How I came to know.

A dear friend of mine is going through a crisis of faith as he has never had before. I grieves me so that I cannot contain my disappointment with him as he shares with me his slowly degrading faith. I tried time and time again that there are things that are important and that he should spend his time with those things, I for one had a crisis of faith some time ago were I doubted but I will get to that in a minute, but he insisted that the things that he was concentrating on were important at least to him.

I did the standard thing to do in a situation like that and shared with him my testimony but that resulted very little in his way of thinking. I suggested that he return to the basics and study the Book of Mormon again and he stated that he understood the Book of Mormon enough. I cannot express in words how I lament for him at the way he allowed and continues to allow himself to be taken along this way whose path with certainly lead to nothing but more doubt and perhaps the destruction of the things he holds dear.

Some time ago starting before my mission and lasting during it my soul hungered. I had plenty of doubts. Something happened in my mission that I had to deal with on an almost daily basis and what had happened was so disturbing to my mind that my faith was shaken to the very core. For some reason though and I to this day do not remember who or why I was brought to recall the test that Alma tells the people, he tells them to compare the word of the Lord to a seed and plant it in your heart. I knew then that if I was to come to an understanding of whether the church was true and that the Book of Mormon was true I needed to live what was taught. I needed to go all the way and cast aside my disbelief and live what I was teaching, every last bit. Wouldn't you believe it that the words filled my breast as promised, but what I didn't expect was the fact that I didn't realize that my heart had been changed until I asked myself what I believed and when I really began to share it with others.

I wish that I could say from that point on I was as faithful as a member could be, but the fact of the matter is I'm not, I try but I often fail. The difference has become that I know that the church is true, God lives and the Book of Mormon is the word of God. That despite my failures I still know where I need to be heading. I sure hope one day I will be able to work out all the kinks in my life and maybe be a better example for my friend.