The Church hasn’t always been important to me. I wouldn’t really say I was against it or anything, but as a teenager, there wasn’t a whole lot that was important to me. Including the Church.
I remember when I was going from 5’9″ to 6’2″ over one summer and trying to fill out my 150lb lanky body, wondering if there was ever any purpose in serving a mission or marrying within the Church. I don’t ever remember having a testimony of my own, received through divine confirmation, so I was looking at it more along the lines of what is in it for me.
My story of coming back to the Church is an interesting one, if nothing else.
In Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, most elementary schools end at Grade 8, and most high schools begin at Grade Nine. When students finish Grade 8, it’s a popular tradition to hold a graduation of sorts, with a family supper, awards and a dance. At mine, I had received an award for the highest achiever in our French class. Which I was pretty surprised at.
And which is kind of ironic. I didn’t take French classes in grade 9, to the dismay of my bilingual mother. I thought most of my friends weren’t and I was impressionable enough not to want to be the only one. Needless to say because of this, I didn’t take it in Grade 10 either.
We moved the summer after Grade 10 to Vancouver, and I felt a desire for a change of sorts. I took back my biological father’s last name (technically I had never lost it because I had never been adopted) and I decided for heritage’s sake, I would start taking French again.
Without much of a surprise, school officials wouldn’t let me register for Grade 11 French courses because I had been out of the language for so long. They wanted to put me back into Grade 9, but we managed to reach a compromise and I was set into Grade 10 French.
Shortly after school started, a 15-year-old boy named Mark Angus moved into our city from Winnipeg. He sat beside me in French class. Before long I found out he was also a member of the Church and we found other things we had in common. He and I became good friends, and one day he introduced me to a friend of his, a 15-year-old boy in his ward named Spencer Campbell. Together they began to encourage me to go to stake dances and activities.
By the time I graduated, I had attended a good number of them and had made many friends in the Church. In fact, my last youth conference found me meeting a girl by the name of Abby Madrigal. A year older than me and a recent convert, Abby and I formed a close friendship and after I graduated, we began dating.
Her enthusiasm of the gospel as a new member began to rub off on me, and before I knew it, I was teaching Primary and preparing for a mission. I had a lot to take care of to put my life in order, but I received tremendous support from Abby all along the way.
About six months into my service in the Utah Provo Mission, I received word from Abby that she had found an interest in another man. We talked a bit further about keeping our relationship, but I soon discovered that our relationship had a different purpose than helping me get married.
The Lord wanted me on a mission. He needed me to learn patience. There were people in Utah, Arizona and Nevada who I could touch. As a result, people in other corners of the world who would be touched as well. He needed me to make up for the knowledge I never gained in the seminary classes in which I never paid attention. He needed me to be an example to wayward siblings and a struggling father.
Abby helped me get to that point. She’s the one that turned me around. Now that I was there, our need for each other was no longer. We went our separate ways – she finished school and I finished my mission.
Now I’m married. It’s been almost six years. We were married in the Seattle Temple. We have a daughter who had her second birthday just yesterday and who will be getting a sibling in April.
I have a number of rich blessings in my life. And I have a handful of friends to thank for it. Thanks, guys.
