Stephen left the church after reading anti-Mormon content after much studying & research he returned

Stephen I am so excited to have you on the podcast I know you have your own your own channel tell me a little bit about your channel do you do a podcast and YouTube or just just YouTube it's mostly YouTube I was uploading a lot of them on the like podcast platforms as well but I've gone Fallen a bit behind most my attention's been on YouTube yeah it's called Mormonism with the MF I created back in July 2022 so it's been just over a year and a half and the purpose of the channel is to try to dive into controversial church history topics or look at things to do with the church's truth claim so I've explored topics with church history or like the Book of Mormon and I want to try to be Balan and as fair and as objective as I can be while acknowledging that I'm biased I'm a Believer and we all interpret things differently but I really want want to explore and to represent and Steelman the critics position and their their criticisms their arguments let's look at their evidence and then look at the faithful apologetic responses or some of the evidence in favor and I also would interview different Scholars or historians on a topic and I try to ask the hard questions so that's kind of what my channel is about I've also interviewed a few people about their faith Journeys uh but for the most part I'm focused on Church truth claims and church history so how did you get into this what sparked such a passion for you getting into this uh well I would say probably my own Beth Journey my own Beth crisis is probably what caused me to be interested in things do with church history and criticisms and apologetics and we'll probably get into this with my story but leaving the church sort of losing my fear and then having experiences that brought me back and then sort of like trying to navigate and like re construct okay uh now that I believe again how do I make sense of some of these criticisms or attacks against the church is truth claims and really just trying to dive in and front and figure out some sort of alignment between spiritual and intellectual so it's not that much of a devotional sort of Channel um it's it's more sort of a scholarly sort of Channel research uh if you're into it then you'll enjoy it I really enjoy Don Bradley and I know a lot of our listeners do too and I think that he he does such a great job of taking hard questions and well I mean and he had his own faith journey of course but the way that he I'm I'm hoping to do an interview with John because or with Don sorry because I he's a great historian and I feel like there's some connections with our be Journey so I'm hoping to do an interview with him I love how he responds to hard questions it's like it's almost like he like solved a puzzle and it was like this spiritual overflow once the puzzle was solved and I don't know it was just really really interesting well okay let's jump into your story I want to hear it I know I've like heard bits and pieces but I'm super excited to hear the whole story and yeah so let's let's get started so um I'm from Northern Ireland if uh people can tell my accent's a bit peculiar it's not the typical Irish accent that you associate with the leprechaun or people from Dublin I think it almost sounds a little bit more Scottish than your typical arish accent uh but I was born in Belfast uh both my parents were members of the church my dad was a convert so he converted in his early 20s he grew up in the Presbyterian faith so he was a Christian but I don't think he really had any faith he had a friend who invited him to take the missionary lessons and to read the book of Mormon and felt the spirit got baptized then went on Mission uh he met my mom after his mission and she also was very active in the church she served in calling she went on a mission so I had a pretty like traditional maybe Orthodox upbringing in the church who would went to church on Sundays would have went to you know youth activities and primary we would have had family home evening and daily family prayer we weren't great when it came to like daily scripture study and family evening it was a bit like up and down but yeah I had a pretty regular upbringing so I would have went to young men I was baptized to eat I was ordained a deacon teacher priest I wouldn't say I had a testimony as a child like you know there's some primary children that from age six they're up and they're like I know the church is true and I know how the father loves me and I love my family 're like we goody to like Nephi I was never like that I was always like a little bit rebellious as a kid and I find Church boring uh I just didn't really understand the scriptures and I just couldn't wait to get home and play my PlayStation or play with the ball so I wasn't very SP ly minded as a kid I did have like a few experiences with like Heavenly Father like answering my prayer if I like lost my toy ball or can find uh like a toy or like my homework once I remember praying but it was whenever I hit around the age of 12 13 14 I was going through personal sort of trial in my life we just moved back we were living in England for part of my childhood and we moved back to Northern Ireland back be with family and I just moved into a new sort of secondary school and whenever you hit like your teenage years you know you get self-conscious you're going through puberty all those things um and I was having a really hard time fitting in with uh the kids at my school which I never struggled with before growing up I always felt like I was quite a friendly kid and go along with people but long story short I I went through a time of being bullied and it got quite severe one point where I was really having a lot of emotional challenges anxiety fear and it was around this time where I I sort of turned to God and was like why am I going through this like why is this happening to me like I'm a good kid if I'm your child like please take this away and it was around that time where the the missionaries were taking me for young men's I was the only young man at the time I wor the church isn't very big in North Ireland up until this point I was not really interested in the gospel but they gave me a preach my gospel which is the missionary manual for how to be a missionary and there's a chapter about basically what the missionaries teach to people who are learning about the gospel so I studied about the message of the restoration like the apostasy J's First Vision the coming forth of the Book of Mormon I studied about the plan salvation and the atonement of Jesus Christ and the Gospel of Jesus Christ it was like I was learning about the gospel for the first time like that's kind of how it felt like I was an investigator and it all just resonated in my mind all felt right in my heart and my seed of Faith was growing and this was like a really dark and lonely time in my life and it was like turning to the gospel into the