Becoming a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints can be an eternally rewarding process as one learns about the gospel of Jesus Christ by meeting with missionaries and attending Sunday worship services. For Niccole Witehira of Auckland, New Zealand, becoming a member began not with a lesson or an invite to church—it began with a change of heart.
“I want to be a better version of myself and a better person to my children,” she said. “To have the blessing of prayers and having the Lord in our life has brought me so much change.”
While her involvement in the Church began as a young child, she stopped attending before she could be baptised and confirmed at age eight. In her adult years, she turned to smoking, alcohol, and substances, living her life “in the dark.” She lost her two-year-old daughter and the father of her children in the past few years.
She began asking herself, “Why am I still here? Why is it that I've gone through all of these bad things that have happened in my life, but I'm still here?”
After the father of her children passed away, his grandmother, a Latter-day Saint, asked Witehira if she wanted to be sealed to him.
“I said ‘yes,’ not even knowing what that even meant,” she said.
When Witehira no longer had anyone to help her care for her children, and despite often turning away Latter-day Saint missionaries when they knocked on her door, she knew she needed to turn to the Lord.
Missionaries are known for knocking on doors and inviting people to learn about Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. Individuals who are interested in learning about the Church, like Witehira, can set appointments to meet with local missionaries. Her missionary visits lasted six months.
Regardless of how one meets with missionaries, these missionaries pray with those they visit, read sacred scriptures, and teach Church beliefs.
Once an individual gains a testimony of Jesus Christ and knows in their heart that the teachings of the Church are true, they can decide to be baptised and confirmed with the gift and companionship of the Holy Ghost, like Witehira, to become a Latter-day Saint. This decision should be discussed with one’s local missionaries.
“Since I've been [in] my sessions with [the missionaries] to being baptised … all the blessings were just coming sort of one after the other,” she said. “I've come to find joy. I've come to find happiness. I've come to find that families are meant to be together.”
Read more about the steps to becoming a Latter-day Saint, how to contact missionaries, and local church services here, and watch other Latter-day Saints talk about their journeys to becoming members of the Church of Jesus Christ here.