This is a powerful video created by Charlotte Rose — an English convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Charlotte was living a life of endless partying, without direction or understanding of her purpose in life. She reached a point where the hollowness of such a life left her wanting wanted to end her life.

Hear how observing a Mormon colleague, attending Mormon church meetings, and reading the Book of Mormon changed her life. Hear how she was able to distinguish truth and sort through the many voices around her (and online) to understand what God’s voice felt like.

Charlotte has been called to serve as a full-time missionary, but I think her mission has already begun through this video.

God is real. He answers prayers. His voice can be heard and recognized. And when His guidance is followed, the fruits are real. The Book of Mormon is a God-given gift to help us find and hear His truth. (One of my favorite parts of her story was her mom’s response when Charlotte was considering throwing the Book of Mormon away after reading things online that confused her.)

I also can not hold back tears when I see young people opening their mission calls.

God bless you, Charlotte. Thank you for your faith and for taking the time to share it.

The post The English Rose — a Mormon woman’s conversion story appeared first on Women in The Church of Jesus Christ.

Hello, my name is Eva Ivanova and I am 58 years old. I live in Ostrava, Czech Republic, the birthplace of President Uchtdorf. I was introduced to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when I was almost 52 years old. In January 2003, as I was riding the tram to work, I saw an advertisement for English classes. The very first thing I noticed when I went to class was the sister missionaries. I was amazed by their radiance. It was hard to describe then, yet I know now it was the light of Christ. At the end of class, we were invited to attend an open house for the Church on a Saturday. I attended with my husband and it was marvelous. I loved hearing about Joseph Smith and the pioneers going west to the Salt Lake Valley. When I got home that day, I read the story about Joseph Smith being visited by Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. I then tried praying for myself. The next day was Sunday and I anticipated going to my first sacrament meeting. I felt the Holy Ghost strongly as I partook of the sacrament. I had no doubt that the seed had been planted in my heart.

The missionaries visited and taught me regularly after that. I learned something from them that I have never found anywhere else–love and understanding. I began studying the Book of Mormon and received my own testimony. I looked forward to learning the gospel every Sunday. In the end I realized that the Church was more important to me than anything else in my life. I was baptized on the 24th of May 2003 in a lake near Ostrava. On the way there I wondered if I was worthy of Jesus’ love and if I should even be baptized. I felt nervous until I was immersed in the water. It was then that all of my tension and anxiety seemed to wash away. My baptism was amazing! I felt happy and thankful for the opportunity to become a member of the Lord’s church. I learned that baptism didn’t automatically make me a perfect member, but that it was just the beginning. I wanted desperately to be a good member and to do God’s will.

I loved reading the Book of Mormon and hearing the words of the prophets. I also began attending institute (a religious class). I gained a desire to visit the temple and do ordinances for my ancestors. I was able to visit the Freiberg Germany temple one year after my baptism. I received my endowment on 10th of September 2004 and I performed baptisms for my mother, grandmother and other relatives the following day. I strongly felt my grandmother’s presence while I stood in as her proxy. I shed tears of joy. As I attended the temple during my week long visit, I was able to perform numerous ordinances and sealings. It was a beautiful, spiritual experience.

I am happy to have the privilege of being a member of the Church. It is a huge blessing for me. The Church has given me greater truths and feelings of joy. I have learned to talk with Heavenly Father through prayer and receive answers to my questions.

I feel humble before God, our Heavenly Father, and Jesus Christ. It is my wish and my goal to be like them by choosing the right way. I love others and I wish to serve them. I am glad that I can be an instrument in God’s hands. I believe that God directs our steps and leads us where we need to go.

I was welcomed into our small branch (congregation) and now serve as the primary president. It is a big responsibility for me, but I am learning a lot. Our children are wonderful. I love them very much. I also like to teach investigators with the missionaries and participate in our branch’s activities. For a long time I edited the branch newsletter.

Love is fundamental. I pray that I might be selfless, compassionate, and loving and can have the strength to humbly endure all of my trials. I always want to be be worthy of God’s love. I continually think about God and my Savior. I am grateful that I have come to know the true church and I testify of the perfectness of this gospel. I am grateful for Joseph Smith who restored the gospel to the earth. I am also thankful for the prophet Thomas S. Monson who leads the Church today.

