More than Coincidence: Remembering Jesus Christ in Your Story

Opening Our Door for the Savior to Enter with Kenton

August 11, 2024 • Lily • Season 1 • Episode 40

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Can you imagine discovering the true purpose of missionary work or finding joy amidst feelings of inadequacy? Join us for a heartfelt conversation with Kenton as he recounts the pivotal spiritual experiences that continue to anchor him to Jesus Christ, including a miraculous moment at the Hill Camorra pageant and the joy of his baptism. Listen as Kenton reflects on how these early encounters set a foundation for his enduring faith and connection to the Savior.

Kenton also opens up about navigating his darkest times, overcoming pride, and the challenging journey of self-forgiveness. He shares how empathy and godly sorrow have reshaped his approach to missionary work and deepened his connection with others. We'll hear about his professional struggles, the role of divine guidance in his career changes, and how blessings helped him embrace new paths with faith. Kenton’s testimony serves as a powerful reminder of the Savior’s unwavering support and the tools available to draw closer to Him, leaving us inspired by the ever-present nature of Christ's love.

Please reach out to me if you are interested in sharing your story! I would LOVE to hear from you. :)

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**Transcripts available on website!

Lily:

Hello everyone and welcome to, more Than Coincidence, remembering Jesus Christ in your Story. As the author and finisher of our faith, our Savior writes personal experiences into each of our lives which can later strengthen, empower and bring us peace upon reflection. This podcast is dedicated to sharing these anchoring memories from everyone's unique stories in order to collectively remember and testify of the reality of Jesus Christ and his presence in our lives. I'm your host, lily, and I'm very excited to share these experiences together. Good evening everybody. Today we have Kenton with us. How are you, kenton?

Kenton:

I'm good. How are you?

Lily:

Fantastic. Can you introduce yourself a little bit for us?

Kenton:

Yeah, name's Kenton Erickson. I come from the East Coast. I was born and raised in Maryland, came over here to Utah where I went to school at BYU and then met my wife, sarah, and we just had our seven year anniversary.

Lily:

Congratulations.

Kenton:

Thank you so everyone calls it the seven year itch, but we haven't felt that so. And then we have two kids and one's four, one's turning two, so, and we're not done yet.

Lily:

So yeah, do you miss the East Coast?

Kenton:

I miss how green uh maryland is. Yes, here it's very hot and it's not muggy, it's a. It's a dry heat, but everything is brown yeah I I love seeing the mountains in the background. I I like to snowboard and yeah I go a little bit with my brother but yeah, I, I miss kind of seeing those green hills and those green fields and right and then the humidity isn't bad, but in the winter it's bad, because not only are you cold, but you're sweating, and then your sweat freezes and so they're getting more cold.

Kenton:

Right, there's pros and cons, but yeah, I, I do like it out here, but I, we don't have plans staying here forever we want to see other places yeah, yeah, yeah, I know.

Lily:

When we lived in virginia. I remember because I grew up mostly in utah, and I was like, oh my gosh, utah is green and the mountains are so beautiful. And then I go to virginia I lived there for four years actually see what greenery is. And then I come back and I'm like utah is just like a green with brown. It's like everything's just a shade of brown yep and I didn't.

Lily:

I didn't realize it, and so I miss it too. I'm hoping at some point we can go back out to the east coast, because it just I love it so much so I'm really happy that I have another east coast buddy to be like. Yes, we missed the green.

Kenton:

I missed the Atlantic Ocean probably more than anything. Yeah, because the Pacific is so cold. Yeah, by comparison. So, looking forward to going back to Ocean City, maybe.

Lily:

Yeah, that'd be awesome. I hope you guys can make it back, but I'll just ask you the question, kenton what memories do you have that you reflect on, that perk your heart in remembrance of our Savior Jesus Christ and anchor you to him, and remembrance of our Savior Jesus Christ and anchor you to him.