Scriptures it was bringing like this light and I felt like a stronger connection to Heavenly Father and and Jesus Christ so over time I was believing what I was studying I I read like The Gospel principles manual and I was reading through other manuals and I hadn't read through the whole book more but I read enough scripture passages where I was like I believe this but I wanted to do marun ni's promise to receive that spiritual witness from the Holy Ghost so one night I remember just kneeling down and praying and asking you know if I'm a Child of God if Jesus Christ is my savior if Joseph Smith really was a prophet uh if the book Mormon and the plan salvation is true and I remember after saying that prayer experiencing what people describe as the burning in the bosom I I experienced that this warm overing feeling in my heart of just joy and love and just this assurance I felt like this assurance that these things are true that I'm a Child of God that heavenly father has a plan for me that JW Smith was a prophet scriptures are his words and and I recognized that I had been feeling the spirit the whole time but that was this was the first time that I really recognized it so that was my testimony so I felt like I I had a strong testimony as was like a 14-year-old Youth and I would have went to like Temple trips and efy and went to seminar and felt like I also saw answers to prayer and and Little Miracles in my life that sort of confirmed that the church was true and that God lived I went on a mission whenever I was 19 I went to uh Alberta Canada um the Canada Calgary Mission which was again an amazing experience uh I had a lot of cold feet prior to going on a mission because I was quite shy and had anxiety I was really fearful about like going to a foreign country for two years and talking to strangers you know about the gospel in the church and being with a companion you don't know and being away from like friends family like when the mission called him I was like oh my gosh I was like I'm actually sacrificing a lot to go in a mission and the thought of it was like this s's pretty horrible like knocking doors and talking people on the streets I'm like I don't want to do this but I absolutely love my mission uh Canada was a great place like sure there's challenges like there's a lot of rejection and it's hard work a mission but it was so rewarding and joyful and you made so many amazing relationships with people missionaries you serve with or members in your Wards and some of the people that you taught the gospel to as well so amazing experiences and I felt that I really did see miracles on my mission I felt like I witnessed being like an instrument in God's hands there were times where I I really felt like the spirit was helping me and inspiring me and felt like my my testimony my love of the scriptures through and just my conversion to heavenly father in Jesus Christ and by the end of my mission I felt like I absolutely knew it was true I was 100% sure this is the Lord's church jman is a prophet and just had no doubts at all that's amazing I love that so much it's I love how you get your call and you're like oh crap what did I just sign myself up for oh it was like a flood of anxiety because um because the mission call or the mission is just uh changed from 19 to 18 I think like a year prior end up there was some delay so it didn't end up going till I was 19 but it was whenever I got the call I remember that day like everyone has these big celebrations like parties when they get the mission called I can remember going in my back garden and just feeling pure panic and then I kind of was in denial up until I got set apart and then again it was like pure panic I was just like what in Earth am I do and all the people around me here had mission calls they were just so excited and just like a mission's going to be awesome and I'm just like have you thought this through like we can't watch movies listen to like normal music we have to talk to strangers like there could be crazy people in some ways I had very idealistic expectations of a mission but it was more joyful and rewarding than I could have anticipated that I love that so much that's so cool and it sounds like it was really it really cemented your testimony after the younger years of discovering and having that that spiritual confirmation and then it sounds like it solidified it and then what happened after that yeah so well I came home and testimony was strong I was serving in callings uh I was going out regular with the missionaries so you could say I had like the RM fire and what sort led me to having a faith crisis was I had a family member who no longer believed she uh stop going to the church I I wouldn't say she was like a hostile angry anti- Morman but she was pretty against the church and a few months after my mission uh my mom passed away which was obviously a really sad and devastating and tragic time it was a really sacred time in my life where I felt like I really cleaved and turned to the gospel and the planet of Salvation even more and it really brought us together as a family when something like that happens you realize that like family relationships are what matter most and all the other mundian things in life are of secondary importance um and I was really thinking about our Eternal family and I wanted to help my sister who had lost her faith to come back to the church and she was still a really good person we had a good relationship and I wanted to know her concerns because in order to help resolve her concerns I had to sort of know what they were and up until this point I'd never gone looking for anti- Mormon or critical material I knew like a few things so I knew about like the priesthood ban um that blacks were given the pries until 19 1978 I knew about polygamy I I don't know if I knew that Joseph practiced polygamy if if I did know that I we just assume they're all like spiritual lives or just ceilings I remember I watched the movie God's Army which is like a really it's a class missionary movie and there's a missionary who sort of uh Dives his testimony and like leaves on uh in the movie and he brings up like oh there are no courses in America till Columbus came or there's multiple com to the first Vision so I maybe had heard of a few things but I really didn't know any of the criticisms in church history so she started Shar with me some of her concerns and some of them not are like things which maybe wouldn't bother me a whole lot or there's I understand the context to them but she I remember told me like you know joose Smith drank wine in Carthage Jail or that Joseph Smith had a sear stone or Joseph Smith married a 14-year-old or other men's wives and I'd never heard of that before and immediately my response was that's anti- Mormon lies like where you getting this information from and then she showed me some sources like in the history of the church or the Journal of discourses or things in the church's gospel topics essay and I