This will be the first of many upcoming HI4LDS interviews with previous Mormons.

TODD:  In Idaho Falls, there is a wonderful couple, Tom and Faye Sauerbrun, who are members of our church family.  It was Faye, in particular, a great Precepts Bible study coordinator and teacher, who introduced me by email to her good friend, Trudy Stubbs, who had moved with her husband away from Idaho Falls due to a job-relocation.  It is my joy to spend a little time here with Trudy via internet to learn about God’s marvelous dealings in her life.  So to begin, Trudy, during your childhood and teenage years, what was your perception about God and the Bible?

TRUDY:  In my family, my Dad was reared Catholic & my Mom said she was Baptist, though I never saw evidence of that.  My Dad taught me many things about the Bible & how to pray.  We would have little quizzes about Bible characters.  You know, who went with who, etc.  He never did teach me Catholic things like crossing oneself or anything about saints.

My parents wouldn’t budge on where we kids were going to go to church so they agreed that we could choose our religion when we were older.  Not a good idea.  LOL

When I was old enough to take myself to church I went to the closest one which happened to be a Methodist Church.  I have many fond memories of Vacation Bible School, & Sunday School.  As a teen, I went to a Methodist church, too.  I even got married first time around in a Methodist church.

I can’t say I remember EVER hearing the pure “gospel message” of grace, etc.  Fast forward to a few years and my third child dies at 2 weeks of a congenital heart defect.  The ladies at church sent flowers & a card, but I never did hear from the pastor.  I was angry with God for allowing this to happen, angry with the pastor for not making an effort to visit us.  I was a very stubborn person & refused to chase down a man that obviously didn’t care enough.  So, that baby never did have a funeral.  I wandered around spiritually for a few years.  Looking into eastern religions, reading about dozens of different ones.  I never was suckered into any of those, but one day the Mormon missionaries knocked on our door.  At this time we lived in upstate NY where I was raised.  I did NOT have a deep Bible background, or I would have seen the problems right off.  I had many questions & the missionaries had all the answers.  What I didn’t notice at the time is that their answers were NOT based on the Bible.  It took me months to actually join up.  I think what really got me was the way the members surrounded me & were there for me, emotionally, etc.

I have always believed the Bible was God’s word but when ever I tried to read it, it never really made sense to me.  Maybe if I had started in the New Testament instead of with Genesis it might have helped.  I think I needed the Holy Spirit to help me out & I had never been asked if I’d like to be baptized, after all those years.  I see many churches out there that don’t dig deep enough, teach often enough, or offer Bible classes.  It ends up being little more than a social club that wouldn’t want to make members uncomfortable with hearing about their sins or hell.

There were many times over the 22 years as a Mormon where I’d hear things that I just KNEW were wrong; but when you have traded all your old friends for Mormons, all your old activities for Mormon ones, you can’t imagine life without the Mormon church.  Besides, all I had known as Christian churches were dry boring Methodist or Catholic.  I knew I could never go back to those. 

After a while I realized that I wanted to hear about Jesus, not pioneers, not temples, not prophets but JESUS!!!!!  Surely, I could find a Christian church somewhere that would teach about HIM.  I guess you could say I was starved out of Mormonism.  I didn’t have much of a Biblical background; but I knew wanting to become a god was wrong, that worshipping a god that started out as a mere man was wrong, and not recognizing Jesus as God was wrong.  And I had to make a move out of Mormonism.

TODD:  Trudy, it seems scholarship steeped in higher criticism has robbed many congregations of the rich theological roots laid down by John Wesley.  Rather than the Bible being God’s word from heaven to man, it has been slowly and wearily packaged as nothing more than man’s word about God.  Where the Mother Roman Catholic Church has raised her sophisticated historical tradition on par with the authority of Scripture, liberal Protestant scholarship has lowered the Scriptures down to the level of men’s traditions.  Either way, one is left very hungry.  Men’s traditions are a poor salve for a heart sinfully lost and hurting before God. 

An endearing, active community is a step up from men’s traditions.  But wow, Trudy, you spell out what pioneer pride, caring community and modern-day prophets cannot even come close to filling for the ache in the heart . . . a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, God of God to be worshipped and served for all eternity because of His redemptive, unconditional love unfolded to us through His word and work.  Any good thing on this earth that actually steps in the place of Christ is idolatrous.

Now, tell me, sister Trudy, what communication from the Word and by whom led you to receiving a brand new heart and being placed safely in Christ by the wondrous Holy Spirit and gracious calling of God?

TRUDY:  It took me a few months to make the jump.  I loved to listen to Christian radio when I was still a Mormon.  I didn’t always agree with what they were talking about.  I loved the money man, Larry Burkett, and I would look up some Bible verses that he would mention.

Then after him came D. James Kennedy.  One day he had a man on there who was talking about Mormonism.  I perked right up to hear what this man had to say.  He was saying how sincere Mormons are but that they are sincerely mistaken.  He said that the Book of Mormon was not where the doctrinal problems were.  In fact, it had many verses that were contrary to what Mormons were taught!  He said the real problem is their Doctrines & Covenants.  I mulled over much of what he said but wasn’t sure what to do with it.  Now, with the Internet, I could have looked up much of what he had said.  In fact, I probably could have gone online & found his web site!

A few short months later Cliff had been to a Promise Keepers meeting, and the men there realized he was married to a Mormon & they sent him home with a book called Beyond Mormonism by James Spencer.  He left it in the van so as not to upset me, but I saw it & dragged it into the house to read.  I was sure it would be full of hateful lies & twisted half truths.  HA! Was I in for a surprise.  There are so many weird doctrines in Mormonism that one doesn’t have to make up anything!  I finally had something in my hand to read, check up on, and look up verses, that I was finally ready to dig deep.  I had to prove it once and for all that it was either true or not.  Mr. Spencer laid it all out about works vs. grace, and I was able to look up the verses myself.  Otherwise, I wouldn’t have known where to look.  I am embarrassed to say I didn’t know my way around a Bible very well.  That was where I finally saw the truth of how I could work as hard as I was, but it wasn’t going to get me into heaven!

TODD:  Ah, Trudy, you mention James Spencer – he did create quite the ripples in Idaho Falls years ago.

I am thrilled by your study in God’s Word and His wonderful work in your life.  Thank you for your interaction on HI4LDS.  Are there any last thoughts you would maybe like to share?

TRUDY:  I have never met Mr. Spencer personally; but if I ever get to Boise, I will be looking him up to give him a huge hug & a thank you!!

What amazed me the most after I prayed for salvation was the hunger I had for the Bible.  I not only felt like I was at a feast every time I opened it, but I could understand what I was reading for the first time in my life!!!  I read it all the way thru each year after I was saved from hell!!  I am astounded each time I read anything in the Bible as it looks new to me and as it was written just for me.  My love letters from God!

I guess it’s very hard to see the problems with Mormonism unless God is involved with the showing.  After I left it, my mind was able to really see where the falseness was.  Yet, while in it, I felt like the problems were covered up some how.

I could never go back to the emptiness of Mormonism:  the fears of “Am I doing enough?” and “Is God pleased with me today?”  I am free in spirit now and can rest in the knowledge that I belong to God always, no matter what!  No man-made church organization can ever give me that assurance.