You don't have to answer these questions! They may be personal to you. I know giving scriptures in truth is an act of love. I'm equally certain that most of the time, that is NOT how they are received! Maranatha!
They are not too personal in the least. I LOVE telling people my testimony of how Christ rescued me from Mormonism.
I am asked these questions so often, that I am currently writing it all down and will post it as a vanity thread hopefully in the next few weeks. Let me know if you would like to be pinged to it.
But to answer your questions (short version) there was a multifacted ‘attack’ on my LDS ‘testimony’. First, it was Christians who loved me enough to challenge me, to tell me the truth, to tell me I wasn’t a Christian, who did the exact things that people have complained about on this thread. They were bold in their witnessing, never backed down, and made me mad enough to try to ‘prove’ them wrong. We argued Bible verses, Book of Mormon, Mormon history, and the reliability (or not) of the Bible.
These Christians really made me mad, so mad I decided to be an LDS apologist. I spent almost a year studying LDS theology, history, teachings and writings. What I found out is they weren’t lying to me, the LDS church was whitewashing and changing its history and doctrines and even their books and scriptures.
Another thing that happened at this time was the changes in the LDS Temple Endowment. Major changes springboarded by accusations of Satanic Ritual abuse. The leadership put enough credibility behind these accusations to change their major secret ceremonies. I was taught that these ceremonies were sacred, unchanging, that they were the same ones basically that God learned when HE was human. Then all of a sudden, major changes. It didn’t make sense.
Also, at about this time, I was taking Biblical Hebrew at BYU. I took the class originally so I knew what Bible verses were not ‘translated correctly’. What I discovered was that the BIBLE was ‘translated correctly’ and thus trustworthy, not corrupt like the LDS teach. THat was another blow.
I went inactive for several months. In the meantime I moved back from Utah to CA and met up again with a childhood friend. He asked me out and for our first date took me to church. I got involved in AWANA (he was a leader and his best friends were the directors and commanders) and that is where I first heard the Gospel of grace preached plainly. I became a Christian a couple of months later.
I will never say I saw ‘on my own’. People hit me over the head with Bible verses but it was God that opened my eyes and I thank Him every single day that He did.
Maranatha, brother.