Brandi: The Journey To Jesus

Check out Brandi's book, The Journey to Jesus: Finding Christ after Leaving Mormonism

In a culture of relativism, 'what is truth' is a subjective proposition and lofty proposal because "to each his own" is the primary mantra. In other words, the pursuit of what is true leads people down a path of discovering real truth and some down a path of facades of truth. In this episode, you will hear Brandi's story of being raised Mormon. Things began to change when she began asking questions in her mid to late twenties, eventually coming to faith and into a lordship relationship with Christ as a Christian. This is Brandi's journey to the true Jesus and she is forever changed.

Transcript

EP110Brandi

Jack: [00:00:00] Jesus in my life, episode 110. 

Brandi: And this is what I'll say. You can't really have ears to hear, and you can't really see the truth unless you decide that you want the truth more than you want the Mormon church to be true. And I'd always pick the Mormon church over anything else. I didn't even know I was doing that, but I was.

And so it got to the point where I felt like there were so many cracks and so many, so much confusion that I was like, what is going on? And I asked a family member. About like, what, what's going on? And he just basically told me, Hey, go check out this site called Mormon think. And I was like, what is that?

Jack: Welcome to Jesus in my life, a podcast with Rob and Jack, where we interview everyday people like me and you about their extraordinary experiences with our savior, Jesus Christ. 

Rob: Welcome to another episode of Jesus in my life. My name is Rob and my cohost, Jack. 

Jack: Hey everybody. So great to be here today. 

Rob: Well, Jack, it's a really good to be back in the saddle again, and we are [00:01:00] really excited here to have you.

Uh, somebody who has come our way and somebody who has a fantastic testimony. And Jack, you and I, we have a mutual friend, Cassandra. She's been on our podcast and she has shared her story, but Cassandra reached out and said, you have to meet Brandi because of her testimony and, uh, particularly, uh, her journey of moving from Mormonism to Christianity.

And Brandi has a book out actually three weeks. Old and, uh, right hot off the press. The book is called journey, the journey to Jesus and Brandi. We are so glad that you're with us. Welcome to the show. 

Brandi: Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to chat with you guys today. 

Jack: Yeah. And we are as well. I mean, I haven't actually had a chance to hear your story, but I'm already fascinated with the topic.

So let's just dive right in, Brandi. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your background in Mormonism. [00:02:00] 

Brandi: Okay. So I come from a family of six. Um, I have a one older brother and a few younger siblings. Um, and I grew up born and raised. Um, in the LDS church, I loved being Mormon. I absolutely loved it. It was my number one identity and it really provided me a lot of safety and security growing up.

I really felt like I always really knew who I was. I had my whole life planned out for me. I knew, you know, where I was going to go to college, BYU. I was going to go to the temple. I was going to get married and have a bunch of kids and be a stay at home mom and have a minivan. And all of that has come true, by the way.

So it's been great, 

All: but. 

Brandi: I, I loved it. I love my upbringing. I was baptized at eight in the LDS church, went through, you know, all the normal Mormon steps and went to BYU and got married in the temple. So I have a pretty standard LDS background. 

Jack: Okay. And so out of curiosity, what was it about it that really brought you a lot of security that you, uh, found such, I don't know, contentment in it?

Brandi: Yeah. Well, I think, With respect to the Mormon theology, there are so many answers that it can provide you. [00:03:00] Mormons have a lot of answers to life's hardest questions. And I felt like it all made a lot of sense. Um, I had a lot of just inner, it was almost like I had a spiritual inner knowledge and confirmation constantly, that I just knew everything was true.

And while I had other friends who kind of struggled with their identity growing up, or trying to figure out who they were, I already knew who I was. And I already knew where I came from, you know, I had the premortal world and I, I knew exactly why I was in the family that I was in. And so there was a lot of things I just didn't really need to figure out.

You know, because I already had all those given to me, basically on a silver platter. Um, so that was really nice. And I did kind of feel like an obligation to tell other people about the Mormon church. I was always very proud of my identity. And I even remember, so my mom actually wasn't born into the Mormon church.

My dad was, he came from a family of 13, so he had a lot of siblings and probably what you would think of when you think Mormon family, you know, in the sixties. But, um, my mom actually didn't. Initially start out as a Mormon and she was a convert. And that's an interesting story [00:04:00] because for her, the Mormon missionary showing up at her doorstep as a young teen and providing her with what I'll call the restored gospel, that's what I'll call the LDS gospel.

So the Mormon missionary showing up at her doorstep as her family, there was some religious contention with her parents. And so they all got on the same page and it was really easy for them to get rid of the alcohol and the tea and the coffee. They didn't have any issues following all the rules. And so.

She grew up with a really, just, she was really proud to be a Mormon. And I felt like her example of having tried both Christianity and Mormonism. I was just really sure that we had the truth because she had tried both. And so I had Christian friends growing up. Cassandra was one of them. And, um, I remember praying over my friends.

I remember feeling a sense of obligation to be. Like Paul, he consider himself the apostle to the Gentiles. I felt like the apostle to the non Mormons and I wanted so badly for them to have what I had. So I gave Book of Mormons to all my friends with my testimony written in them upon graduation, my high school teachers, and went off to BYU, just hoping and praying that one day they'll open it and feel the burning in the bosom and know that the [00:05:00] Book of Mormon is the word of God.

