Sometimes God sends you a lift

One of the things I do as a rideshare driver is rent a car to drive. It is expensive and it is horrible. You just can’t destroy your own cars by putting that many miles on them. I’ve been renting cars for years as I traveled for business so I was kind of used to the drill. I learned a long time ago that you go into these situations and make friends with as many people as you can.

When you start working frequently with a particular rental car agency, you want to become friends with the people and they are able to get you better cars and better rates and sometimes even put on extra coverages for free. That stuff can come in handy! They can save you a lot of money by being on your side.

One thing I learned is that you don’t always want to be friends just with the front end people that you deal with face-to-face. It’s good to be friends with the people that clean the cars and the people that stock the cars. They will give you pointers and help you out plus it’s good to be nice. It opens more doors and it’s just better to have friends everywhere, people who have your back. It also gives you the opportunity to develop trust and earn their confidence.

One such man worked for the rental car company and we always talked. He was close to my age and he had children and grandchildren. He was pretty frustrated with life in general because his children were in trouble and they didn’t listen to him. He also felt like his marriage was in trouble and his wife didn’t listen to him either. He felt like his whole life was circling the drain.

We hit it off and started talking about everything. We normally talked about soccer and football. We talked about our families and what makes us tick. To promote these conversations I started giving him free rides to his home. In one of these rides, we talked in detail about our families. He didn’t see how their situation was sustainable and he worried about his son. His son had lots of friends that were in gangs and he was terrified that he would one day get a phone call that his son had been killed.

As I said, previously, he worried about his marriage too but he didn’t worry that his wife would divorce him. They were Catholics for generations and that wasn’t an option. He worried about the fact that he didn’t seem to feel any love in his marriage. He was just getting to the point that he didn’t see what the whole life thing was all about. One day he asked me if I thought it was possible to have a happy family these days.

I told him that it wasn’t possible to have a perfect family with no problems but that it was definitely possible to have a happy family full of love. I said that you do it through the gospel of Jesus Christ. I asked him how often he went to church and he said twice a year. I asked him if he thought his father in heaven would like to see him around more often just like he wanted to have his son around more often. He thought about it for a second and said, that’s an interesting perspective.

I told him that one important thing about our religion is that we believe that families are sealed by the power of God and that they last beyond this life. I told him that we don’t leave. We work it out instead of getting out. I told him that our understanding of the family informs everything we do. We have family night, we have family prayer and we do family scripture study. I told him those things bring the spirit of God into our home every day.

I told him that we go to church every Sunday and by taking the sacrament we become closer with our father in heaven. I told him that all of these things help us keep the important things on the top of our priority list. He said, that’s really cool! He said that as a matter of fact, he had known several families that were members of our church and he had always admired how they seem to be happy and have a positive outlook. I said, that’s the power of having God be a part of your life in a very real way.

I told him that when we are baptized in our church, we get the gift of the Holy Ghost and if we try to do what’s right and repent when we don’t, we can be worthy to have the Holy Ghost with us as a companion. I said, it helps us feel peace in our hearts. He said, that would be so cool.

He said, come to think of it I don’t have any friends who are members of your church that I would know well enough to ask questions. He said, I really don’t want to offend anybody. I said, fire away and don’t be afraid because I will never be offended. If I can tell you and teach you things that can bring peace into your life that would be a great blessing for all of us.

By the time we had talked about all this, we had been sitting in front of his house for about 20 minutes and he had to get going. I asked him if it would be OK for me to give him another ride the following week on the same day. He said, absolutely. He said, I felt so good in your car. I told him that this feeling was the Holy Ghost that I’ve been talking about. I said, when you feel that you know that the things you’re hearing are true. I said, it’s a manifestation of the love of God. He said, I love that, I can’t wait till next week.

The next week at the appointed time in the appointed place, he was right there. As he got in the car, He said, today is the day. I’m going to ask you all the questions. And away we went.

Do we believe in Mary? I said, yes, we believe Mary was the mother of Jesus Christ and an amazing woman but we don’t worship her.

Do we believe in the Saints? just like Mary we believe they were great people but we don’t worship them either.

Who is Joseph Smith? I testified by the spirit of the first vision and the importance of having a prophet to lead the church of Jesus Christ. As I taught the first vision the spirit burned bright in the car and I could tell he was feeling it. I asked him what he felt. He said power. He said, the same good feeling I felt before but wow. I told him that just like before, this is the Holy Ghost and it testifies of truth. God sends his spirit and confirms truth through the Holy Ghost . I said, this way you know that the thing I am saying is true. He said, yes I do!

I talked to him about how God works through prophets. I said, it’s just how he works. That is why we have the Bible. Prophets write the words of God and we have them in scripture. I asked him if God loved the people who lived in ancient America. He said yes, those are my Grandma’s people. I told him that they had prophets and they also wrote their revelations from God. I asked if these writings would be valuable to him. He said yes. I said that this is the Book of Mormon. Those writings were given to Joseph Smith and he translated them by the power of God. I said, that is the Book of Mormon. I reached into my bag and grabbed one for him.

He said, I can’t take your book. I showed him that I had a bunch more in the bag and said, this one is for you. This one is yours. It is a companion with the Bible and it testifies of Jesus. I told him that it teaches of Jesus and his ministry here in America. He said, here? I said yes. I asked him why an all powerful God would not send his son to all of his children. I asked why he would send him to so few. He thought for a second and said, I don’t think he would. I asked, what do you feel right now? He said, the spirit. I asked, what does that mean? He held up the Book of Mormon and said, that this is true.

He asked, as a member of your church I have heard that you can’t drink Coke or eat chocolate. Is that true? I laughed and grabbed a Snickers I had in my bag and took a bite. I said no. He laughed. I said, we have what is called the Word of Wisdom. It teaches us to avoid alcohol, tobacco and other harmful substances along with coffee and tea.

He said he didn’t smoke or drink but was only concerned about the Coke thing I said, you’re good then. Having spent nearly an hour in front of his house it was time for him to go and he got out of the car and went into his house.

The next week I met him again at the same time at the same place and we started right where we left off.

We talked about going to church and listening to the missionaries. He said he would like to try that. We looked up his ward through the tools app and got a hold of his missionaries. The elders got right on it and they started teaching.

One day a couple weeks later, the Elders called me very concerned because he wouldn’t accept that he needed to be baptized. They asked me if I could work on him.

The next week when I picked him up after some small talk I got right down to it. I asked him what was the thing that concerned him so much about baptism. He fidget for a while, popped his knuckles for a minute, and then looked me in the eye. He said, my parents were very faithful people who loved Jesus Christ. My uncle was the priest who baptized me when I was a baby. My whole life, I have been prepared by these people and taught to follow Jesus and do the things that he would have me do. Now you guys show up and tell me that it was all wrong and that my uncle, the priest, was evil and didn’t have any right to baptize me. I can’t leave and abandoned my whole family and heritage. They loved Jesus and they taught me to love him.

I could tell he was very frustrated and very sincere. I knew he was taking this seriously and that he was concerned about doing the right thing. He said, I can’t turn my back on everything and everybody who taught me in my life.

He had a tear in his eye and I could tell that he felt uneasy and agitated in his soul. This decision was ripping him apart.

I asked him how the missionaries had taught him about baptism. He said they taught him about the baptism of Jesus Christ but they used it to tell them how wrong his faith had been and how his baptism didn’t matter.

I felt very moved upon by the spirit and was given a different way to teach him. In this blog I have written about this way of teaching baptism many times but this was the first time I taught it this way.

I talked about how the Book of Mormon teaches us that at one point many the people had gathered together. Many were taught and baptized. In the next few chapters, Jesus descended from heaven to these very people. They recognized him as the son of God. They pled for salvation and Jesus, as a direct response to that plea gave them his baptism. He gave them authority to preform this baptism and instruction on how it was to be done.

I said, he loved them for what they had done and what their parents had done to prepare them to that point. He loved them for being baptized and doing the best they knew how to do to obey. He was honored that they loved him enough to make their baptism such an important part of their lives. This is how they got there, but he was taking them to a new level. Jesus called up 12 and gave them authority to baptize and commanded them to baptize every single person, even though they had already been baptized. He invited them to take this step up to this new level of discipleship with new blessings and new power.

He didn’t spend one second criticizing or trashing what they had done before so therefore we shouldn’t either I told him that Jesus Christ through the missionaries was inviting him to take that same step up in discipleship to that new level by accepting that very same baptism. I told him that Jesus loves his parents for their faithfulness in teaching and baptizing him but now he’s inviting him to this new level. I told him that on that new level he will be able to not only bless his family but his parents and grandparents through the generations. He could bring them up to that new level of discipleship. I explained to him about baptisms for the dead and temple work. I said, families are meant to be together forever and this is how we do it.

I told him that because they were so faithful, I was pretty sure that it’s the kind of thing they would like to do. I said that they would accept that new level and do the things that Jesus wanted them to do.

Now this tough man was sobbing. He said, that’s it! That is the piece that makes it feel like it’s coming together. It seems like that was the final piece missing from the puzzle. I think I need to be baptized.

He still had to go to church and he decided to take his son with him. He was baptized two weeks later. His son showed a remarkable change over the next few weeks and decided he wanted to be baptized as well and the missionaries got right on that.

His wife had never shown much interest and maybe had a little antagonism. With her husband and son going to church, having the spirit with them and deciding to be baptized, she was suffering from an acute case of FOMO (fear of missing out). She decided to start coming to church with the two of them and eventually was baptized as well.

In the end, this man got everything he wanted by taking that step up in discipleship. In following Jesus, who he had been taught to love and serve by his parents., he opened the doors for all of them to take that step up in discipleship and be blessed as families in Gods’s kingdom
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I used to drive this one man to a stake center where they played indoor soccer on Thursday nights. One night I hung around to watch for a minute. There was a guy who came and was just watching. He was hanging out alone in the corner all by himself. I walked up to him and asked why he was just watching. He said, because I don’t belong to this church.

I said, well, we can fix that! Why don’t you go ahead and play? I promised him that we wouldn’t tell anyone. He thought about it for a minute and then went in and played. After they finished playing, I sat with him and talked for a while.
He was pretty open to conversation but seemed to be afraid of something. I asked him if I could give him a ride to his house. It was January after all! After great hesitation and much angst he agreed.

I gave him that ride to his house where he lived in the basement. After I arrived I quickly found the source of his hesitation. His wife had a very strong and borderline abrasive attitude towards me and towards the church. She acted like he had betrayed her and that I was the problem. It was clear that he had been disobedient.

She had heard some bad things about our church and was adamant that they not have anything to do with the church or the people in it. She said she would not allow anyone in her house to badmouth the Catholic church. She looked at me and said, I suppose right now that means especially you. The spirit whispered to me to keep talking.

I said, fortunately, for you, I don’t badmouth any church and in our church we’re not supposed to badmouth other religions. We believe in letting people worship how, where or what they may.i even pulled up the article of faith to prove it.

Following promptings from the spirit I asked if she believed in the Bible. She said yes. I asked her which was more important to her, the Catholic church or the Bible. She hesitated for a long time and said that to her they were one and the same but in the end the Bible was the word of God. After quite a bit of internal deliberation she finally settled on this statement, the Bible, is the more important of the two. I told her that I agreed and that no one in our church was going to take her away from or teardown her belief in the Bible. I said that we would talk about ways to add to the truth she already knew.

She asked, don’t you guys have another Bible? What about that? I said that we believe in the same Bible she believes in and that we could teach her from her own Bible. I told her she was confusing the Bible with the Book of Mormon . She asked, what is the Book of Mormon? I love that question.

I testified about the love of God and the reality of revelation to all of his children as his way to bless them. I asked if it was important for a parent to show love to all of his children even if they are not all together. This touched her and she got a tear in her eye. She whispered yes. I taught her that God had prophets in America to do just that. He wanted to make sure that all of his children had his truth even if they were not in Israel.

