DIARY III OF BRENT

04/04-
WEEK 14, DAY 3-MONDAY





WE left after midnight last night and stayed at a Best Western in Lansing. This morning we ate a good breakfast there (scrambled eggs, hash browns, bacon, orange juice, doughnuts) and swam in the pool.



If Mark didn’t have a modeling appointment we would be on our way to Kirtland right now. As it is, we’re going to Turtle Lake for about four hours.



Right now, we are in Battle Creek, or around



there.



It is 11:30 a.m.



Saturday or early Sunday Pope John Paul II died.



We are getting gas.



Now we’re back on the road.



2:16 p.m.



We arrived at Turtle Lake, a nudist camp,  around 12. We swam, played ping-pong, and pool, walked to the beach, and met Jon-Marc.



Now we’re leaving..



I am sitting in the car waiting for Mark to come out of the office. Before we came to Turtle Lake we stopped at a gas station so Mark could ask. directions. I picked up a NIV New Testament.



3:32p.m.



IN ORDER: NUMBERS 22



3:55p.m.



We’re in Ann Arbor. Mark needs to go to Kinko’s to deliver a message



Something about buying Brian’s house.



Last night we went through East Lansing, and right by the state capital.



3:59p.m.



We’re at Kinko’s.





4:16 p.m.



Leaving Kinko’s. Mark faxed something.



5:25p.m.



At Henry Ford University for Mark’s modeling appointment.



We went to Border’s . I got the Episode III Storybook, which I just read, and the junior novelization of Episode III.



(PAGE 24)(PAGE +53+)

SUMMER OF THIS YEAR, AFTER A VISIT TO THE KIRTLAND TEMPLE AND ALSO TO THE KIRTLAND RESTORATION BRANCH IN KIRTLAND, OHIO (PUT UNDER AUGUST)



Extracts from an e-mail I sent to Jason Webster after returning to Michigan from my second trip to the Kirtland Temple.

Good evening Jason, it's Brent.....But in October of 1999, I, in a rudimentary way that I guess started it all, found Jesus.



Of course I wasn’t saved yet. I’m still not. Only he who endures to the end is saved. But at least I was calling myself that popular buzzword Christian. And trying to change my life. I didn’t even know who Joseph Smith was and I really was clueless about the endowed priesthood which has NOTHING to do with Mormon temple endowment.



In about 2000, a year before my mother died and two years before I graduated high school, my uncle (dad’s brother) Mark, whom I really didn’t know at the time, introduced me to the Fullness of the Gospel.

[…..][Sa]tan used my dad to turn me away from my uncle and caused me to reject the things I had only half believed in. In 2001 (I believe) I joined what was then known as Greater Zion Hill Bible Church.



Then it was called just Zion Hill Bible Church, then, in what I feel was a rigged election , the name was changed to the R.O.C. It was the church I was dunked in, which has absolutely no significance whatsoever. The church was nondenominatioal, which is oxymoronic if you think about it. There was only one good thing that came out of becoming a member of this wicked church (no it wasn’t a cult) and that was Tameeka. (In the Zion Hill Bible Church I met a woman, a Prophetess, named Tameeka Newell.)

I would always go to see her in the back row of pews after service and she’d be glad to see me and give me a hug. She’d warn me to praise God, not her. She was quick to admonish and to prophesy. This was a woman of God. She testified to me when we met. Told me how she had sinned and how[…..]......….. she had struggled with the demons that resulted from her sinning. Now here is the thing I cannot get out of my head, and I have been leading up to, and matters most in my testimony. She prophesied to me once that I would be part of a high priesthood.⁶ I have wondered if that means I will be endowed when Jesus endows his priesthood to go out into the world during the time of Zion.  She is one of those people that don’ t believe in Joseph Smith as a true prophet but if it was revealed to her that he was (which by faith I think it has by now.)  I believe that if she were to be told of the Restored Gospel now she would accept it completely. She is a true servant of God who left the so-called Zion Hill church with no explanation as to why she left. Maybe she discerned the little hints of false doctrine in Pastor Martin’s profanity (minor like da-- and he--) laced sermons. Maybe she became a believer in the true church. Well, she was a prophetess, and gave me by the Spirit of God prophetic messages and scripture for me to read. She also had the gift of tongues but she only did it once or twice. Everyone else that did it went on and on for no one‘s benefit, there being no interpreter. (I did not understand the concept of having a personal prayer language back then).



