I
guess since I am going first that I have the responsibility of introducing
us. As your program says, we are the Nielsen’s. Since we are pretty new in the ward and
people don’t know us very well yet, I will give you a little background about
us. Kole and I met on our high school
diving team where early mornings, frigid waters and parading around in speedos lead
us to quickly become close friends. I
always had a crush on him so thankfully being part of a close knit group of
friends gave us plenty of reasons to hangout.
We continued to be friends after high school- despite his girlfriend-
and we also wrote throughout his mission in Hermosillo, Mexico.
Looking back, I am thankful for the
years that we were just friends because that foundation of friendship has
really blessed our marriage. By the time
he returned home from his mission, his whole “girlfriend problem” had cleared
up and so we started spending time together and just never stopped. One thing lead to another and we were married
in the Logan temple-
our ten year anniversary is at the end of this month. We have 3 smart, amazing, and great kids… Eve
is 6. She will be entering first grade
in a couple weeks and she will turn 7 on Halloween. Then we have Jack. He is 4 and he is fully of energy and he
always has lots to say. He will turn 5
in January. And then we have
Porter. He is 18 months old and he is
still learning to sit still in church so he will probably be spending most of
his time in the halls- Kole is probably not as disappointed about that as he
should be. We are so thankful to have
each of them in our family.
Up
until a month ago, we were living in Logan-
just as we had been our whole married lives.
Our parents both still live in Cache Valley and are not overly happy
that we moved their only grandchildren and hour a half away- it might as well
be 20 hours away if you ask my mom. We
now live in the house at 4808 South 3640 West- but people mostly know it as the
Kimball’s old home. I admit we were
perfectly content living in Logan
and probably could have happily lived there our whole lives but we ended up
getting transferred down here for Kole’s job.
We were a little nervous to branch out and move to the “big city” but we
decided that it was best to trust the Lord and go where He wanted us to
go. Of course it gave us some great reassurance
to know that Kole’s bosses had some extra insight and revelation as to where
the Lord wanted us to be… I guess that is one of the blessings of being a
seminary teacher. Even if they send you
thousands of miles away to the middle of nowhere- you can at least be certain
that that’s exactly where the Lord wants you to be. Thankfully we were sent here. Kole is now teaching at Herriman High School. I am a stay at home mom. We are really happy to be living here.
We prayed very diligently that the Lord would
open doors and provide opportunities for us to move into the right home,
neighborhood and ward. We feel very
firmly that the Lord has answered our prayers and this is just where He wants
us to be. We feel so blessed to be so warmly
welcomed into this ward. We have been
very impressed with the people and leaders in this ward and stake. Kole and I always joked that the Church is a
little truer in Logan
but in reality, I am grateful to know that the Church is true wherever I
am. That no matter if I live in Logan or Lithuania,
in Taylorsville or Tanzania,
that I don’t have any need to worry about what the Lord’s Church will be like
or what kind of people the members will be.
Your natural and instinctive kindness and outgoingness in welcoming our
family has further strengthened my testimony that this is still The Church of
Jesus Christ and each of you are His latter-day saints on the same quest to
know Him and become like Him. So, thank
you for all your goodness. We look
forward to getting to know you all better and serving along with you.
When Brother Martin came by
earlier this week and asked us to speak, I am sure that he told us what he
wanted us to speak about but honestly, my nervousness about having to speak in
Church made his words just go right in one ear and out the other. So I apologize if my talk is not quite along
the lines he had in mind. Nevertheless,
I hope that as I have sought the Lord’s help in preparing this talk that it will
be the message the Lord has intended. I
further pray that I may be able to deliver the Lord’s message by the power of
the Holy Ghost. I know that the words
that come out of my mouth are not nearly as important as what the Spirit
silently speaks to your soul; therefore, I simply hope that my words may be a
catalyst for your own personal revelation.
I, like many of you, was born
to goodly parents. They helped me to
desire to follow Christ and they taught me much about Him. I came to love Him, accept Him as my Lord and
Savior and want to serve Him. However, I
did not grow up a member of this Church.
I did not embrace the gospel and join the Church until I was 20 years
old. I am still the only member on my
side of our family. Joining the Church did
not come easily. It required multiple
sacrifices. Not only did it take a
sacrifice of an old life and being reborn into a new life- but even more
difficult- it ended up requiring me to sacrifice much regarding many
friendships and especially family relationships. Yet I do not regret these sacrifices for we
know that true sacrifice always brings forth the blessings of heaven- above and
beyond that which we could dream or desire for ourselves. I have found that the Lord is indeed faithful
with His blessings. His promises are
sure. President Ezra Taft Benson said "Men
and women who turn their lives over to God will discover that He can make a lot
more out of their lives than they can. He will deepen their joys, expand their
vision, quicken their minds, strengthen their muscles, lift their spirits,
multiply their blessings, increase their opportunities, comfort their souls,
raise up friends and pour out peace."
