{"id":416,"date":"2009-11-23T05:39:46","date_gmt":"2009-11-23T05:39:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pedrozaplace.com\/blog1\/?p=416"},"modified":"2009-11-23T05:39:46","modified_gmt":"2009-11-23T05:39:46","slug":"surreal-church-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johnpedroza.com\/blog1\/surreal-church-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"Surreal Church Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite a long family background in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, I didn’t join the Church until I was 18 yrs old. My grandfather on my mother’s side was a member of the church but became inactive when he was young. I really didn’t learn about any of my family’s background in the Church until I was baptized.
\nI mention this because despite my years of studying the gospel and serving in many callings (the favorite of which was my mission in Argentina), I have never been able to escape that feeling of being just “a convert.” Don’t get me wrong, I love being a convert to the gospel, but there is definately something to be said to being able to have the opportunity to be a part of the Church from “day one.”
\n I often wonder what it would of been like to have grown up in the Church. I look at AJ sometimes and wonder what it would of been like to act out “Once I was a Snowman.” Would I have ever gotten to stand up at the podium to recieve my certificate for memorizing all of the Articles of Faith? I look at my Teachers getting their first dance card and think “could I have gotten one?” I don’t know the answers to any of those questions, but I wonder.
\nOn the other hand there are things I don’t have to wonder about. For example, I will never be acused of just<\/em> following my parent’s religious views. I knew and studied all the “fine print” before I became a member of this Church. I got to study Gospel Essentials for a whole year before going to my first Gospel Doctorine Class. When I went on my mission I knew exactly what the people I was teaching was feeling and I knew exactly what to say to them.
\nToday I went to church in Salt Lake City, it was a very surreal experience for me. I knew I was supposed to be there, but at the same time I felt out of place. It definately wasn’t my home ward. I think this was because it seemed like everyone I spoke to had some important post with the Church. Denise and I sat down for Gospel Doctorine class and the Second Counselor to the General Young Women’s Presidency sat next to us. Our teacher was a First Quorem of the Seventy Member. I guess general authorities have to go to church somewhere, but I guess some where in the back of my head I had this vision of all these people holding some super sacrament service in some temple somewhere (they have 13 to chose from!), I didn’t ever expect to be in one with them. Definately a different experience, I don’t write notes too often during Sunday School, but today I did.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despite a long family background in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, I didn’t join the Church until I was 18 yrs old. My grandfather on my mother’s side was a member of the church but became …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[227,491],"class_list":["post-416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-church-of-jesus-christ-of-latter-day-saints","tag-lds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpedroza.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpedroza.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpedroza.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpedroza.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpedroza.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpedroza.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpedroza.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpedroza.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpedroza.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}