One80: Testimonies of Transformation
Be inspired by stories of Christian transformation from around the world--and next door! Hear miraculous coming-to-Jesus stories from all walks of life and be amazed at how God writes a story in all of us. One80 is a production of OneWay Ministries.
One80: Testimonies of Transformation
107: My Work is Finished, Kristen Hale, Part 1 (Mormon)
Leaving the checklist for grace.
“My work is done here,” Jesus told Kristen Hale as she hobbled to the altar at the Mormon temple’s healing service. Jesus would gently lead her out of Mormonism and heal her–-body, mind and Spirit.
In part 1, learn how Kristen grew up in a devout Mormon home, with a strict bishop father and the heavy weight of performance based love. Listen as she explains some tenets of Mormonism. See how Kristen’s zeal for Mormonism even brought her to witness to Christian friends. Glimpses of Mormonism’s incongruity began to reveal themselves after a devastating death in the family with a cold response.
Kristen’s Recommended Resources:
From Mormon to God: The Story of a Mormon Girl Turned to God's Grace
Kirsten’s website, FromMormontoGod
Helpful definitions of Mormon terms vs. Christian terms
Kristen’s book on POTS, Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome
Kristen’s Children’s books on talking to friends who are different:
Ex-Mormon Christians Facebook group
Truth in Love, how to witness to Mormons
Sean McDowell Podcast on Mormonism
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Welcome to One80. Transforming testimonies from next door to across the globe. Be amazed at how God works to bring people to himself. Share today's One80 with a friend. It might be the best news they hear today.
Kristen Hale:No verse in the words that I had was giving me any help or any truth. And I remember one morning my husband switched the Book of Mormon for a Bible. Like, kind of like here, try this. And those words were speaking to me.
Margaret Ereneta:My work is done here, Jesus told Kristen Hale as she hobbled to the altar, walker afoot. And her work was also done. The never-ending cycle of working to please a distant God. She would flee Mormonism and find healing, body, mind, and spirit. This is your host, Margaret Ereneta. Welcome to Kristen's One80, part one.
Kristen Hale:So I was born and raised in Mormonism, and my dad was actually bishop of the Mormon church for five years while I was growing up and entering my teenage years. It was all that I ever knew. So the rule keeping and the dietary restrictions and the modest clothing, it was all this is how you worship God, is the outward appearance. I loved doing what was right. I loved choosing the right. That was what I was taught would give me happiness and celestial glory. It was all about the afterlife growing up. And if you do this, then you will get this.
Kristen Hale:It was very reward system. I grew up in a family of nine. My dad being the bishop, he called me to be the organist of the ward. They call that the geographical location of where we lived. That is the church that you would go to or the time that you would be scheduled to go to church. And they would call that a ward. Middle school, high school, you would find Mormon cliques, they would call it. So there would be just a group of Mormons, and you were to be a part of that clique to make sure you were following and choosing the right.
Kristen Hale:And if there was somebody out of line, if one of your friends started cussing or drinking, you would be expected to leave and make sure you were staying around the right crowd. So very cult tick in the church, but also outward. So if you're going to school, you make sure that you're involving yourself around Mormons. You don't date anybody who is not Mormon. Growing up, it was very strict.
Margaret Ereneta:Next, Kristen describes baptism by proxy. Listen in.
Kristen Hale:So you're born in the ceiling and you are to follow all the ordinances and the rituals, which is when you're eight, you are baptized. When you're 12, if you're a man, you become a deacon where you'll pass the sacrament during church. So it's very age-related. When you're 14, you serve at the temple and you do baptisms for the dead, which is supposedly a high honor. You have to keep yourself worthy, worthy being Mormon rules, following the dietary restrictions, no coffee, no tea, no strong drinks, and then wearing modest clothing.
Kristen Hale:And you have a temple interview with your bishop, which mine at the time was my own dad. So he would take us um into the guest room of our house. I grew up in a lot of money. Our house was large, the largest on the block, three stories, massive. I can't explain it. Huge mansion. And many of the Mormons you will recognize have mansions or large, large buildings. There's a lot of money in the Mormon church. They're actually business-wise sitting on 80 billion in stocks. So there's a large reason why the elders or the prophet today is not going to divulge that he's speaking these lies because it's more of a business than it is anything else. And I do believe in my heart that they know these things.