I asked her what she felt right then in her heart. She said that she was bursting on the inside. I told her that what she was feeling was the spirit. I said that it was sent by God to testify of truth. I said, it means that the things I am saying are true. I let her know that this is how God guides us in his paths and that we can make right choices if we follow his spirit.

This was important to her for a reason I didn’t know. She and her husband had children back in Guatemala. They were staying with her mother while they came to the United States to earn money to provide for the family. They missed their children and had not been around them for way too long. It was the perfect thing for the spirit to prompt me to say.

I said that God uses prophets to reveal his teachings to his people no matter where in the world and this included her ancestors here in America many years ago. I said that they wrote those revelations down because the teachings from God were important to them. I said that the translation of these writings is what we call the Book of Mormon. I said that the Book of Mormon is direct teachings to her from her ancestors.

From that time forward she was open to hearing what I had to say. I felt prompted to remember what in our mission what we called the Didier discussion. It was taught to us in our mission by Elder Charles Didier of the Seventy. It’s a religious timeline that starts in the Garden of Eden and goes all the way down to today. It discusses prophets, apostasies, the church of Christ, the great apostasy and the restoration of the Gospel through Joseph Smith. It is an easy freeform, non-threatening way to teach someone who has no real exposure to the church. As I went over the material they both agreed with every point I made.

I used the Bible relying heavily on Ephesians to demonstrate the structure of the Church of Jesus Christ. The part that touched her was where it says that apostles and prophets will always be the structure of the church of Christ until we all come to a unity of the faith. That blew the wife away because she knew that there was absolutely no unity of the faith in the world today. She knew that Based on this there had to be apostles and prophets in the true church.

Reading this with her I said, if you’re trying to find the church of Jesus Christ, you need to find a church with the same structure. She said yes. Then i talked to them about the restoration of the modern-day church. I taught them more about the Book of Mormon and how important a knowledge of that book is to our salvation. This was a huge topic. The wife was fascinated by the thought of Jesus coming to America. All this time her husband was sitting over in the corner, smiling yet not saying a word. She clearly was the hurdle that had to be overcome.

Finally, I talked to her about the baptism of Jesus Christ and asked her if she had been baptized in that way. She said that she had not. I invited her to take the lessons with the missionaries, follow Jesus Christ and accept his baptism. She did not reject the idea out of hand. I read Moroni’s promise and testified to her. She sat quiet for some time and then carefully said that if she could pray and get an answer that the church was true, she would accept that baptism.

When she said this her husband glowed. It turns out that he had known about the church for years. He had family that were members of the church. He had wanted to become a member of the church but she would always stop the conversation before it ever got started. This is why he hung around soccer at the church. He knew that they played soccer at the church and was hoping for a miracle. He wanted someone do just what we did that night.

From that day forward everything progressed very quickly and three weeks later they were baptized. The biggest sticking point came on the day when the missionaries talked about the Word of Wisdom. After much discussion and prayer we walked out of there with three bags of coffee and a coffee maker.

On the day they were baptized she said that she was so happy to be home! She was thrilled when her husband was ordained a Priest in the Aaronic priesthood. He was happy to finally be following his heart and serving the Lord in his church. His position in Thursday night soccer was assured.

Shortly after their baptism they went back to Guatemala to take care of their family.
Her mother who had been taking care of their three children was sick. She could no longer provide the care they needed. I called the ward in Guatemala to let the bishop know they were coming. They welcomed them with much love in that ward. There they are active member of the church.

In a previous experience “the sweetest smell of unfinished buisness” I referenced a man I baptized from an area in my mission. This whole story led me to additional understanding regarding what it means when we say that God is all knowing and all powerful. Every Mission President I’ve ever met has a big board with all of the missionary companionships on it. Whenever they do companionship changes, I imagine them praying and sitting there looking at the names and letting the Lord direct them as to where people should be placed and who people should be placed with. Through this experience, I gained a belief that God has a similar program. We are all on his board and he puts us where we need to be to bless us throughout our lives.

In my mission I had become very sick. I had been pulled out of my area and been stuck in the hospital for two weeks. After being realeased I rehabbed and after a pure miracle and blessing from God I was assigned to another area and allowed to finish my mission. Even though I recognize the miracle and was grateful for the blessing I received to finish my mission, I always felt horrible about leaving that area early and knew there was unfinished business there. For years I regretted the fact that I was not able to finish the job I felt was there for me. I didn’t see how I would ever make that right.

Fast forward a bunch of years.

There was a young Argentine lady in our ward from that area. She knew all of the people I knew and was baptized about two years previous to moving into our ward. She was dating a boy who was a returned missionary in our ward. He is a great guy.

This girl lived with a lady in our ward who rented rooms in her home. Imagine my shock when I found out that she was baptized in that ward in Argentina where I had served. I got to be really good friends and it was fun too have her around. It kind of gave me a mission feel.

After a few months, her brother moved here and moved into the same home where she had been living. I believe her parents had sent him down to make sure she didn’t get swallowed up by those Mormons.

He was an awesome guy and we got along famously from the start. I felt the impression that I was supposed to baptize this young man and that this would bless his family back in my old area. I was very excited! He was like every other Argentine I have ever met. He deeply felt and extensively contemplated the pain and injustice in the world. He was always trying to find a way to make it better.

I started teaching him about the gospel and he liked the things he was hearing. He was a big fan of the fast and fast offerings. He loved the atonement and the description of it being God’s plan to alleviate suffering.

He had never been taught about the infinite nature of the atonement. The thought that it was for more than just for sins was very appealing to him. He loved the fact that it could alleviate suffering and lift people, regardless of their spiritual or physical condition.

When I testified about the atonement, I always felt the power of the spirit in the room and I helped him identify that. I told him that this feeling is how he felt in the presence of God and that when he felt that he knew that God was revealing truth to him.

It was by no means a slam dunk though. Due to his past dealings with religion (the Catholic Church) he had a huge distrust of organized religion.

The way we addressed this was to teach him the importance of ordinances, the proper authority necessary and correct performance of this ordinance. He had no problem believing that the Catholic Church didn’t have valid authority from God because of the corruption that he saw in that church. Because of this, he hadn’t seen a need for organized religion at all.

We taught him that when Jesus visited America he invited everyone to take a step up in discipleship and make a new covenant through his baptism and by the authority he brought. We taught taught him that performing ordinances like baptism by the authority has power to bind us to heaven. It helps us make the changes in our lives we need to make to bless those around us with God’s light. He decided to pray about that. Finally he came over to my house. He knocked on the door and with tears in his eyes he said that he had received his witness that indeed the keys to perform these ordinances had been restored and he understood the need for the organization of the church to administer those necessary ordinances.

The spirit was really strong in our conversation and I asked him to describe what he was feeling. He said that when he prayed it was like everything was light around him and he felt like he was floating. He felt such a wonderful peace and he knew that it was true. He knew that this witness came from God. I told him that as we had discussed before, this was the spirit of God and that it touched him and revealed truth. He agreed.

After getting his testimony of the keys and ordinances of the church, he began to view the gospel in a different light. He saw it as the only answer to all of the pain and injustice in the world. He saw that obedience to God’s law was the only way humanity would come together and bless each other. He said, everyone in the world needs this. This is how we will make a difference.

He loved that we had a prophet. On conference weekend I helped him get the sessions in Spanish. He loved it and he loved the things he learned. He was very good at recognizing the spirit in a room, a meeting or when he was praying. He wanted to have the gift of the Holy Ghost and he wanted to be baptized.

When it was time for him to be baptized, he had a crazy little request. He wanted to be baptized in the Provo River.…In March! Brrrrrr. I told him that we had a baptismal font where the water would be warm. He said that he wanted to be baptized like Jesus was baptized and Jesus was baptized in the river. To do this we had to get permission from the Mission President at the time. He thought it was a great idea so into the freezing water we decided to go. We found a spot and finally the day came. It was a great ward turnout and we had a nice barbecue afterwards to celebrate.

He got a job with my neighbor and fit really well in the ward. His parent’s plan of wrecking his sister’s Mormon marriage and church membership had totally and completely failed. In fact, it had backfired spectacularly because he had testified with such power that some of the people at home in Argentina became members of the church. He loved going to the temple to do baptisms and did work for his grandparents who would have been there when I was on my mission. The thing is, I felt like I was possibly doing some of the work that was taken away from me years before in my mission.

He eventually moved back to Argentina but I knew that he had been brought here through that eternal transfer board so that he and his family could receive the gospel. It was very cool. Through this whole experience, I learned that God is merciful and that if there are people who we are supposed to touch and teach, God will see to it.

Maybe we will be brought to them or God can bring them to us. Either way, I t’s important that we know that the transfer board is in continual motion and if we’re ready, God will plug us in where he needs us to be so that we can do the things that he has for us to do.

There was a family in a north Orem ward that seemed to generate an unusual amount of interest with the ward members. They had three children, two of them were teenagers ages 19 and 18 and the youngest was nine years old.

These kids were well liked but everybody was afraid to talk to them about the church. They were afraid to mess things up. They didn’t go to church but everyone that lived around them were members and they always talked about them. They invited them to parties that they attended every now and then.

I was serving as a language missionary at the time and felt moved by the spirit that I needed to get involved with them so I went over to meet the family. When I met them I understood why everyone was excited about them. They were a beautiful family! They were very welcoming and there was a great spirit of hospitality in the home. I could see why people thought that they would make good members of the church. I figured that there was only one way to do that, actually talk to them about the church and help them feel the spirit.

One day I went over with a missionary. We took the opportunity to teach a lesson to the family and it seemed to be very well received. When I bore my testimony of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon I could see the spirit move through them. To one degree or another almost everyone was receptive to the challenges we made and the spirit brought by testimony. They seemed to want to hear more with the exception of the father.

I just think that the rest of the family was better prepared. The children and the wife all had friends in the ward and fit in very nicely but the father did not. It was really interesting how as I talked to members of the ward about them, no one ever talked about the father. As I spent time with him, I learned that this was a big mistake. The parents had decided that they would either all be baptized or none of them would be baptized. By turning their backs on the father, missionaries and members of the ward had virtually assured that the family would never be baptized.

I decided to become the father’s friend and work with him, love him up and help him feel the spirit. I was prompted that if he felt the spirit, he would either decide to get baptized or relent and support his family. I felt like the spirit could soften his heart and move him to give us permission to teach the family and eventually baptize them. I had the distinct impression this would never get done by going around him. I was taught by the spirit that he was proud of his family and felt that his position in his family was threatened by the church and the people trying to separate the family into different religions. He was adamant that they stay together. A large investment of time and love was required on this one.

I started taking big gulps to the mechanic shop where the father worked and chatting him up a couple of times a week. I went over and talked to him at his house, we watched soccer and did things to become friends. I did whatever I could to let him know I cared.

I even went one Friday night to the Mexican night club in Salt Lake City where his band played. I was the only white person there. I was the only person there not drinking. Everyone was staring at the gringo and it was very funny. I think he probably thought I was nuts. I felt out of place. The good thing is that I stayed and we had a great conversation when they finished their set. I think I was able to tough it out that night because I’m used to being an embarrassment! I’ve had years of experience with this. Ask my wife and kids.

Whenever I saw him, we would talk about the church and I would identify the spirit in the conversation. I figured that if he got used to feeling and identifying it this would help change his heart. He talked to me about his family heritage in Catholicism. He talked about how devoted they were and the sacrifices they had made for that religion over the generations .

I let him know that I believed Jesus really appreciated the sacrifice and devotion he and his family had offered. I talked about how Jesus loves effort and devotion. I mentioned that when Jesus came to America, he descended from heaven and invited everyone to take a step up to a new level of discipleship by receiving his baptism by his authority.

I showed him in third Nephi, where it talks about how the people were taught and baptized and the righteous devoted people were there waiting for Jesus. He invited them to take this step up without spending even one second criticizing their past beliefs and practices. He invited them to take a step up to a new level of discipleship. I said, we are not here to have you reject or dishonor your family heritage. We are here to offer that new level, that step up and that baptism that Jesus gave to your ancestors. I said, you have taught your family to follow Christ. That is their heritage that they received from you. They are just taking that discipleship of Jesus to the next level. You should be proud!

