Hello guys and welcome to the second season of Church Of Jesus Christ- Real Life Stories! I am going to start off this season by telling all of you a special story that I hold close to my heart. This is the story of Norman. Now I don’t think Norman has social media, but I received his story from a pamphlet he gave my family. On June 10th of 2021, me and my family were hiking on a mountain trail. Around the end of the hike, I saw an older gentleman with a walking stick in his hand wearing a blue shirt. When we get closer to him I was able read his shirt which said “I was converted by the Book of Mormon.” As we pass him he smiles at us and gives my father a pamphlet. We later read the pamphlet after the hike. The beginning of it was about Joseph Smith and part of the church history. At the end of the pamphlet, he wrote his testimony in it. This is Norman’s story.
My name is Norman Clifton ( I was born in 1930). In 1959 two missionaries from the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (better known as the Mormon missionaries) knocked on our door. My curious wife asked my sister who had just joined their church to send them over. My sister liked the missionaries and didn’t really want to send them to our house but finally did. I drank, smoked and cussed like a sailor and she knew there there was no chance of me ever changing.
They gave us they called the first discussion. They said a fourteen year old boy had seen God the Father and his son Jesus Christ. They said later an angle named Moroni also appeared and talked to Jospeh and told him where some gold plates were hidden that has a history written in Egyptian.
I had a question where are these plates now? One of them said Joseph translated them and this is how we got the Book of Mormon. That’s not what I asked. I wanted to see these plates, where are they. They said the angle Moroni took them back after they were translated.
That’s all I needed to hear. They expected us to believe all of this with out one but of evidence. As they were leaving they asked if they could make another appointment. Before I could open my mouth my wife Martha said sure, come back next week. She had believed every word they said.
They came back and started talking about authority. They were nineteen years old what did they know about authority? They said the preacher that baptized me in the Methodist Church did not have this authority. Well that really ticked me off. The elders name was Clyde Grover and he knew his scriptures but after that I found it easy to dislike him. His partner Wayne Gardner was not nearly as smart and didn’t talk much. What he did do on the first discussion was bear a strong testimony telling us that he knew Joseph Smith was a prophet of God and, he knew this church was true. I could tell he really believed even if I didn’t.
They were back a week later and told us about the Book of Mormon. They asked us to reas it and pray about it. They said if we do this there is a promise made in the book that we will know the book is true and they left a book with us. I like to read and the book was fascinating and I read it every chance I got. Before I finished reading the book, I was out in my backyard. I can’t remember what I was doing but as I headed for my back door, I heard a voice in my mind as plain as I’d some one was standing beside me saying the book is true. This to me was truly a revelation and I believed it 100 percent. I didn’t go in the house but I stoped and thought about what I just heard. If this book was true all the other things they were trying to teach us were true. That Evening I knew I wanted to belong to this church. There was a problem with this. The church had this thing called the word of wisdom which I would be expected to keep. No coffee, tea, tobacco, alcohol. Well I was an alcoholic or well on the way to becoming one and the tobacco was also a problem. I smoked and chewed tobacco (Copenhegen) I had a can of this in my back pocket. I took it out right then and tossed it across the street into an irrigation ditch. I so wanted to join the church that I have up all of my bad habits and never drank again.
I actually felt unworthy to join the church but they baptized me anyway and my life was changed completely. I feel these missionaries really saved my life because my drinking would have done me in. My wife Martha and I joined the church together and we have lived happily ever after. We were truly blessed.
This has been written because I want to share it with others. Anytime you find something good you like, share it. Read the Book of Mormon and you too can receive the same blessings my wife and I have been blessed with.
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