Kristen Hale:Obviously, we didn't know that growing up. So I just follow my dad, whatever he says, and you prepare yourself to be worthy or pure in the eyes of Mormonism to receive a temple recommend. And they call that the highest calling that you could do in Mormon religion is baptizing and doing works for the dead. These are people who have already passed on, and you are to go to the temple and baptize in their name. So they'll take you into the font, the baptismal font in the basement of the temple when you're 14, because you're not allowed to the top until you become marriage worthy.
Kristen Hale:So we go in this font in the basement and we are baptized for dead people. When there's a lot of us and there's a large line, there would be 14 names, and they would say the name they'd say in the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, very mixed between Bible, and then they would dunk you all the way in, and then they would do the same ritual for the next name, dunk you in. And this was supposed to be a high honor. I laugh now because I'm out of it. Thank you, Jesus. But but when you're in it, you think that you're doing the greatest work for God, that that's what He's having you do is spend time helping the dead.
Kristen Hale:So what I was taught was that these people beyond the veil, because they believe there's still a veil, beyond the veil would be able to accept Mormonism in heaven. And if they accept it, then they also get to go to the celestial kingdom. So you, as proxy, are their savior. When you go there, you would be greeted by all of these people that you got to do the work for and that they got to receive Beyond the Veil because they didn't have the chance, or that they rejected Mormonism on earth life. This is all the belief that I was brainwashed in growing up.
Margaret Ereneta:Kristen goes on to share a lot of other Mormon teachings. And if you want to see the truth and compare Christianity and Mormonism, check out our show notes. I encourage you to do after listening to the show.
Kristen Hale:Yes. So we're also taught that there's a premortal existence. That means that Mormons believe that you're there with God and that he sends you down and you're a spirit child. They use the Bible verse that I knew you before you were in your mother's womb to confirm that what they believe is that yes, we were there with him instead of just in the mind of God, that he knew us. So they believe that God sends you down to the earth life. And then after you die, you go to either spirit paradise or spirit prison.
Kristen Hale:That is if you accepted Mormonism or not. If you are in prison, the people in spirit paradise can come down and missionary and teach the people in spirit prison what Mormonism is. And if they accept it, they can go to spirit paradise too, before the final judgment. And when there's a final judgment, you are placed either in the highest kingdom, which is celestial glory, or there is terrestrial glory, which is the second one. And then the third one is telestral.
Kristen Hale:So it goes celestial, terrestrial, telestial, and then they call hell outer darkness. So based on your works and how pure you were, and how you conform to the Mormon rules, that is which heaven you would go to. Now, the celestial kingdom, the top heaven has three degrees of glory within the celestial. You reach the top when you get married in the Mormon temple. That's when you reach the top.
Kristen Hale:You fulfilled every ordinance, you got baptized, you got confirmed, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And then you are married into the temple, which is to them the highest degree because now you're sealed. That's also what you do in the temple for the dead. After you get married and sealed in the temple, you then marry and seal other couples in the temple. And they call that the greatest work you can do on earth because they believe you have to be married to receive the highest honor and the highest glory of heaven, to become a God yourself.
Margaret Ereneta:Yes, you heard that right. She said to become a god yourself. That is the goal in Mormonism.
Kristen Hale:So every Mormon will say exaltation is better than salvation. They say exaltation is the highest you can achieve because you get to become a god yourself and create worlds yourself with your spouse who you're sealed to. And I remember being taught this and thinking, what bug would I take out? Because now I'm supposed to be a god when I'm older and this is what I'm preparing for.
Kristen Hale:And they'll say, Yeah, salvation, Jesus made a way for salvation, but exaltation is what we achieve to become a God yourself. That's the goal, to be married and to procreate in heaven. The afterlife is also to make your own babies. So you're going to become your God, your own God with your spouse, the, I guess, mother God and the father God, and have spiritual babies yourself. And they believe that there's worlds without number.
Kristen Hale:That's in their scripture in the Pearl of Great Price, the book of Moses. And so they believe there's other gods on other worlds, and that they've gone to their own heaven, become a God, created their own world, and that is how it's the one eternal realm that there's multiple worlds, and this is what you will do someday, too.
Kristen Hale:So the Pearl of Great Price hubs the book of Abraham, the book of Moses, and so it's like another hub. They have what's called a quad. So they have the Bible at the bottom, then they have the Book of Mormon, then they have the Doctrine and Covenants, and then they have the Pearl of Great Price. So there are four books in one. They'll never just buy a Bible, they'll buy what's called the quad. And it has all of these books.
Margaret Ereneta:Next, Kristen talks about that works based mentality and what it's like to live under the weight of that kind of theology.