( P A G E +67+ )










In 2001 (I believe) I



[…..]



I feel I am growing spiritually but I lack much, including the most important requirement of attaining Celestial glory;



Baptism by water for the remission of sins by true authority.



Before I go on I want to testify to you as you have testified to Mark. I read your testimony; the three dreams you had.





In 2002 I saw a sermon by Charles Stanley about obedience to God. I walked around a grocery store (as Maggie Savoie ministered to the children), around and around, preaching the result of three days or so of following God completely.⁷,⁸

(At that police station, while I was in a holding cell, I heard a man reading my original 4th Diary I kept in my Freshman year (now burned), which I had brought with me with a valentine from my high school classmates and some other few things I had carried to a grocery store with me,  and  someone was reading about what I thought of my long time crush Maggie, to Maggie, who had come to visit me at the police station, and as he read me describing her as 'cute,' she laughed in girlish delight. Then the slat opened on the cell door and Maggie's hair, the back of her head was seen, and Maggie clucked her tongue twice and hummed seductively, then the slat closed. Maggie herself had been called into the police station and that she had showed her hair to me was after a cop had been reading her a diary entry I had written about her calling her cute. This is what I referred to when I told Jason Webster in the email I sent to him in 2005 when I said someone appeared at the police station that strengthened my faith, and I also referred to this in my email. I also believed delusionally because of satan that one day soon I would have a total recollection of my past with Maggie⁹ that was then blocked from my memory. There is a lot of true history in the email, , and I also didn’t have it half so bad as I made it sound at that Adult Foster Care Home. -B.L.S. 08-12-019 10:41:37 AM CST-2 minor revisions at 10:42 AM)

(1. My delusions are not true.

2. Some of the above facts about reality may have been delusional.

3. None of that matters now because Maggie is a married woman.)

Dad had kicked me out of his house.





I ended up moving into an AFC home where they made me clean the bathroom every day, [some of] the food was disgusting, and people went around stealing things from everyone. I had to spend an entire year in bondage. I wanted out, and I worked for it. I also prayed for it and asked my sister, who had just become a Christian, but not a believer in the true church, to pray. I believe it was her fervent prayers, for she prays mightily, that got me out of that awful place.



My Grandpa, who was part of the priesthood of what is now called Community of Christ (I went to that church a lot growing up, and never once thought of it as different from any other church) died in August of 2003. My sister (half[-] sister actually-my dad remarried a few years after he divorced my biological mother and had my sister),once experime[nt]ing with Wicca, made friends who were Believers who invited her to Youth Group at her church. She started going, but did not become a Believer until she prayed for confirmation that it was all true. One night she had a dream where she saw Grandpa and he talked with her. When she woke up she forgot most of what he said but in that same day began to give her life to Jesus. I know not



whether she is



( PAGE +68+)



doing 100% of what she knows to do. That is for God to judge. But I know she is a beautiful person inside.



As I mentioned before, I had rejected the fullness of the Gospel. I thought it was cultish. In 2004 thanks largely to my half-sister‘s prayers and to God I moved to Grandma‘s. Since I was now 20 I was out of my dad’s jurisdiction. Mark tried to get me to read a book he wrote, containing his testimony, about Zion called The Continual Creation Story of the Author Over the phone I told him I would read the book. So I started reading it, thinking it would be full of lies. I found some things I didn‘t agree with, but I kept on reading. As I read Mark talked to me and answered questions and wrote me letters, but those letters were filled with a heresey called Christian Naturism, or Nudism, which he referred to as "The truth of the body". I gradually came to the faith, But I was still going to the R.O.C.



I left on this wise:



The Pastor wanted power and money, envisioning owning a private jet plane.



Pastor Martin divided the members into male and female clubs .



The men were called Sons of Thunder.



The women, Daughters of Zion.



Attendance was required.





Each member was required to pay 10.00 in dues per month , in addition to tithes and offering.