Finally one day he said that it was okay if his children took the lessons and were baptized but that he and his wife would not. This was sad because she really wanted to be a member. She had a really strong group of friends in the ward. I asked him if it would be OK if she continued to attend church. He said yes. I asked him if he would attend occasionally too. He said yes, he would. He said he had gone a few times and that he would be a very supportive father.

I can’t put into words how big of a change this was. The spirit changed his heart from forbidding the family to explore, to accepting it and being willing to provide some level of support. I knew that this was the first step in what eventually would end in the temple for all of them. I felt the impression not to press him harder right then and that the Lord would bring them to the church in his own time. I also felt that it was important to rally around him and love him up with the culture of the ward. I told the bishop that we needed to treat him as if he were a member and even have him participate in little ways where it was possible.

One time the Bishop organized a young men’s activity where this man taught them how to change the oil in their car. It was fun to watch him give of himself to these young men. I think it made him part of something bigger. It made him feel like part of the ward family. The respect they gave him was touching and I know he felt it.

The elders asked him if he could fix the bikes for the sister missionaries. Their bikes were always a disaster and this Zone leader felt like it would be a great idea to have him serve the sisters by fixing their bikes. He loved this and enjoyed being around the missionaries in this way.

With his blessing, we began to teach the 18 year old boy and his 19 year old sister. They were both eager and accepted the gospel very quickly. They were very spiritually sensitive and not only recognized truth but recognized the spirit testifying of that truth. They were nearly perfect investigators and were baptized one week apart and have never looked back. They are both married in the temple and are extremely active in their wards. The daughter married the son of the bishop and that bishop took over the fellowship of the father. The younger child was also baptized soon after and about a year later the mother was baptized as well.

About a year and a half after the mother’s baptism, the family moved to California. The father still goes to church semi regularly and he is blessed by his association as a member of the ward family. I know that someday he will be baptized too and this family will be an eternal family. As members of the church continue to work with him and love him, his pride will turn into submission to the Lord and his sense of obligation will be redirected. This family someday will be a forever family. He opened the door, he sees the light and one day he will follow it.

When I was serving with the language, missionaries, I was helping out In an Orem ward. I was helping them do more than just write a ward mission plan. I was showing them how to implement one.

I have always believed that you can’t implement a ward mission plan without receiving revelation about those you will teach. This is mostly due to the fact that it is Heavenly Father who prepares them and knows when they’re ready. The problem is that if we don’t do our part to personally know the people and pray over them by name it gets less likely the Lord will give us revelation regarding those people. It’s very important that you get to know them and invest in them so that you are receptive to the spirit when the Lord need you to step in and do your part to get them ready.

I was helping them out by visiting every home in the ward. I was identifying the people so that we could pray over them and receive revelation about them.

There were a group of homes on one of the streets in their ward that was a mystery. They really didn’t have any idea who lived in those houses and so I decided that’s where I would start. I just went over and started knocking doors.

One of the houses didn’t have anyone home or at least they didn’t have anyone answering the door. After a minute waiting at the door without an answer, I started walking away and marking that house on the map with a question mark. I had a strong prompting to go through the gate of the fence at the side of the house and go to the backyard.

I want to be clear that trespassing was not something I normally did but I felt a spiritual compulsion to do it. I unlatched the gate and looked in the backyard. On the back side of the house was basement entrance with a door to an apartment. I hadn’t seen this from the front yard and as far as I knew, no one in the ward knew these people were here.

I knocked and a lady came to the door. She was really nice. I told her I was from the ward and that we were trying to find all of the people we didn’t know and get their information so we could invite them to activities. I asked the lady if she had ever heard of the church. She didn’t answer right away. She expression was a mixture of shocked, and thoughtful. She was speechless

Finally, she spoke. She asked, how did you find me here? Did someone tell you I was here? Did my dad call you and tell you to come after me? All of a sudden she was asking all of the questions. I looked her right in the eye and said, no one called me. No one told me you were here except the spirit. The spirit told me to come back here and talk to you. The spirit also tells me that you have a story to tell.

It turns out that she was returned sister missionary and had grown up in the church. She had left the church some years back because as she said, she just didn’t feel it anymore. Nowadays she never talked about the church or lived it in any meaningful sense. She said that she thought that her boyfriend thinks she is Catholic.

I was a little shocked. I got a strong prompting to ask her to tell me her favorite three stories from her mission. Once she started her countenance began to change. I could tell that this exercise weakened her resolve to turn her back on the church. She was smiling and the temperature changed in the room. The spirit was there and I learned that we had something there to work with.

I later found out that her grandfather had been a stake president back in California and her father was a patriarch. I felt the distinct impression that Heavenly Father needed this woman and her gifts, along with those of her boyfriend that she lived with, to build up the kingdom. I told her this and she said that her boyfriend wasn’t a member of the church. I did not understand how you get to this depth of separation from what you know to be right. I told her about how I did not understand why the church was not something they never talked about in their home. Satan sure finds ways to blind us and sell us a lie, doesn’t he?

They had an 18 month old daughter and she had decided to live her life without the gospel. I asked her if it would be OK if we got Relief Society, ministers for her. She said that she had a couple of friends in the ward who were sworn to secrecy. She asked me if we could just count them. I laughed and made a mental note of that.

I went back and reported to the ward mission leader to let him know what I had found. He was shocked that he didn’t know about her. I told him about her friends in the ward and he immediately called the bishop and the Relief Society president to get them assigned as her ministering sisters. I also started praying for this woman because I felt very sure that her father and her grandfather were hoping the Lord would intervene in her life and bring the gospel back. I was hoping I could be part of that.

One Sunday at church, the ministering sisters told me that her child was really sick. I decided to go over with the ward mission leader instead of going to sunday school and ask them if we could give the baby a blessing. We went over and the ward mission leader anointed and I sealed the blessing.

While I was giving the blessing, I felt very strongly that I should have a conversation to challenge this father about why he didn’t want to get baptized and have the priesthood so that he would be able to bless his own family and not need other men to do it..

As soon as I was done with the blessing, we sat down in the living room. I looked at him and I said, “how did it make you feel to call on some strange guy to come over to your house and bless your child when you should have been doing it yourself?” He looked shocked at me and his girlfriend looked terrified.

I didn’t know until later that she had told everyone she knew not to push religion on him. She told them that he wasn’t interested or ready. Even though he had a shocked look on his face, the power of the spirit was very strong in the room and could not be denied. He looked at me and asked, “would it be possible for me to be able to do this?” I said, yes. Once you become a member of the church and get the priesthood, you will be able to do this. We will help you.

He said that he would love to do that but he just didn’t see how it could work out. I asked him why. He told me it was because he could never go to church. I asked him if he worked on Sundays. He said no. I asked him what could possibly be the problem then.

He kind of mumble that he couldn’t ever go to church because he had a scheduling conflict. I asked him what kind of a scheduling conflict it was. He said that there was a soccer game he played in each week. It was a group of people that got together at the soccer field with their teams. The games went on all morning exactly during the time they were supposed to be at church I told him that I believed that God would make it possible for him to attend church. I told him that things would change for him because he knew he was supposed to.

Keep in mind that he wasn’t a professional player or anything. This was recreational soccer. It was an excuse and not a very good one at that. I believe that he mumbled because he knew that it wasn’t a good excuse. I had the impression that the Lord was going to take care of it so I didn’t push anymore.

The spirit was really strong when we left that day and we scheduled another appointment for the following Sunday after church. We went to church and looked for him. I had hoped he would have a change of heart and decide to come but he wasn’t there. After church we went over to his house. There he was with his leg up on a chair, his foot and knee packed with ice. He hurt his knee pretty bad and as it turned out, he wouldn’t be able to play soccer for about 2 1/2 months.

Due to the expected extended absence, his team found someone else for his spot and he no longer had a soccer game on Sundays! I remembered having the impression that Heavenly Father would free up his Sundays so he could go to church and I smiled. We started going over frequently and hanging out with them, teaching them the gospel and preparing them. After about two months he was ready to be baptized. The only thing holding him back was the fact that they were not married.

I helped them get the identifications necessary and then I took them down to the county building so they could get a marriage license. They were married by the bishop in the primary room really close to the baptismal font. I loved the location! We baptized him the week before Thanksgiving.

The return sister missionary who was now his wife went home to California with her newly baptized husband to see her parents and give them the news. Her father, the patriarch, had been praying for years that the Lord would intervene in his daughter’s life. It was great to see his prayers answered and their lives blessed. Now when the baby is sick, dad can give the blessings.

I believe that through other people listening to the spirit, the Lord will open doors not available to us if our children stray. I saw that with this family. I believe that God keeps the promises he makes to us. When it’s time to put someone in the place they would never go, to say the word that parents can’t say God will do just that. He has a plan for all of his children whether they are ready in this life or the next, he will send his messengers to them. Keep praying and loving.

I have several friends who live close that I have had the privilege of teaching. I love going over to one of my friend’s house because it has became quite a good way to do missionary work. They rent rooms in their house and have lots of nonmembers around there all the time. It is a pure baptizing environment!

Along with the renters, from time to time members of their family live with them. They come from all over the US and Latin America. They stay with them sometimes for up to a year. This was the case for the mother of my friend”s wife. Her name was Maria. She had come to stay with her daughter and was one of the most friendly and engaging people I’ve ever met. As per usual, I went over and started talking to her. Eventually we started talking about the church.

One day early on as we were talking she said that she hadn’t gone to church much for many years. She said she had lost faith in religion but never in Jesus. I told her that this can happen but through Christ we can heal and be part of his church.

She said her problem was pretty specific and had to do with following the teachings of the Bible. She said that she had been dismayed at the lack of obedience to the Bible shown by the Catholic Church. I perked up and was all ears. She said that one particular question had pushed her away from the Catholic Church. I asked her to tell me what that question was. She paused for a moment and said, OK. If you can answer this question I will listen to what you have to say.

The question was, do you have idols in your church houses? I explained to her in no uncertain terms that we do not have idols, crosses or any other objects that we worship. When I told her this she insisted on telling me why she had the question.

Some years before she had been a very active Catholic. She went to church twice a week and participated to the fullest extent with her church. She always wondered why they didn’t encourage people to read the Bible and one day she decided that it was time for her to read it. She started reading from the beginning. I have to say I have admiration for anybody who sets out to seriously read the WHOLE Bible. I have done it multiple times and it is a huge undertaking. These people want to know the word and will of the Lord.

When she got to Exodus 20 it changed her life. Many times people just read over the Ten Commandments, just blowing by. We know those already and think “nothing new here”. For Maria, it was different this time. She read verses 3,4 and 5 where it says,
3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

She was shocked! She realized that in the Catholic Church, she had been bowing down before graven images her whole life. She knew, after reading this, that doing so was in direct conflict with the teachings of the holy Bible.

She was so moved by the spirit testifying of this principle that she got up from her chair, went to the kitchen drawer, grabbed the hammer and went to the corner of her living room and decided to rectify her situation. .

In that corner of the living room she had what can best be described as a shrine to the catholic saints. She had idlos she had called statues for many of them, each on their individual shelf in her shrine.

Hammer in hand, she attacked each one of these statues smashing it into a million pieces. She gathered up the broken glass and threw it out of the window into the alley. She didn’t want it in her house. When her husband returned home, he was shocked. Out of concern for her mental state he took her to the psychiatric hospital for evaluation.

From that day forward she never set foot in the Catholic Church. She told her family that she was waiting for the day that God would send her the truth and that the church of God would not worship graven images or idols.

I need to take a minute here to say that I know God prepares people and that there are some amazing people waiting for this light and truth, but WOW!

