More than Coincidence: Remembering Jesus Christ in Your Story

I Think You Just Witnessed a Conversion with Ryan

August 18, 2024 • Lily • Season 1 • Episode 41

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Have you ever felt like you were living a lie, pretending to be someone you're not just to avoid conflict? Our special guest, Ryan Carrasco, certainly has. He shares his powerful story of transitioning from a life of manipulation and false religious identity to discovering a genuine connection with faith and love. His journey started in high school, continued through college, and was deeply influenced by his philosophical studies and pivotal meetings that truly weren't just a coincidence. Ryan's candid recounting of his struggles and eventual spiritual awakening offers a profound perspective on what it means to seek and find true purpose.

We also explore the profound lessons learned from trusting God's plan through life's challenges. From navigating personal trials to the intense emotions of spiritual certainty, we discuss how recognizing the Lord's presence in every aspect of our lives can provide strength and comfort during tough times. The episode highlights the significance of community, the power of divine orchestration, and the life-changing experiences that come with spiritual promptings. 

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

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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 Ryan with us. How are you doing, ryan?

Ryan:

I'm great. Thank you for having me.

Lily:

Can you introduce yourself a little bit for everyone?

Ryan:

Yeah, my name is Ryan Carrasco. I am 34. I have a wonderful wife and two boys. I graduated with a degree in philosophy. Most of my interests are in philosophy, religion and history and, yeah, I'm grateful to be here.

Lily:

Sweet. Well, we've had a really good discussion right before we started recording, so I've thoroughly enjoyed having you over tonight. So, ryan, what memories do you have that you reflect on, that prick your heart in remembrance of your Savior Jesus Christ, and anchor you to him.

Ryan:

Man. So I think for the one that stands out to me the most, I have to kind of go back a little bit, um, because there's a symbolism and stories that kind of build on each other, and I think it's important to have that context or at least it was for me, yeah, as a foundation of what my faith ended up being. Yeah, um, so throughout high school and a lot of college I'd spent a lot of time pretending to be religious to try to avoid conflict and confrontation, where, when I was outside of certain situations and relationships, I was very much expressing how anti-religious I was. Yeah, so I was really just living a false life. It was rough and just entire relationships, girlfriends that thought I was a very religious person when I knew I was absolutely not, and it was so manipulative, just not great.

Lily:

Yeah.

Ryan:

I spent a lot of time doing that.

Lily:

There are a lot of things in our teenage years. I think everybody looking back would be like it wasn't a very good thing. I'm glad that we don't have to stand trial for the things we did as 15 year olds. We would be condemned forever, oh man. Yeah.

Ryan:

So just going through that, just kind of faking my way through faith and religion and things like that. Yeah. I grew up in a family in which my mother was a convert to the church and my dad had been baptized, but his records were lost immediately and no one was ever able to find or relocate or redo them, as many people have tried to do. Yeah, which is probably for the best, uh-huh. He went on to be very much atheist, agnostic, alcoholic, okay.

Ryan:

That was my dad, yeah, and my mom did not have a strong culture of the church and lacked a lot of understanding there. So like growing up it was just a little bit of pieces of church here and there and that was kind of my understanding of most religious things until I started studying things on my own.

Ryan:

So getting to, let's say, college, by this point I guess the effects of living this just manipulative lie in myself kind of started catching up with me, right catching up with me right, because I could feel the lack of emotion, the lack of connection, the lack of understanding right I was going to school and it was fine, didn't really care yeah I had a girlfriend.

Lily:

It was fine, didn't really care right, so you didn't have a lot of purpose or like meaning in your life.

Ryan:

No, no, no, no um, and that's kind of where the questions started for me. Yeah, the first question was what is love?

Lily:

and I'm looking at like an anthropological, you know, like, okay, we have a multitude of senses and you know, it's not just the five senses we talk about we have, as many as you know, 18, that some will argue for physiological, biological, all of these different ways, yeah, like how to describe love, yeah yeah, and I'm like, well, okay, that's fine, that's what love is, but like, what about?

Ryan:

like the type of love that can compel someone to do something right, um great, or against their own self-interest, or yeah, things like that. Like that's not just um pheromones or a electromagnetic pulse that they're picking up on, that's something bigger. Yeah, um, and I'm like, there, there's, you know, in my mind there was some type of eminent cosmological love out there.

Lily:

Because it seems like it was. Is that something you felt?

Ryan:

It was something that I it's hard to say felt, considering how numb that I was, but there was a ping and a curiosity and something that just made sense to me while I was thinking about it.

Ryan:

Yeah, that just made sense to me while I was thinking about it. Yeah, and I was studying philosophy at the time and there's a book called Works of Love by Søren Kierkegaard. I wondered becoming one of my favorite philosophers. But reading that, questioning what love is and what meaning life would have with or without that, that's kind of what got me on the path.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Ryan:

So I think it's important that I tell this um, there's a time where my mom was really upset with me for the life that she saw me living and set up a meeting with our bishop at the time to do a. Um, was it a tithing?

