When I was born my parents were not LDS; they were Protestant but of no particular church membership. Until we moved to California when my father was recalled to active duty in the Navy for the Korean war, we had no religious training as kids. After our arrival in Coronado, we started to attend the the Episcopal church. My mother liked the Episcopal church and so we went to Sunday school there. It was a very kid friendly atmosphere and I learned quite a bit about God and Jesus. Towards the end of the war my father decided to stay in the Navy and so we became a military family. During the years between 1956 and 1962, our attendance at church came to a halt. Why that occurred I really don't know.

In 1962 our family moved to Joplin, Mo., and the family returned to church. I started back and picked up as if I had never stopped going. Our whole family actually officially joined the Protestant Episcopal Church of the USA this time including being baptized and confirmed by a bishop of the church. So thus started two intense years of church going in the tradition of Anglicanism. It is catholic teaching with a English flavor. I graduated high school in 1964 and started college in Connecticut.

During the summer of 1965, my family moved to Texas. I was home for a several weeks in August to visit and while there I met a girl. I asked her out on a date and this started a string of 10 dates in 14 days. On our first date she told me she was LDS. I thought to myself that I didn't mind what her faith was because I liked her and she was a good kisser. Young men are hormone driven and I thought I was going to get lucky. Little did I know how I was setting myself up. This LDS girl was not going to be a pushover so I planned a course of action. I would not smoke while with her. I was going to move slowly and not be pushy. I was going to be on my best behavior at all times. This is how things went until I went back to school. Things didn't go as I had hoped but we were going to write and that is what we did.

In November of that year I left the school up in Connecticut and returned home to my folk's place in the Lone Star State. We picked up on our dating and starting in about February of that year she asked me if I would go to church with her. I said yes and started to go to Sunday School. That's all I would attend because I was not up to three hours of church. That was about an hour and forty-five minutes more than my whole Sunday allotment of church time. I'd go to investigator's class attempt to bait and embarrass the missionaries. I thought the LDS were deluded. I didn't recognize it at the time but I guess the spirit of prophesy was warning me but I was not listening. Boy, that's real Mormonspeak isn't it?

I started school at the college she was attending and we saw each other daily. Her grandmother was not too happy about that because I was a Yankee, seeing as how I was from north of the Red River and not a Texan. Every Sunday the missionaries would try to come and teach but I'd not let them. Finally after several months they stopped asking and they'd just talk and be friendly whenever we'd see each other. One Sunday it happened. You know the warming of my heart. The spirit let me know the church was true. I told the missionaries immediately I had to be baptized as soon as possible. They gave me all the lessons and I was baptized the following Saturday. Now my introduction to the church had started. This happened in July.

I became a project. The bishop took me under his wing. The young adults rallied and kept me busy and included in everything. My girl friend and I continued dating. Now that I was a Mormon my attitude about sex outside of marriage changed. It was forbidden. It was still in my mind but I had to be worthy so I could go to the temple. Dating was really difficult because when you are making out you want to keep going until you finish. We were able to struggle and maintain our worthiness.

1967 rolls in and I'm tired of going to school. The war in Vietnam was heating up and I had joined the Navy Reserve during my junior year in high school. I had been getting deferments to allow me to go to school. I decided it was time to go and do my duty. When I told the bishop I was going to go on active duty he got busy. I had been in the church for seven months and he called me to come to his house. I went and he interviewed me for the Melchizedek priesthood. He told me to go meet with the stake president by a later day in that week. The following High Council meeting I was ordained an elder. My bishop told me that going in the service is like going on a mission and a man should have the Melchizedek priesthood. He said you may have to call upon God through the power of the priesthood so it is best to have the ability to do that when needed. I never thought that I might have a need like that but you just do know what's ahead.

So off I went to the Navy a brand new elder. I went to a school for advanced training and then got my duty assignment. I was going overseas to meet my ship, a destroyer, in Yokosuka, Japan. Before leaving I was able to go home on leave. I met with my girl and we decided to go to the temple to be married and sealed. Before we were able to set that up my father had a serious dad talk with me. He was career Navy and a veteran of WW2 and Korea. He talked me out of getting married at that time. He knew it would be hard being separated. As happened it was a year and a half later before I saw my girl again.

