I have been to a session of general conference, visited institute classes at Weber state university, been to Provo, as well as meeting Christians like Bill Mckeever, Shawn Mccraney, Aaron Shafovaloff and others and have had a great time.

I have had the chance to meet a Mormon man named Eric who has been a Mormon many years, and through this meeting and others have grown in my respect for these people.

Many Christians and myself at times can look at the Mormon people and think how can they believe that it is crazy etc, however from being around the people and in the culture and having dialogue, I can see exactly why and how intelligent people can believe Mormonism, the Mormon people in many cases deserve genuine respect for their commitment, and love for their faith and what it represents. And I would challenge Christians reading this to have genuine respect when speaking to people in the LDS faith as they are not crazy they just believe a faith that is contrary to the bible.

Being in general conference I was there when the announcement came for 5 new temples and there was a genuine sense of awe in the crowd people looking at each other and smiling amazed at this news.

When the prophet Thomas S. Monson walked in people stood straight to their feet out of respect and were looking at him who they believe is God’s mouthpiece to the world again with a sense of awe, right before singing the classic LDS hymn we thank thee O Lord for a Prophet.

So in terms of commitment and sincerity towards their faith Christians should come to Utah to learn from them as well as preach to them, however this sense of awe I am talking about did not go towards Christ the true centre of Christianity in that same way. I think back to my home church and the worship and adoration Christ recieves each week and when I think of this general conference session the closest we came to that was when the new temples were announced.

In the book of Mormon 2 Nephi 25:26 says this  And we ^atalk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we ^bprophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our ^cchildren may know to what source they may look for a ^dremission of their sins.

This is often what is quoted to born again Christians when we say what I am saying, however to LDS people reading this I would say look past just what is said and look at where the real passion and devotion lies in the LDS church, the unspoken things, when people are bearing their testimonies on testimony sunday who gets more glory, Christ, or Joseph Smith or Monson? Look in the bible at the heart of Christians in there, the apostle Paul yearned to die to be with Christ, He knew nothing of exaltation or seeking Godhood for himself. Its not enough to say all of the things in our church point to Christ, does the person of Christ recieved glory over everything? When Jesus was sat with Mary and Martha he praised Mary sitting with him while Martha ran around getting things done.

So this blog despite my new found rise in respect for LDS people is very much going on, however with love and not with a desire to win arguments (as I do not always do that anyway) and not with a desire to put people down but with a desire to share biblical truth, look at the background of Mormonism and its beliefs and let people reading decide for themselves.

Hi there I am Bobby and host this blog and for anyone visiting thanks for dropping in.

Some people have questioned why I call this blog Mormonism Investigated when clearly I come from a different faith which is Evangelical Christianity (meaning I trust the bible for truth and measure all against that.) And that I clearly am critical of the religion of Mormonism.

This site is for two things.

1, To have dialogue with Mormons on key issues in hopefully an honest and respectful way on what I see as biblical and historical problems with Mormonism.

2, To assist Christians and anyone else who is looking into, or wanting to find out more about Mormonism. When a Mormon hears this they will say, well ask a Mormon. I would quickly say that I actually totally agree with that, my major desire is that More Christians have more dialogue with more Mormons. However there are issues that the Missionaries do not present and there are biblical problems that are not as obvious when speaking to them as their terminology sounds the same but is very different to ours. So when a Mormon says speak to a Mormon to learn about Mormonism I say yes please, absolutely do that, but always look at things from both sides.

Anyway the reason I have given that background is I want to make you aware of a trip I am going on at the end of September till about the 9h of October from Middlesbrough in the North East of England to Utah. I am going there on a mission trip working with Russ East from Utah Partnerships for Christ (www.upfc.org). For any of you who don’t know Utah is an American State which according to the latest Mormon church almanac has an estimated population of 2,737,000 with 1,857,667 of those being Members of the Mormon church. How many of those are active or inactive I do not know, but either way that’s a lot.

10 years ago when at a bible conference I believe God challenged me to go to Utah, I think this is a great opportunity as I will be able to share the love of Christ with many Mormons and also get to know Mormon culture and day to day life a lot more, as well as build good links with Christians over there who are living with this ministry on a daily basis.

Each day or at least as often as I can I will put posts on this blog with pictures and a kind of Journal of what I am doing and who I will be speaking to.

For Mormons reading this who live in Utah please, please hear me when I say I am not coming to protest or in anyway bring contention. Any LDS member or anyone else for that matter who has been around Salt Lake city when general conference is on will know there are so called Christians there shouting about how false Mormonism is and showing disrespect to various aspects of Mormonism.

Despite my issues with the Mormon faith I love the Mormon people dearly and I do not see how totally disrespecting peoples faith and culture in that way or any way is a loving God honouring, gospel presenting thing. Mormons have the right to talk to Evangelical Christians or not, simple as that and that way of presentation is very obtrusive and unhelpful.

That said I will most likely be around General conference, to quietly just chat to people who will chat to me, as well as visiting many other key spots when I am there.

I would love to build as many links as possible when I am there, and build relationships to carry on when I get back, so if you are a Christian over there and will be around salt lake city when general conference is on please let me know it would be great to meet you.

And any LDS who want’s to meet a Brit who is crazy enough to come all the way over to Utah (on mostly my own money) just to be around Mormons then please say hi.

And for everyone else reading please keep an eye on this blog between 30th September and 9th October.