Once I told her that we did not have idols in our church she was excited to attend with us. She wanted to see for herself. That next Sunday she went to church with our family. When we arrived, she walked around the church in and out of many rooms. She was very impressed and felt the spirit very deeply. She was so touched that when we sat down for Sacrament meeting about 15 minutes before the meeting was to start, she asked me if it would be okay if she prayed. I said yes. To my surprise she knelt right there, on the floor at the bench and began to pray. She asked God to let her know if this was his church. She prayed out loud for about 2 or 3 minutes. When she got up she looked me right in the eyes and told me that the spirit told her that she had finally found the Church of God, the church of Jesus Christ.

I was very excited and went to call the missionaries. I wanted them to come over and meet her. I wanted to get this going. They were over the moon with this news and said they would be there to meet her when the meeting ended. As I finished the call there were two women from our ward who cornered me.

They said that they had seen something that I needed to address with my new friend. I was concerned and asked, what is it? They said that they saw her kneeling in the chapel praying. They said that they wanted me to take care of it. I said, oh my! You are right! We can’t have people praying at church! What would this place be like if everybody prayed!

I don’t think they would have ever asked me in the first place if they had heard the words come out of their mouths like I did. They walked off with some new ideas and things to consider. These sisters quickly figured it out and became her friends in the end.

Needless to say The discussions went rather smoothly. She loved the Book of Mormon and felt the truth in its words. She even noticed places where they taught not to be idolatrous with great joy. She loved the Joseph Smith story and had a testimony of modern prophets. Three weeks later she was baptized. I will always be touched by the faith of this woman who read the word of God, felt the spirit testify of its truth and then had the strength to hold her ground and wait for God to bless her with the fullness of the gospel. She is now very old and lives in another country. They recently announced a new temple in her city. She is very excited to have that new temple close to her

By the way, my granddaughter Sophie got baptized today the 12th. It was awesome. She invited non member friends and they loved it. Their parents commented on the strong spirit they felt. She is already a great missionary even though as a toddler she called them misheronies

I had a church calling that required me to attend meetings and trainings all over Orem and Vineyard. I would go to these meetings on Sundays and they were held in several different chapels. Due to this I got to know the different wards, stakes and Spanish wards quite well.

One Sunday, I was driving down Center Street in Orem heading towards meetings in Vineyard when I saw a man walking along the side of the road. This man was Latino and about 40 years old. He was dressed in pretty ratty and kind of dirty clothes. He was unshaven and looked dirty. Normally I drive right past that person. On that day I did as well but when I got about 300 yards down the road the spirit screamed at me to go back and get him and take him to church. I hit the brakes and flipped a U in front of Mountain View High School and drove back up and found him in the parking lot of the the offices behind the post office.

I pulled over to talk to him and at first he was a little apprehensive as you might expect. Soon he started to warm up. We talked about what was going on for a second. Then I said to him, “I am going to church down on Geneva Road. Have you ever heard of the Church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints?” He said he didn’t know anything about it.

At this time there was a Spanish ward that met in the church I was going to take him to. It was a very vibrant, loving and fantastic ward. I had the very distinct impression that he needed to go there to that ward. (In the end it turned out that he lived in that ward’s boundaries. God does know what he is doing.)

He said he wasn’t aware of any churches on Geneva Road except Mormon churches. I laughed and said “why don’t you get in with me and I’ll take you there. I really think that God sent me to take you there because he wants you there. You are supposed to go there.” With a surprised look on his face he smiled and said, ok, I don’t have any other place to be or any place at all. There is no place where they want me so yes, I’ll go with you.

On the drive down I talked to him a little bit about the church and prophets. I explained to him that we had a prophet now on the earth just like we did in ancient times. I told him that this prophet speaks with God for us and that I believed that God wanted him to know what the prophet had to say. He said that he would love to listen to and learn from a prophet. He said he loved the Bible. I asked him if he thought it would have been cool if his ancestors in America had lived with prophets like they did in the Bible. He said, yes, that would be amazing. I smiled really wide and said, well they did. He said, what? I said, your ancestors here in America had prophets just like they did in the Bible . He asked, why have I never heard of this? I said, just like in the Bible, the people fell away, and the teachings were lost for a long time. He asked, how do you know this? I said, because just like in the Bible, the prophets who lived here in America wrote down their prophecies and their teachings. They engraved them on plates made out of gold to preserve them for us to have in our day .

I said, they wrote about God and his truth. They wrote about Jesus Christ and his visit to America. He said, I’ve never heard of that. I said, Jesus loves everyone, not just the people in Jerusalem and just like them God had prophets for your ancestors. Jesus Christ came to them as well because he loved them . I said, those prophets wrote about his visit and by reading it you can hear and feel the love of Jesus Christ for your people.

He asked, how do I get a hold of these teachings? I told him that God called Joseph Smith to be a prophet. Joseph Smith was seeking truth and was directed by the Bible to pray. When he prayed, God the father and Jesus Christ visited him in a vision. They called him to be the prophet. He was later given the writings of those prophets and he translated them. Because of this we have their words today. The book is called the Book of Mormon. He said, I’ve heard of that but I had no idea that is what it was. I said, it’s the word of God directly to you and your people. He said, I want one. I said, I have one for you and I gave him one that I had in my car. We were almost at the church and I asked him how it felt right now in the car. He said, exciting and happy. I told him that this was the spirit of God. This is how he felt when he was in the presence of God. I told him that God sends his spirit to us to reveal truth. I said, when you feel that, you know that the things you are hearing are true. He said, I know that what you said is true. I said, as you go to church and as you talk with the missionaries pay attention and look for that same feeling you’re feeling right now. When you feel that, you will know that the things you are hearing are true. By the time we got to the church he was pretty intrigued.

He was concerned about the way he was dressed. He wondered if he could go to a church dressed like that. I asked him if Jesus required those he taught to have fine clothes and worldly things or if he wanted them to be poor of spirit, humble and ready to accept his teachings. He said that Jesus taught the poor and I am poor. I asked if he was poor in spirit, humble and ready to listen to and follow Christ. He said yes.

He felt uncomfortable because he wasn’t dressed for church yet he stayed the whole time and talked with everyone who would talk to him. He really loved everything about it. During the next week he also spent a lot of time with the members of the church as he was taught the gospel. The following week when he came to church he brought his cousin with him.

He had told his cousin about everything. He told him how I had picked him up and taken him to church but most of all what he had felt and how he heard God’s voice in the car when I spoke. His cousin was also excited to learn so he began by taking the first lesson. The next week, right after church we had a meeting where they were both excited about the church and accepted baptismal challenges.

They were faithful and they went to church every week. The cousin had some issues from his previous life that he had to work through and had several interviews with the mission president before he finally received his clearance to be baptized. He was there when Jose was baptized and faithfully attended church and his lessons until the day when he could be baptized.

I thought about how at first when I drove by I may have looked like the priest or the Levite in the story of the good Samaritan. I was so busy getting to my meeting that I passed by the one who needed me.

I am thankful that God grabbed me, turned me around and helped me rescue these two men. The payoff was the first day I saw each of them pass the sacrament and officiate in the priesthood. I saw the change of their countenance of their no longer dirty and unshaven faces. They had that glow. When you see this change in people’s lives, it changes your life. You know that God works miracles.

I have a friend who lived over near me from Latin America. If you look in the dictionary under a man of few words, you see his picture. He never really had much to say, but he had good vibes. He would go to church with his wife but he wasn’t baptized.

I asked the family why he wasn’t baptized and they said they didn’t know. They said he didn’t want to talk about it. They told me the story of this family and the church and their dad‘s role in making sure they were faithful even though he wasn’t a member. They lived about 2 1/2 hours from the small town where they met in a home they used as a church house. It was a dangerous drive. My friend would get up every Sunday morning and drive his family to church, then go to sacrament meetings with his family and finally drive them back. He had rejected the church so many times that no one bothered with him.

All of his kids were members of the church and one had served a mission. He paid for that mission by working an extra job. This man loved his family and he wanted to see them do the right things.

When they told me the story I was blown away. When we discussed this family, a lot of people I knew would say, what’s wrong with this guy? I was sitting in a meeting hearing these types of comments when the spirit whispered to me, “no! Look at and focus on what’s right with this guy”.

I heard the voice of my Mission President, president Baroni, in Argentina, who used to say, people aren’t stupid, they usually do the things that they do for good reasons. He would always say that this is when you have to listen to the spirit and let the Lord give you the right questions to ask. He taught us to show proper love so that they would feel the spirit when you ask those inspired questions.

It was almost as if I was in a training watching President Baroni say that. Instantly, I knew that these were my marching orders. I had to quit treating him like the annoyance or the plus one, like he had been treated for years by many people, and get to know him.

This tends to happen when we are focused intently on the members of the family who have been baptized and accept the nonmember status of the ones who have not. Many times we have a tendency to quit working with them. We quit trying with them and we quit praying about them. We just know that they are the non-members in the family .

It became clear to me by the spirit that it was time for him to feel the love of his father in heaven so that he could be receptive to the questions and open his heart. I felt an urgency to have an honest exchange.

He was staying with his son‘s family and they were friends of mine. This was good because some of them had become a little bit lax in their attendance at church meetings. They arrived late and left after sacrament meeting. I had been over with that family a lot trying to change their temperature towards being fully engaged in the church. I decided to use that proximity to get to know this patriarch of the family. I figured that one of the best ways to get them re-energized and on point with the church would be working with his father.

When I brought it up to his wife and kids they kind of laughed and said, everybody else has tried. What makes you think that you can make this happen? When they said that in my mind, I remembered the prompting I received and what President Baroni had said. I said, I don’t think I’m going to do anything. We’re going to create an environment where the Lord can work in his heart.

We became friends and started taking long rides and talking a lot. We talked about everything from farming to construction. We even sprinkled in a little soccer, given the fact that I knew the most famous professional soccer player from his own country personally. He was duely impressed.

After several months of this, our friendship was strengthening. He was attending church with his family as had been his custom for years even though there was not a 2 1/2 hour drive. It was more like a five minute slow walk.

I felt impressed by the spirit that it was time to start asking questions. I still hadn’t been given a clear question by the spirit to ask. I started asking general questions about the gospel.

Do you know about Joseph Smith? His answer was, Yes!
Do you believe he saw God? He said yes!
Do you believe the Book of Mormon is true? He said yes.
Do you believe the church is true? He said yes.
I asked him, if you believe these things are true, why haven’t you been baptized? He got kind of a little bit squirrely and said, I have my reasons. I felt like he was almost there, but not quite.

The next Sunday, I had the weirdest prompting. The prompting was that I was supposed to get the key to the baptistery and take him there. In our stake this was not an easy thing to do. I learned a long time ago that in our stake many times the keys to the buildings and the rooms in the buildings are often confused for actual power and getting a hold of them was not easy. I had even been chastised by the stake Primary President for baptizing too many people at different days throughout the month. She insisted I should baptize them all on her stake baptism day and had complained about me to the Stake Presidency. Oh the roadblocks to missionary work we love to construct in the name of organization. The rules we make are sometimes pretty astounding.

We did not attend church in the Stake Center so this was not going to be easy. I called the high councilman and he hemmed and hawed. He didn’t want to go up against the Primary President. I decided to go straight to the stake President and tell him that I’ve been working with this guy and felt prompted by the spirit that I needed to take him over there and show him the baptismal font. He gave me his keys and said, go for it. Maybe I should have just started with him.

The next day, I went over to see my friend and asked him if he wanted to go for a ride. He said yes. Usually rides included something of a treat like ice cream or cookies. Because of this, getting him to go for a ride was not a difficult thing. We got in the car and drove to the Stake Center.

I told him that this was our Stake Center. I turned off the car and we went in. I could tell he was quite anxious and very curious as to why we were at the Stake Center. This was not our normal route when we went for rides. We walked in and walked to the primary room. I went to open the curtains to the baptismal font but the spirit very loudly said not to do this. The spirit told me to take him down into the empty font. Having been led to this point by prompting, I was wondering what I was going to do next.

