#prolds

i did the sign of the cross every time i walked into the building. i had a rosary hanging on my rear view mirror. i wore a necklace with the virgin mary on it. i had made a post on facebook about the popes passing.

i was too catholic for them, despite my attempts of trying to explain that it’s a cultural thing. that i’m mormon but there’s a girl inside of me that will always be catholic.

it didn’t make sense to me at the time. i had been doing all of those things for THREE years now. i feel as if my post about the pope was the last straw.

i made a post on tumblr a few months ago about an elderly woman in RS who made an ignorant comment about how “if people talk to me, and they aren’t LDS, i simply tune them out because their opinion doesn’t matter”

a week or two prior to me getting my recommended taken away, she had made another ignorant comment about how i’m damning my parents to an eternal suffering because i don’t share the gospel with them.

i simply couldn’t take it anymore. i told her that “your heart is full of hate and i hope that one day you get to heal from it” before leaving the RS room.

yeah well she’s the bishops mom LOL.

once moving into my new ward (update: i moved across the country! i’ve visited this ward many times in the past 4 years, so im very close to all of them) i had explained the situation to my bishop. he apologized on their behalf. said that “that’s not how we do things here.” laughed at the fact that i told off my old bishops mom.

things couldn’t be better here. i’m so grateful that i get to be at peace when walking into the church building. that it’s finally associated with family rather than the pit in my stomach telling me to run.

let’s relax.

when i was first investigating the church i would read all the anti information as well as watch videos about what goes on in the temple. hidden cameras sneaked inside and what not. so i knew exactly what it was going to look like. that being said, i was still so nervous.

i was shaking the whole time. my partner told me that when i got into the celestial room i had a look on my face that said “oh fuck i’m in a cult.” and it’s like! yes! im scared! what the hell was that! as a convert, i now see why people think that of us!

but now that it’s been well over a month, i feel a bit more as ease with what happened at the temple. i’m glad i went through. i have a lot of questions but i know that being someone of faith MEANS that i have to be okay with not having all the answers. it’s fine. it’s not for me to try and make sense of.

i know that this is a holy place. whether these rituals are down to the T or whether they’re just what we made sense of based on the scriptures we have — i feel close to God. isn’t that all that matters?

being told that this isn’t how it’s meant to be. that the symbolisms and ordinances are read incorrectly — doesn’t matter to me. i know they’re made from the mind of men. the imperfect minds that God has blessed them with. it’s the interpretation (or revelation?) that they have received. it will look different to all of us!

still, His way is perfect and this is how i feel close to him.

the temple is such a holy place to me. after i got dressed and was getting ready to leave, i had this feeling of “things will be okay” and they were. there was some sense of peace there — and i was too nervous to see that it had been there the whole time. even when i was shaking in the initiatory room. even when the temple worker, towards the end of the ordinance, put his hand on my head TWICE and accidentally slapped me while trying to get me through.

it’s a nice reminder that HEY! we are just humans trying to figure out the one thing that’s bigger than us! this is what we got!

i get sealed next saturday on the 6th. everyone pray for me.

it goes way beyond just their testimony or understanding of the church.

i was 19, scared shitless, sitting by myself in an LDS church. confused as to whether or not this was the TRUTH of God.

the controversial history, the idea of modern-day prophets, the missing chapters, and so much more. it didn't make SENSE! yet, in my heart, something kept me there. something inside me was entranced.

i was so frustrated with myself because i grew up being taught that this church was false. do you all really believe that a 14-year-old boy translated a new testament of God? that there's a third part of the bible? that jesus came to America?

it was a fast and testimony meeting. i didn't know any of what to expect. i didn't even take the sacrament.

a member went up to the stand and simply said "i don't know logically how any of this makes sense, but i know how it makes me feel."

i carry those words with me ALL of the time. if it weren't for him (and i don't even remember his name or face) i wouldn't have been baptized. he was right -- even with all of my confusion, doubt, and unanswered questions. i know how it makes me feel. that is enough.

i always thought it was cheesy whenever members would say that you should always bear your testimony when given the chance. that you should be loud and proud of your faith in God. but truly. it has the power to change lives. no matter how minor or “normal” your testimony may seem. whether you grew up in the church or were just baptized yesterday.

as members of the church we are used to being ignored and judged for our faith but there comes a point where we have to acknowledge our own silent judgements when it comes to other people no — matter how minor they are.

