Where Is God Working?

In 2011 I found myself in a faith crisis.  At 41 years old, I had been a Sunday School teacher for nearly 7 years in a local Baptist church, my marriage of 15 years had recently ended, and my family had been broken apart.  I remember coming home one day after church, feeling mostly empty inside.  I felt like a walking shell of a man who was lost.  I remember thinking and wondering how God could let me fall like that.  After all, here I was striving to teach my kids right from wrong, trying to be a role model, taking them to church every Sunday, reading my Bible almost daily, praying personally and together with my family before every meal and sometimes at bedtime.  Was I not doing enough?  Why did God not protect my family from Satan's grasp?  Why were my children not spared the agony of growing up in a split home like I had to endure as a child.  Why were their precious lives being torn apart, especially when I felt like I was doing my part to uphold my calling in Church.  Shouldn't I had been afforded some protection from all this misery? 

I remember reading an article one day after church about a minister who felt called to abandon his post, pickup everything and move somewhere in the world to start a new church not knowing how or where the funds would come from.  I admired his courage and boldness to step out like that with blind faith.  When he arrived at his destination, the funds began to show up and he was able to complete his mission and build that new church.  I have heard of many stories like this and have seen many movies about similar experiences.  As I finished the article, I began to pray and ask God to show me where he was working?  I wanted to be a part of his work.  Although I loved and adored all the members of my church, I just didn’t feel like I was growing personally and that I was not a part of God's current efforts in the world.  I also felt like I was just going through the motions and wasn’t really being spiritually nurtured like I wanted to be.  So I  was inspired to do something about it.  

I began by seeking literature from other great leaders and writers of faith to see how they did it.  I often found myself looking through the racks at the Lifeway Bookstore in Rocky Mount, where I worked, trying to find the right  instrument to lead me to God's work.  I searched and found books to try to help me hear the Holy Spirit better so I could discern God's plan for my life.  I read books by author's such as Charles Stanley, Joel Osteen, and countless others, which energized me, in effort to want to claim my role in God's ministry.  These books helped a little at first but the effects were only temporary.  At the end of the day I still felt empty and unedified.   I had been attending a men's Bible Study class for a couple years which met once a week and I learned so much, yet the emptiness would not leave me.  I still felt like God had better plans for my life and I was not going to stop until I figured out where those plans led.  I began to pray for God to reveal his plan for me and use me as a laborer in his vineyard.  I was completely willing to submit myself to His will.

I tried the dating scene for a while, thinking that maybe having someone else in my life would help me feel whole again.  My  desire was to find a sweet, loving Christian companion who was as equally yoked in the Gospel as I was trying to be.  I had a few dates here and there but was quickly discouraged by all of it.  The best method of meeting people at the time seemed to be online dating.  One of the profile questions related to faith, and it seemed like many of the women who used the sight chose the "Spiritual but not Religious" option.  I felt like they were either trying to be cool and afraid to put themselves out there or they just weren't Christian at all.  Either way I was turned off by it.  After a few months, I decided to just drop it and if the right person came along then so be it.  

Those who know me well can attest that one of my favorite past times is hunting.  I enjoy the outdoors and the fall of the year and so I find myself spending as much time as I can at my hunting club.  As a child, I grew up tagging along with my father and grandfather on this land whenever they would let me go with them.  The club was started in 1969 and some of the members there have been there almost from the beginning and it is like a brotherhood.  The legacies of those who have passed are kept alive through countless stories.  Many of them are still referred to by Nicknames, which often came about from CB handles in those days.  The hunting woods is like a retreat for me.  I love the peaceful outdoor setting.  It's where I feel closest to God.  It is there that I often find myself immersed in my scriptures and preparing Sunday School lessons.

One Saturday morning about a week before Thanksgiving in 2011, one of the members brought his daughter with him hunting that day.  When I first saw her I remember thinking how beautiful she was.  I could also tell she had a bit of a fiery personality, which I liked.  Could this be God's plan; to meet my future wife dressed in camouflage in the middle of the hunting woods?  It must have been divine intervention indeed. I didn’t know that day God was beginning to work in my life where I could see.  He was beginning to lay a foundation where I would be able to actively participate in his plan.  I married Christy just 10 short months later and have never been happier. 

