Conversion Part 3

I never had any intention of ever setting foot inside a Mormon church again. In fact, I was very passionate about it. I had turned my husband and my children against the church. We were NEVER going back. Our youngest was turning 8 soon and there was no way I would allow him to get baptized. I got rid of everything church related. I’m serious. Everything. Books, pictures, Sunday clothes and even my temple clothes. I won’t go into much detail about how I got rid of some of it because I am too ashamed. I’ll just tell you that it involved a pit, wood and matches. Are you understanding how bitter and hateful I was? If I died I knew someone would try and bury me in my temple clothes (maybe?) and I just couldn’t take that chance. They HAD to go. I did keep one thing. I kept something that my grandmother had made for me. Something she had spent HOURS making for me. I still have that. I won’t say much more about this dark period of my life. I am not proud of it. It hurts to talk about it. Some will judge and some will not understand. That’s ok. I still don’t understand. I was born, like Nephi, to goodly parents. We had family prayer and family scripture study every day. I broke my parents’ hearts. And so I don’t want to focus on everything I did wrong. I am living proof that the Lord never leaves our side. He never leaves us alone. We may feel alone but He never left me. He loves me enough to stay and work miracles. I was doing my part to help destroy the Church. I was actively pursuing that and still God loved me. I didn’t feel it then. I felt abandoned. I felt betrayed. I felt unloved. But I wasn’t. He knew that I had a special purpose here on Earth and He knew what it would take to get me back on His side, a devastating flood. You also need to understand that I basically at this point in my life I had no relationship with my siblings. Why would they want this negativity in their lives? I wouldn’t either. I only mention this because it plays a big part in this story. I really don’t blame them for one second for keeping their distance from me. I was not an easy person to love and be around. My parent’s house flooded on a Tuesday. The week before the flood I started wondering what it would be like to go back to church. Would I be welcomed back? I had gone with a good friend to Sacrament Meeting on Easter Sunday and jaws literally dropped. Would that happen again? Has someone sinned so much so that they can’t return? I emailed a friend, my dad and this good mission president and asked if they thought a person was ever too far gone to come back. I laughed when my dad asked if I had killed anybody. Nope! Then guess what, I wasn’t too far gone! I left it at that. It was just a thought. I was just curious to know what others thought. I remember googling “ex mormon returns to church”. I wanted to know if there was anyone else out there in the big Mormon world who had ever come back. I wondered if someone who was so against the church had ever returned for good. Nope, didn’t find anything positive out there at all. That’s the reason I’m sharing this story. I have no doubt that there are others out there wrestling with a decision to return or not. It’s so scary. You have no idea how terrifying it is to come back to church. I almost threw up the first time. I’m not kidding. I had such sweaty palms that I was grateful for a hug rather than a handshake. My parent’s house flooded on a Tuesday. My sister had just moved back to their house from Arizona. She sent out a text to my brother, my sister and me telling us that Mom and Dad’s house had flooded and they lost everything. Huh?? My parents don’t live anywhere near water of any kind. Let me back up here for a second. You are probably confused as to why my sister and her family moved into my parent’s house. My parents are living in Mexico right now. They are serving the Lord by serving as a Mission president. They have one year left. My parent’s house sits on a hill and it sometimes flooded after heavy rainstorms because their windows would leak. They’d pull up the carpet and dry everything and that was that. So I really didn’t think her text was a big deal at first. Then she sent pictures. A freak of a storm hit Idaho and the water had no where to go. My parent’s basement was under 8 feet of water. Before they left my mom and dad packed up their stuff and moved it into the basement storage room. My sister and her family would be living there while they were gone and my cute mom wanted my sister to feel like it was her home while they were gone. So my sister, her husband and their 7 kids moved in. I can’t even begin to tell you how mad I was that God let this happen. They were on a mission!! My sister had JUST moved back to Idaho. I screamed at my husband and kids about this. How could this happen? Where were the blessing that they thought they’d have while serving a mission? How could this happen to my sister too? I was MAD!!! That evening I experienced a miracle. My husband and I were out running errands and, of course, I was complaining and crying and yelling about the flood and as I was, a wave of peace washed over me. I felt it start on top of my head and it worked it’s way down to the tips of my toes. I felt the Spirit? How was that even possible? And I knew then that only good would come of this flood.