as salaamu alaykum teaky:
I to was in that position only a short time ago.
i was raised catholic and always felt that god wanted me to worship him, but i could not find satisfactory answers to many questions.
many times i even concidered joining a monastery with the hopes that a life time of prayer and poverty would bring me closer to god but i could never bring myself to accept that god would want a person to withdraw from society.
i had read the bible and what stood out to me most was the part where isa (p.b.u.h.) instructed his followers to go out and spread the message. in one version it is reported that he (isa, p.b.u.h.) told them not to take even a staff. in another version it was to take only a staff. i rationalized this contradiction at first by thinking that the meaning was that the message can be interpereted in many ways, and to not take the book literally.
this, of course posed more questions than it answered and, consequently, i abandon any hope of finding answers in the bible.
following this expirience i attempted to use reason to understand religon and how god wanted us to behave.
when the mysterious events of sept. 11th 2001 occured and the media was blaming muslims, i decided to find out more about this "strange religon". my purpose was to understand my enemy.
i bought an english translation of the qur'an and began to read it.
i was amazed. i found myself saying "yes, yes, yes". this book makes more sense to me than any other book i have read. i noticed that many of the things in the book were things that i had already come to belive simply because they made more sense than what i had read in the bible.
it took 5 years, from the time i was introduced to the qur'an to the time i took shahadah.
i would encourage you to learn as much as you can, and to take shahadah as soon as you can. to view life and the world as a new muslim is an experience i would wish on everyone who is searching for truth.
to me, coming from catholicism to islam was like being released from a dark prison into a beautifully lit garden. i think that transformation is like a metaphor for the transition from this life to paradise
on the straight path.