00:05
I’m glad to have you, thank you. I’m glad to be here. Welcome, welcome to God’s Guiding Light. Alright, full disclosure, everybody, I know Teresa. She and I, her friends, have been for I don’t know, more than a year?
00:19
Yeah, yeah. And I can tell you this about Teresa: she’s a heck of a singer.
00:23
Well, thank you. I’ve been, I drove up to your house. She lives like five and a half, five and a half, six hours north of me. And it rained every inch of the way there, and every inch of the way back. And then I think when we met you at my sister and I went to a funeral…
00:40
How far away from your house is that?
00:41
Two, three hours?
00:42
About two hours.
00:43
About two hours. Yeah, it rained that whole trip on me too.
00:46
So, oh really? Yeah, it rains at your house. So, but yet you still come.
00:50
Yeah, we, and we, yeah, and we had a lot of fun. We stayed in the hotel, and I brought my guitar, my sister brought her Auto harp, and Teresa sang, and we made a bunch of great videos. You can see those on easy3cordcountry.com.
01:15
Yeah, you know, I might as well plug the other show. Might as well.
01:18
Yeah, you want to bring me up to speed? Who are you? Tell me about yourself.
01:23
Well, I’m 58 years old, and I live currently in Tulsa, Oklahoma, like you mentioned, but I’m originally from a suburb of Philadelphia. That’s where I was born and raised.
01:36
I was born and raised Catholic, went to Catholic school for the first couple years of my life, and I’m a licensed clinical social worker.
01:49
I’ve lived in Tulsa off and on, um, half of my adult life, but I’ve been here the last 22 years. And I have one adult child. She’s about 40, and a seven-year-old grandson, and a three-year-old granddaughter.
02:06
So Teresa, tell me about your life before you found the gospel.
02:10
Well, I was, like I said, Catholic until the time I was about eight, so I went to first and second grade. And I remember being seven, and I was kind of a deep child. I kind of still am by nature, but kind of contemplating things.
02:36
I remember the concept of God and the Heavenly Father, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost all as one, everywhere but nowhere together. And I remember my little mind contemplating that and just thinking that it just doesn’t seem right, that concept of a spirit that’s everywhere and nowhere all at the same time.
02:57
And, um, so my family got introduced to the church from a neighbor. At the time, before the gospel, I would say, from my father’s standpoint, it was kind of an abusive environment.
03:18
So finding the gospel for me, I remember that concept of learning about Heavenly Father as a distinct, separate individual, and Jesus Christ being distinct and individual. And that just set so right for me.
03:38
I remember being a little child and I was alone for some reason during an activity in the Primary, and just thinking about that song, “Heavenly Father Loves Me.” And just those words: “Whenever I hear the song of a bird, or look at the blue, blue sky, whenever I feel the rain on my face, or the wind as it rushes by, I know Heavenly Father loves me.”
03:49
That song just bore testimony to me of Heavenly Father’s love for me. So even as a little child, that stuck.
04:06
Now, my family only went until the time I was 12, so my parents didn’t really stick with them. So they went from the time I was 8 till about 12 or 13.
04:21
So just about four or five years. So it was really just those primary lessons, you know, the basic gospel lessons, and that really formed the basis of my testimony.
04:35
Now, when my parents did go away, they fell far away from the church. Very poor examples of leading a life that is far from the gospel. During my teenage years, I kind of followed suit with that somewhat, you know.
05:05
I even had a daughter at 16 in high school. I was a smart kid. I was in honor classes, and so I struggled with that, knowing in my heart that the church was kind of right, but then seeing the example of my parents, you know, kind of that pull both ways.
05:39
So that kind of sat with me a while, but after, you know, I think there was a lot of trauma at that time as well in our family. Which led me, after my daughter was born, to some mental health issues I had to deal with at the time.
06:21
So I found myself as a teenager, you know, I was like 17 when she was born, coming to terms with that. I remember this shame kind of involved in it, wondering, “Does Heavenly Father want me back in this church?”
06:52
I always knew it was true, but I was very fortunate. I had a lot of people invest time in me. I had home teachers that took me a week or two long. They had a booth at pyra, so I got to go there camping two weeks when they were doing that.
07:22
And I had that one-on-one time. I had ward members that didn’t have kids that took me and my brother on vacations. I had a home teacher next door who knew my parents wouldn’t stay, but he knew if he could instill time and energy into me, it might stick.
07:40
And I think the Lord knew what I needed. I needed that base. And so I always had that to kind of pull back on.
08:01
So even though I lived without it for a while, I always had that pull to go back to it. When I was about 19, I really felt it strongly. But I felt that shame, and I wondered if Heavenly Father would forgive me for the things I’d done.
08:42
So I fasted and prayed, asking, “Do you want me back in your church?” I felt a strong impression to write down my life goals.
09:15
I wrote a list of 30 things, like temple marriage and things related to the church, like “live again with Heavenly Father one day.”
09:41
And then I felt the next impression: “How are you going to get those goals?” My answer in my head was, “By going back to church.”
09:47
And I felt very distinctly the answer: “Thus your answer.”
10:01
The next day, the missionaries just happened to be knocking on my door. They had no idea I lived there.
10:15
And I went to church with them, and I’ve never looked back since then. It was a blessing in my life that the Lord sent them at that time when I was ready to make that transition.
10:47
A couple of years later, I was able to go to BYU and get my degree. And I got my master’s degree in social work, and I’ve been able to support us and be independent.
11:38
I also found peace with my family, especially my mother, who has turned her life around.
12:11
I started working in genealogy at age 20. I dedicated time to it and had a strong testimony of the importance of it.
12:36
And I realized the intergenerational traumas that affect us. I can’t be mad at my parents forever because their struggles were shaped by their own experiences.
13:07
The church teaches us how to take responsibility for our own salvation, no matter what plot of life you got.
13:39
The church gives us hope for the future, knowing that not even death is the worst thing that can happen to us.
14:16
Teresa, thank you for sharing that.
14:49
I remember being eight or nine, just bringing the Book of Mormon to my mother and asking her to read it because I could feel the difference when we did and when we didn’t.
15:46
I knew we needed that in our family. That was a piece I could feel, and I’ve always known it’s true.
16:20
When I came back, I was in Shawnee, Oklahoma. And they just embraced me, young kid with a baby.
17:32
I’ve served in countless Relief Society presidencies, and most recently in the Stake Relief Society presidency in Tulsa.
18:18
One of the challenges we received was to pray and ask Heavenly Father to show us in a way we can understand that He loves us and is aware of us.
19:00
For me, it was when I was in the temple, very downhearted, crying in the Celestial Room. A lady came up to me and said, “You’re beautiful.”
19:35
And then another lady came up and said, “Heavenly Father wants you to know that He is aware of what you’re going through, and He loves you.”
20:04
That was exactly what I needed to hear. And I know if we pray that prayer, Heavenly Father will answer us in some way.
20:41
I see the growth from my challenges. I can see all the blessings from them.
21:15
There’s growth from trials, and I’ve learned compassion, strength, and that nothing is lost in our experiences.
21:50
I’ve learned that Heavenly Father speaks to us in many ways, and we are not alone in this world.
22:53
There’s always someone there for us.