Lily:

a tithing. Settlement settlement yes, um so, settlement Settlement, yes, uh-huh uh-huh.

Ryan:

So I walk in. I'd never seen this bishop before. Yeah, I walk in. He prints out a paper, he goes. It looks like you have never paid tithing. I'm like, yeah, that's accurate, he goes. Okay, he goes. Is there anything I can do for you? And in my mind I just kind of wanted to get him to stop talking to me because I know he sent out, you know, missionaries and home teachers and whoever it is to try to talk to me and I was trying to avoid them at any point that I could, and I didn't want my mom to get upset.

Ryan:

So I went to this meeting and so he says is there anything I can do for him? Like well, I think a patriarchal blessing would be good. You know, I think that would be fascinating. And he goes. No, he's like. He's looking at me like I've never seen you in my life.

Ryan:

You're walking in here like yeah, I've talked to your mom, I know what you're doing, yeah, but he's looking at me and then he just kind of like settles down and just gives this deep sigh. And he looks at me and says I feel that you are in a lake swimming, treading water, and at any shore that you swim to there's an excellent opportunity where you could excel, but you refuse to swim. I'm just looking at it like the audacity.

Lily:

Yeah, how dare you.

Ryan:

And he goes. Can I give you a challenge? I'm just like again looking at him, like well, that's okay, fascinating you know well that's okay. Fascinating. You know who are you, yeah.

Speaker 3:

He says will you read these verses from the Book?

Ryan:

of Mormon and pray about them diligently to see if it is true. And I said fine.

Ryan:

So he gives me these verses to read Moroni, chapter 10, 3 through 5, and so that night I get home um after this, you know, very intense and strange meeting with this bishop that I didn't know right um, I go outside when my whole family's asleep, I get the book of mormon and I'm reading it by moonlight and I'm reading and praying angrily because I did not want to read and pray but I also didn't want to like go back on the word that I was going to do it.

Lily:

Right, You're like I will paddle one direction.

Ryan:

I'm going to show you which way I'm going to go, I'm going to swim so fast and so like I was really angry about it and like arrogant, and I'm like I'm going to read this and I'm going to pray. And if the resurrected prophet Elijah does not show himself to me, then I will know that this is false. Yeah, like that was the arrogance that I approached it with. Yeah, and because of the arrogance I approached it with, I got nothing.

Speaker 3:

Right.

Ryan:

I was demanding for, like the moon to explode and angels to pour out of it, to prove to me specifically.

Lily:

Right.

Ryan:

Me, who was not living in any type of good life, right um to prove that this thing was happening, that I also did not want to be true yeah so like where was the faith?

Speaker 3:

where was?

Ryan:

the due diligence. There there was nothing right and months go by from this point, but I'm still having that feeling of what is love and I'm feeling that my relationship is failing.

Lily:

I'm not happy, I'm right just like living this weird life, but I still have that like you didn't love yourself, like that was probably part of it too.

Ryan:

100 yeah my feelings towards myself were just misery and discontent yeah, and because of this internal conflict, yeah and I recognized that I wasn't feeling emotions and that bothered me too. Like this isn't a good sign, this is a symptom of something much worse.

Lily:

Yeah, I feel broken.

Ryan:

Yeah, and so I started meeting with religious leaders and professors. I went to my philosophy professor, who was known for taking a stance of defense of religion from philosophical attacks, which I thought was interesting. I talked to him about it.

Lily:

Right.

Ryan:

And a few times I was just in his office or in his colleagues' offices and just saying it sounds like your soul is crying out for you. Maybe you should reach into that. Like weird Okay.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Ryan:

If that's a thing, then I I'm gonna look into it. Um, I met with? Um a number of evangelical preachers. Um, I I went to a few events. Um, for ramadan with some muslim friends cool. I went to a synagogue and studied with some rabbis. Um, I learned meditation from a number of Buddhist monks. I went everywhere that I could to try to just find something, ended up breaking up with a girl that I was at or that I was dating at the time, and it just felt like, okay, you're taking more steps, you're getting to something. And during this whole time I was getting text messages from our young men's leader in the ward saying, hey, we're having priesthood prep meeting.

Ryan:

You should come to these, because I had not received the priesthood Right and I'm just like I'm way older.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Ryan:

Like who gave you my phone number?

Speaker 4:

You know just, I'm way older. Yeah, Like who gave you my phone number? You know just, I would never respond.

Ryan:

Yeah, I also made sure that I was working on Sundays, which they usually have their meetings on Sundays.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Ryan:

And there was one day in particular, the jeweler that I was working for had a big diamond event and we had to call all of our high end customers to come buy diamonds, because you could get finance for two years without interest or something. Yeah, customers to come buy diamonds because you could get financed for two years without interest or something.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it's like a 14 hour day of me just trying to sell stupid expensive diamonds to the most obnoxious customers.

Lily:

Let's be real, yeah it was also.

