I'm a "Mormon," Yes I am

As a child I listened to and sang the song, "I'm a Mormon," by Janeen Brady. It is set to a marching beat and made me proud to be a Mormon. Now I'm writing a YA novel about an ultra-conservative LDS family and I'm still proud to be a Mormon but am concerned that my novel will portray Mormons in a bad light. I've also noticed that most LDS or Mormon authors who are not writing strictly for the LDS market, try to keep their religious/cultural opinions and views off their author websites. Separation of church and state and not wanting to be preachy or cross a line. The first line in the song is "I'm a Mormon, yes I am. So if you want to study a Mormon, I'm a living specimen." I thought blogging about being a Mormon would help me convey simple truths about Mormons from a Mormon point of view and teach those who are interested what it means to be a Mormon, and when my book is published--after much hopeful wishes and diligence--these entries will answer questions from readers about the characters and situations in the novel.

First question: What is a Mormon?
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Answer: A Mormon is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Mormon is a term given to us because a book of scripture that we study is called, "The Book of Mormon, Another Testament of Jesus Christ," after a prophet who abridged and compiled many of the writings in that book. For a while, we tried to get away from the name Mormon because we wanted others to know that we follow Christ, that we are Christian, not followers of Mormon. We refer to ourselves as LDS: Latter-Day Saint, a Saint being someone who follows Christ through baptism. And latter-day because we follow the gospel and authority established by Jesus when he was on the earth, but now in the latter days. But since most of the world knows of us as Mormons, we go by that too.