I had come to know many members of Christy’s family for years, I just hadn’t met her.  Many of her uncles, cousins, her brother, and her father all were in our hunting club.  I knew they were Godly men because they often spoke about having to leave the hunt early to do this or that with the church on occasion.  I think it was our fourth date when Christy said the following words:  “You know that I am Mormon don’t you?”  She asked me if that was problem.  In turn, I asked her, “Well do you guys believe in Jesus?”  She said “yeah”.  So I said,"Well I honestly didn’t know, but as long we both believe in the Savior, we can figure out the rest." I found out that day, that probably half of my Hunting Club were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  Most of them attended the local Woodington Ward (Wards are what they call local churchlike meeting houses.)  I had no idea I was surrounded by Mormons.  These guys were like family to me for so many years.  I didn't really know what to think at the time.  I had often heard people speak of the "Mormons" as a cult.  The only exposure I had really had up to that time is a brief 6 months I spent with the Boy Scouts in Hickory at age 15.  I didn’t find anything odd.  They all seemed like very friendly people at the time I really enjoyed my brief time with them.  Life got in the way and I wasn’t in the Boy Scouts for very long.  Once I turned 16, I got a job at the local grocery store and didn’t have much time for other things outside of work, school, and sports.

Now I was just sure that since I was a Baptist Sunday School teacher, and having read the bible about 7 times all the way through, it was going to be easy to convert Christy to the Baptist faith.  And like a good fiancée and eventual wife, she did attend with me on Sundays.  We bought a house in Wilson and settled down there with our 4 kids.  One day, a few weeks after we were married, she said, "You know Honey, I miss my church.  If you don’t mind, I would like to attend the Wilson Ward down the street for a couple of Sundays."  I was reluctant but I let her go her way and I went to teach my class at the Baptist Church. 

Little did I know that it would be like old home week at the Wilson Ward. Christy walked in day one and discovered that she knew many of the Wilson members from her childhood from Albertson and Woodington Wards. I thought this was quite a coincidence. I was glad she felt at home but was still concerned and baffled that she didn’t like my church better. After all she was getting to know my friends and seemed to like them, and they liked her.

At this point, I live with a Mormon wife, but I have no intention of getting involved with the Mormon church.  In fact, I know absolutely nothing about it.  One day out of the blue, Christy walks up to me and says, "Baby, you know how much I love you, right?"

"Uh huh", I replied.  

"I would really like for you to take the discussions with the missionaries and just learn about my church.  I don’t care if you join or not, I just want you to understand more about my beliefs." 

So, like any loving husband would do, I shrugged my shoulders and said, "Sure baby.  I’ll do that for you.  If we run into them I will ask them to fill me in."

I should have known she was up to something because it was merely a day or so later that she announced to me that the missionaries were coming over for dinner.  We have been together for almost a year at this point and I had never laid eyes on any missionaries and now, suddenly, we were supposed to feed them.  As a matter of fact, the only time I had heard the term Elders was in my bible study and once when we had dinner at Christy’s sister’s house and she announced just as we arrived that we just missed the Elders, they had stopped by.  Well to be quite honest, I assumed they were talking about some Elderly people from church, not these young missionaries.  

Dinner went fine.  We exchanged pleasantries and I learned they were not from North Carolina at all.  And they seemed to be intrigued by my knowledge of scripture for some reason.  Well, right after dinner they asked if they could share a message with me.  I figured it couldn’t hurt. After all I promised to hear them out and I figured I could give them about 15 or 20 minutes of my time, since that would be all the time I needed in order to figure out what I should know and satisfy my wife’s request.  And besides, no 18 or 19 year old is going to be able to persuade me to join the Mormon church.  I had old Sunday School bulletins crammed in my bible that were older than they were.  So we sat down together in our living room and I was about as uninterested as I could possible get and they pulled out a couple of copies of the Book of Mormon and asked if we could read.  They proceeded with a lesson of the first vision and I will never forget the words we read right there in the introduction.  