Ryan:

I'm a basketball fan. I grew up in la. I saw the lakers the first time when I was like two years old, yeah, and it was the lakers playing the celtics in the so you definitely had somewhere else you wanted to yeah, so I get home after this long and obnoxious day at work and I was getting text messages repeatedly all day, which you've never done before to go to this priesthood prep meeting.

Ryan:

Yeah, I get home, I lay on the couch, I'm watching the nba finals and then I decide I'm just going to go to his house Now. I was so tired and so annoyed and I wanted to watch the team you know, my team play in the finals.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Ryan:

And I went to this stranger's house. Yeah, Now I can't explain what compelled me to do this.

Lily:

I was going to say what that rationale was.

Ryan:

Because I was still in, like my jeweler clothes, like I look like just an off-brand accountant yeah. Oh man, but I show up very late. There's a bunch of like 15, 16 year old kids there at this guy's house.

Lily:

You're like.

Ryan:

I don't fit in here. Well, definitely, and they were shocked that I was there. Yeah, one guy opened the door and he was like who are you? Yeah, and it was so funny because they were already eating their brownies and soda and whatever you're like. I'm just here for the desserts, man basically, but they bring me in and they sit me down in the living room and there's like all the kids that are sitting there eating their cookies and then there's the elders quorum president and one of the young men, advisors I think, and then they start grilling me and he says why did you come here?

Ryan:

And I'm like, I'm really not sure. He said do you have a testimony of Jesus Christ? I'm like I really I don't know Like. Do you believe that the Book of Mormon is the word of God? I don't know Like. Do you believe that the um, the gospel, has been restored through the prophet joseph smith? I don't know. Do you believe that thomas s monzen is a prophet of god? I don't know. But can you help me?

Ryan:

yeah, because I came here for something right and so they're sitting there, you know, just drilling me with their cookies and milk. Well, I'm literally seated by myself in the middle of a room surrounded by couches, where everyone else is seated, and yeah one brother pulls out his book of Mormon. He says I'm going to read something to you and you better listen, because I'm only going to say it once and it's the most important thing you will ever hear. And once again I'm like the audacity of this man, but he had my interest.

Lily:

Yeah.

Ryan:

I was in his home.

Lily:

Right.

Ryan:

So I'm just looking at him waiting, feeling that I'd done something right for the first time in a long time.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Ryan:

He opens up and he starts reading, and I just black out.

Lily:

Like literally.

Ryan:

Not literally, it was just an absence of sensation Interesting. I couldn't. An absence of sensation Interesting. I couldn't see, hear anything. It was just kind of like a colorless void in which I could hear not really hear, but feel two things. One is you have your direction, now swim. And the other one was this is right, keep swimming. Okay, oh, wow okay.

Ryan:

So when I kind of come to, yeah, tears pouring out of my face and I'm laughing really hard yeah and I look over at the brother who was speaking his scriptures are put away by that point and he says and that's how I know this is true. And I'm just like I have no idea what you just said. Yeah, one of the advisors looks at me and he sees that I'm kind of in a distressed state. He goes what just happened to you? And I said I'm not sure, but I think you all just witnessed a conversion. And so they're just looking at me Just to remember all the 15 year olds with their cookies.

Lily:

I'm so glad I came to this tonight. This is so awesome.

Ryan:

We should do this more often. So I'm just like in shock, like what just happened, and I just had that vision in my mind of what the bishop had told me months prior.

Speaker 3:

Yes.

Ryan:

Like you're swimming. Right, you've picked a shore. Yes, you're on the way. So there I was, like I went home that night, talked to my mom earnestly and openly for the first time in years, reconciled some things with her, and then, because everyone in the family ward knew too much about me, I went to a singles ward, probably for the best.

Lily:

They didn't know me.

Ryan:

And I just walked up to the bishop and I go like, hey, um, yeah, I kind of believe in this. I think I'm supposed to serve a mission, right? He's like, well, let's, let's do some other stuff first. Yeah, he's like let's start with transferring your records over and then we can talk and see you know what things need to get done yeah, um, but yeah, there was.

Ryan:

There was a lot of other things that went into it, um, groups of friends who were like secretly plotting on trying to get me to church, um, who would visit my home and leave notes and things randomly, or just there there were a lot of forces at work, but, um, the strange machinations and orchestrations of what the Lord was able to do to get me away from that nothingness and into a life of purpose, and then to find something that I thought I had never deserved, which was forgiveness.

Speaker 3:

Right.

Ryan:

I carried that anger toward myself for so long and then to finally feel that you can be a missionary. It doesn't matter if you're older than all the other ones. Like right. It doesn't matter that you were an enemy of the church, it wasn't. Doesn't matter that you were against the notion of god for so long. Like you can live now as an example of the faith and testimony you've been given right. And it's not about forgiveness being earned, it's it being graciously granted to you so what? Do you do with that?

Ryan:

and so living as a missionary. I just wanted to live up to that promise yeah, did you feel like you found love?

Lily:

like you found because I feel like that's kind of seemed what started your journey was what is love? And Christ is the epitome of love, right? So do you feel like you were able to find that, or you still hadn't quite answered that question yet?

