My conversion story

(This was a talk given in church. I'm just filing it here for safe-keeping, probably not of general interest. Sorry!)

Intro:

It was a fall just like this back in 1990.  Todd and I met in family home evening as freshmen at BYU, a group that ate lunch and dinner together everyday in the Morris Center.  We all studied together and hung out with each other on the weekends. Todd and I somehow gravitated toward each other and became inseparable friends.  I had a 7 a.m. Spanish class and he would eat breakfast with me at 6:15 even though he didn’t have a class till 8, we spent nearly all our time together.  But before we knew it, Christmas came, and I broke up with my boyfriend back in San Diego.  Second semester flew by and we had to leave each other for the summer.  We made no promises to each other about the future, we just knew we felt completely at ease with each other, calm, happy, and peaceful when we were together.  He left on his mission that fall and I was distraught as I came home from seeing him off at the airport and had to take finals that very day.  By this point I knew I loved him, but I didn’t know if things would work out.  Dozens of letters, packages, and cassette tapes flew between Provo and Norway weekly for the next two years.  During this time I was preparing to go on a mission of my own, I had all my clothes, luggage, and papers in.  But as it was, I didn’t end up going, and I felt complete peace about it, which surprised me because I’d planned on it for as long as I could remember.  Fast forward… Todd’s parents flew me out to see him that Christmas break after he’d returned.  This might surprise you, but we still weren’t 100% sure.  I just couldn’t tell if this was enough to base a marriage on.  Wasn’t it supposed to be more electrifying or dramatic or obvious?  I was jealous of my friends who had real love stories, who saw each other across a crowded room and who fell madly and intoxicatingly in love.  We weren’t anything like that. We were best friends, but where was my love story?

I’ve often wondered the same thing about my conversion story.  When I think about conversion, I think about my mom.  She and her sister met the missionaries in Scotland and joined the church when she was 15.  The church became their life and nearly all their free time was spent related to it.  But she knew she wasn’t likely to find a husband in the church in Scotland, and so at 21 she came alone to America to become a nanny.  She eventually met and married my dad in San Diego.  We were maybe a typical family of the 80s.  We definitely weren’t highly religious, but my mom and dad were consistent home and visiting teachers.  We almost always went to church even though we sometimes went out for dinner or ice cream or the park later on.  We went to seminary, occasionally had family home evening, we somewhere along the line started family prayer, and we even invited the neighbors to watch Man’s Search for Happiness on our wall.  But was I converted?  To some things, yes.  But when Matt asked me to share my conversion story, my initial reaction was I don’t have one.

But as I’ve thought about it, I’ve realized my conversion story is a lot like my love story.  I hardly know where it began.  The gospel has been as comfortable and natural to me as Todd has always been.  There are highlights, memories that stand out in both stories though.  I remember our initial date, hiking to the Y that first September.  It wasn’t anything we can articulate even all these years later, but we both felt some inkling that we would end up sharing our life together.  There were no fireworks and certainly no kissing, but it is a night we both remember.  One that we always go back to, like one of my favorite scriptures, “Did I not speak peace to your mind concerning the matter? What greater witness can you have than from God?”  Looking back on our first date, Todd and I agree those feelings were from God.  

One of my first experiences with becoming converted was when I got my Patriarchal Blessing.  I hadn’t realized how much God loves us individually until that afternoon as the Patriarch told me very specific things that only God could know.  It was eye-opening for me and I felt a deep connection to my Heavenly Father at that point. 

But over the years, both my conversion and love stories have continued to unfold gradually, line upon line, just as I’m sure yours have. 

So as I share a little more of my conversion, I want to talk about three things:

—What does it mean to be converted?

—How can we become converted?

—How can being converted help when trials come?

1.  What does it mean to be converted?

Succinctly, I think it means that we truly love God with our whole heart, more than anything else, and we want to follow his Son’s example.  It doesn’t mean we’ve reached some level of expertise in our discipleship, it just means we are facing Christ, that we have a desire to “give away all [our] sins to know” God and Christ.  

We need to remember what Elder Hallstrom taught though, “We do not strive for conversion to the Church but to Christ and His gospel, a conversion that is facilitated by the Church” (“Converted to His Gospel through His Church”).

President Romney:

“Conversion is a spiritual and moral change. Converted implies not merely mental acceptance of Jesus and his teachings but also a motivating faith in him and his gospel. In one who is really wholly converted, desire for things contrary to the gospel of Jesus Christ has actually died. And substituted therefore is a love of God, with a fixed and controlling determination to keep his commandments.”

Think about some scriptures that talk about conversion to God. 

