If your family abandoned you, where would you turn?
Allison Hong Merrill has faced this question quite literally—not only once but twice. At age 21, she was disowned by her father. Then, only two years later, she was stranded by her first husband, left to fend for herself in an unfamiliar country where she could barely speak the common language.
But through it all, the Lord never left Allison. While she was not welcome in her earthly father’s house for much of her life, Allison has learned she can always find refuge and solace in the house of the Lord.
Her story is compelling evidence of the healing power of the temple and covenant relationships—with God and each other.
An Inspiring Conversion and Temple Trip
Allison grew up in a remote fishing village in Taiwan called Hualien.
Her parents had a tumultuous marriage. Allison remembers rarely seeing them in the same room unless they intended to start an argument. As children, Allison and her younger sister Dee were often left home alone, and they sometimes took to the streets looking for food. A next-door neighbor begrudgingly allowed them into her home on occasion, washing their clothing and teaching them how to use the toilet.1
When Allison was 13 years old, two Latter-day Saint missionaries visited her family. Their message of peace and love felt at once unfamiliar and familiar, and Allison longed for the stability she sensed in gospel living.
She hoped the gospel would soften her parents’ hearts; however, they soon divorced. Her father had sole legal and physical custody; her mother had no visitation rights. Meanwhile, her father forbade the missionaries from visiting ever again. He married his mistress, who Allison says treated her and her sisters with cruelty and disdain.
Desperate for relief, Allison began attending sacrament meetings at the local branch and taking lessons with a new set of missionaries. She was baptized when she was 15 years old and received her first temple recommend to do baptisms for the dead about a year later.
Within the Taipei Taiwan Temple, Allison felt a divine sense of belonging that she craved long after her first visit. “I had never experienced that feeling before: This is where I want to be. This is where I want to come back, over and over again,” Allison says. “Can you fall in love with a place at first sight? Yes, you can. I fell in love with the temple.”
Around this time, in 1989, Allison met Burton and Thelys Bushman, a senior missionary couple from Utah, serving in Hualien. They invited Allison to their apartment for regular gatherings and homemade meals.
Their home became another temple of sorts, leaving a lasting impression of love on Allison. Even after their mission ended, the couple continued to stay in touch with the young convert through handwritten letters.
The temple and the Bushmans became shining beacons in Allison’s life, guiding her back to the Lord’s ever-present love—even through the excruciating challenges to come.
Allison’s Mission and First Marriage
During her junior year of college, Allison decided to serve a mission.
She shared the news with her father on Chinese New Year’s Eve, and his reaction was less than supportive. He disowned Allison that night, hurling her belongings across the courtyard and demanding that she never return home.
Devastated, Allison reached out to the Bushmans, who generously offered to sponsor her mission and wrote to her weekly during her service.
Allison also began corresponding with a young man named Cameron, a returned missionary who had served in her college town in Taiwan years earlier. He professed his love for her, and the declaration felt unfamiliar yet intriguing to Allison. “All my life, no one had ever used the word love on me,” she remembered.2
When Cameron offered to visit her in Taiwan a month after she returned home from her mission, she was ecstatic. He slid a diamond ring onto her finger almost immediately after departing the airplane, and they planned a new life together in the United States.
But their marriage didn’t turn out to be the source of lasting love Allison had hoped. Allison’s lack of English skills meant relying on her new husband to interpret and communicate on her behalf in Texas. She struggled to make friends and fit in her adopted country, and she was severely homesick. Worse, she and Cameron didn’t get along. They fought constantly.
Allison says that 16 months after their wedding, she went home to their apartment one evening only to discover that during her two-hour absence, Cameron had moved out, discontinued all utilities, terminated the apartment lease, transferred all their money to a different account that Allison had no access to, and filed for divorce. Not only was the betrayal emotionally crushing but it also threatened Allison’s physical survival. She faced immediate needs for food and shelter.
During this time, Allison clung even tighter to her faith—relying on the one relationship she knew would remain constant. “Without the infinite Atonement of Jesus Christ, I would have been an emotional sherpa, carrying all the hurt, guilt, and shame on my own,” Allison says. “My covenant relationship with the Lord means I take His yoke upon me because ‘[His] yoke is easy, and [His] burden is light.’ In that kind of binding relationship, there will be no abandonment on God’s part.”
