Bob and Elena Perkins attended a restoration branch in Independence, Missouri. As they studied the scriptures together they found contradictions within the doctrines of the church and had many unanswered questions. After seeking answers from priesthood members and finding no satisfactory answers they decided to just stay home on Sundays. After their first child was born Elena felt the need to find a church home and began attending Woods Chapel Baptist Church in Blue Springs, Missouri. It was there that she accepted Jesus as the Lord and Savior of her life. Bob attended church with her, but it was later at Promise Keepers that Bob surrendered his life to the Lord. These are their testimonies.

Bob Perkins:

Independence, Missouri

I was baptized into the RLDS church when I was eight years old in a small church in Turlock, California. My family moved back to Independence in 1982, and after the church split in 1984 I began to go to different restoration branches. I met my wife in 1989 after she ‘gathered to Zion’ and we were married in 1991. We settled in at a restoration branch and began planning for the future. Little did I know that within three years our religious foundations would be shaken.

As we studied the scriptures, we began finding contradictions within the doctrine of the church. We asked different priesthood members about these contradictions but none had any answers for our questions. Some even told us that since it wasn’t a salvation issue, it didn’t matter. I was always taught that what ever was written in the “three books” was gospel. Now this “true gospel” was beginning not to make sense. We stopped going to church around the fall of 1995. My wife felt led to start looking for a church home in the spring of 1996. We tried different restoration branches but to no avail so we started staying home again. At this point I didn’t care about going to church at all.

The Lord on the other hand, had a different idea. I couldn’t go to a church outside the restoration because being raised RLDS we believed that we belonged to the “One True Church.” So if I went to another denomination then it wouldn’t be Christ’s church. Boy, was I wrong. We began attending Woods Chapel Baptist Church in the fall of 1996. At this time I still wasn’t really excited to be going to church, but I went because of my wife and my child. During the next three years I watched my wife grow in her love of the Lord, yet I still lagged behind.

I finally opened my heart to God on September 24, 1999, when I went to Promise Keepers with some friends from church. The first sermon started at 7:00 p.m. The preacher’s words hit me like a hammer. He asked questions like, “if you were to die tonight, would you know where you were going?” and also “are you sick and tired of being sick and tired?” At this point I felt the Holy Ghost convict me. I had told my wife for the last several years that I didn’t like the person I was. I was filled with hate and anger. Let me tell you something, on September 24th I asked the Lord Jesus Christ to come into my heart and was saved. Since that moment all the hate and anger has left me.

I now realize that a personal relationship with Jesus comes first, not a relationship with a church. Our salvation is in Jesus and what he did on the cross. You can not earn your way to heaven by being a member of the RLDS church and by doing good works…that is a man-made salvation. The criminal on the cross said “Jesus, remember me when You come into Your kingdom,” and Jesus replied, “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.” The criminal believed in Jesus and he was saved. Ask yourself, are you sick and tired of being sick and tired? If you are, my prayer is that you will come to know Jesus and the peace and freedom that He can bring into your life.

Elena Perkins:

Independence, Missouri

I was born and raised into a good God fearing family in Ocala, Florida. My mother was raised RLDS but my dad was raised Southern Baptist and has never been fully converted over to my mother’s faith, although he does go to church with her. I realize now the one saving grace in my life was being sent to a Christian school where I heard the gospel message and was in the true Word of God on a daily basis. Because of this, I accepted Christ as my Savior at the age of five or six in the school chapel. This experience, of course, was not nurtured at home, as I was being told that there was more on my part to do than just believe…so life went on. But I did feel the Lord’s spirit with me constantly. I was baptized into the RLDS church at the standard age of eight years old and was thrilled with all the attention that was suddenly showered on me by my church and family. After I graduated from college I ‘gathered’ to the land of Zion—Independence, Missouri, where I have lived for the past ten years.

I met a good RLDS boy the day after I moved here and we married two years later. So I had fulfilled what I came here to do. I had moved to Zion, per the church’s command and married an RLDS member. God was done with me, my life was tied up in a neat little bow. Little did I know God’s work for me was just getting started.

