LDS: Please describe the defining moment of your conversion.?

Good grief! Don't you love it when you ask a question for LDS and the haters jump on board. Get a life people.

My switch flipping moment:

My boyfriend and I had been dating for 3 years. He was an inactive member of the church. His twin brother had just returned from his mission. I did not like the church at all. I believed all the hatred I had heard about it. I remember being angry about the temple and how everyone could not go inside of it. Who were those Mormons to say who could go inside and who couldn't, I mean , God loves us all, right?! (Never mind of course that they built and own the building and it is private property.) When the twin was back from his mission, my boyfriend started going to youth activities with him. Then one weekend the twin needed to go back to BYU for school. My boyfriend was going to drive him up. The day they left a firend of mine asked me if I was going to marry this boyfriend one day. I said yes. The friend asked me what religion we would raise our kids. I said something about finding a 'born again' church. (Not really meaning it though. Never liking any of the dozens I had already visited.) The friend told me that my boyfriend had confided in him that the boyfriend wanted to go back to the Mormon faith, but never told me in fear of making me angry. I was so hurt. I could not believe that my boyfriend thought I would be angry at someone that was trying to have a relationship with God.

That night, my boyfriend's Mom called me at work and asked if I wanted to surprise the boys and go to Utah too and spend the weekend. We would drive through the night and be about 12 hours behind them. So I called in sick for the weekend and we left with a family friend, a man who was a return missionary 10 years earlier. While me future momther in law slept, I drilled this family friend for 10 hours in the car. I guess it was my way of keeping him awake and venting my anger. I asked horrible questions. I made terrible accusations about the Mormons. You name it, I said it. But this guy never got mad. He just calmly answered my questions and explained stuff to me. After 10 hours I learned that the rumors I had always believed could not be true. See, the fruit from this 'tree' is sweet and good. Not evil and vile. In Utah I told my boyfriend all that I had heard. He was cautious and we spent the weekend talking and I asked a TON of questions. Mostly about the temple and what goes on in there. They explained about families being 'sealed' together and about Heavenly Father and his love for us. On the way home, we drove together and talked about our relationship, things that would have to change and if we could one day truly get married in the temple.

At home I met with the sister missionaries. They gave me a copy of the Book of Mormon. I did not want to touch it let alone read it. But I did. Then I prayed about it after I read 'Moroni's promise." WOW! What a feeling when the holy ghost confirms an answer on you! It was life altering. 18 months later after my boyfriend graduated from the police academy, we were married in the Los Angeles temple for time and eternity. My family waited outside and didn't sompletely understand. All they knew is that it was important to me. We had a big party after and now 16 years later, two of my sister have been baptized into this wonderful church.

I am happy and love the way I am guided to raise my kids in a moral and loving home. Best thing I ever did!!!

I read the Book of Mormon and prayed about it. I knew immediately that it was true. From then on I wanted to know everything I could about the church, and modern prophets and scriptures both new and ancient. It transformed my life. Since then I've been greatly blessed through my church membership.

I've also learned another thing: every devil in the world seems to come out when you mention you are investigating the Mormon church. They say the most outrageous lies in order to persuade people not to believe in the Book of Mormon, or latter-day prophets. I have studied some of these anti-Mormon books and have yet to find a single valid point. They all evaporate when exposed to the truth.

I've always known. It has been a consistent calm feeling that I knew what I was being taught was true.

My husband, formerly a Catholic, had the massive burning where he felt like he was on fire. Each person is different.

However, even though I have always known, I still had to read and study and pray for a witness. Again, that calm sweet peace was undeniable!

I agree the "bats are out" when anyone asks a question about the LDS Church!

I was raised in the church so I never doubted that it was true. However, even being raised in the gospel, a conversion is still needed. For me, it was my freshman year at BYU. Even though I learned the textbook answers in church and seminary, I did not "internalize" those truths until BYU when I felt the love of the spirit enter my life. I finally understood the why and not just the what. I felt the truthfullness of what I had been taught all my life. I would walk across campus in a state of profound personal peace. I knew that what I was doing and where I was were exactly where and what Heavenly Father wanted of me. We did home teaching to our fellow students one a week in order to get to know them better and serve them better. I count that as my conversion.

My conversion is very special and sacred to me; and I regularly seek for the Spirit to sustain that.

