I want to shout Praise God (and sometimes get funny looks doing it) when I hear of a person being saved out of one of the cults. I'm thankful your soul is secure Kieffers4Christ
Thank you! Me too!! :pray
I feel really led right now to just speak my experience with moronism.
Lord Jesus,
I just want to lift up this board to you right now Father, and give you all the praise and glory, Jesus for everyone that is a member or even those who just stop by to read the boards Lord. Thank you for the chance to share my story with those around me Father. Please let my words be YOUR words and let nothing untrue come from my lips. God, I am so thankful for my Salvation! I am so thankful that I am no longer in bondage of Religion- but instead am FREE in a relationship with You.
Again, please let this little testimony come from you and be to YOUR glory forever and ever. Amen
So- this might be a little long- but I pray you will read to the end.
First off, I'm Jennifer. I'm 33, married almost 15 years and have 3 beautiful children with my husband Jim.
I was raised 'Christian.' Mama would put us girls on the bus to go to church every Sunday and every Wednesday for Awanas. That was wonderful on her part, but not nearly enough. Came from a divorced family. Dad was MIA and mom worked 3 jobs to make ends meet and was a drinker.
In High School, I dated a boy named Jim who was raised a whole bunch of things. Catholic, Christian, Nothing… No direction in the Spiritual dept I guess you could say.
We dated for 3 years and man I loved Jim. But somewhere during the whole thing, him and I broke up and he went his way and I went mine. That was his senior year. (I was a sophomore)
This is us. I’m 13 and he is 15.
Homecoming:
http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m58/surrender92/family/homecoming.jpg<P>
So- one weekend at a party of his (Keep in mind, I had never surrendered to Jesus Christ) we ended up getting a little too close and we got pregnant with Destiny, our first born. Jim freaked out and said no way, (Also before Jesus ) and he moved to Palmdale, Ca. I lived at home in Yucca Valley with my mom and she took care of me while I was pregnant. Well, Jim moved into his nephews house, (Brian), and Brian was dating a mormon gal who, Lindsay who was raised mormon and comes from generations of families before her that are mormon.
Because Brian was getting his lessons from the elders, Jim decided to as well. Needless to say, Jim was baptized into the mormon faith and this was right around the time that our daughter Destiny was born. Because of his big change and Destiny coming into the world, we decided to give it another shot. Jim, of course, wanted to share with me about the mormon faith. By this time, we were really working on getting back together and we were staying at his mom and dad’s house spending a lot more time working out our relationship. I agreed to take my lessons from the elders, and not only that- so did Jim’s mom, his niece, and his other nephew.
As the elders would come over, they would show us every great and perfect thing about the mormon church, Families that can stay together for ever, family values, perfect little lives. And how Jesus forgot about other people and now look! Everything has been restored! The book of mormon- just another testament! I bought into it quickly. After all, I saw the change in Jim! It was huge! He came back and not only that, he wanted to be a family!
We were all four baptized into the mormon church and this is where it all began.
For years I struggled inside of my heart with the church doctrine. I gave up a lot to become a mormon. My dad wouldn’t come to my wedding, let alone give me away. My mom FREAKED out. My sisters freaked out, and I didn’t understand why. I mean come on, this was just another gospel! More of it! The more the better! And look, we are so happy inside and out!
Well, my Spirit moaned inside of me for years. And I mean YEARS. I still went to church, and did the whole burning in my bosom thing, but gosh I just never got it. By the tenth year of being in the church, I was just done. I was going ALL in. I was going to give it my ALL. I was not looking back. I was going to search for myself and stop these feelings inside of me and search out that burning in my bosom they elders always talked about. (Saving this testimony as I type because I know every time I go to write something like this, my computer crashes and I lose it all mysteriously.)
So, the 10th year, I went for it. Sought the burning in my bosom. Went to church every Sunday. Did not drink alcohol, tea, soda, fasted once a month, payed 10% tithes, took our temple classes, were deemed worthy and went and got SEALED in the Las Vegas temple and also took out our endowments at the same time. Man, I was so excited. Lindsay made me my dress and we were just beautiful. I’ll post a picture.