Ryan:

There was a lingering thought of me still not deserving forgiveness because that was an overwhelming feeling, going through multiple processes of repentance Right To the point where I could serve a mission Right. But every time that would come, and every time I felt that that love and that gratitude I still felt undeserving yeah but it was undoubtable to me, knowing how it had helped heal my relationship, a very strange relationship, with my mother yeah and also learning to appreciate myself, see myself through terms of like, love and understanding right, like I'm not a despicable human being, yes, like I have value and it's okay to have value.

Ryan:

I I think often. There's a verse in Joel that talks about the years that are lost to the harvest being, or the year the harvest lost to the locust being restored to you. So even all those years that had been lost to, whether plague or famine, drought or just um bad people not farming Well, whatever it is whatever.

Speaker 3:

it is drought, or just bad people not farming, well, yeah, whatever it is, the atonement means that not all of that is permanently lost.

Ryan:

Anything can be restored, and so, for me, one of the best examples of that is like when I was a missionary. I didn't have seminary, I didn't have institute. I barely knew what the plan of salvation was.

Lily:

Yeah, but it was. You're literally an investigator on your mission too.

Ryan:

Yeah, and it was restored. Yeah. Like I found myself understanding scriptures in ways that I didn't know that I could and I'm like oh, wow, what an example of the atonement that everything that I had intentionally neglected for a decade is being restored, now that I'm receptive.

Lily:

Right.

Ryan:

That was, I think, a powerful and beautiful foundation for me to realize what it was precisely that I was converted to.

Lily:

Right, exactly that I was converted to Right.

Ryan:

Exactly, oh man, yeah, there's a lot to it, but really just thinking it was a desire for love that set me on the journey. And then, a year later, a little more than a year later, but it was a long, painful road it felt like you know a millennia, but it was only a year.

Ryan:

But like I had to change myself, my personality, the people I was spending time with all these things to just try to get myself in a position to where I felt that I could live my life in such a way to receive and be worthy of that love Right Understanding, just like the daily doses of grace that could be there. Like that was so important to me that I was just never there.

Ryan:

Before the thought was yeah there right so yeah, that's, I think, a big part of my conversion story. Oh man, when I think of the two most powerful instances of just divine orchestration in my life would be one, me coming to church and serving a mission and then two getting married, I think often of now I can't remember the scripture, and how I can't remember the scripture. It's in Isaiah and in Nephi, talking about how we are called in the furnace of affliction.

Lily:

Yes.

Ryan:

Right and what that means. Like to be called, to be chosen, to be set apart for the furnace.

Speaker 3:

Furnace yeah.

Ryan:

Yeah, but what a gift. That can be Right, because in what other situations are we willingly allowing ourselves to be molded and shaped into a reflection of the Lord, to develop those characteristics in an extremely efficient but painful way?

Lily:

Right. And honestly, the most efficient way. Like, let's just be real. Yeah, like you can't go around it. You can't go over it, you can't like you. It's literally something you have to go straight through in order to to come out. The other side what you need to be it's really powerful to me.

Ryan:

I think in in a couple ways. I think recently I've been working with a few people who've been, you know, struggling with a number of things, and it's weird to me that they've come to me for help. I'm far from a professional in anything.

Lily:

You're easy to talk to.

Ryan:

And I have a little bit of a background in mental health. But the reason I was hired there was because of my faith. They wanted me to be able to help out the people who are suffering from various addictions within the church community. Right, so I'm grateful for that background. But talking about what it means to have a community of healing and people who've experienced the atonement, the same way that Christ talks about how he condescended below all things so that we can overcome all things Right, and we do that in can overcome all things Right.

Ryan:

And we do that in our own little ways. Yes, and so, having gone through the furnace of affliction, we're climbing up a mountain, and when we see others struggling on that same mountain, we can help them up the path. You know, you can't help someone climb a mountain that you're not on or haven't climbed yourself. You know.

Ryan:

Exactly help someone climb a mountain that you're not on or haven't climbed yourself. You know exactly, and so that's one instance in which it's interesting having gone through trials and then seeing how powerful that can be on the other side. But in another sense I think of you know, when I got back from my mission, I go to virginia, um, and I'm studying at southern virginia for a while, and that's just when things really start falling apart. We're going through a number of deaths in the family, divorce, disease, homelessness, just a whole bunch of crazy stuff happens. And I'm on the other side of the country, my family's in the LA area and I'm in Southern Virginia.

Lily:

Shout out to Buena Vista yeah. It's a beautiful place.

Ryan:

It, yeah, and I could not be happy there um right fantastic just mind.

Lily:

In your heart was just other places yeah, I, I could not concentrate.

Ryan:

Yeah, it was so hard for me to be there and every time I got a phone call it was just bad news. Yeah, um you, you know just my mom calling. Hey, just letting you know. You know your dad and I are separating. Or hey, just letting you know, like your grandfather has Alzheimer's. Hey, just letting you know your favorite uncle has ALS. Now, you know, just like.