“We invite all men everywhere to read the Book of Mormon, to ponder in their hearts the message it contains, and then to ask God, the Eternal Father,  in the name of Jesus Christ if the book is true?”  

These words pierced my heart instantly.  I knew right there this was a game changer.  These young men weren’t  here to persuade me of anything.  This journey was primarily going to be between me and the Holy Ghost.  I knew that my God would undoubtedly show me through his Spirit whether or not this is a true account of Jesus Christ.  I knew I could count on him to not lead me astray.  This quickly became very serious for me.  I knew that after reading those words, I had to study and wrestle with it to see whether or not it was all true.  I know how much I adored my wife and kids and I know that it was up to me to get to the bottom of it and make sure I investigated all of this thoroughly.  I wanted to make sure this was the real deal for the sake of my families salvation.  If it wasn’t, then I needed to get them away from it.  If it was a true account of Jesus Christ, and this was his restored church, then I needed to grasp every single concept whole heartedly and do anything necessary to become a member.  My first lesson with the missionaries ended and as they left I thanked them for coming.  

As we closed the door behind them, my wife looked at me and smiled and said, “Well what did you think?”   Like a good loving husband, who has just experienced a large dose of cognitive dissonance, I smiled back and said, "Don’t ever invite them back."

Well, I later learned through Christy that she and the Elders had spoken and they were worried about what to do, so she told them just to stop by unannounced and I would let them in because I am too nice not to.  I believe at that time there were supposed to be 11 lessons, or so but I think I had about 111.  I learned to like those young men and did enjoy our conversations.  They were very patient with me and even though I was sometimes a bit stubborn with them, they always seemed grateful and understanding and their spirits never weakened.  I eventually discovered that the missionaries' primary purpose was to answer questions, share their testimony, hold me accountable to read the Book of Mormon like I promised and pray to learn its truth, and lead me through discussions about the Doctrines of the church after I had began to gain a testimony of my own.  Their role was to act as a guide through this process.  

I did read a majority of the Book of Mormon right away.  I was intrigued by it and quickly found myself tying it back to the bible.  In fact, on several occasions I went to Brother Mason Lee, a childhood friend of my wife and former Bishop, with questions and he was able help me.  The missionaries continued to be very patient with me even though I asked them some hard questions that they had to ponder upon to gain answers.  I think I investigated for about 4 or 5 months.  

One of the difficult things I struggled with early on was the Baptist belief in the Holy Trinity.  It had basically been indoctrinated in me for years.  But when I went to investigate it and research its origins, I learned that there was no Biblical basis for it.  In fact, I started to see many scriptures in the Gospels differently from that point on that disproved the notion of the Trinity.  That was the just the beginning for me.  I was determined to learn more truths.  I was beginning to get bolder in asking questions to our Heavenly Father.  I was no longer afraid of what I might find.

As my time with the missionaries progressed, they would always ask me if I was praying to receive revelation about the Book of Mormon.  I assured them that I was but  if I have to be honest, I don’t know that I was praying correctly because I kind of felt like the book was all "True" but I wanted that revelatory "AHA" moment from the Holy Spirit.  I wanted to know without a shadow of a doubt.  The missionaries encouraged me to turn to Moroni 10:3-5 and I read the following:

3 Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts.

4 And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.

5 And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.

A couple things stood out to me immediately about these verses.  First, I needed to ponder and prepare my heart.  The words "with real intent" assured me that if I wasn’t planning to follow through and be baptized,  then he might as well not bother answering me at all.  The Lord knows our heart, so he knew my reservations.  He was not going to answer that prayer if I didn’t intend to do my part after I got my answer.  Second, the word NOT jumped out of the page at me.  By praying the way Moroni advises, It takes some of the pressure off of me and seems to aim it toward the Spirit to step up and tell me once and for all if I am wasting my time or not.  If all of this was not the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ, then I needed to be tending to other tasks at hand and keep searching for whatever the Lord’s real objectives were for my life, and see all of this as if it was an obstacle thrown in my way by Satan.  So I did it.  I changed the way I prayed about it and ask the Lord to show me if this was NOT true and let me know to move on.  