was like huh okay like some of this is right and then I was like okay well I want to I want to hear it all like Bring it on I want to go down the Deep dive and the mean critics that influenced her losing her faith was uh a man called gr Palmer he was a former Institute teacher and director and a church historian who was ex communicative from the church and the Tanner so Sandra Tanner she's quite famous for uh Utah lighthous Ministry and they have a book Mormonism Shadow and reality and I was like okay well I'm going to listen to every single episode and interview I could find of them and I was working night shift at the time so I was working in the supermarket and you could put your earphones in so I was just listening to tons of interviews and podcasts and during this time I was just being exposed to so many criticisms and challenges against the church it's truth claims against the Book of Mormon against the prophet J Smith I think what was really troubling is I was learning some things which which were true and I didn't know how to reconcile and over the period of a couple of months I was just sort of like in faith crisis where I was just struggling with just so many issues things from like the different Co J Smith's first Vision anachronisms in the Book of Mormon or DNA in the Book of Mormon the 19th century material or the King James Bible pastures or ARS polygamy of Abraham uh the connections between the temple and diment and Freemasonry that Joseph was a Freemason May 1842 and then about six weeks later we got the temple and Diamond changes to Revelations and uh Adam God Theory and blood atonement and some of the racial teachings justifying the priesthood B and it was like within a couple of months I was like being exposed to like so many issues and challenges and I was really ding my testimony I remember I had a couple of meetings with uh PRI of leader with my State president and I was going for a temple recommend interview and when he asked me question I can't remember what it is but s like if you have a testimony of like the restoration of the prophit J Smith I just couldn't answer yes and he was quite surprised so then I started to tell him so my questions and concerns and he was quite informed he was quite Nuance so he sort of validated and empathize with some of the questions we had a couple of follow-up meetings and he was trying to provide a sort like a faithful interpretation and he encouraged me to check out far Mormon so I was like okay I'll go check out far Mormon in our conversations I was becoming more critical because really 90% of what I was consuming was critical material I read through a lot of Mormon think I then ordered ground Palmer's book and I was just fully immersed in in the criticisms and it came to the point where I had spiritual experiences but I I interpreted that my spiritual experiences were emotional feelings based upon being taught just a faith promoting whitewashed version of the history but now I was exposed to sort like The Good the Bad and the Ugly I no longer felt the same and interpreted that my spiritual experiences weren't a reliable way to to know truth as many sort of EX Mormons come to that conclusion and I just came to the conclusion one say that I no longer believe Drew Smith is a prophet I was really troubled by things with polygamy I no longer believed that this was the true church or the book of Morman was the word of God I I was very convinced by the naturalistic explanations for the book of and I think I had this view of like scripture and Prophets like a prophet could never be wrong about a Doctrine like everything a prophet speaks that the pulpit is like the mind and will of God so I couldn't reconcile things which appear to be wrong in past teachings or like I had very literal view of scripture that scripture is literally God speaking and then learning about some of the changes made uh to some of the editions in the book of morm or Revelations I just couldn't couldn't reconcile it during this time were you kind of like going back and forth with your sister about it because she's kind of the one that were you guys just kind of yeah we we would have talked about it we would have talked about the criticisms and the problems and almost like just reinforcing like there's no way that this can be true there's there's too many issues I I do want to say that I can't blame her for it because she she did say to me I'm not trying to pull you away from the church but read this for yourself so it was very much myself that came to the conclusion so I remember I I was serving as a young men's president but I remember just one day being like yeah I I don't believe this anymore and with Integrity like I was in the church because I was I was a Believer like I really believed it was true and I think I was so 100% All or Nothing black or white that I was just just like go Smith's a fraud con man sexual predator prophets and apostles are frauds sech is just a multibillion corporation and just didn't believe in it anymore so I wrote a letter to my bishop and I sort of had really positive things to say about my upbringing experiences in the church like uh the church was a wonderful experience my mission was a great experience so I didn't have really any negatives in that sense but I I laid out in bullet points these are my issues and concerns and this is why I no longer believe ironically I hadn't actually read the Cs letter at this point but I read it after I left but me and and Jeremy Reynolds had read and researched a lot of the same stuff uh because a lot of what's in the Cs letter is taken from Mormon think or gr Palmer's book or the ters so whenever I read the Cs letter it was really like validating I was like yeah I'm like I'm with you Jeremy like I have the same questions and issues as him so yeah I I wrote that letter that I was going to leave the church I didn't remove my name uh my dad didn't want me to but for all intents of purposes I was out and it was quite uh quite liberating what did you do when you left were you like I'm going to try some alcohol like what what was well the first thing you did like did you is that kind of what you thought like I'm whenever I left so I I still believed in God I still believed in Jesus and a lot of the critics I was really influenced by were tend to be Evangelical Christian critics so Sandra Tanner and Grant pmer were Christian I was listening to like uh the Wilders who left Mormonism and compared to Christianity I read her book I was reading a lot of and listening to a lot of like Christian channels but that were attacking Mormonism so I still felt like I don't need to throw out God or Jesus I still believe I had like maybe some spiritual experiences or answers to prayer but all the Joseph Smith book Mormon that's all Malarkey that's all not true so for a time I was going to Christian churches I was reading the Bible and I was really wanting to embrace Christianity I did obviously start drinking tea and coffee and yes I