My Testimony

So, I did not grow up in the typical lds family setting. My parent's were divorced when I was 5 months old, my brother committed suicide when I was 14. I think a lot of LDS kids get to base their testimony off of their parents and by the time they leave the nest, most of them are pretty strong. Correction, by the time they get married or go on a misson. I think a lot of us need to experience life first. ;) I'm not going to go into great detail but I did not get the chance to base my testimony off of my parents. I got married when I was 19 and had Katelyn when I was 21. I was attending a ward in Kuna when I had a freak out moment that I don't know if the church is true and I am going to be the foundation that my children base their testimonies off of. I realized that I hadn't felt the spirit in that particular ward at all and I began to worry. I went into talk to my bishop. Instead of getting the comfort and love and support that I needed, I got questioned about very personal things. And was told that the reason why I was questioning was because I was not living worthily. My bishop at the time was very inappropriate which made my questioning even worse. I talked to the stake president...yada yada yada. That's really not the point of this post. The point of this post is that even though I am in a fantastic ward with normal non exclusive women, my testimony still floundered. And that really bothered me. I am a very honest person and I felt as though I was living a lie by continuing to go to church. I would pray and didn't really feel good or bad towards the church just indifferent. I was told that I wasn't getting answers because I wasn't praying or reading enough and that I just needed to focus on the Book of Mormon. Which bothered me. I wanted to know the good, bad and the ugly about the church. I figured if it were true, then it didn't really matter what the internet said about it. I was angry during the time that I was searching for "answers". I found all sorts of information that was bad about the church and most of it was taken out of context. I have had several people I know leave the church and they try Christianity out for a while and then they start to research the Bible and then they come to the conclusion that there is no proof that is true either. That scared me, I wasn't wanting to go that far but I did tell Stephen that I wanted to go to a Christian church. I compromised that I would go to Sacrament with the family and then I'd venture off to "find myself, in my perfect church". I told him I'd take the missionary discussions, soley with the purpose of saying that I took the discussions and I still don't believe the church is true. Imagine my surprise when my plan failed. I had a woman come over from Ten Mile Christian. She is a lovely lady and wanted to talk to me about my religion. I got the impression after she left that she doesn't believe I am saved, and wanted to teach me about Christ and the BIBLE. I know about the Bible and Jesus Christ, thank you. Anywho, she was talking about her husband who passed and how they would not be married but they would be good friends. That just didn't sit well with me. There are a lot of things that I cannot begin to even comprehend about the LDS church but families being together forever is something I do believe in. I didn't understand the priesthood or temple's roll in this plan and just assumed we could all be together. I thought Christians believed that too, that's why I was so excited. But why would God put us together here as husband and wife, as families, only to break us up in the eternities? Doesn't make much sense to me. The other thing that didn't sit well with me was when I asked her about people that didn't get the chance to hear about Jesus. Since they believe you have to know him in order to be saved. She made a contorted face and said, "That's why we have to tell everyone we know about Jesus." Okay, there are a lot of people around the world in remote countries that probably will not get the opportunity to hear about Jesus, just because of chance. I don't think God would set his children up to fail that quickly. I had an energy session later that day and had more ah ha moments. Then later that night I met with the missionaries for the first time. Since then, we have met a couple of times and we are meeting later tonight. There is a new peace in our home. Less tension, except for my kids who seem to thrive on it. I feel good, I feel confident. I feel like I am headed in the right direction. When I was questioning people kept telling me that I couldn't let the people offend me. I have had several bad experiences with leaders of the church telling me false doctrine and that didn't offend me away. I was questioning serious things, things that cannot really be answered in this life. That's why I need to work on my testimony of the small things so that I can begin to have faith in the big things. So I am going to take it one day at a time. Here's what I do know...

Heavenly Father is real, he created us, he loves us, he wants us to return home to him.

I absolutely believe in Jesus Christ. I believe that he lived and died for us so that we can be saved by the power of the atonement to return home to our heavenly father.

I believe in the power of prayer and that it can work miracles.

I believe that we did live in a pre-existence.

I believe in heaven. I am still struggling with the 3 kingdoms and who goes where and why.

I believe that I will see my brother Josh again and it will be a sweet reunion.

I believe that Stephen and I were supposed to end up together because of personal revelation that I received.

I believe in being kind to people and not judging them. I think our heavenly father is going to be a lot easier on us than we are on ourselves or others.

Those things are what I can say for sure I have a testimony of. I don't even know if I am strong enough to say that I have faith in everything else in the LDS church. I can say that I have HOPE. I have hope that someday I can have faith in the things that I do not understand. The questions that I have really cannot be answered. There is no proof that the church is true. There is no proof that the bible is true. You just have to go off of what you feel and believe. I know that I feel good when I am at church. Someday I hope to get some type of conformation that for me it is good and true. I don't think the church is for everyone. I don't think everyone would be happy there. I don't want to raise my kids that the standard is baptism at 8, missions at 19, and temple marriage or bust. I want to teach them that we will love them no matter what they chose but we do want what's best for them. I will continue to ask for clarification if there is something I don't understand. I will continue to search for answers. I will continue my love affair with Diet coke and swear occasionally because it makes me feel cool. I know that I will never fit the perfect Mormon woman mold and I don't want to, I like being me. -Amen.