Third Hour Forum Rules - Please be familiar with these rules before posting

Sorry about the length... I started and forgot to stop.

PolarBeccaBear

By PolarBeccaBear,
in Introduce Yourself

 Share

Recommended Posts

PolarBeccaBear

PolarBeccaBear

Posted
Posted

So...

I don't know why I joined this site.

But so far I'm pretty hyped that I did, because I've already learned a couple things.

I'm a convert. My baptism was October 11, 2008. It was my one year anniversary of investigating the church... I didn't plan it out that way, that's just the way it happened and I thought that it was cool, so I just told you. ^_^

I'm still just a bit of a kid... Only eighteen. I haven't really gone anywhere in life, although I've experienced a lot, for my years.

My mother is Born Again Christian. She raised me Christian, although I only ever went to church for one year when I was 6 in order to establish some form of morality within me, and a basic understanding of 'what God is', but other than that I didn't really worry too much about anything.

By the time I hit twelve I became very serious about learning about Christianity and God... That lasted about 8 months. I quickly moved on to learning about neo-paganistic religions... I don't even remember why, but I eventually also studied Buddhism, Hinduism, and other such religions. I eventually 'perfected' what my view towards God and the nature of the universe was, and was happy with it for about a year and a half... Then I got curious. Very curious.

A friend of mine whom I had known since 4th grade was planning on being baptized into a church that I didn't know really still existed in a large way. I knew absolutely nothing about it...

Where I live there are only about 120 people in our ward... 70 to 80 who show up usually]... So there really aren't that many people, and I had never met any members.

So me, being my usual curious self, decided to go to her baptism. I didn't find it a particularly spiritual experience. I felt nothing of the spirit. I just watched and felt a bit out of place in the 'strange building'. But I listened, and listened hard. I wanted to know what they believed in, and what she was getting herself into.

In school we talked about it a teeny bit and eventually I decided that I wanted to actually attend a church service. The weekend that I had planned was General Conference and a new friend that I had made in school who was also LDS invited me to come... But my friends canceled on me [in a nice way] and sent me the link to listen to GC online.

I have never had so many questions pop up at once. I sent them all to my new friend, who had been a life long member, and we ended up getting into a very deep conversation where I had him explain as much as he could about everything that I was asking. In the end he told me to stop asking so much because he wasn't sure he could answer them all satisfactorily, and just come to church next week.

So I did, and it was awkward, but nice.

I missed the next week because my family wanted to go to the mountains.

But I went the week after. And the week after. And the week after.

And I asked questions. I wanted to know everything. I don't even know why. It was such a compulsion of mine. And I'm not even much of a person who is apt to having compulsions and actually following through with them. But I did.

I think that I started to continue going because I was very comfortable there [after having to deal with everyone being strangers the first few times I went]. And when I learned, I LIKED what I was learning. Sometimes there were things that I disagreed with, yes, but that was okay, because that always happened in religions that I had looked at... And it wasn't like I was going to be baptized. I certainly wasn't planning on it. I wanted to be, yes, but I had no faith in Christ, I had no faith in Joseph Smith, and just a bit of faith in God. So there was no way that I was going to even consider joining the church, at that point.

But I SO loved LEARNING about it. By July of the next year [ I had started investigating October of 2007] I decided to take the missionary lessons. It wasn't because I wanted them to convince me of anything [i think] but because I still had SO much to learn and SO MUCH that I still didn't understand, and I wanted to understand it. It wasn't until after a meeting on August 4th that the missionaries said something that made me realize something very important... I hadn't been praying.

I never prayed. Not once, the entire time that I had been investigating the church. I never once asked God anything about anything... Let alone just TALKED to him. And that night, after I had gotten home from the lesson, I prayed. I prayed for two hours. I didn't ask any important questions about doctrine that had been bugging me... I hadn't even mentioned the church for a while, I think. But I just talked. And I knew that I was being listened to... I don't know. There was such a sense of... Just... Ahhh, words are never adequate for spiritual things, I shan't even try.

After that I continued with the lessons. A new missionary came and he was just what I needed. At first I didn't even like him, to be honest. He asked me why I was taking the lessons. When I answered him, I didn't feel like I had an adequate enough answer. He asked me if I had asked God if anything concerning the church was true. I immediately, flat out said 'no'. I didn't want to bug God with that. It was mine to learn on my own. [Hahaha, I was so silly.] He asked me if I believed the BoM could have been true. I said that yes, I believed that it was. I hadn't realized until he had asked me and I had answered. He was pushing me to invest more thought, spiritually, than I had for the past 8 months, into what I was learning.

We went on to have our lessons and each time ended up getting really deep into stuff. We talked about just about everything [and I mean that in reference to even the disliked doctrines of the church]. He explained everything to me as best as he could. My other missionary, though, would always say something that made the information that I was taking in apply to me more than it usually would have... I don't know how to explain that one, actually. It was like my first missionary was there for me to learn to pray, to learn to pay attention to my spirituality, and my new missionary to help me to learn whatever it was that I was looking for... And it fit together SO WELL for me. [ughhh, I miss them a LOT, by the way].

By the end of September I prayed and received an answer in regards to Jesus Christ and what he meant to me. Once I had experienced that conviction in my soul, I guess you could say, I stayed quiet about it, though. I didn't tell my missionaries. I had my 'thinking' missionary try to explain the prophet to me in a way that I could accept... And for once [he had tried previously, but I was anti all Prophets, not just the modern day one] he made sense to me. So I said, randomly, after asking them for the list of questions that I would be asked in the interview in order to make sure that I could answer them all honestly, "Alright. I'll get baptized." And that was that.

That didn't mean that I stopped asking stuff, though. For the next two weeks I would talk to them almost every night and give them question after question. [i felt like such a bugger, haha]. But they were nice and dealt with me... They even gave me the new member lessons, once I was baptized. Oh, man. I'm so glad that I learned so much. I am so grateful for them.

But, yeah. I just wrote a novel. Sorry.

It's been a bout 3 months since I was baptized. My testimony has grown leaps and bounds. But I'm still looking to learn... Hence me liking this site... There's lots of Doctrinal references... I love it.

But... yeah.

Sorry about the length.

Have a good day/night.

It's nice to be here.

=]

Link to comment
Share on other sites
gaspah

gaspah

Posted
Posted (edited)

that was a great post!

I also have studied a large number of alternate religions (particularly buddhism and shinto), grew up being 'Christian', I loved a lot of things about a lot of religions. But, it was only when coming to the LDS church did I finally go, WOW this is the one!

A year investigating, I'm sure that drove the missionaries crazy! :D

Welcome!

Edited by gaspah
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
 Share
Go to topic listing