Hayley offered to share the conversion story of her grandmother, and I think you’re really going to enjoy reading through it. I know it’s long, but it’s worth it, particularly for those of you who might have similar reservations about Joseph Smith. Thank you so much for being willing to share Hayley!

The story of my grandmother’s conversion wouldn’t be complete without a bit of background. Since none of you have met her, I will have to try and give you a small glimpse of why she made the choices she did. My grandmother, Sarah, was born in England prior to the start of WWII. As a young girl, her father moved his family from their home in London to the North Hampton in hopes of avoiding the brunt of the attack. Sarah grew up as a member of the Church of England and attended a school run by local Catholic nuns. (I remember laughing so hard as a child when my prim and proper English grandmother described her Latin teacher as having the face of a horse!)

At the age of 18 Sarah left England and traveled to California. Her older sister had married a US Naval officer had become quite homesick after several months in America. Sarah’s younger sister was not deemed old enough to travel by herself so my grandmother made the trip. Her trip of 6 weeks was gradually extended to 3 months. When she returned to England, it was merely to pack up the rest of her bags and convince her parents to move to California with her. To their everlasting credit, her parents left their lives behind and moved to California in an attempt to keep their family (and any future grandchildren) together.

After getting settled just outside of Sacramento, Sarah began working as a secretary. After a few years she started working for a local real estate company. It was here that she met my grandfather. Over the years I have heard the story of the two of them over and over… and I always ask to hear it one more time. As she put it, she quickly learned that if she wanted to know what was going on in the meeting, all she had to do was take down what Mr. Jones had to say. At the time my grandfather was divorced and trying to raise his children from his first marriage. He was also much older than my grandmother. My grandmother once told me she broke down in tears the night she realized she was in love with him. He was almost 20 years her senior, a divorcee, an American and had already had a family. Simply put, he was not the man she had imagined herself falling in love with. He was also used to a very different lifestyle than she was. When he proposed, he brought over a selection of diamond engagement rings from a local jeweler and told her to pick. She quickly looked over the rings and told him that she didn’t want any of them. My grandfather assured her that she could have any ring she desired. Sarah told him that all she wanted was a simple gold wedding band. I only wish I could have seen the look on my grandfather’s face. 10 years after he passed away, that simple gold band still graces her finger.

They married when she was 25 and had 4 kids in the following 5 years. My mother, the youngest, was born when my grandpa was 50. While she had been raised in the Church of England and taught by Catholics Nuns, her family was not extremely religious. My grandfather had been born into a Mormon family; however, he wasn’t active when he met my grandma. His mother died during the Depression and his father left to find work, shipping the children to relatives in California. He had spent the majority of his teenage and adult life without religion.

My grandma said that she always knew she “wanted to marry someone who was a strictly honest and honorable person and would have tolerated marry someone who belonged to just about any religion”. When she met my grandpa she said she “didn’t worry about his religion because it didn’t seem incredibly important to him. He wasn’t busy going to church, but I knew he was honest and truthful and good and that was alright by me.” My grandpa would occasionally attend church and after they were married, my grandma started attending with him, although she was hesitant. The family began attending meetings which, at the time, were held all throughout the week and were spread out on Sundays. The children went to Primary and my grandparents dutifully attended the rest of the meetings for the adults. The missionaries started coming over to meet with my grandmother and began to give her discussions. Sarah loved the Church from the beginning and I’m sure many eager missionaries were disappointed when she didn’t agree to be baptized right away. In fact, it took 12 years for her to agree to join the Church. At the time, those who were attending could hold certain callings without being baptized and they immediately asked my grandmother to help out in the Primary. She was an assistant teacher and loved the calling. “I held just about every calling you could hold and functioned as much as you could function without being a member of the Church,” she said.

She went through different sets of missionaries over the course of her journey to join the Church. I have often asked her why it took her so long to accept the gospel. I have only known my grandmother as a strong, faithful member of the LDS Church and have had a hard time imagining her as anything else. She recently told me that it was in part because she was so shy. “I could no more have said a prayer out loud or spoken in public than the man on the moon!” Sarah recounted. She explained to me that she realized that being a member of the Church involved being willing to serve anywhere the Lord called her to, and she was simply to “timid” to make that commitment.

“I was always inhibited about speaking out in front of people - it was one of my drawbacks but I went to church with him and the kids were blessed and raised as normal LDS children. It took me 12 years before I had gumption to join, knowing I would do anything I was asked to do. When I finally made the choice to join, I did it knowing that I would be able to answer yes when called upon to serve.” She read the scriptures, fasted, prayed and lived her life as though she was already a member until she finally decided it was time to move forward. “I had to start performing which was very hard for me to do. I did not do well at standing up in front of people and performing. I probably had a very good testimony of the Church before getting baptized. I passed all my bridges before. Most of the people who get baptized don’t know how the church functions before but I knew what it evolved except for going to the temple.”

I asked my grandma what helped her finally overcome her feelings regarding the temple and how she was able to make such a choice without knowing exactly what lay ahead for her. “I really would have liked to have known what went on at the temple before actually going through. But in the end, it was fine. I just had to have a little more faith and I’d gained that over the years through my testimony of the Church.” Sarah felt that baptism was not something to take lightly, that a commitment was a serious thing. She had a strong testimony in the Prophet Joseph Smith and of the Book of Mormon, both of which helped her to overcome her feelings of hesitance regarding serving in public. I asked her if she had trouble coming to terms with the idea of a 14 year-old boy claiming to have seen God the Father in a grove of trees in upstate New York. In her own words my Grandma recounted, “Joseph Smith was no problem. I had never understood why that was so hard to accept. Who would put themselves through that much pain if it wasn’t for real? He was under gross trauma and why would you bother to do that if you hadn’t seen the vision? Why would you tell those kinds of untruth, it didn’t gain him any friends? To me, there was no point in pretending he had the Vision. I think part of it was that the Book of Mormon was so easy to accept. From the first pages of the Book of Mormon, I knew it was true.”

It has been 42 years since my grandmother joined the Church. In that time she has served as a Stake Primary President, Relief Society President, Primary Teacher and about a dozen other callings in between. My grandparents also had the chance to serve a mission and see each of their children sealed in the temple. When asked about the impact her commitment has had, my grandma said, “I think it is important that when you make a commitment, it is important to keep it. I’ve never had any problem doing as I was told or asked in the Church. I never said no when asked to serve, after I’d made that commitment. I’ve done it and I’ve been blessed.”

Also:

• The Creation
• 11th Article of Faith: Freedom of Religion
• Will You All Eventually Join The Mormons?

Zemanta