Time
I think my blog is going to be a reflection of how much I am relying on Heavenly Father and how much I am relying on my Self.
I am
not going to make this blog another tool to beat myself up. It's a tool for me to be closer to Christ. A tool for meditation and reflection. A place to be honest and open. A place to just be me.
I was searching for words to write about time this morning, when I came across
this post at
Hieng to Kolab.
I was 22 years old. I was pregnant with my third daughter. I was a convert to the Church and my 1 year membership anniversary had passed. I was so excited about going to the temple to be sealed to my husband. I had 2 daughters from a previous marriage and my husband, a returned missionary, had adopted them so we could have them sealed to us for all time and eternity. Life was so wonderful. I was ecstatic.
My husband had told me a little about the Temple ceremony, but not much. My R.S. President had told me the same thing my husband did, which was mainly about the garments and care. Basically, don't ever let anyone see them and don't let them touch the floor. If they wear out or you get blood stains on them, burn them, don't just throw them away.
We went to the Logan Temple. ( **The sessions there were still live, as were the sessions at the Salt Lake Temple. I am so glad I got to see that, now.) I was so confused. No one told me about the anointing, and I was so confused that a Sister could perform a Priesthood Ordinance.
So that started out fro me to be a totally freaked out, completely confusing, horrible day that should have been the most important day of my life. I was crying once I got to the Celestial room, but they weren't happy tears. I didn't say anything...I let everyone think they were happy tears and shut my emotions down so I could enjoy the sealing and how lovely my daughters looked.
I went to many many sessions in the next few years, trying to understand, feeling as if there were something wrong with me, because I questioned many things. I had and still have a love of deep doctrine. I love the early writings of the Prophets.
I had a lot of questions. I asked my Bishop, and Stake President of these seemingly inconsistent things I was learning in the old writings. I was told, somethings aren't meant to be answered right now. Don't question, just trust and have faith.
I believed that if the Church was TRUE, then it would be completely true in
all things, and there would be no inconstancy
anywhere, especially in a Prophets writings.
My Testimony was
crumbling. I was confused, angry and totally befuddled.
There was a Sister who I greatly admired in my ward. Her husband was in the bishopric, they had a bunch of perfect kids, she was a counsellor in the Relief Society. She was the perfect
LDS woman. I so wanted to be just like Sister King (name changed). There were a couple other families like that in our ward, and I wanted my family to be just like that. As perfect in every way as possible (more about
that someday). Sister King and I shared a love of the old writings. She lived 3 houses away from me.
Sister King had a neighbor who went to another Church and had given her a copy of The God Makers. Sister King, knowing she had a strong testimony of the Gospel, read it, thinking that would be a good missionary tool to communicate with her neighbor. The neighbor was happy to share other Anti-Mormon writings with her and did.
Sister King left the Church. She was a little hyper-
vigilant and defensive at the time, so she was treated like she had the plague. She truly believed that all Mormons were going to have a big surprise and be doomed to Hell for not worshipping the right Jesus and performing
priestcrafts/witchcraft.
She missed her
LDS family. Her world was upside down. But she was determined in her belief that she had been
deceived her entire life. We became very close. She asked me to read the God Makers and tell her what I thought. I did, following every
reference and scriptural passage.
I read the rest of the books and went to Church with her, and I too, ended up leaving the Church.
For over 20 years.
I will write more about my
journey as an Apostate and return to the Gospel and the Church in later posts. My point in all this, and
referencing the post
"Teaching to Women" at
Hieng to
Kolob is this:
1. If a sister had taught, what the Sister in
reference did, to me, before I went to the temple the experience would have been completely different for me. I was freaked out and confused instead of being able to understand the holy experience.
I am so thankful Heavenly Father never gives up on us. He brought me back home, slowly cracking through my barriers, which started at the Temple. Satan did his job on me, and well. Jesus in turn, truly saved me from the depths of Hell.
2. How wonderful it is, that maybe some young brother will
sees the difference in how we are taught as women and men.
3.
The Church is growing spiritually, just as we are.
The time has come, when we will be more aware of the Fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There is so much we don't know, and so much Satan has blinded us with.The time has come for us to truly live the Gospel in love and love Christ as Heavenly Father would have us love him.
Not with fear.
The Church is growing...
and She shall show us why She is called She.
Do I know the Church is true?
Oh, yeah!
I know what Hallelujah means.
Blessed Be.
In His love He chose us, actually picked us out for Himself as His own, in Christ, before the foundation of the world that we should be holy… (Ephesians 1:4 AMP). 