We walked down into the font and I thought that I would just show him that this is where we did baptisms. I took this opportunity to bear my testimony of the truthfulness of the church, the prophet Joseph Smith, and the Book of Mormon. I testified about baptism and how in the Book of Mormon, Christ commanded everyone that they needed to be baptized, even though they had previously been baptized . I showed him how we stand and how you hold their hand and dip them beneath the water. I mentioned that when I do baptisms, I usually fill the font and I like lots of very warm water.

As I was showing and describing baptism in detail standing in the font the spirit was strong. It was undeniable and I could tell he was feeling it. I looked at him and a light came on in his eyes and a hopeful smile came across his face.

Something clicked. He said, hold on! You baptized people in here? I’ve never been to a baptism in the United States. Are you telling me that you baptize people here? I said, yes, in the warm water. Then I said, this is where we’re going to baptize you! When do you want to get baptized?

To this point he had always intensely avoided the baptism conversation but I could tell that barrier had now been broken. He started to cry and asked, do you want to know why I have never been baptized? I said, yes, it’s a question I’ve had for some time. I have prayed that Heavenly Father would help me know so that I could help you get baptized.

We were still standing there in the baptismal font and he looked at me and said, when I was a kid, two of my friends and I went down to the river to play. We went out in the water and we got in trouble. My two friends drowned and I have been terrified to go into the river ever since then. I’ve never told anyone that. I haven’t gone fishing because of that and I never swim or get in water. I even shower instead of taking baths because I don’t like water. I’m terrified of it. In our town where I’m from, they baptize in that same river my friends drowned in. My kids and my wife were baptized in that river but I could never bring myself to get in that river so I shut myself off to the possibility. I just hoped that my Catholic baptism as a baby would do it for me.

He looked at me and asked, so you’re saying I can be baptized here and not in the river? I said, yes, that’s exactly what I’m telling you. I said, everyone here is baptized in a font like this in a building and not in the river. I asked him if he would be baptized with that same baptism Jesus taught and the same way he taught it. I said, let’s make this right.

The smile on his face lit up the room and he asked, how soon can I be baptized? This is the kind of question that I like to answer. Here we had a man that had pretty much been attending our ward every week for a few months. He had been for all intents and purposes active in the church for over 40 years. He had sacrificed greatly so that his family could be active in the church. He had a testimony of the restoration of the gospel of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He loved the gospel with his family. That man wanted to know when he could be baptized. I said, let’s get a hold of the missionaries but I think we should be able to make this happen in a week or so.

The missionaries were excited. They came over later that day and set up a schedule to teach him the lessons that week and baptize him that next Saturday. They were able to do this because he had read the Book of Mormon, he had taken the lessons a bunch of times and he was ready to make these covenants. When we told his wife and children, they cried. He was a little embarrassed for his lack of understanding over the years but excited that he was ready and able to be baptized.

The baptism was awesome. I got to baptize him and confirm him a member of the church. I also was able to ordain him a priest in the Aaronic Priesthood. He and his son passed the sacrament together at the same time. It was awesome!

This all made me realize that we just need to ask the question in genuine, proved love accompanied by the spirit. He didn’t want to feel stupid and needed a safe place where the spirit was abundant so that he could make himself vulnerable enough to express this fear that had paralyzed his spiritual growth for years.

About a year and a half after he was baptized, he was sealed to his wife and children in the temple. I have had many opportunities to give priesthood blessings and serve in the gospel with this man and his family. I am happy for and will always remember the day he felt comfortable enough to talk to me about his fears so that he could overcome them and follow Christ. This is a picture of them after they were sealed in the Mount Timpanogos Temple. My MTC branch president was the sealer! I am an Idaho boy and I enjoy a bountiful harvest.

One day I had a pick up at Primary Children’s Hospital. When you have at pick up at Primary Children’s Hospital, it can be either someone just commuting home from work or someone in the greatest crisis of their life. With the people who are in crisis sometimes you don’t know how to handle the situation and sometimes you just shut up.

When I pulled into Primary Children’s I waited for a minute and out came a mother and a daughter. I could tell right away that they weren’t from Utah because of a heavy thick southern accent. They were from Mississippi.

I didn’t know how to approach it at first but I felt compelled by the spirit to learn their story and be a blessing to them somehow. The problem is how you start that conversation. I always worry that they don’t want to get into it because they live it 24/7 when they’ve got a child in the hospital.

All of a sudden I had flashbacks of being a child and singing the primary children’s penny song and donating pennies to Primary Children’s on my birthday at church . It was vivid, I saw myself sitting in that primary room on the second floor of the chapel in Ucon, Idaho, standing in front of everybody with my pennies in my hand to put in the piggy bank shaped like the Primary Children’s Hospital.

While I was remembering this they were sitting quietly in the backseat almost in shock from the events of their day as we headed to the Ronald McDonald house where they were staying. The ride was going to go to the Ronald McDonald house and then to another location after that and I didn’t know where that location was. They hide that from us because they don’t want us to cancel the ride.

As they sat there quietly, I decided that I would talk to them about what I was remembering. I said, I am glad you’re here at the Primary Children’s Hospital. It’s a really great hospital. It was built by the children of the church for children who are sick. I said, there’s a lot of love in that place. Whoever is in there is in good hands. I told her the story about how children from all over the world in our church donated pennies every year on their birthday to build and maintain that hospital. I told them that it is called Primary Children’s because the primary is the name of the church’s organization for children who sacrificed to build it. That is kind of a really cool legacy of love passed on from children to children who really need love and care. Children who need to feel God‘s love.

[A little aside here. Since this ride, I have given rides to many employees and even administrators at Primary Children’s and none of them know of this legacy. It seems that Intermountain Healthcare didn’t feel that it was important to share that legacy with people as they took over the operation of the hospital. None of them have ever heard that story.]

Tears started streaming down the mother‘s face and she said “bless you all, that’s what we need”. She said that they had a little girl in there with brain cancer. They said it was really bad because when they treated the brain cancer, the treatment damaged her heart and the doctors were trying to figure it out. I could see how worried she was. I could feel her desperation.

Now I knew why I was here and the spirit was making clear to me that God wanted to touch her heart today.

By this time we had arrived at the Ronald McDonald house and they had to run in and drop some things off. They were going to go to dinner together because they hadn’t had a good dinner in a quite a while. They ran up to the room and said they’d be back in about five minutes.

It was a little bit more than five minutes and I started to get impatient. When the wait is too long, they give you the option to cancel and move on but I knew I was supposed to stay with them. I waited.

Eventually she came down and said, thank you for waiting. I was afraid you would have left. I love the way it felt in your car, it was so peaceful. We started heading to the restaurant they had chosen.

As we were going, I felt impressed to talk to her about her religious congregation at home and asked her if they were praying for the family. She said that they attend their local church down in Mississippi. She said that the members of the leadership of the church had laid their hands on her daughter and prayed for her before they came out but she didn’t feel like the congregation of the church were praying for her or her husband and they certainly weren’t doing very much to help out the family.

She said, down where we live we’ve always gone to the black Baptist Church. She said, in our town if you’re black, you go to the black Baptist Church but there is not a really strong community in that church. It’s more of a Sunday thing. Go and get your sermon and go home.

I said, I have felt very prompted here during our ride that Heavenly Father wants to bless you, your husband and your daughters. I said, when you got in, I felt your despair and that your spirit was down. I want you to know that your father in heaven loves you, your husband and your daughters. She said, praise Jesus.

I said, that’s exactly right! It was his atonement that makes it possible for us to go through very difficult times and be lifted and carried by his power. I said, when Jesus went to the Garden of Gethsemane and then hung on the cross, he suffered for our sins but also for our infirmities, injustices, pains, and worry of every kind that we will go through in this life. Every negative thing, he already suffered. He already felt it. He already lived it so that he can lift us and give us relief in our times of need. Praise Jesus indeed. She said, hallelujah.

She said I never thought of it like that. I always thought of it as the resurrection and him paying for our sins. I read from Alma about the atonement to her, and she said, wow! that’s beautiful. I said, if you pray and call upon God and the power of the atonement of Jesus Christ, he can lift you and bless you through this trial in your life. He can bless and lift your daughter through your faith in the atonement of Jesus Christ. I said, this is powerful stuff.

She said, I know that but I didn’t ever realize how that could apply in this situation. I said, God is good and he has a plan for us and if we turn to him we can be happy regardless of the situation. By now, she was full on crying.

Right then she said, clearly you are a praying man. Would you pull over right here and pray for us? Would you pull over right here and pray for me, my family and my daughter? We could use some of that power in our lives. I said, yes, I will.

As I started to pull over to the side of the road, I told her that if she will pray like I show her, she can keep it going and continue to call down the power of heaven. She said that’s what I want.

I pulled over near the corner of 700 East and 400 South in Salt Lake City, bowed my head and started to pray. I prayed with everything I had in my heart for the daughter to have God‘s hand on her and for the mother, the father and this other daughter to also feel God‘s hand on them and the love of God in their heart. I asked that the power of the atonement move in their behalf to lift their burden as they had faith in Christ.

It felt like there were angels in the car and there certainly were. She said, it’s reverent in here. I said, that’s the spirit of God and the power of the atonement can lift you. She said, my heart isn’t aching as bad right now. Being in the spirit like this is blessing me already and I’m sure it’s blessing my daughter.

I said, when you feel this, you know that the things you are hearing are true because God has sent his spirit to verify it to your heart. She said, I feel that, I believe that.

She said, it’s amazing that God put me here with you today. I needed this. I felt so lost but I know that I’m never lost if God is with me. She asked, where did you get that beautiful description of the atonement? I said, I got it out of the Book of Mormon. I asked, have you ever heard of the Book of Mormon?

She said, well, my preacher doesn’t like it very much but that’s all I know. I said, that book was written by prophets who lived in America 2000 years ago. God spoke to prophets here and they wrote those things down. They wrote them down because they felt like they were sacred and they were revelations from God. They also wrote their account of the visit of Jesus Christ to America.

She said, what? Jesus Christ in America? I’ve never heard that. I said, in the Bible Jesus said, other sheep I have and that he was going to visit them. We believe that they were in America and in other places. When he left, he went to those sheep.

We believe he descended from heaven to the people in America. He taught them, he loved them and he bless them and their children. He gave them baptism and organized his church and then said, still other sheep I have which are not from here or Jerusalem and I’m going to them. I said, what other places are there in the world where you could find children of God that needed Jesus?

Her answer came quickly, she said, my ancestors in Africa. They would’ve loved to see Jesus. I told her that Isaiah said that the Messiah would go to Kush. I asked her who the Messiah was and she said Jesus. I asked her where Kush was and she didn’t know.

I asked her to look it up in Google and she did. Then she got really excited and said, Kush is in Africa! She asked, did Jesus go to Africa? That would be awesome! I said, we don’t know for sure where he went but someday we will. We do know that he went to other places that were not America and were not Israel and that Isaiah said that he would go to Kush.

I said, personally, I believe that yes he did because it makes sense. Jesus was the God of everyone, not just the God of Israel or the land of Jerusalem. God sent him to all of his children. He blessed all of God‘s children and I believe he visited many of God‘s children. I said, the Book of Mormon teaches that. The Book of Mormon teaches us that God is the God of everyone in the world and that we are all brothers and sisters. It is a companion with the Bible and we believe it to be the word of God. The revelations written by those prophets was translated in our day by a prophet, Joseph Smith! That’s how we have the Book of Mormon straight from God and his prophets here in America.

I was feeling the spirit right then and asked, do you still feel the spirit? She said, yes very much so! I said, what does that mean? She said, it means it’s true! The things you are saying are true.

She said, I need to get a hold of that book. I handed her the one I had been reading from. It was a book prepared by the Secrists. I said, here’s your copy. I” When you’re feeling down or when you’re feeling like it’s too much, read in here and the spirit of God will lift you. Pray and he will be with you. She said I will.

She said, I do have a friend from work who is a member of your church. She’s a really nice lady. I think in your church you don’t have black and white congregations, everyone goes together. I said, that’s right. You should talk to her about the Book of Mormon and about what you learned today.

She said, I learned that Jesus went to America and maybe to Africa. That’s more like the God that I want to believe in. He loves everyone. I said, and he loves you very much, that’s why he put you in my car today.

