Off topic . . . .

I think I started a poor time to start a blog. I am in upper management for a very large financial corporation that is headquartered here in Richmond, VA. Last May, it was announced that we bought a large, yet smaller than us, brokerage firm in St. Louis. However, part of the deal with the merger is that we are moving the headquarters from Richmond to St. Louis. After much deliberating, I decided not to move and will take my chances to find something in the area. My current position is very demanding as I manage a very high profile team that is constantly traveling all over the country. I travel a bit myself, which is one of the things I like most about the job. Between managing the team and dealing with merger related issues, however, I haven't had a chance to come to the blog and vent my spleen as I would have liked. However, last week I got my end date and tomorrow I get my termination package and will officially be cut loose on October 31. To be honest, I am actually almost looking forward to it. A third of my team has left due to the merger and prospective candidates have been sub par. I have been able to meet all of our service level agreements by the blessings of the good Lord and I know he has been by my side throughout this challenging time. One of the most bizarre things about this situation occurred last week when I had to go to St. Louis to interview my potential replacements What a surreal experience. They were all good people and I was able to find one who I think will do a fine job. Every person who I interviewed was also being displaced from their company. I am glad I was able to find someone on the first trip, as I do not want to have to go back to St. Louis again. So, now you know why it has been awhile since I have contributed to this blog. But, now I am determined to get back on track with my goal of a post at least once per week. So, please stay tuned . . . . . . . .

Next: Back on topic - Who are those anti-Mormon folks?

About me and my journey . . .

