a testimony of prayer

Something cool. I was worried about being late for work so I prayed before leaving to please not be late for work and if I could get there at around 7:30, that'd be cool. I left and I hardly met any red lights and traffic was literary moving out of my way. I would be behind maybe 5 cars or so and then they would just move like a curtain being opened, then that lane was clear for a while.. I wasn't paying attention to the time, I was in awe and grateful that my prayer was being answered right in front of my eyes. When I got to work and parked, I checked the time and it was exactly 7:30pm :) Immediately I sent up a prayer of thankfulness and gratitude.

On 11/28/11 at 11:33pm I noted the following:

I like this site on Pier 57, but I don't like it at the same time. Some creepy stuff happens down here. Like at the end of my break like maybe 10mins ago, I felt someone firmly tap my left shoulder. I span around, but there is no one here. Or like last night when I was on the side of The Fisherman's restaurant, I kept hearing someone walking around. I was standing still. There was no one there. Tonight if i go over there I feel really uncomfortable, so I leave the area. Nothing happened Friday night. I worry that whoever it is became comfortable with me so he/she started doing stuff. I know that spirits exist. If I remember correctly, we live in the same places, there is just the veil that separates us. Most of the time we can't see them. I don't feel threatened by him/her, but I would like to be left alone. Nothing against him/her, but I can't handle that stuff. I prayed to our Heavenly Father to please protect me from.those living and those not living. I hope He answers my prayer and has them leave me alone. 

Shortly after I prayed, I felt comforted by the Spirit and i was protected from whoever is down there. I didn't have anymore problems the rest of that night.

I am thankful for the ability to pray and for us to be able to speak to our Heavenly Father. I'm thankful that He does hear us everytime and does answer our prayers. Its not always immediately like the examples above, but He Never fails. He's always on time, maybe not what we may consider as time. We just need to be patient and faithful and He will always be there for us.

thoughts 11/30/11

I woke up this afternoon with a smile on my face and a renewed sense of self. I am still glowing from the feelings after visiting Temple grounds last night. I feel just like I did after I was baptized and I'm loving it! I can feel His love and protection. I have His armor on. I can feel the difference

I woke up with the following coursing through my mind.

That I was brought into the Church at this time for a reason. I had reached as far low as I could go, so there was nowhere else to go but up! I know He has something planned for me. Don't know what it is.. but I know that it will be important and great. I am willing to do what He commands.

Part of the reason I feel like I was supposed to join the Church is my experience was so different from how it normally works. I found an old email from when I contacted the missionaries. Here is the timeline:

May 2nd: I recieved prompting to fill out a missionary request online and I did.

May 5th: I received an email from an online set of missionaries. I wrote to them and told them plainly that I wanted to join the Church and needed to know how.

May 6th: First time meeting with Elders Cameron and Fellows

May 15th: First time going to Church.

May 22nd: I was baptized into the Church

May 29th: I was confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

June 22nd: My first experience with the Holy Ghost helping me write my testimony and the Untitled poem.

July 3rd: I gave my testimony and poem at the fast and testimony meeting. It was well received. I remember being told that my testimony was strong for being a new convert and one person said that my poem belonged in the Ensign. I have had testimony to give at every fast and testimony meeting from then on out.

Those things do not happen sequentially or so fast for the normal convert. Leads me to think i'm not the normal convert
I know that He loves me just like He loves you and all of His children!

In the name of our Savior Jesus Christ,

Amen

the first testimony I ever gave! - 6/22/11

I have always been the quiet girl in the corner, hiding underneath baggy clothes, and a persistent frown on my face. My nickname was little black rain cloud. Since finding the church, that has completely changed. I talk a lot more, sit with other people, and smile. I always used to be teased because I wouldn’t smile. Teachers, classmates, random people on the street would ask me why I never smile. My answer was always, I didn’t have a reason to. But now I have plenty of reasons to and it feels really good.

I’ve been able to give up my crutches. Things, substances, actions I thought I needed to find happiness. Took pain medication until I went numb, sometimes drinking until I fell asleep, going out on a lot of random dates. Anything I thought that would fill that void. They’ve lost their effectiveness and now I don’t need them at all. All I need is to have faith and attend church to be happy. Such a simple answer, but sometimes so hard to find. I never thought that I would know any sort of true joy. I was always under the misconception that I didn’t deserve it. I will always be thankful to know that is not true. It is because of having faith in our Heavenly Father and Christ that I get to know the truth.

I have learned that genuinely nice people do exist, happy that it is not a myth. I have learned that I don’t have to worry about getting judged or looked down upon by other people. I have learned that it doesn’t matter who I was or what I did. Only who I am and what I do now. I have learned what it is like to have real friends. I have learned what it feels like to have family.

I’ll never forget the day that the voice in my head told me to find out more about the church. So I filled out the missionary request online. I am very glad that I decided to listen to it. Even though I knew pretty much nothing about the church. Took it on pretty much faith alone and I am very glad that I did.