did have alcohol and so over the next few months I was I was going to Christian churches and I really wanted to be a Christian and even though I was quite skeptical of spiritual experiences I was open to having a conversion experience in Christianity and I was dating a Christian girl um but I never had a spiritual experience that I felt like this is this is the truth this is where God wants me to be and over time as I was researching I became disillusioned with some Christian beliefs or doctrines specially the Trinity I read a book about the trendity so I realized actually understand it as a already see but to me it just seemed like a man me doctrine that they're trying to harmonize the Bible because to all Christians the Bible is in infallible and there can't be any contradictions so in Isaiah when he talks about that there's one God but then Jesus is referred to as God the father is referred to as God but the holy spirit is is referred to as God well there can't be three Gods so it's one God three persons and I just never would have got that from reading the New Testament I remember having a meeting with the minister and sort of challenging him with some scriptures where I was like this really seems like the father and the sun are know distinct and separate and I just do not read the Trinity I think Heaven and Hell Doctrine I struggled with I had a friend who asked me like okay you're a Christian no I was like yeah and he was like what about all those people who don't believe in God or in Jesus do they just go to an eternal hell of like torment and suffering I remember at the time just being like um and I kind of like brought in my Mormonism I was like you know I was like maybe in the next life God will give them an opportunity to hear and accept or maybe it won't send to like an eternal hell that seems like really harsh like suffering and torment because you didn't believe in Jesus but you're still a really good person I remember thinking like you know what I I don't like jusus Smith I don't believe in it but I was like being taught the gospel in the spirit world or the kingdoms of Glory there was a video that Saints unscripted posted just recently and we had David Alexander on the podcast last week and he was talking about this same thing the the Heaven and Hell and how it's just so you're either going one place or the other and yeah it's so extreme and I think something that also I felt very disillusioned by was CU whenever I was you know 14 and I had my spiritual experiences I felt like I really came to know the Savior I felt like I really experienced his love his grace his Peace during that trial in my life like if I ever felt close and connected to Christ it was during that time and when Christians would say that Mormons were following the wrong Jesus it's a different Jesus it's a false gospel I heard like some pastors or Christian apologist say that Mormons are going to hell I just knew that wasn't true I I knew that I experienced the real Jesus in the church and also my mom had just passed away a few months earlier and my mom was just pure scent like she was faithful to the end if there was an afterlife I felt completely sure and confident she's in heaven like I I have no doubt about that and I was attending a Presbyterian Church uh not all Christians believe this so I I don't want to misrepresent but those who are sort of Calvinists believe that God is already predestined or pre-chosen sort of who's saved and who's not saved and I remember at the time that just really troubled me I just couldn't accept that God has predestined some people to just suffer in eternal hell so I began to become disillusioned with Christianity and as I was researching a little bit more about the Bible I realized that a lot of Christians Who attack Mormonism have like a double standard they don't apply the same scrutiny to the Bible I've got a good friend Steve pineer who you should probably have on although he's not a member of the church he lost his faith when atheist returned back to the church but he's really friendly to members of the church and what I like about him is he does apply the same scrutiny to the Bible which a lot of Christians don't Christians will often say like there's no archaeological aidence for the Book of Mormon and there's so many like anachronisms and things but in the Bible there's no evidence outside the Bible that there was a historical Moses or Abraham or that there was an exodus there's no evidence for a global flood or a tar of beel and then whenever I was looking at biblical Scholars they talked about how there's two different creation of coints in the Book of Genesis or two different flood of coints know there's genocide in the Old Testament I was like you know polygamy bothers me but genocide like killing men women and children in the ne aoic I was like that's pretty horrific and then whenever I was looking at the gospels like there's differences between Matthew Mark Luke and John if you look at some of Jesus's teachings or like what it says on Jesus's Cross or who appears at the tomb of his resurrection so if you're going to be really critical of like say the differences in juith First Vision it's like I feel like you have to be consistent there's there's differences if you look at the gospels right or Judas dies two different ways I remember I was trying to harmonize like JS and Paul like saved by grace alone through fear but then what about all these scriptures talking about works so I was I was starting to become disillusioned with the Bible critics would say that the witnesses of the G plates they're not credible they had a Visionary mindset magical worldview but then I was like why are the witnesses of Christ's Resurrection any more credible how can I say that okay there's differences in Joe Smith First Vision so I can throw that out but there's differences in Paul's accounting of his vision on the road to Damascus I began to realize that I'm applying the C consistency uh to the Bible that there's some issues there as well and it was during this time where I was almost like well I don't know what I believe I don't know if there's a Jesus I don't know if there's a God and this is when I think I was really in F crisis like The Dark Night of the Soul because I think when I first left the church Christianity was a soft Landing and I kind of felt liberated but I also felt like okay this is why I believe no but now I was like I don't know what I believe like am I going to be agnostic am i g to be atheist is there still a Jesus but all religions are wrong I was just really torn at this time wow I imagine that being in that place was probably extremely depressing yeah I think I was heavily conflicted on what happened around the same time which sort of ADD added to the feeling conflicted because I felt like 99% true church wasn't what it claimed to be and I was very well well versed in a lot of the critical arguments I pretty much memorized C yes letter so whenever I get in discussions