How many of you other ex-missionaries actually converted someone with the BOM? In the MTC we got "the power of the Book of Mormon" crammed down our throats, but in the mission field it was more of a stumbling block for investigators (especially the investigators with internet access).

I noticed that the only people we baptized were part member families, close friends of members, or other people that had been well fellow-shipped. Was the BOM more of a challenge that needed to be overcome by potential cultists, or did it work wonders?

What wasn't a possible hangup actually...tithing, giving up booze, quit smoking, free service via a calling, living prophet today, only true church, no more sex outside of marriage, and oh yeah, you get to research your dead ancestors to save them!

The Joseph Smith story and BoM were just to get your attention :) Now here comes the lifetime of service for free!

We had an investigator once who we thought was golden. He took a couple days off work and spent his time reading the BofM most of the way through. He didn't want to talk to us after that. This was in the 80's before the internet.

One investigator that I had looooooooved the BOM, and found it impossible to put down.

Everyone else who read it, used it to confirm that we were peddling crap.

But, human nature dictates us to gravitate towards that which is favorable to preconceived notions. So, the story of our one investigator was used as proof positive vs. all the others who thought it was total trash.

Percentages can be powerful.

To paraphrase the words of a wise apostle from a recent general conference:

"To decide to get baptized into the Mormon church, you have to first crawl over, dig under, or go around the Book of Mormon!"

When I stopped going to church, I didn't have to crawl over, dig under or go around the Book of Mormon. I walked right through the big hole in the middle of it!

I suspect that the BOM used to be much more persuasive than it is today, because people were much more biblically literate (especially in the nineteenth century), and also because the KJV Bible was the practically the only version available. Then, people would more readily perceive the similarities between the BOM and the Bible, and would be more inclined to be impressed by it. Most modern readers now see it as a poorly written and rather dull adventure story, even with all the editing that the church has done over the years.

As B.H. Roberts said in his book that the church suppressed for 60 years, it seems like a story told by a precocious but poorly educated child.

That's one of the big giveaways, I think.

That the author(s), either mortal or immortal, would have to make if sound Biblical in order to be excepted as legitimate.
But its not even that - it was written to immitate stilted post Elizabethan.

Now, about 170 years later - it sounds just weird with all the "verilys", "it came to pass", "Lo and Behold"s that pad it out.

It even sounds jarring to me, who adores and worships the memory of William Shakespeare and understands the language of his plays.

Somewhere around 15 years ago, I was out on splits with the missionaries in my ward. *For those who don't know "splits" was when the local missionaries would take YM out for the day with them. Splitting up the companions therefore doubling the work.* Anyway, we came across this old guy who invited us in and we starting talking about the BoM. At which point he gave us the greatest line I've ever heard concerning the BoM, "I've read the BoM, I believe what the BoM says, but mormons don't." Then we got talking about how mormons don't practice what they preach. He also said that he watched GC on satellite, and said that the GAs don't believe the BoM and practice it's teachings either.

Just remembered that story. It still cracks me up.

Also, going on splits turned out to be positive force in my life. Because I got turned off from being a missionary at a young age I didn't get duped into going on a mission. Therefore saving myself a lot of time and money. Thanks Bowmanville, ON ward!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/29/2010 04:12PM by mick.

I was an investigator once, many years ago, and before the internet. I read portions of the BOM here and there, but then decided to read the whole thing through, every last word.

Wow. Good thing I did. The feeling I had once I was finished is like one of those once or twice in a lifetime experiences when you think you just avoided what seemed to be certain death, like a way too close head-on collision, or a near drowning in a raging river (both things I have been through myself).

That was the END of any investigating for me, notwithstanding the fact that I (from a personal standpoint) would have gained substantially if I had been baptised into the mormon church. I could not do it, not for anything, because I knew if I had I would be living a huge lie, and indirectly influencing others to do so as well. And, frankly, even then I was worried about any future children I might have, and I had no desire that I do something that might cause them to devote their lives to a Big Lie.

So there you have it. Reading the Book of Mormon was all I needed, which is why I am puzzled that those I still know in the mormon church refuse in this day and age to spend an afternoon or two doing some internet research. It is so easy now to get to the truth, compared to how it used to be, when the church had a lock on all of the information.

I remember when I was investigating, I was not very interested in reading the book of mormon. When the pressure to baptize got pretty intense, I was looking for things to delay this step. I came up with the reasonable argument that I didn't feel comfortable getting baptized until I had read the whole book through. After all, isn't this book the cornerstone of the whole religion?

The missionary who I was speaking with told me basically that I didn't need to read the whole thing. "You don't have to eat the whole pie to know the whole thing is good." Seriously? That's the best you've got? Needless to say I never ended up getting baptized. Now I'm just that pesky little note in their notebook ("All lessons completed- never baptized")

Even as a missionary I had issues with it but ignored them as best I could. I've always preferred the KJV NT as scripture to anything from this dispensation (BoM, BoA, D&C). They all just seemed fake to me.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/29/2010 04:52PM by badseed.

I preferred reading the BoM to the KJV of the bible because the language was more modern and easier to understand. I see these Xtian teens now with their Teen Study Bibles, NIV editions, and I wonder what my life would have been like if I had been told the NIV was ok to read over the KJV. I probably would have found the bible more interesting.

