Lesson: A Book and a Bow Hunt can Change your Life.

A preface to this lesson is in order.  I can speak to how I came to know my path to God.  At the same time, I do not profess to know any one else's.  What I do know is that God is "no respecter of persons." Acts 10:28-35, KJV.  I take that to mean that God doesn't play favorites and loves every single one of His children.  That what God offers me, he also offers you and there is more than enough to go around.  As I've studied about God, I have come to understand that he is a God of Abundance.  The law of Tithing is just one example.  Logic tells you that if you give God His 10% that only leaves you 90%.  But it's a paradox.  As I give Him my 10%, the windows of heaven are opened and I receive back more than I can receive.  My husband and I have followed the law of tithing our entire marriage, and have truly received more than we could have imagined.

I firmly believe that the greatest gift God gave us next to His Son, was agency to choose whether we want to come to Him and receive (an action word) all He, the Father, has or not.  I also believe that this time on earth is a time to become what I choose to become.  I can waste that time away watching unproductive television shows for example, or I can choose to fill my time with things more productive.  What may be productive for me, may not be for my husband or my children or my neighbor.  But I have learned that I can take my planned list of things to do to my Father in my morning prayers and receive direction that I'm on the right track.  

Quick example from the other day:  Daughter #4 had been pretty prickly.  I had made the mistake of reinforcing her when she would yell at me to "Get out" by getting out.  Yelling at me had worked for her so she kept doing it.  That doesn't mean I hadn't given a standing consequence.  The standing consequence was that if she yelled at me, I would take my car keys back.  I had done that the day before telling her that we would need to talk about the yelling incident before she got the car keys back.  She opted to get a ride from a friend to swim practice the following morning.  

I had prayed to know what I could do to reach my daughter the night before.  As usual, I went to bed with her on my mind (amongst other things and other children).

The next morning, I first thought to share a meme from an email I had received.  

The text I received back:  "Why did you send that?"

"I thought it might make you smile."

"Aww.  Thank you Mother"

"You're welcome Daughter.  Did it?  Make you smile?"

"It did."

"I'm glad."

"I love you."

"I love you too.  Always and Forever."

Then the thought popped in my mind that I should offer to take her to Kneader's $5 French Toast.

No response.  I found that odd since we had just been texting back and forth and it had been a positive exchange.  But I had chores to do so I headed outside to take care of my hens and pick from my garden.  

Fifteen minutes later a car pulled in my driveway delivering said daughter.   I had mistakenly assumed she had already returned from morning practice when I texted.

As she got out of the car she held out a paper plate with french toast and a couple containers of signature syrup and whipped butter. In the same instant she said, "Look what I brought you" and admitted that she had gone to Kneaders after practice (without permission need I add?).  

Of all the places or things I could have offered, that morning the thought to offer Kneaders had popped in my brain.  That was when I recognized that thought for what it was - not my own thought - but the spirit directing me to know how to touch a child that had been upset with me for taking the use of the car away.

For the first two decades of my life, my beliefs were limited to a knowledge that there was life after death (based on my mom's personal experiences that I could not argue with - See "Life After Death") and that God and Jesus were real and loved me (see "Sometimes the Answer is, 'No.")

Shortly after marrying my ex (let's call him Brennan), I stopped attending church weekly.   I found out later that Brennan had not been attending church in his own ward for quite some time.  On our first date, he had said he wanted a temple marriage and to raise his family in the same church I belonged to.  His parents had married in the temple and he wanted that for himself.  When he wasn't working, he attended church with me in my ward* and had taken me to an activity in his ward prior to our marriage so I had mistakenly assumed that he was actively attending church prior to meeting me.  I was wrong.  

Brennan was an avid bow-hunter the entire decade we were together and from what I understand, for many years after our marriage ended.  It was made clear to me that our vacation would be spent with his parents on Kimberly mountain during the August Bow Hunt every year.  

