Stumblinginthemists

MY TESTIMONY

I guess I need to start at the beginning, not quite before time but I need to at least share a basic overview of things as they were.

I didn’t have a religious upbringing, in fact my first hints of any form of organised religion was having two friends at school who were Jehovah’s Witnesses. They introduced me to this great idea that there was a God who loved me. Albeit I think I perhaps had one actual lesson with them but I read their manuals avidly, and I remember praying for hours, sitting in the back of my parents car while we were on touring holidays just sitting praying. Juvenile prayers in the most part, prayers for my disabled mother, prayers to enable me to conquer fear.

When my friendship finally ended with those friends, due to being in different classes and finally different schools, I guess that’s where my relationship with their particularly religion ended.

A few years passed and I’ll admit I dabbled somewhat in the occult. It was the fad of the time, to be looking into Tarot Cards and such like. I passed through that pretty quickly to begin with.

Then I moved schools to begin my A-levels, within a week of being at my new school, 9/11 happened. Well can you say 9/11 happened, it didn’t really just happen did it, it was, it came into being, it changed the pattern of the world forever. It was after this event that I began to question again, I guess I was looking for answers in this increasingly fractured thing we call life.

I suppose the biggest question in my mind was that over 3,000 people died that day where were they? Why had this happened? I fell into going to a Christian Union. A mixed group of people pressing forward in their ‘Christian Religion’ however I quickly fell away from them when they were being intolerant of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and if I recollect properly “Mormons”.

I then went back into occultism, looking into healing stones, spells and other practices. There is a very real power behind all of that which I cannot deny even now, but now I know it can be of great ill and doesn’t come from the sources we can trust.

I drifted much through this period of my life and had many problems, not least brought about by drink and various one night stands and other flings. It wasn’t a pretty time. To borrow a line from Anne Bronte’s “Tenant of Wildfell Hall”, I probably lived and experienced more in those two years than many will ever in their entire lifetime.

As part of the occult leanings I had at the time, dates and times began to have specific meanings, dates for tests that I could match with say a favourite author’s birthday or an historic figure’s demise were sure to bring me some luck. So when my driving test date was confirmed as December 9 it was little surprise when my mom told me that was her teen idol, Donny Osmond’s, birthday. So I dutifully borrowed a CD of show tunes. I was involved in the theatre at the time so it wasn’t as bad as it sounds, and I dutifully played that CD over and over during my remaining lessons and right up to taking the test. I passed first time and was more than willing to put it down to this date and correlation of the stars type of thing.

So that Christmas I had nothing better to do than browse around on the Internet, and I landed on donny.com. There is a section entitled My Beliefs, and something kinda struck me there and then. I didn’t want to follow anything blindly so I began a long study of what both donny.com and mormon.org were saying as well as various anti-Church sites.

This study commenced over a period of three months, until one day I was sat reading something that was trying to tell me that Joseph Smith was a 40 year old con-artist yada yada. And I started screaming at the PC, I probably swore too, that he hadn’t even made it to his 40 birthday but had been martyred before. When I had sufficiently calmed down I realised that I’d crossed a line, the line from simply thinking who do I believe, who was Joseph Smith, to knowing who he was and what he did in the grove in Palmyra.

Well then I started to email a very kind lady called [REDACTED] who at the time was some kind of assistant to Donny Osmond. She was very kind and listened to my most ludicrous questions, like can you have chocolate if your Mormon that type of stuff.

At the same time I requested missionary visits on mormon.org. I heard nothing.

I carried on my days at school, preparing for final exams, getting thoroughly drunk although I did try many times to live the Word of Wisdom, I requested the visits from the missionaries over and over but still heard nothing.

During this period I managed to buy a book by President Gordon B Hinckley (How I love that man) - Standing for Something. It was marvellous. I remember sitting reading it on the bus one day on my way to a friend’s house, I was on my way to Lauren’s via the Wicker in Sheffield. I remember thinking how on earth could anyone think this man could lie about who he is? That was it there and then, that’s when I knew that he was indeed a Prophet of God.

