RS Testimony

I was asked to share how my testimony of Jesus Christ has changed over the years. Here is what I have written down as I think about this (don't know yet what I will actually say, it depends on the Spirit at that time).
My Dad’s family is Catholic and my Mom’s family is Presbyterian. I was raised Presbyterian and never questioned it. I went to church every Sunday no matter where we were. We took lots of camping vacations when I was growing up and visited the local church where ever we were. I have a pin that shows I went 5 years straight without missing one Sunday. I loved going to church but I always felt like something was missing. I was known as the trouble maker in Sunday school class because I always asked questions. I would say things like “You can’t take a part of you and send it down here to live as a human and another part of you to live as a spirit and even if you could how could you be your own father?” I would read my scriptures all the time and try and make sense of things. On youth Sundays I would be the pastor for the day, mostly because none of the other kids wanted to, but I would get up there and teach lessons that I truly believed, lessons about Christ and how he loved each and every one of us.
Then I went away to college and there was not a Presbyterian church nearby so I started asking my friends if I could go to church with them. They used to say, well Mary, we don’t actually GO to church but they would take me once or twice and then I was on my own. This started 17 years of searching for a place I could call home. I went to every kind of church there was up there but I never went to a Jehovah Witness, a Jewish Synagogue or a Mormon church. I couldn’t find anyone who went to any of those. I loved my Savior very much. I knew he was my big brother who watched out for me and I lived the principals that I discovered. I tithed even when I did not go to church; I would send my money in to TV preachers. I would listen to people preach and take from them the things I felt were true and create my own beliefs, my own standards. I guess this was why I had a hard time finding a church I liked.
Then one day I read Elder Ballard’s book “Our Search for Happiness” I could feel Christ’s love as I read the book and I had so many questions. I really did feel happiness as I read the book so I sat down and wrote a very long letter to him. I did not know he was someone special, just someone who wrote a book, someone who knew things I wanted to know. It took two stamps to mail that letter and I felt such a peace when I mailed it, I truly did expect an answer. I mailed it on a Monday and that Friday I got a letter from him answering some of my questions and he said he was sending some nice young men or women to answer the rest of them.
I had finally found what I was looking for and 24 days later I was baptized. At 34 years old I had finally found what I had been searching for, people who believed what I believed. I finally had proof of the things I had thought I knew. Finally there were people who help me learn more. I have spent the last 16 years trying to learn as much as I could and to forget the things I had been taught that were wrong. Sometimes I ask the same questions I had asked early on, simply because I have a better understanding of them now. It is like when you read your scriptures and you see something new even though you have read those passages a hundred times before. I love my Savior so very much. He gave his life so that I, Mary Deaton, could live and return to my Father in Heaven someday. He suffered so that I would not have to. I now know that I can live with Him and Heavenly Father forever and ever as long as I do my best here in this life, as long as I learn as much as I can and honor that which I have learned.
My whole life I have loved my Savior, my love for him grows more as I learn more about him. I wish so much that I could just give him a hug and thank him for all he has done for me. Now that I am a member of the church I know that it is possible to one day do just that. Sometimes when I am down it is that thought that brings me back up. The thought of one day living with him again, seeing his shining face in my dreams, gives me reason to go on. My testimony grows stronger and stronger the more I learn and yours can too, read about Christ, talk to him, treasure your friendship with Him. It will change your life. And I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, AMEN.