Lily:

Wow. One after the other, after the other.

Ryan:

And, yeah, my man, just so many, just deaths. A lot of people passed away during that time and I could not be at their funerals, people calling me to help through the grieving process, who expected me to be there for them and I could not. You know, right, and I'm just like, oh man, what am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing? Yeah, why am I here?

Ryan:

Because, like being from a big city and then going to Appalachia, it's like if you take a spider monkey and put it in an alfalfa field. What's it going to do? That's how I felt.

Lily:

Like this is great grazing country for cows, but I am a spider monkey. I feel out of place here.

Ryan:

I would drive for three hours to get to DC just so there could be lights and sounds and homeless people yelling at me, and that's where I felt comfortable, right. That's a pretty accurate depiction of DC too, Gangsters would come up and start yelling and I would start speaking back in their language and they're like oh, okay, you're cool.

Lily:

Yeah, he's not a tourist.

Ryan:

yeah the Philadelphia. That happened to me a few times and they're just like, hey, they're just like tip of the cap. I'm like, all right, cool, that's hilarious, but like me, just like being there.

Ryan:

My professors were very clearly worried about me, right, just right, going through all that stuff and trying to like be involved in the church because I'm like I have to hold on to something yes I don't want all of this to like pull me away, because I've seen before where, if I'm having issues, I will succumb to previous lifestyle choices and I don't want to do that again, right, right. I did not want to go to Virginia. My mission president was trying really hard for me to get into BYU, byu Idaho, byu Hawaii and he was like writing all these angry emails like how dare you not accept my missionary? You know, whatever, but no, I went to Southern Virginia.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Ryan:

And it wasn't until later that I saw the wisdom in that, if I was that close to home I would have gone home, and if I was that close to all of the previous life that I used to live, yes, I would have gone back into it, right, um, I think it's one of the great arguments of like spiritual guidance. Um, because some people say, well, what if it's just intuition? Like, well, there's also times the Lord asks you to do something you don't want to do, and it's for your protection, it's for your good.

Lily:

Yeah, exactly.

Ryan:

But being there with so much sadness and just all the loss and the death and just like losing the house that we lived in, just all these things going on. Every phone call I got was a bad one. Every phone call I got was a bad one. And there was a time when I got text messages from a sister that I used to serve with in the Philippines and not even saying hi or how are you, or you know how's life been since the mission, anything like that. It was just you need to marry dearly. I'm like cool, how are you doing? You know?

Lily:

yeah, a lot of other important things going on over here.

Lily:

The last thing I need is that I'm just like I remember you as being a very like, shy, and quiet missionary and then you come with this like, okay, you have like this habit of people coming to you and it's like the audacity of like saying all these random things just like straight to your face, like I think, because the lord talks to you like go say this, just go tell him, just go tell him it'll be okay, promise the lord knows that I'm enough of a jerk that I wouldn't get it otherwise.

Ryan:

You know right, I would be so dismissive if it was subtle. Um, and I'm grateful for that relationship with the Lord.

Speaker 3:

He knows me well enough to do that.

Ryan:

Yeah, yeah yeah, but another sister who served in the same area. Flew from Orlando to Southern Virginia where she had graduated before her mission, to tell me that I need to marry dearly. I'm like weird.

Lily:

Yes.

Ryan:

Like that's really really really weird, uh-huh um and so my dad had called again with bad news and I just wanted to lighten up the conversation. I'm just like it's nothing but sadness and sadness and all the things we're losing and all the people that are gone.

Lily:

It's so heavy.

Ryan:

I said, hey, you want to hear something funny. I was like there are these sister missionaries who are telling me that I need to marry another sister missionary. Keep in mind, my dad's not a member Right, right, right. I'm like isn't that weird? Uh-huh, Like just trying to lighten up the conversation.

Lily:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ryan:

And there's a solid 30 seconds of silence you're like hello dad he says would it surprise you if I told you that I already knew that? Yeah, 100 he goes. You can ask your sister, she's the only one who knows about this. And he says but while you were on your mission, you were close to coming home and I had this horrible, overwhelming feeling that I was going to lose you, that the plane on the way home would crash or you'd get kidnapped by rebels in the Philippines or something horrible would happen and I would never see my son again.

Ryan:

And he said I got on my knees to to pray, which is something my dad does not do. I got on my knees to pray and I saw you come home and then I saw you go away to school. I saw sister missionaries go to you and tell you to marry a girl who all three of you had served with, and I saw that she was a filipina with long, dark hair who was a dancer. He says I know what she looks like. I've tried to find her on Facebook but I can't. He says but I know that you will fly to her to marry her and that she's the one that God wants for you. Yeah, yeah.

Ryan:

And I'm just like on the phone, like this is kind of a lot at once. Like hearing my dad speak with such certainty. Yes, feeling testimony from my father that I never had before right like I'm in tears, I'm shaking up and I'm also like am I getting married? Like what?

Lily:

what's going on like I don't know. This was supposed to be a joke. I brought this up as a joke, dad.