So I took it seriously and I was a wild kid. I really was. I have a wild disposition. I just, I have a lot of energy, high energy. I mean, you know, I told you how much me and Cassandra used to run. 

All: Um, 

Brandi: and my mom was grateful for the Mormon church because it kind of gave me a leash, like I didn't step out of bounds too far, you know, but I just, I felt like I loved the non believers in my life and I, I wanted to connect with them and kind of be the liaison between, you know, like I'm a Mormon, but I'm like a safe Mormon.

You can talk to me and, you know, we can be friends and I won't be too clicky. So that was kind of our history. Um, and I'll say one more thing just quickly. My mom told me a story one time about a man who, She was like, you're a Mormon? And she was like, yeah, what's up? You know, like, what? And he's like, well, um, usually Mormons kind of stick to themselves.

They're really clicky. They don't really, you know, talk to people and converse with them outside of their circles. And I remember her coming home and being kind of bugged about that. I think she saw the validity in his comment, but she also was like, This is not, I don't think that's how it's supposed to be.

And I took that, I really internalized that. I'm like, okay, I'm going to be different. Like, [00:06:00] I'm going to go out, I'm going to be in the world. I don't want to be of the world. I mean, that was always the fight that we always have, right? We are all trying not to be of the world and to a degree we were not perfect about that, but, um, but I really wanted to be in the world and I wanted to be an example, so.

Rob: Brandi, regarding Mormonism, was that something, you know, growing up, you know, asking questions about the faith or necessarily having questions with people of different faith? Was that, was that frowned upon? 

Brandi: You know, that's a good question. I think in some ways, yes, and in some ways, no. I would say in some ways, Mormons take seminary.

So I went to church before school every day through my high school years, and I felt like I had a pretty good understanding of theology. And I felt confident enough to go talk to people about theology, have conversations with the Christian club, debate the Trinity and all that stuff. But I think in a more Mormon environment, there is not an emphasis on questioning or critiquing or doubting.

We're actually told by LDS leaders to doubt our doubts before we doubt our faith. So there wasn't [00:07:00] really, um, there wasn't really an opportunity for me to be like, wait, wait, wait, wait. Is this really real? You know, like there's the culture there really shuts that down in a lot of ways. So I kind of felt different in the sense that I thought I really knew my stuff and I really wanted to talk to people about it.

But I think for the most part, um, there is a culture of, Hey, just, you know, just follow your heart. Follow along and your parents told you it's true and we're not going to doubt this and it's all about your feelings. And so you're constantly surrounded by people who are bearing their testimony of the personal subjective experiences of the book of Mormon.

And so you kind of do live in an insulated echo chamber, I would say, and the LDS culture. And I think they want to keep it that way. And I guess now it's kind of changing, but growing up it, it felt very, very much insulated. 

Jack: You know, it's interesting, Rob, I'm, I'm recollecting an interview we had with.

Somebody who came out of Jehovah witness faith. And it was very similar, right. To doubt your doubts, right? Like you, you don't go to any outside sources for any validation, always going back to the, you [00:08:00] know, the watchtower societies, you know, Curriculum only, only that. Right. Um, and, and you just couldn't doubt you would be ostracized for, for doubting.

What would you do? Cause I don't know if this, if you actually ran across anybody who knew their stuff, right? So like, I'm assuming you ran across Christians who maybe caused you to think about Joseph Smith's origin. Some of the, some of the crazy stuff that happened in his life, the lack of archeological evidence for some of the stuff in the, in the book of Mormon.

How did you deal with those type of. Questions if you did. 

Brandi: Yeah, no, that's a great question. I think what was hard for me was I had so much pride and I felt so confident that when people came to me on the Christian end, because they did and told me about the Trinity or talked to me about archeological evidence or really any of those things.

I already, I wasn't listening. I was just waiting for them to stop talking so that I can tell them how much they don't know. Because it was like, well, but wait, you guys are just Christians. We have an extra book. We have extra biblical sources. Like, you know, we have [00:09:00] so much more. And I, I really did feel as though, um, they were led astray and because, again, so much of my beliefs were held by subjective, um, internal just knowledge, I didn't necessarily feel like I needed to engage in apologetics to that level because I felt it, you know what I mean?

And so they just hadn't experienced what I experienced and they didn't have that confirmation that I had. So that's really where I was at, where I really did feel as though I could have debates all day long, but really I was just trying to change other people's minds. I was never really open to any of that.

Rob: Wow. Well, I'm on the edge of my seat, so I'm excited. I mean, uh, here we are, you know, so tell us some of the, Events that took place, the conversations that took place when that questioning sort of turned into somewhat of a reality. 

Brandi: Yeah, so at this point I was married with three babies and I felt like, you know, All my children were blessed in the LDS church [00:10:00] And the goal was to get them all baptized and to go through every step that I had gone through And I was really excited for all those steps within the church Um at the same time and I know you guys have felt this but 2020 was a weird year A lot happened that year and 2021 was almost just as wild Um Um, and at that time, and I won't get into too many specifics here, but, um, I felt as though the church started to, um, publicly advocate for policies and things that I didn't agree with personally, but it wasn't just that.

I felt like it contradicted my biblical values, and I'm very, very pro life, and some of their stances even were a little bit more moderate for me. So I write letters to the Salt Lake City headquarters. I would say like, hey, like, let's mobilize. Mormons are so important. So good at mobilizing and getting an action and, and they are amazing.