For most of the time I was stationed aboard that ship we were off the coast of both North and South Vietnam or up some river providing gunfire support for Marines, Army and allied forces. It got hairy sometimes but the only battle damage we received was to the ship. We had been blessed none of our crew had been injured by the enemy. I left home in May of 67 and returned home in November of 68. My ship of over three hundred souls had five LDS on board. A high priest, an elder, a priest, a teacher and a deacon. Three were inactive. While at sea we had sacrament meetings every Sunday. When we were in port we would go to a local branch. You can't escape unless you try. I was TBM through all of this and it just made me stronger in the faith. It is strange but I loved the excitement of combat and that was going to be something that would change my life in the future.

In November when I got home it was the first day of the month. In December of the presiding year I had sent my girl a diamond engagement ring from Japan. On the 9th of November we were married in our ward chapel. We carried a letter from the office of the First President with us when we left for the temple allowing us not to have to wait a year to be sealed. Our bishop had done this for us. I guess he knew someone in SLC. So we left for St. George and on the 14th we had our endowment in the morning and sealed right after lunch. Thus my wife and my life together started.

For the next thirty years we toiled in the Lord's vineyard doing all that we were asked to do. We raised four children. They went to every church activity. We tithed. We each worked and I finished college. After college I went back in the Navy. I was now an officer. We moved to Hawaii but the Navy is a hard place for a family. I was gone from home over 50% of the time. My last deployment lasted 8 1/2 months. My wife was glad when I told her I had resigned and by now four years more years in the Nav had passed and we had three children. In the seven years we had been married we had three kids to take care of and no job. After I left the navy we moved back to Texas where we had started our journey.

I found work and the church wasted no time in putting us back to work. I was now a seventy. I had been called and ordained back in 71. I was put to work doing missionary work of course. Ward mission leader, teaching the seventies group, finally I was a counselor in the quorum presidency which is a stake calling. We were getting tired. My wife worked and I had two jobs before things got better both my wife and I were working two jobs. Something had to give. We were burning out. We were exhausted. The kids now numbered four and were in their teens. They were going through the teen years' crap. So my wife and I got tired of forcing the kids to church on Sundays. Soon my wife stopped going and I was it. I was the last, the holdout. The others were inactive but not dad. I was TBM and that's all there is to it.

Soon an incident occurred here in Texas that got me thinking. A cult was right down the road near Waco. They had a leader, a prophet. They were armed. The leader bedded the ladies and the young girls because God told him to do it. He was a modern day Joseph Smith and he was David Koresh, a self styled prophet of God. Through him God spoke. His was the correct interpretation of scripture. His followers would follow him through the gates of Hell if he asked them to do it. I was driving and listening to the news and had an epiphany, the LDS church is false! It was false! For thirty years I had been following false prophets and fictional scriptures. I had to make a clean break and so my wife, oldest daughter and myself mailed in our resignations from the church. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God almighty I free at last! Only there is no God because God would not allow a great lie such as the Mormon church.

Thirty long, hard years of toil for a lie! I was so angry and very mad. My wife was hurt. We had no more support and we dealt with this anger by our selves. Life went on and things happened. I had major surgery and then developed cancer. The cancer was attributed to my exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam. I was treated and now I am cancer free. That was eight years ago and then my mom died. I had started to reevaluate my relationship with God. Finally having to face my mortality made me search for answers that only God could give. My mother had stayed in the Anglican church and while at her funeral I found God once more. I went to the communion rail and partook of the bread and wine, the body and blood of Christ. He opened His arms to me and took me back into the true Christian church. By His loving grace He has saved me. This happened five years ago.

So this has been the story of my circular journey. Moving from the Anglican faith through the Mormon cult and back to Anglicanism has been a tough journey and one I have yet to find out why God had me make this trip in life. He has a reason and if it is but to save just one soul from doing as I and traveling the wrong pathway then it has been for good. My prayer now is that my family will find peace in their lives for I know that I have found the peace that Christ's love brings to all of mankind.

As for my wife, we have survived and this November we will have been married 46 years. Thanks be to God for this wonderful blessing.