A Mighty Change of Heart

As those who know me well will already know, I am a convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Many of the converts to the church end up being exposed to it via full-time missionaries who are tracting about and stumble upon them. However, my story is quite different than that. It's even quite the contrast to the stories of members sharing the gospel with random people they know. Since I've been asked about it recently at a surprising frequency, I suppose I'll share the story of how I came to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
My story really has two parts. There's the part about my dad and his relationship with the church over the years and there's the part that's all me. I can definitely say that I would not have been converted to the gospel had both of these taken place, so I will share both.

First, my dad's involvement:

Strangely enough, my dad was actually born in the covenant to parents who had been sealed and lived most of his life in the Mormon belt in Idaho Falls. His childhood and his relationship with the church were both lukewarm at best. His parents divorced when he was about 7, and he continued to live with his mother afterward. She soon remarried another guy who was a member of the church on paper, but not really in spirit. To make a long story short, my dad's relationship with the church was strained and he ended up going completely inactive around the age of 17 or 18. Over the next 25 years, he ended up joining the Air Force where he met a rough-and-tumble kind of woman, got married and had a single son (me). During this time my dad had little or no contact or association with the church.

In about 2003 or 4, my mom got a job with an armored truck company hauling around money, (this hearkens back to the 'rough-and-tumble' idea). My mom's boss was married to a member of the church though he, himself, was not a member. They ended up discussing the church at length and my mom ended up bringing home many of the conversations that they had, knowing that my dad was a member. Additionally, my dad's brother, who had always been very active in the church (and is currently serving as a bishop) called my dad more frequently than usual just to see how he was doing. These two often ended up discussing the church and the gospel, at least on some level. The combination of these two things got my dad thinking more and more about the church. This culminated until one day in February of 2005, he resolved that he was going to go back to church for the first time in 25 years and recommit himself to the gospel.

And now the portion that's all me:

From before I could remember my family has always had a big wall unit kind of thing that held our TV, VCR/DVD player, stereo system, and other miscellaneous things. One of the things that we kept there was basically our family's collection of books. None of us read incredibly fast, so there was never all that much in there, but there was at least enough to fill a section. Since my dad was an inactive member, we had several copies (and several editions at that) of the Book of Mormon. I remember one day when I was about 9 or 10 laying on the floor just looking at the collection of books my family had, when I saw the Book of Mormon. The title on the spine of the book didn't particularly catch my eye at the time, but the script below it did. It read, "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." When I saw that, it made me feel a sense of happiness and peace for no apparent reason, and I said to myself, "Hey, I bet the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the place to be when it comes to churches." Up to that point I had never really attended any church services and would probably have characterized myself as an "optimistic agnostic." My mom and I had gone to a few non-denominational Christian services that were basically like The Who concerts with a collection plate. Needless to say, I wasn't feeling that. A couple years later I picked up the same copy of the Book of Mormon and thumbed through some of the pages and looked through the pictures it had in the front, which I later found out were the prophet Joseph Smith, Samuel the Lamanite, Jesus visiting the Americas, etc. When I looked at these I felt that same feeling of peace and happiness from before and knew that that book was just a good thing in general.


After I had these experiences with the Book of Mormon, when my dad decided that he was going to go back to church in February of '05, I knew I was going to go with him. In an interesting turn of events, my dad actually called up the bishop of the Malley Ward and informed him that he and his family would be coming to church on Sunday. After cleaning out his underwear, Bishop Robinson of the Malley Ward confirmed where we lived, and that we, indeed, actually lived in the Webster Lake Ward. I'm pretty sure that, to this day, Bishop Smith owes the Malley Ward 3 new converts.

After we went to the correct ward a couple of times, my mom and I met and took lessons from the full-time missionaries. After finishing these up, my dad, since he already held the Aaronic Priesthood was privileged to baptize both of us on April 23rd, 2005. In an irony of extreme proportions, April 23rd would have been the night of my Junior prom, had I elected to go. I like to think that I diverged quite a bit from most of the rest of the people my age that evening.

Now my parents are both actively engaged in the church with my dad serving as the 1st counselor in the Elders' Quorum presidency and my mom learning the way slowly, but surely. I'm here, at BYU, being as faithful to the testimony I've gained as I know how to be, and I don't plan on stopping anytime soon.