I feel the same as Alma in the Book of Mormon when he wrote:

“O that I were an angel, and could have the wish of mine heart, that I might go forth and speak with the trump of God, with a voice to shake the earth, and cry repentance unto every people! Yea, I would declare unto every soul, as with the voice of thunder, repentance and the plan of redemption, that they should repent and come unto our God, that there might not be more sorrow upon all the face of the earth. But behold, I am a man and do sin in my wish; for I ought to be content with the things which the Lord hath allotted unto me. I ought not to harrow up in my desires, the firm decree of a just God, for I know that he granteth unto men according to their desire, whether it be unto death or unto life; yea, I know that he allotteth unto men, yea, decreeth unto them decrees which are unalterable, according to their wills whether they be unto salvation or unto destruction.” (Alma 19:1-4)

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For other Portraits of Mormon Women, please click here.

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“Seal to me.”

Three days after my husband’s death, I looked at his picture in our bedroom. While looking at the picture, I heard my husband’s voice say to me, “Seal to me.” My husband had taken me several times to the Visitor’s Center at the Oakland Temple, and to the Sacramento Temple Open House, he had been my very first missionary and had taught me what happens in Temples. I knew what he wanted me to do.

My husband converted to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in 1985. At the time, he was at a critical time in his life. He lost his home, all his money, was in the middle of a divorce and was losing his family. He had his first heart attack during that time. A Mormon friend gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon and asked him to study it. The Book of Mormon changed my husband’s life.

I met my husband years later online. I traveled a lot for my job as a TV producer in Bangkok, Thailand and only had Internet access one day a week. Several times when I came back to the office I would see ads for Match.com on my computer screen. I wondered what it was and filled in my information. My husband-to-be also traveled extensively for work, but upon returning from a business trip to his home in America, his computer screen declared he had a match and on the screen was my profile. We started corresponding. After 6 months of email and phone calls he came to Thailand to meet me.

On his trip to Thailand he told me he knew I was the one, and asked me to marry him, but he said, “Don’t answer until you visit me in America.” I came to America and felt like I had come back home. We courted for two years, and after asking my family’s permission we married in 2002.

I did not know while we were dating that my husband was a Mormon. After we started our life together he took me to the Oakland Temple Visitors’ Center often. We watched movies about the Church. He frequently invited the missionaries to our home. I was raised Buddhist in Bangkok, but attended Catholic private schools all through my life and was acquainted with Christianity. But on the first day I went to Catholic school my grandmother pulled me aside and told me “Don’t convert.” Although I enjoyed the messages my husband and these videos were sharing with me, I thought I did not need to convert to Christianity to be a good person.

On May 7, 2007 my husband had a heart attack in our home. My next-door neighbor, who happened to be LDS, rushed over to help give my husband CPR. He died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. My neighbor called the Bishop of my husband’s church and the Bishop and some other members of my husband’s ward met me at the hospital. I did not know them, but I knew my husband did. It was well past midnight, so I was surprised people would come and visit me. When the Doctor confirmed that my husband had passed and there was nothing left to do I was lost. Bishop Beck said, “Don’t worry. We will walk with you and help you through this.” The Bishop and another ward member gave me my first Priesthood blessing that night at the hospital and I felt better.

The next morning, someone knocked on my door. It was the Relief Society President from the ward. She knew I did not have a driver’s license, and told me she would make herself available to give me rides anywhere I needed to go. Members of my husband’s congregation started delivering food that day.

Bishop Beck called the funeral home and assisted me with all the details of the funeral. We had a memorial at the church and since my husband was a veteran, he was buried at a military cemetery. Bishop Beck helped me arrange all the details with the Veteran’s Association. There was so much paperwork!

I was so surprised. These people didn’t know me, but they knew my husband and wanted to help. My husband’s message to seal to him was fresh in my mind when, after the funeral, I talked to Bishop Beck and said, “I am ready to discuss with the missionaries.” For five years missionaries had come to my home and I would not listen. I was ready to listen.

I was baptized on June 23, 2007. On my baptism day, a brother in my ward came to me to apologize. “I’m so sorry Krittiya, I have misspelled your name on the program.” But when I looked, it was the same way my husband had misspelled my name. I knew he was with me.

After baptism, I talked to my home teachers and visiting teachers about getting ready to go to the Temple. I took a Temple prep class and prepared myself spiritually to go to the Temple. On June 27, 2008 I went to the Oakland Temple and was sealed for time and all eternity to my husband. I cried the entire time. I knew my husband was there with me. He was very happy too.

