Marvelous Work and a Wonder® Testimonials

I want to be a good person. This Work makes sense to me. There’s never been one time that I’ve been attending class or watching a YouTube video or reading one of the books from this Work and thought, “Hmmm … this might not be true.”

This Work is the most important thing in my life. I love the truth, and I love the light that it brings to my life. I honestly tried to detach myself from the things that you can learn here—just to see if it’s what I really wanted to be a part of. But I felt like I was going insane. It is selfish… but I don’t ever want to feel that way again. I just want to be happy and see others be happy as well. Everything that is taught by this Work makes me understand that we’re trying to help each other and that there’s no need to be hateful.

I grew up Mormon and, let me tell you, that was some rich fun. I would sit in sacrament meeting and constantly snicker and make jokes to my little brother; and when I got tired of that, I would make one of my sisters play drawing games with me. There was never a time in church that I wasn’t doing something to entertain myself, because I absolutely hated the experience. I remember trying to sneak home a few times. After being colorfully yelled at by my own mother, I realized it wasn’t worth the trouble.

In my teenage years, I spent a lot of time…and I mean A LOT of time…playing video games. I spent less time than that hanging out with my brother and friends, who were honestly my favorite people in the world.

I remember turning 18 years old and thinking I was just THE adult. Oh boy. I remember emphasizing that to my mother one day and, without hesitation, her hand went across my face faster than a bullet leaves a gun, I swear.

I had an attitude that made me end up with my father, who lived on the other side of the country. After experiencing a really chillax time of my life under his roof, I felt pressured by my beliefs into serving a mission in Jacksonville, Florida…to which I served faithfully, giving everything I had to pleasing my “Heavenly Father.”

(I’m sorry for being so irreverent, but what a joke. What an absolute joke.)

My mission was the most ridiculous experience I’ve ever had. Every single missionary companion that I had, disagreed with everything I thought. I can’t remember one time when I got along with any of my companions. I remember about six months into my mission that I was absolutely miserable and felt like giving up. But then I heard President Hinckley’s story about his father writing him a letter saying something like, “Forget yourself and get to work,” and I thought “Wow! that’s what I need to do!”

From that moment on, I became a Pharisiacal jerk wad (think of the Pharisees in the scriptures). I wasn’t aware of it, but that’s exactly how I behaved. I was 100% bound and determined to keep every rule of every LDS declaration and please God. I basically wanted to infuse it into my nervous system. (This is the part I think is hilarious. I may still struggle with this, but I don’t care … because my hope is that I’ll be fine someday…or I may already be fine, as irrelevant as that sounds.) Every time someone around me on my mission didn’t keep one of the mission rules that I was aware of “at all times” (lol), I would become extremely angry and therefore turn into some sort of hall monitor, as it were, and start pointing out all their wrongdoings. Someone with way more common sense than me would’ve caught on a lot faster than I did; but I was causing everyone around me to be very upset. I started to realize that no one wanted to talk to me or be around me anymore, and my companions were very cold to me. They basically treated me like I only existed when it was time to teach a lesson or to plan for schedules for the day. Fun, fun stuff.

I basically got to the point where I got confused between what the “Spirit” wanted and what my feelings were. I came to the door of a certain apartment where one of my companions very rationally said something like, “Elder Knudsen, I just wanna go home. I don’t wanna deal with your shenanigans right now.” I responded very quickly with a self-righteous anger. He very calmly chose to walk away from me. I chased after him and Superman punched him in the back of the head. Woof.

Now let me state that I would never treat someone like that again. I now see how terrible that was and it felt completely awful. I had allowed myself to become confused and mix passion and anger in all the wrong ways.

At this point, I got rebuked by my mission president and sent home from my mission. Upon returning home, my mom lied to all my friends and family and told them that I got sent home because of some medical condition that prevented me from being able to walk around all day long. The troubling thing was the fact that I somehow got so wrapped up in my own pride and ego that I couldn’t even live in reality. All I wanted to do was what was right for God or whatever. I suppose now that I’m glad for the contrast. All I want to do now is be kind and respectful to people.

I now recognize I was very mean to a lot of people on my mission and I would hope someday I could be forgiven by them. Now I just want to try to be a good person for as long as I live. I want to be a part of this Marvelous Work and a Wonder because it gives me hope that I can be nice and kind to people and allow people to be happy in their space and treat them the way they deserve to be treated.

I struggle with a lot of self-doubt and second-guessing and it causes me much misery. But I would rather be trying to be nice to people every fucking second of every damn day than to give up and just throw it all away, just to be a mean person.

I’m currently (2025) in a place where I don’t care what anyone thinks and I’m just trying to survive, because that seems like that’s all I can do for myself. I’m grateful for URTEIL and really happy whenever I get to sit in on a class and listen to the things that are being shared. I think about it 90% of the time and it brings me a lot of comfort and peace … which isn’t necessarily something I’m looking for … but I just recognize that.

I am a 90s baby and I always spark up when I meet someone from my generation.

If you’re interested in reaching out to me, I would actually love to talk to people. I think I’m an introvert by nature, but I just love holding down a good conversation. I work a regular 9 to 5 like most people. I’m at the age where my body is starting to ache and creak, so I force myself to work out.

Toodles,

Erik

(417) 791-8368