We take no one step journeys in life. Yet one step in the right direction can determine the course of our eternal happiness. So testifies Sister Kathy Brook in her own words.
My spiritual journey towards the gospel of Jesus Christ began at a young age. When I was a child, my family spent some time living in West Germany on a military base. My father taught languages at the Canadian Forces base high school and on Sundays, we attended the local protestant chapel. When I turned 13 years, I took the expected preparatory religious classes for communion in the Protestant church. I recall asking the minister about God, Jesus Christ, and life after death. His answer was, “Don’t be concerned with these things.” His response left me with questions about my faith, which came back to me later in life.
As a young adult, I had recently returned from a nursing job in Bella Bella, British Columbia and was working full-time at the Grace Hospital, in downtown Toronto, Ontario. Feeling awkward and alone in this “concrete jungle”, and having spent 14 months in isolated Bella Bella, I prayed to God and asked for His help. Was He there and listening? There were times I questioned God’s existence and became hardened in heart. When I reflect on this time of my life, I remember wanting to belong to a church and to find the truth to the questions I had as a 13-year-old. My nursing experience in British Columbia had taught me different views of life and expectations. I was frustrated with myself and, unbeknownst to me, I needed to seek and listen to God’s counsel.
On one of my days off, while walking towards the Royal Ontario Museum and enjoying the fresh air, I stopped and stared at a roadside tree along Bloor Street. I felt a sensation, a prompting as if a voice were speaking to me. It told me, “search for the truth, find the Church.” I was mystified and a bit frightened. Was I to turn from nursing and become a minister of religion? Which church ought I to seek? Where did this prompting come from? This experience has never left me. I knew it was a sign from God. Years later, I felt the same prompting. I found it familiar and friendly. Again I felt urged “to find the truth, to find the Church.” But which church, I did not know. I thought about this visit and began visiting churches of other Christian denominations.
My family returned to Ottawa, Ontario in 1989. Once settled, I read from the Book of Mormon and felt a desire to meet with the missionaries. Finding their number in the phone book, I called for my first appointment. I met often with the missionaries, learned to love and appreciate their commitment to the Saviour and towards me and my family. I gained a testimony of the truths that the church upholds; that Jesus Christ is my advocate to the Father. I also gained a testimony that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God called to bring the Church out of its darkness. I understood that the Lord provides personal revelation to those who humbly seek the truth.