with people about the church I would just bring up all the problems all the criticisms and I felt like I would win in these intellectual debates with people but I remember I had I had a friend who before a mission had a near-death experience he he almost died he had a severe asthma attack and the doctors didn't believe he was going to live and I remember fasting and praying for him and he received numerous priesthood blessings and I actually did an interview with him on my channel uh with Adam marath so people can check it out um where we go in more depth but the doctors didn't believe he was going to live but miraculously he did and Adam claimed to have an afterlife experience and during this time because I was investing in Christianity I was also listening to like like low loads of afterlife experiences and some of them seemed like really like inspiring and touching and other were quite like weird but I want to know about his afterlife experience he claimed to to meet Jesus um he claimed that he was engaged in missionary work on the other side and his experience if it didn't confirm the church it at least showed that Jesus approved of the church if what he was saying really happened and I sincerely believe he believed it I didn't know what to do with that at the time because I was so dog certain Joe Smith was a false prophet the church is a cult I didn't know what to do with that and that was probably the first time where I felt a little bit of like uncertainty or like maybe my 99% certainty the church wasn't what it claims to be dropped let mebe like a 90 but I was also like you know loads of people claim afterlife Visionary experiences there's no way I can know it really happened I remember my dad he he sent me an apologetic video and initially I was like Dad like I don't want to listen to this pseudo scholarship this mental gymnastics Church isn't what it claims to be like come on like give it a rest and he was like just watch it and I sort of recognized that I'm not being very open-minded I'm not willing to listen I'd already come to a firm conclusion so I was like fine I'll watch it uh it was by a guy called Bruce Porter and it was about the connections and correspondences and parallels between our Temple endowment and ancient Egyptian temple rituals if I'm being intellectually honest and consistent just as I couldn't deny that there are things which are similar if not identical between Masonic ritual and Temple endowment there were things which corresponded quite well and I was like okay I can understand why to a Believer they might think that the temple endowment is like a a restoration of like an ancient Temple ritual th sort spark some curiosity so then I started to explore like is there any other evidence on this cuz I never heard this before and I watched uh some videos on Far Mormon and there's really good uh YouTube channel alas truth claims talking about the correspondences and connections between Ancient Temple rights and our Temple endowment of ancient Jewish priests or early Christians or even like the ceremony of a monarch uh as well like a king or a queen being coronated and how they you know would receive like a garment with marks in it or robes make certain covenants early Christians did like prayer circles uh some of the hand clasps and things and I was seeing like a lot of these striking correspondences our Temple endowment the conclusion that Joseph Smith just cized and took everything from masonry this now complicates that interpretation I still thought okay he maybe just took it from masonry but I realized a believing argument could be made that perhaps M was a catalyst for restoring ancient Templar rights and that was kind of cool at the time kind of opened my mind didn't cause me to believe but then I started going down sort of like the rabbit hole of what other faithful evidence is there so I looked at you know nahome and ble uh Lei travel through the araban desert and how it converges really well with the texts to first Nephi they find nahome and alter nhm it's in sort of like the right location dated to the right time near a burial site and then the were turn that's spoken about in first Nephi to bful they found a really good candidate for bful there cor cor and Nomes kind of like scoffed by critics like oh just nhh and alter but whenever I really looked at the whole travel and how it converged really well I thought to myself like man if Joseph Smith just made this up how does it actually converge this well and I was I was adamant he must have had a map like that's the only way I could explain it uh I couldn't find really any solid evidence for that so that was sort of like a book on like my unbelieving shelf where I was like w this actually cors really well whenever I looked at the witnesses of the ghou plates critics tend to focus on like a lot of like second third hand statements where like Martin Harr says like oh I saw them with spiritual eyes or I saw Jesus in the form of a deer you know I didn't really see the plats I only saw the pl like I see a city through a mountain and if you just look at those quotes you're like oh these guys are incredible they had a Visionary mindset and a magical worldview they're a bunch of loans and you can't take their testimony seriously but as I was researching into the the accounts of the witnesses of the goal plates the critics were only presenting a few and second thirdhand statements of the witnesses and were omitting about 90% of their positive statements where the three Witnesses throughout their life reaffirm not only do they never deny their testimony but even after leaving they reaffirm over and over again they know they saw the angel they know they saw the plates David Whitmer was once asked are you sure it wasn't a hallucination or a mental disturbance he's like no he's like I saw with my eyes I heard with my ears I know where are I speak and even Martin Harris the one who they say like oh he was a you know a spiritual loan so many times he would say like is sure as you see the sun in the sky I saw the plates and as sure as you see that chopping block I saw the angel in the plates and I chopped my head off before I deny it and I was reading so many statements from the three Witnesses and the eight Witnesses and I was like okay it's Faith whether or not we believe their testimonies but they are absolutely adamant that they know they saw the angel the I think I began to realized that like you know the the critical view that Joe Smith just manufactured or fashioned his own set of metal plates he somehow trick the eight Witnesses when he showed it to them and then the three Witnesses all had a mass hallucination and the book and Morman prophesies that three Witnesses would see the plat by the power of God and that was before the witnesses saw the angel in the plates I was like that's also like pretty unbelievable for Joseph to pull off like that's almost as hard to believe as they really being an angel and play they told the truth