Who Are the Mormons

by Lynda Gull

            In this industry I have often heard Utah referred to as the Scrapbooking Capital of the world.  Even before it was called that, it was called the Mormon Capital.  As a result, many of us who love to scrapbook are dealing with lots of Mormons.  Though there are many who call themselves Mormons that doesn't mean all of them are truly converted to their faith.  This results in a lot of confusion, especially with recent events concerning the FLDS religion.  The Mormons are actually called LDS.  The other church branched off and amended their name as they amended their philosophies to include, as you know, practicing polygamy.  Practicing polygamy is strictly forbidden and results in excommunication from the LDS church which of course means Mormons are not polygamists.

        As a young girl I was born and raised LDS.  As a college student I studied evolution and dabbled in astrology and tarot.  This was shortly after the hippie movement of the '60's.  Turning in resentment from my LDS faith, I honestly believed that if we all would just take care of ourselves the world would soon find world peace and love.  This was the basic philosophy behind the hippie movement.  At that time I studied and experienced many different life styles and belief systems.  I read and believed everything written by Ayn Rand.  I considered myself to be an agnostic or even an atheist.  One day as I sat philosophizing about the result of people just taking care of themselves, I pondered how we might encourage all people and nations to adapt, to some degree, the hippie philosophies.  As I sat their exploring many possible directions it occurred to me that there would always be individuals who wanted more money, more power, and to be worshipped to some degree.  After hours of contemplation and reasoning I concluded that if there was no God, if Jesus Christ was not coming again to receive His people, that the human race was destined to destroy this wonderful earth and everything living upon it.

        After that day I began focusing on Christian faiths and their teachings.  Every Christian faith except the previously discarded LDS church.  I considered myself to be a truth seeker and I had already written off the Mormon faith as bunk or possibly even devil worship.  I studied all of the anti-Mormon information available as I continued my search for truth.  I tried so hard to be a good person and to have love for all people.  Each weekend I got together with friends and we studied, in depth, the Bible, both Old and New Testament.  As an outside sales representative in Southern California, I listened to Christian radio, and various preachers as I traveled.  (I had a lot of opportunity as I was frequently parked on Southern California freeways.)  The more I listened, the more confused I became.  I had so much information in my head and so many of the pieces would not fit together.

        I had been an atheist for 11 years and a member of another Christian faith for 13 years when I decided to contact a local Mormon Bishop.  He came to my home and brought another man from his faith.  I pointed out the differences I could see between his faith and the Bible.  I told him of the things about the different Christian faiths that were so confusing to me and asked his opinions.  Though I tried very hard to involve him in my theological dilemma he did not argue with me.  He simply said, "If you want to know what we believe you will have to read the Book of Mormon."  The night they came to my home my husband was so angry he stayed out in the garage and wouldn't even come into the house.  He was even less happy with me when I started reading their book.

        There was such a whirlwind of confusion spinning within me I was willing to try anything to find some answers.  I was, as the Bible says in 2 Timothy 3:7, "Ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth."  It was out of this frustration that I was willing to read their Book of Mormon.  A few things began to interest me.  The different books within the Book of Mormon were obviously written from different personality perspectives.  That was weird because I believed the Book of Mormon was written by a 14 year old farm boy.  Such a young boy would lack the years of experience required to write from different personality perspectives.  The book was challenging for me as I searched for what was wrong with it and carefully compared its verses to verses from the Bible.  As I was nearing the end of their book I read a verse that really made me curious.  In Mormon 8:31 it said of the end of the days, "Yea, it shall come in a day when there shall be great pollutions upon the face of the earth, there shall be murders, and robbing, and lying and deceivings, and whoredoms, and all manner of abominations; when there shall be many who will say, Do this, or do that, and it mattereth not, for the Lord will uphold such at the last day..."  I remember that moment well.  I was in the car with my husband, who was barely tolerating my silent reading, when I burst out, "Pollutions? Pollutions? Why would a 14 year old farm boy back in the 1830's use the term Pollutions?  They didn't have cars or factories."  I read the verse to my husband and he was as stunned as I was.  He remained unsoftened though.

        As I continued to read I found the verse that said in Moroni 10:4, "And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost."  I practically jumped for joy.  My confusion was now even greater than ever before, but I qualified for that statement.  I had a sincere heart, real intent, and faith in Christ.  I had been begging and praying and fasting and reading for 6 months during this turmoil.  I now claimed that promise.  I knelt in prayer and I pointed out, "Okay, I qualify, is it true?"  When Christ said to the Jews, as recorded in John 10:16, "And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring..." was he in fact speaking of the people on the American continents and was this book in truth the history of those people and the visit of the resurrected Jesus Christ to this continent?  I didn't have any preferences about what the truth was anymore, I just wanted to really, really know it.  The turmoil within me seemed to have reached gale forces but the answer didn't come immediately.  The answer came on the first Sunday in May of 1994, when I was so engulfed in confusion that I feared it would consume me.  On that day, in that moment, peace poured over me like warm soothing oil, and I always describe that moment exactly that way.  I knew!!!!!  By the power of the Holy Ghost, truth and peace poured into every cell of my body and I was born again.  On that day light consumed my darkness and I found my long sought for truth.  My change to complete peace was so dramatic that soon after my husband, my daughter and her husband all started attending the Mormon church.

        Shortly after that I lost my husband to cancer.  I moved to Utah looking for a good Mormon husband and boy, did I ever hit the jackpot!  My husband, Larry, and I try very hard to represent our faith in all of our actions.  We try to be honest, fair, and loving in all of our dealings.  We'd love to graciously serve every customer in exactly the way they would like to be served.  You should know we are doing our best, without putting ourselves out of business and our employees out of jobs.  In 5 years in business we have only had 2 customers totally lose it at me and they were both Mormons.  You see, Mormons aren't perfect and not all of them are even trying to be.  You won't know simply by observing the Mormons in this industry because unfortunately, though many of them get the faith they certainly don’t all understand it completely.  I guess if we all did we'd all be translated and we wouldn't be here to manufacture and sell scrapbooking supplies.  Suppose it's kind of good that we make some mistakes so we can stick around and scrapbook.

THE ARTICLES OF FAITH
OF THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS

Written by Joseph Smith and recorded in “History of the Church, Vol. 4, pp. 535—541” 

 1 We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.

 2 We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam’s transgression.

 3 We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.

 4 We believe that the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel are: first, Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; second, Repentance; third, Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; fourth, Laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost.

 5 We believe that a man must be called of God, by prophecy, and by the laying on of hands by those who are in authority, to preach the Gospel and administer in the ordinances thereof.

 6 We believe in the same organization that existed in the Primitive Church, namely, apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, evangelists, and so forth.

 7 We believe in the gift of tongues, prophecy, revelation, visions, healing, interpretation of tongues, and so forth.

 8 We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.

 9 We believe all that God has revealed, all the He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.

10 We believe in the literal gathering of Israel and in the restoration of the Ten Tribes; that Zion (the New Jerusalem) will be built upon the American continent; that Christ will reign personally upon the earth; and, that the earth will be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory.

11 We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.

12 We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.

13 We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul.  We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and we hope to be able to endure all things.  If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.

For more information visit Mormon.org