The True Church

I guess my husband and I both had been searching for the true church for a long time. He had grown up as a Methodist and so had I, although I had attended the Presbyterian, Lutheran, Seventh-day Adventist, and even the Catholic Church on a few occasions. We kept thinking that if we could just find the true church, there would be others who wanted to find the truth as we did, and then we would be happy and find peace in our lives.

In our search for that church we did not find happiness or peace. Instead, we both became members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as the “Mormons.” You say, “How could we have fallen for that deceit? Well, probably the same way that millions of others do that are members of that church right now.

I remember the first time that the Mormon missionaries came to my door; I was quite young then, probably about 22 or 23. I worked for a woman who was a member of the church and she asked me if I would like to have the missionaries come to my home? I thought, “Wow, missionaries, that would be nice!” I told her, “Sure, I would like that.” The missionaries gave me the lessons, but when they got to the part where Joseph Smith found the gold plates, well, quite frankly, I thought it sounded like a fairy tale. I told them I didn’t want them to come back and I didn’t believe what they were saying. But Satan was not to give up on me so easily you see.

When I was about 25 years old, I met an older Mormon man at work that I liked to talk to, and he asked me if I would take the discussions. I really didn’t want to, but because I really liked him, I agreed to take them. The missionaries were quite convincing and so young, and so sure that what they were teaching was the truth that it was with much reluctance that I told them I did not want them to return.

It was quite a few years later when I came in contact with the missionaries again. Actually, it was not me, but my boyfriend that wanted to talk to them this time. I had decided not to get involved with the church, but he wanted them to come back so much that I gave in and asked them to return. They gave both of us all the lessons and then challenged us to be baptized. I said no and so did Al, but they kept in contact with us, not the original missionaries, but a new set of young missionaries who had been given our names. By now, Al and I were married and had moved, and they wanted to come and see us again. I didn’t want them to come, but Al did, so they came to see us.

This time I really liked the two missionaries they had sent. One had had polio and the other one was so young and inexperienced that I felt sorry for him. They were so kind and helpful; they even helped us build a rabbit cage for our rabbit and offered to drive us to church on Sunday. I guess I just could not resist their kindness, so I went. I went to Relief Society before I started attending church regularly. The women were friendly and I learned to do crafts and things that I was interested in, so I enjoyed going.

I started going to church and then they challenged me to be baptized again. This time I gave in because of their persistence and friendliness. I still had questions that they could not answer like, “It says in the Bible that we will not be married in heaven, but be as angels.” I was referring to Matthew 22:28-30, where the woman who had seven husbands asked Jesus whose wife she would be in the resurrection, and He replies in verse 29, “Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.” The bishop told me that this was certainly true, but that is why we needed to be sealed here on earth by someone in authority and only their church had the authority to seal (marry in the temple) my husband and I for time and all eternity. Otherwise he said it would be true that I would not be with my husband in heaven.

We were taught the Bible had lost many of the truths that were known long ago. Unfortunately, I was too Biblically illiterate, so I believed them. They said that Joseph Smith had, through inspiration from God, revealed what had been lost from the Bible. I thought that was truly wonderful and I was so excited to think that even now, we had a true and living prophet on the earth today. I wondered why others didn’t believe in the prophet. I wondered, if they had living in Jesus’ time, would they have believed the prophets of old? I was glad that I believed God’s true word and his prophet. What I did not understand was that God taught in Luke 16:16, “The law and the prophets were until John.” The purpose of the prophets were to prophesy of the coming of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Now He was alive and on the earth and John announced His arrival in John 1:36, when he says, “And looking upon Jesus as He walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God!”

I was 32 years old when I joined the Mormon Church. It was 23 years later, after believing the lie of Mormonism, that God, through His Holy Spirit, finally opened my eyes so that I could see the truth. I praise Him for that, because if were to have remained a Mormon, I would be doomed for Hell for eternity, along with my husband! Not a pleasant thought! Do you want to know why I say that? First of all, my husband and I were searching for the true church – that is a mistake many people make. The Bible teaches us that it is not a building that we should be searching for, but Jesus Christ Himself – the way, the truth and the life. “His” believers ARE the “True Church” upon the earth today and there is no other. I can’t believe how blind I was then, unable to understand, but the problem was that I did not know the Scriptures. You cannot know God if you do not “know” the Scriptures. The Bible even refers to Jesus as the “Word.” Where do we find the “Word of God?” – The Bible. If you do not read the Bible, you cannot know or understand God. I pray for each one of you that you will not go around with blinders on, thinking that you understand when you do not. I pray that God will show you the truth. Please don’t pray what those sweet Mormon missionaries tell you to pray, they are sent by Satan to deceive you, and how clever he is to send those sweet young missionaries that are so innocent themselves and probably most of them do not totally understand what they are teaching. He is so very clever, you understand. Why do you think Jesus told the woman when He was on His way to be crucified, “Do not cry for me but for yourselves because Satan is come unto you.”