Kenton:

Yeah, probably the first experience I ever had with the Holy Ghost was at the Hill Camorra pageant. I want to say I was four or five and we had just seen the pageant and I didn't really understand what went on, because I was four and the Book of Mormon just made no sense to me. It was like old English.

Lily:

Right.

Kenton:

And so I would just make up stuff as a kid whenever it was my turn to read, because I didn't know how to read at that point, but anyway.

Kenton:

So yeah, we were at the pageant and it was dark and there were a lot of cars, and so at this point I lived in Pennsylvania, so the pageant was in New York, so we were still a pretty decent ways from home and so without a car, we also didn't have a lot of money at that time, so there wasn't really an option to stay at a hotel or anything. It was. You need to find the key so that you can go home, type thing, and so my mom and dad were, you know, frantically searching and no luck.

Kenton:

And I had the thought to say a prayer and it just kind of came out of nowhere. And I remember I, I said the prayer. I don't remember if it was out loud or in my head, but about 10 seconds later they found the key no way and we were able to go home. So that was my first experience with the Holy Ghost. At the time I didn't really know what was going on.

Lily:

Yeah.

Kenton:

I just kind of followed the lessons from my parents and the primary lessons.

Lily:

Right.

Kenton:

Kind of put into action. But then my next experience that I think back on. So I've always wondered what it was like to be a convert to the church, because I grew up in the church. Like, on my dad's side he's related to the pioneers, and my mom's a convert, but I was, you know, born in the covenant. So I always wondered what it was like going from, you know, having no knowledge of the church and the plan of salvation to then, you know, having kind of this aha, epiphany moment where your life there's like a stark contrast to how you were before and how you were after. And the only time I felt that a little bit was during my baptism. I have a vague memory of just feeling just really happy that day. I didn't understand fully what was going on. I knew that I was being cleaned. I didn't really know what that meant at the time, but I remember just kind of jumping around going I'm so happy like I'm all clean.

Lily:

Yeah.

Kenton:

And yeah, so that was probably my next experience. But after that, I mean, especially when you grow up in the church and you know when there's that expectation to be a member, you kind of just go through the motions I really like the talk of, I can teach you the steps of the dance, but you need to hear the music.

Kenton:

Yes, and the first time I heard that. That's how I felt growing up, where I was taught the steps of, like, reading your scriptures and praying and doing that consistently and and I wasn't doing it super consistently but I was, you know, going to church mostly to appease my parents, and you know. I still lived under their house.

Lily:

Right, that's how I was as a teenager too.

Kenton:

Yeah, and so probably the first time I heard the music was in the MTC, so before I had an experience where I prayed to know if it was true and I remember getting a confirmation, but that memory kind of fades over time. I got to the MTC and I'm ashamed to admit that I didn't know what the restoration was. I knew who Joseph Smith was.

Lily:

Yeah.

Kenton:

I knew that, like he found the Book of Mormon, but I didn't put two and two together, that the church was gone and that it was gone for thousands of years.

Lily:

Yeah.

Kenton:

And that it had to be restored. And I remember just kind of reading about it in the Book of Mormon and we were going through DNC at the same time and putting the pieces together and for me that was my aha moment where all of us were together and we were kind of talking about like the role that the restoration played and then also connecting it to Lehi's dream. So it was like taking it was kind of like a scripture puzzle where you take all of these different stories and all these different themes and it weaves this tapestry and I'm just like oh my gosh blown.

Kenton:

I didn't know any of this, but I've had this book the whole time and I didn't understand what any of this meant.

Kenton:

But everything that's happened in my life up into this point has happened for a reason right and that there's been this divine influence that was just very imperceptible but was always there, kind of ushering me in this direction, that I didn't know that I needed to go into, and so that has always kind of been a foundational block. And then, going off of that, I had an experience on the mission. I feel bad sharing mission stories because I feel like that's kind of the go-to is to share your mission stories.