Well I carried on at school and sometime around the last week in June I went on one final drinking bender. I don’t think I was sober for a week. I had my final exam on the 24th June I believe. That Sunday was with my parents in Cleethorpes eating fish and chips on the front, when my cell phone went off, I missed the call but as it was a local number I called it back the following day, leaving a message something along the lines of “Hi, I’ve had a missed call from this number and as it’s local I’m calling you back, thanks Ann” I don’t know what made me do that I really and truly don’t. Later on that day (this was the Monday) I had a call saying “Hello, this is Elder [REDACTED] of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints”. Man alive I can not begin to tell you how much I was bouncing off the walls that I’d spoken to a real live Latter Day Saint. It was crazy.

I arranged to meet with the missionaries that Thursday, which I might add they didn’t turn up which put some fear in me that they were fake although I didn’t really see how, I was at my grandmother’s house and she also had reservations about it because they hadn’t appeared. Elder [REDACTED] was full of apologies and they came the next day.

Then on the Saturday himself and Elder [REDACTED] came twice. On their third visit of them all, Elder [REDACTED] said that they had a baptism day coming up in the ward, and I very naively thought that maybe they got all the investigators together and had one day every few months or something whereby they were baptised (oh if only that were the case as far as conversions go!) So I was like, “Great, whose is it?”. Elder [REDACTED] turned to Elder [REDACTED] who then turned to me with a great big smile on his face and said, “Yours, if you want it”. YES. I did.

It was a most amazing experience. I am so grateful and I know that day that I meant everything at the time, I felt as if I would never ever do anything wrong again in my life. The only moment’s hesitation that came was when I was invited to step down into the baptism pool, then my legs turned into mush and I didn’t feel that I could do it, although that was more out of fear of water as I still can’t swim.

I was baptized in the August, and then the bishop managed to sneak me onto the Young Women’s baptisms at the temple in the November. That was an amazing day that I will never forget in a very long time. I know with all my heart and mind that the work we did that day was true and real. There was a lady I was proxy for whose name was Wilhemina. It was then Bishop at the time who was baptising me. I just remember snapping at him that he hadn’t pronounced the name properly, gosh I wouldn’t snap at my bishop, not then not now, but it was as if it wasn’t me. I know that probably makes no sense. But I don’t care, it’s what happened.

I absolutely love this Church, the thought of ever leaving it sends a shiver of dread straight through me. I know that President Hinckley was very much a prophet of our Heavenly Father, and I know that President Monson is our prophet today. I know and can relate to Joseph Smith’s experience in that grove, I remember those feelings about looking for the true church and I remember the feeling of the Spirit when I found such little information about it. I acted on Moroni’s promise before I’d ever even heard of Moroni, but I still got my answer from it.

I fully believe that we were all together in the pre-existence and I only hope and pray that I will one day get to meet my Heavenly Father, even just one time, I know how broken hearted I feel at the mere thought of never seeing Him again. I love Him so much, but I’m a fool to myself in many ways.

I know and fully support the leadership of my ward, the bishopric, relief society and primary organisations are all ordained of Heavenly Father. I know that He is in control and that ultimately He will judge and act as He sees fit through each one of us.

The experiences and knowledge I have come by as a member of this Church can be explained by no other explanation other than that they were manifested to me by the power of the Holy Ghost, and for that I am ever grateful. I know that the Holy Ghost is a fantastic guide, comforter, teacher and is fantastic at giving you a kick up the butt when you need it once in a while.

I just wish that I could bring more light into the world and destroy the wicked streak within me, because I don’t want to end up with Satan, I don’t want to end up in any kingdom but the Celestial, I want to be there, not for it’s glories, but to be with my Heavenly Father once again. I’d be happy in this life to walk by His side, and that’s what I’m going to try to do from now on. I know this Church is true - I can’t explain how I knew it to begin with, it was a feeling and a witness of the Holy Ghost, now my own experiences, things I have seen with my eyes, and heard with my own ears, they are things which cannot be explained away but only act as further proof and evidence of the fantastic truth of this Church. I know that my Redeemer lives, as the hymn says, I know that this is His Church and that President Monson is his prophet on the earth today and that Joseph Smith brought forward this great work and glory in this dispensation. I know this as clearly as I see the screen and feel the keys I am typing on now.