Jesus knew how many of us Satan could deceive. Without the Holy Spirit in your life, you cannot know the truth, no matter how hard you try. You have to totally submit your life to Christ and ask Him to be your Lord and Savior, because there is no other way to God, except through the Son (See John 14:6, 7, 9, and 11). Also, the Scriptures say in John 10:1-18, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice. And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers.”

Jesus was speaking a parable to them, and then in v. 7, Jesus says, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture. The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.” “…And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.” (The Mormons teach that the other fold was those that lived on the American continent long ago, characters from the Book of Mormon, but in the Bible it is clearly referring to the other sheep as the Gentiles.)

In verse 17, “Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.” Then in v. 26-30, He tells some, “But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand. I and my Father are one.” We pray you will hear His voice.

Anyone that even has a basic understanding of the Word of God could not be a Mormon. First of all, if you believe that Isaiah was a prophet of God, you could not believe that you could become a “god” or “goddess” because throughout Isaiah he says that there is but one God, that there were no Gods before the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He even says that, as God Himself is speaking in Isaiah 43:10-11, “Ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. I, even I, am the LORD; and beside me there is no saviour.” Any “god” other than the God of Abraham, Isaac and Joseph is a “false god” and God says that they will all be brought down.

Then the church teaches that all prophets have come by the authority of God Himself, and that God does not change His word. That would make it quite impossible for many if not all of the prophets to be prophets, because they did not agree down through time, from Joseph Smith to President Hinckley. President Kimball said that if any were teaching that Adam was God, that they should stop teaching that, although it still says in the prefix to Daniel 7, “Adam, Ancient of Days.” Who is the Ancient of Days? It is God! This is also stated in Doctrine & Covenants, Section 27:11, where President Brigham Young taught openly that Adam was God, and for that matter, that is exactly what is being taught in the temple ceremony today. So we have to reason to ourselves, who was a “true prophet?” Was it Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, Spencer W. Kimball, or maybe Gordon B. Hinckley? They certainly do not all agree with each other. The Church teaches that the prophet that is the prophet of the church at the present time supercedes all others in authority, that he speaks God’s word. If that is true, then it makes God Himself changing His mind and His ways, when in the Book of Mormon, in Mormon 9:9, it reads, “For do we not read that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and in him there is no variableness neither shadow of changing?”

The Book of Mormon not only contradicts the Bible, it contradicts itself. In Alma 11:44, it teaches that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are one God. Also in Alma 11:28-29, Zeezrom is asking if there is more than one God and Amulek says to him that there is not. But in the Doctrine and Covenants, Section 121:32; 132:18-20, and also the Book of Abraham, Chapters 4 and 5, there is clearly a teaching of plural Gods.

In one part of the Book of Mormon, it teaches that you must be polygamous to enter into the celestial kingdom (Doctrine & Covenants 132:6), and in another part of the Doctrine & Covenants, Section 49:16, it says that you must have only one wife. It cannot be both ways.

Also the Book of Mormon teaches in Alma 34:36 it states that God dwells in the heart, and in Doctrine & Covenants, 130:3, that He does not.

Speaking of the Book of Mormon itself, I used to wonder why so much of the Book of Mormon was word for word like verses in the Bible? Yes, even whole chapters in Nephi are copies from the Book of Isaiah (see Isaiah 10 and compare to 2 Nephi 20; Isaiah 11:1-2, compare to 2 Nephi 21; Isaiah 48, compare to 1 Nephi 20 – especially notice verse 11 where it says, “my name,” it is italicized just as it is in Isaiah 48. Another excellent one to compare is Isaiah 53 and Mosiah 14 where there are many italicized words).

