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Leslie (Baker) Trask

Los Angeles, California

I open my eyes . . . confusion . . . where am I? I do not know who belong to the faces I see hovering above me, nor do I remember where I am. I hear a name being called and watch as someone takes my hand, kissing it gently. Minutes slowly pass, and then bits and pieces start coming back. My name is Leslie. The man who kissed my hand is my husband, Paul. I am at church . . . but what is happening? Paul is repeating my name, but I cannot talk. The paramedics arrive and begin attaching monitors to my chest. They put on a neck brace before loading me to into the waiting ambulance. I cannot talk because the neck brace presses my jaw closed. The ride to the hospital is filled with fear and uncertainty. So begins healing.

The doctors say I had a seizure, plus a nasty bump on the head from falling on the cement floor. Three days of testing in the hospital and further months of testing do not result in any further diagnosis. The doctors say it must have been stress. I cannot believe I was suffering from stress so extreme that it would manifest itself in such a way, but . . .

Years go by before I can reflect on that night at church. It was a turning point in my search for truth. It was the night when a life-changing decision was made. It was the night when my Lord showed me His will. For the past several days I had been praying—no, begging—the Lord to show me that the church into which I had been born, and loved with a passion, was His true church, and that the Book of Mormon was His word to the people of this continent. Above all I wanted to know the real truth. In my heart, though, I feared I already knew His answer. But it was very painful to me, and loomed large in my life. I was so afraid of making a mistake that I was consumed by what I felt God was confirming to me. That night I had begged the Lord to show me that the RLDS church was right. I had wanted Him to use a child to tell me that my church was His church, and to stick with the beliefs I had relied on all my life. But that night all I heard instead was a deafening silence. That night I had a seizure.

I was sixth generation RLDS. An ancestor of mine was killed at Haun’s Mill when a mob of angry Missourians hunted down Mormons, killing several men and young boys as well. As I grew up I was proud of the fact that I had such a strong heritage in my church. It was who I was, my identiy. I was born into a church that was ordained by God as the only church on the face of the earth with which He was well pleased. I was amazed that of all the people on planet earth God chose me to be a part of His movement in this time and place. During my teen years I had many experiences that I felt had confirmed the rightness of my church. At camps and reunions my faith would be renewed, and I would return home with a stronger faith. At times, however, during these years I remember being upset by what I considered hypocrisy in the church and among the priesthood. I remember thinking, “Why does the church make everything so difficult. Isn’t the gospel all about Jesus, and only Jesus?” But I put those thoughts on hold as I graduated from high school, began college, and got married.

Marriage made me rethink how I felt about my church. The young man to whom I was engaged was not a member of my church. I prayed about this, as I was afraid that my marriage to him would show God that I was “weak in the faith.” I felt God answered my prayers by telling me not to worry about Paul. That he would be baptized, and even be called into the priesthood. Based on what I felt the Lord was telling me I went ahead with our marriage plans. Sure enough, a few short weeks after our marriage, Paul was baptized into my beloved church. My family opened their arms to receive him in ways that they had not before. Time passed. We had many ups and downs in our lives and in our marriage. I went though a period where I rebelled against the church that I had known so well, and stopped attending altogether. However, the one thing I always knew in my heart was that the church was waiting for me whenever I was ready to embrace it again. I knew the day would come, but I was busy finding out what adulthood was like.

Paul and I were experiencing problems in our marriage. We were on the verge of separating. We connected with a priesthood member who was kind enough to give us marriage counseling. During one of these sessions I was asked to leave the room so that the counselor could talk to Paul alone. I was feeling distraught and very alone. I wandered outside and stood under a huge tree that had several trunks coming out of the ground. I stood in the middle of those trunks and poured out my heart to God. My heart was breaking, but in the midst of it all I felt like God was putting His hands on my head. For a few minutes I could feel the amazing love that God had for me. I was filled with awe and newfound hope. I couldn’t understand why God would stoop to help me when I had turned my back on him. All I knew was that I wanted to change my life. I wanted to live for Him. And I was never the same. After that night Paul and I miraculously began to work on our relationship, and we began by going back to church. Healing took place. We wanted a fresh start so we decided to move to San Francisco after Paul graduated from college.

We became very involved with the small RLDS church in San Francisco. Soon we were leaders in the congregation. Paul was ordained to the office of priest, and less than a year later to the office of elder. Very soon after his ordination to the office of elder he became pastor of that small congregation in San Francisco. For four years we dealt with street people. I had never met a drug addict or a homeless person, but now we were helping others who had tremendous problems in their lives. On one occasion I even had my life threatened by a drug dealer who was upset with me for helping his girlfriend turn her life around. We had some success, and the Stake leadership took note. We were being groomed to become full time church “appointees.” I felt like God was answering our prayers. God was answering our prayers—just not in the way I thought he should.