Ryan:

Yeah, I'm like I know this girl as a missionary. I know her key indicators and I know her testimony. That's the extent of it.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Ryan:

Yeah, but he was like whoever she is, this is who God wants for you, so go get her. Whoa, what the heck.

Lily:

Off to the Philippines. I guess I'm going yeah.

Ryan:

And this was like right before finals week too. So I'm like, okay, well, that was a confirmation, because I definitely felt that, but I need more, right? So I spent one day just fasting and praying and partially grieving for my grandfather who had just passed.

Ryan:

Yeah, and that was a powerful day of just silent, solemn spirit being there and I felt definitely comforted yeah and not quite coerced, but it was like a nudge towards the right direction, like, okay, this is something, yeah, and then on our reading day, where they cancel the classes right before finals, right, I went up to DC to go to the temple and it was so funny there because you know, I'm there in the temple with all the other patrons and when everything gets started, that's kind of when I have another experience where I see that there's gold and that's being taken out of the ground and it's just like dirty, but it needs to be cleaned up.

Ryan:

So it's like washed and then burnt in the fire and as it gets more and more pure, suddenly that's when it's just like dirty but it needs to be cleaned up. So it's like washed and then burnt in the fire and as it gets more and more pure, suddenly that's when it's useful and the gold can then be turned into stuff. Yeah, like it's worthless before that right, and so it gets fashioned into a ring uh-huh, and then similarly used to work for a jeweler.

Ryan:

Yes, I can tell you the clarity carrot and cut of everything. But like there's a ring and then, similarly, there's a diamond that has been formed under this heat and pressure but is then taken out, cut and polished until it's ready and then they're put together, yeah, and says you are the gold.

Ryan:

You have endured these trials and all this pain faithfully and, as such, you are of more use than you would have been before. Um, similarly dearly is the diamond. She has similarly gone through the heat and pressure of these trials and is now ready. The two of you together are worth so much more than you would have been apart right, that's beautiful, oh my gosh, and I'm like wow what symbols, what a beautiful analogy yes, yes and so the next hard part came was me calling her. Yeah, how do you how?

Lily:

do you bring that up?

Ryan:

I know I'm gonna marry you, but uh, I was like well that's really cool for me, but it's not real revelation unless she's had it too.

Lily:

Exactly, exactly.

Ryan:

She was in the temple on the other side of the world, in the Philippines. Yeah 12 time zones away.

Speaker 3:

Yep.

Ryan:

Getting with a guy on a date. I'm expecting to understand if she and him are supposed to get together and she has the clear revelation of no, it's it's Ryan, uh, and she's like him, of no, it's it's ryan and she's like him. We set up a skype call and I'm like I have something to tell you. She's like, well, I have something to tell you too, but you go first just like oh no yep, the pressure is on I've seen all the facebook posts.

Ryan:

I know she's been with this guy right. He's a good guy. We served as missionaries together I know, yeah, you know um, but I tell her, and just like, this is what happened. Like you know, my dad had this powerful vision. He's told me about it. I've prayed about it. I had my own experience in the temple. I know this is true, but I have. I have to know that you're on the same boat yeah and she goes well.

Ryan:

I've gone through my own series of impressions and yeah, relations yeah um, I'm in the same place.

Ryan:

So we're just like, wow, cool, we're getting married. Should we go on a date? Date? That finals week was so hard because I'm like trying to take these tests. I'm just like, okay, ancient, confucian virtue ethics, like I'm getting married. But like I finished my last, final, pack up the car, drive home, get on a flight, go to the Philippines. I was supposed to go visit my mission but I just took another flight and flew down to Deerly and we just spent our time together and, yeah, we decided we're getting married before our first date. Oh, my gosh.

Ryan:

We were so nervous, Like what if we don't actually like each other? This is crazy. Explaining this to friends was insane.

Lily:

Right, I think literally anybody would be like you're crazy, Like what the heck do you think that you're doing?

Ryan:

You know the fascinating thing.

Lily:

I'm ready.

Ryan:

My friends who are not religious, the ones who grew up without a religious foundation or who had moved away from any type of faith, were the ones who were in tears, who were touched, who felt something. But there were others who were in the church who, after explaining you know what was going on and that I'm getting married and this is you know this big thing were upset, saying why you? But when I look at like what, what is the foundation of my faith? I'm like, well, there's things that I understand is that there's power and revelation if you seek for it, yes, um and you're living in a way that you can receive it.

Ryan:

Yes, um, but also the earnestness with which the lord wants to help.

Ryan:

Yeah, like there are international things that are moving to be put in place to help you yes um, and so like, the power of that love, the life-changing ability of that, the, the ways in which, in grand and in small ways, the lord can direct anything if we're willing to give him a chance to do so, um, yeah, I would say. Me finding my soul and then finding a wife would be two, um, two just powerful examples that I always lean back on when I'm wondering what I'm doing. Yeah, um, the evidence is right there.

Speaker 3:

Right.

Ryan:

And so, yeah, those. I think those are the two big, biggest examples for me.

