I feel like it’s actually what led to my Latter-day Saint life. Because I heard a lot of conversion stories where people would join the church, initially, or still have to deal with the consequence of after choosing to join the church because the values are not the same, they go through hardship, like being distanced from family. I never experienced that. I feel like because my parents understand and trust in me, like, “Okay. We already taught him what we know what is right and what is good and what is not so good.” I think that allowed me, when I got to learn about the church, I knew right away that this is something good. That it is something maybe better for my life. It was very easy for me to be like, “Okay, I can explore more. This is good for me. I’m going with the gospel. Okay, let’s plant your seed and see how that makes you feel and let’s see what the fruit comes out to be.” And it turns out that the fruit is pretty delicious so far. Yeah. So, I really liked that.
Another thing that I do want to incorporate is actually with Buddhism. I feel like Buddhism really helped me to learn more about the church. There are still parts of Buddhism that I still practice and I think that members of the church should try to do it more: things like meditation. In scriptures we learn by prayer and pondering. I think that meditation fits in the pondering category, that you take time out of your day to not just say your prayer. It’s like, “Oh, hey, God. I need help with this and that,” but it’s more like you just met an old friend that you just want to sit down and just kind of chat and be there or just kind of enjoy that moment. I feel like meditation does that for me with my relationship with God and also my relationship with myself and my relationship with Jesus Christ. It helps you get to know yourself and God at a better level. It really takes time out of your day because I feel like when I say prayer before, it’s more like, “Okay, nighttime. It’s time for prayer.” And I think that those are needed, but I do think that just like as we develop a relationship with people, we spend time. I think we need time for ourselves and for our Heavenly Father and the Savior.