<P>http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m58/surrender92/family/temple.jpg<P>
My mom n law was also with us and she took out her endowments as well the same day and watched our family get sealed.
From that point on, we did baptisms for the dead often and I was still walking very close to the religion. Doing EVERYthing in my power to be perfect.
Until… It all fell apart on me.
I was doing and doing and doing, and working and working and working- and it was time to have our now 8 year old daughter, Destiny, baptized into the church.
My family almost hit the roof. And I told them one by one that if I had to make a choice between them or my Heavenly Father that I would choose HIM over them. And if they didn’t stop with all the mormon bashing I would cut them off.
We had Destiny Baptized by her Daddy. He was now the young mens leader and he also held the priesthood.
It was 3 days after Destiny was baptized and my sister, Vickie emailed me and said, if you know so much about your mormon faith, tell me about the planet kolab? Well, like some of you, I was wondering, WHAT? Oh great! More tactics to take me out of the LDS church. I was at my wits end. I did a search in google. (Even though we are NOT to do any research for ourselves) and I came across a lot of things that I was now confused about.
Taking it to the Bishop of our ward, he told me to not worry about it and that I was learning the ‘milk before the meat.’
Time went on a little bit longer and man I was just not happy. My heart was heavy. My smile didn’t reach my eyes. Thoughts of suicide came upon me. Here I was- doing EVERYTHING in my power to get to God and I still did not have any joy in my life. NONE. I was so depressed and discouraged.
I called my sister, Vickie and I said, Vic, Im not okay. Im just sick and tired of being this perfect person and yet, I have thoughts of suicide and I am so depressed. What do I do? She said, “Jen, I have some tapes I’d like you to see..”
I agreed. After all, Jim was at work and it couldn’t hurt because I really wanted to know about that dang planet. And not only that, I think in my heart I wanted her to be wrong.
So Vickie calls my other sister, Sandy who works at the Rock Church and Outreach Center in San Bernardino (God has a sense of humor) and Sandy came over to Vic’s as well.
We popped the first video tape in. It was called, “Joseph Smith and the Temple of Doom” by Pastor Chuck Smith.
Watching that tape killed me. I felt like throwing up. They exposed so many things that I had either A) never heard of or B) heard of but didn’t understand.
Watched the second tape and the third tape. By this time, I’m bawling. What am I going to do? That same stirring that came over me for the last 9 years was all over me again and I just knew that I knew the lds church was NOT the true church. That I had been lied to for years.
In one of these tapes, there was a man named Ed Decker who was an EX mormon and he was talking about his garments. Now, keep in mind, if you’re not mormon, you cant EVER EVER see my holy garments because they have symbols on them that the rest of the gentiles can not see.
So, he said in one of these videos that he burnt his garments (like we are told to do when they get old so you don’t let anyone see the symbols) and while he was burning them, the fire went 6-10 feet in the air. He said, at the time, (he was still mormon), Wow! Look at the power of these! But it wasn’t until AFTER he left the church, that yes, that was indeed power- but not the kind from Jesus.
I freaked out. (I was wearing mine at that time)
I drove home like a bat out of hello and took them off.
Here’s where my story takes us out of the church….
Now, keep in mind—JIMS at work.
I put my garments in the fireplace. I light them up. The flames shoot way up. I’m amazed. But what I’m amazed at was the fact that they had been burnt to a CRISP and yet were still burning with flame and all. They were like a black roasted marshmallow but still on fire. I called my sister Vickie and said, ‘They wont stop burning!!!!’
I had her on the phone, I grabbed the poker that you use for the fireplace and I poked the garment which should have fallen apart because it was so burnt. But in tact, it held onto the end of the poker tool and I took it to the computer, on fire.
