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The Southern Baptists Convention at the time was changing...indicating that Baptism was no longer required...at least it was filtering down to us at that time.

My parents began looking around for another Baptist Church that conformed more to their feelings about the gospel.

We had a rancher who had land abutting ours and one summer (1970) there was a large fire that burned on both of our lands through a large stand of timber and fields we shared.

While fighting the fire, he invited his wife and self over to meet us. He was a large scale rancher in the area and was very well respected by the local people.

He got to talking religion with my parents. A few days later they attended an LDS Cottage Meeting and invited missonaries who were also there to come by and talk to us.

I walked in during their presentation of the Jospeh Smith story and listened to all the discussions over time.

I talked with our paster oand others and ultimately prayed to God in Heaven in the name of Christ if the message, the Book of Moromon and other issues were true.

I had been given all sorts of anti-mormon literature, quotes, and sentiments by others I knew in the mean time.

I attended LDS meetings and found that the people there were committed to Christ and not at all like they were represented to be by most of the literature.

Ultimately, I received an answer to my prayers through the power of the Holy Ghost in the affirmative. It was a very pwoerful and personal experience in the late summer of 1970. One I have never fogotten and to which I have been true to this day.

That’s why...and I have talked of Christ, taught Christ, lived for my Savior, taught my children and now grand children the same ever since.

That’s my story.

My parents and brothers also joined. The oldest, who is the Evangelical Assoiciate Pastor now, left the church after his marriage to his high school sweetheart and returned to the Baptist Church. He was not happy there and ultimately found his home and his calling in an Evangelical Church in Denton, TX where he has done much good.

He is a professional Engineer by trade, but works hard to bring others to Christ...and I love and respect him for it.

It is that feeling, that love, that sentiment of knowing that any ground we can make, any progress we can make with our brothers and sisters in bringing them to the knowledge of Jesus Christ as their Savior is a good thing. My brother and I both understand this and accept each other as we go about doing so.

He knows I am a Chrsitian from a life-time of observation and living...and I know the same about him.

In the end, Christ will lead us to the complete truth...and you know how I feel about that, and I am content to let it occur in Christ’s way and in His time...and of course, hehehe, my brother feels ecxcatly the same about me.

We are fine with that and it enables us both to work together doing good and helping our communities and others around us.

There...that’s the tale and the sentiments.

Interesting my lds family dropped my siblings and myself when we refused to convert to lds.
After decades of being shunned by them, they consented to reconnect on a very limited bases.
When my son-in-law preached for the first time, I invited them to attend the service, they refused because lds does not accept any other message but mormonism.
Interesting that these lds helped your family out.
When one of my lds aunts was in the hospital with a suspected brain tumor for more than ten weeks, not even their own ward helped out my uncle and his four teenagers.
With one exception someone brought a pizza for Thanksgiving.
Oh, yea and that uncle was the bishop of his ward.
Your experiences are so very different than what most people experience and they sure are different than mine.

The Southern Baptists Convention at the time was changing.

The LDS church has been "changing" since the first day that Joseph Smith claimed to have had a vision. In fact his story about that Vision changed several times before his death. The LDS Church of today is not the same LDS Church that I left back in 1969. They didn't pretend to be just another Christian church and those who left the LDS Church to join Christian Churches, like your brother, were shunned and called "sons of perdition" and when people told the truth about Mormon History (like the Tanners) they were shunned and slandered.

Jerold and Sandra Tanner left the Mormon Church and then started a ministry which not only told the truth about Mormonism, but also sought to lead people to Christ.

Has their ministry lead people to the same Christ you worship? If so, then why should they be so condemned by the LDS Church and why should anyone join the LDS Church?

If it is just another Christian Church as YOU claim, then why don't you go to another Church on occasion and consider membership in some other church?

Why did you have to get baptized again after you joined the LDS Church? Wasn't the Southern Baptist baptism that you received (before you claim they "changed") good enough? My baptism by a long haired hippie preacher in the ocean was good enough for every other "Christian" Church that I've ever attended, but it's not good enough for the LDS Church, is it?

If you decided the leave the Southern Baptist Church because it "changed" then why haven't you left the LDS Church after all their changes?

He got to talking religion with my parents. A few days later they attended an LDS Cottage Meeting and invited missonaries who were also there to come by and talk to us. I walked in during their presentation of the Jospeh Smith story and listened to all the discussions over time. I talked with our paster oand others and ultimately prayed to God in Heaven in the name of Christ if the message, the Book of Moromon and other issues were true. I had been given all sorts of anti-mormon literature, quotes, and sentiments by others I knew in the mean time. I attended LDS meetings and found that the people there were committed to Christ and not at all like they were represented to be by most of the literature. Ultimately, I received an answer to my prayers through the power of the Holy Ghost in the affirmative. It was a very pwoerful and personal experience in the late summer of 1970. One I have never fogotten and to which I have been true to this day.

That’s my story.

Since you are bearing your testimony - let me bear mine since it is somewhat similiar to yours.

I was in my mid-20s and doing very well by the world's standards. Life should have been good but there was a discontent in me that I couldn't identify. A Mormon co-worker consistently discuss Mormonism with me and shared a lot of LDS materials with me. Since he was (and still is) a good friend and I wasn't sure about what I was looking for, I listened carefully for a long period of time. He counseled me to pray about Mormonism which I did.

However, the Holy Spirit did not give me the answer my Mormon friend was hoping for. I never got a peace about Mormonism. Fortunately, at the same time, the Holy Spirit brought someone into my life who exhibited that contentment and peace that I longed for. She explained the true Gospel to me and helped me to understand that her source of joy was Jesus Christ. She got me plugged into an evangelical Bible Study with other committed Christians who exhibited this same joy and peace which was totally lacking in my Mormon friends. I know that the Holy Spirit was answering my prayers and I committed my life to Jesus Christ and have never looked back. The Lord has granted me the peace that passes all understanding (Philippians 4:7).

So what does that get us? My subjective experience cancels your subjective experience. So if we are honest about our search, it means that we have to look for objective measures to determine truth. On this front, as shown repeatedly on the so-called "Anti-Mormon" threads, Mormonism fails when objective measures can be used.

The Holy Spirit reaffirmed the truth He revealed during my graduate school experience. Among the Ph.D. students, there were three committed evangelicals and a dozen Mormons including at least, five RMs. We had some spirited discussions but one thing became abundantly clear to us evangelicals: the Mormon students had no spiritual understanding at all. As Walter Martin correctly observed (paraphrasing here): "Discussing spiritual things with a Mormon is like trying to describe a rainbow to a person who was born blind." The illogical twists that these intelligent people would make were sometimes mindblowing. Looking back on the experience, I realized that these Mormon apologists were exhibiting what Reaganaut so succinently stated when she said that 'Mormons don't want truth, they want the Mormon church to be true.'