I would show unto the world that afaith is things which are bhoped for and cnot seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no dwitness until after the etrial of your faith. -Ether 12:6
I have felt inspired to share my Christ story. I believe we can receive revelation for ourselves, but not for others (that are outside our authority). So although I have felt a need to share this, it is up to you what you take out of it.
The time period that I would call the “trial of my faith” started shortly after finishing dental school. Four years earlier I had come out of BYU full of understanding and love of the gospel and wanted to share that with others. I wanted to stand for truth.
During dental school I at one point commented on a post about a moral issue and what I said wasn’t very politically correct. I was ostracized. Not so much by my dental classmates, but by the medical students that we shared classes with. It hurt bad. I also realized how my comments may have hurt others (indirectly because I was just addressing the topic in general and meant no offense).
I felt crippling guilt and insecurity after experiencing a taste of cancel culture. I may have become ashamed of the doctrine of Christ. The next few years were very difficult. I also realized how I didn’t understand or have good answers to all questions.
I was still exhilarated by doing the work of the Lord and served as a ward missionary and later as the ward mission leader. But I wasn’t as Christlike as I should have been. Dental school was a stressful time with moving partway through school, getting diabetes, etc. I was doing good in some areas, but lacked in others. I wasn’t as patient or loving as I should have been. Our ward in Seattle was interesting. We had great people and also several people who would in Elder’s Quorum say why they didn’t believe in the church or God (sometimes even those teaching the lesson).
My faith still burned bright and I often had discussions with a classmate of mine that was atheist, but was interested in debating the Bible. His parents pushed Christianity on him and he studied to push back by knowing more than them. I viewed this as a chance to share my belief, but it also fed my temptation to try to prove the gospel. I had learned on my mission that you can’t prove it and only the Spirit can convince people. But I started to forget that lesson because of the intellectual culture of the area and also the false belief that as a young professional I had to share intellectually instead of based on the Spirit.
I later realized that over time I had grown frustrated that you can’t prove the gospel. I didn’t see it as it was happening, but in hindsight I realized this helped lead to a weakening of my faith. But I started to wonder how science and religion fit together. I questioned why there wasn’t more evidence of the Book of Mormon and why we didn’t know where in the Americas it had taken place. I was confused about carbon dating and the history of the Bible.
I continued to serve in the church and was doing my best. But life was hard and stressful and Kamie struggled with bad postpartum after Lydia was born. After becoming Young Men’s President I realized how hard it was to have everyone looking to me. I loved serving, but I felt most excited by the self-help books I was reading that were helping me through the stressful time of starting my professional career. I didn’t feel nourished by the scriptures, even though I was reading them. I felt like I knew the scripture stories from my youth and wasn’t getting a ton of new info from them. It didn’t help that I didn’t know what was literal and what was figurative. I was serving to the best of my ability at the time, but if I had been born of the Spirit I could have done much better in my labors. I wish I could change that now. But I worried too much about making others think I was doing well in my calling and got run down by the managerial aspects and wasn’t thriving in the Spirit.
After we moved back home closer to family we still struggled. I kept pressing on in faith because I wanted it to be true, despite not having all the answers.
But the Covid shutdown was a good opportunity to slow down. Doing sacrament in our own home helped me turn to God and feel power from using my priesthood to bless my family. Having more time helped me connect with God and feel His hand again. I started getting more out of Come Follow Me. I had no calling and no responsibility (since we were new) and it was a long time before we attended our own ward again (due to Covid). Having this chance to escape from the mindset of pleasing man helped me start to worry more about pleasing God.
At the beginning of 2021 my parents said they had a trip planned to Mexico and their friends were too worried about Covid to go. They asked if we wanted to go. We were excited. They said we would go to Chichen Itza. I had a friend that had went to the pyramids in Egypt and I remember thinking “I want to go to one of the wonders of the world.” I was happy to see Chichen Itza was one of the “new” wonders of the world, but didn’t know much about it other than it was some ruins.
We got to Mexico and had a really good time. A few days into the trip we went to the ruins. As we got in I remember there being a unique feeling around the place. The way they had designed it to create echoes and aligned it with the nearby cenotes was cool. You could feel why it was a wonder of the world. Then our tour guide showed us the “white bearded god” with the twelve men around him. It was at this time I realized Chichen Itza was one of the places Christ visited after his resurrection. I knew more than ever that the Book of Mormon was true. It wasn’t the evidence, but the way the Holy Ghost spoke to me about one of the key elements that had been part of the trial of my faith.
I had gone to other ruins in the past and always remember feeling a bit disappointed that I didn’t see more Book of Mormon history in them. But here I got plenty of evidence when I wasn’t looking for it and from a tour guide that wasn’t a member of the church.
The Lord's hand in our lives.
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