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Early Spiritual Experiences of Stan Kivett I Was Raised

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Early Spiritual Experiences of Stan Kivett I Was Raised Early spiritual experiences of Stan Kivett I was raised by parents who believed in God. When I was around ten or twelve we started attending a Christian church and I was surrounded by many quality young people who provided good examples. My memories of the people at Central Christian Church are all positive. They were kind, friendly, and engaged. A couple of the young men became friends and I spent some time with them outside the church setting. I particularly enjoyed Tom and Casey Hawkes. Tom was the Youth Minister at the church. They ministered to me with great love. I spent a lot of time at their house and didn't realize they were probably worried about me and were trying to help me get my feet firmly planted on a good path. I remember playing tennis with Casey and basketball with Tom. I went on a retreat with the youth group and was walking alone with Tom and said that I liked the song, "American Pie". He tried to engage me in a discussion about the meaning of the song, but I was apparently fairly shallow at the time and had not really considered the message of the song. I was very active in the youth program for a couple years. I went to regular Wednesday night experiences. I remember floating down the river with our youth group and falling asleep in the inner tubes in the back of the bus on the way home. I was an Alpha Teen and my sister was an Omegan. There were a couple Omegans who I respected very much. Scott and Kevin were particularly impressive young men. I asked them for advice on a few occasions. Once I wanted to become cooler by bringing music into my life and asked about good groups. That is where I came to love the group Bread. There were cute girls about my age at church. I was particularly intrigued by two of them. I had a silent crush on Cindy for months, and think I may have even talked to her once. Another of the girls at church was kind and friendly to me. We were also in band together. I particularly remember two times when she went out of her way to be friendly to me. One year I played on a basketball team in a league with the church. During the season, Jennifer and I were in the band room and she complimented me on my play. She was more popular than me and wasn’t trying to strike up a friendship--just be nice. One other time a year or two later she came into an ice cream store I was in and was kind and engaging again. By then, I had quit coming to Central Christian and was attending with the "Mormons". Jennifer set a model for me to follow in the future where you notice those who are struggling and try to show interest in them. I had another friend at Central Christian who was an impressive and intelligent young man. I bring him up because Tom Hawkes desired to nurture the two of us into the ministry. One day Tom took me to breakfast to discuss the idea of starting a program to prepare for the ministry. I am going to put this experience down as a spiritual experience, albeit an odd one. My response surprised even me. I loved Tom and would have done anything to please him. I also loved church and am surprised that I did not grab hold of this opportunity and run with it. Personally, I was intrigued with the offer, but something deep down in me made me run from it. There are a few times in my early life where I believe Heavenly Father knew I was not equal to a challenge and stepped in-- kind of putting his hand over me and intervening in my life. This was such an occasion. For some reason, I felt I should not even investigate the offer. I told Tom a silly story of being involved with girls to get him to lose faith in me. Everything I said was the opposite of what I think I would have said without the feeling I was having. Tom left me alone after that conversation. Other than fleeting memories with attendance at Central Christian I don't remember much else that is important except a Wednesday evening activity where we tried to memorize scriptures. I remember going to an apartment of one of the leaders with a bunch of the kids and we spread out and tried to memorize as many scriptures as possible. They had cards with the scriptures on them. This was the first time I tried to commit scriptures to memory and began a lifelong pursuit that has been very meaningful. In another year or two I would be trying to memorize scriptures for a seminary class I was not allowed to attend. I remember mastering that year’s scriptures well enough that I took a test with my friends and did better than them. At some point around the time I was fifteen I started being interested in the Mormon Church. Most of my good friends were Mormon. Several were very kind to me. In ninth grade, I was kind of an obnoxious loud mouth, and a really good member of the Church--Kathleen Johnston, invited me to a party. When she invited me, she was really worried and made me promise I would be good at her party. A little later she pulled me aside and apologized for being concerned about me. She represents many people who were good examples from a distance: people who were not close friends, but crossed my path regularly and always had the light of Christ. My best friend's sister, Roseanne had several high caliber friends who fell into this category. I particularly remember them from band and choir. We took a music trip in my sophomore or junior year and someone started asking some of the members of the Church questions. Before long, I was fighting for the Church and answering questions. I suspect I must have done a pretty pathetic job representing the Church, but I do remember being a strong advocate on the bus trip. Another similar experience where I had a flash of devotion for the Church happened in my senior year. I had tickets to a John Denver concert and invited a cute and sweet Mormon girl whose name I cannot recall. After the concert, I brought her home and we sat on my car hood under the stars for quite a while talking about the Church. At the time, I was not being skeptical or asking questions, I was sharing testimony and devotion that was manifesting itself before its time. I love 1 Corinthians 4:5 which teaches that we should not judge things that happen to us too quickly because eventually God will bring the reasons things happen to us to light and then we will have praise of him. This happened with one of the first really hard things I encountered in life. I worked very hard to make our high school basketball team. But, we had three thousand students and a state championship team, and I was cut. I was devastated. I couldn't think of anything worse that could have happened to me. If I was more religious, I would probably have shook my fist at God. Instead, I had to settle for playing basketball with my Mormon friends. Our stake had an excellent sports program. We had a much better experience than I have ever seen offered in any stake I have been in since. We had long and good basketball, softball, football, and volleyball seasons. I have many wonderful memories playing many games. During this time, Steve and I lived for sports. We would play pick up football and basketball games all the time in addition to our formal games. The Church had a rule at the time where you needed to attend one meeting a month to play ball. I needed my parent’s permission to play and attend. We had an intense meeting at my house where our coach came over to get my parents signatures for me to play on the ward team. They had our minister there and pushed back pretty hard. In the end, my parents gave permission for me to play and attend, but would not let me go to seminary. I began attending Church sporadically and soon attended regularly. I took my bible from my old church with me. It was green and called "the Living Bible". One day, Steve and a couple other guys were razzing me and asked when I was going to get a dead bible. I started reading the Book of Mormon when I was sixteen, but don't think I made it very far. I do remember one day talking about what I was reading and sharing how profound I thought it was when Laman asked Nephi the meaning of his father's dream and then was asked if he had inquired of The Lord. Laman's laziness and unwillingness to pray about spiritual things seemed absurd. That is my first memory of an experience with the Book of Mormon. From the time I was sixteen on, I was an active participant in our ward. I went to mutual and other activities as well as Sunday meetings. I starred in our roadshow and remember attending another stake's roadshow. I quasi fell in love with a girl for about a week because she looked so beautiful in her makeup.
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