I’m an “always knew.” Although, since my parents emphasized that it was important to gain my own testimony for myself, I sort of expected to eventually go through some angst and become desperate to know for sure and spend huge amounts of time studying and praying but somehow I never quite got around to going to the mountains to fast andpray for 36 hours.
At some point around 17 I remember praying and thinking about getting some sort of confirmation that the church was true (this would have been in my bedroom, and not for an extended period of time). My answer came that I already knew. And, I quickly realized that I did already know. Every single thing the church taught, I believed. My sense of right and wrong was exactly what the church taught. I had lived up to all the standards of the church…happily…because I believed in them. So it was at that point that I realized that I had a testimony, and that I had always had a testimony.
I think two things made it difficult to realize that I already knew “for sure.” These two things both go hand in hand and completely contradict each other.
1. The descriptions of “feeling the spirit” were a little confusing to me and I did not seem to feel it. I figured when I got older I’d feel something. I’ve found recognizing it gets better with practice.
2. My home was a loving home, and I was taught the gospel early and was in some ways surrounded by the spirit. The testimony was always there, the belief in God was always there, the knowledge of right and wrong was always there, I had the gift of the Holy Ghost as a constant companion…..

My guess is that in the future there will be greater experiences that will strengthen my testimony and will look back to this post and say, “boy, I didn’t know a thing back then!”

Or so I hope.

When I was on a mission in the 80′s, an attitude that I perceived was that many parents didn’t expect their children to get a testimony until AFTER they started their mission. It was like primary, Aaronic priesthood, the YM/YW programs and sunday school classes were all just window-dressing, make-work, and keep-busy stuff, and not intended to actually teach anything to members under the age of 18.

I’m glad to see that what I saw were the exceptions and not the rule.

At an initial scan of your post, I thought you were going to say that you gained a testimony while reading The Lord of the Rings. That would have been awesome.

Heh. That would have been awesome! I previously blogged about the profound influence Tolkien and C.S. Lewis have had on my life.

The Lord of The Rings did provide an interesting context in which I read the Book of Mormon. In many ways, the mythological themes and pseudohistory of the LOTR and the Silmarillion provided an interesting contrast to the Book of Mormon. They prepared me to read the Book of Mormon, and helped me to feel the difference between the kind of truth in Tolkien’s fiction and the truth of the Book of Mormon.

I suspect everyone who answers “always knew” had a similar experience.