One thing I liked to do, during my spiritually inactive time, was log on to the Mormon chat room (ldschat.com) and harass people. Not in an anti-Mormon way, just in annoying, ridiculous way. One night I came home late from whatever I was out doing, and I logged on to ldschat.com. After a few minutes, I noticed someone online using the name of a band that I liked as a handle, so I messaged the person and started chatting. I found out I was chatting with a guy who was a year or two older than me and was preparing to go on a mission. We talked about mostly secular things. He told me to download some of his band’s music off Napster. And that was that.
The next night I came home from that evening’s escapades slightly inebriated. I logged onto ldschat.com to goof around, and I ended up talking to the person I had spoken with the night before. The conversation started off casually; however, the topic of my feelings towards the church soon came up. I explained my issues with various points of doctrine. The young man with whom I was speaking began to tell me that sometimes we need to have faith to overcome these things and wouldn’t I want to know if it were true? He asked me if I would pray about it, and I said I would. And so I knelt and offered a prayer and felt that familiar warmth come over me. I went up to my bedroom that night and dug my scriptures out from under the bed. I flipped open my triple combination to D&C and landed on section 76:
5 For thus saith the Lord—I, the Lord, am merciful and gracious unto those who fear me, and delight to honor those who serve me in righteousness and in truth unto the end.
6 Great shall be their reward and eternal shall be their glory.
7 And to them will I reveal all mysteries, yea, all the hidden mysteries of my kingdom from days of old, and for ages to come, will I make known unto them the good pleasure of my will concerning all things pertaining to my kingdom.
8 Yea, even the wonders of eternity shall they know, and things to come will I show them, even the things of many generations.
9 And their wisdom shall be great, and their understanding reach to heaven; and before them the wisdom of the wise shall perish, and the understanding of the prudent shall come to naught.
10 For by my Spirit will I enlighten them, and by my power will I make known unto them the secrets of my will—yea, even those things which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor yet entered into the heart of man.
Reading these verses was an answer to my prayer that I could not deny. I had issues with not understanding the will of God, and here was a response: I just needed to accept that I could not understand everything, and one day all things would be revealed. When I told my mother what had happened, she was thrilled.
When I told my boyfriend about my experience, he was not thrilled. His mother was quite anti-Mormon, despite the fact that she was not all that devout in her own religion. He always seemed to think she was rather silly, but when I came to him with this, it seemed that some of her ideas had influenced him after all. We ended up breaking up over it, about two weeks before our two year dating anniversary. I spent the next few months trying to repress my feelings of hurt. My newfound devotion to the gospel didn’t seem to help. I found myself falling into depression and I didn’t know how to deal with it. At some point I decided to self-medicate, turning to substances to distract myself from time to time. I became casually involved with someone who was exactly the opposite of everything that I am (think dumb jock).
Then one day it came to a point where I felt bad about the way things were going and I decided I need recommit myself to living the gospel. The next day at church, my branch president asked to meet with me for the first time ever, and I confessed all my sins. The timing couldn’t have been better.
On New Year’s Eve, shortly after the break-up, I was at a party and spoke with a former classmate. She was going to go to Europe to work as an au pair. As I listened to her talk about it, I said, “I wish I could do something like that…” She replied, “Why don’t you?” Up until that point I had never considered taking time off from school; but there was no reason why I couldn’t. A little while later I found an agency and began making arrangements to spend the next year in France. The agency found a family for me to work for in the suburbs of Paris.
I spent 10 months in France, and I attended church nearly every week. I had to take a bus, then a train, and then the metro to get to the meetinghouse in the Parisian ghetto, but I attended faithfully. The ward was not at all what I was used to. It was noisy during sacrament meeting and there was only one counselor in the bishopric; but I enjoyed the diversity. There was certainly no lack of character.
I experienced a lot of loneliness in France. It was hard to be away from my family for so long. I’m fairly certain that I become mildly depressed during that time, and by the end of my time there I was counting down the days.
Despite the difficulties, I think I was fairly comfortable spiritually during that time. I was happily reading the Book of Mormon in French, convinced that this would aid me in my acquisition of the language. It took me a while before I realized that le Livre de Mormon is mostly written in a really useless literary tense that is barely used now, even in literature.
When I came home after 10 months away, I initially attended my parents’ ward. But after awhile I started going to the YSA branch again. There was a young man attending the branch who was investigating the church. He looked familiar but I couldn’t place him. I finally realized that I had met him before. He was a friend of a friend of my ex-boyfriend. I met him at a Propagandhi concert right before I left for France. He didn’t really make an impression.
I saw him at the YSA dance at Halloween, and I decided to ask him to dance. I was like, hey, you’re so-and-so’s friend… He told me that he was getting baptized the next day. Shortly after that, I started dating a much older guy who I later deemed to be too apostate for my liking and stopped seeing. The following March I was at work when convert guy came in with a non-member friend. We exchanged pleasantries and then a little while later he returned to my counter to try to convince me to come to the YSA dance the next evening. Less than two weeks later we were a couple, and seven months later we were married. We had to wait for his one year membership anniversary so we could go to the temple.
