Marcia Zimsky is a woman of many interests and skills. She has worked in journalism and as a deaf interpreter, is a quilter, a self-taught (and excellent) wildlife photographer, and a grammarian extraordinaire. She was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1986, and she and her husband John are currently serving a Church service mission with the BYU Idaho Pathway program in Virginia. Marsha has a passion for the gospel and is known for giving away copies of the Book of Mormon. Since her baptism she has given away close to 1,000 of them! Marsha and John have three children and one granddaughter.
Hi, Marsha! Can you give us the Cliff Notes version of your conversion?
Well, I grew up Presbyterian and was very involved in the church. I was in the Young Life organization in high school, and I was in the Campus Crusade for Christ in college, and I went to lots of denominations of churches, because I kept trying to find more truth than what I already had. After John and I had been married a while I converted to Roman Catholicism so that we would have the same religion when we had children because he had said he would never leave the Catholic Church. I was still confused about so many things, you know, the big three: “Why am I here? Where did I come from? And where am I going?”
So I started to pray that God would tell me what to do with my life, and give me a strong desire to do what He wanted me to do. I prayed that every day for quite a while. When we moved to Atlanta, I suddenly had a desire to learn American Sign Language. I studied the language at two different colleges, I got to know deaf people, and I met the [LDS] missionaries who had just been sent to Georgia to start a program for deaf members and potential members. I would see them in the deaf community quite often. They asked if I wanted to know more about the Church, and I said, “No thanks, I’m happy as a Catholic,” even though I wasn’t. I had concluded that there was no church that had all the truth, or at least, more truth than I had found.
Finally, after running into them so many times, I invited them over. One day, one of the elders asked me if the Catholic Church had any teaching about a life before earth. And I said, “No, what does your church teach about that?” And he told me. It hit me very strongly as a true principle. So, I asked them to come teach me. I didn’t have any intention of converting, I just wanted to know what else they had that would feel true to me. When they came over the first day, they stayed for six hours because I kept asking question after question after question. All of their answers were very satisfying, and I felt the truthfulness of them.
The next time they came over they stayed another six or eight hours—we ordered pizza twice! They answered every question I had about God, about life, about why we’re here—it was really exciting for me. The fourth day after my first discussion I prayed to know if all of it were true, and I received a very clear answer that anything I would learn about the Church that was official doctrine would be the truth, and I could believe it and accept it. It just came into my mind and I had a very strong desire to join the Church, On Sunday, I went to Church and asked the missionaries to baptize me before we even went in to sacrament meeting. I was baptized the next Friday. Before I was baptized, I read the Book of Mormon, and I just loved it. I felt strongly—well, I knew—that it was genuine. It was one of the keys to my opening my mind enough to ask if this truly were the church with the authority and the true teachings from God. And it’s been great. I’ve loved it ever since. And that was 1986.
I love hearing your conversion story. You’ve been involved with so many different churches! I think you’ve gotten a more complete view of modern Christianity than most people do—certainly people in our Church, and probably in most churches! When did you start giving out copies of the Book of Mormon?
This is my list. The first one I gave away was to a good friend. This is the actual list—I write down every one that I give. I didn’t put dates on them until, well, within the first year of my membership. So, I started the first year I was baptized. It’s interesting to me to look back and see who all I’ve given them to. I’m glad I wrote them down because I didn’t remember I’d given a copy to some of these people!
Before I heard President Benson’s talk, “Flooding the Earth with the Book of Mormon,” I didn’t give away nearly as many as I did after that. This is a copy of the Book of Mormon the missionaries gave me. It has President and Sister Benson’s photo and testimony in it. Later, in 1988, I was sitting, listening to general conference, and President Benson gave his talk about flooding the earth with the Book of Mormon. He said:
I challenge the members of the Church to participate in the family-to-family Book of Mormon program—to send copies of the Book of Mormon on a mission for you. Sister Benson and I have been doing this for some time now, and we intend to do more.
That’s when I realized he was talking about MY copy of the Book of Mormon.
So, they’d been doing that for years, then, because yours was given in 1986 and this was ’88. Who knows how long they’d been doing it?
Absolutely. I was very grateful to them. Then President Benson said:
Now, my good Saints, we have a great work to perform in a very short time. We must flood the earth with the Book of Mormon—and get out from under God’s condemnation for having treated it lightly. (See D&C 84:54–58.)
I loved how he used the term “flood the earth,” because it meant I could give a copy to someone without having to stress over, “Have I developed a relationship with this person? Are we close friends? Will she accept it?” I could just give it away. That’s the only way an individual could help to flood the earth. So I started to just give it to people. After that talk, I started giving it to people at the mattress store, a guy who delivered gravel to our house, our children’s doctor and all three of his nurses. Somebody at SuperValue, another person at Georgia Federal, and someone at Mandarin Palace restaurant.
I decided to always offer a Book of Mormon to anyone who came to our home. This might be the only contact they have with a Latter-day Saint for a long period of time. I made that commitment, and then someone’s car broke down in front of our house—directly in front. They came to the door to borrow our phone, and I offered them a book and they were thrilled to have it. Somebody else ran out of gas right in front of our house. I feel as though people were brought here at certain times. We had termites in our house, for years. I mean, we could not get rid of them, and every time a new pest-control technician came to our house we offered and they accepted a copy of the Book of Mormon, until one day [the technician] said, “Oh yeah, we have one of these in our break room. Someone gave it to one of our technicians and sometimes we read it there.”
One day, one of my friends called me and said, “Marsha, did you just give away a Book of Mormon to someone from such-and-such tree cutters?” And I said, “Yes, how did you know?” and she said, “Because one of the guys is sitting in his truck right now, reading a Book of Mormon, and I kind of figured that the only place nearby he might have gotten one is from you.” They had just been to our house, working on our trees, and had gone there [the friend’s house], and this man was with the group, but didn’t have any work to do at the time, so there he was, reading the Book of Mormon in his truck!
See the rest of the interview with Marsha here.
Is it hard for you to share the Book of Mormon? Why or why not? Share your stories!