Becoming part of the Mormon Church is a process that the Mormon missionaries will help guide you through.  But here are a few broad things to keep in mind.

Attending Church

You will probably want to attend church with the Mormon missionaries before you ask to be baptized.  Church attendance is an important part of Mormon life. 

You’ll want to make sure to be dressed formally for church (“Sunday dress) – in a suit or dress shirt and slacks if you’re male, in a dress or skirt and dress shirt if you’re female. 

The church services are once a week and may be longer than you’re used to – altogether, they are three hours long.  You won’t spend these three hours all in one place, however.  There are three meetings, each about an hour long.

Sacrament meeting is centered around taking the sacrament (sacred bread and water that represents the body and blood of Christ).  Following the sacrament, church members stand up at the pulpit and give prepared talks on various gospel topics.  The congregation remains respectfully and worshipfully quiet during Sacrament meeting.

In Sunday School, the lessons are given by a teacher, but the listeners are encouraged to participate – offer comments and experiences and ask questions. 

In the last meeting, the members of the Mormon Church split up into groups.  Young children attend Primary, teenagers attend Young Men or Young Women groups, and the adults attend either Priesthood meeting (if they are men) or Relief Society (if they are women). Priesthood meeting is split further – into Elders and High Priests.  Ask your missionaries which one you should attend.  Priesthood and Relief Society use the same lesson manual, although taught by different teachers.  Different activities are usually discussed, also.  The meetings are, besides a time to be taught, a time to come closer together as brothers and sisters.

Changing Habits

The Mormon missionary often challenges those they teach to be baptized at a certain point.  And before baptism, you will have to be free from certain kinds of habits and attitudes.  You will need, in short, to repent of your sins.  Repentance is a continual process – baptism will not make you perfect.  We all make mistakes after baptism.  But we can change ourselves to be closer to Christ and leave behind destructive or miserable habits and addictions.  Before baptism, we must rid ourselves of these things.

If you wish to be baptized, you must first give up any drug addictions you may have.  You must give up drinking and smoking.  Additionally, if you use tea and/or coffee, these must also be left behind.  Less physical, but more destructive is the addiction to pornography – this must and must be left behind.

When you join the Church, you must be willing to follow the Lord’s guidelines on marriage – there must be no extramarital sex of any kind.  And although those in the Church have understanding for the strength of same-sex attractions, these also must not be acted upon, but put aside.  Not all changes will be easy to make – in fact, some may be very difficult.  Repentance can be a struggle.  But it is necessary for salvation.

Baptism

Children are not baptized before the age of eight.  Mormons believe in being able to be accountable for your decisions.  Baptism is supposed to be a conscious and pondered decision.

If you have repented of your sins and put aside destructive habits, if you have a testimony of Christ and the truth of the gospel as presented by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, if you would be baptized, you will need to interview with a Mormon bishop.  This is to make certain you are ready.  And after that, you can be baptized as soon as you wish.

Mormon baptism is done by immersion – which is to say completely submerging the body of the baptized.  This symbolizes the burying of the sinful man or woman and coming up fresh and renewed – reborn.

After your baptism, you will receive the gift of the Holy Ghost through the laying on of hands.  This will confirm you a member.