The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (often inadvertently referred to as the “Mormon Church”) has a video for teenagers featuring a teen girl with the same problem I had. She wants to know what is true. This girl also got her answer from another teenager—but one who lived in the 1800s. Like her, a fourteen-year-old Joseph Smith was trying to figure out what church to join. He didn’t just want to pick one that was fun or that his friends and families belonged to. He wanted to join the true church.

Too Many Churches: Which One Is Right?

But how could he figure out which one that was? He went to lots of different churches and talked to ministers and other people he respected. They were all quite firm that their church was the right one. The problem was that their churches all disagreed with each other. Every denomination has certain important teachings that differ from those of other churches. How could you possibly guess which one was right? After all, these were ministers. It seemed like they knew more about the Bible than Joseph would, but even they couldn’t agree on what was true.

Joseph Smith’s family loved the Bible and read it as a family. However, Joseph decided that it was time for him to read it on his own. He was reading in James 1:5 when he came across a really interesting verse. Here is what it said:

If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God—James 1:5.

Suddenly Joseph knew how to solve his problem. All those ministers might have ideas about what was right, but God knew for sure what was true. All Joseph Smith needed to do was to ask God. Right there in the Bible, in a book a lot of people think was written by Jesus’ own brother, was a promise that God would answer that question, as long as you asked with faith that He could answer.

Praying to Know the Truth

Joseph decided such an important prayer needed to be done in private. Privacy wasn’t easy to come by in a small house filled to the brim with family, so he went into the woods near his home. There he knelt down and prayed out loud—the first time he’d ever prayed aloud.

Joseph got his answer. In his case, God and Jesus came in person to answer his prayer. Joseph was called of God and given the responsibility of becoming the first prophet in modern times, so he needed a rather special answer. When my friend told me about Joseph Smith, I said I didn’t think God would be coming in person to answer me. She agreed, but said I didn’t need Him to come in person. He could send the Holy Ghost to put the answer into my heart. All I had to do was to pray and to believe I’d get an answer.

The girl in the video, which you can watch at the end of the article, realized that she could do what Joseph Smith did. Just as I did when I was sixteen, she asked God to help her know what was true. You can see by the smile on her face at the end of the video that she got her answer.

I did, too—the same one this girl got. It took me awhile. I needed to study and to learn how to pray for answers and how to recognize the answers. I met with Mormon missionaries for a few weeks and they taught me how to do all that and encouraged me to follow my friend’s advice and to pray. A few months later, just after my seventeenth birthday, I was baptized and became a Mormon.

Do you have a Mormon friend? If so, ask them to tell you about their own testimony. If you don’t, you can go to Mormon.org and read about Mormons. You can even chat online with a missionary. It’s not a place to socialize or argue, but it is a place to ask serious questions if you’re a person who really wants to know what is true.

Chat with a Mormon missionary.

Read what happened when Joseph Smith wanted to know what was true. (He was only fourteen at the time.)

Watch the video:

This is the first-of-its-kind event, and Voices for Virtue hoped to draw a large teenage audience. Voices for Virtue is a non-profit organization which is not affiliated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It uses social networking to reach out to teenagers and young adults to help them learn more about and support them in living virtuous lives.

This was a wonderful opportunity for teens, as well as adults, to ask any personal questions they had about gospel principles and standards.

The session will not be broadcast, and no rights were issued to record it. However, if you would like to know more about Elaine Dalton or Voices for Virtue, please refer to the links below:

Talks and Speeches Given by Elaine Dalton

Interview with Elaine Dalton

Voices for Virtue

In the beginning, when a powerful spirit was cast down for rebellion, “he became Satan, … the devil, the father of all lies, to deceive and to blind men, and to lead them captive at his will” (Moses 4:4). He and the spirits who follow him are still deceiving the world. Modern revelation declares that “Satan hath sought to deceive you, that he might overthrow you” (Doctrine and Covenants 50:2–3). Satan’s methods of deception are enticing: music, movies and other media, and the glitter of a good time. When Satan’s lies succeed in deceiving us, we become vulnerable to his power.