Our spiritual walk as a couple was really growing but questions about the church began a couple of years after we were married As we tried to share this with friends and loved ones, we found many of them unreceptive and unexcited. We started finding contradictions within all three books, regarding doctrine and priesthood, and when we would ask one of the priesthood members about our questions, or share concerns, we were told it did not matter because it wasn’t a salvation issue. So like most good RLDS members we quit asking, accepted our situation and continued to struggle along with this ‘one true church.’

During this time we were blessed with a new member to our family, a baby girl. However, our unrest and inability to be spiritually fed continued to grow. I asked God why so many times. Why, now that we have a child and it is more important than ever to be in a church home, are we finding it harder and harder to go to church? So we visited several restoration churches, sure that we just had not found the right branch for us. Well, you guessed it, no luck. Later I came to realize it did not matter what branch we visited, when the trunk is rotten, the branches will not produce any fruit. So we sat at home off and on for a year. How could I even consider raising my child in a church, where, if we weren’t being fed, neither could we expect her to be? She was getting closer and closer to turning two years old and still we were sitting home.

As a mother, I started to feel panicked and concerned. God seemed silent about what we should do, and I knew that our daughter needed to be in a church home. So I fell on my knees begging God, to please tell me what to do. Silence again. Had God forgotten about us? Over the next few days, sin of all sins, I started to feel that maybe, just maybe, God wanted us in another church, as in a different denomination altogether. This couldn’t be God, it had to be Satan, because God told Joseph Smith that “all the other denominations were wrong and their creeds were an abomination and their professors were corrupt.”

So who was right, this still small voice or Joseph? Well, I decided that by following Joseph Smith, I was sitting at home, as was my family, so let’s give the still small voice a try. To make a long story short, we had a few hits and misses, but found the right Christian church home for us. It took me about six months to feel sure that I was on the right path for myself, but for my daughter, I never had a doubt. They loved her and started teaching her about Jesus immediately. It was not just a babysitting service until she was eight, they truly cared about her and the Lord knew if I wouldn’t go to church for myself, I would go for her, and so I did. I heard the truth of the Word and started to blossom in the Jesus I had taken as Lord and Savior of my life so many years ago in that school chapel.

Today, I have come so far, and realize the full deception of Joseph Smith. There is NO PARTIALITY WITH GOD, as it says in Duet. 10:17, 2 Ch. 19:7, Luke 20:21 and Romans 2:11. I know now that salvation is not about a church or denomination, but about my foundation being on Jesus Christ. That salvation is found in no one else, for there is NO OTHER NAME under heaven given to men by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12). In my book, it is Jesus and Jesus alone who provides salvation, not a church, not a man, or anyone else, just Jesus, otherwise his death on the cross was for nothing. By getting into the Word of God, hearing the true gospel message and reading, RLDS Church: Christian or Cult? and Part Way to Utah, the Forgotten Mormons, I realized I was in a cult of Christianity.

Finally, I left the church and have never looked back. I removed my name from the official rolls and have since rededicated my life and commitment I made to Him so many years ago. Never in a million years would I have believed that I would be writing my testimony about leaving the church, the one I left home and family for. I didn’t realize that it was a sin to love the church more than God, because like all good RLDS members I saw God and the church as one and the same. Looking back now, over these past ten years I do believe that God’s plan was for me to be in Independence, but his long-term reasons were much different than mine.

It sickened me to think that Joseph Smith was once my hero. I had esteemed an individual who said that Christ’s agony on the tree was insufficient. Our salvation, Jesus’ blood setting us free from the law, was inadequate in Joseph’s eyes, so he put us back under the bondage of the law, making all that Christ came for a mockery. Today, I have chosen Jesus over Joseph and praise God I am free. Jesus’ sacrifice was enough, and when he said it was finished, he meant it. His church has never gone anywhere; it’s been scattered and under attack, but that was always part of God’s plan. He would never let His Son’s sacrifice have been in vain.

I pray my spiritual journey and resulting freedom, will encourage everyone reading my testimony to see beyond all the RLDS do’s and don’ts and embrace Jesus and the freedom HE ALONE offers. Only a saving relationship with him will bring true peace and true joy, for when he says His burden is easy and His yoke is light, that is really true. He is our hope, we no longer live in fear. Don’t put God in a box, when He is so much bigger than that. He is Sovereign, the Almighty, and we are His adopted children when we ask Him to be Lord over our life. I can honestly say I will never go back to bondage again.