My Foundational Advice for Investigators

If you are serious about trying to reach an understanding of Mormonism, you should be considering everything with an open heart AND mind and praying sincerely to the Father in the name of the Son to feel the confirmation of the Holy Ghost - so you have your own personal prophecy / witness from God. It really isn't much more complicated than that. If you sincerely believe God is telling you to accept Mormonism as restored Christianity (as the closest thing we can get to what Jesus himself actually taught), you have an obligation to act on that; if you sincerely believe God is telling you NOT to accept Mormonism as restored Christianity (as the closest thing we can get to what Jesus himself actually taught), you have an obligation to act on that, as well. It's between you and God, and it's up to you to act according to your own inspiration / prophecy / direction from God.

My only advice:

Try to set aside all previous interpretations and give our beliefs the benefit of the doubt. Too often, people with whom I have discussed these things can't get past what they have been taught in other denominations, even when it seems clear from a simple parsing of the Bible itself that those teachings aren't in harmony with the words of Jesus himself. That is true especially of evangelical denominations.

My standard is simple:

When dealing with the Bible, ALWAYS grant top priority to the words of Jesus. Interpret EVERYTHING else through the lens of his words. For example, if there seems to be a discrepancy between what Jesus says in the Gospels and what a prophet or apostle or disciple or early Christian father says, Jesus wins - EVERY TIME, regardless. If there is a discrepancy between what a NT prophet or apostle says and what an early Christian father says, the NT prophet or apostle wins - EVERY TIME, regardless. If you do that honestly and scrupulously, I believe you will see that the teachings of "The Restoration" are aligned very well with the original teachings of Jesus, slightly less well with the teachings of Paul, slightly less well with the teachings of some of the most influential early Christian fathers, not all that well with most of the Protestant reformers and not well at all with most 19th, 20th and 21st Century Protestant ministers.