Guest Post: Letter to a new convert

Happy New Year's Eve! Tonight I have a snazzy guest post for you guys :) WhitneySue over at Feel My Sunlight has been a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints her whole life and I super love her blog.

Recently, she had this brilliant guest post idea that we write letters to each other. Her letter is titled "Letter to a New Convert," and mine is "Letter From a New Convert," posted over at her blog (see it here!). When she emailed me to tell me about her idea, she said it would be awesome to see different perspectives on being part of the LDS church. She's been a member her whole life, but admits that sometimes life-long members can take the church for granted - talking to new converts helps remind her of why she "first fell in love with the gospel" :)

On the other hand, life-long members can have valuable insights to share with new converts, plus reading her testimony is pretty amazing. Enjoy, and be sure to check out her blog with my post! :D

<3 Marie-Rose

My baptism

So, as promised, here's how my baptism went :) Be warned, this post got kinda long...

Don't judge a book by its cover

I had the opportunity to attend sacrament meeting today :)

This morning, I went to mass, as usual, except today it was just my mom and me. My dad and sisters went to a later mass. I wanted to go early cuz I had plans for right after 9am mass, and going to 10:30 mass wasn't gonna work for me. Anywho, since my sisters weren't there, I didn't have to take communion to keep up appearances :)

I totally had a Catholic Thoughts post idea, but it sounded like I was attacking the Catholic church for their beliefs, and I don't want to do that. I can't expect people to respect my faith if I don't respect other faiths.

SO here's a post that was triggered by one of the songs from sacrament meeting :)

Prayers and Heaven

Today, I had the opportunity to go to the third hour of church: Young Women's :) We talked about the resurrection. It was confusing to all of us, cuz we tried to draw a timeline and everything, but it was especially confusing to me as a convert. Most of the stuff, I felt like I was hearing it for the first time. In reality, it was probably only the second or third time I'd heard it.

Anywho, I didn't understand enough of it to try to summarize our lesson for you guys, but I would like to tell you about a few things that happened right at the end of class :)

Why church shouldn't be boring

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typical Catholic stained glass window - Sacrament of Communion imagery

When I was little, mass was the worst thing ever. Every week was a struggle for my parents to get us to go to mass. We tried every excuse we could think of, tried "oversleeping," just sitting on the floor and refusing to get ready, but-she's-staying-home-sick-why-can't-we-stay-too.

Mass was boring. And I only had to sit through one hour. It felt like the longest hour of the entire week.

I love springtime!

Today, I had the opportunity to attend one hour of church. Due to the timing of various other things that happened today, the only hour I could go to was Sunday School. Typically, if I can only go for an hour, I choose sacrament meeting or Young Women's, but this time I didn't really have a choice.

When I arrived at the church, sacrament meeting was still in progress, so I awkwardly stood out in the lobby. I didn't want to walk into the chapel (please tell me that's what it's called...) cuz then my friends would see me and my being there would no longer be a surprise. So I stood there waiting.

Prayer

So today has been all about prayer for me. I went to both mass and church, and prayer came up a lot.

In mass, I don't remember the topic of the priest's homily, but I do remember one specific thing he said. When he was in priest school (actually called seminary, but it's more like legit college than it is like early morning seminary), he felt like he was really bad at praying. So he told one of the instructor-type people; he felt like he couldn't keep doing the whole priest thing. Okay, maybe it wasn't that extreme (I forget, cuz this was before 10am and it's been a long time since then), but he was pretty discouraged. And d'you know what he was told? "Just keep showing up." The quality doesn't matter, just what's in your heart. That really hit me. Cuz I feel like I'm absolutely terrible at praying.

So like a fake-it-till-you-make-it approach? Not faking feelings or thoughts or whatever, but the act of praying. Just do it. Just pray however you know how. We'll come back to that.

Then I got to go to church! For the second week in a row! That never happens. I went literally once in 2013. My friend Sarah gave an amazing talk on how we are children of God. Then a lady that I don't know gave a talk on following Christ's example. And then a guy I don't know gave a talk on that feeling where you just can't keep your head above water, and used a real-life story about a kayaking accident where a guy did actually get stuck underwater and his friends had to pull him out. He compared that to how we are saved. No matter how much we think we will always make good choices, we will all sin sometimes. And we need the Atonement to save us.

The second hour of church, which I think is called Sunday school but someone please tell me if I'm right, we talked about knowing who God is. We as Mormons know that He has a body. He's not just some random cloud. He's a Being. We look like Him. We know that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost are all one in purpose but separate in being. We know that They know each of us personally. The guy teaching us had us go find scriptures that tell us something about God. I was worried I wouldn't be able to find anything, but I did! 3 Nephi 9:21 "Behold, I have come unto the world to bring redemption unto the world, to save the world from sin." He is our Savior.

We also discussed beliefs about God that other Christian churches have that are different from ours. One of the guys sitting behind me brought up the Trinity. I was proud of him cuz he correctly identified it as a belief of the Catholic church and defined it as the belief that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one in being, not just in purpose. Then the guy teaching us pointed us to some scriptures that seem to support the Trinity. So we talked about how being "one" can mean one in purpose, not being, and how Heavenly Father trusts Christ so much that He lets Him act for Him.

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Then in YW we talked about how we can know Heavenly Father better. Prayer was a big part of it. See, there it is again! And also Sarah gave me the option to say the closing prayer for the second week in a row, but I chickened out. Next time, I think I'll probably do it :)

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Anywho. So the lesson. The lady teaching us (what is the proper term for these people?? Are they teachers, or leaders, or what??) had three things: a flashlight, a map, as a cell phone. Object lessons. The flashlight represents the Spirit, the map represents the scriptures, and the phone represents prayer.

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One thing Abby, another one of my awesome friends, said when we were discussing prayer was the fake-it-till-you-make-it approach! I told you we would come back to that! We can't suddenly magically have a perfect relationship with Heavenly Father. It takes some work and some praying and some scripture reading and some missionary moments and some service and some faith. But you'll get there. And I'll get there. And it shall be awesome :)

<3 Marie-Rose

PS oh and I almost forgot!! Abby also said that we often see prayer as a chore, something we have to do before we can eat or go to bed. But really, it's a gift from God. The gift of being able to directly communicate with Him! And isn't it considered polite to use gifts you have been given, to show your appreciation? Even that ugly sweater you got for Christmas, you gotta wear it once, just so the person who gave it to you feels like you appreciated it. Now, on a scale of ugly sweater to iPhone, how often should you use the gift of prayer? I would answer "constantly" :)