Kristy, Kole & Kids: 2012

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.