As a new member of the Church I had just come from darkness to light, from depression to joy, from ignorance to knowledge, and from not knowing who I was to comprehending God.  I was a new person.  I possessed the gift of the Holy Ghost.  I was having prayers answered on a daily basis.  Life was good.  Life was exciting.

A year and a half after my baptism I found myself in Japan serving in the U.S. Navy.  One day I went exploring.  Up on a hill I found a Christian servicemen’s center.  I went in, thinking that I could probably find like-minded people to whom I could easily bear testimony.

I began visiting with a nice young man.  I told him that I was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

He asked in an earnest way, “When were you born again?”

I replied, “I was baptized the 4th of March last year.”

“But when were you born again?” he repeated.

Thinking that he hadn’t understood me, I said again that I was baptized on March 4th, 1967.  To my way of thinking, submitting oneself to baptism and beginning a whole new way of life was a rebirth.  I was a new person.  I had literally been born again on 4 March 1967.

To my surprise and consternation the young man asked a third time when I’d been born again.  It was plain that in his mind being born again was a different and separate thing from being baptized.  He had experienced a one-time, eye-opening event which he called “being born again.”  Baptism, to his way of thinking, was merely a gesture—an optional non-event.  Being “born again,” to him, was being “saved.”  God had enlightened him on that occasion, and from thenceforth and forever he was saved.  He had accepted Christ as his Savior.

The young man was right.  By accepting Jesus as his Savior he would achieve salvation, and had met the minimum requirement for admittance into the telestial kingdom.  By bowing the knee and confessing the Lord one can be redeemed from hell, and can achieve “the glory of the telestial which surpasses all understanding.”  (D&C 76:89.  See D&C 76:81-86, 88-90, 98-112.  See also Moses 6:59 for how one must be born again).

But there is so much more.

Is being born again an event, or is it a lifetime pursuit?

For me being born again was both.  Through sin or through neglect it is possible to lose one’s grip on the iron rod.

I have always been puzzled and saddened by missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who faithfully serve and bear testimony of the Savior for two years, and who then come home and fall into inactivity or even into rebellion and apostasy.  I’ve never understood it.

But their examples are a warning.  Inactivity and apostasy are a possibility for the non-vigilant.

I vividly recall the fervent testimony of a stalwart sister when I first joined the Church.  She emphatically stated that “nothing” could ever make her lose her testimony.  A few years thereafter she left her husband and the Church.  She died this year still knowing that the Church is true, but having not attended church in 50 years, and having devoted her considerable talents to causes other than the kingdom of God.  She could bow the knee and confess that Jesus is the Christ, but she was in violation of her covenants.  She was no farther along than the young man in the Christian servicemen’s center.

I became a changed person in the 4-month period between December 1966-March 1967.  I didn’t like the person that I was before that time.  I never want to see him again.  I eagerly took hold of the new life that I found and have never looked back.

I have been born again.  I am a new creature.  I have made covenants, which if I continue to keep, will eventually land me in the celestial kingdom of God, there to live in joy forever with my Savior and with my family.

How grateful I am for this opportunity and blessing.