I was born into the LDS church and raised in Rigby, Idaho.  I had a typical mormon upbringing in a small predominately mormon community.  Most of my friends were members and I was, in fact discouraged from having any friends that were not LDS.  I was baptized at the age of eight and went through the ranks of deacon, teacher, priest, etc.  I had always planned on going on a mission until during my junior year in high school I began to realize that I did not want to spend two years of my life away from my family and friends.  I never really developed a testimony while growing up even though I went to church every Sunday (forcefully) and graduated from seminary.

The beginning of my senior year I announced to my parents that I would not be going on a mission.  They were devastated and refused to give up the idea that I would not be going.  As graduation approached I received a new triple- combination, luggage, and suit.  Even though I told my parents I wasn't going they were in denial and thought that I would change my mind and put in my papers to go.  I thanked them for the luggage and used it to move out the day after I graduated.  I had too many years of my parents shoving the church down my throat and I had had enough.  I even joined the National Guard and went to Missouri to get them off my back.  Even after coming home from boot camp in Oct. 1979 they still encouraged me to take a "leave of absence" from the guard and fulfill my mission duties.  Instead I married my high school sweetheart in Dec. 1979.  I think that they resented "her" for many years for being the reason I did not fulfill a mission.

Needless to say, I left the "church" for many years and it wasn't until 1995 that I got back into the church.  After several failed relationships and many years of living a Godless life I knew something was missing in my life.  I found myself once again divorced and longing to have God in my life as well as a stable, meaningful relationship with the woman of my dreams.  I met up with my ex-wife 3 1/2 years after being divorced and we rekindled our love for one another.  when started talking about giving our relationship another shot but knew that we would have to take a different road or path than the one we did before if we were going to make it work.  About six months after we remarried we decided to take the missionary discussions and get active in the Church.  My job took me to a small community in east Idaho were a lot of my wife's family was and most of whom were LDS.  About 18 months after we became active in the church I was ordained an elder and we were married in the Idaho Falls Temple in Oct. 1996.  In 1997 my job as a police officer took us to another small community in central Idaho where we became active members in the ward and accepted many different callings.  We were full tithe payers and attended the temple regularly.  At one point we attended the temple once per month for four straight years without missing a month!

I served many different callings including EQ Pres., 1st and 2nd counselor.  After about ten years of being a faithful member I began to have questions and thoughts about the teachings of the church.  I began to feel like I was not getting or receiving the personal relationship that I wanted with Christ.  It seemed like everything was about the BoM, D&C, Teachings of the Presidents and not enough (for me anyway) about the Bible and Jesus Christ.  It took me 10 years to realize just what they were teaching me, The Plurality of Gods, Eternal Progression, God was once an Exalted man!  these things started to weigh heavily on my mind and for some reason I could not talk to anyone about my concerns.  I guess I thought that I would get the standard answer, "just have faith, all things will be revealed someday, keeping praying and read your scriptures." 

Anyway, after several months of study and research I decided that I could no longer believe in what I was being taught.  I knew that the LDS church was not teaching me about the true Christ of the bible and Joseph Smith could not be a true prophet because a lot of his prophesies never came true.  The LDS church likes to pick and chose certain things out of the bible that agrees with their own doctrine but they like to ignore another parts of the bible that would disprove some of their teachings.  The biggest one for me was that the bible says that God has always been God, there were no Gods before and there will be no Gods after Him.

So to make a very long story a little shorter, I finally dropped a bomb on my wife in Jan. of 2006 and told her that I was leaving the church.  Needless to say, she was devastated!  She asked me to talk to the bishop but I had already made up my mind.  I told her that I loved her and gave her the reasons I was choosing to leave but she would not have any part of it.  We were divorced by March of 06' and I moved to Idaho Falls.  Likely we did not have any children.  I have since found Christ, the true Christ that I have wanted an intimate relationship with.  I was "born again" and baptized in the Snake River in July of 06'.  I lost everything when I decided to leave the LDS church, my wife, my home, her family and many friends.  But guess what!  I have no regrets!  I am truly at peace with my decision and I have Christ in my life.  I found a non-denominational christian church that teaches from the bible and nothing but the bible.  I have never felt the Spirit more in my life than I do now and I can't get enough of it.  So... all I can say is follow your heart, stay close to the true God of the Bible and He will direct your life and never fail you.