Bow Hunt 1991 was one that changed my life.  Our son was a few months old and this bow hunt would be unlike any I had experienced previously, in more ways than one.

We arrived at my in-laws in Monroe prior to heading up to the campsite with them.  I have always loved to read and when I noticed a book with a title that seemed interesting, I asked if I could read it.  I was granted permission and soon began my own "Greatest Quest."

The book, published in 1987, is now out of print, but can be found on Amazon and other Thrift Bookstores.  I highly recommend it.  To sum it up, the book was based on the true story of Floyd Westin.  It was Daughter #2 that shared the talk with me in 2021 not knowing that this man's story had changed my life.  Youtube has a couple talks by him so you could choose to listen to the story from his own words.  (First talk by Floyd Westin.) (Second talk on Youtube).

The book tells of a group of college students who had heard a lecture by Albert Einstein.  Something he said at the end of the lecture stayed with them. He said, "Gentlemen, the deeper that I delve into the sciences of this universe, the more firmly do I believe that one God or Force or Influence has organized all of it for our discovery."  

One of the college students was brilliant with a photographic memory and led the group on what became this greatest quest to find God by searching the Bible.  Over several weeks, they went through the Bible one page at a time searching for where Jesus Christ or God gave evidences of the church that the Lord speaks of in the scriptures.  They compiled a list on a large board and then presented each of the friends a 5x7 card with the list of evidences.  He then encouraged the group to take the card and go visit churches searching for a church that included all or most of these evidences.  

After visiting many churches not finding one with all or most of these evidences, these young men were separated as the war was waging and they had different deployments.  But they later learned that by using the evidences they had recorded on their 5x7 card, they each had found the same church:  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

In experiencing this story vicariously, I found an appreciation and understanding that I had not had previously for the church that I had been taken to by my convert mother.  

Logic is not enough for a person to be converted.  And it wasn't until after I received my own personal answers through prayer - a sweet, warm yet tingling feeling that covered me from head to toe when I asked whether the things that I read in the scriptures and that the church that I had entered into a baptismal covenant in my youth was true.

I also love that my church DOES NOT teach that those who do not belong to our church are going to hell.  We teach that God loves all His children and that each of His children have their own personal plan of salvation.  God has provided a way for all of His children to accept or reject his gospel and He will stay at the door waiting for us to knock so that He can open it up to us.  

I know and am so grateful that we will each be judged for our own sins and that through Christ's atonement, I can be forgiven of mine.  Repentance is a daily redirecting of my life toward my Father.  I am still learning much about recognizing and acting on direction from the spirit. -  I am continually repenting of misjudging those around me instead of giving them the benefit of the doubt.  There are many things that I am working on improving in my quest to become more Christlike.  

It really is a travesty when someone's take away is that church is a place for people who (think they) are "perfect" and that "sinners" aren't welcome.  We are all sinners.  Comparing or weighing my sins as worse or better than someone else's is pointless because without Christ, we are all in a sinking ship.  What's the point of pointing out that someone else is sinking faster. or slower than myself.

For me, this was a turning point.  I realized that attending church and renewing my baptismal covenants through partaking of the Sacrament each week at church was needful.  

The timing of this experience was perfect in that with our new son, we had already been discussing a return to church.  I had carefully approached Brennan reminding him of our conversation on our first date and that we wouldn't have a family raised in the church if we didn't go to church.  His heart was softened.  That didn't mean he attended with me often.  He still had a conficting work schedule and preferred going camping over attending church.  But he didn't stand in my way of attending.

I gave him a copy of "The Greatest Quest" for Christmas that year.  I'm not sure he ever read it.  He left it in the house when he moved out just over 3 years later.

But for a short while we were what I considered happy.  I remember one day traveling in the car with him when I told him how happy I was for sticking through the hard times.  He looked at me suspiciously, asking, "Really?"  I assured him that I was.  It felt like we were in a good place and that Brennan had matured. 

Unfortunately, that feeling didn't last.