Kenton:

But mission is kind of a big experience and you kind of learn a lot about Jesus on your mission but I always feel like if I don't have any story to share besides the mission story, then I'm not living right. It's like I need to have more, more spiritual experiences. I don't want to be that guy, but, um, I had a moment where, so I never questioned whether or not I should go on a mission you know it was just kind of you do what the six siblings who came before you did you go?

Kenton:

on a mission, you go to BYU, you get married. So it was, it was a checkbox and I mean I remember as a kid I thought, okay, my mission's in 10 years. I, I guess I got to start preparing. Well, what does that mean? Yeah and um. So I never questioned, I never prayed if I should go.

Kenton:

It was just, you know, kind of going with the, the current yeah, the norm of what everyone else was doing, yeah and you know I remember being excited for my mission call and I remember my face hitting the ground when I hit mexico, because you know it's that classic moment from the movie uh, the best two years, when he's like that's not what they taught me in the MTC, where the language just sounds completely different and like there was a kid four years old who was speaking Spanish and did not sound like Spanish, it sounded like Korean.

Kenton:

So you you kind of get cocky in the MTC and they puff you up like you're gonna baptize the world and you're gonna be so great and like when people see you, they're gonna think you're Jesus and all this, the world, and you're going to be so great and like, when people see you they're going to think you're Jesus and all this stuff, and then you get there and you're just no, it's, it's not like that.

Lily:

It's the real world.

Kenton:

Yeah, but if you put in the work and if you try hard and if and also if you have reasonable expectations. I had one moment where I could see that the lady we were teaching really needed us, and at that point I still couldn't really speak Spanish very well because I'd only been out for like maybe two months, so I was still technically in training and I prayed for like 10 minutes that I'd get the gift of tongues.

Kenton:

I was like I have studied, I've been doing all this stuff I had all this time in the MTC. She needs to hear what I have to say. Please let me have the ability to speak with her.

Lily:

Yeah.

Kenton:

And it wasn't answered.

Lily:

Uh-huh.

Kenton:

And I remember just being really frustrated. Yeah, I came home and I kind of cried myself to sleep because I'm just like I'm useless, I can't talk with people In my time of need.

Lily:

What am I?

Kenton:

doing here if I can't speak?

Lily:

Right.

Kenton:

And so and I had to kind of get over the woe is me moment and you know realize that you can only control what's in your life. You can't really control those around you. You can't control what happens. All you can do is control what you do going forward. Yeah, and so, once I kind of stopped feeling sorry for myself, a few months went by and I was living in a house with two other missionaries and one of them we. We entered the mission at the same time but we were in different MTCs.

Lily:

he- was in the.

Kenton:

Mexico one. And he asked me he's like, why are you here? And at that point no one had ever asked me that question and I had never really considered it. And I my answer was like you know, I'm here because I'm supposed to, and my parents taught me that I need to Right. And he told me he's like, if you don't feel sorrow and pain for all of the trials that the members are going through, then you need to pray so that you feel it.

Kenton:

Hmm it was like if you don't feel, if you don't feel sympathy or empathy for those who who you are teaching, if you're just here to kind of check off the box, then you need to reevaluate why you are here and figure out something else. Because I, the time I was there, I saw a lot of missionaries that were, you know, like me. They were going through the motions or they were there because their mom told them that they were supposed to come.

Lily:

Right.

Kenton:

And I remember praying to to feel that, because you know, I, like I mentioned before we started, that one of the things in my patriarchal blessing is that I feel godly sorrow. And it got to a point where I was able to feel godly sorrow not just for my actions but for the actions of other people. And the one experience that I remember was we got a call that a family who we had started to become really good friends with in the ward the husband was like really sick, and so I remember a member came and drove us and we just raced down to their house to give him a blessing and I remember just feeling the sadness that they were going through all of this pain and that I wasn't able to either take it from them or to help lessen it, and then in that moment I realized that's what the Savior feels for us right and you know, because he's already paid the price for all of our pain and but we have to open that door to forgive ourselves and allow him to heal us and I

