I’ve heard over the years while in ministry there are nine distinct versions of Joseph Smith’s first vision, but after studying and researching this topic extensively, I’m not so sure about that number. His duplicitous nature still boggles my mind. Most assuredly, the pain in my heart is also for those who are still stuck in the web of lies this guy spun. As I’ve grown in the Lord the grief isn’t about what I lost in believing Mormonism, but what I was doing to separate myself from God. Even today, some twenty years after learning about his involvement, my heart is broken. While Jesus dying for us is/was an important facet of LDS doctrine, these things aren’t focused upon as much as Joseph’s sacrifice, and persecutions in those early days of Mormonism.įor me personally, the worst part of his lies was learning how deeply involved he was in witchcraft and the occult. Nothing in our lifetime could equate to the persecution he most certainly went through at least that’s what you’re taught and programmed to believe. When someone is born and raised in Utah Mormonism, there is a deep loyalty for Joseph Smith and what he went through to institute the “one true church on the face of the earth”. While there were a handful of questions in my mind when I left Mormonism, it never dawned on me just how many contradictions there were, or the vastness and totality of what he’d done. It wasn’t until after I got out of the Church that I learned about the contradictions in Smith’s story. What I wasn’t taught in those early impressionable years, is my focus here today. The horror I felt in my body was something I can still feel just as I did 50+ years ago. One of my first memories in life was sitting in my ward building learning for the first time Joseph Smith was tarred and feathered in 1832 just because he told people about the vision he had.