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March
I read your “testimonies”, and it is a shame you couldn’t find Jesus in an LDS service. I am only 31, and I have had more experiences with Christ in that time than it appears you have had in your long lives. You should have been paying more attention during sacrament meeting.
April
I am LDS. This is not an angry rebuttal. . . . If you choose to continue to try to find ways to dispute the prophet, instead of asking God if that person or church is of Him, that is your right, and I don’t have anything against it. I think Paul referred to it as “kicking against the pricks.” I would suggest you keep it to yourself though. Better for you to perish spiritually than to take others with you.
May
I am a former Missionary and member of Mormonism [in Liberia]. I served mission in 2002 [in Nigeria] but left the church last year after I found out that its teachings was based on fraud and lies. . . . It is my fervent prayers that the Lord Jesus Christ bless, protect and give you and your husband long lives.
May
As someone who is leaving the church after 18 years, FOR ONCE, I LIKE READING THE TRUTH! . . . I was a temple-attending, calling-holding, every-Sunday-going, faithful LDS sister for 18 years—my husband, in for 30 years, was a RM, seminary teacher and in 5 bishoprics—NEITHER OF US KNEW JOSEPH SMITH WAS A POLYGAMIST!! Don’t you think there’s something a little, ahem, wrong with that picture? And that, my friend, was just the tip of the iceberg that we did not know. . . .
If I had ever known, at 18 years of age, that “the new and everlasting covenant” that I was entering into in the temple marriage ceremony was eternal polygamy, I would have RUN away screaming. You just keep doing what you’re doing; you’re touching more lives than you know. . . . God bless you in your efforts to lead people to the true Christ of the Bible.
May
I think the biggest thing that keeps me from believing you is the fact that you are focused on attacking one single religion and want to draw people away from it. . . . There is no need to attack and point out contradictions and mistakes if you really have the truth.
May
I had to read Mormonism–Shadow or Reality? to get the point. Before that, when I heard an objection, I would find a way to answer it. When I read MSoR, I realized that even if I answered a hundred objections or five hundred, there would still be too many contradictions and too many things wrong with the LDS Church. [That’s] when my prideful house of cards collapsed because it was built on a foundation of sand . . .
May
Although your newsletter, among other things, has brought me safely through my passage from staunch multi-generation Mormon and returned missionary to wised-up (and grafeful) post-Mormon, I still benefit from receiving the newsletter.
Every month as my member wife invites the missionaries to dinner at my house, and one of my three children remains a member, I am always looking for opportunities to share a non-distorted perspective on the saints.
May
Enclosed you will find the trash literature you sent to me this past week. . . . The Lord’s work will go forward and people such as yourself will live to regret your actions.
May
I have been a Mormon my whole life and when I really needed to rely on the Church it kept resulting in the guilt or blame as though it was my fault so I did the pray pay and obey thing until I really was about to either check out or find why it wasn’t working.
From there I followed the counsel to avoid any non-Mormon source for any material as at that time I was questioning my faith as I felt something was really wrong. Even in that material I found so much stuff that was totally wrong and offensive to me and later I bought a book titled “The Writings of JS” that had just been released . . . in it over and over he damned anyone that disagreed with him or wouldn’t do what he said. Clearly what I read there I found shocking when I had thought he was what the Church claimed.
From there I read Fawn Brodie. I felt so sick over all of it. I then wrote and UTLM sent me some material that when I did . . . hundreds of hours of reading and research on [it], all turned out to be the truth.
Then finally I turned to the Church for a few answers and was told I was an apostate and had lost my faith in Christ. As I asked questions on Church websites I had been directed to at BYU, I was attacked and accused as an imposter trying to destroy the Church over and over and even got calls from these guys . . . Since then I continued to research and stick to good sources like yours . . .
June
Joseph Smith was certainly not who I was always taught he was. Thank you for helping us to know the truth. We are now putting our faith in the truth according to the Holy Bible.
June
I recently ran across a copy of your Salt Lake City Messenger entitled, “Sacred Marriage or Secret Affair?” . . . It is sad that anyone would have such a distorted, incorrect perception of Joseph Smith, Jr. . . . One might ask, “What commandments(s) were you unable to keep that caused you to leave the only true and living Church on the face of the whole earth?” . . . Please be sure to enjoy all the money and celebrity which [you] have in this life, Sandra, for in the resurrection and throughout eternity you and your late husband will be remembered only as reprobate apostates . . . Mark my words, and you will see on your judgment day just how terribly mistaken you have been. . . . I call you to repentance of your evil doings in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
June
I just wanted to thank you so much for your Messenger. . . . My boyfriend is Mormon, and he and his family have been trying to convert me to the church for the past three years, but I decided that I wanted to do some research before hand. I respect the Messenger, and I am so grateful to have found your website!!! . . . I have decided that I have no interest in converting to the Mormon church, which has upset his family
. . .
June
I need to say a HUGE Thank you!!! I have been dating and am now marrying a former LDS member. [Sandra] and her wonderful knowledge allowed me to show my fiancé the truth of the LDS church.
