Tithing Transcript

Christina:

I met Mark when I was 16 and then we got married.  And we were at church for several years and we’d pay tithing sometimes.  An then we wouldn’t pay tithing and then we’d pay it for a little while and…

Mark:

And then we’d try it again.  And I think the, the reasons why it didn’t succeed is just because you’re not, if you don’t pay tithing for the right reasons then you really don’t understand what it’s for.  And I went to my sister’s wedding down at the Manti Temple and so I just went around taking pictures of the temple and then I went and sat in the foyer.  And as I was in the foyer um I had a peace that I’d never felt before.  I was just sitting there and I felt something different, and to me it almost felt like uh an invitation, it’s the only way I can describe it as an invitation.

Christina:

Mark just came home and he’s like, “We’re just going to do it,” and I was like, “How? How are we going to do it we don’t have enough
money for what we have.  What, how are we going to just start paying tithing?”

Mark:

Uh we we both made a decision that every time we got paid, anytime we got any kind of money increase, anything, that money would come out first and we put it in a certain place.

Christina:

We started to have enough.  We started to have, I mean we didn’t have extra, but we still had enough, and we were taking out that money first.  We were, we were short, but, but we always had enough.  We always had what we needed.

Mark:

Think about all the good things in your life.  Think about all the things that you have, your house, your car, your family, uh, your life, um, enjoying things, happiness.  Think about all those things that you have and think about where they came from.  You know, think about that the Savior gave that to you.  All this is from the Savior, and all he’s asking back is 10% of what you make of your increase.  At that moment I knew that that was my answer, and I understood how easy it is to pay tithing because we have so much in this earth we have so many things that we get to experience.

Christina:

Obviously the first blessing of paying tithing was that, um, we were able to be sealed in the temple which, when you really love somebody you start to realize that a lifetime isn’t long enough, and being able to be an eternal family was the most amazing blessing in the
world.

Mark:

Some people see, you know, five different things as blessings of paying tithing, and some people don’t see any of them.  And so I think it’s going to be different for everyone.

Christina:

Maybe it helps bless you so you don’t feel like you need as much as you thought you needed, you know. There’s not as many wants, there’s not, so you’re, you realize you can do with less and still be just as happy.  Maybe that’s what tithing does, does for us.

Mark:

Ever since we started paying, paying tithing, um, Church callings as they came, there was just an automatic yes, you know.  Anything, I’ll do anything.  And I think that confidence and the, and the understanding comes from the love of the church and the love from our
Lord and our heavenly father.  Um, and I think those are blessings that are, that are definitely, that I’ve been given.

Christina:

When you pay your tithing you feel more like you belong, you feel, you feel more capable, I think, of maybe doing other things ’cause paying tithing is hard.  And if you’re able to do that and commit to it then, when they ask you to do something else, that maybe you think is going to be hard, you kind of think, well I’m already doing this.  I can, I can do this one more thing.  Paying tithing made me pray a lot more, made me realize how much more I need my heavenly father and how much more I need the atoning sacrifice of our savior and all that he did for us.  That, first of all you have that comfort of knowing that you’re doing what is right, um, and you have blessings.

Mark:

When you feel that you’ve done what what you have been commanded to, and you do it out of love and thanks, I think that you’re probably there.

Christina:

It just makes you more in tune with the spirit, it really does.  It, it brings a spirit into your life and even into our home I would say that our, our house has changed.  There’s more peace and there’s unity.  All that from tithing.