I grew up going to church with my family. We attended a church called Fellowship church which is technically a Southern Baptist church. My sisters and I were pretty active in their youth groups, we went to summer camps, and we always were bringing friends to their activities.
I remember that there was a church event at a waterpark called Hawaiian Falls. We were probably about 8 or 9 and all our church friends were going, so we did too. Randomly at Hawaiian Falls, in the middle of the activity, they had all these men get in the wave pool and there was a guy with a microphone outside of the pool saying that anyone that wanted to get baptized could come up and do that. I decided, “Why not? Couldn’t hurt.”
When I chose to do it, I went to let someone know, and they just had me swim out to the guys that were in the middle of the wave pool. I picked a random guy and he had a white rag with him. He talked to me a little bit -- about how to always remember that Jesus is my savior and that He loves me, and then that was it. He dunked me under the water and then when I came back up, there was clapping. Then I went back to my friends and that was that. After several more kids decided to get baptized that same day, we all went back to playing. My mom wasn’t even there!
I think I stopped going to that church when I was 12 or 13. I just hadn’t progressed any in my life and I no longer looked forward to going to that church. I hadn’t met any friends that would stick with me throughout the years, and there weren’t any real growing opportunities if I stayed there. There weren’t any hard feelings, I just knew there was more out there. So I was stagnant for a while; I wasn’t attending church even though a few friends had asked me to come with me to their different services. In April of 2010 I want to say, I had a boyfriend. He was Mormon. I had NO idea what this meant. We were young and we didn’t really know how to talk about religion with each other, anyway, but I took that word “Mormon” and learned as much as I could about it.
I started journaling about what I found. I wrote questions that I had that websites couldn’t answer. Looking back at that now, going to random websites about the church probably wasn’t the best idea but I didn’t know! So I kept at it. My friends made fun of me, but I had to know . . . in Coppell, there were a lot of different branches of Christianity, but I had seriously never heard of Mormonism.
When I was 14, I went to a stake dance with a friend who was also investigating the church. It was a New Year’s Eve dance, and during the dance she asked me if I’d go to church with her the next day. I was really nervous to do that, but I said yes . . . So the next day, I went to church. My mom dropped me off and after the first sacrament meeting, the missionaries swarmed to me. I don’t say that lightly . . . They had a bunch of questions.
I ended up meeting with them starting that week, once a week, for the next two years. For the first few months, they were literally just answering the questions that I had written down in that journal. And then after that, I took all the lessons probably 6 or 7 times over. And each lesson, they’d ask me if I was ready to get baptized yet. I’d say no and that I’d tell them when, but they were impatient. Missionaries had gone home and gotten married before I decided to get baptized, yet I was still taking lessons and attending church every week . . . They didn’t get it!
These two years were really critical for me because I was learning and doing all the things I wish I would have done earlier. I was reading the Book of Mormon, I was praying ALL THE TIME, I was staying out of trouble, attending church and mutual -- I was doing all these good things that made me feel happy and gave me purpose.
There were moments in the church that I used to go to that I felt the spirit. I know there were good things being done there that were very necessary for me during those times, but this church has always given me more, yet so simply. I’ve had prayers answered, I have felt included and important, I have felt God’s love and I’ve learned how His timing is always the best timing.
This isn’t to say that I didn’t experience a lot of hardship in those two years though. There were a lot of people in school who didn’t agree with what I was doing and they would make that very well known. They would ask me the craziest questions and tell me the craziest things about MY church; one they had never stepped foot in. But I had so many people supporting me at church, that it all didn’t matter.
A lot of people would ask me why I wasn’t baptized yet, or what the heck was taking so long? I’d kind of laugh and then just change the subject; I was going to get baptized when I was ready! But overall, the friends I had made at church, would just show me a lot of love. They would invite me over for dinner, they’d let the missionary discussions be at their house, they’d make sure I felt included at mutual, they made sure I could go to girl’s camp, and so much more. There was never a time where I didn’t feel like that’s where I was supposed to be, and it was all because of the people that were around me.
In one of my YSA wards, I was sitting in relief society and the President shared with us that there was one girl in our apartment complex who didn’t want to come to church because she didn’t feel welcome. When we found that out, there were so many girls who went out of their way to make that specific girl feel welcome.
What I’ve learned over the past 4 years of being a member of this church is that this Gospel is one of love and kindness. To me, that makes the Gospel so simple: if we love God and we love each other, we’ve got at least something figured out. If we remember our simple gospel principles, I think we will be happier people.
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There’s a family from my hometown that I think about often. They were not married, neither of them had a job, and they had just had twin babies about a month into teaching them. The sisters asked me to teach with them a few times after I was just baptized, so I went. The mother of the babies was an inactive member of the church, so she was familiar with the process.
This is the first family we saw, and they were facing some serious hardships. They had no insurance, and one of their babies had to have a small surgery. Not only that, but they didn’t even have a car to take the children to the hospital. They had been relying on other people for a lot of their needs, and it turns out they were hiding the worst of it from us.
I remember it was about 2 or so weeks from the first time they were taught and the mom called me. She was a wreck because she had learned they were getting evicted from their apartment; they hadn’t been able to pay rent. I drove over to their apartment and I took the babies for the entire day so they could figure out where they were going to stay that night. I returned them that night and talked to the mom to see what they had figured out. She told me that they had decided they were going to be together anymore and it was best for her to move in with her family.
I stayed in touch with her and I saw how her life changed. She kept attending church, with her two babies in tow. She was taught every week by the missionaries. She and her family formed a greater relationship than they ever had before. She got a job. She seemed so much happier.
I think the most important part of her story, the part that I love, is that she flourished when people showed her love, kindness, and friendship. She had strayed from the Gospel and she felt that she wasn’t going to be welcomed back. She felt that she had been too far gone for too long to come back. She felt like she had made too many mistakes for people to love her anymore. She wasn’t content with her life, but she didn’t know how to make the change, and the sisters showed her how. They cared for her, they helped her cook meals, they showed her they loved her. I was able to form a friendship with her, take care of her babies, attend their first birthday party.
She didn’t need to be converted again, she just needed to be included. She just needed some love.
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Testimony. Crying. All the good stuff.
