Chapter 1My Story 1

When I was very young, yet still able to remember, a babysitter sexually abused me. For a long time I thought it was a couple who abused me because I remembered a man and a woman. As I recall the event, I remember that the man was always talking to the woman but she never directly acknowledged him. Sometimes the man would get angry and throw a tantrum which scared me. When I was older I asked my parents about the couple that used to babysit me, they told me that I was never babysat by a couple. I concluded later that this memory is of a women being tempted by an emissary of the devil. She taught me how to do certain things with my body, how to lock the bathroom door to find privacy, and to not tell my parents. I remember that while she was teaching me how to lock myself in the bathroom, I really did lock myself in and could not get out. When my mom came to pick me up the women told her that I accidently locked myself in the bathroom. When I got to my house I remember going to the bathroom to do as the woman directed me to do, only to find that the lock required a skeleton key. The only thing I could think of was to put my back to the door. I asked aloud, How long do I have to do this? That is when I realized a shadowy figure out of the left corner of my eye, which I could not look at directly nor see in any detail, replied, Until it feels good. I struggled with this experience for a long time, wondering why God would allow me to be tempted at such a young age while being promised that it could not happen. I cannot recall the exact time in my life when I realized that Satan never directly tempted me, only indirectly through another person, and that it was not until I was doing something that I was told to do and asked a question that he answered. I realized three things, first, that Satan was real, second, that he is very cunning, and third, that he is bound by certain rules.

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Why Father in Heaven allowed me to remember this, I do not know, but it has helped me to remember that Satan is very real. It is important to recognize that the adversary is very real and very dangerous. He will try very hard to make us think that he is not real or that he is of very little consequence. Never underestimate his ability to lure, deceive, and ensnare for he leadeth [us] by the neck with a flaxen cord, until he bindeth [us] with his strong cords forever (2 Nephi 26:22). These strong cords of addiction are so powerful and difficult to break, and surely those who do not break them will be bound forever. I developed a habit at a very young age, which only fueled the fire when pornography came into my life later. I understand the powerful feelings that these can create, but I have also come to know and understand that these feelings are only counterfeit to the true feelings that God intended to be had between a man and women who have been married. I did not realize this until much later though. In elementary school I had a friend whose father had pornographic magazines lying around the house. He did not even try to prevent his son and I from viewing them. I would look at them whenever I was over at his house and eventually took some home with me. Early in Junior High School some friends of mine, who were also members of my ward, somehow stumbled onto coarser pornographic magazines and movies. Where they got them I do not know. From there it did not take very long to develop an addiction to pornography, seeking it wherever I could find it. This addiction lead me to forget about every single other standard that I had been taught because it truly did start to take control of my life. I wanted pornography so badly one time that I stole a pornographic magazine from a storethankfully, I got arrested which put an end to my desire to steal or at least my desire to not get caught. This is often referred to as a snowball effectyou roll a snowball down a snowy hill and by the time it gets to

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the bottom it has become a large and heavy snowball. I did things that I would have not normally done. In this way addictions are a very destructive force that impact all aspects of our lives as well as those around us because they become a priority over everything else. I had another friend who saw to some degree the destructive nature of my other friends, though she really had no idea what was going on, and challenged me to stay away from them for one week. I did so, and luckily avoided a very embarrassing event that these bad influencing friends participated in. I began to see the influence of evil in my life and felt that I should talk to my bishop to whom I made a complete confession of all my sins. I thought that that would be the end of my addictions, because at that moment I never wanted to do anything bad ever again, but only now realize that this was just the beginning and that overcoming addictions is a process that takes time and perseverance. Thankfully, my family moved to a different state where I could begin a new life and try to make better choices. Though I did make the choice to forsake some of my bad choices that I had made it the past, it was still much more difficult to forsake the addiction to pornography. It became more difficult thanks to the internet. I continued to occasionally visit my bishop to confess, but because I failed not stop the addiction after a short while, I would then lie to my bishop so that he thought I had succeeded. I felt ashamed and embarrassed that the process was taking too long, and that everyone else did not seem to have the same problem that I did. In this way Satan is very good an influencing us to compare ourselves with others, while in reality we have no idea what other people are going through. I learned later in life that my bad friends that I left behind continued on their destructive path and were getting into more powerfully addictive drugs, having premarital sex, some starting families early, some stopped going to church, and all of them gave up on serving a mission. I