I told Vic to hold on, and I bent down, snapped a photo of the garment (with my webcam) ON FIRE and burnt to nothing but a black ball, and I then I took one more just so I could have two pictures. I wanted her to see that it was burning with nothing left to burn.
I then went back to the fireplace with the on fire garment and the poker, and put it back.
I ran back into the office where I had snapped the photo and I grabbed the phone I had laid down. At that point, the two pictures I took were very little – known as a thumbnail picture. To see the whole picture, you have to double click it. So I double clicked it, and made it bigger….
What did I find you ask? I dropped to me knees, SCREAMING. Oh MY GOD. OH MY GOD. NO.
At that point, I had an overwhelming sense of evil ALL over me.
You see, in that picture was the poker, the garment, the flame, and ‘Spirit looking things’ coming out of the top of the flame going into the roof. I double clicked the next one, BAM. Same thing, but this time they were in different spots in the picture.
I started screaming, Vic pulls up. I get INTO the shower- fully clothed, I’m in shock and I smell of some weird smell I don’t even know how to describe.
She gets me out of the shower- fully drenched-and fully dressed- takes me to her house once again.
I call my own house and leave a message for Jim. This is what it said, “Jim, I am at Vickie’s. I am NOT coming home. If you want to ever see me or the kids again, you will have to come here because I have something to tell you.”
Poor guy. He’s probably like, What the heck? As far as he knows, we are the perfect family. Jim always told me that if I EVER decided to leave the church he would divorce me because he married a mormon woman and that’s what he required of me.
Needless to say, I’m FREAKING out. Jim shows up around 6 o clock. We go into Vickies bedroom and I pop the first tape in. He’s so mad. I mean so so so mad. We are NOT to watch anything like this as a mormon. This hate stuff. GRRRRRR.
He watched the second one. And then the third…
When they were all three over, I looked at my husband of 10 years and said, “What do you think?” And he said, (to my surprise) “I have some questions for our Bishop, but in NO way am I leaving the church.”
I started crying. “Jim, I said, I have to tell you something else. But before I tell you, remember that I’ve known you for 15 years. You KNOW me. I’m not a freak, and I’ve never lied to you about anything huge like this. But today, when I watched those tapes, I went home and I did what that one guy did. I burnt my garments and I took two pictures and, Jim, there was something coming out of them.” He looked at me doubtingly and said, “Lets go home. I’m going to try it and show you that it’s not true.” It was now 12 midnight and I looked at him and said, “No way am I going back into that house, especially at midnight!”
But my attempt at not going over there so late did not work, and we asked Vickie to watch the kids and we went home.
Jim went straight to his drawers (keep in mind he’s still wearing his garments) and he grabbed a pair of his clean ones to burn. He got a pot from the kitchen and he got a pair of utensils for bbq-ing. He lit them up. I recorded it with the computer webcam. And as we are recording, the garments wouldn’t stop burning, and there it was- that smell. That same sick smell. I had the worst feeling all around me. We snapped 52 photos and a 4 minute video of Jim burning his garments and when it was all said and done, we went to the computer---
Opening up each thumbnail picture- and watching the video- together we sat in frantic astonishment of what we saw. In every picture, those spirit looking things were leaving through the roof.
But worse- in the video were the same spirit things leaving through the roof LIVE while recording. At one point Jim even put his hand over the flame waving it and said, look, Jennifer, NOTHING. Well, not so on the video. I can honestly sit and say that those spirit thing went Right through his hand as he waved it over the burning garments.
While watching the video, Jim began to weep. He took off his shirt and then his garment top. After that he took of his bottom garments and put his shorts back on. He was sobbing.
This all happened on December 7th, 2001 on a Friday night. Saturday Jim stayed in bed – crying. On Sunday, we ended up at Joshua Springs Calvary Chapel here locally- the church my sister Vickie goes to and Jim and I surrendered our hearts and our lives to the True Lord Jesus Christ.