Kenton:

feel like opening the door is always the hardest part and not feeling like you can do it on your own without his help. Yeah, that's definitely. I can see why pride is the biggest downfall in in every story in the scriptures and even in like. If you go out of the scriptures, like in like the roman society or or any dynasty like, the reason why they failed was because of pride. They, they got too big for their own good, they forgot where they came from and ultimately they, you know, just went into chaos. And so I I feel like my life kind of heads towards that direction, when I forget where I, where I come from, when I forget all of the blessings that I've received along the way to get me where I'm at, and that especially happens when I hit rock bottom and it's hard to just like, stay constant and just have that faith and that hope that he's, he's there and no matter what it's quote going to be okay.

Lily:

But it's more than that. It really is going to be. There's going to be joy, there's going to be goodness at the end of the tunnel. It's just like trying to see that. I think it's really hard and the hardest thing.

Kenton:

Someone told me once um. There was someone who I respected quite a bit in the church they said that there's kind of a baseline of commandments that you have to follow before you are worthy of receiving the spirit, and that's always played in my mind and I mentioned that to someone and they're like if you don't think that the savior is, isn't there when you aren't doing those things, then you don't understand the atonement correct and trying to kind of get into that mindset that the Savior is always there.

Kenton:

It's just that you're not ready to receive him, instead of he won't come until you're worthy.

Lily:

Correct Right. I feel like it's that door, it's that wonderful picture of the door with him like knocking right without the doorknob it's we have to let him in and I feel like sometimes you know, talking with a friend the other night, you know we, sometimes we even push Christ away.

Kenton:

We close the door.

Lily:

Yeah, we're like, or for whatever reason for like I'm angry, slam, or like I'm not worthy, Don't come here, right? We all have our own little reasons why sometimes we put the pavilion over our heads, right, and we don't let him into our lives. But he's standing there like, okay, well, whenever you're ready, like I'm right here and I just, I don't know. It's something that even I am really trying to get my mind around, because for me, when I'm feeling angry or worthless or unworthy, I don't even want to be around myself.

Kenton:

Yeah.

Lily:

So I have like a really hard time comprehending that Christ still wants to be with me. Yeah, he wants, he wants me and he wants me in the the good, the bad and the ugly Like he. That that's literally the whole point of the atonement, like you said, right. So I'm really glad that you brought that up.

Kenton:

Yeah, whole point of the atonement, like you said, right, so I'm really glad that you brought that up. Yeah, the the thing that I've struggled with the most is forgiving myself, and it's for me. It's a very tough pill to swallow because I'm such a harsh critic of myself and you know I only really focus on the negative, the bad, in the hopes to improve it, and yes, I know how that feels too and when I married Sarah, my first, one of our first conversations after our honeymoon was okay, what are all the things that you don't like about me, so that I can know and improve?

Kenton:

right and I was expecting like this big laundry list of you know you do this and. But what she said has struck me and I feel like it's it's set the tone for our, our marriage, going forward. She said I don't want to focus on the bad, because then when I look at you, that's all that I'll see, because then when I look at you, that's all that I'll see. And I think, very similarly, that's how the Savior is with us. We want to focus on the bad, especially just because of growing up in the church. There is that perfectionist mindset, yes, and you feel like you will never be enough. Yeah, but he's always there to tell you that you are, even if you're not willing to listen, but kind of going off of going with that.

Kenton:

An experience I remember quite vividly and one that I haven't really shared with a lot of people when my first son was born, I had a moment where I thought Sarah was going to die because she was bleeding out, she wasn't breathing and also Tucker wasn't breathing. And I'm just kind of sitting there and I've never felt so useless in my life because there's nothing I can do to help my wife and there's nothing I can do to help my son, and I've never felt so useless in my life because there's nothing I can do to help my wife and there's nothing I can do to help my son. And I saw that the doctors were visibly worried, which that usually is never a good sign when when they can't hide their emotion, and so I just kind of had to let everything play forward and let them do what they could. And luckily, you know, my wife didn't die and my son is, is healthy, and when I held him for the the first time, I did the uh the man of steel speech that torrell uh does to superman and, and you know, you have all of these emotions of like you know I'm, I'm gonna be the, the most perfect person for you, I'm gonna love you, I'm gonna be the best dad that I, that you can be.

