I was so proud of how the trial went, and my new resolve that I wanted to contact my parents and make a clean breast of everything. I felt that the lie was finally over, and I wanted to confess everything. They didn’t take it so well. My father was angry, he saw what he thought was my future with all its potential going down the drain. At first, my mother was crying. My father said: “See, you’ve broken your mother’s heart.” That and that alone almost did it. I came within a hair of turning my back on this new lifestyle and returning to my old ways. If he wanted to use a wedge or a hammer against me, that was it.
But, I didn’t back down. The next day and I asked my parents if they wanted me to come to church with them. My mother said: “I don’t care.” And, she said it with such indifference that I couldn’t believe she was my own mother. It was like hearing it from a total stranger. I did go to church, expecting to hear a little of the “peace of the Gospel”. That was what I longed for and needed to hear. Instead we were treated to a lecture by their bishop on ward politics.
I live my life by the Spirit. I make my own decisions, but I always run them by the Holy Ghost. For me the light bulb is either on or it’s off. So tangible it is for me. But on that occasion and for the next several years I got nothing. Just the one assurance that I was on the right path and everything was going to work itself out. I realize now, that I had to make my own decisions and “study it out in my own mind”, as the Lord told Oliver Cowdery, and then ask God if it be right.
John144 