Throughout my youth I was
raised a non-denominational Christian. My
parents and those I attended church with would identify themselves as
“born-again Christians.” If any of you
have met born-again Christians, you know that they are in no way apathetic
about Jesus Christ or their faith. Born
again Christians are serious Christians.
Their lives are not about fitting in with worldly society; they are
about standing out from the crowd and living the life God has planned for them. Notwithstanding their firm belief that
professing Christ as their Savior is all that is required for salvation, they
still are full of good works that witness their gratitude for Jesus Christ …
they attend church regularly, many of them are baptized, they pray devoutly, they
diligently study their Bibles, they serve missions, they have community
outreach groups, they know what they believe and they strive as much as we do
to live what they believe. They are good
people but they can also be very antagonistic against the LDS Church
and its members. Thus I was raised in a home that was very anti-Mormon. We attended various Christian churches with
different sized congregations and different music and worship styles, but all
of them had one thing in common- none of them were the Mormon Church. Of one thing we were sure, Mormons were different-
they were not mainstream Christians… they were not Christians at all. We didn’t want anything to do with a
“non-Christian church.”
When I was 15 my dad was
offered a job opportunity to move from California
to Logan, Utah. My parents felt this was a great opportunity
both professionally and personally. They
felt the Lord had opened a door and directed them to come to Utah to be a light to a people living in
religious darkness. They felt that the
Lord had called them to Utah
as missionaries to convert the Mormons. Knowing
I would be living in the midst of a highly Mormon population, I did my research
and investigated the Church’s doctrines so I could be prepared to do my part to
help convert the Mormons to the truth. The
funny thing is, I knew members of the Church personally. Even in California, I had close friends that were
members. People I spent time with in and
out of school. Did I ask my friends what
they believed? No. In fact, with a prideful attitude, I was more
likely to tell them what they believed. I
found my information through various resources put out from ex-members and
anti-Mormon ministers that spent their lives trying to disprove the Church. I let them define my opinions and knowledge
about the Church and its people. After
much study and learning, I felt I had a good grasp on what the Church taught
and members believed. My studies only
further reassured me that I wanted no part of the Church. I believed that Mormons were members of a
cult. I looked at my friends with pity-
they were obviously deceived by leaders that wanted to force obedience and
oppress their members. I figured the
Mormons were like any other cult members who were just too ignorant to know
that what they believed was totally wrong.
I understood how people could grow up in their Church and never know any
better but I wondered what would cause regular people to become insane enough
to convert to the Church by choice. Didn’t
they know what their Church really taught?
Didn’t they know about the shady pasts of their leaders? Didn’t they know that science disproves their
scriptures? The Mormons were an enigma I
just could not wrap my brain around. I
was completely anti-Mormon. I was
absolutely positive that I would never ever, under any circumstances, join the
Mormon Church
And yet, here I am. I am a baptized and endowed member of the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I’m married to a seminary teacher,
and I’m standing in the middle of a Sacrament meeting giving a talk. How does that happen?
Well, it didn’t happen
overnight. But it did happen at the
right time for me.
By divine design, the Lord’s
plan for my life included specific people who would be willing to share the
word of God and help implant the gospel seed in my soul. These members of the Church befriended me
despite all that I was and believed. I
believe Lord foreordained them to be the right people, in the right places, at
the right times in my life. They each
impacted my life in different ways at different times but their impressions were
far reaching and long lasting.
To illustrate this more
fully, I would like you to imagine a calm glassy lake with giant storm clouds
looming overhead. As those storm clouds
begin to release the heavy moisture within them, the rain falls until it breaks
the peaceful surface of the lake. First
a couple drops here and there, each one creating a bulls-eye formation of
ripples, and then in a complete downpour, the surface of the lake is seemingly
boiling. Each individual water drop and
each ripple is multiplied so substantially that you can hardly tell where one
starts and ends and where the others begin.
Of course this is more than a
simple exercise in mental imagery; it is a parable of our lives.
Each of us is like a drop of
water that falls into the lake of life.
Each of us is at the
epicenter of our circle of influence.
Our influence starts with
people we know and interact with personally and then radiates outward. It reaches unto people we may not know or
interact with directly- but who are nonetheless still influenced by us because
of the chain reaction we started. Each
of those people affects the lives of others and those others do the same-
onward and outward- perhaps indefinitely.
This is all part of the great plan of our Father in Heaven. This is how He designed His gospel message to
be spread.
We may not instantly see the
far reaching effects of our ripples.
