How I became a Mormon

Here's my conversion story, written down a couple of years ago, for people who like to read that kind of thing.

When I was growing up there was an LDS family, the Taylors, who went to elementary school with us in Stratford, CT. They had four kids at the time and the oldest was a year younger than me. They were really friendly and smart and outgoing and they talked openly about their religion. My brother was even invited to the baptism of the daughter who is his age. My mom is an artist, and the Taylors had recently renovated their home (this was probably around 1987), and Jill (the mom) hired my mom to paint some murals in the house. Jill was always very open about being a member of the Church, and she'd answer any questions my mom had, but she never tried to proselytize, which is probably a good thing in our case. At the time we were very active in the Congregational church and loved our minister.

Well, to make a very long story a little bit shorter, my mom, my brother and sister and my two grandmas took a trip out west in 1988. I was thirteen at the time. My grandma is a major genealogy buff, and Jill mentioned to my mom that we might want to stop in SLC so my grandma could check out the Family History Library. She also casually mentioned that we could stop by Temple Square if we had time and asked us to send her a postcard from Temple Square. We scheduled two days in SLC on our three-week trip. 1988 was a really dry year in Utah. On the day we arrived in August, it hadn't rained in 40 days. We planned to "granny dump" my grandmas at the library and go hiking in the mountains and swimming (can you believe it?) in the Great Salt Lake.

As we were pulling in to Salt Lake City it started to pour. We didn't know what else to do, so we decided to get our errand for Jill over with and stopped by Temple Square. Two days later, we had gone on every tour, seen every video, viewed every diorama. We had been in the car for more than two weeks, and when we arrived in SLC I was ready to commit fratricide against my annoying nine year-old brother, but my grouchy mood "magically" lifted when we got on Temple Square. We all felt it. We were so excited by the gospel.

The day we left SLC was a Saturday, and we ended up outside the temple gates, looking at all of the brides. There were probably ten or fifteen couples outside the temple with their photographers and families and I remember running around with my sister, trying to decide which bride was the prettiest. I wrote in my journal that night that I wanted to get married in the temple. My brother asked my mom if we were going to join the Church and she said, oh, probably not.

So we returned to Connecticut after having this great experience, where I really think we were all touched by the Spirit. We told my dad about our experience and he wasn't interested in learning more. My mom wasn't interested in pursuing the Church further if my Dad wasn't. Gradually, we started to forget how we felt. That winter I went downstairs and started looking through our stuff from the trip. I found our copy of the Book of Mormon and started reading it. I'd leave it in conspicuous places around the house.

A few weeks later there was a spotlight in our local newspaper on Elder and Sister Chandler, who had just moved into the area. My mom read the article and said she knew they would be the missionaries to teach us the gospel. She called Jill and told her the good news.For the next six weeks we met with the Taylors for dinner and FHE and then the adults would have a discussion with the missionaries. After six weeks, my mom and brother and I were dying to get baptized, but my dad still wasn't convinced. He's always been somewhat of a skeptic and he also wasn't sure how a bearded flaming liberal would be accepted into what he perceived to be a straight-laced conservative church. The missionaries came back for another six weeks and taught me and my brother (my sister was too young to be baptized at the time) and by the end of our lessons my dad was ready to be baptized.

On June 24, 1989 my mom, dad, brother and I were baptized in the Taylor's swimming pool. We were sealed in August 1990 in the Washington D.C. temple. All five of us have been active in the Church ever since. I love the Gospel with all my heart. Sometimes I miss the passion that I had for it when I was a brand new convert, but I know that it's true and it truly sustains me and centers my life.