They're hardworking people. And so I was like, why are we not doing more? And so I'd write letters and obviously you can tell I'm very passionate. So I'm just like, let's do this. I want to head this up. I'll, you know, I, all these things, but anyways. Um, it fell on deaf ears. I got a little frustrated about stuff, but I, I didn't question the validity of the priesthood or the book of Mormon or any of those things.

It was just that the [00:11:00] current leadership I felt was not really properly reflect, reflecting Jesus to the degree that I thought they should. 

Rob: Brandi, how old were you at this point? 

Brandi: 27. 

Rob: Okay. 

Brandi: And I'm 31 now, so it wasn't too long ago. And so, yeah, so that was kind of confusing for me, but again, it was more like, well, are things just going a little rogue, like maybe Jesus isn't talking to the prophet right now, but like, you know what I'm trying to say?

I didn't really doubt the sincerity or the legitimacy of the church as much as it was just like, what's going on right now, like the public stances of the church. And so that is kind of where. And this is what I'll say. You can't really have ears to hear and you can't really see the truth unless you decide that you want the truth more than you want the Mormon church to be true.

And I'd always pick the Mormon church over anything else. I didn't even know I was doing that, but I was. And so it got to the point where I felt like there were so many cracks and so many, so much confusion that I was like, what is going on? And I asked a family member about like, what, what's going on?

And he just basically told me, Hey, go check out this site called Mormon think. And I was like. What is that? Like I'd never heard of anything like that. [00:12:00] And immediately I kind of got this feeling in my stomach. I'm like, I don't, cause you don't really do that. You don't really look at LDS history or anything else outside of the approved sources.

Right. You talked about the watchtower earlier. It's very similar. Yeah. Um, you're not encouraged really to look anywhere else, um, because I did believe that I could be manipulated by nefarious forces and I could feel as though my, my doubts over, would overcome the faith that I knew was true. So I never wanted to go there, but I did.

I went there and I never would have, but I had some issues, you know, I had some issues. So I looked at the site and my husband was traveling for a few months at this point. And I would say that night and then every night for the next three or four months, what were the hardest nights of my entire life. I read history about the LDS church that I had never been told about.

Things that, later on, I would go to the LDS website itself. I needed to hear from the horse's mouth, right? Like, what do you mean there's peep stones and a hat? What are you talking about? What do you mean there's contradicting versions of the first vision? Like, I had never heard of any of these things.

And so I'm sitting here with a testimony, a very strong testimony, of, of origins of my church that [00:13:00] really those stories didn't exist. And that was so painful and gut wrenching. And I remember just calling my husband every night and reading to him and being emotional and being like, what is, you know, and it just felt like everything was crumbling so quickly.

And so, um, it got to the point where I felt like I couldn't put the genie back in the bottle. It was like, I just knew. Too much, and honestly, if I'm being honest with you guys, it wasn't going to Mormon think, which both had the apologists as well as the critics viewpoint, so it wasn't just anti Mormon, but it did feel anti Mormon because it wasn't from the LDS website, so I read the CES letter, I read some other stuff, but I was also trying to read my book of Mormon, and trying to balance out the vibes, I guess, you know, trying to make sure that I wasn't being manipulated any which way, And then I just go to the LDS website, they actually had posted some gospel topic essays years prior that I, I actually didn't really know much about and I read through those and that was the nail in the coffin, was hearing from their mouth, um, all the things that they conceded to with, um, the origins of the people who came here, right?

They were like, Oh, they're from Jerusalem. No, they're not. They're actually not. The, the Lamanites and the, you know, so I, I, I learned about that. I learned about the [00:14:00] archeological, I guess I should say the lack of archeological support for the Book of Mormon. 

All: Again, 

Brandi: um, contradicting versions of the first vision, the way Joseph Smith translated it, it just, all of it, you know, it just got to the point where I was like, Oh, the church is actually admitting to all of this and this is really, This is awful.

The book of Abraham, you know, I could go on. So it got really bad. And so at that point I hit a really scary point because I, all of a sudden the, the paradigm through which I use, you know, to see the world, my worldview was just crushed. And I was like, what do I, where do I go from here? So, 

Jack: yeah. I was going to ask, what was your husband in all of this?

Like, what was he? I was totally going to ask 

Rob: that. Yes. 

Brandi: No, absolutely. He, especially because he, AJ, my husband, um, it's funny. He actually served a mission with my brother in Spain for two years. And so that's how I met him is when he came back and I really wanted to return missionary who had served full time.

And he's always just been a wonderful priesthood holder and taking the church really seriously. And I love that about him. Reading these things to him was, So it was, it was hard for both [00:15:00] of us. I'm so grateful to God every day that we did it together. But for him, he needed to, and I still, it took years, like years of like, keep, because you heard something for almost three decades.

You have to almost keep reminding yourself of the real truth. Do you know what I'm trying to say? Where you're like, wait, did that really happen that way? And for him, it did take a while where we went through it over and over again, where we read sources on sources on sources. And for him, it did take a little bit longer to finally be like, yeah, I'm, I'm out.

I'm out. But for me, like, I kind of just sat there, I just was, I didn't know what to do. So I just kind of like, sat and waited. I didn't really have any, anything left to give. So he, he definitely felt the same way that I did. And I'm just grateful that we went through that together because that is not the case for a lot of LDS couples.

