hello everyone who reads this. i know my english and spelling are terrible so please, bare with me, hahaha. i was a very shy person ( and still am ) and i'm not very social at all. in fact i'm terrible at that as well; being social. i was living with my friend who was part of the church while i was living as an athiest. i wasn't sure if i believed in anything at all. before i was a believer, as a child. as a teenager i had rejected God and Jesus Christ swearing at them at the top of my lungs and cursed them both. thats when i started to go down hill. of course this is hind sight 20/20. i didnt see it then. as i grew up in the way of the world, my heart became hard and i was slowly becomeing and athiest wheather i knew it or not. i believed that there was something out there, as most of us do when we don't have a straight answer, and that this "god" was some floating formless being with no love for us or me. i figured the things intelligence was so great that it had no need for "human" affairs, i guess.
i lived a horrible meaningless existence through high school. thought i was invisible enough for no one to pick on me. of course i was wrong about that. i suffered through watching my brother take over the household as a drug dealer while my parents were at work, earning enough money for my brother and sister to take advantage of them. my parents are the most giving and wonderful people you could ever meet, but they as well, live in the way of the world. my dads a "6 pack a night person" and chews snuff and my mom is a smoker and a wine drinker. the only reason i picked up smoking was because of my friend and wanting so badly to fit in with some crowd or person. also my mom made it easy for me to have a pack whenever i wanted. and thanks to my siblings lies, they made it easy for me to blame them when she would find them missing. so at age 12 i began smoking and drinking. thankfully i still had a very strong sense of what was right and what was wrong so i didnt become an addict like my sister or an alcoholic like my brother. i had also had a weight problem my whole life so i was a very self conscious about my self. somewhere along the lines i developed an overwhelming self hatred about my self as well. while dealing with this, i was also dealing with depression and adhd. i still suffer from this as well, but knowing that i have a purpose in life, and with medication and a better healthful lifestyle, and to know that there is an afterlife, it makes it a little less depressing so to speak. and to top it all off, my family was, and still is, very volitle. thankfully we didnt harm each other. just a lot of yelling and screaming and sometimes things were smashed or thrown.
i had an easier child hood than others but it was still difficult. eventually things got to me. just a year and a fourth before i graduated high school, i dropped out and quit the job i was working at. i went through month to month with no change in my mood. no social time with friends. no friends period. all i did was sleep eat and watch tv. it was ok at first then i came out of my funk. my whole life i guess i was aloud to do what ever i wanted to, so when it came to eating, doing school work or holding down a job i was very childish about things. i never really had any healthy meals to eat. when i never followed through on my school work i just stopped and gave up. i had really great potential in school. if you don't use it you lose it. and when i became depressed again, which seemed to happen every 6 months , i would just give up and quit. so 6 months after i quit school and my job, i started to get bored with watching tv and sleeping all of the time. so i got a job and my drivers license. there i worked for 6 months and i became depressed again. quit my job and went back to sleeping and eating all of the time.
this has gone on since 2005 and since then i have had at least 13 jobs. it's now 2011. thats way too many jobs. each time i worked less and less. i was once an assistant manager of a retail store, that only lasted for two months. but i know i can run a store with out any formal training. any way, i started to experiment with street drugs around the age of 19. i used to think that i would never be a person to do those things but my morals were weak and so was i. why live good and righteously when it gets you nowhere and nothing. so i slowly became a sinner with out a conscience. the drug use wasnt bad, but it was getting there. i ended up getting a really dumb and silly tattoo of a skull wearing a top hat smoking a joint when i was really high. i have been wanting to get rid of it mainly cause it doesnt fit my lifestyle now. but i have decided to keep it to remind me how stupid that old life of mine really was.
