This is a new segment on our site, featuring the stories and faith of regular members of the church.
Mike and Cristine Mason have been married for over 5 years, they are the parents of a beautiful and active 2 year-old boy. They were baptized March 22, 2009. Mike is a salesman, Cristine works at a university as an administrative assistant. The following excerpts are from an interview with them conducted May 16, 2010.
How did you find the LDS Church?
Mike: Back in 2003, I received a revelation that Jesus Christ was real and that I am a son of God. That revelation just hit me and I was walking around for three days singing hallelujah. And I thought, “Well, if I’m a son of God I’d better read what that means, because the only Son of God that I’m aware of is Jesus Christ.” So I went to start studying the Bible, day and night I just read it and read it and read it. Then I realized that I needed to be baptized, but the only thing I knew was that there were churches that baptize you. So I’d go and try out different churches, and it would be good for awhile, but then we’d run against some theological differences–what the Bible says and what they were doing was two different things. And my enthusiasm would wane, and I’d fall back into the world again and then start searching for a new church again.
The last church I went to before I found The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints helped me break out of a lot of the molds of the things that happened in the 4th Century. During the 4th century, the Nicene Creed and the doctrines that came from the Creeds bind a lot of the Protestant churches up from receiving further revelation. The United Pentecostal Church didn’t believe in the trinity, they believed in Jehovah as Jesus Christ. So they helped me think outside the Protestant box, and when I came to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I was already believing that Jehovah was Jesus Christ, though the Pentecostals still saw them as one God, all grouped together. But again, the Bible hit their doctrine, and I knew that the Bible was my Gold Standard, so my enthusiasm waned.
At that time, I was working a lot of hours, making a lot of money, living the luxurious lifestyle. But I was not spending any time with my family. I could feel us spinning apart–my child was growing up without me. One night I saw the end coming–I knew that if something did not change, it would all completely fall apart. And there was a commercial on TV (and I HATED these commercials growing up–”Isn’t it about time”). So I saw the website, www.mormon.org and I got on and started comparing the doctrines and things just started lining up–”oh my word! They’re not kooks!”
As I was talking with the missionaries, I had question after question after question–they even brought the Mission President to our home to help answer my questions. There had been nothing else that I had found that had been this living, this powerful, as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Just the fruit, what it has brought into our lives, the way it has changed my life.
Cristine: I’ve always felt that light inside me, driving me to seek religion. I grew up as a Catholic, we went to church on Sundays–even though I didn’t have much community involvement. But I’ve always had that fire for the Lord. And after we got married, we began this search together. And we were attending that Pentecostal church, and it was good, but not great. And all of the sudden one day, [Mike] had done a search on my phone and I saw “www.mormon.org” on my phone and I thought–”what is this?? Oh my goodness, where are we going now?” One day he happened to mention that some people were coming by that night to teach us a little bit about it. One night he had been in their parking lot and he met with the Elders and they really got in to the meat and potatoes of it all. At first I was a little hesitant, but I decided that I would just feel them out and see what they were saying and if it rang true, then I would listen to them. So they came and I thought, “Well, this isn’t so bad. It sounds like it could be true.” So then that opened the door for me to listen and accept it.
And then I have realized, “Wow, this really is a fullness. Why would it all just have to be in the Old World? Why couldn’t Jesus have come to this continent? People are always saying, “Don’t put God in a box” and then they limit what He can do or where He can be. It helped me to believe, to have that testimony of the Book of Mormon as another testament of His life. As we got into more discussions with the Elders, we had more and more little revelations of the truth of it, as well as starting to see the fruits of it in our own lives.
Have you met with opposition as you’ve joined the church?
Mike: I’ve had friends that I’d left from other churches that I knew I had to tell them that I had joined the church. One gentleman, who I had been 
friends with for the longest time, he is a die-hard Pentecostal and I knew that my first test of being a member of the church was that I had to bear him my testimony. And he rained fire on my head. He wanted to argue, he wanted to fight–and I just stayed my course and kept repeating, “I know this is true because I thought about it, I’ve prayed about it” and the result of that conversation was that I realized that my hands were now welded to my plow. I had taken that step of commitment.
When my mom found out what church we were going to, she said, “Are those the Mormons? You know they don’t even believe in God.” I’ve had to go against my grandmother, the matriarch of the family–very strong and hard-headed sometimes. I’ve had opposition from my family. However, my dad supports it–he’s seen the change in us.
Cristine: Most of the opposition we’ve had has come through his side of the family. I remember one weekend we were on vacation, and his grandmother found our primary book [Cristine teaches the children in the Church's Primary organization], and said, “that looks like a nice program, but they don’t teach from the Bible.” And I said, “Yes they do.” She warned me that I should be careful and really think about what I was doing, and I replied, “You know I take this pretty seriously, and you can be sure that I have prayed and thought about it.”
How has it changed you?
Mike: The change has come about in three ways: The first was spiritually. It helped me eliminate a lot of bad physical habits, all on the spiritual power of my testimony. As soon as I knew the church was true, I quit my smoking and other habits that instant. Never looked back. The power of the testimony just happened instantly. The second is mentally–I have a mental illness that was misdiagnosed for a long time, but after becoming a member of the Church, cleaning up my life and finding balance with everything, I’ve been able to be re-diagnosed with much better outcomes. The third is physically (Mike has lost over 60 pounds in the last few months and he looks great). But it’s also changed my marriage–the way I relate to people and the way I relate to my wife.
Cristine: And the Lord is who brought Mike and I together, and as we’ve studied together, it’s helped us seal our marriage. Again, the fruits are evident in our lives, as well as our little boy’s life. Sure, he’s a little hyper, but his prayer life is coming together. He’s the first one at the dinner table who reaches out his hands and says, “let’s pray”.
Additionally, we have received so much support and encouragement with the Church, especially when things were really at their worst. We ask ourselves, “Could we have gotten that help anywhere else?”
And I had a friend at work, who is LDS, and I would go to her and ask her about the Church. I remember when Mike was having difficulties with his illness, I would go to her and say, “I just want to go somewhere where people will accept him for who he is. It is not a very easy thing to accept a person for their differences, but I am just hoping that this place will have the structure in the men’s group that they would accept him, and not shun him.” And thus far it has gone really well.
Mike: I would echo what Peter said to Christ when Christ asked him if he was going to leave Him too, and Peter answered, “where would we go? You have the truth.” And that is what I would say today. In our year and some months in the church, I haven’t been the perfect Latter-day Saint, but it comes back to–where else am I going to go? This is where the truth is. And as far as waning excitement that has happened in the past with previous churches, I’ve already been through the peaks and valleys with this church, and the Spirit just draws me back in. We’re here to stay.