It's just not. So I know how grateful, I'm just, I'm very grateful. 

Jack: Wow. So you are, everything's falling apart on you, right? Like everything I believed, everything I was raised in, my identity has been torn down. What happens from there? 

Brandi: Well, [00:16:00] so that was really early 2021 and then the first few months. By that Christmas, I had hit a really scary place because, um, I pulled out all these pictures of Jesus and all of these, um, you know, these things about everything was about Jesus at that point, cause it's Christmas.

And I didn't believe in him. And, um, it's very typical for Mormons to become atheists or agnostic because they believe the church when they say it's either us or it's nothing. And I did, I still believe them, even though I knew that nothing else they said, I wouldn't say nothing else, but a lot of what they say isn't true.

I still trusted them on that. And I shouldn't have, but I did. So I was like, well, then there's no other way to find any type of truth. And Jesus, and if Joseph Smith could trick people and use Pete stones in a hat and find buried treasure and, you know, all these gold plates and all these things, how archaic and how ignorant were people 2000 years ago when Jesus was walking on water and, you know, multiplying this, I'm like, no, there's just no way.

So for me, I, I got really bitter and I didn't want to hear about Jesus. It was, I was like a trigger name. You know, I was like, no, like I really felt that [00:17:00] I had known him growing up. I really believed in him and we can get into how I, how different he is now to me. But at that point I thought I really knew him and that was really, really hard.

So no, I was, I was not at a good point. I basically deconstructed to the point of atheism to like a single, it was like an hour that I was an atheist and I just could not be intellectually consistent. I was like, there's no way, you know what I mean? Like I just couldn't live that way. I tried it for like a day.

But I couldn't do it, and so I started thinking in just most general sense, like, what is true? Like, I felt a moral responsibility to be like, I've got three kids. Like, I can't just walk through life now being, you know, like, just losing it and crying all the time and being sad and, um, So I was like, is there a way to know truth?

Like, what can I figure out on my own that I can give to my kids? Like some type of trellis for them to grow on. And so I felt a huge responsibility to start reading an insane amount of content. And I started with really basics of like, is there a God? And for me, it was the fact that I, I couldn't deny that there are moral absolutes in the world.

And starting there, [00:18:00] right. I saw intelligent design. I saw so many things where I'm like. No, there's something, like, and, and I, I saw, you know, there's that cosmological argument that you can't just, if something begins, something outside of it must have caused it. Like, these are just very basic things where I couldn't avoid those things.

But it was funny, one night I was working for a client on the computer, and this is obviously all God, but a tease popped up for this book called Is Atheism Dead? by this guy named Eric Metaxas. And I was like, that sounds really interesting. And I loved listening to debates with atheists and theists, because I'm a normal person, right?

Like, like no one else is. 

Jack: You're totally an apologist. 

Brandi: Yeah, 

Jack: you are. I love that stuff. 

Brandi: Anyways, so I started reading his book. I was like, that sounds interesting. Started reading it and immediately I could see so much, um, validity in science and the way it's, it's showing us through the big bang and all these things and how it correlates to God's existence and his undeniable thumbprint on creation.

And so that was really profound for me, but it also talked about the archaeological support for the old Testament. And he goes into that. And I thought that was really interesting because as a Mormon, you don't really trust the [00:19:00] Bible, um, as much as you do the book of Mormon and current prophets. Right.

It's more of like a dead word, right? It's like the old stuff. It's the translation and the transmission are both way off by this point. You know, it's, it's the Chinese whispers, you know, all the way up. So there's no way that it's reliable. Um, and that's what I was taught my whole life and that's what I believed.

So getting to the point where I thought seriously about the old Testament being reliable took a lot. And so I started to Read a lot about it and listen to a lot of podcasts about it. And I started to realize Dennis Prager. I don't know if you guys know who Dennis Prager is, but I listen to his podcast a lot.

And he's such a wise old Jewish man. And for a while I kind of tried on the Jewish hat. I like, you know, not literally, but I just mean like that's the hat I put on for a while where I was like, man, I really do feel like God cares more about how we treat people. And just being a good person. And my husband and I really decided that we'll never go back to church, that we can find God up in the mountains.

We love to camp. So we're just going to go camping and find God. And because we have so much church trauma, and because we've been hurt, God will understand. And we can still be, as I [00:20:00] said in my book, we can be Lord over our own lives. And And we can bask in our own favorable self perceptions and feel great about ourselves, but know at the end of the day that God's still going to accept us and love us.

And that it's all going to be good in the end. And so we kind of patted ourselves on the back. We're like, okay, like, you know, we still believe in a God and we're good people. We pay our taxes. We teach our kids to share, like everything's going to be okay. And I thought that that, I kind of rolled with that for a little bit, but the more I read the old Testament, the more I thought about the old Testament, I also was seeing, um, a lot more going on where it felt like.

They kept talking about this savior, you know, and you read Isaiah and you see all these prophecies and you're like, huh, this is interesting. And of course I kept wanting to repress the Jesus part because I'm like, no, no, no. Like I can believe in a general God and a personal God, but I'm not gonna. You know, I just, it was really painful, that part.

So it took a while and I don't know, do you guys have other questions before I kind of go on? 

Rob: You know, I do. Okay. I have one. I'm so curious because I know within the Mormon faith, being faithful is very, very important. It's right on to, right on cue with what you're talking about here, Brandi. And at this [00:21:00] point, where was your Mormon network?