Lily:

Well, I think they're amazing examples. It is amazing to see that the Lord is literally in everything in refining the soul, chasing after the sheep, finding, caring for all of it. And then I love how you say he literally can move international things for you, right? And I think that sometimes we forget you know, when we're sitting in our problems right now what the Lord can do for us, which is why I think it's so important that we can reflect and look back on those things that he has, but then also to have the faith that you know when he literally says he can move a mountain, he literally can and you've literally seen that in your life. So I guess I would say my question to you would be because you've had these two gigantic spiritual experiences, how do you deal when life's not so gigantic and spiritual?

Ryan:

Yeah, that's. It's really interesting, and especially lately it's really interesting, and especially lately. Um, the past year and a half has just been so hard for us.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Ryan:

And it's interesting having the perspective of knowing that your afflictions will be consecrated for your aid.

Lily:

Right Going back to that Joel verse.

Ryan:

Yeah, Um, I think there's a. There's a specific quote that dearly is put up on the fridge about like you, your afflictions will be consecrated for your aid yeah and it's always interesting, like what does it mean consecrated? Well, it's to be set aside and made holy. Yeah, and you know that's something for us right um, so like, okay, what? What is it that we've learned? What have we gone through you? Know, I.

Ryan:

I went through, you know, tremendous nerve pain. Uh, last year it cost me the job that I was working at, wow um, and then trying to find a job. Since then I'm having so many job offers that like fall through at the last second, which is, you know, strange weird yeah like once, as an anomaly, but having a pattern of that happening, I'm like what? What is the lord trying to guide us towards?

Ryan:

yeah, exactly it would be easy to get upset saying, okay, we're like at our you know final straw, you know what are we doing right but, at the same time, knowing the lord has guided us with so much direction, has presented so many things for us.

Ryan:

The healing that I had from my nerve pain was because the Lord asked me to do something and I did and the pain went away and the doctors didn't know, wow. So I'm like if the Lord has that much control over everything, I need to be willing to give him a chance when he makes me a promise. Right and so, despite physical or financial or familial issues that might come up, I'm grateful knowing that both my wife and I have a firm foundation and understanding that the Lord has plans that are far beyond the metrics of the natural man, and I have to be okay, understanding the eternal value of our momentary difficulties. So trying to measure myself by you know, how the Lord sees me is a lot different than you know.

Lily:

Looking at my retirement portfolio, no, but really though, yeah, yeah, that is it.

Ryan:

Yeah. So in answer to that question, yeah, like having life altering evidence that he is involved, wants to be involved and has plans that I could have never understood, that were put in place way before I knew that they were happening. Like why would I doubt that now?

Lily:

Right, Right. His ability to do that again. If that is what his will is yeah and it doesn't have to be.

Ryan:

you know international relations, it could just be little things.

Lily:

I just want a job. Okay, Can I just have a job please?

Ryan:

I mean, that's the thing like knowing and understanding that the Lord's desires for you are not just different, but greater, in an eternal sense, than what you want for yourself oftentimes is hard to let go of Because I'm thinking like I'm, of that probably average intelligence, if not more.

Speaker 3:

I think I know some stuff.

Ryan:

I see other people doing things and I try to do that. Yeah, and it's not working out, despite my best efforts in that direction. Yeah, and it's like it doesn't matter how good you are at something. The Lord is better and knows more about it. Right, and to be willing to give that up without fighting. It is really hard, that pride.

Ryan:

Yeah, those are discussions that dearly, and I have had a lot recently. It's just like we. We have all these plans and they don't come together for wacky and illogical reasons. Yeah, maybe the lord's trying to prevent stuff too, so interesting the opportunities that are closed can sometimes, like going to Virginia, be opportunities for protection or learning.

Lily:

Right, but you just don't even know until you're past them, and sometimes we might not even find out later, like who even knows?

Ryan:

Yeah. It wasn't until very recently that it hit me, when I was asking about it, like, oh yeah, I was taken to Virginia for my safety and despite the horrible time that I had there, it could have been worse.

Lily:

It could have been worse yeah.

Ryan:

And I wouldn't have been able to handle that if I was home.

Speaker 3:

Right.

Ryan:

Seeing the daily misery that was going on around me, knowing exactly how I would have turned away from that to comfort myself. Right so Right, right so Right. Yeah, we don't always find out, but just knowing that like the things that you're being prevented from going into, as well as opportunities that are being saved until the proper time are the Lord's plan and they're better than your plans. Yeah.

Ryan:

And so I'm excited to see what comes next. Hey, me too. Oh man, oh man it is really alleviating when it comes to those things having a sense of being called to the fire of affliction, knowing that the afflictions are going to be consecrated, and also understanding that you know the author and finisher of our faith is an author and a finisher. There is completion. That is going to come so right. It's comforting, in the most uncomfortable circumstances, knowing that right, waiting till the end, waiting till it's finished.

