My Story...

My name is Alliesha, I am 23 years old and am about to start a journey back to Christ. I am the oldest of five. My siblings and I were raised latter day saints and members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I was baptized at eight years old. My Parents were sealed in the Temple. We attended Church every Sunday. Paid tithing. Attempted to have weekly family home evenings and morning family scripture study, my mother was even a seminary teacher for a few years. This is your typical story for most LDS families, however after graduation I found myself no longer active in the church. Its been about five years since I've been to church,and last week everything kind of changed. I want to give you more detail into my past so you can understand what has brought me here and why I wanted to start this blog, Returning to Christ. One of the most monumental moments of my life happened when I was eleven years old. At that time my family was living in Columbia, South Carolina. I had just started 6th grade and was attending middle school. At eleven, having your own locker and moving into a "bell schedule" for classes was super exciting! The school was also far enough away that I had to ride the bus, also exciting in the eyes of an eleven year old. The neighborhood kids and I all met every morning at the corner of our once Elementary school to catch the bus. A few months into this new middle school routine one of the boys that rode our bus made new friends with a few of the ninth graders, on bus rides home they would always sit in the back and make fun of some of the kids, flirt with some of the girls, and all around annoy most all of us. Maria, my best friend at the time, always got us seats at the front of the bus so we didn't get in the boys line of fire. One day the boys started targeting Maria and I, it started off as crude and slander remarks that we just tried to ignore, then escalated to a few of them getting off the bus at are stop and following us on our walks home. Maria was out sick a few weeks into this happening, so I was on my own. I over heard one of the older boys tell the boy that was once my friend that in order to be in the "gang" he was to rape me. At eleven I didn't know what that meant, but I knew I was scared. Before school the next day I took a pocket knife from my dads camping gear and hid it in my back pack. The end of the day came, and all of the boys from the back of the bus got off at my stop, they kept their distance for the first half of my walk home, yelling and whistling at my from behind. The only thing between me and home was a small meadow of trees, that was his chance. The boy broke from the group running straight into the trees after me. I turned around and screamed right at him, "I have a knife!" He came right up to me, grabbed my hips and threw me to the ground.. I don't know what stopped him but that day was the day I escaped gang rape. School that year was very much a blur for me, I went through a compulsive lying stage. I missed a lot of school from being "sick" at least that's what I lead on. And after multiple therapist and even a hypnotist, my parents finally understood what was really happening to me. My mother made the decision to move our family. My uncle and his family lived in Pleasant Grove, Utah and had convinced my mother this was the place she needed to bring the family. Later on, I learned that this was a rough time in my parents marriage and they were on the verge of divorce, my father ( a very very southern born and raised man) left everything he knew behind to start a clean slate with his wife and children. So our new journey began in, what some of you may know is called, "The Utah County Bubble" It really was a great move for our family, all of us kids began competitively swimming. I started a new school where about 90% of the kids were LDS and moved into high school where you could take seminary as one of your periods in your school schedule. Seminary was particularly difficult for me, not that I wasn't enjoying my self, but I never really connected to the lessons or could do the reading assignments and challenges. Looking back on that, I now know its because I never had a good foundation of learning the gospel. I was surrounded by all of these LDS people my age and having hardly any temptations, like drugs, sex, or alcohol because of the standards that almost everyone shared here. My faith was never really tested. And to be honest, I never had a desire for the bad. But I also never desired to know for myself why I believed in being "good". As my high school years ended, so came the dissolving of my parents marriage. At the early stages of their separation I found my self constantly fighting with my parents and eventually was kicked out of the house. I moved in with my best friend to this day, Ashley and her family. The lived right around the corner and were in the ward, so it wasn't much of a move out, but I was my new home for the time being. Her parents were very diligent when it came to family nights, prayers at every meal and scripture studies and discussions together. I was fascinated by the core values of this family. The most amazing thing to me was their family discussions held every Sunday after dinner. Ashley's father would ask us what we learned in church that day and then asked if we had any questions about the lessons or questions that we had thought of during the week about the gospel. Once a question was asked he would flip through his scriptures and find the answer for us, this lead to very in depth conversations that were so incredible to observe. I don't know if I ever saw my father read his scriptures. Growing up our family scripture study was my mother getting us up 30 minutes before school and reading a chapter to us in the morning, pretty sure I slept through every chapter. Now any question I ever had was answered with ease, and if we couldn't find an answer during discussion it would be the challenge that week to search for it, to be continued to next week. I began writing in a journal, saying prayers morning and night. And really feeling like I was on the right path. Just shy of a year with this family my parents finalized the divorce and my dad decided to go back to his southern roots. When I found this out I went to Ashley for comfort, her response to me was to go with him. She told me she felt like it was where the lord wanted me, so trusting in her, I went. So began my very quick maturing phase. My father had not worked since my parents separation, and was living off of unemployment, so we moved in to my Aunts 2 bedroom apartment in Lexington. At the wards Church Christmas Party my cousin's husband approached me with a job opportunity. So of course I took it, I was working at the mall just at a small kiosk, I made friends with the kiosks along side of me and a few of the people in the stores surrounding us, soon after I got a second job at one of the stores so I basically lived at the mall. But It was enough for my dad, brother and I to move into our own apartment. Living with my Dad was not easy, he was very hurt from the divorce and vocally bashed my mothers name to my brother and I. I only ended up staying out there for nine months, but what I learned was a blessing in disguise. I learned independence, and how to work hard for what I wanted, I had the chance to reconnect with my southern roots, I had the opportunity to choose church for myself, and even got a calling as the substitute gospel doctrine teacher. After making the decision to come back to Utah, my mother made arrangements for a lifelong family friend of mine, Anders ( pronounced on-dish) would fly out to help me drive cross country safely. Anders and I had off and on crushes on each other since moving to Utah when I was 12. We were friends in high school but never got to hang out since he lived up in Midvale ( about a 30 minute drive) After the move back to Utah he and I began casually dating and then turned into what we now refer to as a game between us, we spend almost 2 years chasing each other until finally being exclusive. Anders and I dated for year and then made the decision to move in together. We both came from broken families and at that time in our lives we weren't active in the church and wanted to move out of our parents house. It only made since for us to be together since we were sleeping over at each others houses all weekends. So we did. Our parents were not active in the church and so it wasn't a big deal to anyone. We have now been living together for 2 years, and honestly love it! We planned on getting married last August but Anders broke his wrist and all of our savings for the wedding went toward medical bills. He and I postponed till next spring. Last week we took a trip out to Cali to visit Anders step sister and her family. We went out to help them babysit their 4 children while they went on a couples trip, since we were in the city I decided to go visit Vera Wang's bridal store to try and find a dress for the spring wedding. Anders sister Dani came along with me. She and I chatted up a storm and got to really know one another. Come to find out we have a ton in common! During our time with the kids, Anders and I began saying daily prayers with them, along with being in a very loving home environment. Dani and her husband raised some amazing kids! Because of the week we spent with them, Anders and I were touched and have been wanting to make a change. Anders also started reading the book "Visions of Glory" and finished it over the week. Lets just say he is a changed man. Almost all of our discussions have to do with returning to church and wanting to work toward an eternal family. We begin our studying tonight and plan to rebuild our foundation. We are on our way to Returning to Christ.