That was the last straw. The pastor was filthy rich. He could afford $400-a seat skybox Pistons tickets at the Palace.¹⁰ One for each Sons of Thunder member.



In the van the Deacons were discussing how much fun they had at a casino.



Earlier I said it‘s not a cult, but maybe I got out just in time!



Finally, the end, but just the beginning...



Mark took me to the Oakwood Restoration branch of Jesus Christ and I stopped going to the R.O.C.



Twice Mark took me to the Kirtland Temple



and once to the Kirtland Restoration Group, where I met you.



In closing, I ask for you to pray that I may be baptized properly by true authority. I feel I am ready to repent and enter the waters of baptism.



I wish to better be able to do the will of my Father in heaven, to put aside the old man and put on the new through Christ Jesus.



Brent Lee Sohlden Koivopolo Jones V



____________________________________________________



⁶ She said "higher priesthood", not high priesthood.





⁷ On one of those days of obedience, I was about to read the book ‘3 From Galilee’ when God told me( or I told myself, one of the two) that I had the choice between doing that or watching The Empire Strikes Back, which I owned also at the time, and I chose ESB and once again started to, from that point on, become enamoured with Star Wars again and off again then on, then on again, etc., until I finally accepted my destiny,. It was God that gave me the revelation ‘You have a choice.’
The very first revelation I ever remember receiving is after the public schools, around pre-k to kindergarten to second grade, lied to me when I was a child and told me the sun was a star, He told me back then as a child ‘Your heart is a star.’ I still believe it.-B.L.S. 8/12/19 9:59:24 AM)



⁸ I made a mistake by attempting to preach without the power of God behind it. I was apprehended by the police. At the station I saw someone who strengthened my faith but that ties in to my school days and my future, which I mentioned earlier. (This was Maggie)



⁹ This paragraph refers to my Maggie total recall beliefs.



¹⁰ A sports/concert venue called the Palace of Auburn Hills

Location: Joy and her husband's house, Oak Grove MO.

08/18-
WEEK 34, DAY 6-THURSDAY





I had a wonderful dream! It followed my ups and downs-sometimes I would disobey God, sometimes I would obey Him. I worked at Taco Bell. In the beginning of the dream I had a message to give to people from the Lord and I feared to bring it. The more I followed God's commands, the more I was blessed. Near the end of the dream, my uncle Mark, me and some others saw Jesus. Radiant light shone from him. I asked if he would touch me. He did. When he did, I felt warm burning all over and Jesus said, Thy sins be forgiven thee. Then He told us all to tap the table ten times. We all did, though Mark waited a while, then tapped it an eleventh time.



Brent Lee Sohlden Koivopolo

Love is sacrifice.

                                  2006

05/14-
WEEK 20, DAY 1-SABAOTH-SUNDAY-LORD’S DAY



After first baptism and first confirmation:



Dream: I was running thru the woods following an orange glow that I knew to be the Holy Ghost. I saw Jesus descending and when He had touched down I ran around Him in circles trying to reach Him, but couldn't. I cried out to Him in anguish,



"Jesus!



Jesus!"



Then I was able to reach Him. He put His hands on my shoulders and told me He told me He loved me and said something else, which I do not remember. When I woke up I felt a big bead of sweat on my brow as if it had been blood.

(Joy told me the interpretation that what Jesus said to me was that there were some things that I had to change about my life.-B.L.S. 10/17/2018)

12/27-
WEEK 52, DAY 4-WEDNEDSAY



To prepare me for the time when we will not have cars anymore, I have been taking a lot of long walks lately. Today it was a little more than eight miles. Before that it was about five miles. I have been taking these walks with my cousin Nathaniel.

Not too long after I first got to the land of Zion in the tenth month Anno Domini two thousand and five a miracle happened while my three cousins and I were on a walk: Nathaniel and Nephi got hit by a car and received no real injuries, save that Nephi got a scratched finger. I believe angels were protecting us.



Tonight we are going to prayer and testimony service at Israel’s Gathering.

