Missionary Journal

This was written while I was a new missionary in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia in June 2015.

                My Conversion Story

My conversion story is a lifelong conversion story. I was born under the covenant. My immediate family and many extended family members are members of the church. The first time I prayed I was maybe 2 years old. I don’t even remember it. I was baptized when I was eight and at that time I believed in God and Jesus. I remember in my baptismal interview my bishop asked me and I could answer that I believed and I wanted to be baptized. After that, I continued going to primary and young women’s classes, through that time I had experiences of prayers being answered. I read the Book of Mormon when I was ten and prayed about it. I prayed about Joseph Smith and I still remember the clear answer that came to me, that I already knew the truth, that he was a prophet. When I took seminary I read the New Testament and Book of Mormon again and continued praying and attending church.

It was during high school when I started questioning my testimony. I recognized I knew nothing other than life in the church. I sometimes wished I could have been like my mom who met with missionaries and chose on her own to be baptized when she was 20, because that way I’d know for sure it was my right choice. That time I started on my journey of my adult conversion. Throughout high school and college I studied the scriptures off and on. I went in and out of the habit to pray. When I did my callings I did them grudgingly and I complained about and broke some commandments. I still went to church though and still felt I believed in what I’d learned as a child.

When the age change for missionaries came out I was excited along with my friends at the prospect of going on a mission. At the time I started preparing for one though, my conversion wasn’t deep enough and I let other things become more important to me and eventually started opposing the idea. At that time I also met my previous boyfriend. He wasn’t a member of the church and I knew I shouldn’t date him, but like I had before, I put my own interests before the advice of prophets and parents and dated him anyway. He was everything I thought I wanted in a husband. I fell in love. Eventually he asked me what he’d have to do to get me to marry him.

I was torn. I wanted to marry him, but my family was very opposed to me even dating him. My parents talked to me over and over again about the wrong path I was going down. When they talked to me, when I went to church, I felt deep in my heart that they were right. But I wanted to marry him and I was used to doing what I wanted. It was a hard time for me. I felt pulled in different directions. At that critical time I wasn’t doing the things to help me feel the spirit. I started distancing myself from my family, I started making bad choices and I was spending more and more of my time with my boyfriend and  friends whose standards were much lower than mine. Then one morning after a night of fun with my new friends and more lectures from my parents I realized I was completely lost.

 I was trying to serve two masters and Satan was obviously the only one winning. I felt the weight of guilt and shame that comes from sin and I just broke under it all. I went sobbing to my parents. Leading up to that I had spent although I thought I was very happy there was a part of me that couldn’t relax. I realized what I was doing would have eternal consequences. During our dating period I had lowered my standards as I spent time with him and his friends. The guilt and loss of the spirit from some of my actions made my decision even harder to make as I had distanced myself from God so much I was even wondering sometimes if He even existed.

However, in those extremely difficult weeks of decision when I had to choose to marry him or stay with the faith of my childhood, what I remembered was the Book of Mormon. I knew I had felt the power from that book. I knew the history of it. Although I had convinced myself of explanations to deny everything else I believe in, I couldn’t for the Book of Mormon. I knew what it contained was true and that it couldn’t have come about without God’s hand in it.

Because of that knowledge I made the hardest choice in my life. I broke up with my boyfriend and watched him move to a different state for work without me. After he left I went through the difficult process of repentance. I started to read my scriptures and prayed every day without missing once. Even though I was feeling immense relief and joy from having the spirit in my life again, there were days when I missed him so much I was for sure I had made the wrong choice. In these times, I tried to turn to God for reassurance.

Months passed and I started thinking about serving a mission. I was hoping by serving it would help me to move on and stop missing him. I knew the choice I had made to break up was right, but I still loved and missed my old boyfriend. I figured if I went on a mission that when I came back I would know how to help him come unto Christ and I could share the gospel with him. I prayed about going on a mission and finally one night I got a strong impression it was right. The next day however, my life changed again as I learned that my ex-boyfriend had been killed in an accident.

I was devastated. I had never felt that much pain or loss before in my life. Unlike the people I’d loved who’d passed away before this, my boyfriend wasn’t a member, he hadn’t lived according to the gospel, he hadn’t gone to the temple, and we weren’t sealed or officially connected in any way. I didn’t have all of those things to comfort me, or give me the hope of being with him again. All I felt was loss and despair and that I would never see him again in this life or the next. I didn’t know what would happen to him.

In those first few days I questioned my decision of not marrying him, I questioned everything and yet each question was answered by the feeling that underneath the soul crushing sadness at least God was still there. I turned to God and poured out my soul to Him, this time in my life knowing I was living exactly within His commandments gave me the ability to trust that although I might not be happy, God was still over all things. That was when I felt that my conversion to this point of my life was complete. I had given up the man I loved forever for the chance to live according to God’s commandments. And from that, a few days later a miracle happened. God answered my pleas for help in a way I didn’t expect. My grief was swept away by the revelation I received. The answer was simple and straight to the point. And with the answer there was no doubt in my mind that God was over all things, my ex boyfriend was one of his sons, and both of us would be happy one day.

After my personal revelation, my heart was filled with gratitude to God and faith in the reality of the Atonement which made it possible for Christ to succor me according to my exact needs at that time.

I began to work on mission papers. Within a month I had submitted and received a call to the Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar mission. I knew the answer to my questions about serving a mission was real and that I needed to stand by the prompting I received before I found out about my friend’s death.  I’m now a missionary and I’ve continued to deepen my conversion through study and service. Everything I’d learned and felt as a child, a teenager, during the repentance process, during the grieving process and now what I teach and study, all strengthen and deepen my testimony and understanding of the gospel. I’m not even close to becoming a saint through Christ, but I think I’m finally on the path and I think that the decisions I’ve made based on the knowledge I’ve gained through my life are leading me to being truly converted.