Were they excluded from your journey at this point, including your family? 

Brandi: That is such a good question. Family is complicated. Um, I won't go too much into it because it is very messy right now. But some of my family have decided to leave. Some of them are deciding to stay. AJ's side is very much deciding to stay.

They, they're the ones that really, they've been, um, encouraging us to stay and have really tough conversations. And I give them so much credit over how much they've tried to meet the issues that we are facing. But LDS community, Basically, I said nothing and nothing was asked because once you can start, you know what I mean?

Like there's like this sense of like, ooh, now we don't really want to Go there with her. It's almost like there's this black cloud around me where I'm kind of someone who isn't, you know what I'm trying to say? Where, um, so immediately I did feel like no one really asked me a whole lot and it kind of just became an elephant in the room.

And, um, at one point after getting enough text [00:22:00] messages of like, Hey, like, can your daughter show up to this or that? I was just like, Hey, like, no, you know, but it took a lot to say that. And, um, I kind of just wanted to go into the shadows for a bit and I didn't know how to face. My ward the people in there and so it really was kind of this really awkward transition out of the church where no one really said a whole lot and Because no one really wanted to ask a whole lot of questions and I was the same way when I was a mormon It was like someone's leaving and you don't just go.

Hey, what's going on? Like tell me everything. What did you learn? Like it's kind of like uh, you're kind of I don't really want to ask too much You know what? I mean? Like I hope you figure it out. 

All: Yeah. 

Brandi: So yeah, it's it's actually kind of I haven't really thought about it much But yeah, it was it was a kind of a weird transition for me and there was not a lot 

Jack: But you weren't ostracized, were they still, did you lose your social network in a sense?

Brandi: Um, you know, what's interesting is I feel like because, and you and I kind of talked about this before the interview, but the Mormons of today are a little different, they're not as clicky as they were when I was [00:23:00] growing up and I feel like I've actually been surprised by the reaction of a lot of close friends who were like, Hey, I'm happy for you.

Like you're going to go find your Jesus. You're going to go find your truth because everything's relative now. Right. So, um, I'm seeing that rhetoric creep up into the LDS church too, which I keep telling my husband how shocking that is because for me, I'm like, I never would have said that I would have been like, no, you need to be here because we have the proper authority.

Right. We were the only way to get back to the celestial kingdom. So, you know, figure it out because this is it. It's not like, Oh, I'm so happy. You're in your like different Jesus era. Like that wasn't a thing. So it's been actually really interesting. And maybe they're just saying that to me and they really feel that way.

But I have actually received a lot of like, Hey, you know what? I'm so happy for you. So, wow. Okay. 

Jack: Well, that's a, that's a positive compared to what we saw with our Jehovah witness testimony. They got ostracized. Like literally they could not. They got completely cut off from their entire social network. And that's extremely harsh and [00:24:00] hard.

Yeah, 

Brandi: absolutely. And it is very ubiquitous. I would say, again, there's a shift going on in the Mormon culture, but I would say 10 years ago, absolutely. That would have been my fate. 

Jack: Wow. Okay. That's so interesting. Such a world that I have like very little context towards. This eyeopening. Um, Yeah, and I love the, how the path that God has put you on, right?

Like you accepted your faith blindly, right? Your Mormonism. And when the truth came, it tore you down. And now God is building you back up to Jesus with facts. Objective statements, you know, and I just love how he's, he's turned it around. Right? Like, or before it was all about, no, this is the truth and don't question it.

You, you went in question. I love that our God is big enough to be, he's not threatened by our questions. You know, I teach. I teach eighth graders Bible and like, I want them throw me hard questions. I want [00:25:00] you to think about it. Don't just do you, this can't be your mom and dad's religion. This can't be just because the Bible teacher told you, you need to know it.

The Bible tells you to be ready in season and out of season to give a defense for the faith, the hope that you have, right. That's you personally, you know, 

Brandi: and 

Jack: so go ask the questions, dig in. I want it to be your faith. 

Brandi: And I had to get, if God was going to get me, he had to get me through the mind because I no longer trusted my feelings.

I, even now, to be honest with you, struggle with more of the experiential sides of the faith because I see, um, that I was manipulated. And so it's almost like I have, as everyone says, trust issues, right? Like I have all these trust issues because I'm like, am I feeling something that isn't real? And so I needed the mind to be engaged and God even tells us to use our mind in worshiping him, you know, and he asks us to reason together and all these things that I feel like many people are starting to catch up on now because we need to, Christians need to be 

All: more 

Brandi: informed on the reasons behind their faith more than ever.

And for me, that's the only way. [00:26:00] That, I mean, he used that. He definitely, and that's the thing what's so funny is, you're right. My faith was feelings based and it couldn't be that way. It had to be reasons based to beginning. And of course, feelings are there now. And, but they need to follow, right? They can't be the primary source of truth.

Because we all, it gets really wonky really fast when we use feelings to decipher truth. 

Jack: I mean, yeah, exactly. Feelings change all the time, right? There's days I don't feel very Christian like. No, my salvation is based on what I know about my savior, Jesus Christ, and what he's done for me on the cross. The fact that while I was his enemy, he sought me out.

All right. So you got a lot of apologetics coming at you. You, you got some confidence in the old Testament. I'm assuming you made your way to the new Testament at some point. 