P.S. I don't really wonder that. I would still have become an atheist.

As a LDS missionary we had a potential convert reading the Book of Mormon. Apparently she prayed to God to know if the Book of Mormon was true and after reading through "1Nephi" she fell asleep. She had a dream that she was on an ancient boat with Lehi(white bearded old guy as she described it) with Nephi, Laman, Lemuel, ect. She was convinced that this dream was an answer to her prayer and God's way of telling her the Book of Mormon is true. As a TBM missionary I thought that must have been the case too. However, now as a Ex-Mormon I feel that it was simply thoughts in her subconscience playing out in her mind... after all she had just read through 1Nephi before she fell asleep. Now, I really feel sorry for these people when I think of these experiences and my part that I had in their conversion to the Mormon Church.

My testimony came and went by the power of the BoM.
I first came back to church after getting a free copy, and it was the keystone of my faith just as it was supposed to be.
I read it about thirty times.
But, the first crack was the first week of my mission when a young black student we called back on, dismayed, showed us 2Ne5 highlighted (the sore cursing/skin of blackness verse).
Our answers were lame.
We lost her.
The greatest evidence to me of the falseness of the book was how I had to see God as a benevolent racist. All the apologetic answers try to make it as well-intentioned as possible, but He's still a racist.
It finally fell through.
The book proved itself false on several counts ON ITS OWN, before I ever read an "anti" argument. I'd never heard of Spalding, View of the Hebrews, etc.

A friend of mine who is a bishop tells me that the church is growing fast in the poor countries of Africa, and not so much in the industrialized, educated countries anymore. I got to wondering how any self-respecting African, or black person of any descent for that matter, could join the church after reading the BofM. Then it dawned on me-the literacy rate in Africa is something like 25%. So the church is probably baptizing African people that don't know how to read.

It suppose to contain the FULL Gospel Sorry,but it's all about folks fighting each other, than swimming over here in tree logs. Which made me think, If the Garden of Eden and Noah's Ark landed in the Midwest, the US is actually the Middle East and they've could've just walk to Comorah in NY, including the last Mohican (Moroni). The more I think about crap like this along with 12 foot men on the moon,the madder I get myself for staying as long as I have.

...I can remember that old f**ker going on and on about "flooding the earth" with the Book of Mormon. The church was suppose to convert droves of people in the late 80s with it.

Even as a TBM I found the BoM a dull read. In the early 1990s I sat down and read the entire thing. It read like a plagerism of the Bible.

I can't recall one single convert from the Book of Mormon but they did show a film in the late 80s about some old guy who found one in the trash and converted because of it.

It's called "How Rare a Possession: The Book of Mormon"

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0384189/

With all those millions of BoMs out there, rare is one thing it ain't!

According to Daymon Smith, author of the Book of Mammon, the "flood the earth" program was actually a corporate-driven directive to clear inventory of old prints of the BofM in order to make room for the new 4-in-one editions.

A fairy tale,plain and not so simple....if you believe in fariy tales, and most don't, the BOM will appeal.

The movie version that came out a few years ago was pretty interesting. Nephi and his brothers seemed to be doing an impression of the Three Stooges.

I joined before the internet age, but the BOM is useful only as a sleeping aid. It has few good verses separated by hundreds of terrible verses. I never did manage to read the whole thing. Who called it chloroform in print? Mark Twain?

People use the BoM all the time to show that JSjs was a prophet. Why, just looky here- he brought forth this scripture!

Secondly, it does indeed have a familiar "spirit" - it sounds and reads a lot like the Holy Bible with which many are marginally familiar.

So when a person gets this book handed to them by well trained salespersons and are given the accompanying salespitch, it seems right off that it must have some spiritual authority which teaches things that many Christuian folk are familiar with.

Then comes the welcoming and lovebombing from the members which produces feeling of warmth and belonging, which naturally the missionaries will subliminally suggest is a sign of the BoM being true, instead of the feeling of being accepted as a stranger.

As cynical as that seems, it really is the way the mishies operate. Everything you feel is tied to the BoM. Do you feel afraid or reluctant? Well, have you prayed about the BoM?
Did you feel wonderful when those people touched you and smiled? That shows that the Bom is true, therefore JS is a prophet and the church is true. The Heavenly Father has manifest Himself to you.

It's funny though, because the BoM has very little to do with the actual church. Which I suggest is evidence that it is only a prop used by the salesmen of the church.

I wonder if people are converted on its own merit without a church person telling them what to think?

When Smith wrote the Book of Mormon he was pretty much a traditional Trinitarian Christian and the Book of Mormon reflects that. The problem is that the Book of Mormon does not contain any of the doctrines unique to Mormonism that separates it from mainstream Christianity.

Potential converts assume that if they read the Book of Mormon they will get a good idea of LDS beliefs. However, the Book of Mormon teaches one God, not plural gods as in Mormonism. It mentions heaven and hell, not three degrees of glory, no temple marriage or secret temple ceremonies. It does not teach baptism for the dead, pre-existence of man, eternal progression or polygamy.

Bait and switch.