By this time we were arriving at the restaurant that they had chosen and she asked, will you pray again before we get out? I said yes and right there on the busy street in front of the restaurant, we prayed again. I looked back when I finished the prayer and there she was with her hands in the air. She was hooking up as if to heaven and when I said amen she said, amen, hallelujah, thank you God.

She said, everything has changed for me today on this ride. I will pray over my daughter like you taught me and I’m going to call my friend when I get home. I hope there is a church full of people that believe just like you do because this feels awesome. The Lord’s will is going to happen and I need him with me to get me through.

She put her hand on my head for about 5 seconds then they got out of the car and went to eat chicken. Her soul had already been fed.

I had a friend from Latin America who had been very less active. I worked with him a lot to get him active in the church. After many months we were there and he was getting ready to go to the temple. He was on fire. Then tragedy struck. He was in a very serious accident near the mouth of Spanish Fork Canyon. They have been told by the doctors that he was dead and would not be coming home. He was miraculously healed by the power of the priesthood and the faith of his family. Even though he was out of the hospital and recovered, he was a little bit slower than he had been . He asked for his cousins to come from South America to work for him in the company that he owned.

They were living in the house with my friend and his family. My friend had two rules that needed to be obeyed by them in exchange for free room and board. They were, you go to church and you talk to Bruce.

I was not fully aware of this rule. It was funny because I wondered at first why they were so compliant. I would talk to them about the gospel and they would just say yes to everything. While it’s nice to hear yes to everything, it did seem kind of robotic. I got the missionaries and we started going over. They were always available and it was nothing but yes. What a great program.

Finally I figured something was up and I asked my friend. He told me that indeed he was pressuring them but he wanted them to get baptized. I told him,”let’s let the spirit pressure them”. I said, that way you don’t have to and you can just love them into the church. We changed tactics that day.

Once they understood that my friend wasn’t going to kick them out and that we were there as friends for real, they lightened up and asked really good questions. You could tell that, even though they had been learning by force originally, the spirit had been working them over. They were ready to hear the gospel.

When we told them about the first vision, the spirit was really strong. It always is! I remember bearing my testimony and seeing these two men staring at me with their eyes open wide and their mouth ajar. They were paying attention to every word that we were saying and they were soaking in the spirit.

I asked them if they felt something special. They said yes. I asked them, what does it feel like? The one said that he felt power and excitement. The other one corrected him and said no, it’s peaceful and quiet in my soul. They bantered back-and-forth for a minute each trying to convince the other that his way of feeling the spirit was the right one. I laughed and told them that they were both right.

I told them that the way we feel the spirit is a manifestation of our relationship with God and his love for us. I said, that’s how you feel it. It’s very personal to you and it makes sense that each of you would have a different reaction to it. You have a different relationship with your father in heaven. I said, one thing for sure is that he loves you and he sent his spirit to be here today, and you know it!

They both acknowledged that and one said, I feel like I’ve known this. It just makes sense. I know it’s true! They both agreed. I said, when you feel this you know that the things you’re hearing are true. This is how you can discern truth.

I gave both of them a Book of Mormon. I asked them if they had heard about the Book of Mormon and they said yes. I asked them if they knew what the Book of Mormon was and they said no. I told them that the Book of Mormon was the writings of ancient prophets that lived in America. I told them that God loved everyone in the world, not just the people in Jerusalem. He showed his love by giving them prophets, revelations and commandments, so that the people could be happy. I said, obeying the commandments is the only true way to be happy and without prophets and scriptures, how could we be happy.

I told them that these prophets wrote these revelations down along with the account of the visit of Jesus Christ to America. They were shocked! One of them said, are you sure you’re not confused? I said no! I’m not confused. Jesus Christ came to America because God loves everyone not just the people in Jerusalem. He loved your ancestors just like he loved the people in Jerusalem. I asked, do you believe that? They thought for a minute and said yes. I said, Jesus promised he would visit his other sheep and the people in America were some of those sheep.

I said, he came to them. He held them, he blessed them and their posterity. I said, you are that posterity. I said, these writings from these prophets were given to Joseph Smith and he translated them by the power of God. That’s how we have the Book of Mormon. It is proof that Christ loved your ancestors and my ancestors and that he is the God of everyone. He sacrificed for everyone and he atoned for each one of us. I said, I know the Book of Mormon is true.

I asked, do you feel the spirit again right now? They nodded feverishly. I asked, what does the fact that God sent you his spirit when I testified about the Book of Mormon mean? One of them said, it means it’s true. The other one agreed. I said, that’s correct.

The spirit was really strong and I asked again, do you feel the spirit right now like you did before? They both nodded.
One of them was so impressed with the spirit he felt and with his newly found knowledge of the gospel that he asked me if there was anyway we could share this with his wife and children in South America. I told him yes. It would be a lot of fun if they could take the lessons at the same time he was taking lessons.

I got on the meetinghouse locator and found his Bishop’s phone number in South America. I called the bishop down there and he helped me speak with the missionaries. His family started taking the lessons one week after he did. They were able to talk and testify back-and-forth. They talked about the information that we gave them to study and prepared together for our lessons. It was really cool Everything was moving very smoothly. Finally we got to the point where we were teaching about the commandments and especially the law of chastity and the word of wisdom.

When we got to the point where we needed to get a commitment from these men on their willingness to live these laws. Both of them agreed but after some contemplation the one that was single and actually the more quiet of the two asked, “does that mean I can’t even have sex with prostitutes? Drinking is no problem but sex?” We explained to him again about the importance of this law. He thought about it for a minute. You could tell that this kind of sent him for a loop. I wondered how he would respond. I was pleased when he said that he would have to pray about it. I was excited that he would pray about it. You could tell he was very earnest about this and wanted to receive an answer to that prayer. I told him that if he would pray about that commandment as we had explained it, he would feel the same spirit that he had felt with us, confirming that this was the Lord’s will. He said he would and that he would have an answer for us the next time we were there.

We set an appointment to come back in three days and during that time he was doing his work and asking his father in heaven if this was his will. Really, both of them decided to take this time to reaffirm their commitment to obey the commandments they received from their father in heaven. Three days later we went back and this young man sat very quietly. We decided to proceed with the lesson. I think our thought process was that we would talk to him at the end of the meeting. After a few moments, the tension was killing me and I think it was working on him too. He looked at me in the eye and said, this commandment is what Heavenly Father wants me to do and I am willing to do it. I can commit.

From that time forward everything went very smoothly. They took the lessons that remained, had their interviews and were baptized. One week later the married man’s wife and children were baptized in South America. We were excited about this as well and had been following their progress and helping them out.

They embraced the gospel fully and they had the Aaronic priesthood conferred upon them and were ordained to the office of priests the same Sunday they were confirmed. They began immediately going to the temple to do baptisms for the dead. They did the genealogy work on their families so that they could be baptized for them. They were all in and they still are. The married one was able to lead his family in their search of the gospel from a long ways away. It was a cool thing to watch.
These men made a great change. Their change not only affected their own lives but touched many other lives as well. Since that day, the other young man has also found a wife and they have been sealed in the temple.

I think it’s amazing how the spirit indeed was the thing that pressured them, taught them and confirmed truth to them. The change was phenomenal. Whenever we try to pressure people bad things happen but when the spirit is the one applying the pressure, it always seems to work out. This time with two families sealed in the temple.


One time I was driving in Salt Lake City, up by the University of Utah. I was driving up by the dorms east of Fort Douglas. There are some of the “new” dorms up there that were created for the Olympics. I know the Olympics was a long time ago, but I say new dorms because of the fact that the old dorms up there are the actual officers residences from the old fort and they are very old.

I got a ride and pulled in front of the dorm to wait for them to come out. I waited for quite a while and then finally saw them. There were two girls and a guy coming out of the dorm complex. You know how you can tell that sometimes people are members of the church before they tell you? This wasn’t one of those times.

The two girls were dressed extremely, bordering on embarrassing, immodestly . There was skin everywhere in the backseat. With the two girls was a young man. He was dressed but he was only going with them part of the way on the ride. After dropping them off I was to end the ride by taking him home up at one of the fraternity houses.

The girls were going out to get drunk and they said that they drank at least 2 to 3 nights a week. The girls said that this was their first year at school and they were going to make the most of it. The guy was a junior and a member of one of the most notorious fraternities on campus. All three of them got in the backseat of the car with the boy in the middle. It was cozy.

We talked about going to school and making good decisions. I asked them if they thought they might be able to get better grades if they weren’t out getting drunk multiple times a week. The guy laughed and the girls seemed to just seeth a little. I asked them if they were true freshman. They said they were true freshman but that they weren’t in school last year. They said they took a gap year. I could tell that they felt uneasy with the question. I asked them if I should stop with my questions because they were uncomfortable and the guy said with a huge laugh, no! I’m paying for the ride so go ahead and ask questions.

I asked the girls where they were from. They said they were from Salt Lake Valley. I felt the impression by the spirit that all three of them were returned missionaries. I couldn’t believe it. As soon as I felt that, I looked at all three and while there was a little light in the guys eyes, the girls light was out. I hate to see that, especially when I know what kind of experiences they’ve had and how much their father in heaven loves them.

I asked if they were members of the church and the girls said, we are not Mormons. I started asking more questions about why they chose the University of Utah. I could feel the tension building behind me because of the questions I was asking. The guy was cracking jokes and laughing about the girl’s uncomfortability throughout the ride. He didn’t seem to be bothered by the questions at all and enjoyed the girls squirming. He was pretty open and easy to talk to so I kept going.

I looked in the mirror and I said to them, you are all three return missionaries, aren’t you? Keep in mind that most of the people you pick up there in the dorms are not members of the church. They come from California to ski. By the way these girls were dressed, I believe this was a little bit of an unexpected question.

The girls were angry at me for being pinned down but the guy jumped right in. He said, we are all three return missionaries. He said, these two just got back three months ago and I have been back a few years. He said, I remember you, you came to our classroom in the MTC and taught us about Samuel the Lamanite. He said, that was a really good lesson.

Just then the girls interrupted and said, we came right to school when we got home from our mission. I felt prompted to ask them how long it took them to decide to leave the church. They looked at each other and kind of debated about how long it took. They decided that they left the church between three and four weeks after returning home from their missions. They said that all of the girls in their dorm that had gone on a mission had quit going to church. They said it just didn’t fit in with the things they wanted to do.

I couldn’t imagine leaving the church 3 to 4 weeks after finishing your mission but I guess there is a whole dorm of girls at the University of Utah that don’t see it that way.

The guy looked at them and he said with a shocked look, it was that quick? One of the girls looked at him and asked, when did you leave the church? He put his head down and said, I like to drink and party, but I don’t consider myself having left the church. I loved my mission and I know the church is true.

The girls were annoyed and mocked him a little bit then he said, you shouldn’t tease me, you don’t want to pay for your ride or your own drinks from now on do you? They became very quiet but you could tell that they were very angry. They felt uncomfortable having been exposed like this. It’s funny that they seemed to not be uncomfortable at all being practically naked going to a party. I figured it was probably a good thing that my questions made them uncomfortable in the end.

I invited them to revisit their feelings from their missions by sharing an experience but it wasn’t going anywhere. It was like talking to a brick wall. It was like my words were just bouncing off an invisible wall between the front and backseat. They were having none of it. They started responding to me in a very confrontational and cynical way.

Even the guy seemed to be on the outs a little bit with them. What was great is that he just started ignoring them. He started telling me about the places he served and how awesome the people were. He told me about how much he loved the MTC and the spirit that was there. He shared a couple of mission experiences with me.

I asked him if he still went to church and he said he hadn’t gone for a while but that he still believed the church is true. I asked him why he parties. He said that he parties because he likes to drink beer. He said, it is as simple as that. He said, as a member and officer of a fraternity, it’s really hard not to party because you’re always around it. It’s kind of expected.