—Nephi’s people for 200 years after Christ came, “there was no contention in the land, because of the love of God which did dwell in the hearts of the people.” (4 Ne 1:15)

—Enoch’s people: “And the Lord called his people Zion, because they were of one heart and one mind, and dwelt in righteousness.” (Moses 7:18)

—King Benjamin’s people: “…the Spirit of the Lord… has wrought a mighty change in us, or our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually” (Mosiah 5:2)

That’s true conversion, when our Godlike desires trump the natural man, when we want to follow Christ more than anything else.  But, Elder Christofferson reminds us, “It is important to recognize that God’s ultimate purpose is our progress. His desire is that we continue “from grace to grace, until [we receive] a fulness” of all He can give.” (“Why the Church”)

And Elder Bednar reiterates this idea:

“For many of us, conversion is an ongoing process and not a onetime event that results from a powerful or dramatic experience. Line upon line and precept upon precept, gradually and almost imperceptibly, our motives, our thoughts, our words, and our deeds become aligned with the will of God. Conversion unto the Lord requires both persistence and patience” (“Converted Unto the Lord”).

And we all remember Elder Robbins’ thought-provoking question, “Which way do you face?” God cares about our desires and orientation, not our performance.

Elder  Oaks gave us a good way way to measure our progress: 1) are we losing our desire to do evil? and 2) are we starting to see things as Heavenly Father and Jesus do?  (Nov. 2000 Ensign), both good indicators to assess how we’re doing.

As I’ve thought about my own conversion process, it’s hard to pinpoint a time when I all of a sudden knew it was true or when I became converted.  It’s been as Elder Bednar described, “the gradual increase of light radiating from the rising sun. Most frequently,” he said, “revelation (I’d add conversion) comes in small increments over time and is granted according to our desire, worthiness, and preparation.”

Both my love story and conversion story are the same in this regard.

All the time we were dating, I never thought to ask Heavenly Father if Todd was the right one.  I suppose we prayed throughout our dating to help us know if he thought it was a good idea to keep dating, but I honestly can’t remember if I did, we just knew it felt calm, good, peaceful, and comfortable to be together.  That was good enough for us, and as we decided to get married, we felt confident and content and completely at peace.

It’s the same with my testimony.  I don’t think I’ve ever prayed to know if any of it is true. Todd and Andrew both did as they were getting ready for their missions.  Todd read the Book of Mormon for the first time as a freshman, and his answer was clear.  Andrew was in the MTC in Mexico, 5 weeks into his mission, and even though he’d been asking, he became desperate to know.  His answer was, “You already know it’s true.  Why are you asking me?”  I’ve always wanted a defining moment, but like Andrew, I already know it’s all true, I’ve always known it. 

2.  How can we become more converted?

Two ideas:

a.  The common theme in everything I’ve learned throughout my life and as I’ve studied, is stick with it.  Keep living what you hope is true.  The scriptures and modern apostles continue to teach us this.

—“If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself” (John 7:17)

—“Prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of Hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it” (Malachi 3:10)

—“Experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith” (Alma 32:27)

—“Stay in the boat and hold on!” (Elder Ballard)

—“Choose to Believe” (Elder Clayton)

—“Latter-day Saints Keep on Trying” (Elder Renlund)

—“Anchor your faith in the plain and simple truths of the gospel” (Bishop Causse)

—“You must consider, ponder, [and] fearlessly strive to believe” (President Uchdorf)

—“Make the exercise of your faith your first priority” (Elder Scott)

So many of their talks lately admonish us to just hang on, endure to the end.

b. The second suggestion is from Elder Scott: “To receive the blessings promised from true conversion, make the changes that you know are needed in your life now. The Savior said: “Will ye not now return unto me, and repent of your sins, and be converted, that I may heal you.”  Elder Lawrence gave us similar advice in his memorable talk, “What Lack I Yet?”  They both encouraged us to pray specifically about our weak areas and to ask God to help us improve.  As we work through our weaknesses and even begin to conquer them, we will be converted to those principles of the gospel.  “And now, behold is your knowledge perfect? Yea, your knowledge is perfect in that thing, and your faith is dormant” (Alma 32:34).  We take it step by step, one weakness, one question at a time, and line upon line, little by little, we become converted.

By the way, both of these suggestions, to stick with it and to work on your weaknesses, are helpful as you write your love story.

3.  And lastly, how do our efforts to become converted help us during hard times?

Both my testimony and my relationship with Todd have been tested over the years.  Like most of you, I’ve had ups and downs with both.

One of the biggest trials with Todd was when we returned to BYU after his mission.  We had just spent an incredible week together over Christmas with his family in Chicago, our first week together in over two years. But all of a sudden when we got back to school, I started questioning everything about us.  It was the worst week we’d ever had. 

Another hard time was when we lived in Illinois during vet school.  A lot of you know what a graduate student’s schedule feels like.  But a couple years into this, I checked out a little.  Not that I questioned our marriage or wanted to not be married, but I was kind of just going through the motions, I became a little detached emotionally, a little apathetic, which scared me.

My beliefs were tested a few years back when my dad died. And just a few months later when I got cancer and we had no idea what the outcome would be.