and we're looking into also into the book of be which is in the book of Moses and there is like correspondences in like themes motifs uh between Joseph's book of enck and some ancient documents of the book of enck particularly The Book of Giants and the dad SE RS which I just didn't know how to make sense of as J Smith is a fraud howest part there so many corresponden he wouldn't have had access I remember a scholar Harold Bloom unbelieving scholar said that Joseph's a religious genius you know so was it was at this time where I was also encountering some things in support of the church which was causing some cognitive dissonance for me being absolutely sure that Drew Smith was a false prophet he made up The Book of Mormon so it was around this time where I was very conflicted and I didn't really know where I was going to go and what was sort of the Catalyst for me going back to the church because I don't think any of those intellectual arguments or evidence would have caus my faith to come back they were kind of interesting but I was still just like no I don't believe it's true and somebody sent me a talk it was BYU devotional by Elder oh yeah but stand forever talk yeah and I listened to it I remember I listened to it like three times in a row and his talk in a nutshell he talked about how a lot of people are leaving the church experiencing DS uh encountering criticisms leveled against the church and he talked about he himself as a general Authority weeding through a lot of like antagonistic material and feeling like this spiritual Gloom as he was weeding through it and a Critic would say well you're feeling gloomy because your religion's being shown to be false that's why you're feeling gloomy in all this cognitive distance remember he said that the spiritual Gloom he felt it was the absence of the spirit and that God's voice isn't in critical voice voices and they talked about how there's primary questions and there secondary questions and the primary questions are of what are most importance like is there a god is Jesus Christ Our Savior was J Smith the prophet is the Church of Jesus Christ FL Saints the Lord's restored church is book Norman church I don't think he was trying to be dismissive of the secondary questions because they're still important but I felt like he was making the argument that you could spend a lifetime going through all the secondary questions and even if you find ANS aners to the secondary questions it still doesn't answer the primary questions so for example on my channel I did a series on J Smith First Vision responding to a lot of the criticisms leveled against its first vision and I feel like I've provided some plausible answers you know responding to some of the criticisms some people may not be persuaded but even if you feel like they answer a lot of the criticisms it still doesn't really prove for determine whether or not Drew Smith had his vision or not and I felt like that was the point of this talk and he talked about like there's different ways of knowing truth there's like a research analytical method scientific method and then like a Divine spiritual method so the power of His talk that really profoundly hit me that touched my heart was he he held up the scriptures and he just fully and very sincerely said like ask yourselves ask God are these lies are they delusion or are they truth that was sort of my my GMS 15 although I was wrestling with l dots and concerns about Bible still things to do with the church even questioning God or Jesus deep deep down still believe there was a god who'd answered my prayers and I sort of had this this moment where like if I believe that there's a God I have to believe he's going to speak to me he's almost not worth believing and if I don't believe he can answer me and some uh Christians will say like don't pray about the Book of Mormon that's how you get deceived you know men's hearts are deceitful I sort of feel like is God like so weak that asking faith that he can't answer you and I feel like when you look at some of the simple teachings of Jesus in the New Testament it's like ask and you shall receive seek and you shall find knock it shall be open unto you so I decided that I'm going to fast and pray it was a time of uh sincere prayer uh urgent seeking probably the most humble heartfelt prayer of real intent I was fasting just putting out all my con concerns all my questions real issues and doubts I had what is what's true what's the right path um should I be a Christian are all religions wrong but there still a Jesus is the church Jesus Christ L Saints is it the true church do the prophet are the scriptures or words what must I do to be on the right path and return back to live with you I remember after saying some prayers no answer came I remember I had an impression and I would have said to people as a missionary if if you want to talk to God pray and if you want God to talk to you turn to the scriptures and I I thrown away all my Mormonism stuff into a cupboard I threw all my garments in a rubbish bag and my scriptures were away in a drawer like my Book of Mormon Doctrine covenants but I I went and open the doctrine covenants and I opened to section 18 I say I'll just read a couple of the verses that I read so this is verse 33 and it says I Jesus Christ your lord and your God have spoken it these words are not of men nor of man but of me wherefore you shall testify they are of me and not of man for it is my voice which speaketh them unto you for they are given by my spirit unto you and by my power you can read them one to another see if it were by my power you can not have them wherefore you can testify You' have heard my voice and know my words oh and as I read that passage and I'm sure I've read it before I just felt filled with illumination and Enlightenment in my mind and just this joy and this love and this light in my soul um I was just overfilled and tears stream D and it was as if it was like the ve was rent and it was the Lord speaking directly to me uh that these are his words that he spoke to me by his Spirit I've heard his voice and it was probably one of the most powerful spiritual experiences I've ever had but it was also not too different to other spiritual experiences it just seemed more direct more profound and for ours I just lay there feeling just filled and illuminated and enlightened so then as the spiritual feeling sort of feared away remember I was still sort of a skeptic and unbeliever and I thought hold on a minute I was like maybe I just like was in a very emotional state praying open the scriptures happened to read that passage and then experienced like elevation emotion or BR Euphoria like it wasn't really Gods speaking but at the same time did feel like pretty like profound powerful experience um I didn't want to deny it if it was really God speaking to me so I was kind of like wrestling and going back and forth and second guessing so I was praying again I was like Heavenly Father I've had this