On the thirty and first day of this month, Alexis, Storm, and Kyra will be baptized at our church. On the twenty and first day of the first month Anno Domini two thousand seven, there will be a worship service sponsored by the Joint Conference of Restoration Branches entitled, The Great And Marvelous Work: Testimonies From The Field. Brother Gary will be there. On the twenty and third and the twenty and fourth days of the second month Anno Domini two thousand and seven will be the Winter Gathering. And on April fourth through the eighth two thousand and seven, the third annual Joint Conference of Restoration Branches will take place, event I am looking forward to most of all, where the Voice of the People will be heard once again. Something exciting is happening with the church and I want to be a part of it.



Praise be to the Lion of Judah, the King of Heaven, whose name is above all other names, whose years never fail, even Jesus Christ, the Eternal God!

Bless His holy name forever!



Lord my love for You knows no bounds!

But my sins separate me from You!

O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from this body of death!

How can I be counted worthy enough to sing Your praises?

It is because of Your mercy, O Lord.

Thank You, Lord for your mercy toward me all the days of my life.

In Jesus’ name, Amen.



Lord, you have warned me that satan desires to destroy me, both body and soul.

Rebuke the devourer for my sake, Lord.

Stand by me in this evil day.

Be thou my Shield.

Help me to withstand the temptations of the flesh!

Keep the vision You gave me etched within my memory!

I am calling out to Thee Jesus!

Help me, O Lord!





Protect and hide me under Your wings as a mother hen.

In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.



Lord, bless us all exceedingly and abundantly at prayer and testimony service tonight, above and beyond what we could hope or expect.



I pray this in Your Son’s most Holy and Precious name, even Jesus the Christ, Amen.



Now I shall continue to read the prophet Jeremiah.



It is later. The Lord answered my prayer. Hubert and Barbara Smith, who had been a long time absent, were there. There was life in the prayers of each one who prayed. Brother David asked to join our congregation, and we welcomed him.



Dear Lord, show young Christopher the value of his life, and persuade him not to take it! Bring him to your Gospel and help him to be baptized into Thy body. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.



On the radio program, ‘Back To The Bible’, I learned that we need to constantly seek for new challenges from the story of Caleb, even in his old age, asking for his inheritance among the Anakim, the sons of Anak, which were giants that had not been driven out of the promised land. I also learned to always be generous from the story of Barzillai the Gileadite in Second Samuel, seventeenth chapter, twenty and seventh thru twenty and ninth verses.

                                                   2009
07/01-
WEDNESDAY

This blessing from Sister Melanie was in answer to my silent prayers and most deep and secret petitions unto God :



You are blest. I want to be around people like you. You are a beautiful spark of motivation. May the Lord God bless you from the crown of your head to the soles of your feet, may He place your feet in paths of gentle breeze. May your days reach a greatness of multitute. May you be blest with much seed in Zion. In Jesus' name.

10/13-
WEEK 45, DAY 6-DAY 3 OF THE WEEK-TUESDAY



I have noticed some good changes to my diet today.



For breakfast I had one packet of oatmeal and some milk.



For lunch I had a pb sandwich and some koolaid.



for a snack, an apple.



Funny how I haven’t learned how to eat right until I have reached the near end of my money and food supply. Perhaps that was necessary to teach me.



Actually, I have been making baby steps, a gradual series of good decisions concerning food for the past week or so. I love You, Lord! Lead me on to a place where the river runs into your keeping, O Jesus my Father and my Rock!

11/01-
LORD’S DAY-SABAOTH



Thank you so much O Lord YHWH! You have given me so much! Thank you for Dad’s help and the opportunities to visit and help out my Grandma Sohlden! You Lord are just so awesome!

I have trusted Thee and shall forever trust Thee! O Lord I long to return again to Zion singing a new song of everlasting joy!

O Lord turn the heart of my father and deliver me from those who seek my hurt! They continually lie in wait! I am as in the midst of a lions’ den alway.



O Lord Thou art merciful, and the truth is in You! You are my strength from day to day!



Praise Your Holy Name forever and ever. Amen.

                                                       2011


UNDATED- (PUT UNDER JANUARY)



This is not a dated journal or philosophy. This is my heart poured out in words that I do not want to keep in. I feel if I don't write what's on my heart I'll never express it adequately hereafter. Or it may be just an excuse to write, which is something I like to do. Whatever the case, I need to express myself and if I don't I might lose the chance.