Brandi: Yeah, I did. I really did. So, you know, that transition was weird because I first was like, okay, we've got some options, right? The old Testament kind of birthed some of the great monotheistic religions we have today.

So I'm like, Is it Islam? Is it Judaism? Is it Christianity? Like where do we go from here kind of [00:27:00] thing? And it really all rests on Christ and the resurrection because everyone's saying something different about Jesus. You know, the Jews are saying something about Jesus. Muslims are saying something about Jesus and Christians are saying something about Jesus.

They all, maybe none of them are true, but maybe only one could be true. Right? So, um, that's kind of where I went next. I, uh, Um, was astounded to see just in terms of the reliability of the New Testament, the amount of manuscripts that we have to back up, um, what we're reading to know that what we read today, you know, textual critics can say, yeah, we have a really good understanding what the originals have.

That was again, something that took a lot for me to. Agree to because I was like, no, they're not reliable. You know, these are transmission issues over time. We've got corrupt Catholics, you know, messing everything up everywhere. And of course, I believed in the apostasy Mormons believe in the apostasy. So essentially right after the original apostles died, the priesthood left the earth.

God's power left the earth as well as basically. Most of the truth. And so we got to the point where, you know, Joseph Smith is praying in a grove saying, you know, what church is true and God and, [00:28:00] and Jesus as distinct two different people are showing up saying none are true. They're all erring in doctrine and they're all corrupt.

And so that's what I thought. I thought the Bible was corrupt. I thought all Christianity had become corrupt. And so I was really, really skeptical, but learning more about the reliability of the new Testament again, was also very eyeopening for me. And then it's like, okay, so what do I do with this? I've got four biographies of Jesus.

And they're all talking about this guy, you know, and saying all this crazy stuff and it comes down for me for the, to the resurrection. So that's when I turned, uh, my attention towards studying the resurrection. And it was outrageous how much we can corroborate from Jesus's death and, and the empty tomb.

And there's so much there where I started to realize like, I, I'd have to like find a way to make it not fit, if that makes sense. It was like, it was harder to disbelieve it than to believe it. Cause I was like, how can I make this work? And I wanted, I didn't need to make it work, right? Like I wasn't at the point where I felt I needed a savior.

I didn't need Jesus in my life. I really just [00:29:00] couldn't, it was almost like he was making me, it was like this insatiable itch I had where he was just kept knocking on my brain. Like, you know, and so, I couldn't let it go. I was obsessed. You should hear my husband. I'm like the amount of books that I bought and the amount of research I was doing.

I was a mad woman and I just was, I couldn't stop. And so, um, I read a lot in a short amount of time. So it probably is like, wow, Brandi, it's only been four years and you've gone from Mormonism to Christianity, but I feel like I've lived a whole lifetime 

All: because 

Brandi: you know, he gave me this hunger to just know him.

And so I did a lot of research on the resurrection and I came out being like, oh my gosh, this is true. And I remember even telling my brother, we were driving to a soccer game one time. And we. Do little pickup games. And I was like, I would basically stake my life on this at this point. And he's like, what?

Cause he didn't even know where I was at. And I'm like, this is, I need you to look at this, you know, um, Gary Habermas. I don't know if you guys have heard of him, but he does a lot of work on this. And he's like the smartest guy ever PhD. And he talks a lot about this and he really helped me. And so I got to the point where I was like, okay.

Like I, I can see there's [00:30:00] legitimacy here. What does that actually mean though, for my life, you know? And at that point I feel like I had a lot of reasons, but I didn't really have any faith, if that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. 

Jack: I just love your story.

I love how God is just bringing you back to him in the way that he did it. It's just so unique. Uh, not that every, every salvation story is unique, but he was meeting you where you needed. Right. To be built up and sure. And it wasn't emotions based. It was just the truth. Objective truth. Uh, what am I going to do with the truth that is presented to me?

So what did it look like to submit your life to Jesus's Lordship? 

Brandi: That was, that was the hardest part again, cause it's more of the experience based, right? Like there's some subjective stuff going on there. Um, so that was a little bit harder for me reading the new Testament and actually knowing who he was.

And this is, this is something that I want to articulate because when you're, when you're LDS, you believe that the creation and the creator [00:31:00] are basically one and the same. They mesh them together because we can become gods and our god was once creation, right? He was created by his heavenly father and so the cycle continues.

And so there really isn't a distinction. We're more like gods and embryo. Um, and then reading the New Testament and realizing that there is a huge difference between an eternal creator and his creation. And so for me, um, realizing that there is no potential for me to become a god. There is no potential for me to become perfect on my own.

All of this started to shatter. It was like my ego was being shattered. Where I'm like, okay, so we're not Jesus wasn't there to die for my sins so that I could become a God. Like he is the one and only God. And I struggled with doctrine of Trinity, right? Of course I, I did, I despised it, to be honest with you before.

And so I'm wrestling with what the scriptures say about there's one God, but there's three persons and how does that, you know, and it's, of course, I'm not going to sit here and say, I understand it all, but it's, what do we do with what, what God has revealed of himself, you know? So I started to just say, okay, God, who are you?

Like, [00:32:00] tell me who you are without me deciding who you are or someone telling me, you know, like you tell me. So I started to look into just who he is, his nature, his unchanging nature. He's not changing from man to God and then eternally increasing. He is and always has been the same unchanging God. He is 100 percent righteous, 100 percent holy and I am not.