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was lucky to get away when I did, but even though I got away I was still plagued by pornography. It was quite easy to give up the other things that I was doing, but pornography always seemed to find its way into my thoughts more frequently than anything else. As I got older I found that obtaining pornography was getting easier. This made it much more difficult every time I tried to get away from it. Eventually, I allowed the adversary to convince me that it would be easier to try to quite when I got married and could express these sexual desires freely, which was one of the biggest mistakes I made along the way. Procrastination is everyones worst enemy. I wished that I would have tried harder when I was younger. I found out later that the true love that is felt and expressed between a man and a women in marriage was nothing like it was portrayed in pornography. Pornography actually made my marriage more difficult because my expectations were different. A few years ago I learned a lesson about procrastination that I want to liken to procrastinating repentance. In my early twenties, I made an agreement with my dad to help keep up the yard and animals to pay for my rent. At this time I was living with my wife of one year who was pregnant and about to have our first child. Around the house there was a certain type of weed that grew, that when it was young and small could easily be cut down by a lawn mower or other yard tools. However, I choose to procrastinate this simple task which would have only taken ten minutes each week. After a seemingly short time I noticed that the weeds were the same height as me and decided that it was time to take care of them. On a hot sunny afternoon I set to work trying to eliminate the overgrown weeds, however I could not mow over them and I could not use a weed eater. I had to use a chain saw to cut down the weeds because some of the stems had grown to about an inch and half in diameter. After I cut them down, I realized that when the weeds started to grow back I still could not use

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the lawn mower without ruining the blades because the hard bases still remained in the ground. I then had to begin digging up all the roots and pulling out the thick, complex arrays. It took about 15 hours to complete a task which would have taken a lot less if I had not procrastinated and mowed it every week like I had agreed to. The other point to this story is that repentance is like a lawn mowerit can cut back the weeds and help keep them under control. Once we have cut back the weeds of sin through repentance, sooner rather than later, it is still up to us to dig up the roots and change our desires. Confession is the easy but necessary part of repentance, while procrastinating creates more complicated and daunting problems. You probably noticed by this time I was already married. The problem I thought that would magically disappear did not; actually, marriage was not at all what I had expected it to be. Real life sexual relationships are much more complicated and not at all how they are portrayed in pornography. However, proper relationships within marriage are also far more special with far greater potential than anything that is portrayed in media. This unknown complication only fueled my frustrations and led me deeper into my addictions. Because I of my addiction my relationship with my wife suffered. My standards became lax, and contention between my wife and I was often high because of the influence of the adversary in my life. This was when I realized that my addiction was not just affecting myself but it was also affecting my wife. One day, after a big argument with my wife who had no idea what I was going through, I finally broke down and confessed to her the addiction that I had. This hurt my wife deeply and made her feel like there was something wrong with herthat she was not attractive enough or that she was ugly. This was difficult, and it did hurt my wife more than I could have imagined, but she willing to work with me and help me the best that she could.

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It was at this time that I began trying harder to stop my addiction. I sought the counsel of my bishop as well as my father. I was no longer able to go to the temple, but I should not have been going in the first place, yet I felt to some degree that my burden had become a little lighter. Sharing my burden with others made it seem lighter. I worked with my bishop for months and attended the addiction recovery program of the church. I wanted so much to be successful that failure was devastating. I wanted it so bad, and so disappointed by the little progress that I made, that yet I allowed Satan to make me so miserable that I did not want to report my failures any more. After a few short months, I declared victory, thinking to myself that I could complete the rest on my own. After a while, I realized that I was actually doing worse and for a time gave up on any hope that I had. I longed to go back and talk to my bishop and start the process over again, but the idea that I had lied to him and to my wife made me feel so horribleI wanted them to think that I had succeeded and that my troubles were over but they were not. I could not bring myself to put my wife through the pain she felt the first time. Finally I prayed to God that I would have the opportunity to go somewhere else and try again with a new bishop. God granted me that opportunity and provided someone who was prepared to help me. I made a commitment to God that I would not give up until I had completely conquered the addiction, no matter how long it took. I began meeting with me new bishop on a weekly basis to talk about the progress I was making. It seemed like it was impossible because my desires were so strong. I reported failure after failure, with slightly longer spans of success. To me it seemed like I was going nowhere. Despite my failures, I held to my commitment I made to God to keep trying until the end. I was

