The LAST Conversion Story I'll EVER Write...Part 1

My LAST Conversion story I’ll EVER write… I’ve written a conversion story before. It didn’t last long. This story WILL last though. How do I know? Just keep reading. It sort of has to do with a flood and my parents losing everything they owned for me. Seriously, hang in there with me...keep reading the updates. I’ve always struggled with my testimony of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. My testimony was always on high or off. There was no inbetween. I’m sure people wonder why if I had a very strong testimony at times in my life how in the world could I just let it waste away. I don’t have the answers to that question. I’m stubborn? Satan is a jerk? I’m forgetful? I left my room without thinking to pray? Yeah, probably all of those combined into a big mess. This last conversion story started a while ago. I was the Young Women’s President in our ward. I had the Spirit with me. I was rocking my calling. Then our ward combined with another ward. We got a new Bishop. I was CRUSHED!!! I loved Bishop Pitt. He was amazing. He believed in me. He saw the good in me. And just like that he was gone. Yep, gone. He was called to be in the bishopric in a single’s ward. Crushed!! I liked our new bishop though, Bishop May. I hung in there for a few months and then Carter got VERY, VERY, VERY sick. It was all I could do to keep my emotions in check. Until I couldn’t. During one Ward Council meeting I cracked and I stormed out. I handed in my binder and keys and told them I was “done”. Yeah, wasn’t one of my prouder moments in life. I sunk down in a very deep depression. So deep that during that year I only knew how to function in the hospital. I couldn’t function at home. I literally wasted away laying in bed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, Unless Carter was in the hospital. I didn’t shower. I didn’t cook. I didn’t do ANYTHING. My kids and my husband shouldered the burden of the house alone. In October I was hospitalized. It wasn’t my first time in the loony bin either. That’s another story. I continued to go to church because Steve had lost his job after Carter’s hospital stays and we needed help. And the only way Bishop May would help us is if we went to church. He said we needed the “blessings” and we needed the “Spirit” in our lives. Pfft...right. Where was God? I had a critically ill child, a husband with no job and depression to boot. Steve finally got a job and the bishop said no more help to you! So I had no reason to go. I stopped going to church. A few months later I had the amazing opportunity to become a phlebotomist. It was my favorite job in the entire world! I started working at LDS Hospital (ironic, huh?). I drove past a billboard every night. It caught my attention. It was about Mormons, how bad could it be? BAD. Really, really bad.