How I Became Mormon

A good friend of mine, Jules Q, asked for important life stories for Christmas, and suggested the story of how one's faith was found or lost.  So I thought I'd put some time into writing that up, and then why not share it on my blog.  So here it is:

How I Became Mormon

I was born into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and I can remember times of feeling the Spirit even when I was quite young.  But as a teenager, I was around some crappy Mormons doing some crappy things to people.  I thought about what I believed a Mormon should be like:  Open, accepting of others, forgiving, willing to listen.  And I tried to make that match the Mormon teenagers I was seeing.  Sometimes at school someone would say, "Are you a Mormon?" and I would cringe.  "Yes, I'm sorry.  Who do you know?"  I decided that I didn't want to be Mormon if Mormons were crappy people.  I didn't want to have to constantly say, "I'm Mormon but I'm not like them!"

When I moved to California when I was 16 years old, I came with an innocent long-distance relationship to a great non-Mormon guy.  He wasn't religious at all, actually, but he was a pretty decent guy.  He had this one idea, though, that I found intriguing.  His idea was lying.  He lied about things all the time as a sort of shield.  It was a cute pet thing that he did, and I was entranced.  So I decided to try it.  An especially epic lie I told was to a friend who was trying to include me since I was a new move-in.  She had a party and I didn't want to go.  She called and asked me if I was coming to the party that started in about an hour, and I said that I couldn't because I'd fallen off the back deck and broke my leg.  The next day at church she came rushing up to me and was understandably furious when she found out I'd lied.  I, of course, thought it was hilarious.

I became wrapped up in these lies.  I don't remember specifically what led up to it, but I do remember the circumstances of when my Mom called me on it.  We were in the car driving back from the orthodontist's office and I tried to make my calloused lying sound like some awesome grown-up thing.  I don't even remember what my Mom specifically said, but I remember the impact it made.  She nicely but firmly said her piece and then let it go.  My Mom is cool like that.  My conscience started working on me.  I came to the point where I wanted friends and lying is a bad way to gain or maintain friendships.  The idea had failed.

It was in this moment that I realized it had all gone wrong.  I realized I wasn't happy.  At the same time, I hadn't really given Mormonism a good shot because I was so appalled by some of the Mormons I knew growing up.  The teenage set in California was different, though.  I don't know if it was the Missouri / California difference or if I lucked into a great set of Mormon teenagers.  Either way, I realized that the problem I was trying to avoid didn't exist in my new High School.  If someone asked if I was Mormon, I could say with pride, "I am!"  (Not that I did say it with pride.  It took me years and years to stop cringing.)

So what was I to do?  It was a critical moment.  ...  I started doing something that changed my life.

I had to decided FOR GOOD if I was Mormon or not.  I didn't have a testimony - I had no real conviction.  I hoped it was true.  I wanted it to be true.  But I didn't know if it was or not.  My hang-ups were all the little things.  I didn't know about this living prophets thing, for instance.  They sometimes said silly things because they are old men who are out of touch with reality.  I decided to take something trivial and test it.  I remembered Alma's talk about experimenting upon the word.  I picked the stupidest thing I could think of:  Rated R movies.  We're counseled to avoid them, but this didn't seem to me to be something that could really impact my life for the better or worse.  It was sort of a challenge to God, and a challenge to Alma.  "Alright, then.  If this is true, and if I can find out by experimenting upon the word, then Rated R movies.  Let's start there."  The only way to really experiment upon the word, though, is to live it.  So I did.  I started avoiding Rated R movies.  Mind you, I didn't watch that many Rated R movies before, so it wasn't super hard to avoid them.  But you know what, after some time had passed, I gained a testimony of that principle, just like Alma promised.  Avoiding Rated R movies really did make my life better.  It made me happier.

So I started looking around for more ideas!  One of the best places to look was the people in my life.  I looked at every single person I knew and sifted through who was happy and who was not.  It was a grand experiment (if you've never tried it, you should!).  I would say to myself, "They're not happy.  Why not?"  or "They're happy.  What's their secret?"  I came up with a good list of things to avoid and a good list of things to do and then started applying those things one-by-one into my life, keeping with the experimenting upon the word principle.  If it's good and right, then it will make you happy.  If it's not, it won't.  The list, not shockingly, ended up correlating with the typical Mormon answers, both of things to avoid and things to do.  I'd always known those things, but I didn't know I was supposed to do them because it would make me happy!  What a great plan!

And that's how and when I truly became Mormon. 

Life hasn't been a continual happy moment since then, of course, and there have been plenty of things that have tried and tested my faith, not the least of which being crappy life choices on my part.  It's amazing how typically my unhappiness is triggered by me.  But, still, since that day when I started experimenting on the word, I have known the Church is true, piece by piece.  There have been times when I've been angry with the Lord, when I've wanted to step away.  But I can't.  I know it's true.  Once during a temple recommend interview the Stake Presidency member asked me how my relationship with Christ was doing.  This isn't a standard question, more of a bonus question.  At that time things were crazy and I wasn't focusing very strongly on my relationship with Christ.  I smiled and gave some weak sauce answer.  But then I said, "Jim, I know this church is true.  For all my shortcomings, for all the times I get frustrated, I could never walk away.  I know it's true.  I asked and He told me.  How can people just walk away?"  With something of a heavy heart he said, "I don't know."  But I could tell, by how Jim looked at me after that, that he knew I would be alright.  I know the Church is true.  I have my anchor.