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My Testimony
EMBRACING THE FAITH
Number of visitors since November 3, 2002
Let start me start by telling you a little bit about my background. I grew up in Westminster, California. I graduated from La Quinta High School in 1976. During those years I sang in the choir and played water polo. I also as many kids of the 70's partied a lot, drank most every weekend, and of course dabbled in some minor use of drugs. On March 31, 1980 I happened to go to a music store down the street to purchase some strings for my guitar, and the guy behind the counter was a friend of mine I had not seen in a few months (He and his brothers had a local band called The Third Creation, for which I ran the lights). He told me that his father had died and gone home to the Lord and that they all became "Born Again" Christians (His twin and younger brothers). You must understand, these guys were the ones I partied with through out High School and beyond. I was surprised and told him that was great and in my mind I thought we lost some more to those crazy Christians. When I got home that night I began my studies of another faith that many consider a cult, but as I studied I could not get past the first word, I sat there for about 30 minutes to 1 hour. I finely picked up my Bible, which was given to me about 6 years earlier and was missed placed, but my mother found it the week prior to this. I began at 8:00 p.m. and said a short prayer something like "Well, God if you are who they say you are prove it to me tonight". Well at 4:00 a.m. on April 1, 1980 I put the Bible down and exclaimed "YOU ARE REAL" that began my journey to discover God. I became a "Born Again" Believer that morning. At the first chance I could that day I told my friend what had happened, and he invited me to a bible study that night. The following Saturday April 5th I made a public declaration of Christ as my Savior.
The church that I attended was and still is a very large church and I soon discovered, was very much against the Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons). I to began to study anti-mormon teachings, I read books some of the most popular writers of the group, listened to tapes, watched a couple of films, and even listened to some call in radio programs, all anti-mormon. I attended this church and an affiliated church for 15 years. In 1995 I married my second wife Beverly and began going to the church she attended, which was another non-denominational church. We stayed there until 1997 when we moved to the Victor Valley in California, which we attended an affiliated church in the area. We became restless in this church and began to search from a new "Church Home" in 1999, we visited a number of churches and settle on another non-denominational church in the area and became members, but soon we still did not feel like this was the place for us. At the end of 2001 we started to go to a small denomination which we felt somewhat comfortable with.
In December of 2001 my wife made a comment that totally shocked me, "I want to check out a church that the Lord has Blessed mightily" I asked which church and she replied the Mormon Church. I said absolutely not, that they were a non-christian cult and that they believe in a different Jesus. She did not understand what I met by that, but she let it go for now. We continued going to this little church, but again we felt restless, and in particularly did Beverly feel this. But I thought it because it was a new church and they did things a little differently then we were accustomed to. In February she started a new job as a server at a restaurant in town, and shortly after starting she served a nice family. They began talking and one of the party mentioned that she sells a product that helps with weight lost as well as stamina, Beverly got her number and promised to call. After a few tries they hooked up and my wife went over to Stephanie's house to sample some of the product. When Beverly got to the home she noticed many pictures portraying Christ and other religious themes. Which for my wife opens the door to talk about Christ her favorite topic. Stephanie then told Bev that she was LDS, which excited Bev. She as soon as she left Stephanie's house she called me at work and told me of the encounter, and that we were invited to come over and discuss the faith anytime we wanted, I told Beverly NO we will not listen to their talk on the Mormon faith, She can be friend with Stephanie but we WILL NOT go over to talk about the LDS faith.
In March Stephanie invited us to go to Easter Service with them which I agreed to, though I really did not want to go. Then the night before I made a comment that angered my wife, which kept us from going to the LDS service, and we went to the service at the church we had been attending. I began to look up all the info I can to show my wife that the LDS was not what they claim to be, I even found a book that I had on the subject, but she would have nothing of it as they were most likely written by people who had something against the LDS church, if I was going to convince her I had to do it scripturally and by LDS writings only. I pulled up a couple of things from the LDS web site.
She then challenged me by stating that I am hard headed and that I could not keep an open mind. With the challenge I agreed to talk to Stephanie and her husband. It then became a discussion with her and a couple of missionaries from the church (just what I wanted to be preached to by a couple of wet behind the ear kids), but I agreed. Then her father hearing about this wanted to be there as well (I found out later he's a member of the Bishopric). We scheduled April 14th as our discussion, when we left our church service that morning there was a message on my wife's cell phone from the Elders to confirm the meeting that night. We went home and my wife having to work that afternoon left shortly after arriving home. A little later as I was working on my genealogy (I started this in 1997, and was always amazed how I was involved in a major Mormon activity) when a knock on the door got our dogs barking up a storm. I went outside and discovered 2 LDS missionaries at my front door, Elder Bennett and Elder Hatt they were the ones who had called earlier to confirm the meeting later that night. I told that we will be there and I proceeded to let them know where I was coming from and gave them my history (did not scare them one bit). We arrived as scheduled and began the discussion.