I’ll never forget the night I met the missionaries and when those guys started the process of changing my life for the better.

I’ll never forget when I was baptized and the sheer elation I felt. How it felt like my birthday and that it has given me a new lease on life, I’m running with it.

I’m thankful for all the blessings I’ve been given. For the people I’ve met. For deciding to still live and be here now, when I thought I had so many reasons to give up. Endure until the end. I am so glad that I didn’t opt-out early. I’ve learned I would have missed out on so much. I never thought that I’d say that I’m happy to be alive. But I really truly am. In a sense, finding the church and developing faith has helped save my life.

I am thankful for the second chance I’ve been given. Thanks to Christ atoning for our sins and giving us the opportunity to repent. I no longer have to deal with the huge pile of regret that had been eating away at me. As long as I never do those things again and I know I never will.

On a quick side note that I thought was pretty amazing. I believe the Holy Spirit helped me write this. I probably could have shot from the hip, but I don’t like feeling unprepared. While writing I could feel its influence with the words coming to my head and the process going smoothly. I didn’t have to stop and think about what I was going to say. I just wanted to share that because I think its super cool.

I know that the church is true, that God is our Heavenly Father, and that Jesus Christ is our redeemer and savior. I give this testimony to you in the name of Jesus Christ

Amen. 

Testimony of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints - 11/15/11

I have a strong testimony of the Church and moreso, the Holy Spirit. I love to tell my testimony any chance I get, so here it goes.. there is a lot of backstory, but it will make sense in the end.

Joining the Church has changed me and my life.

I was born on July 28, 1986 to two wonderful parents. I am the oldest of 4. We belonged to an Episcopal church, but became inactive in it. My teenage years were all sorts of ups and downs. I became mentally ill. I went to 3 different high schools. It wasn't as bad as it could have been, but it wasn't easy either. Teenage years never are.

At 20yrs, I started to look towards other people for acceptance and found that in a sense with guys, through physical means. I was far from treating my body like a temple... 

At 22 years, I moved into a house with my then boyfriend. It was fun for a while... but it was fake. I had developed a skill with being dishonest when I was a child and was really good at it. I had strung him along and told him I wanted to be with him when I really didn't give a care about him at all. There were times when I thought that I could genuinely like him, maybe even love him. It wasn't happening. He was a rather jealous man and we lived with his friends. I was very skinny when I met him. He encouraged laziness and eating alot and I gained a lot of weight being with him. It was something that I resented, but I felt trapped because I needed him financially and I was encased in the lie. I preferred his friends over him and that caused alot of problems. He became very verbally and mentally abusive. At one point we were engaged.. I ended that 2 weeks before our 1yr anniversary by admitting my dishonesty. It was hard to do, but it was something I had to do. I couldn't take it anymore. I was sinking deeper into mental illness and didn't like or care about myself any further. He convinced me to get back together with him. I agreed. There was some thing we were going to do with his friends and he wanted to put on the show of a happy couple. We stayed together for those 2 wks and then he broke up with me the day after our 1 yr anniversary. I remember being happy because that meant I didn’t need to break up with him again. I started drinking after we broke up.

That year I turned 23 and days before my birthday and a month after the previous relationship ended I met a man, Mike. Life was fantastic. I found happiness in him, except my weight was an issue. Things were great until I had a pregnancy scare, which turned out to be nothing. Then that November he lost his job and I supported him and the family that had moved in with us. I was scared of losing him due to a previous breakup and get back together we had that January. So that valentine's day I proposed to him and things started getting better. That March, he started working again and things were starting to even out. That spring I was diagnosed with bipolar type 2 with psychosis. I refused treatment and medication due to previous complications. We had alot of ups and downs until he ended the engagement that September 2010. I was scared. I prayed for 2 weeks for us to be happy and for things to be alright. Then that November we offically broke up.

That was a very scary point in my life because I didn't know what I was going to do. I had not yet learned to drive and we had moved up to Everett so I could go to school, but it was very far away from my work. I was upset that my prayer had not been answered. Although I did not belong to a faith, I still thought that I finally deserved to be happy. It was all I wanted. After much pleading, he came back and agreed to be my roommate on a strictly friends level.

I had the crazy idea that he and I could get back together. That maybe if he saw me with other guys, he would became jealous and want me back. So over the following months I was with a number of guys. It didn't work. All I had succeeded in doing was trashing myself physically, mentally, and emotionally. I had no respect for myself and deeply hated who I had become. I had promised myself when I was younger that I would never drink, never smoke, and wait until marriage to give myself to a man. All that I maintained was I never started smoking.

I decided to try again, desperately looking for some sort of acceptance. In February of this year, I went out with a new guy and found he was still pure. I knew at that point I should have ended it, but I didn't. He fell fast for me and he gave me the attention that I wanted. He accepted me. But I couldn't have cared less about him. All he was to me was a means to an end. But I didn't want to take it from him. I couldn't stand him. He was young and not smart in really an sense of the word. But he wanted to be with me and he was desperate to lose what he had held on to. I knew not to. I knew that I shouldn't. Problem was I had become addicted and that overran my conscience. One night after we headed back from a concert, I did it. After I felt so low. Like the gum on the bottom of someone's shoe. I was so ashamed of myself. But he fell even harder for me. I was warned that would happen. A week after that happened I left him and swore to myself, no more.

