John B. Wallace - Starting at the Finish Line: The Gospel of Grace for Mormons

Train a child up in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it.

Proverbs 22:6

Sometime in the fall of 1973, my older sister, who was thirteen at the time, came home from school with cigarettes in her coat pocket. When my mother confronted her with the cigarettes, my sister, in between sobs, cried out, I just want to be Mormon!

Three months later, my entire family was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS church). But I should probably back up.

My parents were high-school sweethearts in Lawndale, California, inseparable from about the age of twelve. In fact, they were next-door neighbors. Dad literally married the girl next door. My grandparents, therefore, were neighbors and very good friends.

Of my four grandparents, only Ruby, my dads mom, was much of a churchgoer. In fact, she taught Sunday school in their small Methodist church for many years. Papa (Dads dad) avoided church at all costs, and my moms parents were, at best, special occasion churchgoers. However, the religious landscape in our family began to change sometime in 1955. My Uncle Chuck, Moms older brother, began hanging out with some of the Mormon kids at his high school and going to Mormon stake dances. He felt comfortable with them and admired what they stood for. Eventually, he investigated the church and, in January of 1956, was baptized. A year later, Grandpa followed suit.

Ironically, it was my grandmother Oleva, my moms mom, who ended up having the greatest fascination with the Mormon Church. I say it was ironic because she was the one with the greatest impediment to joining the church. She was a chain smoker and had been for decades. She had gained at least the initial rumblings of a testimony of the church and watched her son and husband join, but she simply could not imagine ever giving up her cigarettes.

Then one evening, their local bishop challenged her to pray about the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, the prophetic calling of Joseph Smith, and the uniqueness of the church as Gods one true church. Then he took it one step further. He challenged her to quit smoking altogether. That night, Grandma got on her knees and took that challenge. When she emerged from her bedroom, she was equipped with two things: a testimony of the church and the will power to stop smoking. She marched into the bathroom, flushed her last pack of cigarettes down the toilet, and never smoked another cigarette in her life! She was baptized shortly thereafter.

For a number of reasons, my parents did not feel inclined to make a serious investigation into the LDS church, despite the conversion of Moms entire side of the family. They were busy raising three small children. Life was good, for the most part, and they were reasonably content attending their local Methodist church.

After they moved to Long Beach, though, my parents felt the need to find a church closer to home. One of Dads fire department friends recommended the First Baptist Church of Lakewood, and thats where we attended until 1973the year that those menacing cigarettes tried to make a comeback in our family.

As it turned out, Janet (my would-be cigarette-smoking sister) loved to sit at the feet of my grandmother while she regaled her with stories of Joseph Smith and the restoration of the church. She literally could not get enough of those stories and, as a little girl, pined for the day when she too could become Mormon. She knew, however, this was not something she could safely share with Mom and Dad. We were Baptists now, and although we were not devout by any stretch (we attended church a couple times a month), my parents saw no compelling reason to change religionsthat is, until those cigarettes were discovered in Janets coat pocket. Structure was what we needed, and structure was what we got.