Kristen Hale:The worksbased mentality is that you're never enough, you've never arrived. There's always a destination, there's always a goal. You can always progress, you can always be better. And that is what Mormonism is, is you have to become better in all aspects. It was never a I'm proud of you moment. I don't believe I was ever told that growing up.
Kristen Hale:I'm proud of you, because that would mean I've reached, I'm good enough. The grace was missing growing up. The grace of you don't have to be this. There's someone bigger than you who already is this. And through that love, you grow in that grace. There was no grace in the growth in Mormonism. It was always look at the next person next to you, compare yourself to other people, and become perfect and more perfect. And it was a very outward appearance show, and because it's we want to be seen so that others come to our light, or you want to come to our light. We're happy over here.
Kristen Hale:We're really good at what we do. We have a lot of money. And so it kind of reminds me of like a light bulb. And the bugs will go to the light bulb, but the light's not good for them. And they'll actually die if they get too close because of the heat. And so what looks like light is not truly light. And um, Satan himself disguises himself as the angel of light, and that's where Mormons are trapped. Church that looks good. But when it comes down to it, when you get sick, I remember the first time I got sick and couldn't make it to a Mormon church. You are to go every week. That's just what is expected. There's no room for error, there's no room for sickness, there's no room for mistakes.
Kristen Hale:It's a very independent religion. You get there by yourself, nobody's gonna help you. Get back up, keep going, get back up, keep going. Like I ran track in middle school and in high school, and there was a time where I tried to run the hurdles and I had flat feet. Half of the family has very flat feet. And here I am trying to run hurdles where you're supposed to be able to jump and have a vertical. And I tripped over the second hurdle at a meet, and I was bleeding on my hands and on my knees.
Kristen Hale:And I got up and kept going and finished. And apparently I still beat somebody. And that was a story my dad loved to tell everybody is even though she fell, even though she was bleeding, she kept going. She kept going, and she even beat somebody else. Like that was his proud dad moment. And I just remember after that meet, actually, my grandpa was there too. And he was the one who looked at my hands and was like, Are you okay? Do we need to get you a band-aid? Do we need to rinse that blood off of you?
Kristen Hale:But my dad was like, wow, and just raving. And so it was it's like if you're missing the care point, you're missing, you're missing that mark where it's not about performance. It's not about the outward, it's about the heart, it's about the love. And we can't overlook what someone's going through. But in Mormonism, you do because you got to keep moving, you got to keep getting to the next level in a sense.
Margaret Ereneta:We're coming up on a really sad circumstance where Kristen realizes something is wrong with this religion.
Kristen Hale:There was an instance where my my aunt, for instance, she has 13 kids. You have a lot of kids in the Mormon religion because they tell you that it's a commandment to multiply and replenish the earth, as said in Genesis, but obviously God blessed them to multiply. It wasn't, I command you to do this in the sense that Mormons would take it, how far they would take it. But there was a time that one of my cousins was coming into town and it was in the winter, and their car slipped on black ice and rolled six times.
Kristen Hale:And that is where one of my cousins passed away. And I was 14 years old at the time, and they came in just like zombies, like no hope, no hope in them. But they were coming for their niece's baptism. So the baptism was the next morning, and during the baptism, they put on a happy face, even though their sister just died the night before. They came in about 3 a.m. in the morning, and the baptism was at 9 a.m.
Kristen Hale:So barely got any sleep. And we went to the baptism and they decided not to tell their niece because they wanted their niece to have a good baptism. So instead of telling their niece that their aunt had passed, it was hush hush. And I remember looking around, like, what am I doing in this church? Putting on a happy face and pretending to this little child who's eight years old, who's getting baptized, that her aunt just didn't pass away in a car accident hours before.
Kristen Hale:And I remember asking my cousins, are you not going to tell her about Emily? Emily was her name. And that was just some of my questionings. Um, none of them were large enough for me to leave the church altogether, but they were definite discernments where I was like, I don't know about this. This doesn't feel right. This isn't, this isn't the standard. This isn't the standard. Those were times where I was a little confused about what I was in. And then everybody was in for it. It was like, yeah.
Kristen Hale:So everyone smile. Don't tell her, like they sat us down. Don't tell her about Emily. And I remember we all went in a line after she got baptized and hugged her. And I was just like, oh, like I wanted to tell her so bad because I don't think ignorance is the key. I think truth is. And allow her to go through those feelings by herself. You know, don't hide the truth, don't be ignorant to the truth. You know, maybe we'll postpone her baptism. You know, this is a very real thing that happened. Our cousin just died. It's a big deal. She's 17. I was 14. So yeah, it was a very gruesome night that just left me confused.
