Gaining a testimony

I was in the Mission Training Center and we, as missionaries, practice teaching one another.  So I was pretending to be an atheist for the other missionaries.  They were asking me a few questions and I was answering them.  Then I looked out our small window and said
"Look outside.  How can you look out there and think that there is a God?  There is NOTHING that proves there..."

I was going to finish that phrase, but was cut off by my emotions.  I couldn't say that God didn't exist.  I could not deny the testimony that I had received through my life. 

Joseph Smith said about receiving a vision from God "I knew it, and I knew that God knew it, and I could not deny it, NEITHER DARED I DO IT."

So how do we gain the testimony that it gets to the point that we cannot deny it?  Gaining a testimony takes work.  We have to desire to gain it and work to gain it. 

Alma 32:27 "But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words." 

So first we have DESIRE.  We have to want a testimony.  We plant a seed.  We long to know the truth of something.  Then we go to work, or NOURISH the seed!  We nourish the seed by earnestly praying and reading more about it.  If it is the testimony, or knowledge that God exist, then we study out the scriptures and find where there is proof that God exist.  For example:
Alma 30:44 
"The scriptures are laid before thee, yea, and all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator." 

We continue to PONDER upon these teachings and PRAYING and asking if this is true.

Then, we know if it is true if it begins to grow, or gives us peace and sometimes warm feelings about the subject.  We know that if a seed is bad, that it will not grow and will not produce anything.  Or, we know that it won't make sense or feel right if it is wrong.  But if it grows, it will continue to grow as you strive to nourish it.  Then it can become a belief. 

Alma 32:34

"And now, behold, is your knowledge perfect? Yea, your knowledge is perfect in that thing, and your faith is dormant; and this because you know, for ye know that the word hath swelled your souls, and ye also know that it hath sprouted up, that your understanding doth begin to be enlightened, and you mind doth behind to expand."

I can promise you that you can gain a testimony of anything if you desire to find the truth.  Then you can say,

"I knew it, and I knew that God knew it, and I could not deny it."