October 2006 Ensign - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOHN LUKE AND CHRISTINA SMITH, POSED BY MODELS
Learning How the Church
Works and Finding
Your Place in It
The first time Lori Solomon attended a Latter-day
Saint ward, she noticed something significant.
Not only were the people she met there extremely
friendly and kind, but they also had their own copies of
the scriptures. During the meetings, they were reading
from, talking about, and trying to apply the scriptures to
their lives. This impressed Lori because she had never
been able to understand the Torah when it was read in
Hebrew in her Reform Jewish congregation.
When Lori went to church the
second time, a powerful feeling
propelled her to the microphone
in fast and testimony
meeting. Standing
before a roomful of
strangers, she tried to put
into words the feeling
that was already growing
into a conviction. “I’m
home,” she said. Lori was
baptized in Chicago,
Illinois, in 2001.
The Apostle Paul compared
the experience of
conversion to finding
our spiritual home: “But
now in Christ Jesus ye
who sometimes were far
BY JAN PINBOROUGH
Church Magazines
off are made nigh. . . . Now therefore ye are no more
strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints,
and of the household of God” (Ephesians 2:13, 19).
But, as Lori soon discovered, knowing the Church is
true is not the same as understanding how the Church
works. Like most new members, Lori found herself unfamiliar
with the procedures, protocol, and specialized
vocabulary that long-term members take for granted. For
example, she didn’t know that Church members don’t
make comments in sacrament meeting. And the first time
she heard someone refer to “home, family, and personal
enrichment meeting,” she thought she needed to bring
her family with her. It takes time to learn these and other
unwritten “rules.”
For each of us, conversion is at least a two-part process.
One part is the very individual process of learning and
accepting restored truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ and
becoming spiritually changed or converted by our new
faith. It is a lifelong process that includes repenting, making
and keeping covenants with the Lord, and striving
to do His will. Because all of us need support in these
central endeavors, we also engage in a second process—
fellowshipping with other Latter-day Saints. This includes
becoming part of a new community, attending meetings,
taking part in activities, serving, and being served. And
each aspect of the Church organization can give us vital
aid in our spiritual conversion.
Serving in an “Active” Church
Having grown up as a practicing Catholic in Maryland,
Jean Gardner always thought of bishops as full-time
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