I love my Dad. I want him to come to the Gospel. As well as my sister and my stepmother. Okay it says in the book of Mormon let all your thoughts be unto God, so I'm typing to the Lord.



O Lord, shall my father indeed rejoin the Church? The Gospel is so plain, and brings such happiness, even though it is not an easy thing to please the Lord. It takes work.



I am interested in truth, not as the world seeks worldly truth, but the reality of an everlasting God and His worldview, and the truth that leads to God, not false truth which pleases men or relativism which says there is no such thing as absolute truth. Christ is truth.



The search for truth takes work and a sanctified life. You cannot search for truth whilst your life is a river of filth. You must allow Christ to transform your life a little at a time. I admit that my house is messy. I came to it and it was a lot messier when I got here. I have gotten rid of lots of things that did pollute this house, but there is still much work to do. I have heard that it would be meet for me to figure out what pleases Christ and do it. My biggest problems are prioritizing and laziness. I need You O Lord God to transform my life from the mess that it is in to the intentional life I know You have for me O God. And soon.

Love is sacrifice.

05/24-

WEEK 27, DAY 4-DAY 3 OF THE WEEK-TUESDAY





I had called Grandma on the phone a few days before May 24. I told her I love her a million times a million. She told me she loves me a million times a million, a trillion times a trillion. I cried so much that day.



About two weeks before May 21, 2011, I gave Jolissa some Restoration Magazines to borrow. She returned them a few days later and said she liked them. On April 18, 2011 I had given Jolissa a Book of Mormon.

06/02-
WEEK 28, DAY 6-THURSDAY



The night before June 2 I had a beautiful dream where it seemed like holy men gave me good advice.

06/09-
WEEK 30-DAY 6-DAY 5 OF THE WEEK-THURSDAY


On Wednesday, June 8, Dad, my Aunt Linda (who lives in a group home) and I – and also Linda’s staff, who took her home before the service ended – attended a “prayer and testimony service” at the Clio Community of Christ in Vienna Township. I got some free books and met Larry Judd, who I told about the JCRB and gave him two websites: www.conferenceofbranches.org and www.reorganizedchurch.org.

After the service Dad discussed the details of the coming memorial service with the “elders” who would be in charge.

My free books were Joseph Smith III’s Memoirs, Presidency and Priesthood by William H. Kelley, a book on Astronomy, and Between the Covers of the Book of Mormon by Verda E. Bryant. Larry offered me a book with Veazy’s stamp of approval promoting the CoC but I politely said I didn’t want it.

06/29-
WEDNESDAY



At 2:16 a.m. I got up and started writing about Grandma's memorial service on June 12, 2011. I wrote thus:



Grandma Sohlden's memorial service was Sunday, June 12 at the Clio CoC on Vienna Road. It was a beautiful, Spirit-filled service. Grandma's sister, my Dad, my sister and I, Elaine Hanners, Debbie Darr and at least one other relative of mine (Elaine and Debbie are not relatives but members of the Vienna Rd. CoC that I have known for years when they went to the Westwood Congregation) got behind the pulpit and shared memories.



...[Before the service] [or after?] I help set up a display of photos and journals of Grandma's which members of the family looked at. The Old, Old Path. Oh how I desire our whole family to join the Restoration glorious! Being exposed to the CoC is better than nothing.

07/16-

SABBATH





After Dad took me to the library and I wrote in my journal I read from the Personal Writings of Joseph Smith, Jr. He truly translated the Book of Abraham. The Rosetta Stone had been discovered in 1822 but I'm not sure that's what he used. He was familiar with the translation of Egyptian. (Editor's Note: Although Joseph made a GAEL, or an Egyptian Character book, the vast majority of the Book of Abraham, after the first four or so verses, was translated by the gift and power of God. There were also holes in parts of the papyri that without the gift and power of God were untranslatable- B.L.S. 11/4/2015, 06/18/2016) Many RLDS reject the Book of Abraham. I do not. In 1835 Joseph mentions in his diary (at a time when he was translating the Egyptian records) that astronomy was unfolded to him.



Brent Lee Sohlden Koivopolo