MY FIVE YEARS
EXPERIENCE AS A MORMON
By Marolyn Wragg
as told to Roger F. Campbell
IT WAS SHORTLY BEFORE WE MOVED to the twin • cities of Benton Harbor and St. Joseph, Michi gan, that I stopped my regular attendance at the Baptist Church in our town. If you had asked the reason for my absence from church at that time, I might have given you any number of reasons. Perhaps the most conveni ent excuse was the arrival of another baby at our house. There had been a time when the church and its work had been important to me. I had accepted Christ as my Saviour at a “Youth For Christ” rally not long after my twelfth birthday. I shall never forget that night. I went home with the assurance of forgiveness and a burning desire in my heart to live for the Lord. While I greatly enjoyed those early experiences of my Christian life, of studying the Bible, mem orizing its verses, and singing the hymns and choruses of church and Sunday school, I am sure I had little idea of how important they would be come to me. I had no way of knowing that God would some day use those very Bible verses and those simple songs from Sunday school to lead me out of a system of religion that had captured and confused me. Time passed quickly. The year of our move to St. Joseph found me a wife and the mother o f four children. Our move came as a result of my husband’s new teaching position in a twin-city area school system. It was exciting to move into our new home.
We were quickly and warmly welcomed by the community. We were busy and happy and I loved it. Everything seemed to be nearly perfect — everything, that is, except my relationship to God. We were not attending any church and my Bible became a neglected book. From time to time I would think o f attending church services, but I would reason that I didn’t really know where to go, or that I certainly didn’t want to pick the wrong church and be disap pointed. I would have to learn the hard way, the importance of God’s warning to the Hebrews, “ For sake not the assembling of yourselves together as the manner of some is” (Heb. 10:25). When two Mormon missionaries first knocked at our door, I had been out of regular contact with any church for more than a year. They asked if they might have a few minutes of my time to “ dis cuss the gospel.” The “ few minutes” grew into about one and one-half hours, and in those ninety minutes I found myself fascinated with the strange statements of these well-trained Mormons. When they asked if they could return the following week for another “ discussion,” I eagerly accepted. Although, after that first visit, I still had no intention of being converted to Mormonism, and had counted the whole experience as just a good opportunity to learn first-hand the teachings of another religion, the next three months found me devouring Mormon literature. I read The Book of Mormon, The Doctrine and Covenants, The Pearl of Great Price, in addition to several other pamph-
JULY, 1966
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