I don’t believe God ever had a shortage of words, that He would have to repeat them word for word in the Book of Mormon, exactly as in the Bible. What I now believe, after having left the church and doing considerable research on the life of Joseph Smith, was that Joseph Smith not only copied Scripture word for word from the Bible but he also copied the italicized words. These italicized words were added to clarify the translation. I am speaking of the original translation of the King James Bible, translated in 1611 A.D. These italicized words were added by the translators to make the scriptures more understandable, they were not a direct translation from the original language. In the scriptures from Isaiah, Joseph Smith copied not only the words, but the italicized words from the Bible – even though the scriptures that he supposedly translated by divine revelation were supposed to have originated between 400-600 B.C., and written on gold plates before the birth of Jesus Christ and long before the King James version of the Bible was translated (including the italicized words).

Actually, we could go on and on and quote more scriptures, pages of them, to try to convince you that Mormonism is not true, but the problem is that if God Himself does not show you the truth, you will never believe. It is our hope and our prayer, dear Lord, that those who read this story will have a desire to know you, the one and only God, as their Lord and their Savior. Oh God, have mercy we pray in the name of Jesus Christ.

Sandy and Al.

You may contact us through H.I.S. Ministries or at herters@cox.net

Dear Friends,

It has been over a year now that my husband and I have left the Mormon Church and asked that our names be removed from the rolls of the Church. The separation from the Church was probably like going through 3 divorces or 3 deaths in the family. I say this because we want you to know that this was not a fast nor an easy thing for us to go through, but one that we thought entirely necessary for our eternal salvation.

Right now you are probably thinking, “Oh no, they are apostates from the Church and headed for eternal separation from God and doomed for outer darkness, reserved for Satan and his followers”. That is the reason for writing this letter, to let you know that we feel we are right and that the teachings in the Mormon Church are wrong. We will explain how we came to this conclusion.

Al and I were converts to the Church. We had been seeking a church to go to and when the missionaries came to our door and explained that they were the true Church on the earth today, we wanted to listen. We took the missionary lessons, starting going to the investigator classes and later became baptized. For these past 23 years we were certain that we were in the right Church and had no intention of leaving.

I guess probably the first thing that sparked our interest in knowing what others thought about our Church was on Christian radio. They said we believed in a different Jesus and a different God. It always made me angry when they would say that. Al liked to listen to those stations and I always told him I thought that was wrong, because the Church taught us not to listen to such things. He said the scriptures said to “prove all things” and he was interested to see what they had to say.

This clash between us went on for several years. Also we had become inactive at times. During those inactive periods I would always say to Al, “How do you expect we are going to go to the Celestial Kingdom when we don’t keep all the commandments, we don’t keep all the covenants we made in the temple, we don’t go to the temple enough, we don’t do our genealogy, neither one of us keep a journal, and we don’t even get along so well on this earth, so how are we going to get along forever?” He is kind of a procrastinator so he would always tell me things would work out and not to worry about it, but I did. I remember wondering if he could even remember my temple name when it came time to call me. I listened to those programs too sometimes and I also started reading the scriptures, particularly the Bible. I thought I needed to understand the Bible before I could really understand the Book of Mormon well. At times, I read from both of them. Al always seemed to think they tied in together, but I guess I didn’t see that as much as he did. I started noticing that a lot of the things I read in the Bible seemed to be repeated in the Book of Mormon. I didn’t think God had a loss for words and so I wondered why He would have to repeat the same words exactly, the same words from passages in the Bible being the exact same in the Book of Mormon. Al thought it seemed more scriptural, but I thought the opposite.

We had many unresolved issues as I have mentioned before, but one day Al did something that really disturbed me. He came home one afternoon and announced that he brought home a video that he got from the post office box called the Mormon Puzzle. He is a driver for a shuttle service and apparently a minister had asked him about what religion he was and he said proudly he was a Mormon. The minister asked him if he could send him a video, Al said “I’m open” and in a few days this video came to the post office. Al opened it but he seemed to have no interest in it. I was angry because he even let the man send it to us and I said “Well Al, aren’t you even going to watch it? You wanted it so much.” He said he would watch it with me but feel asleep during the first part of the video. The first part of the video was good I thought, like seeing a Mormon video, about missionaries leaving, about having Family Home Evening and people that were members of the Church and why they joined. I thought it seemed alright at first but later in the video I became extremely upset to the point of yelling at the people in the video and pacing up and down across the room and down the hallway, wanting to turn it off, but too curious to because of what they were going to say next.

