Finding the Right Path

How do you find the right words to explain an astronomical event in your life? This will be my first attempt...and depending on how this goes, it may be my last! I can write silly stuff. I can occasionally hit on something meaningful. But this....we will see.

After graduating high school I moved to Alaska. Had a great summer. Sometime in August I thought I would mosey on down to the University and start college. Did that. After some housing difficulties I was given a room at the University dorms. These particular dorms were reserved for Seniors mostly. They had waiting lists a mile long. I got in anyway.

I moved in on a Saturday about a month and a half after the semester started. Early the next morning one of my roommates came in all dressed up and smiley to say goodbye. I asked her where she was off to in that perty dress. She said church. I said "Can I come next week?". I still think about the look on her face to this day. After she reeled her mouth off the floor she said sure.

I went. I obtained a copy of the Gospel Principles manual. I read it that week. I really wanted to find "my church" so I was pretty motivated. I had already tried a good many churches. I don't even know why I was driven to go to church. My heart just searched and the rest of me tried to follow.

Saturday night came and I could not go to sleep. I was so tired but my whole being couldn't rest. I was disturbed in a very real way. Around midnight I remembered reading about fasting in that Gospel Principles book. The moment I decided to fast I felt sure that was what needed to be done. I fasted to know if this church was "my church". I had never fasted before and only vaguely remembered the nuts and bolts of such an undertaking. I still smile at myself for downing all kinds of water thinking that food alone was the goal. How cute of me! :)

I remember sitting in that chapel and watching the Branch President stand to announce something. I can't explain how I knew this, but I knew it without a single shred of doubt...that man standing at that pulpit was a man of God. He had God with him somehow. I didn't have the vocabulary to explain it, I just knew.

After the meeting that same branch president immediately walked up to me and asked me when I would be baptized. I announced, "Today!". He laughed and told me there were some sister missionaries that could help me with that.

I took those discussions in one week. What a baptism day I had. The adversary wasn't too pleased and made sure my day was the worst day I had ever had to that point in my 18 years. Well, I made it to my baptism. President Green baptized and confirmed me. He told me in all his years he had never felt the Holy Ghost stronger. I didn't realize what he was really saying until many years later.

I have been a member of "my church" for about 15 years. What a cool life I have had in that time. Exquisite in it's joys and pains.