Did any of you GET THE WORD. I prayed and was an uber uber for a lifetime. Now I know why I didnt get a hotline. My sister to this day maintains she did. It was cruel. I felt like a reject and NEVER GOT THE TRUTH CONFIRMATION. So did you get THE WORD AND HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN IT?

Probably need to clarified. In the WORD I am meaning direct. connection with God. So many said they did. Incllude prophets who said bthey almost had weekly meetings

I never even got a testimony

the bird is the word.

Your sister is either delusional or a liar. No need to be jealous of that.

My sister would go to her death believing God spoke to her. She has a degree in social sciences and is an examiner for a college. At58 she is still adamant God spoke to her. She never lies, when I left she helped with my honours thesis doing research in the Library of Congress. She saw all the dirt including documents about Smithss life. What do you make of it?????

Yes, I received the word.

I was born in the church. I must have repeated the words "I know the church is true" at least a thousand times before I ever prayed about it.

I first started repeating those words when I was too young to cognize what I was saying.

By the time I was able to understand the implications of those words, I'd already repeated them at least a few hundred times.

My entire world view was based on several key factors: I was really a spirit child of heavenly father, I chose to come to this life to be tested, I was righteous in the pre-mortal life so I was born into the one true church, I would one day serve a mission to teach my other brothers & sisters the truth, I would have an eternal family.

Every facet of my life was influenced by this view of the world. Everything I experienced was forced into the context of kolobianism. I was a kolobian. That was who I was.

So surprise, surprise, when I was 20 and closed my eyes and asked myself in the form of a prayer if the church was really true I received a "witness" that it was.

Of course the experience I had was exactly what I had been told it would be like: peaceful, burning in the bosom, calm, and a feeling of no doubts, etc.

It took until I got home from the sales trip to realize what had really happened. My ego, which functioned off of the kolobian cultural operation system, had no choice but to preserve itself by feeding itself an experience that would be self-validating. Otherwise, it would be commiting suicide.

The word, the witness, the testimony, it was all in my mind.

RA'men.

I think the "testimony" experience is a trick.

The church takes normal human emotions, tries to use them as confirmation of the truthfulness of the church, and then tries to produce those feelings. (Tearful testimony meetings, sappy church movies with emotional subjects and syruppy music).

But I've always tended to be guided by rational thought instead of emotion. If I felt something strongly, I would be asking myself if it was my own feelings or the spirit. And I couldn't tell the difference. And the feelings I had when I asked for guidance on any particular decision would change from one day to the next. It ended up just confusing me.

Let me tell you, I TRIED so hard to get a testimony, but it just didn't happen. That was the very thing that caused me to start questioning the church.

I DO believe that some people have "spiritual" feelings that are very real to them. I just don't think those feelings/experiences MEAN what they think they do.

Because you see all the time that people have "testimonies" of things that are demonstrably false. So we can be sure that feelings are NOT evidence for truth.


I actually feel bad for those who were unfortunate enough to HAVE a testimony. Because it's SO much harder for them to reconcile that they have been duped.