The video was about Mormonism and what the Church believes. A lot of what was taught in the original formation of the Church never becomes known to the members. They were saying in the video that we believed in a different God and a different Jesus, which I thought was absolutely ridiculous. I thought to myself, there is only one God and only one Jesus; you cannot be right in what you are saying. I was so angry that I called the 800 number on the video and demanded to know where they got all the information from to make this video and that I was certain that our Church didn’t teach what they were saying and those men who were in the video probably were not even members of our Church. I said I thought that what they were saying in the video was a bunch of lies! A man talked to me at length and assured me that these men were in fact from our Church and were also leaders of our Church and that he could prove that to me. I said I could just not believe that and that I would have to see the books for myself to believe it. He suggested that I talk to Rauni and Dennis Higley, H.I.S. Ministries in Salt Lake City. I called Rauni and talked at length with her that day and many days after that. I had decided to seek the truth and find out if the things that were told in this video were really true. I found out later that Rauni and Dennis were both in the video.

I discovered that what they were saying was true, to my great disappointment at first. These men really were leaders of our Church; they were even still members of the Church at that time. The teachings that they said the Church believed in were in fact teachings that were quoted from Joseph Smith and Brigham Young and other Church Presidents. Some of the other teachings that were mentioned came from sources like the Journal of Discourses, History of the Church, and more recent books like the Mormon Doctrine. Unfortunately I did not own all these books and had to look long and hard to find them, but I did. There they were, just as they had told me. They were not the ones lying to me, it was my own Church leaders, trying to cover up what Brigham Young and Joseph Smith had taught and on which the Church was founded. I was devastated! And I want you to understand why.

The first thing they teach us before we become members is that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God and that he interpreted ancient Egyptian into English in his translation of the Book of Mormon. We are told that the Book of Mormon is from God and further testifies of Jesus Christ. In fact, they are right on the last account, that it further testifies of Jesus Christ. The problem is that Mormonism and its teachings are not taken entirely from the Book of Mormon – they come also from the Doctrine and Covenants and from other books – Abraham, Moses (which teach entirely in opposition to the Book of Mormon). The basic teachings of the Church and the things taught in the Temple do not come from the Book of Mormon. I believe now that the Book of Mormon is just a lure to get you to join the Church and then you are taught a perverted gospel, not the one taught in the Bible and not even what is represented to be true in the Book of Mormon when you are first investigating the Church.

I will prove to you that my last statement is true by pointing out where the basic teachings come from by listing the following:

You will notice that the Church teaches plural Gods, that God and Jesus both have a body, God does not dwell in hearts, we were pre-existent, and in Daniel, Chapter 7 in the heading it says that “Adam, Ancient of days”, referring to the fact that they believe that Adam is God, because God is the Ancient of days. These books are so contradictory – which one do you believe? If you believe what is taught in Moses and Abraham for instance, you cannot believe what is taught in the Book of Mormon. Joseph Smith declared that he was speaking from God when he through revelation gave various sections of the Doctrine and Covenants, which Mormons believe as scripture, and yet scriptures in the Book of Mormon differ completely with scriptures in the Doctrine and Covenants. Does that make Joseph Smith a false prophet, I believe it does. Even if he was not a false prophet because of these scriptures he would be because he taught a different gospel than the Christian gospel as taught in 1 Corinthians 15:1-15, he taught a different Jesus than that taught by the original Christians, those that were alive when Christ was on the earth. Those early Christians believed that Jesus Christ was in fact God that became a man that we through Him might have eternal life, Mormonism teaches that Jesus is “a God” one of many, many other “gods” that was a man that “became” a god.

I had problems in my understanding of the Church’s stand on permitting blacks to have the Priesthood. I thought if they were cursed and their skin was black because of that curse and Joseph Smith had said and that they should not be able to hold the Priesthood, then why would God change His mind now. I personally did not like that teaching because I did not think that God would single out a certain race of people and punish them. I also had a problem with the fact that they changed the ordinances in the Temple ceremony and that it was done without the general knowledge of the Church members. I noticed that we did not raise our arms and say those words nor did we do the gestures anymore, saying that our lives would be taken if we revealed what we did in the Temple. I was glad we no longer had to swear to be an obedient wife. There were other things that didn’t seem just right to me, but I kind of dismissed them from my mind and tried to forget them because I believed the Church to be true and the leaders to be leading us by the power of God.

