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VIEW PERSONAL BELIEFS
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POSTED BY:
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bythelake
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DATE:
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18.10.2012 |
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SUBJECT:
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MyConversion--LongVersion,Pt1 |
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LOCATION:
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Undisclosed, United States
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I grew up attending the Presbyterian church, although my parents did not go to church. My mom was raised Catholic and my dad Presbyterian. At that time, the Catholic church did not recognize marriages of members to anyone outside the Catholic church, so my mother didn't feel like she could continue to attend the Catholic church after their marriage. If Dad had gone to church, she would have gone with him, but he preferred not to, and she wouldn't go without him because that "wasn't her church". My paternal grandparents lived next door, so my siblings and I sometimes went with them, and sometimes on our own. (We lived in a very small town in a rural area, and the Presbyterian church was one small town block away.
Our attendance was sporadic..sometimes we went and sometimes we didn't..but I did gain a background that I am thankful for. Also, even though my parents did not attend church, the brought us up to believe in God, to be honest, and other good principles. Since my parents didn't attend church, though, we were not baptized as infants, and I never completely felt a part of the Presbyterian church. When I was about 13, I started to attend more activities, and decided I wanted to go through the process of becoming a member so I would feel more a part of it.
In order to become a member, you attended classes. I went to the first one, and there was a prayer at the end. But something just didn't feel quite right. I decided that I didn't know whether I wanted to become a Presbyterian or not. So I completely stopped going to the Presbyterian church and started to read about different churches, to decide which one to join.
Our local library had a variety of things available about various religions, including one book "Why I Am" with different articles from people telling why they were members of various denominations. Also, at the time, I was a fan of the Osmonds, and I saw a couple of magazine articles with titles such as "What the Osmonds believe about God". The information in the articles perked my interest, so I looked up info on the Church at the library. They had a Book of Mormon, and there was also a book about the Reorganized Church.
I read, in the first part of the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith's account of his visions involving the angel Moroni, and I thought "If this is true, this is the church I should join". But I didn't know if it was true.
I was also interested in the book about the Reorganized Church.
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