I know that through the sealing powers offered in the Holy Temple my husband and I can be together forever, and that gives me peace.

Krittiya grew up in Bangkok, Thailand. She attended Catholic private schools before graduating from Thammast University, Bangkok, in journalism. She had never met a Mormon in Bangkok before meeting her husband, but had read in a magazine that Donny Osmond was a Mormon. She did not make the connection between the word “Mormon” and the Thai translation of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints while growing up in Bangkok. Krittiya now realizes that every Friday night, the LDS missionaries would host a TV show in Bangkok. We wanted to provide that translation so others could make the connection between the word “Mormon” and the Thai translation of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

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There is a woman in my church congregation who recently shared with me the story of her conversion. Selba was raised a member of the Catholic Church but when she had her first child, a son, she was not comfortable with the idea of infant baptism. In her heart she knew that her precious baby had no sin. She delayed getting her son baptized, yet still taught him the prayers of her family’s faith and hoped that one day she would be able to resolve the confusion.

Eight years later the LDS missionaries knocked on her door. At their very first meeting the missionaries began to teach about the error of infant baptism as found in Moroni 8:8:

Listen to the words of Christ, your Redeemer, your Lord and your God. Behold, I came into the world not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance; the whole need no physician, but they that are sick; wherefore, little children are whole, for they are not capable of committing sin; wherefore the curse of Adam is taken from them in me, that it hath no power over them; and the law of circumcision is done away in me.

She was astonished that the missionaries answered her question when they knew nothing of her dilemma. Later that night as her husband worked in the basement she read the scripture to him from a Book of Mormon the missionaries left with her. Luis immediately stopped what he was doing and asked her to read it again. After listening carefully to the verse he told her that she should keep the book.

Later, Selba asked that young missionary why he taught her about infant baptism at their very first meeting. The missionary told her that it was his very first day as a missionary and he was very nervous. He opened his scriptures and read those verses that morning and knew that it was what he was supposed to teach. Selba felt that God knew her desires to do what was right for her son and blessed her through the missionaries.

The missionaries came back many times, often late at night when Luis got home from work. As they taught the couple and their son about the gospel, their faith grew. Selba and Luis were baptized soon after, along with their son who was nine years old. Because Selba’s son had then passed his eighth birthday he was eligible for baptism.

Boyd K. Packer, one of the twelve apostles explains why children in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints wait until the age of eight to be baptized:

“Only when a child reaches that age of accountability, set by the Lord at eight years of age (see D&C 68:27), is their baptism essential. Before that age, they are innocent.”

We believe that children are not fully responsible for their own actions before the age of eight. Until that time they do not understand the concepts necessary for independent behavior, and they are pure and innocent through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Parents are responsible to teach their children the principles of the gospel so that by eight years of age they understand the basic principles of the gospel. They are then capable of making choices congruent with their knowledge using their personal agency.

An eight-year-old child is first interviewed by their priesthood leader, to determine if they know and understand the covenant they will make with God through baptism. They are also asked if they want to be baptized, as no one is forced into baptism. It is a sacred ordinance only to be entered into willingly.

The baptism itself is one of total immersion in water, while dressed in white, which is wonderfully symbolic and consistent with the teachings of the holy scriptures (Romans 6:4, 3 Nephi 11:22-26). After immersion in water the baptism is made complete through a blessing wherein the person receives the Holy Ghost through sacred priesthood power. We believe that baptism is not complete without receiving the Holy Ghost. The special blessing to have the Holy Ghost always with us helps us keep the commandments and remember the covenant we have made with God at baptism. (A of F 4)

My own children were also baptized when they were eight years old. It was a special occasion that we celebrated as a family and congregation, along with Selba, Luis, and their son. My friend and her family remain strong and devoted to the gospel of Jesus Christ, actively serving in our congregation.

I am thankful for the restored truths of the gospel that help me fully understand baptism and its purpose. It is a wonderful thing that our Savior, Jesus Christ was the perfect example for us- showing us the way back to our Heavenly Father through baptism (Matt 3:13-17, John 3:5). I am grateful for the restoration of the priesthood that gives authority for baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost. It is comforting to know that God has a plan for us, one that is as merciful and loving as it is exact and perfect.

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