Month: January 2018

I love the LDS missionaries!

My husband, Richard, and I walked into the Little Rock, Arkansas, Ward of, “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints,” and sat in the very back.  We wanted to be baptized.  My sister-in-law had joined the church and she had recommended, “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints,” to me because I had written a book about a near-death experience during which I had seen forever families.  At that time, I was doing a book tour in the bible belt and other churches had told me I was wrong to believe in a family oriented after-life.  I was excited to read about this church, their belief in forever families, and, “The Book of Mormon.”

When Richard and I sat down for the 10:00 service, we thought no one would notice us.  (haha, Richard was in a red jogging suit, and I was wearing shorts.)  The lady next to me held out her hand and said, “Hello.  Are you new to our faith?”  I shook her hand and said, “Yes, and we would like to be baptized.”  After she recovered from my statement, she told me to stay right there and she would be back with missionaries who could help me.  Richard and I grinned at each other because we had done some research and knew they were the guys we wanted to meet.

I will never forget taking Elder Whelan’s hand and looking into his eyes.  I saw love and kindness, and I felt as though I knew him from somewhere.  Taking Elder McMurtrey’s hand, I felt the same thing.  Behind these missionaries, I also met their Missionary President, and his wife.  These wonderful friends took us by the hand and we went to a ‘Gospel Principles’ lesson.  We sat between them and I remember feeling so loved.  After this lesson, we were invited to attend another hour of meetings.  I remember telling Richard not to let the missionaries out of his sight because we wanted to be baptized.  I had no idea what these missionaries would come to mean to me.

We set up our first ‘meeting,’ and I fell in love with these strong and secure young men immediately. When these Elders came into our home, they brought a light and a feeling that I had never experienced before. They radiated a truth and a ‘feeling’ that I wanted.  The missionaries and I argued about who was the answer to whose prayers.  I said I had prayed for them and they said they had prayed for us.  It didn’t matter that we didn’t agree because our lives were changed forever.  These young men became our friends, our mentors, and the teachers of our lessons on the LDS faith.  We had no idea what we wanted from these lessons other than we wanted what these people had. We didn’t know what ‘it’ was but we knew it was good and that we wanted it too.

These two missionaries baptized us and guided us into the next phase of our LDS lives.  To Elder Aaron Whelan and Elder Kadan McMurtrey, I am eternally grateful.  I share my testimony of these wonderful young men whenever I can.  I am still friends with Aaron and Kadan and we have shared other LDS experiences with each other.  Kadan came to our Endowments and our Sealings, and Richard and I went to Aaron’s sealing in Arizona.

To say I love the missionaries is an understatement.  I also adore their commitment to our beloved Gospel, Heavenly Father, and Jesus Christ.

Do we have a, ‘Heavenly Mother’?

Have you ever pondered/wondered if we have a Heavenly Mother? A Mrs. God? I cannot find any references in our scriptures so I have prayed and an answer that comes into my mind is; of course!!! Heaven is all about family. In my humble mind, that makes perfect sense. We are God’s children and we lived as spirit children with our Heavenly Parents and millions of other brothers and sisters. We always have been, and we always will be; even after we leave our earthly bodies. Iknow this is hard to grasp because here on earth we have a beginning and an end. But consider Jesus Christ. He has always been the only begotten One of our Heavenly Father, the One who volunteered to come to earth, be born of Mary, his mother, and Joseph, her husband, and to die on the cross for us. I have learned and believe that this phrase, “Only Begotten Son of The Father ” means that Jesus is God’s firstborn. When God first proposed, “The Great Plan of Salvation,” a plan to let his spirit children have a physical body and the joys that can come with, He gave us agency, (the choice for ourselves), to choose between evil and good, between believing and having faith in Jesus Christ, (the good) or to give in to Satan, (the bad). If we have lived on earth, we chose to have an earthly body. What choices we make will determine everything that happens to our souls forever after. This is my own personal opinion. You don’t have to agree; you have agency.

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Richard and I were sealed in the Lord’s Temple.

Richard and I became married and sealed for eternity. (Much better than til death do us part)

As new LDS converts, we were required to wait for 1 year before we could be sealed for eternity in an LDS temple.  If you want to be married til death do us part in a marriage vow you are done once you get your civil marriage.  However, if you want what my husband, Richard, and I wanted, which is to be sealed past death and into eternity there are more steps to take, of course.  This requires your mate and yourself to take certain Temple prep. classes, and had a current “Temple Recommend.”  This is very important because I want to be an eternal family.  We are very proud of this achievement.  I had learned about the ability to be with our loved ones the first vision I had of heaven.  (See first blog) I didn’t know what this was but I have since learned.  Richard’s dad had told me in my first NDE (near-death experience) (when I saw heaven during a surgical procedure) that I would know why he wanted me to tell his son, Richard, (my boyfriend and husband to be) to know his dad had never let go.   I knew it would be my own mission to either learn and become a forever family or let this message end with me.  I want everything I can learn about heaven and God’s plan so I opted to learn as much as I can about after-life choices.  It takes work: a devotion to Heavenly Father’s commandments, belief in Jesus Christ, scripture study, enduring to the end, and lots of other LDS lessons which I will share in future blogs.