Thom's past

I grew up going to a Protestant church in Duxbury, MA. I remember when I received a bible with my name on it. I knew that this book was very special. In fact, when I was reading it one Sunday afternoon, I felt prompted to go into the next room. There, I discovered my mother lying on the floor, having a seizure. She was able to get medical help almost immediately. Eventually, they discovered the cause of the seizure, and she has been medicated for it ever since. I didn't realize it then, but the Holy Ghost was speaking to me that day. As I have reflected on other experiences in my life, I realize that the Holy Ghost was constantly leading me, teaching me, and protecting me from danger.

I stopped going to church when I was in high school. I began to search for other sources of truth. I felt I led a Christian life, but didn't need to go to church. I was very involved in musical pursuits. In fact, at one point while I was in college, I felt that music was my religion. The only reason I ever went to a church was to play my trumpet for a wedding ceremony or a holiday service.

All of this changed when I met Donna. I re-discovered my faith in God and Jesus Christ. As we began worshiping together, I felt the Holy Ghost more strongly than ever before. Yet, I knew that Donna and I needed a common church to attend. I knew the right church was out there. When we found the Book of Mormon in our hotel room, we knew that we had our answer. I am so happy we followed the promptings to join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

What we did after we found The Book of Mormon

When we came home from our honeymoon, I went to the church in Hingham, MA, where I had visited with my high school boyfriend.  It was a Monday afternoon, when people are not usually in the church building.  I walked in, and found Sister Lynette Howe, and her son.  They were working on some project there.  I asked if there were some missionaries I could talk to, and she gave me their phone number.  She also called them right away after I left, and by the time I got home, Thom had received a call from them.  We began discussions, and I believed (or had already known) everything they discussed with us!!  I had found the church in which I could believe ALL the doctrine!  We were baptized members on August 22, 1993.  Now, 18 years later, we are continuing our journey toward God, and Christ.  The last few years have been particularly wonderful, as Thom and I are focusing more and more on "cleaving-" becoming one with each other, and with Christ as a third person in our marriage.  We have also given our lives and our will over to our Heavenly Father.  We will go where He wants us to go and do what He wants us to do.  It has been amazing.

What I have shared with you so far has been the very beginning of our journey.  Now I will jump into some more regular blog messages about what we are discovering in this deeper part of our journey.  As we post, we will also revisit our "developing" days in our journey, where we experienced much struggle and trials.  Soon I will get Thom to share some of his thoughts.  One of his struggles has been being open enough to talk about his life.  He has been a very private person most of his life, and has grown much in this area.  At the moment, it is just a time issue.  You will hear from him soon!

How we found The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

So, shortly after Thom told me he didn't believe in God, and I got over the shock, we started talking about my beliefs.  He realized that he could believe in a God that communicates with us, and that he probably had that belief his whole life.  He just didn't know that people believed that that God existed.  We decided to start praying together, which was a little strange at first, but then we really enjoyed it.  We started to attend the Catholic church every other week, alternating with the church of his birth, the Congregational church, where his parents attended.  We wanted to decide on one denomination that made us both happy.  Thom didn't want to become catholic, for various reasons, and I have already told you how I had visited various churches during my high school and college years, and didn't want to change churches unless I agreed with the new church's doctrine.  Thom wanted to go church hopping to get our answer.  But having let God direct my life for all of my life, I told Thom that we should just pray about it, and God would lead us to his true church on the earth today.  So we asked God what church we should join.  About a week later, we got an invitation from the Baptist church down the street.  The moment I picked up the invitation, I knew that it wasn't from God.  I don't know why, but I knew immediately that it wasn't our answer.  So, we waited patiently.

In the meantime, we prepared for our wedding, in July.  We made very spiritual preparations.  It was important for us to write and sing at our own wedding, and to have friends and family play a song I had arranged.  We wanted God in our lives so much that we decided to ask God to join us in our marriage...to become a marriage of three.  At that time, we were also making many changes in our lives.  We decided to stop drinking alcohol, because we didn't want to start out as social drinkers, and then have alcoholism creep in and destroy us while not being able to admit we were becoming addicted.  So we had our last drink as our toast at our reception.  We also decided to pray together regularly.  I also stopped drinking coffee a few months earlier, because I had gotten hooked on coffee, and it was affecting my teaching in the Duxbury School system.  My head was spinning all the time, and I couldn't focus on my students.  Also, Thom hated the smell of coffee.  We made plans to start reading the Bible on our honeymoon, and to clean up our language, which, as for me, was pretty foul in my teenage/young adult years.  I jokingly commented to Thom one day, saying "we should become Mormons..."  Even though I had dated the Mormon boy, he never really told me much about the doctrine, so I never really knew anything, except what everyone knew...that they didn't drink, smoke, swear, etc... therefore, I had never checked that church off my list of ones I would never join...and I did remember saying to that boyfriend that I would be a member of his church someday.  However, at that moment, I wasn't thinking about that;  I was just being silly.

So we got married, and it was beautiful, at least to us.  To others it may have just dragged on.  But we felt God's presence very strongly and knew our marriage was ordained of Him.  We also got the feeling that we were embarking on an incredible life together...that God intended something very important for us, that we would accomplish only together.  We felt very tingly!  On our honeymoon, in Cancun, we went looking for a Bible, because we had planned to start reading it together, and I had left mine at home by accident. (Incidentally, when I came home it was right on the corner of the couch in the living room, in perhaps the cleanest house I had ever had.--I couldn't understand why I had missed it)  So, I opened up the drawer, found a Bible, left by the Gideons, and A BOOK OF MORMON!  It was a Marriott hotel, and Marriott is a Mormon, so he puts them in all his hotels.  I held up the book, showed Thom from across the room, and said,  "Thom..."  He just stared at me with his mouth open.  We both felt like we had been hit over the head, and stunned.  We knew without ever opening the book that this was our answer from God.  His Spirit was telling us so.  We had found our church.