A few days later I had started talking to a new guy. He is a member of the Church. But he was always bashing the Church. We met once and it was a flop so we stopped talking.

I had started making changes. I dropped out of college. I couldn’t handle the stress. I swore to myself that I would become celibate until I eventually get married and I stopped drinking. I was never a big drinker. But stopping the other was a more major change.

On Tuesday, May 2, 2011, I was sitting at work when this voice in my head told me to go online to mormon.org and send a missionary request. At first I blew it off, hearing voices wasn't anything new. A few hours later it came back and was louder and repeated until I did it. I didn't really know anything about the Church. I figured, what have I got to lose? I was already at the bottom as far as I was concerned. I told my mom and she did research for me, sending me stuff about the Church. I had some concerns, but blew it off. I figured after all the crap I had done I was beyond any sort of salvation.

That Friday, May 6, my roommate texted me saying that two missionaries had come by that I had sent the request about. I was at work, so I figured, well there went my chance. That night at 8:00pm, they came back. Our apartment building has a call box system set up to my roommate's phone for this room. I was tired and wanted to send them away. But I felt bad because it was pouring rain all day and I felt bad that they had to be in the rain earlier. So I told my roommate to go ahead and buzz them in. I was suddenly aware of how messy my place was, but it was too late to do anything about it. When they came to the door I became very nervous, when I opened it and found the two young men in suits standing there waiting to be let in. I remember thinking, whoa they are here to talk to me!

I looked forward to every lesson, I was absorbing it all up like a sponge. It all made sense. I didn't feel the need to question it and I like to question things. What appealed me to me the most I think out of all of it was the ability to repent and atone for my sins and that with baptism I would be given a new life. A new chance to do things right. It was something I was desperate for and couldn't believe that it was being offered to me. I hesitated at being baptized because I had a fear of being in the water and going backwards.

I first went to Church on May 15th, I felt out of place and at home at the same time. I made a few instant friends. I remember feeling weird because that night I took my roommate to the Rammstein concert.

I was baptized that following Sunday May 22nd. I will forever remember that day as the best day of my life. I don't remember much of it, except it went fast and I remember bursting into laughter as I came back out of the water. I felt so light, fresh, clean, new, and extremely happy. I took forever changing, they came and checked on me 2-3 times because I was just standing back there laughing my butt off in disbelief that I actually had done it.

I was confirmed on May 29th. I remember feeling the rush and instant comfort and I knew the Spirit was with me and will always be.

I had not realized how much I've changed since the baptism until one of the missionaries told me. I like to reflect between who I was and who I am now. I am happy. I like who I am. I am no longer under the influence of Satan. I follow the Word Of Wisdom. I abide by the Law Of Chastity. I don't swear anymore, my vocabulary used to consist of primarily swear words. I haven't missed a day of Church except for one when I took my roommate to the hospital. I have found extended family. I have a great relationship with my parents. I love my family so much. I got my driver's license on June 3rd. I have written many poems through promptings of the Spirit. My life has been spared many times due to promptings of the Spirit. I have been able to receive inspiration about friends through the Spirit. Something kind of amazing, since joining the Church, I have been cured of my mental illnesses. I no longer have them, nor experience any past symptoms of them. I have almost all together stopped being dishonest. I found that the prayer I had sent for Mike and I to be happy was answered. He is my roommate and the best friend I've ever had and overall, we are happy.

At one point I thought that Mike and I could get back together again. I prayed on it a good deal. It was answered, no. Not romantically anyway, but that he will always be a part of my life. I am happy being single. I finally don't need a man to feel accepted. I do eventually want to meet a righteous man and get married, etc. I dream of being a missionary first. I feel like its something I am supposed to and want to do. In July I was prompted to write to the kid I had taken the v-card from and I apologized. On October 25^th  he wrote back to me, accepting my apology. I no longer feel any of the guilt that I had been holding onto. I am back in the college that I dropped out of earlier this year! I can't count all the blessings in my life through joining the Church, there is so many! I'm so thankful for it all!

I know without a shadow of a doubt that God exists, He is our Heavenly Father. That Jesus Christ is his only begotten son and our Redeemer and Savior. That He sent us the Holy Spirit to be with us - I am so thankful for that!!! I recently learned that if you clear out all the excess thoughts in your mind that you can hear the Spirit's small still voice loud and clear. That Joseph Smith Jr is the Prophet and that he reestablished His Church back on the earth. That President Thomas S Monson is the Living Prophet. That the scriptures are true. That they are the words of God and Jesus Christ. That this is the One True Church!!!

In the name of Jesus Christ,

Amen