Rachel Ridgeway Ivins Grant was from Hornerstown, New Jersey, a small community in Monmouth County. She was born in 1821. This is the story of her conversion to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
My parents died when I was quite young. My grandparents on both sides were Quakers, consequently I was brought up under that influence. But the silent worship of the Friends did not satisfy the cravings of my soul. I longed to hear the beautiful hymns that my mother taught to her little children even in our tender years, and the spirit often moved me to burst out in songs of praise, and it was with difficulty that I could refrain from doing so.
At the age of sixteen years, with the consent of my relatives, I joined the Baptist church. The singing pleased me and the prayers were somewhat inspiring, but the sermons were not much more satisfactory than the none-at-all of the Quakers. I was religiously inclined but not of the long-faced variety. I thought religion ought to make people happier, and that was the kind of religion I was looking for.
About this time we heard of some strange preachers called Mormons who had come to our neighborhood. I concluded they were some of the false prophets that the Bible speaks of and I had no desire to see or hear them. Soon after I left my home in New Jersey for a visit to relatives in Philadelphia, little thinking what would transpire in my absence. The elders held meetings near our home and soon after my sister Anna and some of my cousins accepted the truth and were baptized. She was filled with the spirit of the Gospel, and when I returned she urged me to attend the meetings with her. I went to the meeting on Saturday, but when she asked me to go on Sunday I did not know whether I ought to break the Sabbath day by going to hear them or not, but through her persuasion and that of a schoolmate, who had come some distance on purpose to hear them, I finally went, but upon returning home I went to my room, knelt down and asked the Lord to forgive me for thus breaking the Sabbath day.