We did not become full time appointees in the RLDS church. Instead we became active in Stake leadership. We also began studying the church’s “scriptures.” The more we studied the more fundamental we became. We were looking for truth and when we found it we tried to live it. However, the more of this “truth” we discovered the less joy we had in our lives. We wanted to live our lives for God, but we were in bondage to RLDS doctrine. Finally, we found that our study was taking us to a place we did not expect. We were finding out about changed scripture, cover-ups, secret meetings, and deceptions. How could this be? We wanted to prove these things wrong, and thought that if we just kept looking we would ultimately find the truth. Instead, we found more lies and deceit. We began discarding beliefs, feeling that if we could go back far enough in Joseph Smith’s story we would find God’s truth, the bedrock of “restoration” faith.

For some reason, about the same time we began to see problems with the Doctrine and Covenants we picked up a book called God’s Smuggler by Brother Andrew. While on vacation I decided to read this book out loud to Paul and our son while we were traveling in the car. I was awed by the miracles Brother Andrew wrote about. How could this be? I thought. Here is a man who does not belong to my church yet he is experiencing God’s movement in his life in very dramatic and awesome ways. We read about how Brother Andrew risked his life to take the Bible to places where merely possessing one could put you in prison, even get you killed. This book opened the door for me to believe that God was working with other Christians around the world. When I looked honestly at my church I did not see that kind of fruit displayed. I needed to find out why.

I remember reading all the time. I was looking at the history of the church and accounts of Joseph Smith. I read and reread his accounts of his first vision. And I saw many inconsistencies. I began to read books that were critical of Joseph. Paul and I researched many books—books we would not have even looked at before we embarked on this journey of discovery. I remember Paul describing our new found way of studying like this: “It’s like you’re in a small dark room with a table in the center piled with books. You are told that these are the only books you can trust. They are the three books of RLDS scripture, plus other books written by trusted authors of the church. You have been told that all other books contain lies and will deceive you. When you open the door to that room—even a crack—light begins to filter in. But when you step outside that room, you begin considering what other people have to say about Joseph Smith Jr. Could they be right? Once you consider that possibility you are on your way to leaving the room altogether, to explore a more accurate picture of the RLDS church and its founder.” Joseph Smith did a very good job anticipating these kinds of assaults. He said that his enemies would discredit and lie about him out of evil intent. I had been so conditioned by this teaching that I refused to listen to or read anything that spoke evil of Joseph. And if I did hear something negative I would chalk it up to Joseph’s enemies trying to tear him down so that I would loose faith. But God slowly opened the door to that closed, dark little room, and began moving faster as he exposed its darkness, bringing me into the light of understanding.

I found the truth. When I had my seizure at church that night I knew in my heart that God’s silence was confirming what I already knew to be true. Joseph Smith Jr. was a false prophet who had started a cult. All the books he had written claiming to be scripture were false. I had been lied to all my life. And I could not stay in a church I now knew to be false.

A few months later, Paul and I attended a Baptist church on Sunday morning. The Sunday before had been our last Sunday at our Restoration Branch church. Paul had been the pastor up until just the week before, and we had now ventured out into a whole new world. It seemed very strange, a little scary, and yet I was at peace. For the first time in years I felt joy. The Baptist church did things differently, and there were new faces. People were friendly, but often did not know how to handle the fact that we used to be RLDS. We attended Sunday school, and many of the other events that were happening at the church. When it came time for Vacation Bible School that next summer I volunteered to help. I don’t remember the theme for the week, or whom I was helping. I do remember I was working with preschool children around the age of four. At one point a child asked me a very simple question. “What happens when you die?” I opened my mouth to answer and realized that I did not know the answer to that question. I almost broke down in tears. Such a simple question, yet I did not know the answer because I could not trust what I had learned as a child. I had learned about three glories, and how only those who were members of the RLDS church would go to the highest heaven. What could I say to this child?

We now knew what was false and we had the basics when it came to the truth. I found that the gospel was all about Jesus. It WAS simple. It was exciting. It was about God’s love and His grace. I had never understood grace before. I now saw that God had reached down from heaven to set me free from the bondage of a corrupt church. The journey to replace false teachings with the truth began with my heart. Grace replaced legalism. I spent time just trying to figure out what my new relationship God was all about. I spent time learning the Bible, not filtered by other books of so-called “scripture.” While there was great joy, there was also grieving. I grieved for the loss of family and friends. I grieved for the death of my beliefs, and I grieved for lost time. But God restored all that I had lost—plus some. His marvelous spirit healed and brought great joy. It has not always been a smooth and pleasant journey, but with the grace of God it has been exciting. And even in dark times it’s been joyful.

Freedom! Freedom! Freedom! Paul and I moved to Pasadena where Paul went to seminary. It was a time of learning for both of us. We very much wanted to replace the poison we had been fed with the good, wholesome food of the Bible and of the living Jesus. We wanted to look very closely at Christianity and learn Biblical doctrine. We attended many different kinds of churches and denominations, always comparing their beliefs to the Bible. We found that there is no such thing as the perfect church, but there is a perfect God. I no longer serve out of a sense of obligation but rather a sense that I want to give back to God for all His love. Wow! God is good!

You can send an email to Leslie at contactus@help4rlds.com.