Saturday July 24th, 2010 I was asked what the difference between the time I left the church and my return. My first impulsive answer was maturity. Its true I was immature but I had a feeling that it wasn't all that. That question has been in the forefront of my mind. I'm going to try and answer as honest as possible to explain the difference.

Traveling back to 1986 has been an awakening. I had been a member a short while. I had a wife and two young children. I wasn't getting much support from friends and family. I was angry at my life, my family, my wife, my children, my illness and the poor choices I was making. They who were the closet to me (no fault of their own) got the brunt of my rages.

Voices were rampant. My illness was in full blown chaos. I saw no future, except being a patient at the hospital. I wanted to die on a daily basis.

I smoked heavily and drank as often as I could.

When my 1st wife and I took the Missionary lessons, I didn't ponder them in my mind. I hardly read the scriptures. I joined the church to please the couple that introduced me.

My addiction to porn, alcohol and smoking was out-of-control. I didn't care about myself or anyone. I had no morals or values. I was swimming in a cesspool of despair and hate. I loved no one. I was unhappy not because of my children, they were just the recipents on my anger but because I felt trapped and no one cared.

I left the church and didn't want any part of it..eventually they stopped coming around.

August 23, 2009.

For a few months I kept having a feeling like I should go back to church. I kept telling Margaret (my second wife) I wanted to go to church. She said "you should go." Sunday came and I would talk myself out of it. One day I was just getting home when the missionaries showed up on my front steps. We talked a bit and they said that if I wanted to go to church, that it started a 10am. That little seed brought me back.

There were other factors that opened my eyes. I had been working at a facility where I was treated as a "normal" person. I was very successful. I had stopped drinking and smoking. I became aware that I was feeling a wide range emotions, that I had stuffed away years before. Most of them were good ones. My self-esteem was better through writing and sharing my life experiences with others that suffered the way I did.

My job was fulfilling and I felt really good. I married a wonderful woman..she is the first person I truly loved. I was on a good mix of medicines. I was actively fighting the voices. I was writing a journal. My head cleared enough for me to see that good things were happening.

My whole life was getting better but yet I yearned for more. Then one Sunday I decided that today is the day I go back to church. I knew that I belonged there. The missing piece of the puzzle was now in place.

I now know, almost a year later, that those missionaries just didn't show up for nothing. I know that they were sent there by Heavenly Father to "wake me up".