The day before my baptism, October 31, 1980, marked the end of many basic things for me. After working 2.5 years at Bank of America in Vista, I quit so I could travel to Texas and be closer to my Grandma Nita who was terminally sick with cancer. My parents had moved to Abilene a year or two earlier to care for her. I lived with them for a few months and got to visit my Grandma daily. Previously, I had only been able to see her occasionally, maybe once every year or two, since I lived in California and she lived in Texas. I'm so grateful I had this time with her since she died a year later. This is one of the last pics I had with my special Grandma for whom I was named.
Besides leaving my job, I also sold my home in Vista and left a relationship of many years. So my job, my home and my relationship all ended this day. My baptism day marked the beginning of many new roads for me.
I knew Sharyn and her family was LDS but I was young and immature and never really understood what that meant. They were always wonderful examples to me; I knew Sharyn was busy on Sundays and wouldn't go shopping or to do other fun things with me (not that I didn't try to coax her, but no luck!) After Sharyn and I attended high school and Palomar College together, she invited me to attend BYU in Provo with her, which we did together in 1978. Sharyn had warned me ahead of time that I would need to go to church with her, and I guess I agreed, but I don't think I realized it was for THREE hours at one time. Yikes. When I had attended another Christian church in years past (but for a short period of time), church was a one hour meeting and then I was off to do other fun things on Sunday.
I still remember attending Sacrament Meeting at BYU and then being amazed that not only was church not over, but we still had two more meetings - Sunday School and Relief Society. I remember being worried that someone would ask me to pray during one of these meetings, but luckily this never happened. I didn't realize that others probably knew I was a non-member. I did take the missionary discussions, committed to baptism, and returned to Vista after our block semester at BYU was over to be baptized so my friends and family could attend. But once I got home and back to my life before BYU and the Church, I made one of the worst decisions of my life, and that was to not get baptized. Oh, how I regret that decision and often wonder how different my life would've been if I had joined then at age 18 instead of waiting until I was 21.
Several years later, Essie (Sharyn's Mom who has always been like a second Mom to me), called me one day and invited me to come to her house to listen to General Conference. I declined but she wouldn't let me say no, saying she would come to my apartment and get me if I didn't come! Knowing that she would indeed do this, I showed up and listened to October 1980 General Conference in her big living room. Of course, she had invited the missionaries also, Elder Lybbert and Elder Clark. (What a surprise!)
When I say we listened to General Conference, it was because we actually listened to a radio which sat on the end table, since conference wasn't televised. We all kind of "watched" the radio as we listened, which seems odd but it worked at the time. When I heard General Conference and the inspiring talks, I knew it was true. I had probably known the church was true from BYU but didn't have a strong enough testimony or background to withstand criticism. Afterwards, I took the missionary discussions at Essie's home and remembered so much from my lessons a few years earlier at BYU. I made the important decision to be baptized, and my new life as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints began on Saturday, November 1st, 1980.
(More fun info and pictures to follow in another post).
No comments:
Post a Comment