I do not believe in ghosts. That is something I tell people all the time. I then go on to explain in further details, my beliefs. A ghost is defined as someone who has died, but wanders the earth as a spiritual entity. It is my belief that people who have passed on to the other side have far better things to do, than wander the earth haunting buildings. I do believe that there are spirits, minions of Satan that will do anything they can to get our attention in hopes that they can possess our bodies.

The things that people do, such as use Wigi boards; Bloody Mary and other things that invite evil spirits… only work, because they want them too. When you go into something, wanting or thinking that a spirit will appear as a result of your actions, it will happen. Satan’s minions were not able to get mortal bodies, because they did not follow God’s plan. Instead, they followed Satan’s plan in the pre-mortal existence, and were on the wrong side in the War in Heaven. They were cast out with Satan. While others who aligned themselves with Christ go on to receive mortal bodies, then perfect, resurrected bodies, the progress of Satan’s minions stopped. They will always be spirits. They are always around, waiting for people to invite them into their lives.

Shows like Ghost Hunters disturb me in many ways. The reason being, that when I watch the show, I notice that the people in the T.V show invite and taunt the spirits to show themselves. If the building was not haunted before, it is when the people in the show invite those spirits. And for what? For ratings, to scare other people and viewers? We should not be encouraging shows that invite evil spirits into our life.

“Satan cannot seduce us by his enticements unless we in our hearts consent and yield. Our organization is such that we can resist the devil; if we were not organized so, we would not be free agents.”

“The devil has no power over us only as we permit him; the moment we revolt at anything which comes from God, the devil takes power. (Prophet Joseph Smith)

I am also reminded of a story that I read a long time ago. There was a man who had died on a hospital bed, but was revived five minutes later. In that time, he was shown some things by the Lord. One of those things is that he saw evil spirits lurking around those who were committing acts that were sinful or compromising according to the teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, such as drinking. The man who had died was taken into a bar by the Lord and was shown how much easier it was for an evil spirit to enter a person’s body the more that he/she drank. There was also a moment where he saw one evil spirit that was overlooking an entire city. The man asked the Lord. “Is this city so strong in the gospel, that the evil spirits cannot enter it?” To which the lord replied. “No. The city is so evil that only one of Satan’s followers needs to oversee the entire city. The city is weak and full of sin, and does not have the strength to push the evil spirit out of their lives.

We should surround ourselves with positive things, things that invite the Holy Ghost into our lives, and not the Evil Spirits that roam the earth, waiting for their opportunity to strike. Our bodies are temples, and we should treat them as such. Temples are dedicated houses of God, and God only dwells in holy places. We should a light and a example to those around us, so that they can also receive the gift of the Holy Ghost and have the power to resist the evil spirits in this world.

When Paris was fourteen, Mormon missionaries were tracting through the neighborhood. This means they were going door to door asking people if they’d like to learn about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is the real name of the church. Mormon is just a nickname.

His friends teased him about having two white men coming to the house, thinking they were police officers. Paris wasn’t interested in the gospel message the missionaries were giving his family, but finally the missionaries told him that if he wanted to know what was true, he needed to ask God, who is the only source of truth. So Paris did. The answer he got was a feeling of joy, love, and peace, a new experience for him.

How did this change Paris’ life? As he built his testimony and learned more about the gospel of Jesus Christ, he started to understand he was on earth for a reason and God had a plan for him. His brother had died at age eighteen and he hadn’t felt there was much hope for himself either. Now he knew differently. He knew who he was—a child of God—and why he was here.

His mother had lost two sons but she can see she isn’t going to lose Paris. He’s back in school, doing well, and making something of himself. He says he does not want to blame his circumstances for anything—he’s better than his circumstances. In fact, he feels the poverty and the homelessness, the grief of losing his siblings and having a father who was arrested…all those things that often make people give up…have actually made him stronger and helped him become the good man he is. He hopes he can help other people who face similar challenges to move beyond those trials and into something better, just as he is doing.

Meet Paris for yourself. He’s a man worth meeting.

Mormons in Uganda

Throughout Uganda, work is being done by religious groups to help out and many people have moved above poverty.

