“An Unexpected Gift,” New Era, Sept. 2012, 34–35
An Unexpected Gift
My road to conversion began when a nonmember friend sent me a Book of Mormon.
Illustration by Steven Keele
My conversion story is kind of different. It started because my best friend, Calvin, is a member of the Church. We have a mutual friend who is not a Church member and who one day thought it would be funny to go online and have a Book of Mormon sent to me. That friend meant it as a joke, but I was actually interested in it, because although Calvin and I were such great friends, I felt like it was a whole part of him I didn’t know about.
The Book of Mormon came in the mail, and I started reading it. Sometime later, Calvin invited me to a Mutual activity. We went to the park and played volleyball, and I had a lot of fun with the youth. They made me feel welcome, so I kept going to the combined activity every month. After a few months, I made a couple of friends in the Young Women group. I decided to go one night to a Young Women activity, and I loved it. I started going every week.
Calvin invited me to church one week, and it happened to be general conference. It was like nothing I had ever experienced, and I was in awe. I kept going to church every week I could. After a couple months of regularly going to the activities and to church, I really wanted to talk to the missionaries about being baptized, but I knew I had to take lessons first, and I wasn’t sure how to ask them. I had talked to Lindsey, a good friend I made in Young Women, about how I really wanted to be baptized, so she asked the missionaries about the lessons for me. After that, every Wednesday before the Mutual activity, I would come an hour early with Lindsey, and we would have a lesson.
During the missionary lessons, I never questioned anything about the gospel, because it was like I’d known it all my life but just hadn’t known what I knew. I took the lessons for about a month and half, and then the missionaries asked me if I wanted to get baptized. I was really excited. I couldn’t wait to tell everybody; I was filled with joy.
Before I was able to be baptized, my mom asked me a lot of questions, because she wanted to see if I knew what I was getting into. But I knew it was something I really wanted to do, and I knew the standards I would need to keep. After hearing how much I knew about the Church and how I understood I would be changing my lifestyle, my mom allowed me to be baptized.
On the day of my baptism, the friends I had made came to support me. Lindsey and another friend, Jameson, gave talks, and Calvin baptized me. It was such a beautiful day. I was grateful for the support of my friends, and I felt close to my Savior Jesus Christ.
Through friendship—even through a friend who wasn’t a member—I have come to know that the Book of Mormon is truly another testament of the Savior Jesus Christ, that Joseph Smith was a prophet called of God to restore Christ’s Church on the earth in the latter days, and that Heavenly Father has a plan for His children. I know that an individual can bring a friend into the gospel by small and simple means. I will never forget the friends who shared the gospel with me.