Suzi,

Your explanation of Mormonism is very good and your warning of the use of the same names is exactly correct.  I have lived in Northern Utah and Southern Idaho for the last five years. (though have never been mormon) The trend is going more towards trying to convince the world that they are just another branch of Christianity.

Most Mormons are like most Christians in that though they may warm the bench on Sunday and understand a couple brief ideas, they really do not understand how  it is that the tenants of their proposed beliefs match up with or not, the Bible .  Most Mormons are "nice" people, they have (at least outwardly) good family values, the problem really is that they are just people and they don't know God...they know a god, but not The God.

We as believers tend to want to tell people that Jesus died for our sins so we could live better lives instead of the truth, which is that Jesus died for our sins so that we could be with Him in heaven when we pass from this world.  The alternative is hell, not another level of heaven that you can be prayed out of.  Most pastors have gotten away from the fire and brimstone messages afraid they will alienate people, so people do not see the need to have a God to save them.

The very message of salvation is one of being saved from something..that something is hell, and that message needs to be gotten out.

Sorry for digressing, mostly I just wanted to back you up on your statements about what Mormons believe and that it IS NOT what professing Christians believe.

YSIC,
Jill