The musical hints that religion can’t do anything to help with the serious problems of the world. In the last article, we showed how basic faith can make a big difference in the life of someone who is suffering. Today we’re going to look at what churches are doing to try to make poverty a thing of the past. Since this is a Mormon site, we’ll be talking about what Mormons are doing, but lots of faith-based groups are doing similar types of work. God’s people don’t just preach the gospel—they work to take care of God’s children.

In 2009, missionaries got together in Uganda, not to preach the gospel, but to just live it. A lot of refugees were pouring into the country because of dangerous rebel activities in the Congo. These refugees often arrived with nothing at all. The missionaries worked long hours to put together emergency supply kits for them, including blankets, cooking pots, rice, sugar, salt, cooking oil, soap, and mosquito nets. The Church had, at the time of the article linked to on the word missionary at the start of the paragraph, delivered more than 7,000 pounds of food to refugee camps, as well as blankets, cooking pots, and farming tools. Musa Ecweru, Uganda’s Minister of State for Disaster Preparedness, received some of these kits and said, ““Our good friends, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, go about quietly, without a lot of publicity, helping the needy people of Uganda,”

One serious problem in Uganda is that too many babies die. Often their lives could be saved if someone knew what to do for a baby who was not breathing at birth. The Mormons put together a program to train midwives and others in neonatal resuscitation. This means helping babies to breathe if they aren’t. The minister of health in Uganda took the class himself and he told the doctors that every time a baby dies in his country, it creates a 100,000-dollar deficit in his country’s economy. That means it hurts the economy that much. In the first six months after the May 2006 training ended, 646 babies were saved from death. How good is your math? Figure out how much that single effort by the church helped the Ugandan economy. When the economy improves, poverty is easier to fight.

Read how Mormons are saving babies from dying.

Mormons have a huge humanitarian aid program. This program isn’t just for Mormons. It’s for everyone in the village or area where they are working. They bring clean water into villages that never had it. Can you imagine drinking dirty water or having to walk hours to get water at all? That’s how a lot of people around the world live until the church goes in and helps the people to create a clean water source. They provide wheelchairs, glasses, vision treatments, farming help…all sorts of things that make life easier for those who are suffering. They also do things that will help people learn to help themselves so they won’t always have to depend on outsiders.

Some people might think it’s pointless to send missionaries into areas where there is a lot of poverty. But God loves all His children, no matter how poor they are. He wants them to know about Him, but He also wants them to be taken care of and made self-sufficient. For that, He needs His other children, the one with greater privileges, to go away from their comfortable homes and get to work. The Mormons have humanitarian missionaries in addition to their regular missionaries.

But it isn’t just missionaries helping out. Ordinary teenagers in Mormon churches also pitch in to make Uganda a better place. In their own communities they assemble kits like the ones mentioned above or go out into their villages to make something better. One group of teens in the US donated their old clothing to a church program. Their clothes were sent to a prison in Uganda. The women there were not given anything to wear and so they had to remain undressed until some teens in Utah decided to donate some of their clothing.

Take a look at the picture at the top of this article. It’s of a Mormon family in Uganda. The musical portrays Ugandans as primitive and stupid. Do you think they got Uganda right? How would you feel if all people in your country were portrayed the way Ugandans are treated in the musical? It might have made the musical’s creators feel “cool” to make fun of people, but Christians know we don’t treat others with that complete lack of respect. Nor do we just goof around being silly when there is serious work to be done, despite what the musical suggests.  While there are some people in Uganda who are poor, more and more are learning the skills and getting the health they need to move on—and Mormons and other religious people are helping to make that happen.

My new life as a Mormon had me very busy. I’d always been a shy kid, more comfortable in a corner with a book than out in the middle of the action, but being a Mormon got me out of my corner. Not that I didn’t still read a lot or enjoy my time alone, but I found myself with a lot of new friends and a lot of new things to do.

As you’ve been reading this series of articles on how to find out what church to join, you might have wondered what your life would be like. There would probably be a lot of changes, both to your schedule and to your lifestyle, but how much depends on how you were living before you became a Mormon. My schedule changed, but my beliefs were already a lot like those of the Mormons, so a lot of that sort of thing didn’t change.