Since then, we have enjoyed our FREEDOM in the Lord. Not the kind you use to get drunk. The freedom in knowing that we are Always good enough to come to Jesus! Religion is man’s way of trying to get to God. And Christianity is God’s way of coming to US. When the Bible says, You will be set free and FREE indeed, it means it. Where it also says, Train up a child in the way he should go and when he gets old, he will not depart from it, it means it.
This entire expiernce has shown me God’s grace. God’s love. God’s forgiveness. See, I was Always good enough to come to Jesus but what was missing was the relationship. I had the religion part down perfect- but I didn’t have the relationship down. I had never had that type of experience with Jesus Christ. He met me right where I was at and He made me NEW.
His love is deep, his love is high, his love is long, his love is wide. He is so wonderful! And worthy of our praise!!!
We have been walking with Jesus now for 6 years and 1 week. God brought my entire Family out of that church in tact!! My husband is sold out for Jesus! He talks to the elders when they come over tracking in our area. We have a fellowship at our house every other Friday called Iron Sharpens Iron (http://www.isifellowship.com) and Jim has Mens Bible Study every Monday. I have been asked to start a Womens Study here at our home on Thursdays as well. Im in prayer over that.
So, long testimony- and I must say- we might NEVER know if those pictures/video were true or not- it might have been the lighting. It might have been the camera. Who knows? But what I do know is that God brough us out of the Miry Clay and set our Feet Upon the Rock! There is no turning back for us.
To be able to describe the difference between Grace vs. Works?? It’s a tough one. I can tell you that as a mormon I worked. As a Christian, its his Grace that makes my Spirit WANT to do good works. And oh my gosh! My joy is so full in HIM!!!!!!
Spiritual battles? Yes. Just because your Christian doesn’t mean you wont have trials in this life, in fact it’s those trials that shape us and grow us. But there is NOTHING like knowing Jesus Christ personally and intimately. That burning in my bosom? For the true church? YUCK. How about KNOWING that the Holy Spirit lives in me and I know He does because I see with my Jesus goggles on all the time. Walking in the Spirit is so wonderful! So freeing!! I would NEVER go back to that bondage again. EVER. There is no other gospel. There is no planet kolob. And personally, I don’t want to EVER become my own God ruling with my husband making spirit babies. I’m pretty sure the position of God is already filled.
By the way, my mom n law also left the ‘church.’ She is a Jesus loving woman who was freaked out by the Temple endowment. She left before us and I felt so sorry for her because I just knew she was going to spend the rest of her life in outer darkness.
Brian and Lyns don’t talk to us anymore. In fact, they moved from our town as soon as we left the church. They said, “Jennifer must have committed some huge sin.” I had our names removed from the church roles and I received a letter from the president of the church saying that I was now responsible for my children perishing in eternal darkness for my decision.
There is nothing that tastes better than Jesus Christ! And NO, He is not the brother of Lucifer like the mormons teach. And one last thing- “I KNOW THAT JOSEPH SMITH WAS NOT A TRUE PROPHET OF GOD AND I DENOUNCE HIM FOREVER AND EVER.”
We praise you God that you took our family right out of the hands of Satan!! You are Mighty, True, Honorable, Loving, Kind, and Forgiving…
Amen
Jen 12/14/2007
Me and Vickie at our Church Retreat!
http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m58/surrender92/family/thtn.jpg
Me and Mama, 1992- God rest her soul. She saw us leave the church before she joined Jesus in Heaven.
http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m58/surrender92/family/memama.jpg
Destiny Jade getting baptized at her High School Retreat (I wasn’t even there!)
http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m58/surrender92/family/l_774d02a9e491c10a72f8efb50c375e95.jpg
Destiny, Ninarae kissing their little Bro
http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m58/surrender92/family/jimdesnina.jpg
The girls! Destiny and Ninarae
http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m58/surrender92/family/girls-1.jpg
Jim and the kids
http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m58/surrender92/family/fam-1.jpg
Date Night!
http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m58/surrender92/family/datenight.jpg
What God has joined together, Let not man separate...