I grew up in a Christian home. My dad is a pastor of a small church in Koreatown, Los Angeles. Every Sunday, we were in church. To be honest, I didn’t care much for church at that age. I just wanted to see my friends and have fun in Sunday school. Unfortunately I began to despise going to church and eventually told my parents that I would not go with them anymore.

I’ve tried going to my friends’ churches or my relatives’ churches but I went for the wrong reasons. Eventually I grew tired of going to church and decided to no longer care about Christianity. Curiosity then got ahold of me and I tried attending a place of worship of another religion for a brief period.

One day during school, a classmate of mine told me that an old friend of mine attended his church. That was pretty cool to hear! My classmate then invited me to his church that upcoming Sunday. I told him I would go but in the last minute decided not to. I told him I would go the following week and I did. I entered the youth room of the Bible Baptist Church of Gardena and this church was very different for some odd reason. The Youth Pastor began to preach and his message was very different from other churches I’ve attended. It included topics such as Hell, trusting Jesus, going to Heaven, etc. I met with my old friend and my classmate then went home after the church service.

I decided I would not go back to that church the following Sunday. A couple days later after I attended Bible Baptist Church, I came home from school when I noticed a yellow letter inserted next to my door. I opened the letter and it was a message from the youth pastor.

His message simply read something along the lines of how it was a blessing to see a first-time guest such as myself attend the church and that he was praying for me, to let him know if I ever needed anything. It was given to me on the first week of February and had a signature of Paul Choi. That letter encouraged me to come try Bible Baptist Church one more time.

I attended church for the second time on February 18, 2008. The morning service was good then my classmate encouraged me to stick around for the afternoon youth service, which I did. In the afternoon, the youth are combined with the teenagers of a bus class. The teacher of that class began to share the gospel during the invitation and asked us to raise our hands if we did not know we were on our way to heaven. I thought my friend raised his hand so I copied him (he didn’t).

After the service, I was taken aside by another counselor who showed me from the Bible how we were all sinners. Romans 3:23 shares how we all are sinners and have sinned, therefore coming short of the glory of God. This sin was passed down from one generation to another, starting with Adam as mentioned in Romans 5:12. There is a payment for our sins as mentioned in Romans 6:23 and that payment is death in a lake which burns with fire and brimstones, as referred to in Revelation 21:8. However John 3:16 shares that God loved us all, therefore He sent His son Jesus Christ to die on the cross for our sins. Anyone that places their faith in Jesus Christ as their personal Savior can have eternal life (Romans 10:9, 13). I then confessed to the Lord and made a decision to accept Christ as my personal Savior.

This was the best decision I have made in my life. It was a decision I made exactly 10 years ago, probably around the time of making this post. I’ll never forget that day and I will remain continually grateful to the Lord for salvation, for those that influenced me, and for those that cared about me.