Let’s start with the schedule. Mormon teens are really, really busy. You’ve read about some of the things they do already, but let’s review them. First, you would be going to church on Sunday. Mormons take church attendance really seriously, believing it is a commandment to keep the Sabbath Day holy and to attend church. It’s important to study the gospel, take the sacrament (communion) and to be around others who share your beliefs. Church is three hours on Sunday. It includes a basic worship service and then two classes. For teens, these classes are Sunday School and Mutual. Sunday School classes have both boys and girls in them and if there are enough teens, they divide by age. Here, they study one book of scripture a year—Old Testament, New Testament, Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants/Church History. After four years, they start over.

The second class is called Mutual. The class for girls is known as Young Women’s and the class for boys is called Young Men’s. These are also divided by age if there are enough teens. In this class, teens learn how to apply the gospel to their everyday lives. After all, you’re not just a Mormon on Sundays. You’re expected to live the way God asks you to every day, but it can be tricky sometimes to figure out how to make it all work out in everyday life.

The rest of the Sabbath Day would be spent doing spiritual things. You might read your scriptures, work on the church’s youth awards (more on that later), visit your grandparents, write in your journal, or scrapbook your favorite pictures so you can remember your teen years. Whatever you choose to do will help bring you closer to God. You won’t shop, go to parties, or do other lightweight things. You’ll have all week to do those.

Now for the rest of the week. Mormon teens live pretty normal lives. They wear fashionable clothes, go to school, hang out with friends, enjoy parties…it’s just that they do it with standards. The standards might seem challenging at first but after a while they seem natural and you start to realize your life is much better without the things you can no longer do. It’s the kind of life that lets you feel peaceful and focused on things that really matter. It’s a life that is focused on the future while still being fun today.

Mormon teens go to whatever school they choose. The Mormons don’t have their own schools (except for a few in other countries) until college. This means Mormon kids go to public school or private school or they homeschool. It’s up to their families.

Mormons are big fans of getting a good education, so Mormon kids are taught to work hard at their schooling, however they get it. This will help them get good jobs and a good job gives them more choices in life. They learn that life, even in the teen years, is about setting priorities. When we focus on setting up for a great life later, we might spend a little more time working than other teens, but when they’re struggling with the results of their bad choices, we’ll be enjoying the rewards of our good ones.

So, being focused on good choices, Mormon teens try to avoid unhealthy choices if they’re living their religion. They don’t drink or smoke—not even when they’re adults—and they don’t take illegal drugs. They don’t watch immoral movies or television programs and they don’t listen to music with immoral lyrics. Once they start looking around, they realize that still leaves them with a lot of great choices for entertainment. It can become something of a game to see how many great moral things there are to do in the world and sometimes, when they can’t find what they want, they make their own moral fun. Many teens are surprised to find out that what they thought was corny is really a lot of fun, especially when they’re doing it with friends who know how to have good clean fun.

During the week, Mormon teens attend a weeknight activity just for teenagers. They have fun activities that also help them live the gospel—service projects, fun game nights, activities that teach something through a fun activity…They get a chance to spend time with kids who have their values and practice having fun in a safe way. The boys belong to the Boy Scouts of America and the girls have their own program. While the boys are earning their Scout badges, the girls are also completing goals and earning awards.

They also attend an early morning class (or during school hours in Utah) called seminary. It’s a class held on school days that teach the scriptures in a more in-depth way than a Sunday School class can. Teens find it a good way to start their day because it reminds them of how to live during the school day and it’s also a good way to meet the other Mormon kids in their school.

The important parts of being a Mormon teen though don’t involve the meetings and activities, the weekend dances and parties, or the other fun things Mormons do. It is about knowing for sure that God loves you and is watching over you. It’s being reassured that you are living the life He planned for you and that even though life can be pretty hard, it will all be worth it in the end. A Mormon teen with a testimony doesn’t wrestle with what is right or wrong. She knows, and if she isn’t sure, she knows how to pray and to ask God to guide her. This brings a peacefulness that can make the challenging teen years really special. It brings them the safety of knowing they won’t make terrible mistakes that will affect their entire lives.

Really, the best way to find out what it would be like if you were a Mormon teen is to make friends with a Mormon teen who has a testimony and really tries to live her religion. Watch how she lives and how it impacts her life. Ask her to tell you. Then think about whether you’d like to have what she has.