One evening, my wife and I were invited to the home of Bishop Duncan, who was then the current Bishop for the Wilson Ward.  Our discussion that evening with him and his family centered around fasting.  I remember his daughter Emily sharing her testimony with me about God answering her prayers when she fasted. I recalled the words that Jesus spoke about fasting and thought if somethings for Him were difficult enough to require fasting, then this was probably a good thing for me to do as well.  So I fasted.  

A few days later, on a Monday I believe it was, I was riding to work and I had my bible app reading to me as I drove down the road.  The scripture that day was from Matthew 7.  When the narrator got to verse 16 -20, I heard the following words:

16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?

17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.

18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.

20 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

When I heard verse 20, I was instantly overcome by the Holy Spirit.  I felt a strong, warm, energetic sensation rush through me from head to toe.  I saw every good deed of every person in this Church that I had known flash before my eyes, even back to my days as a youth.  I knew it was good fruit.  The Spirit had given me the AHA moment I was desiring.   I called my wife and the missionaries right then and told them I wanted to be baptized on Thursday evening, March 28, 2013.  Knowing what I know now, you would have thought they parted the Red Sea.  That is the only Thursday evening baptism I have ever attended.  Everything fell into place and I was shocked at the turnout of the small army of people who had been helping those missionaries for months try to help me gain that testimony.  I am thankful for each and every one of them.  

As I stated before, I prayed fervently that God would show me where I should be and what he has in store for my life.  Well, looking back, I can see his hand at every turn. From that chance meeting of my eternal wife to every person along the way who opened their homes and lives to me so I could learn or hear their testimony.  In fact, he even sent the right set of missionaries who were not afraid to challenge me and who quickly became life long friends. 

I was asked to give a talk back in 2018 concerning my conversion to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Rocky Mount.  I was surprised when so many people came to me after and shared how similar my conversion was to theirs and how much they appreciated my talk because it helped strengthen theirs.  

It has been a blessing to see the Lord's hand at work.  I have never personally witnessed or heard of more miracles happening than I have and have seen in this restored Church of Jesus Christ. As I devote this blogsite to the sharing of my learning, I hope that the testimony of others can indeed be strengthened through my testimony.  My prayer is that people can follow my example and put aside the false presumptions and biases heard second hand through others about this Church and really seek council from the Spirit and truly investigate everything about the Church.  The term investigator is what Latter-Day Saints call non-members.  It's very accurate because every aspect of the Church should be investigated thoroughly so one can find out for themselves if everything about the church is "True" doctrine.  

You will hear many people use the word "True" when they give their testimony.  I thought it was quite over used and redundant when I first attended.  However, I have come to understand that there is not really a better way to state it, and the more you hear it, the more it makes sense to the outcome of your investigation.  That is, if you do diligently seek a testimony.  When you agree to baptism, you are practically testifying that you know that the Doctrines of this Church are true, and that it was restored by Christ through Joseph Smith.  I found during my investigation that some doctrines were difficult to understand and were much different than the teachings I learned growing up in the Baptist Church.  However, as I prayed and wrestled with them, I learned quickly to fall back on my testimony on the things I was sure of.  I found that God does teach us through His spirit, line upon line, precept upon precept, and that in time, he will reveal answers and understanding as we diligently and prayerfully seek answers.  Sometimes though, we have to work for those answers. 

I have found over the past few years that God is working in many churches and that there are doctrinal truths found in each. But I recall how I used to feel back in the days prior joining the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, it seemed like there was a glass ceiling to my salvation and that there was nothing more I could do to increase my knowledge and understanding of God.  The Book of Mormon opened my eyes to many more truths and opened the door to many more opportunities to understand the meaning of life here on the earth and where I fit in His eternal plan.  

In closing, I testify that I have a strong testimony to the accuracy in the Doctrine of this church.  Through my continuous study, I will reveal and record evidences I have found which support this.  I promise that you will not know the reach and capability of God's hand until you truly investigate for yourself. I also promise that if you have read this blog and have never seen the workings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, then your eyes are about to be opened and the Light of Christ is about to start pointing out where the tentacles of this church have intersected with your life and you will begin to take notice of its fruits.  Its up to you to truly open your heart and sincerely investigate and want to be a part of this ministry.