It is always encouraging to hear how God uses our efforts to affect others, no matter what the source. A Christian blogger made some very positive comments regarding Aaron’s role with our blog site, Mormon Coffee. A reader who also happened to be named Aaron posted a response saying he was a Mormon for over two years and that “MRM (and the sovereign grace of God)” was the reason he left Mormonism.

On a different blog site an ex-Mormon wrote: “This line of questioning about the LDS church and the office of the prophet was the beginning of my understanding of the flaws in Mormon theology as well as understanding the true differences in Mormonism and Christianity, A couple of other links have been helpful, Mormon[ism] Research Ministry (outstanding videos!!!!!) and the Mormon Wiki (good for dates and history) are good places to start.”

Randy often joins a team of Christians every Friday to witness at a popular mall in downtown Salt Lake City. Recently they had a new person join them named Tony. After the outreach was over Tony told the group how he came to be a Christian. Baptized as a Mormon, he was visiting his aunt in West Jordan (UT) about a year ago and noticed a DVD she had that was sent to her from a Draper address. Watching it confirmed his suspicions that Mormonism was not true and after doing some more study, he has left the LDS Church and is now a believer. The DVD he watched happened to be one of the 11,000 we mailed to West Jordan in early 2007!

A call from a returned missionary (RM) – I recently received an email from an Elder C****** that said simply, “You offered to take me out to lunch once in Manti. I met you at your home in San Diego as a missionary there. I've got an open mind.” I immediately responded to let him know that my offer was still good. A few minutes later I received a phone call from him. As we spoke he mentioned he still had the picture his companion took of me with him. I then remembered who he was. They both had come to our house in El Cajon and asked for me specifically. I was not at home at the time so Tammy said to come back in about a half hour. They did and we spoke for a very brief time. Apparently he now lives in the Salt Lake area and he wanted to call to say that he was struggling with his Mormonism and that I and Sandra Tanner were the cause of his doubts. He explained that he and his wife were about to have a baby and he didn’t want to raise their child “in a lie.” He said that he has a very busy schedule, but the door is open to get together in the near future. Please pray that we do.

Though the events surrounding the raid at the Yearning for Zion ranch in Eldorado, Texas has subsided somewhat over the past few weeks, I found it interesting that while the media continued to express its outrage for a religious belief that condones marital relationships between young girls to much older men, it virtually ignored the fact that plural marriage to underage women was also practiced by Joseph Smith, a man considered to be a prophet of God by both the FLDS and the Mormons. Fanny Alger, Sarah Ann Whitney, Flora Ann Woodworth, Lucy Walker, Sarah Lawrence, Helen Mar Kimball, and Nancy M. Winchester were all plural wives of Joseph Smith, and all were 17-years-old or younger when Smith “married” them. Bear in mind that he was in his 40s when he married five of them. Continue to pray for the many children who have been victimized by this group.

Proxy baptisms for the dead have caused quite a stir between Mormons and Catholics. According to the Deseret News, “The Catholic Church has ordered dioceses across the globe not to give information in parish registers to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints…CNS [Catholic News Service] reported the Vatican had ‘grave reservations’ about the LDS Church's practice of posthumous baptisms by proxy, a practice in which the names of the deceased are baptized into the LDS faith so that they may be united in the afterlife with LDS families, if they so choose.” In commenting about this controversy, Reuter’s Blog referred to a 2006 blog article written by MRM’s Sharon Lindbloom. The article ended with:  “While trying to come up with a counter-example to illustrate this problem, I came across a post by Sharon Lindbloom on the Mormon Coffee blog (whose name alone shows it is not orthodox Mormon). She asked what the LDS Church would think if ‘a powerful and influential group’ created a public database of prominent Mormons and ‘attached to each name is a letter of resignation from LDS Church membership, sent by proxy to Church headquarters in Salt Lake City.’ She concluded: ‘I suspect Latter-day Saints would be very upset over Mormon pioneer proxy resignations from the LDS Church. They may even believe it to be an injustice to the memories of their loved-ones…’” Sharon wrote another excellent, more recent piece, on this topic which has caused quite of bit of discussion at Mormon Coffee.

 

Pray for Matthew. While volunteering last Saturday at the Utah Lighthouse Bookstore, a man named Matthew came in to look around. After the store closed we sat down and talked for about 30 minutes. Matthew no longer believes Mormonism, but he had many questions. I was able to speak with him not only about some of the problem areas of Mormonism, but also what the Bible had to say about salvation by grace, etc. Continue to pray for him.

 

The Compassionate Boldness Conference begins this Friday. When we started planning this event I said I would be ecstatic if 100 people show up. It looks like that number may be around 200. God is good. We have received nothing but positive comments from people who are excited to see something like this being held in the Salt Lake City area. It will be recorded. Ordering information will be available shortly at both www.compassionateboldness.com and www.mrm.org.

 

We thank you for your prayers and support and count it a privilege to serve our great God here in Utah.