when i was 22 i started abusing pain medications. and that is one of the most addicting things that i had ever done. my advice is don't ever take more than you need if you are prescribed them. during that time i associated with someone who taught me how to take them and how to get them. i am still friends with that person, and watching her make the same terrible mistakes over and over again. by this time in my life i was starting to live the way i wanted to live. smoking pot when i wanted to doing pills and i started to drink by my self instead of socially like i usually did. these things i started to rely on to make me happy. but wickedness truly never was happiness. and with the drug world came the other mortal sins of the world. i am not afraid to admit these things. yes i have sinned. some sins were the abominable ones, but i have repented and i have stopped doing all of those wordly things.
when things got really tough living with my parents and watching my sister abuse her body while she was pregnant, i had expressed to a friend that this is what i was living with. she had extended a hand of friendship and said she would talk with her husband about me moving in with her and her family. now i knew they were mormons and had no idea what they believed or how they worshiped. only what rumors and lies i had heard from an ex boy friend and other people who were very close minded. the people around my area, well, a lot are like minded. when i lived with her family, even though they weren't perfect ( who of us really is ) i did see how a family was really supposed to work. a mother and father who taught their children and communicated with each other and rationally discussed things with each other.
now i lived with this family for 7 months and had only asked 1 question about their religion. while i lived with them i got a job, which only lasted me about 6 months, and earned enough money to pay them rent. but during the 6th month of my employment, my friend had a horrible accident and broke her leg and dislocated her knee. two days after her accident, i lost my job. what's ment to be is ment to be. even though i lost the income, it freed me up to be able to help out in the home. i did what little i could, all the while dealing with the stress of the situation. i stayed at the home while she was in the hospital and was there when her kids got home. i had basically started doing something for others even though i really didn't want to. i had did a good charitable act by being there for my friend and her family in their time of need. this was when the lord prepared me for what was to come.
now my friend had trouble with a bad habit, smoking. and so did i. after a month and a half in the hospital, my friend was coming home within a week and i sacrificed my wants for her so she could suffer as little as possible when she did arrive home. i stopped smoking in the house when she left a month prior and started trying to get healthy. when i knew she was coming home, i decided to quit. that day that i used the remaining patches from the previous time i tryed to quit and stuck it on me. as i went with her family to visit her in the hospital, which was an hour and a half away, i felt a peaceful joy in my soul which i had never felt before. i didnt know then that it was my soul, but it was delighting in the decision i had made.
i had such a powerful experience with the holy ghost that i will never deny Chirst or God again. And for many of you this story will be unbelievable. But what i am about to tell you is as true as the church i attend. I have a strong testimony of Heavenly Father and of his son, Jesus Christ. I used to poke fun at them and completely loathed and detested anyone who considered themselves a christian. I hated christians.
One day, about 5 or 6 days before my friend came back home, exactly 6 days after i had inhaled smoke into my lungs and 3 days after i had stopped using the patch ( basically i quit cold turkey) i had the witness. i had quit smoking, not for my health, not for myself and not because i wanted to either. i didn't want to quit smoking at all. it's been almost a year since i've smoked and i still miss it. but i know staying quit is one of the many most important things in my life. I quit for my friend. i did something for someone else even though i didn't want to. and in doing so i also purified my body, making it possible for the holy ghost to dwell inside of me. i was sitting on the couch eating lunch and watching tv. the channel it was on was the religious network. the show happened to be about the paranormal, which is an interesting subject to me. and it was dealing with christians who had supernatural experiences. like the one i'm about to share with you. the person i was watching was... kind of strange. she had this ability, or talent or whatever you want to call it, to talk in "supernatural languages". basically she just babbled like a little baby in a sing song way. as she was explaining herself and what she did, she suddenly stopped what she was saying and wanted to talk to the people out in tv land. as she turned and talked to her audience she began to mention that she felt that there were a lot of people out there that had mental and emotional problems like adhd and bipolar disorder and depression and other things. don't quote me exactly but those were the things that i had been diagnosed