Next post...What we did after we found the Book of Mormon

What I Believed

In my senior year of high school, I dated a Latter-Day Saint (Mormon) boy.  His father was the Bishop at the time.  He didn't teach me much about his religion, but I was given the Book of Mormon and read the Joseph Smith story in the beginning.  It not only sounded believable, but I actually felt like I was experiencing the events in person, rather than reading the account of them in a book.  It was undeniable to me that the events actually occurred.  At one point, as we were comparing doctrine, something jumped out at me as the truth.  To this day I cannot remember what it was.  All I know is that as we went our separate ways when I went off to college, I told him "mark my words...the next time we see each other, I will be a member of your church."  I was reminded of the LDS church several times through the next 7 yrs, with ads on TV--I even ordered another Book of Mormon one time and read in it a little.  But in those years, I still remained faithful to the church of my birth.  In college, I became more involved with my church, and at the same time was exposed to many non-Catholic religions.  I had many friends whose churches I attended if I was staying with them on a school break, or if they asked me to attend with them while at school.  Some of the denominations were Methodist, Congregational, UCC, Freewill Baptist, Jewish and Buddhist.  Although I was never "looking" for a different church, I remember thinking to myself each time "I like such and such about this church, but I don't really believe such and such."  I determined never to trade my "Catholic" problems for those of another church.  I would only change my religion if I believed EVERYTHING about its doctrine.  Now, the problems I had with the Catholic church were
1. Babies who were not baptized would go to "Limbo"-some place between Heaven and Hell, not right into the arms of a loving God.
2. Good People all over the earth and throughout time who had not heard the gospel of Jesus Christ would be damned for not being Christian/baptized.  And in other churches, "accepting Him as their personal Savior."
3. People could not confess any of their sins to God without the Priest as mediator, in a private "confessional" booth, and the punishment to receive absolution being to say so many rote prayers assigned by the priest.
4. Lack of personal relationship to the Priest, who had so many congregants, how could he possible meet the needs of so many?
There were probably many more issues I had, but these were the most problematic for me.  Incidentally, the Catholic Church has in recent years changed its stance on infant baptism...now babies who die without it will go directly into the presence of God.

Next Post:  How Thom and I found the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

Donna grew up knowing God

I had always believed in God, and in Jesus Christ...I was never converted or taught.  From the time I was about 4 yrs old, I begged my aunt and uncle to take me to church with them (we were all catholic).  I felt the presence of the Savior at church, even if I didn't understand what was being said.  When I was old enough to ride my bike to church, I did.  When I was old enough to drive, I drove.  My brother and sister used to laugh at me on summer Sundays when I would go off to church dressed up while they were dressed to lay out in the sun.  In high school I had a friend Tonia, who went to a Bible group and always read the Bible.  At work, she used to talk to me about scriptures, and even though I had read much of the New Testament, I started reading a lot more.  It was about this time that I started receiving personal revelation from God as I sought answers from him.  The first experience I remember was when I was when I would be doing my homework, and look up at the clock...many times it would read 8:15, then change immediately to 8:16.  At that time, Tonia was telling me that if I prayed to be shown something from God, I should just open up the Bible to a random place, which God would guide me to, and there would be an answer there.  But this time, after seeing the 8:15-8:16 thing many times, I decided to go to the Bible and see what was on those pages.  I turned to page 815 in the Old Testament.  It was the cover page to the book of Jeremiah.  I turned the page and started reading.  Verses 5-7 caught my attention: "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee;  and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.  Then said I, Ah, Lord God!  Behold, I cannot speak:  for I am a child.  But the Lord said unto me, Say not, I am a child:  for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee, thou shalt speak."

Although I did not believe I would be a prophet, I knew the Lord was speaking to me when I read these verses.  I felt that the Lord had a mission for me in my life...that he had something important for me to do.  And I knew that he knew me, before I was born, as he had known Jeremiah.  My faith continued to grow.  As I went on to college, I joined a Bible study group, that also had singing and guitar playing, which I loved.  I wrote 3 songs for the group meetings and really enjoyed myself.  I continued to attend the Catholic church at that time, although I also appreciated the groups I hung out with, which were clearly more evangelical in nature.  I began to feel that the man I was to marry would have to believe the same things I did if I were to have a satisfying marriage.   More on what I believed in my next entry...

Thom didn't believe in God

So, some time after I had received a revelation about Thom being my intended spouse, the subject of religion came up, and I asked him if he believed in God.  He said, no, he didn't.   Now, God knew how important it was for me to marry a man who believed the same things I did...one that I could share my faith with, and go to church with; one that would stand with me in solidarity to teach our children our faith.  Sooo where was this "I don't believe in God" coming from?  Apparently his protestant upbringing had taught him that God was some floating being with no substance that ruled the universe, and could not be understood, never mind communicated with...he did not believe in that God...

July 3, 1993

The day we began our official life together.  We began dating in October of 1992.  We were engaged in January of 1993.  We discovered that we loved certain aspects of each other as early as our first date.  On our second date, the Spirit whispered to me that "this is the man you are going to marry."  I soon found out why...