TAMMY BICE' PERSONAL STORY

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MY STORY

By Tammy Bice

I was raised in a large and extremely staunch LDS family. I never enjoyed church and found scriptures confusing and foreign to me. I didn't understand them. I learned to hate studying them when I was pulled out of bed in the early morning to read them with my family. Everyone had a different idea of what they meant anyway.... so who was right?

Still I believed, because I didn't know any different, so I wanted to please my Heavenly Father and my earthly parents by being "good". I tried to play along. I wanted to be a good example like I was taught to. I wanted to bear testimony that the church was true. I wished I could cry and say I could feel the holy ghost really strong. I wanted to feel and act reverent.

I couldn't do it and I couldn't pretend to for very long.

I had a lot of questions no one could answer and was tired of being told: "It's not for us to know right now."

I was in and out of the LDS church for many years. At times being a "worthy" temple-bearing member... and others being the family the ward focused on reactivating.

In 2003 I was working on going through the temple with my 2nd husband when yet another question came up that no one could answer for me. I wanted to know which of my children would be going to the temple to be sealed to us.

I had been to the temple before. My husband had not. So, technically the children that we had together were "born under the covenant" by me....

Anyways, my temple prep teacher didn't know if our children together would be allowed to be present so he asked the bishop. He didn't know either so he took it to the stake level... he didn't know either but he knew a General Authority he would ask... who DIDN'T KNOW!!

By then the red flags were everywhere. I couldn't ignore all the contradictions and confusion and pretend it didn't matter to me. It did!

Stepfamilies had been around for a long time and NO ONE KNEW???

That was a final straw for me

I left the church for the final time but allowed my children to continue if they were interested.

I wanted nothing more to do with religion of any kind.

I decided that if the church WAS true - I didn't belong in the celestial kingdom anyway, if that's where all the faithful Mormons were going. I didn't fit in or feel comfortable with most of the church-going crowd.

At this point, I was unsure if there was a God. I believed something big happened around the time Jesus was born but was unsure if he was just a great teacher or our savior. I was calling him my imaginary friend Jesus.

I was very, very confused.... to say the least.

Shortly after this I had a vivid dream that struck me enough that I considered it a sign of some kind. I didn't think I had the "gift of dreams" like I believed my mom and others had ... you know ... the type that prophesied future events … but this one got my attention enough that I shared it with some family members because I was so shaken by it.

In my dream there was an enormous open warehouse filled with every kind of material "goods" imaginable. Clothes, cars, furniture, electronics... everything. The warehouse was closing so anyone could take anything they wanted for free but we had to hurry because we were told that at midnight the wrecking ball was coming.

There was much excitement as many people were trying to figure out what they wanted most and how to get it out in time. I decided I wanted some furniture was trying to push an armoire up a hill that reminded me of one at Hogel Zoo. It was a lot of work and I was starting to feel desperate that I might not be able to do it.

All of the sudden I could hear a loud whooshing sound. I turned around and looked to see what it was. It was a HUGE wrecking ball the size of a mountain suspended from the sky somewhere that was swinging like a pendulum slowly, but surely, moving closer and closer. I panicked because I knew there wasn't much time left before it reached us. I lost all interest in my "stuff" and was trying to tell people we had to get out of there before we were all destroyed but no one else seemed to notice the ball or cared what time it was. I tried in vain to warn them, but also didn't want to leave because I would be alone when everyone else was killed. I woke up before that happened so I don't know how the dream would have ended.

Fast forward to a few months ago. (2010) Just before I found this MWAW, I had been once again pursuing the American Dream. I was deeply involved and interested in "The Secret" or Law of Attraction. In my vain and foolish imagination - it was working and rather well. My extended family and many friends were regularly calling me to hear about the seemingly miraculous things that were happening to me and also consulting me on how I "made it work". Anything I wanted came to me in bizarre ways and often for free. Needless to say, I was pretty flattered and enjoyed some positive attention for a change.

I had been mentoring my older sister on how to apply the Law of Attraction... and one day in March, I think it was, she called me very excited to tell me "It happened. Your dream came true!!"

She knew I had been using my "secret powers" (LOL) to attract some window coverings for a room that had caught fire in my house and also for a hot tub (I know, I know... greedy and selfish!) and she was trying to attract some carpet.

She had just gotten a call from a company that told her there was a $500,000 house in the Federal Heights area that was going to be demolished because the new owners only wanted the property and not the house. They wanted to build one from scratch.