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tempted many times to lie to my bishop and declare that it was over, but I held fast to my commitment. It seemed like each confession was a daunting taskI felt ashamed, filthy, and did not want to report my evil doings. However, I noticed that each time that I did, I somehow felt relieved and I always felt that God still loved me. I then realized that Satan was the one who wanted me to lie, because in doing so I would damn myself from progressing. Confessing and being honest with God and his authorized servants was making me stronger against temptation, and showed God that I was truly broken and contrite. I eventually got to the point where I could stop for long periods, but sometimes my desires would become so strong that I would eventually collapse to temptation. This is the point where I pled with God more than I ever did previously, to help me and to change my desires. My heart and my desires changed. I wanted things more than I wanted my addiction. I realized that my family was the most important thing that I had. Satan knew that he could not tempt me the same way that he did before, so he changed his tactics, which I was not ready for. It seemed like he was putting all his effort in to trying to make things contentious. Things that normally would not bother us were sparked into rage. One day, after getting in a bad argument with my wife, I was filled with so much anger that I wanted to hurt her, and the most painful thing I could think of was to view pornography. Before this point I had given into temptations because of my lack of control on my thoughts and desires. At this point I then realized that Satan was influencing me to become angry so that I might be more susceptible to other temptations. I knew and realized that I was winning and that he was scared of my success. At this point I had not told my wife, and my bishop counseled me to do so only when I felt comfortable. I did not want my wife to experience the heartache that she felt the first time,

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despite the anger and desire to hurt her earlier. Even though I did not tell her what was going on I enlisted her help in securing computers and other various methods for obtaining pornography as a precautionary measure. What gave me the ultimate desire to change was that I realized that I had not gone to the temple in a couple of years. Suddenly, I focused my desires on being able to go back to the temple. I wanted to go more than anything else. I set a number of goals with my bishop so that I could go back to the temple. He was glad that I had made it to that point and that I had this desire. A short time later, I was able to secure a temple recommend without lying to the Bishop. I had the temple recommend and desired to go the temple. There were so many obstacles and oppositions in order for me to get to the templeit either cost a lot of money or took too long to get there. I finally determined that I would go there as soon as possible since I had not been in so long and since it might be awhile again until I had another opportunity to go. Eventually I made it back to the temple after being away for so many years. Being able to go there worthily, felt so great and the presence of the Holy Ghost was so strong. I enjoyed a wonderful session and learned many things from the Spirit. After the session, the temple president asked if he could speak with me. I was a little worried as to why he wanted to talk to me. After I went into his office, he sat down next me and said, The Lord would like to call you to be a temple worker. At first, I was shocked, baffled, and confused, but then felt grateful for the opportunity to serve and attend the temple more regularly. I did not know it at the time but my bishop had already submitted a request to call me as a temple worker. I believe that God wanted me to learn that the temple can provide additional fortification against temptation. This calling was inspired of God and I was continually fortified through serving others. As I attended the temple, temptations became easier to handle.

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In my past, I allowed the adversary to convince me that I could overcome my addictions on my own, without the help of my bishop, without the help of my wife, and without the blessings of the temple. Attending the temple should be our goal if we cannot qualify for a recommend currently, and when we do qualify for a recommend, it should be our goal to attend regularly. This is what President Ezra Taft Benson said were some of the blessings of attending the temple: When you attend the templecertain blessings will come to you: You will love your family with a deeper love than you have loved before. You will be endowed with power from on high as the Lord promised. You will receive the key of the knowledge of God. You will learn how to be like Him. Even the power of godliness will be manifest in youSuch are the blessings of the temple and the blessings of frequently attending the temple. (August 1985, Ensign, What I hope you will teach your children about the temple)

The Temple of God can be an amazing source of power as we attend regularly and worthily.