He said, I have one year left in school and then I plan on going back to Logan, living around my family and being active in the church. I thought in my head, that’s really not the best way to do this. About this time we were approaching the location where the girls were heading. It was a big party and lots of people were there. After dropping them off, I took the guy home.

As soon as the girls were gone, the car just became a brighter place. The negative antagonism that accompanied these two young women went to the party with them. We had light back in the car. I asked him if he could feel the difference. He said yes. I asked him what made that difference and he said the spirit. He said, it is pretty clear that you have the spirit with you and those girls don’t.

He went back to talking about his mission. I interrupted and said, Elder, what in the world are you thinking? You know better than this. He bowed his head in quiet contemplation and then, said I suppose you’re right.

I said, you told me that you remembered me coming to your class and talking to you about the Samuel the Lamanite. Do you remember what the point of that was?

I said that I taught a lot of missionaries about Samuel the Lamanite and how because he was worthy and courageous he stood up alone on the wall and said the words the Lord put into his heart. He did this even though they were trying to kill him. He did this even though by his standards these were probably pretty strange things to say. I always gave the missionaries the charge to stand on the wall in their mission and in their lives after their missions. I gave them a challenge to stand on the wall, just like Samuel, and say the words the Lord put into their hearts.

He almost repeated this right back to me. He said “you taught us to be worthy and say the things that the spirit whispers to our hearts. You told us to be ready to do it at any time”. I said, that goes for now too, even after your mission. I asked him, well, how’s that going? He said, well, I’m not killing it, that’s for sure.

He said, I got here and everybody else was partying and it just seemed like the thing to do. Once that ball started to roll and I already had friends, I figured I could do this right now and get back on the wall when I finish.

I felt prompted right then to say that he didn’t have time to wait. I told him that coming soon there would be challenges. If in these challenges he made wrong choices they would lead him down paths that he wouldn’t just be able to escape. I said, I feel that the decisions you make in the next little while will guide the next several years of your life and you need to choose right. You need to get back on the wall and you need to stay on the wall just like Samuel.

He said, that’s crazy because I’ve had that exact feeling of foreboding pestering me the last week. I haven’t been able to shake it and then here you are saying the exact same thing to me that I’ve been thinking.

The spirit was really strong in the car and I said, do you remember the spirit? Do you recognize what you’re feeling? He said yes. I know what I’m feeling and I know what it means. It means I need to straighten up.

I said, you need to get yourself right, you need to get on the wall. You need to get yourself to church and take care of business. You need to quit trying to live in the party world and on the wall. It doesn’t work.

I said, you need to not surround yourself with girls that are trying to live out their carnal freshman fantasies. I said, it breaks my heart to see these girls just returned from missions with those attitudes.

I said, anybody can make a mistake, that’s not the issue. That’s why we have repentance. The problem is that they were back there rejecting the spirit as hard as they could and I think it’s important that you realize that right now.

He said, that’s kind of interesting because I hadn’t put that together. He said, I think we were all a little bit further gone than we thought we were. I sure don’t want to get like that. Those girls and their attitudes really surprised me.

I asked him if he was going to make these changes and he said, well, considering I’ve been hearing it in my heart and now I’m hearing it from you, I think maybe I should. He said, when God sends you a messenger, shouldn’t you listen? I said yes.

I asked him if it would be impossible to live right while living in the frat house. He said, it won’t be easy but there are a couple of guys that are return missionaries who don’t party. Usually, we laugh at and tease them but I could join them. I asked, how shocked would they be if you did that? He said, very shocked but they would be happy. It would take pressure off of them for sure.

I said, you should call your dad and talk to him about this. I said, I feel a prompting that he knows what’s been going on and he’s been worried. He and your mother have been praying for you every day. He and your mother would love to pray for help to give you strength to do these things.

He said, I know 100% that’s true. That sounds like a good idea. I said, you need to go to church, get worthy, prepare the take the sacrament. You need to do that every week. It won’t be long at all before you’re back on the wall.

I said, I don’t think it’s a mistake that you are in this frat house. You are in the house because there are a lot of people who are not members of the church. There are also a lot of people who are less active members of the church and you have a very powerful and influential spirit when you testify. I said, if you testify, they will recognize the truth of the things you say and many will follow. He said, it worked that way on my mission and it references that in my patriarchal blessing. He said, man I feel the spirit strong in your car.

He thought for a moment and then he said, I can do that! I said, you can love those guys right into the church. I said, this whole experience will look better when you are standing on the wall looking at it. You can be Samuel right here in your fraternity. He said, I won’t forget that again. They may remove me from my position but it’s OK. This is clearly what God wants.

I have thought about this ride for quite a while. Even though we may have amazing spiritual experiences we can slip up. While we are serving God it is important to let him write his name on our hearts so that when we mess up he can pull us back in. We can’t be lost to him unless we won’t be found

There was a time when I was ward mission leader and also a language missionary in our ward, I was working hard in my ward and we were being blessed. One day I received a call from the stake president. He told me that there was a Spanish-speaking family in their ward that might have interest in the church. This family had a father, a mother and three teenage children, a girl and two boys.

The ward mission leader in this ward had died nine months before and had not yet been replaced because you know, there is no missionary work to be done in Utah. I told him that I would get started immediately getting to know the family and that I would be able to teach them through the language missionary program.

Through the language missionary program we were able to teach the lessons under the direction of the missionaries and the zone leaders would interview the people before their baptism. We were pretty much force multipliers. At the time the mission president didn’t have enough missionaries that spoke Spanish. To help the wards grow, we worked hand in hand. They even trained us in the MTC so we were ready to go and excited to teach.

When I said this he was very concerned and asked me if I thought the young elders would do a better job teaching this family. The spirit prompted me that I needed to hold back for a second so as to not alienate the state president. I told him that I would consult the mission president. He agreed.

We called the mission president and told him about the situation. He said that he preferred that Brother Nilsson do the teaching under the zone leaders supervision. We started to teach the family and it went quite well. You have to love a nice vibrant family of 5 in your teaching pool.

The mother of the family seemed to not be as engaged as her husband was. They were both going to church but she wouldn’t read the scriptures or pray with any kind of feeling. She said that she wasn’t interested in being baptized because she had already been baptized. She was Catholic and her parents were Catholic and she saw no reason to change that.

She put up barriers to the spirit whenever we tried to help her feel it. Even though she didn’t want to be baptized she was not at all antagonistic and was very gracious and warm towards us. She attended church every Sunday with her husband. She just did not want to be baptized.

Her husband on the other hand was a spiritual sponge. Our first lesson with him was so powerful. When I taught him about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, he had tears in his eyes and testified to me that he knew it was true. His children were excited and said that they wanted to be baptized. There is nothing quite so powerful as the spirit when you teach Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon and that spirit was touching their hearts. That night we set appointments for all of their lessons and for their baptism. The father was really excited and threw himself into it 100%. He prayed with power to end the first lesson and never looked back. He kept taking the lessons, reading the scriptures and preparing for his baptism along with their children. There wasn’t a hiccup, there wasn’t a serious concern, and they were, in every way, the perfect golden contacts.

Finally, the day of their baptism came and it was a beautiful thing. The dad is close to 6 feet tall and was a big man. He asked me to baptize them. I knew that I had to fill the font up so that there would be enough water. I needed a little extra water depth so that I could baptize him and put him completely below the water while not falling over or in myself.

The spirit was really strong in the service and you could tell the dad had allowed the Spirit to touch his heart and change him forever. The next day he and his children were confirmed and he and his sons were ordained to the Aaronic priesthood. Soon after, we went to the temple to do baptisms for the dead. He had the opportunity to be baptized for his grandparents in the temple. He had been touched and knew that this is where he was supposed to be. One year later I had the honor to escort him for his endowment at the Mount Timpanogus Temple. It was beautiful, it was wonderful, and it was incomplete!

We often talked about his wife, his level of frustration with her decision not to accept the Gospel was always discussed. He kept going to church with his wife. He kept honoring his priesthood and kept bringing the spirit into their home. We both knew that if he did this, someday, somehow, the Lord would touch her heart. The spirit told me that there was a specific issue here for her and that I needed to earn the right to speak to her about it. I felt that when the time was right, the spirit would give me the words to say.

I kept hanging out with them, checking in with them, and included them with my family. We became very good friends and I always knew that I was very welcome in their home.

Six years later I started to get intense promptings that it was time to get the wife baptized and that I needed to reach out to her. I was really frustrated because I didn’t yet know what new thing I needed to say but I knew that God would help me to find the words and say them.

At this time I was serving in a branch presidency at the MTC. It was a Sunday and I was eating lunch with President Brady, our district president. I felt impressed and compelled to discuss the situation with him and ask him what he thought I might say. The words he said struck me deeply and I knew that this was what I had been seeking. The words came to my heart and the knowledge of how to do this was made clear to me by the spirit. That night I was driving around pondering on those words that the Lord whispered to my heart and it was reconfirmed in no uncertain terms that these were the exact words I was to say to her.

I drove over to their house and knocked on the door. She answered the door and we talked for a minute about what was going on in their life. Her husband was due to come home from work any minute and she just had a second to chat. I asked her if she was continuing to go to church every Sunday and she said yes. I asked her if anybody had approached her about getting baptized lately. She said, not for a couple of years. She said that she thought that maybe they had given up on her. My guess is that they had just accepted her status as a nonmember.

I told her that the Holy Ghost had revealed to me these words that would answer her questions so she could get baptized. I said, he sent me here tonight to say these words. I then repeated the very personal message that I had received from the Holy Ghost to give her. She began to cry immediately! She asked me how I knew. She said that this was the reason she had not been baptized in the past. I told her that God knew and that now she knew that God wanted her to be baptized. She agreed and committed to me right then to be baptized. I was so happy!!

She told me that she would not be able to be baptized for two months because she was starting her own business and it was taking up too much time and energy. She was spending almost 18 hours a day in this endeavor. I said great but didn’t really mean it. I wanted the baptism soon but at least she was on board and we decided that In two months we would get together with the missionaries and prepare her for her baptism. She agreed but asked that I not tell her husband. She wanted to do that. I agreed and said good night.

I set an appointment reminder in my calendar for two months from that date. Normally that would be against every fiber of my being but it had been a long time and I was happy for the progress and the spirit kind of gave me an inkling that it wasn’t going to be two months. I felt that someway it would happen sooner.

Three weeks later I was driving down the road on my way to work. The road I took to work went directly in front of the building where their business was located. As I passed by I had the distinct impression that I was to do a U-turn and go into their business. I had no idea if they would even be there but I obeyed the spirit and did what I was told.

When I walked into the business I saw them sitting together at their desk holding hands. She had a shocked look on her face as I walked in the room. She looked at me and said, “how did you know to come here today? My husband and I have just been talking and I have decided that I want to be baptized as soon as possible. Could you contact the missionaries to come by today so we can get started?”

The next two weeks we were over there with the missionaries several times preparing her for her baptism. Where she had attended church every week for close to six years and had no word of wisdom issues whatsoever, she was ready and the missionaries were very excited. Finally the day of her baptism arrived and her husband, my friend, baptized his wife and the following day he confirmed her a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

I talk to them quite frequently and we reminisce. She received her endowment exactly one year after her baptism. They have now been through the temple and are sealed as a family. They have seen the hand of God in their lives and have learned to lean on him. I am so grateful that the Lord was able to put me in the right place, at the right time and give me the exact words to say. I am grateful to my Heavenly Father for my friends and their lives in his service.

One evening I was driving back from Lehi after dropping someone off. I was hoping to catch a ride down to Orem or Provo. You love to get down to Provo or south. It just seems to me that I can be more profitable down there sometimes.

As I got to American Fork, I got a ride from there to Orem. This is exactly what I was looking for and I was excited to get it. I turned off the freeway and started heading down through American Fork to this pick up.

As I drove, the spirit began preparing me for the ride. What I mean by that is I begin to have thoughts about other people I have given rides to and their situations. I thought about some of the things that the spirit had whispered regarding these people. For whatever reason, each one of these thoughts that I had in this moment where people who had lived tragic lives, both physically and spiritually.