I grew up in a very rural area of Virginia and had never encountered a Mormon. The only time Mormons were brought up in my house were when we would watch Donny and Marie ("They're Mormons!" my mother would exclaim each time the show would start) or when we would pass a chapel in Portsmouth, VA on our way to visit family ("They're a cult!" my mother would exclaim). My mother exclaimed a lot and still does, by the way. Anyway, my next introduction to the Church would be on Sept. 24, 1992. I had just moved into an apartment with my roommate and we needed to get a key made. We went to a Keys Please at a local mall to get a second key made. The cutest girl with the bubbliest personality was working in the store and cut our key for us. I was a Parole Officer at the time and my office was next door to the mall and I frequented it often. The next day, I needed a watch battery so I was heading to Radio Shack when I walked by the Keys Please and saw my roommate in there talking to this beautiful young lady whose name is Sandy. I popped in while he was visiting, said a brief "How ya do?" and walked off to get my watch battery. Well, the young lady started dating my roommate and I would stop in and say hello to her at the key store whenever I was in the mall for lunch. During this time, I found out she was Mormon. At the time, I didn't get the jokes about the missionaries on bicycles, multiple wives, etc. because I was never exposed to the Church before. I was very impressed by Sandy's values and character. At the time, I had been out of college two years and was still sowing my Frat Boy oats. I was the farthest thing from religious and cursing, drinking, and carousing were my normal way of life. I would attend services at different churches while in college because I felt compelled that I needed some spirituality in my life (plus the cute co-eds were there), but I never received a witness by anything I heard or felt during those services. I do remember feeling a great desire to escape when during the 2nd of 4 hours of a service in a local megachurch people started babbling in an unknown language, began falling out on the floor next to me in droves and then began gyrating on the floor. At one point, I was the only one standing in my area and the church deacons looked at me like I was a heretic. Anyway, Sandy began to tell me about her Church as I asked questions since it was something I had never been exposed to before. However, I was still in my Frat Boy condition and did not seriously look at the Church until I began dating Sandy in January, 1994. She had broken up with my roommate after a month and a half. It was then I began to really look into the Church and attended one of the Sacrament meetings at Sandy's invitation. During this time, I never once read the Book of Mormon even though I had a copy. I began by reading every negative thing I could find about the Church online. What was interesting to me was the fact that everything, and I mean everything, I read that was produced by one of these anti-Mormon individuals or groups was not what I experienced at the Church. I read how the Church was racist, but for one of the first times ever I was sitting in a mixed race congregation. In the rural south where I grew up, there were no mixed race congregations. Period. I read that the Mormon women were treated as second class citizens and that the Mormon men had multiple wives. The first person I heard speak in a Mormon service was a woman, a woman taught the adult Sunday School class, women had their own organization. In fact, to be a religion that supposedly treated women with the utmost disregard, it seemed there were more women than men in the congregation. And the men only had one wife, but boy did they have multiple children! I read the Mormons worshipped Joseph Smith. After I figured out who Joseph Smith was (I had only heard of Brigham Young while in high school), his being mentioned as a person of reverance was evident but in no different context than a Protestant minister would speak of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. I did hear Jesus Christ mentioned constantly. I also heard the members praying to Heavenly Father and not to Joseph Smith as I had read. I read that the Mormons did not worship the Jesus of the Bible. Well, the only Jesus I heard being spoken of in the LDS Church was the Jesus who is the only begotten Son, who prayed in Gethsemane, and was crucified at Calvary. No other Jesus was mentioned. As cute as Sandy was, I really and truly was trying to find something that proved that these Mormons were a bunch of nuts, that they were cultists who were drinking the Kool-Aid and walking around with their minds turned into lime jello. Well, I discovered the exact opposite. I discovered they were good, faithful, family oriented, and devoted people who loved the Lord and Heavenly Father. In fact, at the time, they were everything I wasn't and I began to feel like the hypocrite. Who was I to judge these good people, when my life up to that point was one big party and my biggest contribution to this Earth had been not getting into an automobile accident while leaving the bars at night. While I was pursuing self gratification, these folks were being faithful to their beliefs, doing good works, and living good Christian lives. Not once did I bring up the anti-Mormon rhetoric to a member of the Church so that they would have to provide a defense. I took what I read and compared it to what I was witnessing and experiencing, and realized that the anti-Mormon crowd was not telling the truth, but the Church was. I asked members innumerable questions about the beliefs, doctrines, and history of the Church and began reading the Church produced materials and comparing them to what the members were telling me and what the anti-Mormon crowd was claiming. The answers I received logically and factually counterd the negative things I had been studying. Believe me, too, when I say I read EVERYTHING possible that was a criticism of the Church. I read stuff by the Tanners, Ed Decker, Evangelical web sites, and the numerous gripes and complaints by former Mormons who had one axe to grind or another. The sheer volume of anti-Mormon stuff out there gave me a false sense of success that I would prove the Church wrong. I wanted greatly to believe their criticisms because I was never religious nor did I want to be. What I was experiencing with my own eyes and ears, however, did nothing more than to confirm the fact that the critics were either wrong, lying, or misinformed and the Church was nothing more than what it claimed to be. After 2 1/2 years of trying to prove the Church wrong, I humbled myself and received a spiritual confirmation of the truth of the Church that reinforced my intellectual confirmation. I began invesigating the Church in January, 1994, and was baptized Sept. 24, 1996, exactly 4 years after I met Sandy. Sandy and I were married July 1, 1994, and yes faithful church members do marry non-members.


Next: What does being Anti-Mormon mean and in the words of Jerry Seinfeld, "Who are these people?"

Why this blog?

I asked the same thing myself. I have a wife, kids, career, Church activities, community involvement so why bother taking what precious time I have left to give my opinion here on this blog? The Church has more than enough resources to defend itself from criticism and such criticism doesn't affect my testimony at all, so why bother? Well, I am an idealist and have never been one who can just sit by on the sidelines while lies and misrepresentations are being offered and accepted as the truth about someone or something. What makes my involvement even more important to me is that these types of attacks are being directed at my faith. My faith is an integral part of who I am, what I believe, how I live, and how I raise my family. I live and believe my faith and am amazed at the lies and distortions that are presented in today's media as if they are fact. I am also sick and tired of being told what I believe by people who read or view this type of garbage and believe it to be true without first investigating it fully. And yes, the whole Mitt Romney experience has been a catalyst for this blog. Never in the 12 years since I joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints have I had more opportunities to discuss my beliefs and to contradict the lies that religious bigots in society have perpetrated against my faith for the longest time. So, I see this blog as a way to vent, expose these religious bigots for who they really are, and to clarify the beliefs that I hold dear as a member of the Church.

"Deliver me from mine enemies, O my God: defend me from them that rise up against me."
Psalms 59:1


Next: About me