experience like if it was you speaking to me if it was the Holy Ghost like if this was a revelation you telling me that these are your words I don't want to deny it but I I really need to know I don't want to be misled I really need to know if this was spirit and uh revelation that I experienced were just my own emotions so I was praying for guidance praying for confirmation and the next day I turned to section six of the doctrine Covenant which was a revelation given by Joseph Smith to Oliver cardi from the Lord um I think I can recite this passage the Lord says blessed art thou for what thou has done for thou Hast inquired of me and as often as thou Hast inquired thou Hast received instruction of my spirit if it had not been so you would not be at the place where you are at this time so I knowest thou has inquired of me and I did Enlighten thy mind and I tell thee these things that thou Mast know thou Hast been enlightened by the spirit of Truth and then later he went on to say uh did I not speak peace to your mind concerning the matter what greater witness can you have them from God and when I read these words I was just kind of like mind blown it was the same Enlightenment and Illumination in my mind and this joy and love in my my heart in my soul there are no tears but it just felt so direct like it was God confirming that I had received Revelation you know that you've inquired of me you have been enlightened by the spirit of Truth what greater witness can you have them from God and I felt like that was God confirming the Revelation but unfortunately because I'm a daughter and a skeptic see for says having a few hours later I was still like was this just a coincidence again I remember I read I went back and I read the Cs letter again and then I went back to God and I was like no there's too many ISS isues like look at Adam God Theory God look at pandre look at the SE Stone in a heart I was like there's too many issues there's no way I can be true I was like there's some disconnect here like is this Satan giv me the Revelation I was like okay I don't think that really makes sense and I was just like how can it be true and I also felt annoyed that I got that answer because I didn't want the implications of like going back to church again like I made it very public I no longer believe I made a public post I wrote a letter to my Bishop I'm enjoying drinking tea and coffee and not having to pay tithing and I was like I don't want to have to go back to my world like it's full of crazy people and I was just like the implications I'm like I'm annoyed that I've had this answer and I was like you must be misinformed there's so many problems God I know you claimed to know everything but obviously don't know about CS the next day I was flicking through the book of and I find this quite funny I read Jacob 4 and there is a scripture I'll just powerphrase but it's along the lines of like don't seek to counsel the Lord but seek counsel from his hands for he counsels in Justice and wisdom over all his works and you know pretty much uh God knows everything and then there is a part that said uh despise not the revelations of God and I was just like for Li sake you can't deny after those three experiences I was like you just want me to believe and just take your word on it and then after that for a week I I just shut it off I was like like no I'm I'm not accepting this Revelation mumo jumbo I was like if you want me to believe send the angel send the plate I want proof um I just shut it off I remember I went to a wedding and just got absolutely drunk and hammered I was just trying to like forget these things happened and over that next week how I would describe how I felt was like a state left unto myself I felt just it's like Mana was coming from heaven like that strong connection to God and then when I sort like rejected and I was hardening my heart I just felt completely left onto my own after a week realized I probably should be demanding a sign I was reading the scriptures again and scriptures talk about like you you shouldn't demand a sign for fear I reading the doct covenants that signs don't produce Faith but signs follow those that believe and that faith is not to have a perfect knowledge and I wanted perfect knowledge I wanted to know for 100% certainty it was true and even though I feel like these experiences were quite profound they're quite direct I felt like I needed it to combat my shelf and all my questions and issues it still didn't eliminate the it because I could still possibly say maybe these were just coincidences with elevation emotion I can't know for 100% it was God but finally it came to a point where I had to really weigh out what do I make of these experiences do I think it was just coincidence and alivation emotion or do I think this was really God speaking to me and answering me uh do I believe I receive ration and if I believe there's a God then I have to believe that this was him speaking to me I remember I asked myself like if I'm a bading man would I bet my money my life my soul on these experiences being three Revelations or just being coincidence or alivation emotion and that's why I knew that I I linked words I believe I believe that this was God speaking to me I believe that this was Spirit Illuminating enlightening my mind and I felt this pull this called to come back to the church so I remember I I wrote a letter to my State president same one that I've met with before and told him by a lot of these experiences and that I decid that I'm going to come back wow that is so powerful so amazing oh my gosh okay tell us how it felt to go back to church and I also want to know about your sister what happened with that and yeah what was the experience like going back and also did you publicly post it on Facebook like hey guys I take back what I said no so I didn't go public on on Facebook again I sort of realized that you know I I kept it quite personal and private somewhat these experiences I shared them with a few people going back to church was really hard whenever I I drove there there really was this wrestle between his will and my will between like the spirit and the intellect because I remember driving there and just be like no I'm not doing that I like Turned R drove back and I was like no you got to go I was like I was fighting with myself there I remember like walking through the car park and then entering the church door I'm like I can't believe I'm back like I thought like I've graduated from Mormonism and I was like I have the real truth and your old blind sheep I was like here I am back but you know what coming back it felt like coming back to my spiritual home and I remember it was war conference that that Sunday and there were so many people that just welcome me back with loveing arms and it it really did feel for me like I was back in my spiritual home so yeah so awesome I love that so my sister was living in England at the time so she knew that um I came back to church I think