The story of Green Apples

Hello There.

I’m Green Apples or rather that is the name I am calling myself while on this site.

I’m from the Seattle area and things appear relatively green from the misty rain and filtered sunlight we get a good portion of the year. Many Seattlites like myself are rather “green” as far as trying to be environmentally friendly and recycle when we can.

:ugeek: I really like this smile for reasons that so many people in the Seattle area try for this look. It works for some but it’s not for everybody.

Anyway Why am I here?

Well I grew up in the church. I was usually a rather shy guy who felt the need to really think things through all the time. I would over analyze things.

I recall when it was almost about the time for be to be baptized I thought it was the right thing to do only because I had seen my older family members and friends get baptized. However after I talked to my Bishop I felt kind of so so about the whole idea. He was an older man, kind of stern too. My Bishop asked me if I had read the Book of Mormon all the way through and if I knew if the Church was true or not.

At this point in my life I was still rather young so reading the Book of Mormon all the way through may have been out of my league. Earlier that year I stopped believing in Santa Clause so I wasn’t really sure what to believe. I recall some sister missionaries came over and taught me the discussions. It was good fun and it seemed to make sense to me so I went ahead and accepted the invitation to be baptized and I did.

about 10 years later…

I was in High School. I had a Sunday School teacher that I knew very well and had great amounts of respect for and still do to this day. This man was very wise and had served in the Stake for many years before becoming our Sunday School teacher.

A few lessons really stick in my mind to this day. One was when the Priesthood was restored to all worthy men. I recall our Sunday School teacher told us how things were when he was on his mission. He was allowed to baptize black people but that they were given special lessons different from the usual discussions. He didn’t go into great detail about the lessons though.

I was always confused by why people of African heritage was unable to receive the priesthood, especially since various people within the church had various answers. some said that it was the Blood of Cain. People backed it up with examples from the Bible of how only certain tribes of Israel were considered worthy to have the priesthood. This logic seemed to make since to me until wiser individuals such as my Sunday school teacher told us ” Nobody knows the real reason why this took place. I am sure that God had some good reason to do it.”

Another Sunday School lesson my teacher gave he told us about how when he was in college they were doing a lot of this Carbon testing to try to determine the age of fossils and old artifacts. He recalls meeting Joseph F. Smith who was not yet the prophet but was a general authority at the time. A question a fellow college student asked Joseph F. Smith was ” What do you think about the carbon testing and the dinosaur bones people are finding.”

Apparently Joseph F. Smith looked at him real sternly and said ” Those bones were put there by the Devil”

After telling us this story my teacher added at the time he was not yet the prophet but he was a general authority who later became the prophet so it’s something to think about.

I always liked dinosaurs and the thought that the devil made those bones did not feel right to me at all. I guess it was at that point that I began to see just because a prophet or general authority says something it does not mean that it’s totally true.

One final lesson that sticks out in my mind is the story of how the Book of Abraham came to be I recall hearing the lesson before. Some church members bought some old Papyrus and gave it to Joseph Smith JR to translate and how it turned out to me a record of Abraham. My instructor added ” Sadly that very Papyrus was burnt in a fire.”

The thing of it was though I had heard from another well respected Sunday School teacher that the Papyrus had been found and was returned to the church. I raised my hand and asked about this and the Sunday school teacher paused for a moment and said something like ” well… I don’t really know about that… They found something but we don’t know if it was all there. Some of the important parts are thought to have been burnt or missing from what was found.”

He then paused for a few seconds and I broke the silence with a nod and a quiet ” oh okay.”

I felt like wanting to ask more of what he might know about it but I chose not to because I was too shy.

A bit later down the road…

I did not graduate from High School on time but rather went an extra year to finish everything up and then walked with the class below me, which I now consider my graduating class.

Half way through my Final year of High school I was really considering my faith and what to believe. Many family members had fallen away and lived a very different life style. I began to read the book of Mormon and read at night at least one chapter a night. I prayed before reading and asked that I would be able to pay attention to what I was reading, could understand it and remain focused. I also prayed that if what I was reading was true to allow the holy ghost to tell me.

I did this night after night. until eventually I read 2nd Nephi Chapter 27. I felt great amounts of happiness and felt as though someone was standing behind me resting their hands upon my shoulders. I was usually the type that did not show much emotion but no one was looking so I allowed myself to truly feel this great emotion and allowed myself to cry. It was an incredible spiritual experience.

I cannot doubt that this happened.

However I have also had other experiences that makes me wonder about certain things.

I later found that my Family seems to have a history of Depression, anxiety and many various other issues that can cause somebody to have the inability to get a good nights rest.

From my lack of rest I had experienced a sleeping disorder called sleep paralysis. Basically when you enter into a deep sleep your mind and body disconnect to some extent so that you won’t act out your dreams. Sleep Paralysis happens when the mind begins to wake up out of the deep sleep before the body does. So you feel that you are awake and yet you can’t open your eyes. You can’t move or call out for help. I usually would hear a rumbling sound around me and felt as though I was being held down by some kind of power. Eventually I was able to move and felt terrified that this happened to me.

One such occasion in which this sleep paralysis happened I recall feeling as though someone had jumped on my bed and then jumped on me. I recall looking up and seeing a demonic figure on top of me. 😈 He reached out and began to strangle me. I could not move or do anything to defend myself. Since I am a southpaw ( left handed person) I concentrated so hard to try to move my left arm. Eventually I was able to move my left arm and I tried with all my might to punch this demon in attempts to save my life. I hit the demon in the face and at that moment my entire body felt free. I opened my eyes and saw that it was a dream but I had my left arm raised with my hand clinched in a fist. I was totally freaked out by this and had some home teachers come over and give me a blessing.

At this point in time I did not know that what I was experiencing was a sleeping disorder. I recalled the first bit of Joseph Smith’s first vision and how his tongue was bound and he felt as though some great power held him captive and that he was about to be destroyed. Until God and Jesus appeared, saved him and proceeded to tell him the true church needed to be restored.

Once I realized what I experienced was a sleeping disorder and read about many experiences of others I then began to wonder and had many questions of WHAT IF?

What if Joseph Smith truly believed that he saw Jesus, God and Angels through out his life but truly it was all caused by Sleep Paralysis mixed with a form of Lucid dreaming that makes the dream feel so real and incredible.

I would like to believe that Joseph Smith really did see something and really did have visitations from God himself, the Savior, Angels and many other incredible things.

Yet at the same time after experiencing some really weird creepy stuff through sleep paralysis ( so creepy I chose not to stick around for lucid dream) that I just wonder and doubt.

Through personal study of church history and things of that sort my faith and my testimony is not as strong as it once was. I know the LDS church does a lot of good in the world though. I would like to remain apart of the religion even if it is for the sake of being part of something that does a lot of good in the world.

I still feel that I have somewhat of a testimony but I don’t feel that I am a 100% true believing Mormon that feels that everything every prophet has ever said is true gospel scripture…

I would like to stick around in the church at least for now. I don’t feel any anger towards the church itself. There are plenty of good people and good things that happen because of the LDS church. If I ever do choose to leave I would do so quietly.