Andrea's Story, October 8, 2014

Once in a while the Lord leads you to a "Golden" investigator.  Someone who has been waiting to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ for a very long time and accepts it and embraces it wholeheartedly. I am going to share just such an amazing conversion story of a wonderful woman named Andrea Grossman.  I asked her permission to share it on my blog and she graciously consented and even wrote "her" story for me.  She's being baptized on October 26, 2014 and we are so happy for her!

Sister Roy, Andrea, and Sister Jones

Andrea Grossman was raised in a Jewish family, attending Hebrew School and observing the Jewish holidays for most of her younger years.  After her dad passed away in 1993, her mom and her one sibling became gradually less religiously observant but continued to embrace the Jewish traditions from a ritualistic perspective, viewing it as an inseparable part of their heritage.  Due to the fact that prior generations of the family were killed in the Holocaust, Andrea was raised to believe that one should never abandon the Jewish faith, whether voluntarily or involuntarily.

Andrea grew up listening to the music of the famous Osmond family and quickly became one of their most devoted fans.  By the time she was 16 years old, she had seen them in concert 12 times; largely due to her dad’s willingness to drive her and a close friend up and down the East Coast to the Osmond's’ concerts!  Andrea became especially impressed with what a close knit family they seemed to be, and started reading the information that they shared about their devotion to their Mormon faith.  In fact, Andrea’s close friend, with whom she shared her Osmond enthusiasm, soon converted to the Mormon religion and brought Andrea with her to church a few times.  Andrea, who had never had the opportunity to learn about Christianity – let alone the LDS Church – became fascinated with the life of Jesus Christ and the realization she was beginning to have that things in the greater world and beyond were starting to “make sense.”

These intense feelings and desire to know more about the LDS church led to Andrea asking her mother if she could continue to learn more about the Mormon faith and continue to accompany her friend to church.  Andrea’s mom’s response was, quite predictably, a very passionate “NO.”  She was appalled to think that Andrea would want to expose herself to any Christian faith and became convinced that the Mormon religion was a “cult.”  Her mom literally made herself physically and emotionally sick during this time of Andrea’s religious exploration and told Andrea that, in no uncertain terms, Andrea would lose her family’s support to send her to college and to continue to house her as part of the family.  In addition, Andrea was made to believe that her dad, who was seriously ill with heart disease during this time, had been made all the worse for her apparent betrayal of the family’s Jewish roots.

Andrea became scared and alarmed. She forced herself to let go of her quest to learn more about the LDS church and started to take various classes in Hebrew and Judaism and join various Jewish organizations.  This continued for the next 33 years.  During that long period of time, she struggled to connect religiously and spiritually with the Jewish faith.  Ultimately, she found the traditions and music beautiful in that they reminded her of her dearly departed grandmother and her now departed dad.  She felt so loyal to them that she couldn’t bring herself to re-embrace her long ago burning desire to learn more about the Mormon religion.

Still, she struggled off and on during those long 33 years!  She married a man who she quickly learned was a well-disguised gambler and drug addict.  The marriage ended in divorce with no children, and with Andrea left feeling demeaned, demoralized, and emotionally abused.  Periods of depression and anxiety set in, which continued to resurface for varying lengths of time off and on throughout these 33 years.

During this time, her admiration of and love for the Osmond family continued.

In 2011, Andrea traveled to Uganda to meet the little girl living in an orphanage whom she had been sponsoring for a few years.  She and Jalia became quite close, (Andrea returned to visit Jalia in Uganda in 2012 and will return again in December of this year.)  During her first visit, as she walked down the road from the orphanage for the first time, what should she see but the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints!  She had a burning desire to go inside, but held back.  Why? In retrospect, she was afraid that she would not want to leave it, and that the hurt and shame she would be bringing upon her family would leave her feeling too conflicted to bear.

In the summer of 2013, Andrea started working for Johnson & Johnson in their new office in Kendall Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts.  To avoid the rush hour traffic, she commuted by way of train and shuttle bus, which allowed her to read and relax..  The shuttle bus would drive right by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints!  Every time it did so, a light would go off in Andrea’s head, serving as a continual reminder that she was seeing something “special” in some strange, curious way.

In the summer of 2014, Andrea decided to travel to Las Vegas to see what was now one of the number one shows there – Donny & Marie – which was now in its 6^th year of rave reviews.  She made her plans early and obtained a seat right next to the stage.  She was ecstatic to learn that she had been selected to attend the “Meet & Greet” immediately after the show.  She was going to finally meet Donny & Marie and have the opportunity to tell them how much they and their family had meant to her for so long!

The show was all that Andrea had hoped for and she was thrilled to be able to share wonderful conversations with her idols.  She told them how impressed she was with their upholding of their Mormon faith, despite their fame and fortune and mentioned that she was interested in learning more about their religion.  They encouraged her to do so, and Donny shared details regarding a “Question & Answer” feature on his website about the Church.

 

After Andrea returned from Las Vegas, she couldn’t get the Church out of her mind.  The desire to know more…to know the answers to the “why” of life…became an obsession.  She slowly came to realize that she did not want to live the rest of her life without having the opportunity to hear the full Gospel.  Now, with only her elderly mom and one sibling remaining as her biological family, she felt the need to also become part of another family – a family that would bring her happiness and the ability to learn and embrace what she strongly suspected was the Truth that she had been seeking all of these years.  As she started to deal with the conflicted feelings that had plagued her for the past 33 years….she realized that she could still love and respect her mom, but as a grown adult long on her own, she owed it to herself to pursue her dream….a dream that was free for the asking.

With that in mind, she nervously logged on to the Mormon.org website and hastily emailed a note.  She asked the missionaries in her area to contact her for a meeting and to please bring her a Book of Mormon and teach her more about the Church.  She felt so blessed when she received a call the very next day from Sister Roy and Sister Jones!  She was even more thrilled when the Sisters set up a joint meeting with the Elders to meet with her to discuss her thoughts for how she might like to proceed, and to give her some much-needed guidance.

Fast forward to today:  Andrea is in the midst of her core lessons with Elder Calvert and Elder MacJanet, with supplementary instruction from Sister Roy and Sister Jones.  Because she is not just learning about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but also needing to fill in the gaps in her knowledge of Jesus Christ and Christianity (due to her Jewish upbringing), she recognizes she has a lot to learn.  She has eagerly requested, and accepted, weekly homework assignments from the Elders and the Sisters, which she approaches with great enthusiasm and zeal.

She says, "I have prayed to Heavenly Father while reading the Book of Mormon several times, and the truth has been made known to me by the power of the Holy Ghost."

Her baptism is October 26, 2014!  She anticipates this to be the happiest day of her life thus far, and would like to thank Elder Calvert, Elder MacJanet, Sister Roy, and Sister Jones for all their guidance, wisdom, and support.

We are so happy for Andrea and for her journey to finding the Gospel of Jesus Christ.