“I was lucky enough to have been born into a good home with wonderful parents. I was born to parents who were (and still are) members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I was baptized by my dad when I was eight years old and I served a two-year mission for the Church to Poland when I was nineteen.
I feel like I was a person blessed with many talents. A lot of things came easily to me, and I mostly coasted through my teens. Early adulthood became a struggle for me because I continued to try to coast. I got a modest promotion at a job in my twenties and decided, against my father’s advice, that I was all set, my college education could wait. I went to another job and again started at the bottom of a company and worked my way up into a promotion, and that promotion came with a move from my hometown in Washington to Kansas.
I loved it in Kansas, but when I got fired from that job, I decided to move back with my dad for a while to get my feet back under me. I was in my thirties. I was depressed. I got a job through a temp agency but failed to get promoted. My dad, as always, was generous with me but I wasn’t where I wanted to be in life. In the spring of 2012 abruptly quit this bottom-level job and left his house, believing I would quickly land on my feet in Kansas.
This transition didn’t go as I had hoped it would. I didn’t have a place to live, so I took some of my remaining money and rented a campsite at a campground outside the Kansas City area. I’m an Eagle Scout. No problem!
I looked for jobs, but I couldn’t find any at first. Weeks went by, and I was still sleeping in a tent, rain or shine. My money rapidly dried up. I had to leave the campsite and sleep in my car wherever I could find a place to do so.
I discovered that I could park my car and sleep in the parking lot of Wal-Mart, so that’s where my car resided for the next few weeks. I ate mostly graham crackers and peanut butter. Sometimes I would use a little of my nearly depleted money and go to an all-you-can-eat restaurant and just gorge myself and stay as long as I was allowed to. I found a job stuffing packages into semi-trucks for delivery, which paid very little.
A few more weeks went by. I wasn’t telling people of my situation because it was humiliating to me. My friend found out, however, and allowed me to stay at his apartment. This was my situation when I became employed with an insurance call center, once again as a temp. I got my own apartment. I slept on the floor of it because I hadn’t gotten enough money to get a bed yet, but it was shelter.
I don’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t have a testimony of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I remember vividly an incredibly spiritual experience at a youth conference in my teens that gave me a testimony that didn’t rely on others’ testimonies. I remember many spiritual and confirming experiences on my mission, times when I could feel the Holy Spirit’s presence with me.
Yet, I remember through all of these trials I went through in homelessness and depression, there were times when I had questions and doubts and fears. I would look up at the night sky and be terrified that perhaps I was somehow wrong.
I spent about a decade of my life squandering my talents and hindering my own progress. I sunk to very low lows. Others have had it worse, some have had it better, but it was all my own doing. The gospel of Jesus Christ teaches us that we have eternal potential. We are not bags of bones and chemicals meandering through a pointless existence. We are of a divine heritage as human beings and we all have the ability to progress and grow and live and love literally forever. That progress started before this life, continues through this life, and will continue after for all time. That’s what it means to me to be a Child of God. God is King, and we are His children.
Today I am a man with a wife I married in the temple, sealed with her for time and all eternity. We have twin boys, and I love them and my wife dearly. I own a house. I finally earned my bachelor’s degree, and I hope to do more education.
I have a testimony of the Lord’s Church. I have had that testimony tested time and again but coming through it all, I can write today with confidence that I am converted.”
I Am Converted 