar stories of transformation. Jack Garcia, who used to post here, said that it took five years for him to get all of the Mormonism out of his brain. He even talked about wanting it to be true long after he knew it wasn’t.
I’ve watched the video of Mitz Nelson at least twice. It’s really interesting. She was a real Molly Mormon.
I think I may have shared this but I don’t know since I’m pretty careful with these kind of things. But I had a “vision” of this huge ice dam and behind it was this pure blue water. The sun began to warm and the ice dam started to melt and had some cracks and the water flowed. Then things became cold again and the ice froze solid, almost harder than it had been prior to the melt.
The ice dam is like the hearts of people holding back and resisting the pure water of the Word of God. The sun warming is the move of the Spirit. There are seasons when the conditions are right for the melt and thus the flow. When the season of warmth ends, the ice dam freezes again and often times it’s harder than it was previously.
My “season” lasted about a year and then the ice dam broke completely and the Spirit couldn’t be resisted any more by me. God totally broke my resistance. Now during this time I was seeking after God but it was Him drawing me that resulted in my quest. A Christian woman who had been witnessing to me said, “I had everyone in town praying for you!”
We could get into a deep theological discussion here but I’m of the belief that if God wants someone, he’s going to have them. Prayer really does help. I don’t know what the spiritual dynamics are but I do know that our prayers are a critical component.
Micah Wilder…………..
Posted this on facebook and I thought it was very appropriate for this thread. If any of you have had a chance to watch Mitz Nelson’s testimony, much/most of it is linked to her relationship with her husband and their journey out of the LDS church, Mormonism and into a saving relationship with Jesus Christ.
From Micah
Happy 7 year anniversary to my beautiful, sweet, and God loving wife! Over 10 years ago, we fell in love as young Mormon teenagers, and we thought we had life figured out. Then unexpectedly while I was on my Mormon mission, God reached into our lives, showed us the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus, and we were changed forever!
To say that we have been through a lot together would be quite an understatement. We have seen our lives turned upside-down. We walked away from everything we knew and loved to call Jesus our Lord and Master. But we have been richly blessed through God’s love in a way that words cannot describe.
I am grateful to my dear wife for the love, compassion, and endless patience she shows towards me. I knew from the beginning such a sinful man like me did not deserve a woman like her. So all I can do is thank and praise God for blessing me with such a Godly woman who loves the Lord Jesus above all things.
For many years to come, embraced in the loving arms of Jesus’ incomprehensible love, I love you……………………………
Sometimes I wonder if former Mormons might not have benefited from their time within the LDS church. The reason I say that is that all though it caused them a great deal of emotional and spiritual pain, they certainly have something with which to compare their current status as born again Christians.
As Mormons, these folks were caught in a legalistic system that not only acknowledged a different Father, Son and Holy Ghost but also a totally different plan of salvation.
The Bible clearly tells us that we are separated from God by our sin. That God in his infinite love, mercy, benevolence and kindness, provided the perfect sacrifice for sin. When we repent and come to Jesus in faith we are born again by the Spirit of God. The result is eternal life.
One consistent message we get from former Mormons is that now they have a personal relationship with Jesus which they didn’t have as Mormons. That their salvation is secure not on the basis of works they have done but on faith in Jesus.
These former Mormons now understand that their is no such thing as the “one true church” in the way that the LDS church teaches.
Being set free in Jesus allows us to be apart of the Mystical Body of Christ, God’s invisible church. This is the Bride of Christ.
This is indeed Good News!
I love these “process” stories told by former Mormons. One of those is that of Micah Wilder. A video of Micah was featured on Mormon Coffee some years back. He really has an intriguing story to tell. From a newspaper article, also some years back.
Micah Wilder found Jesus as a Mormon missionary in Orlando, Fla., and the experience led him out of the church that sent him.
Wilder’s awakening began with an evangelical minister’s challenge to read the Bible more closely, noting discrepancies between the ancient text and Mormon beliefs. The young missionary pored over the scriptures to prove the man wrong, he says, but instead found himself discovering a different Jesus than the one he had known as a Latter-day Saint.
“I learned that salvation came through the gift and grace of God, not by our works. I learned that believing in Christ was enough. . . . I learned that the priesthood, temples, ordinances and prophets were all fulfilled through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ,” he says in a written testimony. “God reached into my heart and changed everything I had ever known.”
Wilder shared his newfound faith with fellow LDS missionaries Joseph Warren and Steve Kay, Mormon convert Jay Graham, and his brother Matt, who had just returned from a mission to Denmark. They all had a “born again” experience and gave up membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Three years later, Wilder and the other four have formed a Christian band……………….
They don’t go out of their way to offend believing Mormons, but do feel an obligation to share their conversion with members of the LDS Church, Matt Wilder says. “As a band, we are not afraid to testify to what we believe.”
…………………….Wilder’s father, Michael, and mother, Lynne, who resigned from the LDS Church in response to their son’s prompting after being active Mormons for more three decades. Lynne Wilder gave up a tenured position at Brigham Young University.
At his son’s insistence, Michael Wilder says, he re-read the New Testament and began delving into little-known aspects of Mormon history.
“It opened my eyes,” he said. “Once I got into Mormon doctrines, I realized this is not what Christ would teach. We are not anti-Mormon, just anti- Mormon doctrine.”
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_10275706?IADID=Search-www.sltrib.com-www.sltrib.com
Micah’s testimony gave me so much hope as my husband was transitioning out of the church. His entire family is a miracle. I’ve heard each of their testimonies. Amazing.
I can relate to Brewed a lot. While he was inactive when we married, we had dated for a long time before that (even through his mission days). So being married to a Mormon was definitely not an easy thing.
My husband is still in the exhausting process of getting out. He’s afraid to tell his family, but I can tell his annoyance with the Church is getting so far that he’s not worried about his LDS friends having their suspicions. He’s worried he’ll break his parents’ hearts though.
I asked him not long ago what made it click with him. He said it was just a lot of little things, starting with situations he experienced within the Church over 10 years ago. Mostly temple-related issues he had that he kept pushing in the back of his mind (since “the Church is true…”). Throughout our relationship, he realized pastors aren’t all “thieves” who are out to make money. He was reported to his mission president for listening to “apostate music”, because I would send him Christian CD’s. Questions about Mormon doctrine that were going unanswered or being brushed aside. Just little things throughout the years that stuck with him.
All I can say to those of you trying to win these incredible people to Christ… is to have patience. Lots and lots of patience. I wasn’t always so great at this. But don’t lose heart. I had to learn that I’m not my husband’s Holy Spirit. I’m just here to help him when needed and to keep planting those seeds. And with God’s help, they take root.
Oh, and I love Micah’s story (and the rest of the Adam’s Road guys). For those who don’t know, you can still watch the film for free online at http://www.sacredgrovesonline.org. I’ve watched it so many times, and it always gave me so much hope before my husband left the LDS Church. It’s my prayer that God will use my husband to lead the rest of his family and friends out.