Three of my most treasured possessions are a gold bracelet, an old Bible, and two old letters. To explain why, I need to go back to the year 1974. I was suicidally depressed and had begun to develop an illness called Agoraphobia, all as a result of being molested by a stranger/brief acquaintance just a month before my 13th birthday. I had reached the stage where I had become almost completely housebound. Just walking from the front door to the letterbox was a major ordeal. I didn't know what was wrong with me - nobody did at the time –and for the next five years or so I would go through my own personal ‘hell’, believing that I was going crazy and that there was no hope for me. I became deeply depressed....I know now that at this time, a tiny spark of hope was planted by God, because it was at this very point – when I had hit the absolute rock-bottom of total despair – that things began to happen.
My brothers used to salvage ‘junk’ from the local rubbish tip and in one of the boxes they brought home one day was a very old King James Bible. Along with everything else they brought home it got tossed in a cupboard and forgotten about, until one day I noticed it had fallen out. I picked it up and out of curiosity, began reading it. I found I couldn't put it down – I seemed to just ‘devour’ it! Around this same time some Mormon Missionaries starting going door-to-door and I was struck with how happy they always seemed. They always had smiles on their faces. It was obvious they had something I didn't have. One of my sisters at this time had given me an engraved gold bracelet which I really treasured. One day I couldn't find it and I was devastated. I knew it had to be in the house somewhere, as, being agoraphobic, I rarely ventured outside. I virtually turned the house upside-down looking for it, but it was nowhere to be found. Then I recalled an incident from my Catholic school days. One of my teachers lost her rosary beads one day and told the class that if we all prayed the “Apostles Creed’ nine times she would find them. So, the whole class prayed and sure enough, she found them! I remember being so impressed by this at the time! So now I thought, here is my chance to find out for myself if there really is a God. I knelt down and prayed. As I finished the ninth Apostles Creed and was rising to my feet, I was stopped in my tracks by the words in my mind, “Look in the wardrobe under the pile of clothes’. The ‘command’ was so clear and distinct that I was compelled to look right there and then and to my absolute astonishment – there was the bracelet! It was then that I asked God to come into my life and I felt like a tremendous weight had been lifted off my shoulders and nothing will ever top that moment!
My problems didn't all vanish in that moment but I now had God in my life to help me cope with them. But as time went on, for some reason I began to doubt my experience and so my problems gradually overwhelmed me again. By the time I was seventeen, I had fallen into another suicidal depression. One day I wrote to a Christian radio broadcast asking if they had a counselling service. (not being able to go to church, I used to listen to all the Christian broadcasts every Sunday night, this being my only contact with Christians in the ‘outside world’). They replied saying I would hear from someone ‘in due course’. Two more months went by and still I had heard nothing. One night, desperately depressed, at the end of my tether and with tears streaming down my face, I begged God to send someone...anyone..for me to talk to the next day. I wanted a Christian to talk to and I told Him I didn't care what church they were from, just please send someone. I fell asleep that night with a strange sense of peace, believing He would answer, simply because I had no other hope.
Next day, a letter came for me from a total stranger and it began...’Your request to the radio broadcast, “These Times” for someone to talk to has been passed on to me’. When I phoned this lady who happened to be a High School teacher with experience in counselling young people, she told me that my original letter had changed hands several times before her Pastor gave it to her the evening before (the night I had prayed!). Concerned that three months had elapsed since I had written asking for help, she immediately typed a reply and rushed to get it in the mail that evening so that I would receive it the very next day. I began counselling with her and eventually became a member of her church – the Seventh-day Adventist Church – and remained an active member for some twenty years.
When I met and married a (non-practicing) Catholic man in 1990 I left the SDA Church and we didn't attend any church until our son was about three years old. We then decided to re-connect with the Catholic Church so that our son could attend Catholic schools and have a Christian education. However, after about twelve years of marriage we divorced and I stopped going to church. These were very hard years. I struggled in every way to cope with raising our son virtually on my own. Financially I was scraping the bottom of the barrel and it was a really stressful period. Before long I became involved in New Age practices which I ultimately found very unsatisfying, before deciding to return to the SDA Church. But that just didn't work either. I have always believed that you can’t ‘go back’ and I found that to be so true in this case. So once again I was without a church.
It was around this time that the Mormon Missionaries and the Jehovah’s Witnesses both started coming around. It had been a very long time since the Mormons had knocked on my door. I had some discussions with them at the door, but eventually I decided to begin studies with the JWs. I attended quite a few of their meetings and even a Convention and continued very in-depth studies with them for about four years or so. But I felt there was just something not quite right about some of their doctrines, so in the end I just couldn't bring myself to commit to baptism. I tried out a few of the other churches in the area but none of them satisfied either.