with at the time. i was seeking treatment for bipolar disorder, which i think i am a depressive person. any way, i was at the right place at the right time. and i know that it wasn't the person that healed me or the show that was on that healed me it was the power of God through the Holy Ghost that healed me. she started to say to the camera to ask to accept Jesus Christ into my heart as my lord and savior and some other things. but it wasn't until i said those exact words that i felt a force come into me. literally a force so powerful that words alone can not describe it. the force was like a stream of water that hit me with such a strength and power that i found my self grasping onto the arms of the love seat to brace my self because the force was so powerful. this invisible force went right into my stomach and flowed and made it's way up through my chest directly to the center and gathered there. this experience lasted at least a good minute. it felt like i was being purified from the inside out. i felt a fresh calm clean water course through my veins even though i wasnt drinking water. i felt a comforting warmth inside my chest where the power gathered. it was like my soul had been dead for a very long time and was just then being revived. it was like a ball of golden light had gathered together and was moving around in the middle of my chest. and i know that it wasnt gathering in my heart. i felt wave after wave of the "warm fuzzies" almost like goose bumps wash over me from the top of my head right down to my toes. wave after wave. i felt a warm tingling on the back of my head stay there and radiate down the back of my neck and directly onto my shoulders. it was like Christ himself had placed his hands on my shoulders. and while all of these things were going on simultaneously, i was being filled with pure joy and happiness. the likes of which i had never felt before. i didn't know that a person or any thing could be that joyous. it was like meeting God himself. and with out warning i began to weep with joy. i cryed and cried for such a long time that day. the memory of that day will never leave me. i'm not one to cry and i am also not one to remember what i need to but i will never forget and i will never feel that pure joy in this earthly life. that was way to powerful. only the meeting of Jesus or Heavenly Father could produce tears like that.
ever since then i have been following the spirit. that experience happened on a wednesday. that following sunday i attended the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints. from then on i have never turned back. when i was at church, i felt that same spirit with me the day i had the witness that Jesus Christ was real. i knew that the services were three hours long. people were asking me if i wanted to stay for the full three hours and i did. i can't tell you what questions i had wanted to ask or what was in my head but i can tell you that by attending sacrament, sunday school and relief society all my questions were answered. when i left that day i was happy and felt completely at peace. the next day i felt terrible dread and anxiety that wouldn't go away. the whole week seemed to be like that until i went back to church the following week and felt that same spirit again.
I have a strong testimony about the missionaries as well as the word of wisdom, tithing, attending church and taking the sacrament, charity work and chastity. and other things as well. i know that this church is true because i cannot live with out it. i didnt' go to church one week and boy was that an awful experience. i felt drained of the spirit. the first discussion i took with the missionaries was interesting. i have no idea what they were talking about but i'm sure that it was the truth and that it was a very good lesson. i was sitting there feeling very un comfortable about the missionaries being there and the fact that they were teaching me some things that i didn't necessarily believe to be true. as i was sitting there feeling freaked out and sort of angry, i was also fighting listening to them. when i did hear something, i would just think oh yeah right or you dumb fools. or i can't believe i am listening to this. the whole time i kept getting more angry and irritated with them then suddenly, God spoke to me. and it was NOT that still small voice that was almost like a whisper. it was a very stern firm and loud voice that said: Noelle! Just shut up and listen! and at that point i felt the fear of God enter me. i was so embarrassed and afraid. i didnt know what to do. so i just sat there. wide eyed and a little frightened. so i know that heavenly father is with our missionaries. He made sure i knew that.
So from about 6th of july to the 6th of august i took discussions from the missionaries. and in less than a month i was preparing to be baptised. in a month and a half i went from athiest to christian, quit smoking, quit drinking and doing drugs and began a path of righteousness. since then i have also given up all of my bad movies and cd's. sigh. but it's all for the greater good right.
i have many more stories to tell you all but this is way to long already. i just really hope that someone will care enough to read this. i was pretty much a shut in and now i am trying to enjoy life so i am also learning about how to use the internet as well.
Hope you all enjoyed it
Noelle^_^
