Dave

As a young man growing up in the 50's, I would have considered my life as normal. I played ball, chased girls, and attended a mainline church with my family. At age sixteen I attended a Billy Graham Crusade and went forward to accept Jesus Christ as my personal Savior. When I shared this important event with my family and pastor, neither seemed to care. My pastor even told me that the Second Coming of Christ was a myth. Knowing that this wasn't true, I turned away from the church and walked out into a worldly life. By the time I was 25 my family had also left this church and joined the Mormon Church. About this same time, I got married to a girl who had grown up in the same denomination as I had. Because neither of us knew the word of God, we decided to follow my family and join the LDS Church.

Even though my wife and I moved away we became very active in the Mormon Church. She in the women's Relief Society and Sunday school. Myself, I held many callings in leadership positions. As we were raising five children and enjoying our 24th year of marriage, she was diagnosed with leukemia. Six and half months later she passed away, leaving me lonely, confused and scared. Eventually I packed up the children and moved back to Columbus, Ohio to be near my extended family.

While I was attending a cook-out with some friends, I ran into Shirley, who had been married to an old friend of mine. My friend had died a couple years earlier, also from cancer. Shirley and I struck up a friendship. We found we really enjoyed each other's company. As we became closer, Shirley explained to me that our relationship could go no further because she was Christian and I was a Mormon. This didn't make sense to me. I thought I was a Christian, only I had more of the truth than she did. I defended my stand, but when some questions I had about the Church surfaced she shared with me both her beliefs and the differences between Christianity and Mormonism. I started reading some Christian books on Mormonism and soon realized she was right; I had just wasted twenty-four years of my life in the wrong church. I then had total recall of the long forgotten born-again experience I'd had when I was sixteen. Jesus had been with me along. I was lost and did not realize it.

I immediately wanted to make restitution for my failure. I wrote letters to my family, bishop and friends, detailing why I had left the Church. I quickly found out that convincing my loved ones of the Truth I had found was not an easy task. My son was on a mission trip to Poland and very unhappy with my decision, then and now. My mother and sisters wanted to kick me out of the family. My brother-in-law and youngest sister, who employed me, made the atmosphere at work so unbearable I had to quit my job.

Shirley and I started attending church together. I was so excited. I just felt so free, so alive. Weeks after leaving the LDS Church, I decided to celebrate the Lord's Supper in a communion service at my new church. I remember being very nervous about it. This was the first time in over 30 years that I was going to take real communion. In the Mormon Church you take the Sacrament every week. It becomes routine and meaningless. The LDS Sacrament consists of bread and water as opposed to the Christian churches' use of bread and wine or grape juice. Now, looking back, it occurs to me that bread and water are what prisoners receive in jail or on death row. This comparison paints a graphic picture, doesn't it?

When I took Christian communion for the first time in so long, it seemed like a low electric currant surged though me from the tip of my head to my toes. I started to cry. I cried all day and even into the night. I was surprised that a grown man could cry so much, but I did. It felt like a cleansing was coming from deep within. I knew that God touched me and washed me white as snow. I had a lot of baggage left over from my Mormon experience; twenty-four years of complete deception and falsehood. It was staggering. I realized the harm I had caused in helping people to believe a lie. My entire family was in the LDS Church plus many of my closest friends.

A few weeks later God showed me a real miracle. I did not have any idea of what was about to happen. I decided to be baptized along with my two girls. When I came out of the water I felt great. After about five minutes I realized that I had no pain anywhere in my body. God had completely healed my knees of arthritis. I had been taking medication every day to stay on top of the dull pain, but from that day to this I have not had pain in my knees again. They are like new. What a mighty God we serve.

Since my rededication to Jesus, God has placed this burden in my heart to help Mormons see how deceived they are. Four of my children have accepted Jesus, but my oldest son is still an active Mormon. My mother, my two sisters, my brother-in-law, and all their children are still in the LDS Church. I pray every day that they will find the real Jesus. I also have a burden to educate the Christian community about the falsehoods of Mormonism.

Many Christians think that because most Latter-day Saint people are warm, friendly, family oriented, God fearing, and honest they must be Christians, too. This is not true. Mormons are deceived in thinking that they are the only ones who have the truth. Please pray for them. They are just as lost as anyone who has not accepted the real Jesus. Mormonism's god is a man who became a god. Mormonism's Jesus is the spiritual brother of Lucifer. Mormonism's Holy Ghost is a separate god of male personage with no body. Mormonism promotes belief in three separate gods while denigrating the Christian doctrine of One God in Trinity. While claiming to be Christian, the LDS Church has convinced its members that they will someday become Gods if they perfect themselves through obedience to Mormon laws and ordinances.

Since I left the LDS Church, my life is filled with joy, happiness, and peace. My heart praises God daily for what He did for me on the Cross. Jesus truly does live in us. He made me a completely different person inside. I have a newfound love for Jesus, the Bible, and my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. I also have the capacity to love people more deeply than I ever could when I was a Latter-day Saint. Life is exciting. I see my prayers answered. I have experienced the promise that "The Truth Will Set You Free."

Praise the Lord, He is worthy to be praised.

Dave Smith
Lost Lamb Ministries

PS: Shirley and I were married on December 16, 1994

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