"We didn't like them and they didn't particularly like us, and I certainly as a 10-year-old didn't want anything to do with the religion," Monique says in a new LDS Living video about members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Monique can remember as a young girl playing on the playground when another girl asked her, "Do you feel bad you live in a bad family?" Monique was confused and taken aback by the question, but she was confronted later by similar struggles when her friends were no longer allowed to play with her when they learned her family was not members of the Church.
Throughout high school, Monique could not feel God's love and presence in her life, and she found it easier to believe He didn't exist. During Monique's junior year, a 10-year-old in her community passed away. While attending the funeral she remembers the father of the boy testifying he knew he would see his son again. Months later, Monique reached out to a friend serving a mission to answer her questions. But how could Monique turn away from her family and embrace a religion when its members had caused her so much pain? Watch Monique's story below: