Over a decade ago I became obsessed with a desire to better understand my religion and the history of my pioneer forefathers.

I felt a need to understand all of the contradictions I saw in the church and it’s doctrines.

I needed to know why Old Bishop Bunker (on my mothers side) challenged the Adam God Doctrine taught by my great great grandfather Brigham Young (on my fathers side) .

I needed to know why President Young taught that God was always growing and learning …growing in knowledge and intelligence when Elder McConkie (the scriptures) taught that he was all knowing and that there was nothing that he did not know.

I needed to know why I was being asked to swear by my neck in a ritual that had evolved from a secret blood oath even though such an ordinance has never been part of the gospel in any dispensation and since the scriptures teach that it entered the world via a secret covenant between Satan and Cain. .

I began doing scriptural key word and key phrase searches in the four standard works. At the same time I became obsessed with LDS church history. I began spending 8-12 hours a day doing these searches as I lost all concept of time and my former reality.

Before long I began to see things in the scriptures I had never seen before and I became alarmed and troubled at what I saw… but the more I learned the more I needed to know.

My patriarchal blessing had told me that I “would not be afraid to learn the truth”… A statement that had previously seemed incongruent and absurd to me as I had always assumed that religious truth was always good news… always warm and fuzzy. What is there to be afraid of?

Although the experience was painful in the sense that it threatened my religious and cultural paradigm, it ultimately resolved the confusion I had experienced as the things in the church and world around me began to make sense to me.

Before long I began to trade in my testimony that the “church is true” for a testimony that “the gospel is true”.

My Bishop one day gave me a very insightful if not prophetic warning;

“You have gotten yourself into very deep waters…. everyone I have ever known that has searched as deeply as you have in the scriptures and Church History has either left the church or been kicked out of it”

BINGO! What an inspired dude! That statement in and of itself was somewhat of a revelation to me and part of the answer I was looking for. Could the scriptures really be that evil and dangerous? Could they only serve a useful service if taken lightly and never studied for more than 5-30 minutes at a time under the tutelage of church leaders and church commentaries?

After leaving the church within a few years after getting the prophetic warning from the Bish, I have continued to study and search.

My love for the gospel is greater now than it has ever been! My testimony that Jesus is the Christ… My appreciation for the atonement…. My knowledge that Joseph Smith is the last and greatest prophet of the last dispensation… my love for the Book of Mormon… my love for all of the revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants (including those that have been transfigured by well meaning individuals)

My understanding that blindness has come upon Israel until the fullness of times and until the gentiles repent…. Etc. has all grown.

The truth is that I have left the church without really leaving it because I love the LDS people. They are what constitute the modern church and they are MY people.

I now see why the church exists in the state that it is in and I realize that the current leaders have been given the “legal” right and mandate to testify of the name of Christ and publish his word in all the world…. Two things they do very well… Beyond that, it appears they have Carte Blanc to teach and do what they want. They can rule however they please for a predetermined period of time, and at the end of the “lease” the real Lord of the vineyard will return with his servant to make a settlement with them.

I can only stand in awe of the incredible plan that God has for us and bask in the realization of how great my nothingness is and how his ways are not our ways and his thoughts are not his thoughts!

I love how the church works for some people. Everyone that is in it should be! I love how it doesn’t work for others. Everyone that has left it should be out of it. Everyone is on there own journey. Everyone has a different level of understanding. Those who are confused should be. Those who are functioning on borrowed light should be. Those who have found inner peace have found it for a reason.

I cannot go to the building and participate in the rituals. I cannot put my hands on a persons head and pretend to hold the priesthood that Melchisedek held. I look forward to the time when, like Melchisedek, I will be able to command the elements and be caught up to zion but for now I must stand in awe of what God is doing and what he is about to do.

My heart is with the Saints. I encourage and support them in taking the Book of Mormon to the world and in testifying of the name of Christ.

I hope and pray that the lease is almost up and the blindness that has been put upon Israel is about to be taken off. Great things are going to happen.

I don’t go to church and participate in the rituals but I love my fellow gentile Israelites and feel I am still part of the group. I look forward to the separation and gathering.

I stay because this restored gospel saved my life and then it healed my soul.

Indeed, as it should for each and every one of us.

I stay because this restored gospel saved my life and then it healed my soul.

I glory in plainness; I glory in truth; I glory in my Jesus, for he hath redeemed my soul from hell. – 2 Ne 33:6

Most important, I stay because the church is true and the authority to act in God’s name (the priesthood) is held within our church.

Levi