Susan Craig Mormon Conversion

I Was Raised a Roman Catholic

by Susan Craig

I was raised a Roman Catholic.  Although I didn’t realize it at the time, my break with Catholicism actually began with the death of a baby brother I never got to know.  He was born in the early 60′s and died from a birth defect.  I had been raised to believe that if a baby wasn’t baptized, he or she would never go to heaven.  And I never questioned this.  Some years later, I began to fear that my baby brother had not been baptized.  I didn’t know how I [could] be certain of this.

In September of 1972, my (divorced) mother had moved me, my sister, and my other brother to a new town so she could further her nursing education.  I recall coming home from school one day and seeing the newspaper which had a picture on the front page of two young men in white shirts and ties.  I didn’t read the accompanying caption and thought nothing of it.  Unbeknownst to me, my younger sister had become friends with a classmate who was LDS.  My sister was invited over to her home to meet the Mormon missionaries and she started taking the discussions.  But she didn’t stick with it.

She quit, and soon her friend asked if I’d like to come over and meet the elders.  I said yes, and started taking the discussions.  The elders got me to begin attending youth activities while they were teaching me.  Eventually I finished with the discussions but I kept attending meetings.  It was easy for me to believe in what the elders taught, and The Book of Mormon made such perfect sense to me.  They told me that it was God’s word to people who’d lived here anciently, and I was easily able to accept that.  It all made sense to me intellectually, but at that point in time, I didn’t yet have a spiritual witness that it was true.  I so hungered for that.  I couldn’t put it into words even, but I wanted to believe so much.  I felt deeply sad still.

I didn’t face any opposition from my family, but when my father called one day, I then found out that my mother had been telling him of my activity in the LDS church.  He asked me about it and I told him that yes, I’d been going to another church.  He then asked me; “Doesn’t the Catholic church mean anything to you?”  I wanted to say “No” out loud to him, but couldn’t, as I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.  But to myself, I had said no.  Catholicism no longer meant anything to me.  It held no light, no hope.  And after that, I still ached inside to have a confirmation to my heart, of the truth of what the elders had taught me.

And it finally happened one night as I sat in class at the church, with the other teenage girls.  Each classroom had a church picture on a wall.  The room we were in, had the picture of Peter, James, and John bestowing the Melchizedek priesthood upon Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery.  I had seen this picture countless times before and never thought anything of it.  Up until that particular night, I always paid attention to the lesson and the teacher.  But on this night, for some reason, I didn’t.  I couldn’t.

I found myself glancing around the room and my gaze rested upon that picture.  Only this time, I could not take my eyes off it.  I was unable to for some reason.  And no one noticed that I wasn’t paying attention to the lesson, not even the teacher.  And then my witness from the Holy Ghost came.  I was suddenly flooded throughout my body with the most wonderful and joyous feeling.  And in that instant I knew in my heart that it was all true.

I contacted the Mormon missionaries as soon as I could the next day and asked them to come over to our apartment.  I was very solemn when they arrived.  It was a momentous day for me.  And then I told them that I wanted to be baptized.  They were so happy.  They later told me that they were afraid I was going to tell them just the opposite.  They set my baptism for January 26th, 1973.  But because I was so eager, they moved it up a week, and it took place on the 19th.  As soon as I came up out of the water, my spiritual depression was gone.  I knew the answer to who I was and didn’t feel sad over that question anymore.