And that was the hard part was looking in the mirror going, okay, so I told you I paid my taxes and that I was a good, you know, I'm a good kid and I'm a good mom and I'm doing all the things and I'm. Um, buying Girl Scout cookies and doing all the things I'm supposed to be doing, but yet I'm sitting and looking in the mirror and I'm reading the Bible, what it's saying about who I am and how I am really falling short.

And I think that was kind of the hard, very, very uncomfortable part for me was going, okay, so I do need a savior. And that was less me and more honestly, just God, because I don't feel like, I feel like that's the supernatural part coming in where he's. Giving you ears to hear and saying, Hey, you know, like it's okay that you're not enough.

I am, but I need you to [00:33:00] know, you know, that you're sick before you can come be healed. And so that part was unpleasant, but, um, was so obviously necessary. And so I did, I, I, I gave my life to Christ. I, I realized and recognize that the world is broken and I knew it. Like I told you at the beginning, I could see.

That the world is broken from the very beginning. I couldn't deny that there was some type of God out there. I saw the evil. I saw the good. And I recognize that I contributed to some of that evil and that I am myself. Broken and it's so interesting because the more that we live in this generation in particular It seems like so many people are struggling emotionally and mentally And the more that they look to themselves and the self help right and you do you girl and you're so great and all these affirmations It seems like it's only getting worse.

And so i'm like, I feel like the answer is outside of ourselves It's not necessarily like we're not our own saviors And so realizing that jesus died for me personally and that through him I could be You know completely accepted and justified before holy God was overwhelming. Um, such, such a thing is [00:34:00] not afforded to the Latter day Saint because they still have to work their way to the presence of God.

And so I always felt that I needed to do all the things and be righteous on my own. You know, there's personal purity and holiness that you are to have on your own that you can use through Christ's atonement, but you yourself are supposed to be spotless. And I. I felt like this huge paradigm shift and it was almost like this freeing sense of like, okay, God, you did it all.

You fulfilled the law. So I don't have to, I don't have to go to the temple. I don't have to wear the garments and avoid the tea. And I don't have to do all those things. I just need to trust in you because you did it. And that was profound. It was an amazing, amazing part of my journey. It was, I mean, ever since that day, it's like walking into a free, the freedom of this grace is so inexpressible and different than what I had growing up.

Rob: Brandi. Wow. Jack, this is so fire. This is so good. Brandi, recently leading up to the preparation of our interview here, I did a little research and development and [00:35:00] just, just a little bit, and I was on your social media feed and, and you were talking about, you How you really had to process through legalism as you were describing it, just, just here now.

And, you know, it sounds like that that's really a lot of the, the detox that you were, you know, going through and sort of that, um, unlearning. And all the while Holy spirit was, was calling you home and, and, and your life being surrendered to Christ and, and, uh, acknowledging his Lordship and all of that.

But if you can maybe just speak a little bit more into, you know, That part about legalism and then moving to like the true reality of like liberty. 

Brandi: No, totally. Um, I think, no, it totally makes sense. I think, um, so the third article of faith for the Latter day Saint is that through the atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel.

And so you sit there and you go, okay, [00:36:00] let's pull this apart. It kind of sounds like, okay, you know, through the atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved. You're like, oh, that sounds great. But then the second part catches up by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel So it's like yes jesus and this is kind of um a little bit more into the deeper theology, but jesus paid for Man's we'll call it original sin So now that he's paid for the original sin Everybody basically gets a ticket out of hell by by just the virtue of existing right?

And so we either get into the telestial the terrestrial the celestial kingdom even hitler They say is getting to some level of heaven, right? But then it's on it's up to you You To hold to the rod and go through all the covenants and the ordinances in the temple To get to where god and jesus christ live in the celestial kingdom And so it's it's kind of confusing for christians because they they hear a mormon will say.

Oh, yeah, we're saved through grace Yeah, totally But what they're saying is we're saved from our original sin, but we still have all the sin that we're going to commit On our own, not from Adam's transgressions, but on our own. So we're constantly trying to keep ourselves clean. [00:37:00] You're having meetings with the Bishop.

You're constantly, you know, declaring yourself. You have interviews to get into the temple. You must be worthy to go into the temple. So you have to be paying your full tithing. You have to be, you know, having callings and, and committing to the church and giving your time, talents, and money to the church.

And so then, and only then are you righteous and holy enough to go to the temple and, You know, do the covenants and the ordinances there. And so it's just inherent in a mormon to believe. Yeah, I have to be righteous to be with god Like I have to do it on my own. And so, um again you use the atonement you're repenting through christ I want to be fair you see jesus is and is a necessary component, but he's not sufficient Right?

There's a difference between him being necessary for salvation and him being sufficient. And so Mormons will say salvation, but they don't mean life with God. 

All: And 

Brandi: so now as a Christian, you know, I ask, well, how is it that you get to heaven without being with God? Because to a Christian that's synonymous, right?

Like, heaven is being with God, but that is not necessarily the case for the Mormons. So it's hard because when I was learning about Christianity, [00:38:00] there's a lot of words that we use that are the same, but they don't mean the same thing. And so pulling that apart was like so excruciating and trying to be like, what are we saying here?