However, I believe that one day the Lord will reveal such hidden things
to us.
I’ve come to see how
important it is for all of us to
listen to the Spirit and find our own individual place in His plan. Our wise and beloved prophet, President
Monson, offered some pertinent counsel.
He said, “Try as some of us may, we cannot escape the influence our lives have
upon the lives of others. Ours is the
opportunity to build, to lift, to inspire, and to lead. We cannot be
careless in our reach. Lives of others depend on us.”
Through small and simple
things the Lord has witnessed to me that He was actively involved in preparing
me to come unto Him from the time I was little.
I see more and more clearly even as years pass by how family, friends,
neighbors, classmates, coworkers, etc. each played a significant role in how I
progressed and evolved in my preparation to receive the Gospel. Some saw the outcome of their efforts, but
many others never did. One classmate
gave me a Book of Mormon my freshman year of high school that sat on my shelf
for 5 years until I was finally ready to pick it up and read it. She never knew her small act made a
difference. Another gave me a picture of
the Savior with her testimony written on the back. It too sat on my closet shelf for years- but
now it sits framed on my wall. Others
invited me to church activities and dances whenever they got the chance. Still others were just consistently good
examples to me. There are more moments
and examples I cannot pinpoint than the ones I can. They lived their beliefs day in and day out. They were living, breathing testimonies of
Jesus Christ and His truth.
I’ve come to understand how
the Lord, in His infinite wisdom, has put each of us in the various places and
positions in our lives for a reason.
Each individual is unique and each is uniquely designed to make a
difference in the world. But the use of
our agency will largely determine the scope and effect of this difference. Are we prepared to be used when the Lord
calls upon us?
We do not have to be a
powerful world leader to make a difference for good in the world. Nor do we need to hold any kind of leadership
position in the Church. We just need to
make the decision to act in accordance with the promptings of the Spirit. Even when these promptings appear to be small
and simple, we have been assured in scripture that “by small and simple things
are great things brought to pass.”
I am positive that although I
was not born into the Church, my Heavenly Father never abandoned me, overlooked
me or lost sight of my potential as His daughter. And in His perfect timing, the Lord
challenged me to take the next step in my relationship with Him and He led me
to the point that I could do that.
Perhaps there is one person I
can most fully thank for their personal preparation so they could be the right
person, in the right place, at the right time in my life. I know the Lord had one specific person
planned who would help bring all these pieces of light together and would
support and sustain me into the eternities.
My wonderful husband Kole was the person the Lord had called to this
difficult task. Years of friendship and example combined with two years of
studying, teaching and discussing the gospel as a missionary had prepared him
to be the catalyst for the change I needed in my life. The problem was, I didn’t
think I needed to change. I never felt
that what I believed could be lacking anything.
I never questioned what I believed or really felt I had any need
to. I had accepted Jesus Christ as my
Savior and therefore I believed I was saved.
What more did I need? Well, we
all know that I needed what only the true Church of Jesus Christ
could offer. Kole knew it would not be
easy to change my mindset. But He
persisted. Of course it didn’t hurt that
he had the Lord and the truth on his side.
Together we discussed and studied the doctrines of the gospel including
the Plan of Salvation and the great love that our Father in Heaven has for all
of His children past, present and future.
For months we discussed deep things and questions that held my faith at
bay. As we did so, things began to click
in my mind and truth began to resonate in my soul. The darkness of doubt and disbelief began to
disperse. I began to want to believe the
things we talked about. I found the God
he worshiped to be loving, kind, merciful and worthy of worship. Upon seeing my desire to believe, Kole challenged
me to learn the truth of the gospel for myself.
He asked me to experiment upon the gospel and discover for myself the
truthfulness thereof by the power of the Spirit. He didn’t ask me to do anything
elaborate. Like any wise missionary, he
knew he didn’t need to complicate the simplicity of the message or method.
In Alma 32 we find a discourse on this
pattern. Starting in verse 26 we
read: Now, as I said concerning faith- that it was not a perfect knowledge-
even so it is with my words. Ye cannot
know of their surety at first, unto perfection, any more than faith is a
perfect knowledge.
But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your
faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of
faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work
in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion
of my words.
“Now we will compare the word unto a seed. Now, if ye give place that a seed may be
planted in your heart, behold, if it be a true seed, or a good seed, if ye do
not cast it out by your unbelief, that ye will resist the Spirit of the Lord,
behold, it will begin to swell within your breasts, and when you feel those
swelling motions, ye will begin to say within yourselves- It must needs be that
this is a good seed, or that the word is good, for it beginneth to enlighten my
understanding, yea, it beginneth to be delicious to me.”
