Hi, I'm David

I am a convert to the church and thankful that someone was willing to share the gospel with me.

About Me

From the very first time that I prayed about the church and about Joseph Smith, I knew the church was true. I struggled to read the pamphlets and the reading assignments that the missionaries gave me because I never finished a grade in school after the 5th grade, they just kept moving me forward until I quit in the 9th grade. I could scarcely read and because of the drug use, comprehension was very low. I think it was after the third discussion I called Pat that night and told her I thought I was failing the discussions. She laughed a little and reassured me I would pass. Well, I was baptized a member of the church July 11, 1969 and it was not a testimony of the book of Mormon, but a testimony of Joseph Smith and I knew the church was true. It has been a long struggle to read through the standard works of the church, and even longer to start to understand. I not only do not have an education but I also have Dyslexia, and ADHD which makes it hard to focus on any one book for over 10 minutes at a time. I have managed to work through these problems with the tender mercies of the Lord.

Why I am a Mormon

My wife Susan and I have been married for 10 years and life just keeps getting better. I know it’s through prayer and the study of the scriptures that keeps our marriage on track. The principles of the gospel of salvation, and that family's can be together forever is what binds me to the church. I truly believe if we did not read The Book of Mormon as a family, and have prayer together every day there is no way we could enjoy the peace that we feel in our home. Sue has 5 wonderful children and there were 3 at home when we were married and we both knew according to statistics of the world our marriage had little chance of success but we can testify that with the Savior in your life, anything is possible.

Personal Stories

Could you talk about your baptism?

I was born in S. California and lived from Jr. High School in Hollywood California. I was born into a Christian family with worldly values and before I turned 14, I was using drugs. The year 1967 was one of my worst years with using drugs as often as possible and selling drugs to help support my habit. One afternoon a few years later I became quite depressed at how my life was going, I had always believed in God and Jesus Christ, and for a long time I felt the need to be a part of a church. Sometimes my brother and I would attend different churches but I never felt comfortable with the practices so I decided to pray. I remember I asked Heavenly Father if there was more to this life than what I had right now, and if there was to help me find the answer. It was about six months later a young woman Patricia was asking around the high school to see if anyone knew of a person that played the guitar and sang, and by some weird coincidence the person she asked knew me and gave her my phone number. She was looking for someone to write music for songs she had written and we ended up recording these in the studio of Bob Engemann one of the original Letterman, who later became my home teacher. Before we were done a young producer for BYU Dennis Barrett wanted to use our music in several documentary movies being produced at Brigham Young University. During all of this Pat had talked to me about the church and about Joseph Smith. I decided to walk home that night and as I was praying about the prophet Joseph Smith I knew I needed to be baptized. The next day before we started to work, I ask Pat what I needed to do to be baptized and it just so happens that the missionaries lived next door, and they were home. Well six days later I was baptized on July 1969, and the magic of my life continues...

How I live my faith

Life is Magical has been the mantra of my life, it has changed my life into the incredible success that it is right now. If you are going to define your life in such a way, you must define for your conscious mind what you deem success to be. Is it money, a nice car, a big house with servants, or can success possibly exist without material possessions, or chattels. For life to be magical we must also believe in miracles, in a creator of everything around us, “have miracles ceased because Christ hath ascended into heaven, and has sat down on the right hand of God, to claim of the Father his rights of mercy which he hath upon the children of men?” I know they have not ceased because he hears and answers my prayers, He knows who I am by name, “My Beloved brethren, have miracles ceased? Behold I say unto you Nay neither have angels ceased to minister unto the children of men”. Life is magical because God lives and when I discovered that, it changed everything around me and how I viewed the world. It is that power that helped me overcome the addictions in my life. One day at a time and as I have grown closer to Christ He has taken away the pain and sorrow that had so deeply rooted my perception of life around me. He helped me overcome the addictions in my life and the peace I feel makes the intense struggle all the sweeter.

What is faith?

Don answered...

Faith is taking action because of a hope in something. Often the Savior asks of us to do certain things or live in certain ways. When we see a stranger in distress, we stop and help them as Jesus commanded us to in the Good Samaritan Luke 10:25. The act of helping is the evidence of our Faith in Christ. We are asked to tithe. Tithing is evidence of our faith. We tithe in hopes of the promises in Malachi 3:10 that the floodgates of Heaven are open to us.
Faith is when we put our beliefs and hope into action.
Cary answered...

Faith is a huge topic, rarely fully understood even by people who talk about it a lot. In the Mormon conception, it's a step of confidence between mere belief and full knowledge. It's perhaps best described by contrast with these two extremes on the continuum on which they all lie. First, faith is not that passive thing we call belief because it's a principle of action. So for someone to have faith, they have to be motivated to put a belief into practice, not merely be content with keeping it in their mind. For example, we believe that Christ is the Savior, but because we have faith we ACT as if this were true, and follow His example as best we can. In fact, "acting as if..." is a fairly good phrase to define faith. On the other hand, faith is not "perfect knowledge" either. There is enough of an element of uncertainty about the thing we have faith in, that it takes an effort of conscious decision-making to test our faith's hypothesis. If we had a full knowledge of a thing, that whole test, and the faith to find out if it's true, wouldn't be necessary. Atheists will argue that faith is mere belief (and baseless, at that), but what I have described for faith here leads to a more "scientific" approach that Atheists would like to admit is operable in the minds of the faithful. The proper response to a scriptural assertion, then, becomes not blind obedience, but rather careful thought, hypothesis forming, and testing. As tests come back proven or unproven, faith will grow in the right direction until it approaches "perfect knowledge".

What is the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' attitude regarding homosexuality and same sex marriage?

Mary answered...

I have many homosexual friends, and I have best friends who are gay rights activists. They know my stand on same-sex marriage, and I know theirs, but guess what? We are still friends. I hope you and I can be friends too, as I try to explain a portion of what I feel about the issue of same-sex marriage.

According to principles that I believe were established by God to protect both men and women and provide for their temporal and eternal welfare, only marriage between a man and woman is allowed. This marriage must entail complete fidelity from both parties. Just as post-marital sexual desires and impulses should be controlled, pre-marital ones are equally tameable.

The LDS Church penalizes no one based on their sexual orientation. What someone feels is not equal to what they do. Once someone acts on same-sex attraction, they are committing sin. Merely being attracted is not a sin. It is not easy or simple or enjoyable to suppress one's physical appetites. Frankly, I'm not even sure of all the reasons it is commanded that we do so (though I know of the basic reasons). What I do know (and believe me when I say I do know this) is that God has ordained marriage between man and woman. He always has reasons, and we usually don't understand them for quite some time. But I know with all my heart that it is for the good of all people, regardless of sexual orientation, that marriage only be permited between a man and a woman.