My name is Timothy Ryan O'Keefe, and I was born in Bellevue, Washington on March 14, 1983. I was a member of the LDS church from then until 1997, when I had my name taken off their rolls. We have always been very religion oriented in my family, seeking after the truth. And there were lots of things that we wondered about in the LDS. We knew that two large principles, consecration and polygamy, were practiced by the LDS church up until the late 1800's. These were also practiced in the Bible. So why has the LDS changed these principles? Well, Wilford Woodruff discontinued polygamy in 1890 so that Utah could join the United States. Besides that, several temple ordinances, and other ordinances have been altered or even discontinued.

In my family, we moved around quite a bit. But I think that one of the major changes in my life was Moapa, Nevada, from about 1992 to 1995. There, my father began becoming involved quite a deal with the constitutional movement, trying to restore the constitution to it's original point. In Moapa, we also tried to work on becoming self-sufficient. We home schooled, we raised chickens, goats, and other farm animals. All in all, we tried to become self-sufficient. By mid 1995 though, my mother was frustrated with home schooling, our landlord was about to let someone new on the property, and we had all basically become bored with the settings. So we moved to the other side of Las Vegas, to a little town called Pahrump, and me and my brother and sister were put back in public school.

Little did I know it, but my father had lost confidence in the LDS church, and was being discouraged with the constitutional movement, because no one really cared what happened to the country, as long as they had food, video games, and were able to hang out with their friends. So when my mother came across the TLC homepage, of which she and my father had heard of in the past, she began emailing one of the members and finding out information about it. So, just why did we lose faith in the LDS? Because "they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant," as found in Isaiah chapter 24 verse 5.

You may ask just how they did that. Well, Wilford Woodruff started it by abolishing polygamy. And since then the LDS church has continually gone downhill from it's starting point to the point where it is today. And why have they done this thing? For the sake of popularity. Yes, the LDS church's ten million members worldwide is quite an accomplishment. But that doesn't mean a thing if they can't establish Zion--if they can't, at Christ's coming, say that they held up His standard.

So if the LDS at one time had the true gospel, but no longer worship God, what will become of them? They will be destroyed. For God shall exact vengeance starting from His own house, his own people (D&C 112:23-26). And the hypocrites will be destroyed. So, if the LDS church isn't the true church, then what is? Well, that's what my family, all except me, set out to find. So after the last week of school was out, they came up here to Manti, Utah, to watch the models that Jim Harmston was giving. And they all became members fairly soon after. Now me on the other hand, I resisted quite a bit. Not because I still believed the LDS, but because of a couple doctrines that the TLC upheld.

It was the beginning of June 1997 when they came up here. In the beginning of November last year, me and my dad came up here, for my brother, sister, and mother were already here. I wasn't at all open to this work. But then, in August, I had a strange dream. If you've had one of those continuing dreams ever, where you'll have five or six dreams over the course of the same number of months, this should be fairly easy to explain. I had about that many dreams, about me being on a jet liner. Also on board were all the TLC members, and we were getting off the ground, and I was watching the cities and towns below getting destroyed by God, but I knew that I didn't really belong on the airplane because I wasn't even baptized. So on that August night, I decided that I would pray to know the truth, whether or not the TLC was God's restored church on Earth. Then, the aforementioned dream happened. I don't remember exactly what happened in that dream, but it somehow linked the other dreams together like a chain. Even then I wasn't sure the church was true, so I prayed quite a deal more. It was about a month more though before the spirit witnessed to me in church of the truthfulness of Jim's words, of this gathering being God's restored church.

All I want you to do is read these web pages, and pray about them with a willing heart. Just have in your mind that this could be true. As it says in Alma 32:28:

"Now we will compare the word unto a seed. Now, if ye give place, that a seed may be planted in your heart, behold, if it be a true seed, or a good seed, ... it will begin to swell within your breasts; and when you feel these swelling motions, ye will begin to say within yourselves--It must needs be that this is a good seed, or that the word is good, for it beginneth to enlarge my soul; yea, it beginneth to enlighten my understanding, yea, it beginneth to be delicious to me."

So pray. Pray and ponder about these things to understand them. And if you are a part of the elect of Israel, come here to Manti, and be saved up at the last as member of the Kingdom of God. I bear unto you my witness of the truthfulness of these things, that they are the true things, that Jim Harmston is the person appointed to hold the keys of the priesthood in this last dispensation, that this is the true gathering place for the elect of Israel, and that if you will but ponder and seek after these things with an open mind and a willing heart, the spirit will bear the witness to you, and you will know of a surety that they are the true things. And I say these things in the name of God's son, Jesus Christ, Amen.

Timothy Ryan O'Keefe