I find these stories fascinating since I was raised mainstream Christian. Someone on this board once posted about viewing the parking spot of some church head honcho and everyone was talking about feeling the spirit…from the parking spot! Oh, the oil drips form the face of the prophet (Ok, that part I am making up).

I'm being totally sincere on this. I really need to express my gratitude to Paul Dunn for all he did with his "Harold Lester Brown" story to help me put to rest the most difficult stumbling block I had in mentally escaping Mormonism. One of the toughest periods of my 2 year LDS mission was when I was out in the field 5 months in Feb-Mar 1991. My companion was very gloomy/depressed and all he wanted to do was listen to inspirational tapes. He had a bunch from Paul Dunn which we listened to many times during that month we were together. I well remember from my Seminary days that my 9th grade Seminary teacher told more Paul Dunn war/baseball stories than my dad says that his 9th grade Seminary teacher had told and my dad's 9th grade Seminary teacher WAS Paul Dunn himself. In fact my dad was a convert and Paul Dunn had performed his baptism/confirmation so naturally I was happy to listen to Dunn's tapes when my comp provided this chance. During that period of time and to this day I remembered how I "felt the Spirit" when listening to the "Harold Lester Brown" story.

A couple months later in 1991 I got a news clipping in the mail from my father. It was the Arizona Republic article on Dunn getting exposed. My dad made some comment that anyone can fall from grace. Dad was obviously distraught but he brushed it off as I did. Fast forward 9.5 years and I'm an unbeliever in the Book of Mormon (thanks to the follow up research I did on the DNA story of Simon Southerton) and I'm an unbeliever in the Book of Abraham (thanks to the follow up research I did after reaching Charles Larson's book on this subject). However for months I've struggled with how to deal with the fact that I had many "spiritual experiences" throughout my years in the church and these new beliefs I had which obviously attacked my belief in the church.

Then I read something here about Dunn's stories, and in particular about "Harold Lester Brown". So I did some follow up research and finally put this most difficult issue of my mental exit from Mormonism to rest. These "spiritual experiences" are NOT a witness that the church is true. The whole idea that the "spiritual experiences" are a witness of truthfulness is just a self-serving dishonest myth preached by Mormon leaders (usually in ignorance as they are for the most part IMO very sincere believers). Thus my 2 stongest experiences in March 1991 and September 2000 with the "Harold Lester Brown" story played a major role in helping me free myself mentally from Mormonism.

For me the "spiritual experiences are a witness of church truthfulness" issue was indeed the hardest one to resolve.

Maybe I'm just a natural healer. The most embarrassing was when I was no longer a real believer but still held a relatively important "calling" (high priests' group leader), and was asked to go to the hospital of a member on the night before her surgery. She was a black woman who lived in the ghetto near Ft. Meade, MD, south of Baltimore. She was paralyzed on one side due to a cocaine-induced stroke, and suffered from diabetes, among many other illnesses, even though she was only in her 30s. she was going under the knife to have part of her foot amputated. I blessed her that the doctor would be guided to consider other options and perhaps, if it please God, spare her the amputation. When she came out of the surgery, she was surprised to find her foot intact. The doctor had a sudden urge to look at some arterial problem instead, and found and removed a blockage. Circulation to her foot was restored and she got to keep it. This got me a lot of attention, not only by her, but by others who thought I must have had powerful Melchizedek schwartz. It made me feel guilty, in turn, for thinking that the priesthood was bunk. In the end, though, my bunk theory won out.

It was when our group was visiting the Visitor's Center and our guide asked us if we wanted to visit David O. McKay's parking spot. Wow, did we ever feel the spirit standing in the bowels of that parking garage.

bedroom one night. Satan appeared and tried to stop the good spirits. Raising my hand to the square (and yes, I am a female), I cast Satan out, and he walked through the closed door. The good spirits remained and kept swirling around the room.

I thought it was such a special, spiritual moment that I wrote the situation up in my most eloquent, college-level English prose that I could muster and sent it off in the snail mail to the SP. ROFL!

I changed my pharmacy to Walgreens, and the next time I refilled my prescription of KCl, it came with a warning not to lie down for 30 minutes after taking the medication. I never had any spiritual visitors or otherwise after complying with Walgreens warning.

I never heard back from the SP either. ROFL.