I first gained a confirmation from the Holy Ghost while reading the Book of Mormon. I was still quite young, in grade school at the time. I noticed a very warm, special feeling in my heart as I read the Book of Mormon. And then when I was reading in III Nephi about the Savior Jesus Christ blessing the little children and holding them, I found myself flowing with tears as I read. I asked God in prayer why I cried as I read, and a strong, unmistakable feeling came over me that it was because his holy Spirit was confirming the goodness and truthfulness of that book to me.

Honestly, it all seemed to build and I feel I was being prepared to accept the Gospel for years before I was ever actually introduced to it.

I guess one of the key moments after I learned the church existed was when I found the Articles of Faith in a reference book at the college library. I had been using this reference book ( a book I called the "Book O Religions) to help me find a religion that believed what I believed. When I found the Articles of Faith it outlined everything I already believed and was searching for without really realizing it.

But I guess THE single moment that defined my conversion the most was when I was reading in the Book of Mormon (I must have been around 2 Nephi somewhere) and I realized that I believed it, and that any church that used this book as it was intended/as scripture couldn't use it and teach anything that wasn't correct or good in the sight of God.

Later, I was trying to make sure what I was feeling was true and I thought about the Prophet Joseph Smith and asked myself how I felt about him and did I believe that he translated the Book of Mormon like he said he did. And I came to the conclusion that I knew Nephi and others contributed to the book, and that Mormon compiled it, and that for me it really didn't matter WHO translated it. If Joseph Smith didn't then God would have chosen someone else to translate it, but that it would be translated - if for no other reason than I needed it. So to me all the stuff that happened to Joseph Smith (while indeed great and wonderful and inspiring) was just the stuff that needed to happen to him and for him in order for him to do what God wanted him to do. If it weren't him, it would be someone else, but the plan of God would not be frustrated, it would not, not come to pass.

Once my mind wrapped itself around all of that, there was no doubt. I HAD to be baptized. Nothing else would do. Waiting was torture. (I had to wait for about 2 weeks until those I was riding back to college with were ready to return, but I eventually talked them into leaving about 2 days early. Then I learned I had to take something called Missionary Discussions. :) I talked the Missionaries into giving them to me in 5 days instead of over a period of weeks or months. But I couldn't talk them into giving them to me all at once :( ) So from the time I made up my mind it was a torturous 2.5 week wait until I entered the waters of baptism. Once that happened I was able to relax and didn't feel the almost overwhelming urgency of it all until I was ready to take out my endowment.

Ok, so that was a little more than you asked for, but that's as pared down as I can make it.

As a born&raised member, I've "always known" it was true. I'd felt the Spirit testify to my heart that it was all true.....

On my mission I had two experiences.

In my first area, one night I was thinking about the plan of salvation- how it all worked and how the pieces all fit together.... and the love my Father has for us, for me- that He would do this all for us- just overwhelmed me....

In my second area, one day I was reading 2 Nephi 27 and thought, "Gee- what would it have been like to be Joseph- translating this and discovering, "There was a prophesy about me??!?"....

He was a propeht. The BoM is true. The plan of salvation/happiness exists because our Father loves us.

I was ten. I'd wondered if what my parents taught me was true. I'd been thinking about it a lot. I'd been doing some praying as well.

One day I was alone and thinking about it again. I said a prayer in my heart and said something like "Heavenly Father, if it's true, please help me to feel it and to know it".....

Right then I was hit with the Spirit. It was like a wave that went up and down my body. I said "is that the Spirit" (in prayer) and the wave came again. I basked in that feeling for some time, knowing that God had answered my prayer.

Since then, this has been reaffirmed and retaught to me by the spirit over and over.

It is true.

I don't think there has been one defining moment for me. Growing up I always heard people testify to the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, and I wanted to know for myself that it was true. So I read it and prayed about it. The Spirit bore witness to me that it is indeed true.

gw

In 1 Nephi 8 You will read the Large and spacious building.

Look at the first 4-5 answers here....these are people who care about what the world thinks and lives by it's direction.

Keep the faith and endure to the end.

http://www.fairlds.org/

http://www.josephsmith.net/

http://www.mormon.org/

http://www.mormonfortress.com/

http://www.lds.org/

http://www.blacklds.org/