Personal Narrative: Growing Up At The Mormon Church

A strong family life, faith, and ambition characterize my development. A lot of who I am now can be attributed to the manner in which my parents raised me. I grew up in a devout Mormon household, so from a young age my parents instilled values of love, honesty, and kindness.

People and religion are a part of everyday life. The world is sure to be empty without the existence of God’s creation. When people and religion are viewed as different, the history, beliefs, and practice are formed unrealistically by outsider, more so than an insider. In an interview with a LDS, the author attempts to write and summarize a Mormon‘s journey through life with God and others.

I knew one thing for certain: Tennessee was a very stupid state filled with stupid people and I would never drink their stupid sweet tea. Thus was my twelve year old opinion.

Church, temple, sanctuary, or the Lords’s house, these are just a few names that your average person might call the place you come to worship God, I have always called it home. The Church I have been attending, Memorial Baptist Church, which is also where I attend high school, I have been attending since I was the age of three years old. Moving to the area that my family lives in now, I do not believe is any accident. At the age of two years old, my father was stationed in Tennessee for the military. After passing away from brain cancer, my Mother moved my two older sisters and me to Killeen Texas, to be closer to her family. Memorial Baptist Church was the only church we have ever been members of since moving to Texas, it has always felt like

I go to Mt. Zion Baptist Church. I’m on the praise team and today, we are having an affable concert. We are inviting all churches in Albany and surrounding towns to come and revere with us. My sister is also on the praise team. She is having an indolence attitude. She says she doesn’t want to go even though she committed to earlier this month. As her sister and captain of the pre team, I encouraged her to come along. The whole way to the church she was being desecrate.

I peeked through my facemask and I could see the quarterback lining up to take the snap. I glanced back at my coach who swung his arm across his body indicating the “slash”. My body shook with excitement as I inched up to the line. At the sound of a distant “hike” I exploded from my stance off the tackle into the endzone. I found myself one on one with the quarterback in the backfield, an outcome I had prepared for hundreds of times. I dove at his legs colliding with his shins. After a push and pull struggle he went down and I stood victorious in the middle of the endzone, my teammates immediately raised their hands above their heads signaling a safety. The excitement in the stadium grew and the student section erupted chanting “STORMIN MORMON...STORMIN MORMON”

For many years, I have worked in ministry as a support ministry member. In 1993-1997, I served as Administrator at Beacon Light Full Gospel Baptist Church under the leadership of Bishop Darryl S. Bister. I was responsible for all of his appointments, drafting of documents, and overseer of additional staff members and responsible for the day to day operations. In 1997, I was called to Greater St. Stephen Full Gospel Baptist Church with my husband under Bishop Paul S. Morton, Sr. I served in many capacities in this ministry from worship leader to Administrator to the Registrar for Greater St. Stephens School of Ministry. My husband along with our 3 children was then called to Denver, Colorado to serve at Heritage Christian Center under Bishop Dennis Leonard. We serve in that ministry

I attend Gospel Light Freewill Independent Baptist Church in Thomasville, NC. It’s a relatively small church, with about 50-70 people on a Sunday morning. My grandmother, my aunt, and my uncle attend this church as well. I consider myself to be a child of God and a true “born again” Christian. Being “born again” means that one has accepted God into their heart and has been changed on the inside. I accepted him into my heart on October 9th, 2012. Growing up strictly in an independent Baptist church, I didn’t know that other churches were different, at least not until I visited my boyfriend’s church which is Southern Baptist. My pastor preaches heavily on hell-fire and brimstone. He walks up and down the altar, yelling and jumping. There are

or those who know me, they know that nearly every Sunday morning I’ll be sitting next to my wife, on the front row of Topeka Baptist Church. To be clear though, I’m not implying that I’m super-spiritual, nor am I trying to impress anyone by my seating preference. Truth be told, I’m an avid people-watcher and easily allured by my surroundings, so sitting on the front row gives me the best opportunity to pay attention since the only person I can see is the pastor. I can’t tell you the day, month, or even the year when we started attending our church, nor can I tell you exactly how long we’ve sat on that front row now. However, I do know that I’ve listened to the pastor faithfully deliver sermon after sermon, Sunday after Sunday. Although I

The Mormon Church teaches that technology is a necessary evil. They teach that, while vital for communication and occupations, cell phones and the internet posses a massive destructive capability and, thus, their use should be limited. Mormons view the destruction as ethical or religious: stumbling onto pornography or an "anti-Mormon" website. I have somewhat adopted the overarching viewpoint, but with different justifications. I went a week without screens over my freshman year, and realized a sense of clarity comparable to when I first got contacts; in both instances I gained an appreciation for previously overlooked details. Crisp breezes, real conversations, environmental exploration, these treasures were previously muddled down by constant

With renewed devotion to the miracle of the gospel and a desire to meet with my fellow saints, I searched for the church in the phone book. I called the bishop and organized a ride to church the following Sunday for Reggie and me. Reggie decided not to attend anymore. I waited for my ride that never came. I was unaware, but I lived in a very dangerous neighborhood. Once the person at the other end of the phone found out where I lived, it must have deterred them. It was a blessing in disguise. What I did not know was there existed another latter-day Church, The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, now called the Community of Christ. I had called a splinter group that had nothing to do with the church I had joined. If someone

I'm not sure if you remember me right off hand, but last semester I had you for my level twos. My placement was at Valley Lutheran was Mrs. Reinking. I also work at Family Video where I sometimes see you. I am filling out my teaching application for the Fall of 2018. I was wondering if I could put you down as a reference? Hope to hear from you soon.

I live in Independence, MO, literally a stone's throw from where the Mormons go to get super married, or sacrifice their young to some guy named Joe or whatever they do there. So as you can imagine I get the occasional pair of guys on a ten speed regurgitating their propaganda all over my front porch. So when I saw this sticker, I knew exactly what I had to do with it.

I’m a Mormon. I Believe in marriage in the LDS Temple. I Believe I pay 10 percent of my earnings to the church also known as tithing. I Believe in being that I must get baptized at the age of 8, but if you were converted to the church, you can be older. I Believe that I am a Latter day saint of the church of Jesus Christ, but there is a lot of history to us, to make us form who we are today. For example, Brigham Young. He is one of the most important people to us. He helped make “The Book of Mormon.” He was also a apostle, he was also a prophet, a dad, a husband, and a bishop. But most importantly, he traveled from Salt Lake City, Utah, to all over NM, to Nauvoo, Illinois. He brought many Mormons, to basically make the city of Nauvoo, they

Interviewing several pastors can be eye opening in that you will begin to see different character qualities, disciplines and where they are in their spiritual journey. My intention was to interview several pastors, however, I was unable to obtain the responses needed to complete a study such as that. I did get to meet with one pastor, and I believe that it was truly difficult for him to answer most of the questions even after giving him some time to think about each question. My interview was with a very intelligent and spiritual man named Les Harvey. He is currently serving at the Church of the Highlands Greystone campus under many great leaders.