Meet Melissa Munn

Melissa was born in Long Beach California and has lived most of her life in Southern California. She was born into a family of 5 including her mother, father, older sister and twin sister. Her mother was a very strong woman with a multitude of talents. She was an interior designer, artist, baker, cook, beautician and skilled business woman. She would use all of these talents in raising and providing for her children and passed many on to Melissa. Melissa loved her father. He was her hero. Her sisters, especially her twin were her main playmates.

Melissa's family belonged to the Christian Scientist Church. Her mother and father always sent the kids to church but they themselves were not overly active. I asked Melissa what Christian Scientists believe. She told me they believe in not drinking or smoking or drugs. They believe that through prayer and a skilled Christian Scientist Practicianer, the body can heal itself of almost anything. This created a lot of guilt for Melissa. She herself was always sick as a child, allergic to almost all toxins.

Melissa's greatest memory of being a child is her exploration. She loved getting up before everyone else and going outside to explore the animals, bugs and nature around her. She would find spider webs and throw flies in them to watch what the spider did. She would lift heavy rocks and play with and observe the pill bugs underneath. She was in her own little world.

That ability to be happy and explore came in very useful. When she was 10 her parents divorced. Melissa and her sisters stayed with their mother. Their first move was to Running Springs, CA which is at an elevation of about 7,000 feet (we're about 4,000 feet here). Her family moved almost every year after that. For Melissa it was an adventure. She did make friends, but her greatest friend was her twin and her greatest joy was exploring nature.

When Melissa was 17 years old she met a boy and fell in love. She was a hippie and so was he. She went to the Strawberry Festival in Costa Mesa CA. She was sad after the break up with a boyfriend and was sitting down having a pity party because not only was she single, she didn't have a ride home. A boy stepped in front of her and she looked up. He was beautiful and tall standing there in his tapestry and then he played the guitar for her. She was smitten. She left home and school and married him. They moved in with his parents who were LDS.

Melissa's mother-in-law became her Naomi. She loved her. The mother-in-law gave Melissa such unconditional love. Everyday they would spend time together and she would teach Melissa the gospel of Jesus Christ and the doctrine of the restored church. Melissa felt like more than being taught the doctrine, she was remembering the doctrine from somewhere. She ate it up and loved it. She joined the church and had a still born daughter but a year later was blessed with a son from that marriage. Unfortunately, the husband was not nice to Melissa and after trying to make it work for 3 years, they divorced.

With her 6 month old baby, Melissa moved into an apartment. Here she gained a testimony of the principle of tithing. She had only enough money to either pay her rent or pay her tithing. She threw her faith behind tithing and gave it a whirl. Someone took her to the fair one night. She remembers walking around and having no money. The next day when she was checking her pockets she found enough money to pay the rent and to buy her relief society manual for the year (this is when people had to purchase them). The Lord blessed her with what she needed. After that she never struggled to pay her tithing.

She also had a powerful experience with Jesus Christ while living on her own. One night she started praying. She was having a hard time so she prayed for about an hour. She felt the presence of the Lord with her so strongly at that point that even after an hour she didn't want to end the prayer. It wasn't the Holy Ghost beside her, it was the Savior. She felt if she looked up she would see him. That he was beside her letting her know how much he loved her and that he would sustain her in all of her trials. Melissa said this experience cemented her to the Savior and the church. That no matter what would happen in her life from then on, she wanted to live in such a way that she could go back to live with him.

Melissa would need that experience. The next several years of her life were incredibly difficult. She met and married a man named Jaime and had her beautiful daughter Elisha with him. However, the marriage was not a happy one. He felt like he had made a mistake and eventually they also divorced.

She again attended another church dance and met a man named Lance. He was a genuis. He loved the Lord and this time she was married in the temple. Every week they would go to the temple and then on a little date. One day after attending the temple together, he told her, « Well, I'm never going back there again. Its all a bunch of bunk. » Melissa felt like she had been stabbed in the heart. Going on counsel from her bishop, she ended this marriage too.

Melissa was done. She figured for whatever reason she could not find a suitable spouse. She also didn't want to put her 2 children through anymore turmoil. She was barely getting by each month and wouldn't have been able to make it if it weren't for the help of her first mother-in-law who felt a strong prompting that she was to help provide for Melissa as long as she needed her.

One day Melissa was sick and requested a priesthood blessing. In that blessing she was told that the best thing in her life was about to happen and she knew what she needed to do. She was baffled by what this meant. After the priesthood holder left she went and knelt down in prayer and prayed to know what it meant until she received an answer. She was told the Lord was going to send her someone that he had chosen for her.

One night a friend and her went to an institute dance. There she met her husband Richard Munn. Once she saw him, she couldn't even wait for him to approach her. She started following him around. They danced a few dances together. They saw each other again at another dance and this time they only dance with each other. Melissa held a special interest Family Home evening and invited Richard to attend. There they filled out their 4 generation pedigree charts that President Kimball had asked everyone to do. After the group Melissa asked Richard over to listen to her read some of the poetry she had written. During the night he put his hand on hers and the spirit was so strong at that one touch that she knew he was the one. That night she asked him to wait 3 months to propose to her, which he did and they married.

They were blessed with 2 more children, both boys. They were all sitting at home one day watching conference and the camera panned across temple square. In that moment the spirit came to both Melissa and Richard and let them know they were supposed to move to Northern Utah. In fact, one of their sons, looking at the TV, said, « We are suppose to move there. » So with faith they moved to Layton Utah and eventually bought a home.

They lived here while they finished raising their children. Melissa would go back to Central Coast California a lot to visit her oldest son and her grandchildren. One time, while fishing with her son, she broke her back. Her health wasn't the best and she noticed she felt better in California by the ocean. So she and her husband planned to move back to California. The night before they were filling out the paperwork on a home, Richard and Melissa were hit in a head on collision by a drunk driver. It broke Melissa's back again and shattered Richard's knee. With Richard being unable to work, they couldn't move. They instead moved into our ward with Melissa's daugher, Elisha. They lived here a few months until Richard could heal enough to go back to work. Then they moved back out to Santa Maria, Ca. Unfortunately, After having lived there for fouryears, The job did not pan out and they returned to live with Elisha to save money to find another place for them to live.

Melissa is an incredible woman of faith. The Lord has led her througout her whole life through many ups and downs. I asked her what advice she would pass on to others at this point in her life. She said without hesistation, « Focus on the Savior and he'll get you through. » Looking back Melissa can see that although she has had many trials, things really did work out as they should. The Lord seemed to be orchestrating her life.

We are blessed to have Melissa in our ward. I hope you will all take the time to get to know and appreciate all the many talents she has to offer and if you get the chance, be sure you ask her to see some of her art work and listen to her poetry – it is amazing!