she was surprised because I think she thought I probably just came back for social reasons I was like um no actually I believe again she was like what you know and even so my friends were surprised because whenever I left the church like I would told people like not that I was trying to like destroy people's Faith but I would have pretty much told them all the issues I had so uh people were friends were surprised whenever I came back to the church uh and since then we've me and my sister we've maintained a good relationship she's aware of my channel she is still you know critical of the church but we've had some I think positive conversations where she's listened and listened to my story and experiences and I feel like we are able to talk and listen while we might disagree we don't have to be disagreeable and we can be respectful of each other's views andien wow I am just amazed at your story right now I I feel like there is so so much stuff out there on the internet and I I feel like once a week it's like I see a post that's just tearing the church down and it's just so incredible to see how somebody who had such a deep dive into all of the antagonistic material was able to come back and resolve those issues in a spiritual way it's like my mind is blown right now because I think if Tik Tok had have been created when I left the church I probably would have been one of those anti xman ticktockers that you would have heed probably would have been me yeah I I I really did not expect to come back a lot of people have said to me you never really left the church you still really believed almost like um sometimes what members can say to people when they leave the church oh you never really had a testimony you know that sort of thing you just couldn't hack the Commandments people would say that to me like just couldn't hack being act Norman the church was comfortable for you and whether or not the spiritual experiences are real and valid or not they are the reason I came primarily some of the things to do with apologetics and evidence and over the years I've been trying to reconstruct my faith and my paradigms because I couldn't go back to the very simplistic black and white view I had of scripture prophets before uh and and it has been a struggle like still navigating my way through you know there's controversial things in church history there's so many critical arguments made against different things and I spent you know the last couple of years exploring apologetics I'm still an open-minded person so I'm very open-minded wanting to look at what the critics have to say and there's been times where my testimony has been really strong tyly after like strong spiritual experiences and I've been you know going back to the you getting my temple recommend reading the scriptures uh listening to BYU devotionals and conference talks and really getting back to like the strong testimony I had like as a missionary but then there's been times where like friends or family members leave where they bring up a lot of criticisms or you counter podcast or or something that sort of ravels your faith again there's times where you begin to doubt again and that's sort of been part of my faith Journey that it's not been all clean ceiling since coming back to the church there's been there's been wrestles but there's also been times where I've exercise be and I've had another spiritual experience and the analogy I give is you've heard heard the Shelf analogy like you have your shelf and I felt like my spiritual experiences was like God giving me a new Shelf we didn't remove many books and over time my shelf seemed quite heavy I was like I think my shelf's going to go and then after exercising Faith or you find some sort of an apologetic reconciliation it's like he's put in the screw uh and some of the books with research and with learning more about the context and diving into faithful scholarship some books have been removed or at least been lighter but for the most part it's been I think the spiritual experiences that brought me back to the church on what have really been my rock keeping me in I don't know if you remember a talk given by Elder Holland it was about like the Book of Mormon and for those who are going to leave the church they have to crawl like over or around or under the Book of Mormon leave this church I kind of feel the same way about these experiences like in order for me to leave I have to I don't know what to do with them I don't know how to deny them that's sort of been my my faith journey and um that's amazing it does remind me of the faith is not blind book talking about how you know we start out with this simplistic testimony and then our faith is tried and challenged and we have questions and we encounter podcasts and we encounter YouTube videos and Tik Tok videos and all the things and then you know we do we ask for ourselves and we're able to have a mature more mature more refined testimony that's like okay not everything is perfect but that's okay because we focus on the primary questions and you know the secondary questions we can debate till the end of time and we may never have the answer to all of the secondary questions but the things that we do know is that our spiritual experiences are real we felt God speak to us and to deny that would be lying it would be we would yeah we would have to lie about that and that's how I feel and that's kind of what I what I hear in your story and it's it's so incredible whenever I I stepped away from the church and wrote that letter to my Bishop at that point that's where I was at like spiritually emotionally mentally I left with integrity and I also came back because of Integrity I I felt like I was being honest with myself I really belied that uh this was God speaking to me and yeah it's hard to deny for sure well you have an amazing story thank you so much for coming on the podcast thank you for sharing and everybody listening check out Mormonism with the murf I I really appreciate you taking the time so thank you so much oh thanks so much for having me on it's an awesome thank you so much for being a supporter of the comeback podcast and listening to our episodes it would mean so much to us if you would like and subscribe to our YouTube channel it helps other people be able to find us and we want to share this message to everyone

Channel: Come Back Podcast

Views: 13,857

Keywords: #bookofmormon, #churchofjesuschrist, #churchofjesuschristoflatter-daysaints, #faith, #inspirational, #latterdaysaint, #latterdaysaints, #lds, #mormon, #podcast, come back, come back podcast, come back podcast lds, comeback podcast, youtubevideos, ashly stone, ashley stone, come back ashley stone, christian, christianity, addiction, addiction recovery, lds podast, faith crisis, church, spiritual awakening, testimony, come back to god, CES Letter, ex-mo, anti-lds, ex-mormon, anti-mormon

Id: w1IF27cNRk4

Length: 55min 51sec (3351 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 29 2024