Latter Day Templar

Anti-mormons have said repeatedly that the spirit that lives within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the spirit of the devil. I'm going to tell you why that's false. I was raised in the Church. Baptized at 8, ordained a Deacon, Teacher, and Priest at 12, 14, and 16 respectively. As a kid I always treated it as a fairy tale. I went along with it because that's where my friends were. At 16, I decided to walk away from it. I made the decision to be an atheist. After three days of wracking my brain to find out how everything could have been made without a god, I decided atheism couldn't be true because there was too many holes and too much organization in the observable universe. During this time I also began to study psychology and various other sciences in order to deepen my understanding of reality. I figured that if there was a god, surely he could be found within this and it would match real-world foundational truths. I studied other Christian sects, but found the Trinity to be a doctrine I could not get on board with. I studied Islam, and it didn't take long to convince me that this was false. Paganism was always religious justification for self-worship, so I dismissed this. I landed on two possibilities: Satanism and the same Church I was raised in. Determined to be rebellious, I began following Satanism. I read about spells and magic. I learned about various satanic rituals and even practiced some incantations and cast some spells myself. The spirit of Satan was continually with me. One day, I realized that Satanism was nothing more than the corruption of the doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I realized I had made the wrong choice. Thankfully, my whole childhood was filled with encouragement and reminders that no person is beyond the reach of Christ and His Atonement. Thanks to the faithfulness of my parents, I knew what to do. After everything I'd done, I was possessed by demonic forces, quite literally. I called on God and commanded these possessing forces to leave me in the name of Christ. I pleaded with God to fill my heart and mind with His Spirit and replace the darkness with light. For an hour, I couldn't move or see. The darkness wrestled to maintain control, but was ultimately no match for the power of God. Through this, the devil had me convinced that the expulsion of the darkness would kill me. I made peace with this and resolved that it would be worth it just to be rid of the evil I once welcomed in. I continued, believing it would be my end. After some time, I felt the darkness recede. For the first time in years, I felt calm and a peaceful warmth in my soul. I felt as though our Father in Heaven was welcoming me back with joy. After that day, I lost every one of my friends. The woman I had married divorced me after cheating on me with multiple men. I was homeless for a short time, but God was with me through all of it. Not once did I regret my decision to turn back to Him. So when people tell me the spirit of the devil resides within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, I don't get angry. I don't laugh. I feel heartbroken for them that they cannot recognize the Spirit of our Lord. I testify that the Spirit that resides in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the Spirit of Him who created the world, and Him who we are made in the image of. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is truly God's church restored on this Earth, and no action against this Church will destroy it. No amount of anti-mormon rhetoric will turn the faithful away. God resides here and invites all to come and follow Him. Walk with God and become familiar with His voice. If you read this far, I genuinely thank you for reading my story. There are many details not listed here. Maybe I'll write about them someday, but for now this is sufficient. Follow for content that stands in defense of truth.

It's Veterans Day. I'm thinking about the people who stood watch so we could raise our families and worship God in peace. Freedom isn't the default. Someone paid for it. Praying today for the veterans who came home, and for those still carrying wounds no one else can see.

I had this same interaction with God. I asked Him to take these things away and He responded in the same way: telling me that He would not, adding that He gave them to me for a reason. My next request was "then teach me how to use them." He did, and my life has never been the same.

Latter-day Saints, what scripture do you go back to when life gets heavy? I'll start: Isaiah 6:8. "Here am I; send me." Every time I read it, it fills me with the courage to press on and the strength to bear my burdens.

That isn't a "bright lad." That's a criminal who should hang.

It would be good to remember the roots. Halloween began as preparation for All Saints Day, a holiday where the Saints are celebrated. It involved chasing out evil spirits and feeding the poor and homeless. It's a surprisingly Christ-centered holiday.

Reducing temple worthiness to just giving the Church money is dishonest. There are standards we uphold. Many of which are the same standards non-LDS Christian conservatives praise, actually. The temple recommend worthiness can be summed up like this: You must believe in God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost, have a testimony of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, and honestly strive to follow the teachings and doctrines of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Yes, tithing is part of that, but so is church attendance, the Law of Chastity (basically don't cheat on your spouse and no sex outside the bonds of marriage), and striving to follow Christ.

I understand why someone would be sympathetic to it. I understand why it looks so good when you've never experienced it. However, history tells a story that would make everyone treat communism worse than the n-word if you actually understood it.

At 17 years old, I went on trek. On the morning of the women's pull, I and the other young men felt bad about leaving the young women and pur trek mothers to pull the wagons themselves. We reached the top of the hill and lined up on either side of the trail and waited. After several minutes, we saw the young women coming up. As they got closer, we could hear them singing as they walked, and many of them had tears streaming down their face. Several of my female friends were there. After the pull was over, I talked to them. They told me that they felt their deceased female relatives and ancestors with them. More specifically, two sisters that I was friends with told me that they felt their dead grandmother with them. They all told me that they sang because they felt overcome with the Spirit. Do not discount the roll of angels in our lives. They are there to assist us when we lose our strength.

A) Yes. If it is false, let it be spoken so it can be ridiculed. Banned/suppressed ideas usually gain more traction than ideas demonstrated to be false in the public square. B) It depends on what you mean by disruptive. If being disruptive means staging a walk out to protest certain policies or laws, then yes, because it then becomes part of the discussion. If being disruptive means talking louder than someone you disagree with to drown them out, then no, because such a protest is designed to suppress ideas and speech, not be part of the discussion.

Forgiveness is not saying "you hurt me and that's okay." It's refusing to let their actions continue to hurt you. It's moving on and leaving what they did behind. While it does not take away the pain, it is the beginning of healing.

This is the funniest thing I've seen in a long time

I support it in limited circumstances. There are truly evil people out there. Some crimes are so heinous that they are deserving of capital punishment in order to protect the rest of society. They forfeited their right to life the moment they violated someone else's.

This is good news. My ideal home defense weapon is now more affordable and easier to get.

You're going to have to be more precise in your definition of conservative. I am a member who has been labeled conservative. I sustain the leadership of Christ's church as prophets, seers, and revelators.

We need God now more than ever. We all need to raise prayers for our nation and neighboring cities.

Exactly. God is preparing a people who will wade through the rot to find Him. In the coming days, as our prophets have said, things will become so chaotic that you will only hear Him or His servants if you deliberately seek them. We're being prepared to be His peculiar people.

You know all those millions of victims that died under tyrannical rule, such as the USSR, Cambodia under Pol Pot, the Chinese Communist Revolution, and countless other tyrannical rules and plots that killed God knows how many people? God knows each and every one of those people who died under those terrible rulers. He knows them personally and calls them by name. They are His children. Someday, we will meet our brothers and sisters who were lost to tyrants and forgotten. That brings me joy.

The younger generations are radicalized because we grew up with revolutionary stories like The Hunger Games. We've been told our entire lives to stand up to tyranny. We've been emboldened. But we were also trained. Trained to obey like good watch dogs. So many are so zealous because they don't know the true cost of what they push for.

This is part of the victim mentality. I personally know a rape victim, and she does not refer to him as her rapist. She has tried hard to move past it, even forgiving him. Only ever referring to them as "my rapist," "my attacker," etc., is toxic and will keep them in chains.