We have since changed our minds about the Church’s doctrine, about our leaders leading us by authority from God, that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, that the temple is a sacred place and things regarding the Church are of God, that men can and should hold the priesthood and that the Book of Mormon is true. You’re probably thinking by now, oh my, they really are in trouble, they are beyond help. I used to think that way too. I remember when the film “The God Makers” came out and we used to say, “Oh boy those poor missionaries, I would not want to be one of them on judgment day!” I have seen the film since leaving the Church by the way and in my opinion it does not nearly portray the temple as bad as I think it really is.

The last time we went to the temple I began to wonder if maybe some of those people were right about our Church. I said to myself, “Well I’ll just pray, to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the name of Jesus Christ”. I thought that would narrow down the God to whom I was praying, the so called “right” God if in fact I wasn’t believing in or praying to the right one. As the temple ceremony went on, I sat there and thought to myself, what in the world does this have to do with God. If my salvation depends on remembering all of this, I am eternally lost! I decided to pray throughout the ceremony as to whether this was of God and to ask Him myself. I told Him I didn’t feel I could ever accomplish this feat (remembering gestures, handshakes, covenants, etc.) although I wanted to at the time. I was still praying off and on and we came to one part of the ceremony. After I listened to that part I don’t know if I really heard anything much after that. It was the part where Lucifer walks up close to the front as we are watching the ceremony and talks to us that are participating and he says as he is opening his long dark cloak, “If you do not walk up to all the covenants and commandments you have made in the temple this day, you will be under my power.” My power- my power- I was stunned when I heard this, seemingly for the first time, because I realized right then and there if my eternal life depended on my living up to all the commandments and covenants I had just recited, I was in big trouble – more troubling – not any of us in that room could probably do that either. My thoughts turned into terror at what he was really saying, “These are the emblems of my priesthood”. I thought, his priesthood? isn’t it God’s priesthood? What does all this mean I thought? I was so shocked I felt like I was in some kind of a trance through the rest of the ceremony. I just could not get this out of my mind.

It was not long after going to the temple that we got another jolt concerning the teachings of the Church. I was in Relief Society and Al was in his priesthood meeting when we were taught Lesson #4 from our new manuals, Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: Brigham Young. A question was asked at the end of that lesson, asking: ” The doctrine that God was once a man and has progressed to become a God is unique to this church. How do you feel, knowing that God, through His own experience, knows all that we know regarding the toils (and) sufferings of mortality?” I was sitting down when I heard this teaching and it was a good thing. My whole body shook when I heard that. Here I thought all those years when they said we could become “gods” and “goddesses” that it only meant that we would be with the Lord one day and have eternal life in the Celestial Kingdom. I thought it meant like it says in Revelation 20:6 “They shall be priests of God and of Christ”. But now they were teaching that God “became” a god!!! I sat there and I kept saying over and over again, “Oh Lord, tell me this is not true, tell me that the Church I have known and loved for years is not teaching this, that you were once a man”. This was never our concept of God. We believe in the God of the Jews, the God of the Old Testament, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. You cannot read any part of the Book of Isaiah and not hear over and over again, “I am one God, there were not Gods before me, I know no other Gods, believe me and know that before Me there were no Gods formed nor shall there be after me.” Al and I decided that day that we had made a terrible mistake by joining the Mormon Church – and one that we now believe would have committed us to eternal damnation!

I know when you read this letter you will probably be shocked, I know we would have been too if we were still members. But we both plead with you – please don’t have the “ostrich” approach to what is being said in this letter. Your very eternal salvation depends on “knowing” WHO GOD IS. God was never a man. He did not progress to be a God and we cannot become like Him someday. This was Satan’s claim – in the first part of the Bible, Book of Genesis, Chapter 3, vs. 4, “And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” They did die! This was Satan’s lie to her and he lies to us even now, telling us that we can become “as gods”. Please, please, please don’t believe his lie. Check out the things that have been presented to you. Compare the scriptures, even in your own books, and you will see for yourselves that they do not agree. These are false teachings and will lead to your eternal damnation! I know these are strong words but if you will check and read and search for yourself, you will know the truth and as Christ said, “The truth shall set you free”. It is our prayer that you may know the truth and that you will be free, that God will open you spiritual eyes and ears so that you may both see and hear the truth.

In His love, Al and Sandy