July
I left the church 7 years ago. I worked as a CES full time teacher, Coordinator, Director (Seminaries and Institutes) for 27 years.
July
I was a convert to the Mormon Church in 2002, served my mission—Spanish speaking in 2005, and returned home only 8 months after being in the mission field. The doubts were just too much for me, and upon further investigation I painfully had to realize that I had been deceived.
I resigned my membership in 2006. Since then, I have exhaustively studied, written about, and been a strong advocate for sharing the gospel with my Mormon friends, and teaching others about Mormonism.
July
I see now why continue to do what you are doing . . . the money. Other wise it is not necessary to attack anyone about anything. Or maybe it is pride . . . pride can have a strong hold on a person . . . I watched one of your you-tube videos today . . . It would be lovely to watch you teaching about Christ to a group of people, instead of preaching about anti-Mormonism.
July
I have been an LDS member since 1978 when I was 18 years old. I remember the bishop asked me at the time if I had any reservations about being baptized in the LDS church, and I said to him, “I could never accept or live polygamy.” He told me during this baptismal interview that I would never have to live polygamy. At 18, I naively accepted his statement and was baptized, not understanding that polygamy was still of the Mormon doctrine, just not currently practiced. . . . [Years later] I decided to start researching online about “celestial marriage” and came across your website. I began to read your research, including your online book, The Changing World of Mormonism. I also ordered and read the books, Mormon Enigma, and No Man Knows My History.
After reading these books and everything else on your website, and reading excerpts to my husband each night for the last 2 months, and talking things over with him, we have come to the conclusion that the LDS church is not based on truth, but deceit and manipulation. Considering myself to be a devoted Mormon, I was crushed at this realization and cried several times during this process of enlightenment . . . but I am in the acceptance stage now, and am at peace with the Savior, Jesus Christ.
July
I came out of the closet on my leaving the Church. In a single day I lost 11 friends on facebook. About ten others gave me all kinds of crazy responses. My family has basically cut me off and no longer takes me serious. . . . There is a huge part of me that wishes this was someone else that learned the truth.
August
Your site has been invaluable to me over the last 18 months. My journey out of Mormonism has been difficult, and is actually not quite complete, but I am still moving forward. After the initial shock of seeing all this information and realizing I had been deceived all these years, I began to talk to my family about this. If I was required to select one single issue which stands on its own as proof positive of Joseph Smith’s deception, it would have to be the Egyptian Papyri and Book of Abraham (especially when considered with the Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar).
August
My invitation to you is: Read the Book of Mormon and pray with real intent, without any preconceived ideas and God the Father will tell you the truth. I know that, because I have done so.
August
Thank you for your online information regarding the so-called “Mark of Cain” and the blatant bigoted racist verses found in the pages of the Book of Mormon.
I was going to start attending the LDS ward just two blocks away from my home. Now, I want them out of my neighborhood. My wife is from India and that makes my children Indian as well . . . an “interracial” family.
I am so glad that I read the quotes regarding the so-called Lamanites and their curse from your website. How offensive, how human and how revealing. It is impossible that the BOM is divine and now Joseph Smith is exposed, in my mind, as the fraud he really is. I told the missionaries, who were trying to rope me into the LDS system, that I would never attend or subject my loved ones to a “church” or any organization for that matter, that actually believes that dark skin pigment is the result of sin. WOW!
It’s alarming to me that the LDS church is growing the way it is with prejudiced teachings such as these.
August
I dropped out of the LDS Church in ’98, just two months after being baptized, because I was told by the two Elders who got me to join the Church, to read the Book of Mormon from beginning to end. . . . I started questioning how there could already be horses, cows, pigs, & other farm animals in America, when Nephi, Laman & the rest of their family members arrived prior to Christ. . . . I started questioning the Elders & other Church members . . . I wanted to know why there were no archeological findings that supports early Hebrews, as being the first white settlers to the Americas . . . but got no good reasonable explanations . . . I found God’s true church, which I have found amongst so many good true Christians & Believers.
September
I find it sad that you say whatever you want without even listening to the truth. . . . No matter what you say or what “proof” you think you have you will never be able to disprove the Book of Mormon.
September
I realized a long time ago while living in Utah that I was living a lie and could not continue. I was pressured into joining by my ex, and his relatives . . . I also am most grateful for your book that I found at our library here. It has given me the strength to realize there is life beyond Utah & Mormonism. . . . am finally gaining a sense of peace in my life that has never been there before.
September
Wow, your website is ridiculous! Really though . . . who do you think you are? Yes everyone has the right to their opinion but why do you feel you must bash other peoples religions? It is quite sad what you are doing.
September
Having graduated from BYU [my daughter] felt the absolute necessity of being married in the Temple. I was not deemed worthy nor were the grooms parents. His mother was especially devastated, not being able to see her only son married. Now, after many years and three beautiful children, they have decided to renew their vows [as Christians].
Originally appeared in:
“Excerpts from Letters and Emails,” Salt Lake City Messenger, no. 113, November 2009, 22-23.