The company told her that she and anyone else she knew could TAKE ANYTHING THEY WANTED BUT IT HAD TO BE BEFORE MIDNIGHT BECAUSE THE WRECKING BALL WAS COMING!!

I got my window coverings along with a lot of other things including smoke alarms and a fire extinguisher. HA!

Of course, the friends and family members that knew about my dream were starting to see me as some kind of powerful witch at this point. I liked it. I liked it A LOT!!

UNTIL, that is, I remembered that my dream DID NOT SEEM TO BE ENDING WELL! That's when I switched gears and started using the Law of Attraction to figure out exactly what it was and how it worked.

I researched the author, then found what she read The Science of Getting Rich written in the early 1900's … on and on it went. During my studies I was reading info from Bob Proctor when I realized he was talking about Jesus and the Law of Forgiveness and that sounded dangerously close to the religions I had learned to hate and wanted nothing more to do with. I didn't want to be confused about that again but I was still curious about how we attract things to ourselves but didn't want to waste a lot of time finding dead ends so I once again used the Law of Attraction and said out loud "I want to know the Truth about everything including religions from the purest source available on this planet right now!"
Something like that anyway...

I found this MWAW that very day. Part of why I wanted to know the truth, is so I could seem really smart and feel "specialer" (I know that's not a real word haha) than everyone else when I told them about it.

:)

Riiiiight!!! LOL

Things don't come to me free anymore. No one asks me questions or thinks I am special or have cool powers anymore. (especially me!) In fact, most people think I am crazy, misled and actually a threat to their pride, church and even their children. I am asked not to talk about what I believe in.

Would I change anything if I could? Hell no! Not my childhood, not my time in the LDS church, not my vain and foolish imagination and especially not my broken heart. If it weren't for all those things, I wouldn't have been prepared to accept the truth.

It brought me to where I am today and to the only thing on this planet that could bring me peace, joy and a closer understanding of who we are and why we exist.

Additional info and some questions this work answered for me:

The way I found this work was through my brother. He had read The Sealed Portion and had been trying to encourage me to read it as well since he thought I was ready for it. I had no interest in reading "the greater portion" of a book I never liked to start with.

I was deeply offended by my BELIEF that Joseph Smith was a polygamist and started a church that made me very unhappy.

I couldn't stand the guy - didn't want to hear more!

I couldn't believe a loving god would require his daughters to endure the inequality and jealousy involved in that. Why just the women? What would the men's test be?

I thought it was pretty suspicious "god" decided that was unnecessary and we weren't ready for it when the government cracked down on it.

I also couldn't believe god was racist. What loving parent would curse their children with dark skin and less blessings for questioning them?

Once again, I thought it was suspicious he removed the curse and allowed priesthood to the blacks right around the time racism was a hot topic in our country.

It bothered me that some people seem to have an easy or quick test in life. It didn't seem fair.

The work done for the dead in the temples never made any sense to me at all. I figured if you were dead and presented a plan in the spirit world - wouldn't you pretty much know it was true? Or are there all kinds of things being taught in the spirit world and you have to figure out which one's make more sense?

I also wondered how we could do genealogy for people that lived before there was written word. What about them?

I wondered why the temple ceremony kept changing if it was so important. I thought it was suspicious that controversial parts were the parts that were taken out.

I couldn't understand why some good advice on how to live healthy (word of wisdom) became a saving ordinance. Surely there are worse things one can do than drink a lousy cup of coffee.

I remember the day VERY well when I was talking to my brother about why I had no interest in reading the book I loved hearing him tell me about.

It came down to my distaste for a man (Joseph Smith) I didn't know but had read things I didn't like...and he said something along the lines of - "you can't believe everything you read."

For some reason, that hit me hard!

I trusted myself enough by then to be able to recognize what made sense and what didn't to at least consider The Sealed Portion might be valid.

He told me the name of the writer/translator so I googled that first.

The first things I read about Christopher Marc Nemelka were similar to what I had become to dislike Joseph Smith for.

I decided to press on and see if the books made sense since I didn't know for sure what was true about these men.

Boy did they ever!! I tried to pick them apart just in case and I couldn't find a flaw anywhere! It just can't be done!

I had no bias whatsoever based on my admiration for the "authors" let alone religions or even a love for the Book Of Mormon.

I had none of those.

In fact - I came to this Marvelous Work And a Wonder as truth seeking critic.

I am amazed something broke through the high walls of a pessimist like me.

EVERYTHING makes sense to me now.

The truth truly has set me free!

--Tammy Bice