However, sometimes we pray and wait quietly for an answer but nothing happens. This happened to David O. McKay, who later became a Mormon prophet. He grew up on a farm and one day while he was herding cattle he decided to find out if the Mormon Church was true. Now, David was born into the Mormon Church and had been active in it all his life, but the Mormons teach their teenagers to prove the truthfulness of the church to themselves by praying just as if they weren’t Mormons. However, nothing happened. He got off his knees disappointed because he felt he was just the same person he had been when he knelt to pray.

Many years later, having stayed active in the Church in spite of not getting an answer, he set off to serve as a missionary for the church. While in Scotland on his mission, he again prayed for a testimony and this time he got an answer that was very clear and left him with no doubts at all. He said he learned that prayers are answered—in God’s time, not ours.

While we all hope for an instant answer, the truth is we don’t always get one. In fact, it’s pretty uncommon to get a full answer all at once. Usually, we just get small pieces of our answer at a time. Then we take that small piece, work with it, and grow from it. When we’re ready, God gives us more. It can be pretty overwhelming to get a big gigantic answer all at once and answers come with responsibility. When God tells us a truth, we’re accountable for what we know. By getting just one part of our answer first and learning to use that part responsibly before getting another part, God lets us grow in the gospel the same way we grow in real life, with gradually increasing responsibility. Remember, God is our Father, and being a perfect Father, He understands how to help His children be successful.

So, Mormons talk about learning “line upon line,” which means a little at a time. When I prayed to find out if the church was true before deciding to convert, I didn’t get an answer at all. I was like David O. McKay, feeling nothing had happened. After a few weeks, I decided to just ask God if He wanted me to join the Church. That time I did get an answer, so I joined. I kind of assumed God wouldn’t want me to join a false church, but I didn’t have a clear answer on that, so I was joining because I trusted God, not because of the Church itself.

At that point, if anyone had asked me if the Mormon Church was true, my honest answer would have been, “I hope it is.” I might even have been able to say I thought it was true, but that was about all. I got baptized, kept going to classes, studying, and praying. Pretty soon I got better at praying and recognizing answers. Like any other skill, it takes practice. Soon I was able to say I believed it was true. After about a year, I finally got the answer I had been waiting for and knew it was true.

During that year of waiting, I learned and grew a lot. I took on church service opportunities that helped me learn more about God and the Church. I prayed several times a day and became better at knowing how to tell when God was talking to me and when I was just talking to myself. I read more of the Bible and Book of Mormon so I knew more. I practiced living my new religion and was able to put it to a test. When I did things the church said to do I felt the peacefulness that only God can bring. When I disobeyed commandments, I felt sad and uncomfortable in my heart, a clear warning that God was disappointed. It became clear to me that true joy and peace came when I kept the commandments I was being taught.

All of these experiences helped prepare me to receive a full testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. My prayers improved with practice and when I received my answer, there was no doubt as to where the answer was coming from. I had learned that only God’s answers being a feeling of complete peace to my heart. Satan is not capable of bringing peace and joy.

So, if you’re praying for a testimony, don’t expect it to come instantly. It might, but it usually won’t. You’ll need to stay on your knees for a while after each prayer, waiting for an answer. If you finally arise feeling no different, you’ll need to trust God to give you an answer in His own time, when He knows you are ready for the responsibility. In the meantime, continue learning about the Mormons, practicing the religion you are learning, and read your scriptures. Continue to pray every day and to improve your relationship with God. Remember, if you were in danger, God would tell you so right away, so no answer at all just means you’re not ready. Keep working at it and one day God will give you a wonderful answer that is just right for you and in just the right time for you.

Some people think it is the Mormon Bible, but it isn’t. Mormons use the King James translation of the Bible in English and other translations in other languages. The Book of Mormon is more like a companion book. Just as the Old Testament and the New Testament are really two books we use together, the Book of Mormon is a third book we use to help us learn about God and Jesus Christ.