Margaret Ereneta:So a Mormon typically has a lot of turning points, a lot of glimmers of hope before actually leaving the church. And so Kristen is no exception to that. But here's some of them that started unfolding for her.
Kristen Hale:Yes, I have two of them, and they could be short. So these two I wrote about in my book. Um, my first experience with Christianity was I had a friend at high school, and she was Lutheran, I believe, but she was Bible-based, and she invited me to one of her services. You don't invite a Mormon to your services. Mormons don't go to other churches.
Kristen Hale:We only invite people to our churches because we're told that ours is the only true church in the world, the only true one, because that's what Joseph Smith, that's the words that he used when he says that he restored the true church on the earth because apparently there was this huge apostasy. That is what their belief is, is that the church left the face of the earth and that God used Joseph Smith to restore it. And that's what they call the restoration of the gospel. And obviously, we know biblically that the gates of Hades will not prevail against the church, Peter the rock.
Kristen Hale:And that is what Jesus said. So we have two very differing doctrines there. But I went, I got permission to go to this friend's church as long as she came to our church after and heard me speak, because I was speaking that day. I don't know if I'm sure my dad had something to do with that being the same day because he's the bishop. He calls Who Speaks that day. So I go to her church and we went into this dark room, and people are worshiping, and there's a guitar and there's drums, and I'm thinking like, this is not the true church. So there's it's already red flags are going all over me.
Kristen Hale:And I heard something like, I will be up there someday. I heard, you know, some something, something said, you're gonna be up there. And it made my heart go really fast. And I had to leave the room. And I went to the bathroom and I was just like almost like hyperventilating, like, what on earth? And I I came back in and I told like my friend, like, I want to leave. I think it's time to leave. So obviously I was being convicted in some way. And that was one of the first experiences I ever had with Christianity, was from this friend. Obviously, she came to our church afterwards. I did my very best. Obviously, I used all of the Mormon doctrine and trying to get my friend to get into Mormonism. So funny now that I'm out. But she was not moved by my speech.
Kristen Hale:And when I came down, I was like, Did the Holy Spirit convict you to Mormonism? And she just was like, You did a good job. Like, as if it was some performance. And I was like, What? Like, I was just so taken back. Like, I just did my very best work. I used everything I had ever been taught, and you're not, you're not moved. So that was one experience that really, really bothered me. And then as I grew older, I went to college. I went to Utah State University first on a piano degree scholarship. While I was there on campus, there was a preacher, and he had a big poster board that said, Mormons are going to hell.
Kristen Hale:And hell was in red letters and it was large. I remember walking past because the cafe is close. I walked past it and I was like, it was the first time I'd ever heard anybody saying that. We're the best. We're taught, we're the best. We have the best standards, we're the most worthy. How would we be going to this place of hell? So I came over to the group that was there and just started listening. And this man's just talking and he knows the Book of Mormon and he knows the Bible and he's just talking. And I tried to put in a few words because I was like, wait, you didn't read the Book of Mormon because we're just told to say what we're taught. I brought in, you know, but faith without works is dead because we're taught all these things. So I'm just repeating what I'm taught.
Kristen Hale:And he was able to kind of unravel a few things in me. But I left because I was like, nope, I've been taught to stay away from preachers like this. I've been taught if they're being paid that it's not their true heart. Because no Mormons are paid for what they do. It's all volunteer work. The only people that are paid are the apostles and the prophet. They get a six-figure salary. But no bishop of the Mormon church, state president, they don't get paid. Everything is voluntary. So if you see a preacher being paid, then you're like, oh, they're being paid to do this. Obviously, people need money to live. But that's what Mormons will say as an excuse to not listen. So I called my parents and I said, This man is saying that Mormons are going to hell.
Kristen Hale:What's going on? And my dad just shut it down real quick. And he said, Don't listen to anybody like that. So I did. In my mind, I'm like, oh, okay, that's anti-Mormon. That's anti-Mormon literature. They're trying to lead you to hell. So stay away. We're taught in that cult to not look at anything, any books that are against Mormonism, any truth, really. I mean, people are trying to get you out of Mormonism because they want you to know the truth. But if you're in Mormonism, it's nope, that's bad. Everything that's against us is bad. So you learn that.
Margaret Ereneta:Thanks for listening. Check in next week as we finish Kristen's One80. Hear how she becomes paralyzed, fighting for her life and looking for answers outside of Mormonism. It's filled with so much hope. And Jesus. Don't miss it. Join our email list if you never want to miss a One80. That link is in our show notes.
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