Todd and Carla Talcott were 6th generation RLDS members. After the RLDS church split in 1984 they began attending a Restoration Branch. They wanted to remain true to the “original gospel” as taught by Joseph Smith. In Dec. 1998 they read Part Way to Utah: The Forgotten Mormons by Paul Trask, and were forced to confront the questions and contradictions in church doctrine they had been struggling with. The more they searched the Bible the more problems they found. Finally, as a result of their research, the Lord led them out of “the church” and into a born-again experience for which they give God all the Praise and Glory. This is their testimony.

Lone Jack, Missouri

Both of our families have been in “the Church” for generations. Both families can be traced back as far as 1833. We both stayed in the “fundamental” part of the church during the split. Carla attended the Chilhowee Restoration Branch for years, and I stayed with whatever congregation (Enoch Hill, Eden Heights, and finally New Hope) our family could find at the time that was remaining “true” to the “original gospel.” Carla and I were members of the group that started the New Hope congregation and we were married there. Also, during that time, I was called and ordained to the office of Deacon. Like all of the members that we knew, we believed that “the Church” was the only true church on the face of the earth and that only it had the whole truth of the gospel. We awaited the building up of Zion and the coming Kingdom. We sought to obey the Word of Wisdom and to be good church members. We felt blessed to have been born into families that had such long histories of involvement in the church. Carla’s family remains active in the Restoration groups and mine still attends at New Hope.

While Carla and I had both had questions about things that did not appear to match with the Bible over the years, these were usually explained away due to the facts given in the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants. But in December of 1998, I came across a book entitled, Part Way to Utah: The Forgotten Mormons. The research and thorough approach was unlike other books against the church that I had read. Most of the time I had chuckled to myself when I had read anti-Mormon literature because the authors would get the details all wrong or were going against the Utah church that I thought was ridiculous anyway, so it served to strengthen my confidence that the Reorganization was the true gospel. This book forced me to confront the questions that I had about the church for the first time. So I began to study things out for myself.

Much to my surprise, I could not discount the issues that it brought up and as I began to look for answers to my questions, I found things that I did not like. For example, Joseph Smith was found guilty of being a “disorderly person” (which was a person that did not have employment and pretended to do things that he could not do) in an 1826 trial, after he pretended to be able to find buried treasure by looking into a stone. In this trial, Joseph was recorded as having testified himself that he could find buried treasure by looking into a stone. This would have been only a short time before he would have found the buried plates. I also found reference to Jesus Christ fulfilling the need for a High Priest forever, as He lives forever, and we have no need for anymore sacrifices to be offered except His. The Book of Hebrews is very clear about this, (specifically chapter 7:22-28), so why would Jesus have an office of High Priest in His church?

I had to share what was happening with Carla. We talked and began to study out what we had found. We began to ask priesthood members about our questions. What their advice boiled down to was that we simply needed to keep the faith and pray for a testimony that would remove all doubts or questions. Their response was all too often to simply begin to share their own personal testimonies. We were advised to just let go of some of the questions and accept that there was no answer. This is not meant to be directly critical of these men, as they all appeared to mean well and we did appreciate the effort that they gave. We believe that there simply were no better answers and they did the best with what they had. We were devastated by the idea that we could have been wrong for all these years, and that all that we had believed in and held sacred, could be a deception. We continued to search and eventually decided that what we had found required some action. We believed that we had a responsibility to worship God in truth and that we had to honestly act upon the answers that He gave us. Could we believe in the Reorganization? Could we continue to believe in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants or should we switch to the Book of Commandments? Could we believe in the Book of Mormon? Could we even believe in the need for a Restoration?

We found many, many things that time and space do not allow us to list, but we were distressed, for instance, to find that Joseph Smith had changed parts of the Book of Revelation, the very book containing the warning: “If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book…” Why would a true prophet of God not see the problem with that? More importantly, we had to ask ourselves why we would believe that Jesus Christ Himself could not set up a church that would stand, but that He would need a man to fix things later on? Zion was to be a physical kingdom, but Romans 14:17 clearly states that the kingdom is not physical, and Acts 17:24, 25 states that God does not live in temples made with human hands. The more we searched the Bible, the more problems we found. We also discussed the testimonies that we had received or had heard and how they contradicted each other or were inconsistent at times with any one of the Reorganized scriptures. It became a question of who we believed Jesus to be and what his gift meant to us.

As we searched for God, we found Him, and we found Him in the Bible. We realized that we could not get real answers from our own testimony (2 Tim. 4:4, 2 Thess. 2:11), but that truth must come from a reliable source: the Bible. We realized that no church is the way to God, but that Christ is the only Way. In Him we have found the truth. He guided us out of “the Church” and into His love and grace. To Him we offer all of the honor, praise and glory.

Since leaving the RLDS church and becoming saved, we have had to face the reality of how members of “the Church” see us. Most believe that we have denied our testimony and thus our faith. We know that some see us as lost. We cannot begin to explain how this has impacted our lives. When the “ties that blind” are severed, there is also sometimes little else to talk about. Looking back, we now realize that the focus of “the Church” was on Zion rather than the simple and precious gift of our Savior Jesus Christ.