Lily:

It's that hard, anxious, not not knowing what the future holds. Right, waiting to get to that end. That, I think, is just so. At least that's where I get the panicking of what's happening next. What am I doing next? What is your plan? You can just tell me your plan, can't? You just tell me, like I'll do it? Just tell me. Well, actually, he, probably, he'd probably, if you were to tell me a big well, that's nice, I actually want to do this, just so you know it's funny I I think often of my, my mission.

Ryan:

I had a wacky, crazy mission uh um, if I was walking into the mtc and the lord, let me know all the things that I was going to go through as a missionary, yeah, I would have turned around and got on the bus back to Salt Lake. But in the sense of daily steps, you know, like lead, kindly light. Just let me know one thing I need to do today, right, and then you look back and see that you've been balancing on this like tight wire and you're going through flaming hoops and sharks and everything. Yeah, like, oh, that's why I didn't need to know everything, I just had to trust in him that he'd get me through the sharks and the fire, right.

Lily:

And now I'm safe on the other side, right well, maybe that's why we have a veil too, so we're not like wasn't heaven so nice, so easy?

Ryan:

like I'm in a happy neighborhood, but that one's way better Way better. Oh man, yeah, I think about that sometimes, Like if we knew the whole plan. We're like, oh, I'm opting out, no Right. That sounds hard.

Lily:

Right.

Ryan:

Yeah, there's also that, and then the aspect of just trusting him.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Ryan:

So there's a word in Tagalog that I love from a linguistic perspective. The word tiwala means trust, and there's a type of conjugation in the Philippines where you take a root word and you conjugate it this way to mean that it represents your livelihood. So like is that is fish. If you are a munging ista, that means you're a fisherman. Okay, that you are so involved in fish that you can reliably be found. It's a future tense verb that you can be reliably found in the future to be doing that doing?

Ryan:

you know fish fishing, yeah, fish fishing. Yeah, gamot is medicine. Manga gamot is a doctor.

Lily:

Doctor right.

Ryan:

Your livelihood is based around this thing. You can be reliably found doing it.

Lily:

Interesting.

Ryan:

So to take the word diwala and conjugate it in the same way is to be a believer that you have made trusting in God such a part of your life and the way you live that you can, in the future, be reliably found still trusting in him to the point where it is your vocation. Like. That word to me is so powerful, just in the way it's presented. And when you say I believe in Christ and that it is a future tense calling, like you will see me continuing to believe. Right, it's powerful to be a believer in such a way that it can be called upon as your profession. Right that's so cool Right?

Ryan:

Yeah, I think about that a lot when it comes to, like you know, have you had the mighty change of heart? Do you have Christ?

Lily:

engraved upon your image. That's what I was just thinking of too. Yeah, that's what I was just thinking. Yeah, like literally taking his name upon you and all of that, that we covenant and everything, and writing his name. You know what do they say in the fleshy tabernacle of your soul, or whatever they say? Yeah, that's literally what. That is Right. It becomes so ingrained into you that you become that Right.

Ryan:

Yeah, yeah, we're just thinking like, as you're standing before the judgment bar and you know christ is there advocating for you and you know saying like this is this person and their profession was a believer. Like how powerful you know, yes, um, allowing that change to happen, when you know we're kicking against it sometimes, but I guess that's what edification is. You know we're kicking against it sometimes, but I guess that's what edification is, you know, allowing that change to happen?

Speaker 3:

Right.

Ryan:

Oh man, yeah, think of you letting me share that. That's not something that you get to talk about very often.

Lily:

No, I think that's really powerful and, honestly, I don't have any other questions. I think you've done an incredible job sharing everything, and so, if if you have any, any other thoughts, I'd love for you to share them, and we can keep talking as long as you would like, or, if you are ready to wrap up, you can just share. I'd like you can share a testimony.

Ryan:

I think at this point, um, I would just like to say that perfection is not what's required in order for those changes to take place.

Ryan:

Um, I think if anyone's an example of that, it's me, considering you know where I was and the change that happened from who I used to be until now. There's a friend of mine wrote me a letter as a missionary. He says you're probably having a hard time right now, but if you're having a bad time, don't forget the godless heathen you used to be. That was the entire letter and as insulting and funny as that was, I'm like oh yeah yeah what I'm doing now is so far different and I'm invested in it.

Ryan:

This matters to me when I used to be that godless heathen right exactly um, but knowing that it's just the little steps and allowances I guess the, in a sense, humility, um, allowing your will and volition to be shared with with heavenly father that can change you at a fundamental level, and I can testify to that power. There are still angels that minister unto the faithful. There are still miracles that can take place, large and small, evident or otherwise, and the recognition that these are things that are happening all the time, with or without our input, is just a fantastic thing, and we can allow ourselves to be more and more involved in that. Like I, can testify to the power that forgiveness has and redemption and the life-changing ways in which the lord can participate in in anyone's life if you're allowing to give him the power to do so, um. So I think that is my testimony and I'll leave that in the name of Jesus Christ, amen thank you so much, ryan, for coming tonight.

Lily:

This has been amazing thank you for sharing, thank you for having me 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 morethancoincidencerememberjesus. 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.