Kenton:

And then the next day was just this overwhelming feeling of inadequacy, of like I'm not ready, I can't do this, what have I done? I'm not worthy of my son, he'd be better off without me. And it started to get into the suicidal thought territory and I don't know what it was that pulled me out. I was kind of in a funk for a good long while and there was a lot of kind of. There was a disconnect between me and my wife and I didn't communicate very well with her. And as a kid my coping mechanism was escapism and so that was to either like games or shows, like just doing whatever you can to get away. But the healing finally came when I was one, when I started to get a little more comfortable like with you know, raising my son, changing a diaper wasn't foreign for me anymore, because I grew up as the youngest.

Kenton:

I never changed a diaper before, and so everything was hard.

Lily:

Yeah.

Kenton:

And nothing came easy. And I feel like, as a human, there's only so many problems you can solve in a day, before you kind of reach your limit.

Lily:

Yes, and so everything, especially with no sleep, yeah, and a completely new environment and crying babies and so everything associated with my son was a challenge. Yes.

Kenton:

But it was. More of it was I was being overly hard on myself because I felt like I wasn't performing it the way that I should have been, and so I don't really remember what it was that pulled me out. I wish I did. I had told my wife a little bit after. You know that that was kind of my thought process. But the best thing was she went away to her parents and brought our son just so that they could be around him, because he was a COVID baby.

Kenton:

So basically no one could touch him and yeah, um, but while she was gone, I then got to the point where I I missed my kid and I, I missed my wife and I, because you you've probably seen this with with Michael if you go away, he, he's excited, and then, like two days later, he's like I'm so lost. When are you coming home? I don't know how to take care of myself anymore, right, and so I realized at that point that I needed them and also that they needed me, and I think that everyone needs to get to that point with their relationship with the savior that he needs us as much as we need him, because in a way, I feel like for him, the atonement was the greatest accomplishment for him and all mankind, but without us he wouldn't have been able to do it right right and without our mistakes he wouldn't have been able to to do that great thing which changed the lives of everyone.

Kenton:

So right.

Lily:

That's actually really profound and I've never even thought of the atonement that way, in that, yeah, it takes two. He has there had to have been my sins and his. You know, I think sometimes a lot of the time we demonize that natural man and we demonize, like, all of our badness and that's what we kind of hold on to and like allow to bring ourselves down, which, you know, we do need to try and change and become better because that's, you know, the whole point of the atonement. But I think there is beauty in the struggle, there is beauty in the overcoming, there is beauty in in the making the mistake but then being able to change right. So it is. It is that opposition in all things right and that's that's just beautiful.

Kenton:

Thank you so much for sharing that yeah, I hadn't thought of it that way until now, so we have both been enlightened, thank you but that's one thing that I've definitely kind of come to understand.

Kenton:

Like we were talking before, uh, with my current situation where I've, you know, I've been without a job for a couple months and the day after I got the notice that you, I wasn't going to be an employee anymore, my wife fell and popped her tendon in her knee and my thought was you know, now I got to take care of you and take care of the kids. But at the same time it was a blessing because I didn't have time to feel sorry for myself losing my job because it happened the day after. I didn't have enough time to process right what is?

Kenton:

what is it that this means? And so, for those next three weeks, I had purpose again.

Kenton:

I was taking care of my wife, I was taking care of the kids, I was taking him to activities, I was helping my, my wife, recover, and, um it, it got very tiring and you know, it gave me a new appreciation of what it is that my wife does, or how much she does each day to take care of the kids. But it was also perfect timing, because it was the lord's timing, and so after those couple weeks passed, then I was able to kind of come back with the clear head and start applying for for jobs and, you know, update the resume and and start trying to to make connections. And it didn't work and.