And then my testimony was tested again about a year or so ago.  I emptied my pockets and put everything I thought I knew for sure on the table.  I wanted to start fresh and really look at what I was believed.  I wondered if I’d been duped and brain washed all these years.  I wondered if I was just blindly following persuasions and a dream I hoped was real.

You all have examples from your own lives, but in each case I had to ask myself what I believed and knew, I had to find out how converted I was.  So here’s the the rest of the story:

Todd and I didn’t talk much that first week back at BYU until he called Friday to ask to borrow money to rent clothes for the temple.  With his voice in my head and knowing where he was, l took the opportunity to assess what I felt.  I called my aunt and we talked.  Through that conversation, I felt so strongly that I wanted to be with him.  I couldn’t wait to talk to him, I had to tell him how I felt.  I just knew in my heart our relationship was right.  I’ve never questioned that decision.  Looking back, we both felt that satan didn’t want us to start a life together, but we’re so glad we listened to the Spirit as it confirmed we should move forward.

During our off-time in vet school, I just hung in there.  I think a lot of us have done this with church.  We go through the motions, but our heart is distant, we’re not on fire like we’ve been in the past, we’re maybe a little apathetic.  But, like the scriptures and our prophets and apostles promise us, we just need to hang on, keep doing what we’ve been taught, endure to the end, the light will come.  I don’t even remember what changed, but I think it’s our covenants that keep us going, they are more powerful than we know.  So we as we simply keep our covenants, even during times when we’re not really feeling it, we are blessed. Elder Christofferson taught this in conference, “They produce the faith necessary to persevere and to do all things that are expedient in the Lord…. Come what may, we can face life with hope and equanimity, knowing that we will succeed in the end because we have God’s promise to us individually, by name, and we know He cannot lie” (“The Power of Covenants”).

When my dad died suddenly, I had to ask myself, is he really where we’ve taught our kids he is? Is it all real?  And why am I not sad?  How is this so easy? And with our cancer news, I cried really hard the night we found out, but then I had to ask myself, “Do I trust His plan?  Do I trust Him?”  I surprised myself by how strongly I did.  Absolutely.  And if he thought it was a good idea for me to work on the other side of things for awhile, I’d agree to it.  If he thought this was best for our family, I knew it would make us stronger, we would still be together later on.  

Throughout all these experiences, I knew for sure that God was real.  And that he would help us.  That he knows what he’s doing, that his way is the best, and that he only wants us to be happy. I discovered I knew this deeply.  Unexpectedly, these and other heartaches have been amazing stepping stones.  After that week without Todd, when I wasn’t sure if I’d lost everything with him, after that period of wondering what I really believed, after contemplating the possible change cancer would have on our family, I was amazed at the light that followed.  I had never felt more love for Todd or God or a stronger witness until after these trials of faith.

Elder Scott taught: “True conversion yields the fruit of enduring happiness that can be enjoyed even when the world is in turmoil and most are anything but happy. Of a group of individuals in difficulty, the Book of Mormon teaches: “They did fast and pray oft, and did wax stronger and stronger in their humility, and firmer and firmer in the faith of Christ, unto the filling their souls with joy and consolation, yea, even to the purifying and the sanctification of their hearts, which sanctification cometh because of their yielding their hearts unto God.  President Hinckley has declared that it is true conversion that makes the difference.” I love that the Bible Dictionary says, “Complete conversion comes after many trials and much testing.”  To be honest, I haven’t had many trials or much testing, but I know that with each hiccup in life, we’re given a choice.  Are we going to turn away from God or toward God?  Are we going to rely on the arm of flesh to help us or our perfectly loving Father?  It’s fascinating to read verses in the scriptures of different people experiencing the same thing like in Alma, “But behold, because of the exceeding length of the war… many became hardened,… and many were softened because of their afflictions, insomuch that they did humble themselves before God, even in the depth of humility.”  Our trials, our questions, our ups and downs, all of it can help us become more converted as we learn to trust God even when life doesn’t make sense.

Closing:

In closing, I challenge you to think about your own conversion story.  I’d even encourage you to write it down.  What if you don’t think you have one or you wonder if you even have a testimony?  President Packer addressed this years ago, “It is not unusual to have [someone] say, “How can I bear testimony until I get one? How can I testify that God lives, that Jesus is the Christ, and that the gospel is true? If I do not have such a testimony, would that not be dishonest?”  Oh, if I could teach you this one principle. A testimony is to be found in the bearing of it!” 

I’ve spent the past week thinking about how I’ve been converted over the years, what I believe, and how I feel about it all.  It’s been a thought-provoking exercise, and I can tell you that I know God and his Son are real.  They love us.  They have a plan for our lives.  They’ve given us this gospel and the organization of the church and prophets and scriptures and families to help us become strengthened and converted to them.  I feel it stronger today than I’ve ever felt it. So I encourage you to take some time, maybe even this afternoon, to think about and even write down your feelings about your conversion story.  And while you’re at it, take a minute to write your love story too.