In my last area on my mission in Brazil, I was given an epiphany by the TJs (pronounced Teh-jotas, i.e. Testemunhos de Jeová or Jehovah’s Witnesses). One of our investigators was studying with them at the same time as with us. As they usually do, the Jehovah’s Witnesses left a smattering of pamphlets and various propaganda (we did the same, of course). For some reason, I understood that it was my duty to carry these things off so as not to confuse. In hindsight, I see that for what it was, the desire to carry off a competitor’s influence with a potential “customer”.
In this case, the things I carried off, I intended to keep as a curiosity. One of the items was a Watchtower magazine that was focused on Mormonism. After I brought them back to my apartment, I intended to bury them in the bottom of my duffel bags and never look at them until I had finished my time as was at home in the US. Within a few days, however, my curiosity got the better of me, and I retrieved this Watchtower to peruse. My companion had taken sick and was in a back bedroom resting, and the other missionary companionship in the apartment had already left, so I was pretty much alone as I read. I distinctly remember placing it on our ironing board and leaning on it to read it (we no other real furniture in the place besides our beds).
I was never naive in knowing that we were indeed a “peculiar” people with restrictions and rules that made no sense to others. I also had a healthy interest in history, so naturally the articles on Mormon origins in that magazine intrigued me the most. Slowly, it was revealed to me how an outsider to Mormonism (or a motivated competitor) viewed the idiosyncrasies and oddities of the founding of the religion.
Seeing the criticisms printed on a page seemed to make them more tangible to me. They explained the rumors of buried gold in the New York region in the early 1800s and that Joseph Smith was one who participated in various hunts for treasure and liked telling stories about Indians. I felt like I was finally seeing Mormonism in third-person and it felt so surreal and strange. It caused me to ponder, could such a hoax could have been pulled off on all of Joseph Smith’s closest associates, or were they part and parcel to it? Could this explain the questions I had earlier in the mission when I was reading Isaiah in the Book of Mormon and wondered why it just seemed like someone had copied them directly from the Bible? Maybe Joseph Smith had just kept a large family bible unter a sheet so it looked like he had the plates he had described, all the while dictating those words to his scribe?
My thoughts were quickly spiraling and I quickly tried to quash them by throwing the pamphlets away and praying for some sort of guidance from God. In subsequent days and weeks, I attempted to work with the same zeal as I had before, but my efforts felt so hollow and fake. I recall walking home one night with despair in my heart and looking to the star-filled sky and asking “Are you there, God?” I felt nothing. What a position for a Mormon missionary to be in! I had several people who would soon be baptized as Mormons due to my efforts, yet I could hardly find faith to believe in God, let alone the Mormon version of Him and the whole story of Mormonism.
It was at that point that I realized I would probably never fully believe again and that my skepticism would probably never be put fully to rest. I chose to finish my mission coasting out the last two months, so that I could then return home and decide what to do with my life and my faith.
While the TJs did not, and never will get me as a convert, they certainly helped me see the light regarding the beast that is Mormon history.