Kenton:

I had interviews and it everything seemed promising, but nothing, nothing was happening, and and so I was getting more and more frustrated. You know cause, as a husband and a father, your goal in life, and kind of the, the one motivating drive, is to provide for your family, and I felt that I wasn't fulfilling, you know, that responsibility. Um, and so I looked at my patriarchal blessing, and one of the promises is that I will always be able to provide for my family. Patriarchal blessing, and one of the promises is that I will always be able to provide for my family and so my thought was okay, I'm going to test you on that if this is true and you know, I was applying and going through different stages of grief, sadness, self-pity all of that.

Kenton:

And then I had this thought that I needed to ask my dad for a blessing, and in the blessing it said don't be afraid to try new paths, new experiences, which that was one of my biggest fears, because I spent four years in college devoted to a specific route, right, and I thought that all of the skills that I acquired needed to be applied in that route Right. And so, you know, with the instruction and nudging of my wife, she helped push me into another direction where now I've found a career path and a vocation, where I'm anxiously interested in learning about it and in doing the problems for the course that I'm working on. Where, you know, I'm kind of thinking about it constantly and I felt bad. The other day I was on a date with my wife but I was thinking about I need to, I need to fix this, this problem that I'm working on, and so I couldn't be in the moment and I had to pull myself out of it, but my wife told me that that's a good thing that you're constantly.

Kenton:

Because with my other job I wasn't like that. I was so excited to be done because I was just so frustrated with you know where it was going. And so now, looking back, I can see all of the clues that were, all of the different moments that were placed in my life to lead me to this moment, and I don't know how it's going to turn out, because I'm still in the middle of it and I'm hoping that I can look back and say I'm so grateful for for this and I'm much better off than I was, um, but you know, with that there does come that patience and long suffering that I guess Heavenly Father feels I don't have enough of.

Kenton:

So hopefully you know. But if anything, that experience has served to me as a witness of his desire for us to succeed and how he's always there, giving little promptings, little nudges, even if we don't feel him A lot of times. They're very imperceptible, but looking back you can definitely see like the definitive breaststrokes that he's put in your life and see the big picture, because he can see him and heavenly father see the big picture from where they're at and they know where you're going to be at the time that you die. But it's I.

Kenton:

I kind of think of those, um, I don't know if you've seen like those dot paintings yes so I feel like we can just see kind of a few dots right, but they can zoom all the way out and it makes this this big picture yeah, so trying to to work on shifting by perspective and mentality, to appreciate the plan and to also, you know, let cooler heads prevail right, right, that's wonderful.

Lily:

Thank you so much for sharing all of your thoughts and if, if you have any other thoughts, that's totally awesome. If you feel like you're good, would you just mind leaving us with a testimony?

Kenton:

Yeah, I know that Jesus Christ is there Even when we can't see him, especially when we can't feel him, but that he is there when we can't feel him, but that he is there and that he's laid out a clear path with instructions and guidance on how we can get to him.

Kenton:

And you know, with that path come the scriptures, come the sacrament, repentance, temple attendance, everything. He's given us all of the tools to help us come close to him and I am grateful to have those tools in my life and I'm excited for the moment when, all of those, when I'll be able to see the benefits, looking back, you know, at the end of life, of all of those tools, of all of those people who have been placed in my life, of all of those tools, of all of those people who have been placed in my life for the better. I know that he suffered for us, I know that he feels our pain, he feels our sorrow, he understands better than anyone our weaknesses and I know that he's constantly rooting for us and I'm so grateful for him and I'm a witness of his love and his mercy and say this in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Lily:

Amen. Thank you, Kenton, for your time.

Kenton:

Yeah.

Lily:

Thanks again for tuning in to More Than Coincidence, Remembering Jesus Christ in your Story. Please follow us on social media or share us with a friend. If you have an experience you'd like to share, feel free to reach out to morethancoincidencerememberhim at gmailcom. I can't wait to hear all of the amazing memories you all have of our Savior. See you next time.