Andrews conversion story.
As I was standing in the shower contemplating God and Church. I closed my eyes and put my head against the wall and I asked God to guide me. At that time, the catholic church was the very last church I would have considered.
My story begins with being born into a Mormon family and from a very young age we sang songs about following the prophet and barring our testimony that I know the church is true in front of the congregation. In my teenage years I became wild and rambunctious and focusing on sinful actions without a care in the world. I became disinterested in anything God related and by the age of about 17 I was considering myself an agnostic or possibly an atheist. At age 22 my first son was born and again I had a revitalizing realization that God does in fact exist, and so I started attending the Mormon church again but in what I would call “full force” and went through the Temple many times and lived a devout Mormon life style.
I started to have questions about Jesus and exactly what was going on in the temple and was it correct? One day after a temple session I was so upset about what was going on my wife asked me if I ever wanted to go back to which I replied that I didn’t think so, and I never did. To a Mormon, that means no eternal family which means I’ll never see my family after I die, I lose my exaltation to become a God after I die, I’d probably end up in the lowest level of heaven (they believe in 3 levels), and my wife could be reassigned to a worthy man in the highest level of heaven.
After a few inactive years of going to church on and off again my wife and I took a marriage class at a non-Mormon Christian church and they started talking about Christ and his blood. Then it hit me, I didn’t really understand why Christ died for me. After reading the book of Matthew in a bible that wasn’t a Mormon King James version but one I could understand, I was convinced Mormonism was false, but how false exactly was it? After I started studying the scriptures and Christian theology, I had to ask myself some hard questions about what I believed and what evidence there is, leaving myself exposed to truth without just my feelings to guide me as Mormonism so deeply teaches to do.
- The first question was who was Jesus and why do I hear so frequently that Mormons have a false Christ?
- Is Satan the brother of Jesus?
- Why do people wear a cross and is it offensive?
- Is the blood of Christ enough to cover all sin or is blood atonement (my blood) need to be spilled for certain sins?
- Am I required to pay a 10% tithe to earn salvation?
- I had to seek to see if Joseph Smith was a real prophet, how do we justify his practice of Polygamy and Polyandry to single women, married women, and girls as young as 14?
- Is polygamy still practiced in the modern church? (the answer will surprise you)
- How does the Book of Mormon compare to the Bible?
- Is the bible missing plain and precious truths as I’ve been told?
- Did Joseph have to restore the Church because the church Christ established fell into total apostasy shortly after the apostles died?
- Did Christ lie or was he not capable of establishing a church that would stay on earth until his return?
- Are we to become Gods ourselves after we die and did God become a God just like we can become Gods?
- What about all the racist theology against black people?
- Would Jesus prevent Children from being baptized if just one of their parents was living a gay lifestyle?
- Can we baptize in proxy for the dead?
- Are Temple ordinances and instruction given by God, Satan, or man?
- Is it ok for the bishop to have one on one worthiness interviews with children younger than 12 where questions about sex and masturbation are asked?
- What about angels, are they humans either from a pre-mortal existence or after death?
- Is there a hell that I might be in danger going to?
Once, I started diving into these questions and the scriptures things started happening. For instance, wail my wife and I where at a resale antique store I saw a crucifix and it was attractive to me, so I bought it and I proudly displayed it even when my Mormon parents came to my house. Mind you, the cross would never be displayed in the home I grew up in let alone a crucifix. I had it hanging on the wall on the way to our bedroom and I looked at it and contemplated about it frequently but at that time I guess I knew but I hadn’t come to any realization that the crucifix was distinctly catholic. I should also mention that at this point I wasn’t attending any church besides one bible study at another church near our house where I felt like the pastor, though humble and good in heart couldn’t explain to me the answers I was seeking.
As I contemplated questions I felt so lost and confused because all my life I “knew the (Mormon) church was true” but how could there be such confliction and no evidence but only blind faith? I turned to our father in heaven and asked him for his guidance. My prayer was heard because shortly after I was speaking to a man at work about how I didn’t really know where to go. He invited me to mass that weekend. That Sunday was holy Trinity Sunday, a topic I never understood at all until an elderly priest gave a homily to which I found myself nodding my head saying, “yes that makes some sense now” and “I agree with that”. After mass my now friend introduced us as just visitors to the deacon. The deacon prayed with us and it completely answered my prayers as if God recited back to me through the deacon what I had asked him, I was looking for answers and the deacon prayed that I would find the answers I was looking for. Four months later after a few visits with the parish priest I was received into the Catholic Church with the agreement that I’d still go through RCIA, which I did complete.
I plan on writing answers and explanations of Mormon theology in comparison to catholic theology to the questions I listed.