Marshall &Kay Family  Histories

For many years I didn't say anything to anybody, because like your experiences it was too personal and too special. You know. I was growing up,and in the Catholic Convent at the time, I had at this point become very confused about religion. I was between 10 and 12, and I had been in the Convent for a while. I wanted really bad to be baptized in the Catholic Church, because I thought that was the true church, and I wanted to be sure and belong to the true church. Part of it was because living in the Convent, I had to go to mass every morning and chapel every afternoon, and we had to say morning prayers and evening prayers. I mean you get very indoctrinated, you know. 

 

Most of the people who were there were Catholic, a few were not. Not everyone that went to the day school lived in the convent. They had a big school called the Immaculate Conception, from grade school up to high school. The majority of the kids didn't live in the convent. We were called boarders because we boarded in the convent. 

 

My roommate was one who was not a member, and her name was Roberta Ray. I remember that real well, and she also wanted to be baptized in the church, we both did, and I remember even talking to the nuns about it. And I kept pleading with my parents, and it was mainly Mother I talked to because I don't remember my Father being there for these conversations as much. I would go home on the weekends and these were the times I would keep asking her and asking her if I couldn't please be baptized. And she kept telling me that if I still wanted to be baptized when I was sixteen, then she would allow me to. Of course at that age, sixteen was a million years away, and I was so upset and disappointed that she wouldn't let me be baptized until then. So I kept still trying to figure out some way I could talk her into it.

 

In the meantime, I started just praying every single night. But these prayers were not in the way the Catholic Church taught. The Catholic Church had set prayers, all the prayers you memorized. They may now have some prayers that aren't set, but not then. Whenever I would kneel down though, to just say what I figured were my prayers, that would be the thing I would ask my Heavenly Father, every single night. I would ask him to please let me know which was the really, really true church. I really needed to know that. And it seemed to me, that I said that same prayer night, after night, after night. And you know how it is when you're young. At times…. sometimes it all seems really drawn out, it seemed like it was weeks and weeks. But every single night, it had gotten to be routine. That was my routine to say that prayer. So it took quite a while.

 

And one night I had a dream, and I never have been able to remember the first part of the dream which so often happens, but, I've never forgotten the important part. (By the way, my dreams are usually always in Technicolor.) At one point in the dream Roberta and I were walking up this steep flight of steps in this tower, in a castle. And the tower was like you see in the pictures, it was round and the steps were circular, and they went round and round all the way up, and it was dark, we could hardly see our way up there. Someone was leading us up the stairs, and I was so anxious to get to the top because I think castles have always intrigued me. I was so anxious to get to the top of the stairs and see what it was like up there. So when we got to the top, it was a room, and there were two windows in this room. And Mother went over to the window on my right hand side, and Roberta Ray went over to the window that was on my left hand side. And I remember these things so well. The room itself was not very light, kind of dim, and I had the impression that we were way up high. Roberta Ray got really excited and called me over to her window and she wanted me to see what she could see out her window. She didn't want me to miss it. And so I looked out her window and she was telling me how wonderful it was, and we were looking down into the street, and I looked down there, and it was awful. It was just awful. And to this day it's very difficult to explain in words what it looked like, but I have never forgotten what it looked like. It was dark, it was filthy, it was so depressing. I didn't even want to look at it, much less go down there. But she was so excited, and I kept saying to her it was awful, and she tried to tell me I wasn't looking at the right thing, and I said no, no it's awful, it's terrible. 

 

And so then mother called me over to her window, and I went over to mother's window, and she was kind of excited. And to this day, I have a problem describing that, but I can see it. And one thing to keep in mind is, at that point in my life, I had never read any kind of description about God being full of light or any of that sort of thing. I didn't know about any of that. But I looked out the window and this was the most beautiful scene I had ever seen in my whole life. The street was like gold, only better. It was kind of like sparkly and glass and diamond like, and the houses were just sparkly and light and bright and just shiny. And the light was almost too bright. It was so bright, I didn't want to turn away from it. I didn't feel I had to, but it was so bright, I'll never forget that. It was like the prettiest diamonds and rubies and whatever you want to say, that could possibly be on the earth. Of course I knew, and I still have problems telling the story because I get emotional, but immediately I knew what it meant. I knew that my mother was trying to show me the right window. She was trying to show me where the truth was, by not letting me be baptized. Because she kept telling me, that even though she didn't go to church, she kept telling me the church was true, and that I would find out someday. And so the dream ended right there, and I woke up. And I was so excited about it. I knew that that was an answer. I absolutely, as well as I knew I was breathing, I knew that was an answer to my prayer. And I knew the difference between Satan and God. For me, I don't know how to explain it, but I had never had Satan described to me that way before, all darkness and filth, and stuff like that, and God all brightness, and glass and sparkly and gold. I can't find the words to explain how bright it was. I've never seen anything in my life that was that bright, in this world. 

 

As soon as I woke up I was so excited I told Roberta Ray about it, and I told her you can't join the Catholic Church. And I told her all about my dream, and I was so excited about it. I think I had her completely confused. And not only that, I started telling all my friends there in the convent about it because I was just so excited about it. And finally one of the nuns came to me and she told me that I needed to stop talking about my dream. So I realized that I couldn't do that, so I stopped talking about it. But the very next Sunday when I went home to visit I told mother that we had to go to church. And so we did. And I could hardly wait to tell the bishop what I had found out. So I told the bishop about my dream. (I had told my mom too. I think mother was very touched. ) I think mother was excited for me to tell him too because she made a real effort for me to see the bishop after church. And I remember I was really disappointed because I told him this whole story and he didn't seem to be very excited about it. 

 

I had been baptized years before, I just hadn't been active. I'm sure the bishop felt good about it, but as I think back about it I think he must've thought I was a little strange by telling him about this dream. It probably didn't come across the same way as it did to me. Then I realized, that was a message for me, not for him. And I think it was at that time that I stopped telling the story. Because I realized that it didn't mean the same to somebody else, as what it meant to me. I hardly ever told that story again. After I was an adult, I told it to people in my family. Since that time I've tried to tell each one of my children, but even for a long, long time I didn't want to share it with anybody. But it's interesting, even today, as old as I am, I can still see that beautiful gorgeous street and houses and everything, I can still see them so well. And some years ago I was reading something that Joseph Smith had written about the lightness and brightness of God, and he made a statement about the light defyleth all description. And I said that's true, you can't describe, there's no describing it. And I didn't know that as a kid, and it's interesting that I was able to see something like that when I was younger. And I didn't even realize how important that was that the lord showed me how bight, and light, and gorgeous truth was. Because I had never related it to that, in all my growing up years, I had never related it to that. 

 

That has always been a really strong testimony to me. Even though I went to church, and sometimes didn't go to church, and was active sometimes and than not. That ended my desire to be baptized in the Catholic Church. So that was good.