If we skip down a few verses,
Alma continues by saying, “But if ye
will nourish the word, yea, nourish the tree as it beginneth to grow, by your
faith with great diligence and with patience, looking forward to the fruit
thereof, it shall take root; and behold it shall be a tree springing up unto
everlasting life.”
As a further witness of this
principle, President Uchtdorf gave a beautiful explanation in His recent
conference talk entitled “Waiting on the road to Damascus.”
He said,
“One of the most remarkable events in the history of
the world happened on the road to Damascus.
You know well the story of Saul, a young man who had “made havock of the
church, entering into every house … [committing the Saints] to prison.”1
Saul was so hostile that many members of the early Church fled Jerusalem in the hope of escaping his anger.
Saul pursued them. But as he “came near Damascus … suddenly there
shined round about him a light from heaven:
“And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying
unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?”2
This transformative moment changed Saul forever.
Indeed, it changed the world.
We know that manifestations such as this happen. In
fact, we testify that a similar divine experience happened in 1820 to a boy
named Joseph Smith. It is our
clear and certain testimony that the heavens are open again and that God speaks
to His prophets and apostles. God hears and answers the prayers
of His children.
Nevertheless, there are some who feel that unless they
have an experience similar to Saul’s or Joseph Smith’s,
they cannot believe. They stand at the waters of baptism but do not
enter. They wait at the threshold of testimony but cannot bring themselves to
acknowledge the truth. Instead of taking small steps of faith on the path of
discipleship, they want some dramatic event to compel them to believe.
They spend their days waiting on the road to Damascus.
There are many others who, for different reasons, find
themselves waiting on the road to Damascus.
They delay becoming fully engaged as disciples. They hope to receive the
priesthood but hesitate to live worthy of that privilege. They desire to enter
the temple but delay the final act of faith to qualify. They remain
waiting for the Christ to be given to
them like a magnificent Carl
Bloch painting—to remove once and for all their doubts and fears.
The truth is, those who diligently seek to learn of
Christ eventually will come to know Him. They will personally receive a divine
portrait of the Master, although it most often comes in the form of a
puzzle—one piece at a time. Each individual piece may not be easily
recognizable by itself; it may not be clear how it relates to the whole. Each
piece helps us to see the big picture a little more clearly. Eventually, after
enough pieces have been put together, we recognize the grand beauty of it all.
Then, looking back on our experience, we see that the Savior had indeed come to
be with us—not all at once but quietly, gently, almost unnoticed.
This can be our experience if we move forward with
faith and do not wait too long on the road to Damascus.”
Isn’t President Uchtdorf
amazing? He always put things so
well. How thankful I am that I didn’t
get stranded on my personal road to Damascus.
Did I experience anything
sensational Like Saul or Joseph Smith?
No. My path into the Church did
not include a blinking neon sign telling me that this was the Lord’s
Church. While I know that there are some
people who experience such spiritual radiance in their search for truth, I
found that for me, it was much more subtle.
It did not include heavenly voices or visions of angels but it did
include a gradual increase of knowledge, understanding and faith that came line
upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little.
My testimony came slowly but
surely by the power of the Spirit- the same way your testimonies came. Testimony growth and true conversion to the
gospel and the Church are an ongoing and lifelong process for all
individuals. Those born in or out of the
Church must gain their testimony the same way.
There are no shortcuts in gaining a testimony. There was no singular event that lead me into
the Church- just a lifetime of merciful pieces of scattered light that
eventually came together to show me the path I needed to take.
I can now testify to you that
the true gospel of Jesus Christ can be found in this, The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints. This Church
bears the name of Jesus Christ because this truly is His Church. He leads and guides it today through his
living prophet on the earth. His name is
Thomas S Monson and there are 14 more living apostles that are further special
witnesses of Jesus Christ. If we listen
to them and follow their counsel, they help us to prepare to come into the
presence of God again. Joseph Smith was a true prophet, chosen of God and foreordained
to restore this beautiful gospel to the earth again. The Book of Mormon is the word of God. It is packed with truth and light. It testifies of Christ and we will come to
know Him and become like Him as we submit our lives to a lifelong study of
these marvelous scriptures. The Plan of
Salvation is pure and perfect. Families
are divinely designed to be eternal.
Holy temples make eternal families possible. I testify that God is intimately interested
and involved in the details of our lives.
God loves us beyond comprehension and he desires His love to flow
through our lives. “Wherefore, my beloved brethren, pray unto
the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love,
which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of His Son, Jesus
Christ; that ye may become the sons of God; that when he shall appear we shall
be like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we
may be purified even as he is pure.”
I know God lives. I know the Atonement
is real. It is powerful. It is active in all who desire it. I know this because it has changed my
life.
Of these things I leave my
witness, in the name of Jesus Christ.
Amen.
