Part One
The summer after my senior year in high school (1978), Bill and Shauna lived with us in Rochester. Bill had a summer job at Mayo. One night just before I headed off to school at BYU, Bill and I were sitting in the living room talking and he asked if I had a testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ and how did I feel about the church. I told him I wasn’t sure if the church was true. He was really cool. He didn’t get on me; he just bore his testimony and told me that if the church was true then there were choices I needed to be making in my life, like getting ready to serve a mission. However, if the church wasn’t true then I didn’t need to worry about serving a mission. “If you think about it,” he said, “You owe it to yourself to find out if the church is true so that you know what choices you need to make.” Then he again bore me his testimony. We talked a little more and then I guess I must have gone to bed. Truthfully, I didn’t think about it much more.
I went off to BYU. It was kind of funny, but as I would meet girls my freshman year at BYU, like in the cafeteria in the dorms, and would introduce myself, they would often ask when I was leaving on a mission. I would say, “I don’t know if I am going to go on a mission,” and some would answer that they would never marry someone that was not a returned missionary. I would think to myself, “I don’t remember asking.” I understood that they had goals for temple marriage, but I always thought that it was odd to lead with that when you were meeting someone for the first time. I wasn’t sure what I thought about being at school at BYU.
Part Two
I turned 18 on September 29th while I was out at school, but chose not to receive the Melchizedek Priesthood. Sometime later, early in the second semester, a girl that I home taught said she needed to talk to me. She came over to my dorm, we sat in the lobby, she told me that she thought there was an evil spirit in her dorm room, and asked if I could come and use the priesthood to cast out the evil spirit and give her a blessing. I had to tell her that I did not have the Melchizedek Priesthood and could not give her a blessing, but that my companion was a returned missionary, that I would get him and someone else and that we would come over and that they could do what she had asked. I found my companion, and we got another guy from the dorm and went over to give her the blessing. Guys were not allowed in the girls’ dorms so we had to get permission. We got permission and went up to her dorm room. I was not able to participate in the blessing, but went to give my support to the girl that I home taught.
I don’t know if it was real or just my imagination, but when we entered her room, it felt a little gloomy; the lights didn’t seem as bright as a regular dorm room.
Ironically, she was from North Carolina and was a Duke fan. Duke’s mascot is a blue devil and she had a “DUKE” license plate on the wall that instead of the “U,” it had a blue devil head. I thought to myself, “Given the situation, that’s kind of spooky.”
Like I said, the room seemed a little gloomy. We first knelt and using the priesthood, one of the guys cast out the evil spirit. They laid their hands on her head and gave her a blessing. Again, I do not know if it was real or just my imagination, but nevertheless it was real for me. When I opened my eyes after her blessing, the room seemed brighter. The room felt warm and comfortable, and I felt zapped of my energy. Walking back to my dorm, the conversation with Bill came back to my mind. I thought to myself, “Tom, you are 18. You could have the Melchizedek Priesthood; you could have been a part of giving her a blessing. You need to find out if the church is true.”
Part Three
I don’t remember how soon Part Three was after Part Two, but on fast Sunday in February 1979, I was hungry, it was late and the cafeteria was not open so I headed out of the dorms and was going to walk to McDonald’s to get something to eat. It was Sunday night. I got about 50 feet out of the dorms and stopped. I thought, “This is Sunday. Going to McDonald’s was not honoring the Sabbath.” (I don’t think I had ever thought about honoring the Sabbath before in my life.) Then I said to myself, “Tom, you have to find out if the church is true.”
I went back to my dorm room and started a fast to find out for myself if the church was true. I went to bed Sunday night fasting to gain a testimony for myself. Monday I stayed in my dorm room and began to read the Book of Mormon. This was the first time that I read with real intent, wanting to know if it was true. I would read a little bit and then get down on my knees to pray, and then read a little bit and get down on my knees and pray. I don’t remember how long this went on, but I didn’t feel like I was getting an answer. Finally, I got down on my knees and committed to Heavenly Father that if he would let me know that the church was true, I would serve a mission. It was then that I received my answer. I did not see a vision, but I felt at peace. I felt a mission was the right thing to do, and I have never looked back. I don’t think that since that day in my dorm room I have ever wavered in my testimony. My testimony has only grown and continues to grow since that day.