The Long Road to How I Got Here

1984

My very first introduction to the Church happend when I was about ten years old. My 15 year old sister went on a drinking binge with her friends, and when she was dropped off at home she wasn't breathing and her heart had stopped. My mom performed CPR until the ambulance arrived. While my dad was in the ER waiting room, he was approached by a group of Mormons who were there waiting to for a youth who had broken his leg during a baseball game. They offered to pray with him, and gave him a copy of The Book of Mormon. He was soon meeting with the missionaries.



I remember sitting in on at least one of the missionary lessons. I don't remember the lesson, but they let me ask a question when it was over. I asked if there were people who lived on other planets. I'm sure my Dad was rolling his eyes at my question, but the missionaries were very kind. They told me that they did believe there were people who lived on other planets, and that they were children of Heavenly Father too.



My Dad later told me that he read The Book of Mormon three times before he was baptized. He felt like he had "finally found the truth". I was there when he was baptized, and I remember parts of it quite vividly. I remember the white polyester jumpsuit he wore. I remember him being immersed, and I remember the laying on of hands when he received the Holy Ghost. He also told me later that he "saw blue light" during his confirmation. All in all, he had a PROFOUND experience.



My Mom was not happy with any of these choices my Dad had made, but she did go to church with him once. I went too, and remember a few things about it. I remember when the Sacrament was passed, and my Dad was VERY adament that I not take it. I rember the lesson in Sunday School. We learned about how Brigham Young was chosen to be the Prophet after Joseph Smith was killed. I was very impressed by that story.



After that I'm not exactly sure what happend. My Dad became inactive, and eventually requested that his name be removed from the Church rolls, which means he was excommunicated. My grandparents gave us anti-Mormon books, The God Makers was one that I read, so I'm sure they had something to do with my Dad leaving the Church. Later, he told me that The Salamander Letters had a negative influence on him, but he had no idea that those turned out to be forgeries.



1994 - 2000

When I was in college, my next door neighbor, Shari was an inactive memeber of the Church. She introduced me to her friend, Michael, who eventually sent me a copy of The Book of Mormon. I wanted a copy without having missionaries show up on my doorstep.

2002-2003
I read part of The Book of Mormon. I made it about halfway through the book of Alma.



2004

I belong to an online email mommy group where I met Venita. Her 6th child, Christian, died when he was 13 months old. He had a congenital brain abnormality that caused fluid to build up around his brain. By the time anyone realized what was wrong, it was too late. Venita mentioned that her husband had given her a blessing that gave her some comfort. When I read that message I had a very strong urge to find out about this blessing. I didn't want to upset Venita by asking about it, but I just had to ask. The second I hit "send" I regretted it. Well, Venita had me call her, and she read the very long blessing to me through her tears. The condensed version is that Christian's life was so short "to remind people that Christ exists for them, to be a light unto peopleand bring them to Christ." Venita wanted me to go back to church, any church was fine, but she wanted my to learn more about her church as well.

I found the Gospel Principles book online at LDS.org, and I started reading it. I continued my study on and off for a while.

August 2006
I was on a Mormon kick, and I'd been reading some interesting books that could definitely be classified as anti-Mormon. I was in the middle of one that I really wasn't enjoying at all, something about it really made my skin crawl. Someone rang the doorbell, and there stood two LDS missionaries. My heart just about leapt out of my throat! They asked if I had read The Book of Mormon, and I told them that I'd read some of it and I owned a copy. They were a little surprised by that. They asked if they could present a lesson, and I said "yes". My husband was out of the country for a week, and I took that as an opportunity to take my kids to church and have 2-3 lessons. I ADORED going to the LDS church. I couldn't believe how welcome I felt. Wrangling Elijah (14 months) on the front row wasn't great, but the people were.

Pete came home from Mexico, and I admitted what I had done. He was livid. All of my experiences fell flat when I tried to explain them to him. I asked if I could attend for a month to see if I still liked it, but he asked that I not. He was afraid he would lose me to this "Mormon cult". He didn't out and out ban me, so I took the kids one more time. We went for the entire 3 hours that time. After that I decided it was too big of a strain on our marriage.

Summer 2007
The missionaries again knock on my door, and I explain that my husband wants me to have nothing to do with the church.

Sept 2007
I found out about something that Pete did, and I decided he no longer had the authority to decide where I did or didn't go to church. I was so upset and hurt that I took my kids back to the LDS church purely out of spite. The wards who meet in the building had swapped times, and I actually attended the wrong ward. Everyone was just as welcoming as they'd been the year before. I started attending regularly (with the correct ward, lol) at that time. The missionaries (one remembered me from knocking on my door a month or so earlier) weren't quite sure what to do with me, and just left me alone for a while. I finally decided that it was time to continue the discussions, and I talked to the missionaries sometime in November.