Something Was Still Missing

I absolutely loved this conversation. Today I had the joy of sitting down with not one but two incredible women — a mother and daughter duo named Melissa Weatherby and Alexis McKenzie. Their story is a conversion story, but it is so much more than that. It is a story about the quiet ache of searching for something you cannot quite name, the power of one person's light drawing others toward truth, and what happens when you finally find the piece that has been missing all along. No matter where you are in your faith journey, I know there is something in this episode for you.

In this episode:

• How a single Instagram message set off a chain of events that changed everything

• What Melissa and Alexis each describe as the missing piece they didn't know they were looking for

• The difference between feeling the Spirit in strokes of lightning versus carrying a constant light

• How a daughter's joy and light drew her entire family to the gospel of Jesus Christ

• What both women would say to anyone sitting in the darkness right now wondering if there is more

Melissa grew up without a church home. Her parents had had a negative experience with religion, so the only times she attended church as a child were when she tagged along with friends after sleepovers. Even then, she always felt a pull — a warmth, a connection — that she could not fully explain. After having Alexis, she spent a few years feeling lost before finding a large non-denominational church that became their spiritual home for a season. It had a full band, great childcare, women's groups, and a wonderful sense of community. But over time the focus shifted, and when Melissa went through a divorce and found the community less than welcoming, they stopped going altogether.

Alexis grew up with that early foundation of faith but lost access to it around age ten when they stopped attending. By her freshman year of high school she was struggling — with identity, with an eating disorder, with a deep sense of being unmoored. She picked up a Bible and started reading on her own, looking for something she could not quite name. Then COVID shut everything down and she fell back again. But that initial reach toward something more planted a seed that would not stop growing.

One of my favorite moments in this conversation was when I asked both Melissa and Alexis to describe what it felt like to be searching for something more. Alexis said something I have not stopped thinking about since: I found something I didn't realize I was looking for. It filled a space I didn't know was there.

For Melissa it was the feeling of a missing puzzle piece. She had felt glimpses of it — at church as a child, in the non-denominational community, in the moments she reached for her Bible. But something was always just slightly out of reach. Questions unanswered. Connection incomplete. A knowing that there was more, even when she could not articulate what more looked like.

I think so many women listening will recognize that feeling. That quiet ache. That sense that life is good but something is still just slightly missing. This episode is for every woman who has ever felt that way.

Alexis was fifteen years old, recovering from a difficult season, and realizing as pandemic restrictions began to ease that she did not have many close friends. She felt prompted — and she is clear that this boldness was not her own — to reach out over Instagram to a girl she had briefly crossed paths with on her middle school track team. She asked if she wanted to go on a hike. The girl said yes. And that girl happened to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

That one message led to a friendship. That friendship led to a dinner invitation where missionaries happened to be coming. Those missionaries led to discussions where Alexis felt the Spirit so strongly it left her speechless. She would walk out of their home happier than when she had arrived — and she would bring that light home to Melissa, along with armfuls of information to read through together.

Around the same time Alexis switched from soccer to cross-country and track. Through that team she met two more friends — also members, also in the same ward as her new friend. Three young women living their covenants openly and joyfully, and Alexis could see there was something different about them. She was determined to figure out what it was.

One Instagram message. One hike. One dinner. One set of missionaries. I love how God works.

As a missionary I used to describe the difference between feeling the Spirit before baptism and after receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost this way: before, it is like strokes of lightning. Bright, powerful, unmistakable — but fleeting. You feel it and then it is gone and you find yourself wondering why you cannot hold onto it. After, it is like carrying a flashlight. A constant companion. A steady light that you choose to turn on or off through your obedience.

Alexis described her experience with the missionaries in exactly those terms — without me even using that analogy first. Every time she sat with them she felt it powerfully. It would leave her speechless. And unlike the glimpses she had felt before, this felt consistent. Sustainable. Real. That consistency — in the missionary lessons, in her personal study of the Book of Mormon — is ultimately what told her where God needed her to be.

She attended her first sacrament meeting at Christmas. She kept going. She started seminary at six thirty in the morning and loved it. And eventually, with courage she says was beyond her own, she made the decision to be baptized.

Melissa watched all of this unfold from the front row. She read alongside Alexis. She noticed the joy her daughter carried home after every missionary lesson. She saw the light that Alexis and her friends radiated when they came over — and she wanted to understand it.

When Alexis asked if she could be baptized, Melissa had one condition at heart — she needed to know this was Alexis's own choice and not just a desire to belong to her friend group. The more Alexis talked about it, the clearer it became. This was genuine. This was real. And as a mother, Melissa said, what more can you ask for than your child finding a place where she truly feels like she can be herself?

Over the next two years Melissa continued learning. Seminary kids and youth friends filled their home regularly. She and her new husband attended sacrament meetings, especially around the holidays. They got to know the families. And they began to notice — this light that Alexis carried was not unique to her. It was in all of them. And they wanted it too.

When Alexis left for BYU and then prepared to serve a mission in the New Jersey Morristown mission, she was determined that her family would understand why she was leaving. She wanted them to take missionary discussions. She asked. She encouraged. She may have pushed just a little.

Melissa and her husband agreed. Their very first lesson happened to coincide with Alexis's first week of home training before leaving on her mission — which meant Alexis got to sit in as a missionary for her own family's first discussion. I love that detail so much.

The sisters came back every week, sometimes twice a week. Melissa and her husband fed them and kept asking questions. And then about three weeks after Alexis left for the Missionary Training Center, one of the sisters asked the question: would you be interested in accepting the path of baptism?

Melissa paused. She was not sure where her husband stood. She did not want to get ahead of him. And then — in just seconds — he said yes. Absolutely yes. Melissa's jaw dropped.

They were baptized the following month. Alexis joined via Zoom from New Jersey, tuning in from her mission to watch her family come home.

I asked both Melissa and Alexis to describe the difference between walking through hard things before they had roots in Christ and after. Their answers were beautiful and honest.

Melissa described the before as heavy. Dark. Lonely even when surrounded by people. Barely being able to drag yourself out of bed. Very empty. Now when challenges come, she knows the Holy Ghost is there. It still hurts. It is still hard. But it is not as dark. And knowing she has support — that she can ask for help and He will be there — makes every step through the difficulty just a little more possible.

Alexis put it simply and perfectly: it's not easy, but it's easier.

She also said something that stopped me. Looking back on the trials she walked through before she had roots in Christ, she does not know how she made it through. And she has come to see that as a testimony in itself. It was not her. He was with her even when she was not choosing Him. Even when she did not know His name or understand what she was feeling. He did not leave her alone.

That is who He is. That is the kind of Savior we get to belong to.

Melissa and Alexis left me with a summary of their entire journey that I want to pass on to you: God has a plan for you. You might not know it yet. You might think you already have a great plan. But God has something bigger and better. Sometimes we just have to let go, take one step forward in faith, and trust that He will be there with us.

And this — your daily decisions do not reflect your worth to Christ. Your worth is always there. Always at the top. It will never change no matter what choices you make. The only thing you can do is try to be a little better every day.

If you are sitting in the darkness right now wondering if there is something more — there is. You may not be able to name it yet. You may not even know you are looking for it. But it is there. And the God who orchestrated one Instagram message, one hike, one dinner, and one missionary discussion to bring an entire family home is the same God who is orchestrating things in your life right now.

Keep going. Baby step by baby step. He is with you.

If this episode inspired you please share it with someone who needs it today. And if you would like to be a guest on Becoming the Oak Rooted in Christ, you can fill out an application here or reach out to me at kendra@becomingtheoak.com.

Until next time — be still, believe, become.me.