One day I happened to remark to one of my sisters that I hadn't had a Mormon Missionary knock on my door for quite a long time and next thing I know they were on my doorstep! I told them that I had been studying with the JWs for the last few years, and I didn't show much interest that first time they came, but just the fact that they had come to my door and the timing of it got me thinking. I then decided I would get in touch with them somehow. One night I wrote myself a note to call them the next day and arrange to have studies but before I even had a chance to do this they turned up again on my doorstep! I told them I had been going to call them and I think we all knew that somehow God was in this. The two sisters who called on me were Sister Lemon and Sister Shum. I agreed to a time to start lessons with them, but Sister Lemon was due to go home to Utah (where else?!) before my first scheduled lesson. The new sister was Sister Barrett (from New Zealand) and so began my investigation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints!
I was surprised that after just a few lessons I was asked if I would commit to baptism, but I said yes and a date was set. I needed to find a white dress to wear and I didn't think that would be easy, but on one of my regular visits to a local op-shop, what should be hanging on the front of one of the dress-racks, right inside the door, but a long white dress in my size! I paid about six dollars for it (from memory). In spite of this, before the date arrived I began to get cold feet about my decision. The doctrines were so new and different from all that I have previously been taught and my fear of making the wrong decision on such an important and life-changing issue, kicked in, so I backed out, much to the Sisters’ disappointment.
I continued lessons and asked myriads of questions. I felt I needed to be able to ‘dot all my ‘i’s and ‘cross all my ‘t’s’ before I could commit. After a while we set another date for baptism and once again I changed my mind. I was attending church on and off and really enjoying it but still struggled with some of the doctrines. Before very long, Sister Shum was transferred and Sister Graff (yes, you guessed it..from Utah!) became Sister Barrett’s new companion. Finally, after more study and reading we set a new date for my Baptism – 24th April 2010. This time it was no practice-run, but the real thing! I invited a Catholic friend to my Baptism and she thought it was really lovely.
Not long after though, I was exposed to some pretty deep doctrine during a Relief Society Meeting and this was something I had never heard before. It shook my new-found confidence to the core and I felt I should take a step back and study this issue before going any further, so I stopped going to church. I kept reading my Scriptures and reading the Ensign and even the New Era magazines. I prayed and even continued to watch General Conference online. I kept a foot in the door so-to-speak. I truly wanted the LDS Church to be true. I went to church sporadically during this time.
It’s now been three and a half years since my baptism. In June/July of this year I finally decided I was tired of living in doctrinal confusion. I made up my mind that I would just go back to the ‘original’ church – the Catholic Church. I gave away all my JW books to a JW friend and decided that I was going to do the same with all my Mormon books. So when some new Sister Missionaries knocked on my door about four months or so ago, I told them my plan and asked them if it was possible to advertise my books in the church newsletter. They told me they would look into it. One of these was Sister Rasmussen. (I can’t recall the name of her companion at that time). Sometime later they turned up at my door again, but this time Sister Rasmussen had a new companion, Sister Walter, with her. I stressed again what my plan was and they accepted that, but they also asked if I would help them out by allowing them to ‘practice’ teaching the lessons on me. I immediately saw through this well-meaning little ‘ruse’, but happily agreed to it. As we worked through the lessons from week to week I challenged them with lots of questions. As we progressed I started to feel strongly that I could not honestly and in good conscience, walk away from the LDS Church, knowing what I know. I had tried to stick to the Bible alone for spiritual nurture and knowledge, but after having read the Book of Mormon, it just didn't seem complete anymore. The Book of Mormon was like the missing piece of the puzzle. In the words of Sister Barrett from back in 2010, ‘the Book of Mormon is to the Bible what colour is to black and white TV’. I thought this was a great analogy. I have now been attending church for about three months and loving it. Then Sister Rasmussen and Sister Walter invited me to go to the Temple with them to do baptisms for the dead. They had no idea when they chose this date that it was my birthday! I can’t think of a more special way to spend the day! They had helped me get started on my Family History work prior to going so that I was able to take ten names to the Temple on the day. It was an amazing experience. I felt such a sense of peace and of closeness to God there, I felt like staying forever! I am looking forward to going back again one day soon. I am also looking forward to receiving my Endowment and my Patriarchal Blessing in the New Year.
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