Wow. But now that I have, and I've learned, um, words like justification and sanctification, which I never really understood, but for a Christian faith is the vehicle to receiving all of the work that Christ did on your behalf. And he basically stands in front of you. So when the father looks at you, he sees Christ and there's nothing that you need to add to that.

And that in and of itself was just, it's so funny because like you asked before, well, weren't you on Christians? Like, weren't they trying to teach you things again? I just didn't hear it. I didn't even understand it because. The gospel, and I also want to reiterate, um, the fact that Mormons think they have the gospel.

And so, they don't consider Christianity a lot of the times when they leave Mormonism because they thought they already had it. And so, that's why even on the cover of my book, you'll see two different Christs looking at each other. Because for me, I thought, no way, Jose. I'm not going back to that Jesus, but it isn't the same Christ and it's not the same gospel.

All: But 

Brandi: Mormons don't know that they were [00:39:00] never presented it. And that's, that is the saddest part to me is that's what I want to scream from the rooftops. And really why I wrote this book is it's like you, you don't even know what you don't know. You were never presented it. You were presented a counterfeit and the real Christ offers a real grace and a gospel that you just, you can't even believe it's just so different.

Jack: So articulately said. I just love how you've presented that. Uh, I feel like you should be teaching my eighth graders

Brandi: I've got three of my own. I don't want anymore

Jack: Uh, I really, I really see a future for you and, and apologetics. You are so, uh, you explain it so well. Yes. Um, I'm really excited just to. Checking in on you in a, in a, in a few months, in a couple of years to see what, what God does through your life and your testimony, uh, of, you know, like he has equipped you well to be perhaps a missionary to the [00:40:00] missionaries, right?

Brandi: It's really hard because a lot of Christians will ask, well, how do we share the gospel with Mormons? You know, like that's, that's such a hard thing. And I think, um, the first thing I always say is like, well, first again, there has to be some type of desire that God has put in their heart to hear what you have to say because I was so closed off.

So in Greg Coco talks about this, I don't know if you guys have heard about his book called tactics, but it's so good talking about just, we don't always need to be dunking people in the waters of baptism and sealing the deal. We just need to be putting rocks in people's shoes, right? And some of those rocks are sometimes just questions.

And just asking the Mormon, like, hey, Um, so you know, you, you say you're Christian, you know, so what, what does that look like for you? Who is Christ to you and what does salvation look like for you, you know, and having them start to explain that and maybe that allows you to go, okay, so salvation to you would be life without God, but this and that and explain how that works, you know, and then, and then, and only then maybe start roping in the Bible.

But again, you know, Just bringing up the Bible. I'm going to be like, Hey, listen, I've got a prophet and [00:41:00] he knows a lot more than what this Bible says, you know? So it's not, it's not really, um, effectual, you know, that makes sense. Yeah. So a lot of questions, a lot of questions just to kind of put cracks in there because it is there, and I think that's such a big motivation for me now.

Is, um, I didn't really want to write a book. I am a homeschool mom and I'm busy, you know, and I work part time. And my husband, I told him, I was like, I think I should. Cause I was writing a letter. This all started because I was writing a letter to my kids on Google doc. And I was like, okay, I want them to know like what it was like growing up as a Mormon, they'll never know.

And so many aspects of the Mormon culture are beautiful. And I am sad that they won't get to be a part of that. And so I was like, I'm gonna write the good things. I'm also gonna write the bad things. I'm gonna write everything. I'm just gonna be really honest and raw. Um, and tell them why I have given my life to Christ and now he is Lord over my life.

And I wanted, I wanted to tell them about the journey. And as I started writing, I started to go, Oh my gosh, like people in my brain would pop up and be like, I want them to read this. Like this is something that would benefit them. And so it just started to become a massive project. And I told my husband one night, I was like, honey, we, I need to [00:42:00] write like a book.

Like this is becoming like a full on book. And he was like, No, like you're like, no, you're insane. This is what do you mean? So he basically was like, okay, like just chill out. But of course I didn't. I was like, okay, so we compromised. I wrote a book and you know, I just basically was like, Hey, I feel like there's so many people leaving the LDS church right now who are just spinning in nihilism and becoming, you know, You know because you're so hurt and you're so lost and the rug has been ripped out from underneath you and I So they're not like mormons aren't the enemy i'm not trying to be like, oh, you know I want to fight with you about who christ is and who he is to me I want them to have what I have.

I want it so badly for them So that's why I did what I did. And so I'm just, I'm never going to stop talking about it now because, you know, I don't think I get to, I was teaching something that was false for so long and supporting something that was false for so long, I want to do the opposite now. 

Jack: I love it.

And the goal isn't to win an argument. It's to win a soul to Jesus, right? Like, and we're not doing that by tearing people down, but just presenting them with the truth in [00:43:00] gentleness and kindness. Right. You know, yeah, no point in winning a fight and losing the war with them. You know? Yeah. Well, Brandi, I say we kind of hitting our time limit here, but it's been a real pleasure to have you on the show.

Uh, we will definitely your book link. We will have in our show notes for those that want to hear, read the full story of Brandi's journey to Jesus. Check out our show notes, Brandi, we at Jesus in my life live to have people share their Jesus stories. And you just did that today. And we're so grateful that , you agreed to this interview.

I was so blessed by it. And, , I just really appreciate you. 

Brandi: Yes. Likewise. Thank you guys so much for your time. 

Rob: Thanks so much, Brandi, the rest of you, God [00:44:00] bless.