The subtitle on the Book of Mormon is “Another Testament of Jesus Christ.” The purpose of the Book of Mormon is to help show people that Jesus is real. After all, without it we only have the word of a small group of people who lived in Israel. But the Book of Mormon adds a testimony from somewhere in the American continent. It teaches that Jesus appeared there sometime after His death. When people on two distant continents saw Him, it helps to prove to the world He is real.

If you’re a teenager, you might be interested to know the book starts with a teenage boy named Nephi. Nephi grew up pretty comfortably. His dad made a lot of money and he had a pretty good life. Then his dad become a prophet and started telling Jerusalem to repent or it would be destroyed.

So, you can guess how well that went over, right? I’m guessing Nephi’s friends weren’t too thrilled with his dad’s new job. Then, when his dad, Lehi, was in danger, God told Lehi to abandon all his wealth and take his family into the wilderness to a new continent.

How would you feel about that if your dad told you to leave your family, friends, and possessions to go off to a new country? They could only take what was necessary to stay alive?

Two of Nephi’s older brothers whined like crazy, but Nephi and his next oldest brother, Sam, trusted their dad and God and didn’t complain. This set a pattern for the rest of Nephi’s story. In time, Nephi’s two oldest brothers would become so wicked they would even try to kill Nephi and Sam. The two younger brothers would end up, after their parents died, taking their family and friends and moving away.

Over the next few centuries, the two groups became known as the Nephites and the Lamanites. Most of the time, but not always, the Nephites remained the good guys and the Lamanites (named after Nephi’s oldest brother) would be the bad guys. Eventually, the Lamanites would kill all the Nephites but one.

Before that happened though, the prophets and their followers knew that someday the Son of God would be born back in Bethlehem. Nephi and others had visions that showed them Jesus’ life. They knew that sometime after His death, Jesus would come to visit them.

Of course, there were some people who didn’t believe this and who wanted to kill the believers. They threatened to kill them if the signs the prophets had given didn’t happen by a certain date. That must have been pretty scary for the believers, but God sent the signs just in time and the non-believers were killed. When Jesus appeared to them, there were only people who were worthy to see the risen Christ. He stayed with them for several days, teaching them and helping them organize their church. They loved Him and they recorded the visit to testify to those who would read the book in modern times that Jesus was the Christ.

The Book of Mormon is a lot like the Bible. It has stories and sermons, all designed to help us learn more about God and Jesus Christ. Both books lead us to Jesus Christ. However, there are a few differences.

The Bible was not written as a single book. Many years after the Bible ended a group of people got together, gathered up all the religious writings they could find, and then decided which ones would be included in the book. The Book of Mormon, however, was collected as a single book. Each section was written by a prophet. When he died, the next prophet took the record and added to it. Occasionally new records were found and included, but always by the prophet who found them. Near the end of the story, a prophet named Mormon abridged the records. That means he went through them, took out what wasn’t important or was repeated too often so the records would be shorter and more manageable. He was killed during a great war before he finished, so his teenage son, the last remaining Nephite—the only good person left in his own part of the world—finished the job and then hid the records before escaping the Lamanites, who were out to kill him.

You might have noticed the Book of Mormon starts and ends with a teenager. There are other teenagers and young adults included in the book.

The other way the two books are different is that the Bible was written for the people who lived in that time and place. The Book of Mormon was written for us. The ordinary people did not have that record. The prophets were instructed by God to include only the information we would need in modern times and they were shown our time so they would understand it. This makes the Book of Mormon, in some ways, more relevant to us. The Law of Moses no longer in practice, but what is in the Book of Mormon is for us. Although the Book of Mormon was written in Biblical times, it is meant to show us how to live, not how the ancient Israelites were to live. Many people find it somewhat easier to read and also find it more relevant.

This does not mean the Bible isn’t important. It is very important to know about God’s dealings with man in early times and there are important guidelines for today’s life included in it. It is the best source for learning about Jesus’ life on earth. It helps us understand the relationship between God and man and the role of prophets. The people in the Bible offer heroes and role models for our time.

The best way to understand God is to read both book as a unified document. Read them both and look in both for clues to how you should live your life.

Okay, two more articles in this series. The next one is on what to do if you’ve been praying about the Mormons and aren’t getting an answer. The last one is about what your life would be like if you became a Mormon.