in her case it wasn’t minor. if this was an year ago i would’ve stayed quiet and let her continue to spill the same hate, but fortunately i am no longer that 17 year old girl hiding a book of mormon from her parents and i know that my opinions are just as important as someone who has been here longer than i have.

i raised my hand and told her that there are millions of people who do the same to us — and if they were to keep the same attitude as her, to tune out due to difference, then bringing people to christ would be impossible.

i wouldn’t be in that room.

i refuse to believe that my parents are damned just because they worship differently. i refuse to believe that this is the only way and i was just “extremely lucky” because i was able to find it. my mothers prayers sound different when she hums them over me, but they still feel all the same. on easter, i go to church twice because there’s a girl inside me that still does the sign of the cross and hangs a rosary over rear view mirror. religion is so confusing at times, but it only has to make sense to you.

That’s… not what culture means. Mormon culture…? As in a culture that is predominantly white-American?

I go to church every Sunday. Take sacrament and sing from the green hymn book. I watch conference and still don’t drink tea. I “thank God for the moisture outside.”

Is that not me acknowledging the “culture” I have as a Mormon?

Catholicism is so deeply rooted in Mexico’s history that when I talk about Catholicism I am not JUST talking about faith — I am also talking about my identity as Mexican. I do not see the rosary hanging over my mirror as a sign of “I am Catholic. The LDS church is false and Joseph Smith was a liar” but rather that I am protected, and have always been protected, by the same God who was there in my First Communion Sunday classes. When I repeated prayers that I didn’t understand yet.

i actually went up to give my testimony today (for the first time ever) and it was SO similar to this.

since its lent, i’ve been thinking about my family and why it is that i was led to find God here.

i know that God shows himself to us in the way that WE need it. i needed it here. for whatever reason, my family needed it in catholicism. my friend in islam. and that is okay. it’s not for me to try to make sense of it. it’s not for me to try to understand.

this is my truth. just mine.

Hello! Thank you for the question. In full transparency, I feel as if the majority of the reason I converted to the LDS church was because I was able to CHOOSE it for myself. I think a lot to do with my “leaving” the Catholic faith (I say this loosely because there is still so much from Catholicism that is still with me) has to do with the fact that I was raised in a home where God was made to be feared. I apologize if it’s not as “doctrine” related as you’d like.

There were so many questions that I didn’t have answers to in the Catholic church. Why was the fall of Eden necessary? What happens to children that don’t get baptized? How is God also Jesus?

And so many of these things were answered with the BoM. I feel as if Catholicism is so strict in their teachings. If you aren’t baptized, you are damned. Your family is not longer your family in heaven. God is Jesus and it just works that way (the holy trinity was so confusing — and even after converting it STILL confuses me to think of it this way). I found tiny answers that let me make sense of the one thing in life that we will NEVER fully come to know.

Most importantly, after years of being scared, I finally found a faith in which I felt safe. Where I felt the love of Christ.

To be completely honest with you, we seem to get caught up with labels when it comes to faith. Conversion is SUCH a difficult thing. Leaving the faith that you were raised in is terrifying. But we are all just confused children trying to figure out a way to make means with this life. For some odd reason I found it here. For some odd reason many people find it in the place that I lost it.

I talked to an ex-mo before I fully joined the church. I told him about how I feel this warmth in my chest when I think of God now, but that I can’t fully grasp on to the idea that the things that happened in the BoM are TRUE. He looked at me and said, “Just know, if you convert to Mormonism and you realize that it’s not for you, you can always leave.”

PLEASE try not to get so tangled up in your head. Know that the God who loved you in the Ward you grew up in is the same God who will be there in that glass-stained building between all the pews.

If you decide Catholicism isn’t for you, you can leave. If you still believe the LDS faith isn’t for you, then don’t go back. If your faith ends up this weird mash of both then that’s perfectly fine. God knows your heart.

I like to believe that He shows Himself to us in the way that we need it. My closest friend is Muslim but still goes to Bible study with me. My sister-in-law is a die hard Mormon that hasn’t so much even smelled coffee. My grandmother was a devout Catholic and is now, at 80 years old, asking me to take her to an LDS church.

If we are all made individually, down to the hair on our head, then why would he show Himself to us in the same strict way?

My heart, for whatever reason, found it here. I still do the sign of the cross when I pass by a church. There’s a rosary hanging on my rearview mirror which I pray to every morning. I read the BoM every day. I do Catholic prayers but end them with “in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.”