Here is my story of how I came to be the person that I am today.

I grew up in northern California in a commune type church group called "Christ's Church of the Golden Rule." We ate, worked, played and prayed together. We were a small group of about 100 people that owned nothing individually but everything collectively. All needs were provided for us. Each had his own home; though it was nothing more than a drafty shack until I turned 6 and we, the church group, moved to a large ranch about two and a half to three hours north of San Francisco.

There our living conditions greatly improved but our everyday struggle to live a life where each of us strove to apply the golden rule in all that we did, thoughts and actions alike, was no less difficult.

A few years later a group from the bay area moved up to a near by town. This group was called "The Peoples Temple" and was lead by a man named Jim Jones.

It wasn't long before they learned of our group and they came to see us. They asked if they could use our schoolhouse for their Sunday services while they built their temple.

Our two groups quickly grew close. Members from each group would participate in the other groups' services and get-togethers. By the time the temple was finished, one of our members, my first and second grade school teacher was engaged to a man in the Peoples Temple. They were the first to be married in that temple, after which she went to live with them.

Then one day during our Wednesday night gratitude meeting, Jim Jones proposed that our two groups become one, but it was against our teachings to follow an individual and it was obvious that those in the Peoples Temple followed whatever Jim said.

Our decline maddened Jones. He and his people stormed out never to return or have anything to do with us. That is, except with my mother. Several times my mother would load me into the car and we would drive over to their temple and there she would talk with some of the members and with Jim himself. But after a while we stopped going.

When I was about 14 we had heard about a program that had come to the bay area called EST (Erhard Seminars Training) now known as the Forum.

It was a free introductory class to a new self-help program that bragged of having famous people like John Denver, go through their program. I had gone with several other teens and adults. I felt rather silly doing the things they asked but two of my friends enjoyed it enough that they paid the many dollars to take the full program.

Time went by and I graduated form High School. In '78 I moved to Wyoming. It was during that November that the world learned the terrible fate of Jim Jones and his followers. Of how dangerous it is to allow someone to think for you and to blindly obey, for there in Guyana in South America at Jonestown, they committed mass suicide, my first grade teacher included.

At this time I was being introduced to the beliefs of the Jehovah Wittness's but God is in control of all things and just as He kept me safe from Jim Jones, He also lead me here to Utah in 1985 through a series of events. But it wasn't until the fall of '94 that God opened my eyes to Him.

One day a couple of LDS missionary ladies came to my door wanting to share their beliefs with me.

Well, I, being my mothers daughter, like to discuss religion with people so I invited them in.

After about an hour and a half of talking with them, they left me with a book they had invited me to read and to pray about it's truth.

Well, all that talk of religion made me realize that, as good of a relationship as I thought I had with God there was still a vast gulf between Him and me. There was an emptiness in me, and the only way to fill it was to have a closer and more personal relationship with Him.

So I did as the missionary ladies had suggested but instead I prayed for a close and personal relationship with God; to have that emptiness filled. I also prayed that God would show me the truth about who He was and what He wanted from me. Whatever the truth was I wanted to know. If it meant that Mormonism, Buddhism or even Atheism was the truth, I had to know. Whatever the truth was, I wanted it; even if it didn't fit into what I had believed it to be all of these years. I knew I may find some things not quite to my liking but I knew I could settle for nothing less than the TRUTH!

If daily studies and living of the Golden Rule and striving to be of good works couldn't bring me closer than I was to God, than certainly I couldn't get there by going to some church just once a week.

How would I know the truth when I saw it? I had to have a starting point.

The Bible is the most widely used spiritual guide that I know of. It has been around for many centuries, and the writings of the Old Testament for thousands of years. But what did I know of the Bible?

I thought back over the years of watching archaeology and historic programs; of the news media reporting on new discoveries being made on places and occurrences mentioned in the Bible. All of these had shown that the Bible was true and reliable in these areas, so shouldn't the spiritual aspects be as well?

I knew that many different parts of the Bible had been found such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, but was the Bible found to be correctly translated and true to the meanings of the original writings after all this time?

There are many books dealing with this subject as well as classes you can take. I did both and found that I could trust the Bible to be the Word of God. Over and over again the Bible has been proven to be accurate, true and trustworthy.

Now, all that remained was to learn what the Bible taught.

Night after night and in every spare moment I could find I read Books about what the Bible taught. I hungered for truth and couldn't seem to get enough. Every time a book would tell where the Bible verse was to be found, I would open my Bible and read that verse in context so I would know I wasn't being miss lead. I also did the same thing with the teachings of the ladies that had come to talk with me, reading and comparing their books that are the foundation of their belief.

What I found was that the missionary's books did not agree with each other in it's teachings but that the books of the Bible not only agreed but helped to fulfill one another.

If you stop to think about it you'll realize that ONLY by God's divine hand in these writings, could this happen for it took 1500 years for the writings of the Bible to be written in.

What we know as the Bible today, is a collection of individual writings from three continents and three different languages forming a total of 66 books with over 40 authors. These authors came from all walks of life such as; a doctor, tax collector, fisherman, king, Rabbi, bounty hunter and a general. The fact that each book complements each of the others is proof of Gods sovereignty over it.

As I read the Bible though, I found some things I wasn't so sure I was willing to believe, but I knew if I accepted the Bible as the Word of God it had to be in all things. I couldn't just pick-n-choose what I wanted to believe or I might as well toss the Bible out the window and simply write up my own list of beliefs for that is what I would be doing if I started picking and choosing the things I did or didn't want to believe in the Bible. Either I must accept it as ALL truth or, as one of the best works of fiction in history.

As I continued to study, I found that in those areas I was hesitant to accept; that their truths unfolded before me and I could see how it had to be just as it said and could be no other way.

I no longer have that emptiness in me. I feel whole and complete. One; in Christ.

You can too. All you need do is to pray with a sincere heart for His truth to be shown to you and for a personal relationship with Him. To accept all that Christ did for you on the cross. Admit that you're a sinner and receive Him as your Lord and Savior, then you too can have peace in the knowledge of knowing that He is always there for you, with you, to be One eternally in Christ.

Bornagn94

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