Mark :From Darkness to Light

I spent most of my teen years going back and forth between an LDS church and a Baptist church in the city of Plano, Texas. Neither of my parents was of any faith. The conversation rarely came up during my childhood. I believe they both feel there is a God out there, but never really discussed or went to any church. I became interested at the age of 10 because of an aunt of mine who was actually Seventh Day Adventist. I felt from that age that there must be a higher power than that of humans. I always enjoyed going to any church and I always believed in Jesus Christ in my heart. When we moved to Plano, Texas I was about 15. I became friends with 2 boys my age in my neighborhood. One of them was Baptist and one was LDS. They both offered to take me to church with their families. I went to both churches and really enjoyed both. To further bring me in, both offered church basketball programs for me to play in.

Eventually, I became closer to my LDS friend and spent most of my Sundays at his church. He also got a car and I began riding to school with him. On the way to school we would have to stop for Seminary at his ward around 6:30 AM. I was asked to be baptized at 16 and I decided to do it. However, my mother and stepfather would not let me do it. I had to have their permission at that age and they wanted me to wait until I was 18. A year later we moved across town and I stopped going to the church. At age 19 I joined the U.S. Air Force. I also was baptized in the San Antonio Baptist Church during my basic training. I was married for the first time that year. My wife and I became very active in a local church and with a military evangelism group known as Navigators. I fell away a few years later and ended up getting divorced.  Amazing, but sad, how that works. I never would be active in a church over the next 8 years.

I ended up in Utah in 1991 after getting out of the active duty Air Force. In 1998 I married an inactive LDS woman. Her mother influenced me to start going to the LDS church again. I still had a heart and belief in Jesus Christ and I figured there must be a reason why my life had circled back to the LDS church. I was baptized and my wife and I began going and we really enjoyed serving the church. Members were very friendly towards us. However, things changed after a few issues with our Bishop and our Stake President. We were trying to follow all the rules and after the church put my wife through a “church court” for a pre-marriage sin and then debated us on whether we were supposed to pay tithing on gross or net, we finally realized things were not about God, but about church rules. We became inactive and soon moved to another area of town. Upon moving we stayed inactive for about a year. My daughter kept talking to me about it all the time, as her Grandmother was certainly planting seeds in my daughters mind. I knew she was about 8 and would need someone to baptize her. I decided it was time to give the church another shot. I talked to my new Bishop and found him and the rest of the ward very warm to my return. I became a scoutmaster and was spending countless hours serving in several areas of the ward. My wife and I were once again active. Life seemed wonderful and also very busy. In 2007 I would wake up one morning to find my wife passed away. She had several health issues and finally her body had enough. Of course, it was a very difficult thing to go through. It was wonderful to think at the time that she would be there for me in the eternal “celestial kingdom”. Not long after the funeral, I was already at work trying to find an earthly replacement. I was not in any state to get involved in another relationship, but I also knew that a long mourning process would not be best for my daughter and me.

I began searching LDS dating sites for another companion. Within weeks of searching I had found someone that I knew would be what my daughter and I both needed. She is an amazing woman and still amazes me to this day, 4 years later. As soon as our relationship began, we began talking about our faith. We began going to the temple together and church together, well before our wedding. However, my new LDS ward was nothing like my previous ward. People were very cold and not accepting of me. I thought it may be that I was not married yet. I kept trying to serve and to please, but nothing seemed to help. Even after our civil marriage nothing really changed. My wife and I would be married in the San Diego Temple in 2009. I figured perhaps this would help establish recognition at the ward, but again nothing changed. To this day ward members still slip and call my wife by her previous married name.

It would be in 2011 that my eyes would finally become open. I kept struggling with the concept of me being a polygamist in the eternal world. I do not like the concept of polygamy. I had LDS leaders simply tell me to just enjoy the fact that I could have more than one woman for eternity. This was unsettling. I began reading polygamy history and researching. The more I researched the worse I felt. I knew President Hinkley had stated, “Don’t study yourself out of the church”. However, I also felt that I had to get to the real truth. I found myself deep into Mormon history and every day brought new findings that pushed me further away from what I now knew to be false doctrine. It was my reading of the Journal of the Discourses and A History of the Church that solidified my feelings. I found so much information at Sandra Tanner’s UTLM.org site that I now realized I had studied myself out of a man made religion. I found a video of the testimony of Lynn Wilder to be what would bring me back to the one and only true living God and Savior. After beginning communication with her and her husband Michael, the doors of truth came like a flood gate opening.

Immediately, I found a non-denominational church for my daughter and me. Once I walked through those doors for the first time, I knew I found the love, truth and freedom that Jesus Christ offers to all believers. A month later I would follow their sons (Adams Road Band) around the valley. To this day I still can’t get enough of their testimonies. I am now praying constantly for my friends and family who are lost in a religion that only Satan could love. Only Satan could ask for a human to become like God. Only Satan could desire us to be lost in the law. Only Satan could desire us to give up the great gift that Jesus gave us on the Cross. The “truth” is truly not religion; it is a relationship with Christ.

My chains are broken, my soul is free. My freedom is knowing that with Him I will spend eternity. John 14:6 is the verse that I now lean on. Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me.” It is not a so-called prophet, or a man-made church that can deliver us. It is only God that can deliver us. I have since decided to give my life to Christ and seek to serve Him for the rest of my days. I am now working on my Master’s Degree in Christian Studies and Pastoral Ministries. I know I have found the truth of why God sent us here and why Christ sacrificed for us. It is all written for us within His Word. John 1:1. I pray for all those yet to be delivered and for the work to
be done.

May the truth set you free!

I am, for He is I am

In Christ,

Mark