What are mormons?

So at some point, we've all heard of them. "Who?" you might ask. As the title suggests, at some point you've heard about Mormons. Now if it wasn't from a current member, or a missionary, then you probably heard this: polygamists, they worship one other than God, they don't celebrate birthdays, their missionaries are government agents, they baptize dead corpses, the list goes on and on. Now if you're anything like me, you don't care about all this, either because it doesn't interest you at all, or because, like me, you are Mormon. I've been a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints now for a little more than a year. At first, i had my doubts, mostly because everyone said all these things about the church. Soon though, I began to see some things about the church I really liked, and I soon got baptized. I was pretty happy with the church, but then of course friends provide those inevitable questions that you know are coming but yet you can't prepare yourself to answer.

So maybe you've taken it that those things listed in the beginning of this hub, although being the most frequently noted things about Mormons, are all lies. So instead of leaving you guys to wonder what Mormons are, I'm going to explain what they are (and yes, I know my facts, take it from me a real LDS member!!)

So step one in the learning process of what Mormons are, is to stop talking about them like they're aliens! If someone asked you, "What's a Catholic?", or, "What's a Buddhist?", even if you didn't know about them, you'd be inclined to answer, "Oh they're just some kind of religion out there". The same applies for Mormons! We're just like you, one and the same. Just like every other person out there with the only exception of a different religious belief. With that, I go to my next point. What are the religious beliefs of Mormons? Well I could go very deep into LDS doctrine and possibly bore you to sleep since you probably didn't read this hub with the intention of learning the LDS scriptures backwards and forwards. So I'll give you a basic rundown on what it is we believe and what our "rules" are, and what better place to start than where we got all those rules? The LDS scriptures don't just consist of a bible, or another holy scroll or transcript of some sort. No, there are four books that make up the LDS scriptures. They are: The Holy Bible, The Book of Mormon (this is the one missionaries will urge you to read the most), Doctrine and Covenants (this one contains just about all the ordinances of the church), and The Pearl of Great Price. Now that last one, The Pearl of Great price is, at least for me, difficult to sum up. So instead, you can have the "official" first page summary from lds.org.

It reads,"The Pearl of Great Price is a selection of choice materials touching many significant aspects of the faith and doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. These items were produced by the Prophet Joseph Smith and were published in the Church periodicals of his day."

Once again, thanks to LDS.org for clearing that up. Anyway, that was simply the first paragraph, it continues on, but let's focus on this first part, and what it means. It may not be the clearest piece of text you've ever read (because it's not), but it clears up that The Pearl of Great price touches on the aspect of the, "Faith and Doctrine" of the LDS church. So basically, day to day life (yes, you actually can break it down to that). So we finally cleared up the scriptures part, what's next? "Wait a second" you say, there was something else. Some kind of prophet. Joseph Smith? Who's he? Glad you asked! Mormons have been persecuted since the time that another society fell into sin and dedicated it's spare time to kill them (So yeah, we're basically talking since the beginning of the foundation of the LDS church, which goes quite the while back). So it came to a point where everyone else succeeded in killing off the Mormon religion, and thus we have the Apostasy. After Jesus was crucified, he came back in a perfect, glorious state, and he met with his apostles very often. Well would you know that the apostles and everyone else LDS was killed? So Jesus and his heavenly father basically said, "Wow, no one LDS left on the planet? Time to withdraw the priesthood!" and so it was done. You see, corrupted men had taken control of the church, and some of the changes they were making did not go to well with our heavenly father. So until 1820, there was not a single Mormon power on the planet.

Enter: Joseph Smith. Picture a small teenage boy, lost in all the arguments of all the churches that claimed to be true. Well poor Joseph couldn't take it, he wanted the truth, so he figured who better to get it from that the Lord himself? He knelt down and prayed in an open spot in the forest not to far from his home. There he had the first vision, which was essentially when God and Jesus appeared before him and told him that he was to be the prophet and restore the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Fast-forward past him growing up, translating the plates of brass (the ones that the book of Mormon were engraved upon back before everyone LDS was persecuted and killed) and keep fast-forwarding past the point where Joseph gets martyred, and you have the established church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, now being led by the new prophet, Brigham Young.

So there's one more thing I'd like to clear up, which is this whole polygamy thing. Where it began was somewhere around the civil war, but regardless of when the issue started, Mormons are not polygamists these days! It is made very clear that any LDS member found guilty of polygamy will be excommunicated (they basically get kicked out of the church). As a matter of fact, family is the foundation for the LDS church. There are ceremonies that seal you and your family together for the rest of eternity. So to end this now, the very base and foundation of the LDS church is family. Our missionaries aren't government agents and do want to teach you, and we aren't polygamists.