How the Temple Became Her North Star
Allison sought help from a neighbor and the local bishop. She eventually moved to Utah to stay with the Bushmans.
Worshiping in the temple helped her move forward into her new life. “The temple is my library of spirituality where worldly distractions are turned off to make way for quiet reverence,” she explains. “And in the temple, I can concentrate on studying and seeking God’s will and receiving answers. Ultimately, the temple is the place where I learn to rise above this fallen world.”
These feelings of divine power and insight have drawn Allison to return to temples again and again. She says these visits help her maintain her covenant connection with God and seek spiritual guidance.
“Spiritually, we are wired to seek love and peace; that is to say, we are wired to seek Him,” she explains. “Whenever I come home from serving in the temple, I feel armed with the Lord’s power to do better and to be better. I’m more confident that I am headed toward the right direction.”
So, with God’s love as her north star, Allison charted a new course for her life in Utah. Although the Bushmans’ home was like another temple to Allison, in time, she moved away from their “holy grounds” to be closer to other young adults.3
She transferred to Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah—a place that not only offered her a life-changing education but also taught her more about the power of covenant relationships.
Finding the Belonging She Always Wanted
During her time as a student, Allison taught Chinese at the Missionary Training Center and met Drake Merrill, who taught Japanese. Drake and Allison started dating and eventually got engaged on a visit to Taiwan. Since Allison’s father didn’t want anything to do with her, Allison introduced Drake to her maternal grandfather, Ah-Gung.
This meeting created an expanded sense of family for Allison. In her memoir, she reflected:
“It dawned on me then that the choice I made concerning marrying Drake would have the power to bring these two men into the same family. … The entire human race is one giant family after all. Ethnicity is irrelevant. Nationality is inconsequential. Language is an insignificant detail. What holds us all together—what links generations of these men and women—is love.”4
This realization led Allison to pursue family history and temple work even more diligently. In turn, she feels God has blessed her with the strength to mend the hurt of the past and alleviate the pain of abandonment, disownment, and disconnection.
Each time she enters the temple and is greeted by temple workers, Allison feels assured that someday she will experience a similar loving, heavenly reunion with her progenitors. “When I open the door and enter the temple, the ordinance workers all greet me at the same time, like they’ve been expecting me,” she explains. “I don’t know any of them, but they know me in the way that they know I love God.
“And I feel like, in the next life, when we return to God’s presence, we will be greeted by countless ancestors who got there first. They’re waiting for us, and they’re eager to connect with us. And they will greet us as if they’ve known us all along, all eternity, which is true. We just can’t see it right now.”
What Allison Wants to Be Remembered For
Community has been crucial to Allison’s spiritual journey, and she is grateful for the many loving people the Lord has brought into her life.
In addition to her bond with her husband’s family, Allison considers the Bushmans her “rebirth” family. All the Bushman children call her their little sister, and they stay connected even though the Bushman parents have passed away.
The Bushmans’ selfless service and example have inspired Allison to break the cycle of generational trauma in her family. While she is now an award-winning and best-selling author, her accomplishments aren’t what she wants to be remembered for at the end of the day. “When I die, all I want people to remember is that I love God and I love my family,” she says. “I’ve decided that’s what my eulogy will be. Then, it becomes a commitment—a promise I make to myself.”
And as Allison has made promises with God, she has found the love and belonging she always yearned for as a child. When all is said and done, she believes covenants have been the key to accessing a new, joyful life in Christ:
“I feel like God is on the short end of the bargain. All I need to do is keep the commandments and the covenants—that’s it. He’s given me everything and will continue to give me more, even all that He has. His love for us truly is lasting. It’s forever.”
Note: Except for Burton and Thelys Bushman and Allison Hong Merrill, all names and identifying details of individuals mentioned in this article have been changed to protect their privacy.
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Learn to feel at home in the temple
Notes
1. Allison Hong Merrill, Ninety-Nine Fire Hoops, 22–27.
2. Hong Merrill, Ninety-Nine Fire Hoops, 63.
3. Hong Merrill, Ninety-Nine Fire Hoops, 218–220.
4. Hong Merrill, Ninety-Nine Fire Hoops, 340.