I remember being so grateful to have the gospel after seeing what a blessing it could be in these people‘s lives and the contrast between their situations and the light and happiness found along the covenant path in life. A life along the covenant path recognizes and celebrates the atonement of Jesus Christ.

I first saw my passenger when I pulled into the parking lot of the business where I was to pick her up. When she got in the car, her appearance was shocking. She was scarred and ravaged by life and sin.

She was a large woman who didn’t seem to show tremendous respect or care for her own physical condition. She looked like she’d been in several battles and she had the scars and tattoos to show for it. As she walked around in front of the car to get into the backseat, it was very obvious that she was a breast cancer survivor as she had clearly had a partial mastectomy and had not done reconstructive surgery. This woman had been through some very tough times.

Spiritually, she almost seemed dead. Best case scenario: there was a bit of a spiritual pause going on in her life. We were definitely in serious need of some spiritual resuscitation.

I remember thinking, wow, what a package. I vacillated back-and-forth between feeling sorry for her and being just a little afraid that she was sitting behind me in a car on a dark night.

I had the thought, don’t you think she could use the help that these other people you’ve been thinking about received. I thought back about the stories that had been playing in my head in the moments leading up to this ride and realized that they were put in my heart to prepare me to help. Clearly she needed to feel the love of her father in heaven to melt her heart and tough soul.

I said hi and she gave me a grumpy response. It was about what you would expect given the package. I guess I had figured that because she was put in my car by God it might have been a little different vibe.

I started talking to her, even though she seemed to not want to talk. Pushing that is a dangerous thing sometimes. Apparently some people get in someone else’s car and then get offended if the person asks them questions. I can’t think of anything quite as horrifying as this. For some people there is nothing quite as terrifying as the driver of the car you’re in talking to you.

We made small talk about her work and how poorly she was treated there. She talked about how she didn’t get along with the people that worked there and how even the customers were horrible. It seemed like everything out of her mouth was negative. It seemed like there was no light of any kind anywhere in her life.

I commiserated with her for a minute about how hard it can be dealing with people. Then I got an intense prompting to turn it around. I said, with all of the very difficult people we have to deal with, every now and then someone comes along and blows your doors off in a good way. They renew your faith in humanity and in God.

I said, that’s why God sends these people to us so that we can serve them and by serving them we serve him. She said, I think God abandoned me a long time ago. I said, I don’t believe that. You are his daughter and he loves you. He would never abandon his daughter. She said, if you knew what I’ve been through, you wouldn’t believe in God either.

I said, everybody has their trials, everybody has their mountains to climb. I believe that if we will invite God along for the ride, he can lift us through our adversities and help us be stronger coming out than we were going in.

I said, removing obstacles and trials is not showing love. We grow through our experiences, both our successes and our failures. The only question is, do we grow closer to God and be happy in the midst of the struggles or do we curse God and become bitter and angry?

She said, I think in my life I’ve cursed God. I figured that I have to do it all myself or it’s not going to get done. I’ve made some bad choices and it’s really affected me. Look at me, God doesn’t want me. She said, I just gave up.

I told her about my dad and his situation growing up where he was beaten and abused daily. He ran away from home as soon as he could join the Air Force and fought for everything he had in his life Shortly after he left home, he had an officer in the Air Force take an interest in him spiritually. That officer gave him the spiritual tools necessary to grow through his challenges.

Despite being challenged in his upbringing and early life, my father became a great man and helped many people. He served three missions and was always there to lend a hand. I said, one time I was in a meeting with my dad and someone who knew his story said, if you could go back, wouldn’t it be great to not have to go through those things? Wouldn’t that make your life so much better?

My dad said, I wouldn’t want to have my challenges removed from me because that’s what taught me the things I needed to know to be the man that I am. My dad said, when we try to remove all obstacles from our children, we make it difficult for them to grow and become great. This is how Heavenly Father looks at it. We need to grow and this is how we do it.

I said, I’ll never forget that. I started looking at trials differently at that point. I looked at her and said, what do you think about what I just said? She said, I’d love it if I could learn some other way to be I guess. She said, I don’t know how to tap into something like that.

I said, it’s the atonement of Jesus Christ. He suffered for your sins, your infirmities, the injustice and unfairness in your life. He already suffered that and he already overcame that. He did it so that in the midst of your sorrow, hurt and anger, you can look to him and he can lift you through that. If you turn to him, you don’t have to turn to anger, hate, spite, and frustration. He can literally improve your situation and the way you feel. He can let your heart and your soul breathe.

I asked her what she felt right then because I was feeling spirit. She said, I feel like I’ve had great big heavy bags of garbage on me for a long time and it was hard to breathe. I feel like right now those bags have been removed. She said, I can breathe and I feel free.

I said, that’s the love of your father in heaven. That’s the spirit of God and it’s letting you know that the things I’ve been telling you are true. You have been suffering needlessly through your trials. You have been fighting them alone rather than having the Lord fight your battles and he wants to let you know that you don’t need to do that anymore. He wants you to look to him.

I looked in the back and this tough grizzled woman had a tear in her eye. She asked, do you think he really cares about me? About 20 minutes ago I denied him. Would he send his spirit that fast? Would he be willing to forgive like that? I said, yes!

I said , we are the ones that don’t forget. We’re the ones that canker our souls and carry a torch of hatred for people who have offended us or have sinned against us. We want to make them pay and in doing so we destroy our own lives. We wear those scars on our face and that hatred makes us ill. That hatred creates a barrier to his spirit and his love.

If we open our hearts, God can free us through the atonement of his son, Jesus Christ. He can embrace us just like he is embracing you right now. I looked in the mirror and I swear I didn’t see the distorted twisted face I had seen before. God was letting me see what he saw. The light from outside illuminated the backseat and there seemed to be a shine about her as she soaked in the spirit.

She said, I’ve been going about this all wrong. She asked, how do I do it right? I said, I feel like you are a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She said, I guess you could say that. At one time I was. She said, I just quit going and went down other paths.

I said, let’s get back in that path. Go to church on Sunday. Talk to your bishop and tell him you want to get ready to take the sacrament. I said, taking the sacrament is a way that you can spiritually recharge and get reinforcement for the battles that plague us each week. It’s how we plug into the atonement and it is a very important part of qualifying for the blessings the atonement can give us. I brings relief, strength and joy to our lives.

I told her about when I was on my mission and my companion hated me because he hated all Americans. I didn’t understand the language and I was going through culture shock. I had 36 mosquito bites on my left foot and I had no understanding of how I was going to make it through the next 22 months of my life as a missionary.

I said, I went to church that Sunday and didn’t understand a thing. It was noisy and crazy. My Spanish was horrible, and I was a fish out of water in every way. Then we took the sacrament and when I did that, everything changed. My spiritual tank was filled and I felt life in my soul and God’s hand on me.

Since that day I have known that I need to take the sacrament every week so that I can be blessed in that way.

I said, if you will get ready and worthy to take the sacrament, when you do it, you will feel this same joy in your soul that you feel right now. I said, you need to go to church and you need to talk to your bishop.

She said, he doesn’t know I exist and I don’t know who he is or which church I go to. We went on the Meetinghouse locator and found her ward and her bishop. It showed what time they met, which was a really good time for her. I asked, will you commit to me and to your father in heaven that you’ll go to church and do what we discussed?

She said that she would but I could tell that she was a little hesitant still. I said, I feel like maybe you’re a little hesitant on this. Is it because you don’t have the kind of clothing you feel like you need to wear to church? She asked, how did you know that? That’s exactly what I was thinking. I said, the Holy Ghost is real and he testifies to our souls. He brings the spirit of our father in heaven and he gives us the words to say. Your father in heaven wants you to know that he wants you to come with the best you have and he will bless you. If you will go, you will be blessed abundantly by the spirit. and you will see your father in heaven‘s hand move in your life as you change and embrace the atonement.

She said, I felt the spirit when you said that and I believe it. We got to the house where she lived. It was kind of a sad situation but I knew that our father in heaven knew where she was and that if she would do the things she needed to do he would bless her. All she had to do was believe it and I wasn’t sure she had real intent.

I offered her a Book of Mormon and said she would feel the spirit and be lifted if she read it. She said no. She said that if she decided she wanted one she knew how to get one.

She thanked me, got out of the car and went in her house. No commitment, no Book of Mormon and I really didn’t have a great sense as to whether or not she would follow through. I kind of leaned towards she wouldn’t follow through hence it never became a story in my blog.

Normally for me to use it as a story there needs to be several things that happen.
Seek for and follow revelation
Teach by the spirit
Testify by the spirit
Identify the spirit
Place a Book of Mormon
Make a plan
Get a firm commitment
With few exceptions this is always my rule and this ride wasn’t going to be a story because I didn’t feel comfortable in her commitment or her level of sincerity.

About nine months later I saw her again. She was at a new job, A much better job and she had a smile on her face and a light in her eyes. I had to look at her a couple times to make sure she was who I thought she was. I didn’t know her name and I didn’t know how to approach this.

I went up to her and asked, do you remember me? She nodded affirmatively and said, yes, I do. I think about that ride all of the time. It changed my life.

She said, I go to church every Sunday now and everything you said is happening. I also read the Book of Mormon and feel the spirit. It is true that life still isn’t perfect but it doesn’t hurt like it did before and I’m happy. What a transition. Now that’s a story!

One time I was in Nashville, Tennessee. It was in the fall and we were going to be there over the weekend. The big problem with that was Brigham Young University had a football game against Arizona State and I did not want to miss it. I looked all over town to find a restaurant where I could watch the game.

The problem I was facing was we were in SEC country. Tennessee had a game that was going on that night and it wouldn’t finish until the third quarter of our game. Every TV in town was on the Tennessee game. Finally I found a place where the manager conceded a small TV in the worst most unpopular corner of his restaurant. The manager said he would put us out of the way and certainly off the beaten path. No one would accidentally find us. I was just happy to have a place to watch the game.

When I got there it was an incredible sea of orange. Everyone was there screaming, cheering and drinking. They were loudly supporting their Volunteers. “Rockytop”was was heard early and often. The staff at the restaurant said, oh yeah we have a place ready for you. They took me upstairs in a little corner of a big room with an old 20 inch TV set to watch our game. At least we got to watch the game! I ordered Sprite and a bunch of appetizers. I felt like if he was going to hook me up knowing full well that there wouldn’t be alcohol revenue I had to eat a lot. After Tennessee got done killing their opponent, many of their fans were preparing to leave. Instead of heading straight out from our area they all migrated up to our TV.

There were at least 40 people in this group and they yelled, who are we cheering for? I stood up and said, BYU!!Just then the waiter yelled, do you Mormons want more sprite? I said yes. Then they all yelled, we’re all Mormons tonight we all want Sprite. They started getting loud. They clearly had plenty of football left in them on this particular Saturday night. They continued their party and surprisingly started cheering for BYU to beat Arizona State and saying that they were Mormons.

I am sure that the restaurant never sold so much Sprite in their life as they did that night! They all stayed and cheered for BYU until the game was over. BYU won!!. Once the game was over they shook my hand, patted me on the back and said “go cougars” on their way out the door to go home. The place emptied out pretty fast except for one couple that lingered. They sat down with me and wanted to talk about what they had heard during the broadcast of the game.

They had several questions about players going on missions and if I had done that too. They were impressed when I told them that I had gone to Argentina and I spoke Spanish.

A few of our players had run afoul of the honor code and were suspended for that game. They wanted to know what this “honor code” was. I explained to them the honor code was an agreement entered into by every student at the university including athletes. I explained that it was an agreement between the student, their religious leader and the university that the student would abide by a set of rules. I told them that these rules include a prohibition on drinking, doing drugs, having sex outside of marriage and doing anything illegal or unethical in the community or within the university setting. I told them that violating this “honor code” can bring about suspensions for players and students as it had been mentioned in the game that night.

They were very impressed and quite surprised that an athlete would sign something like that. I spent the next hour discussing with them the doctrines of the gospel, prophets and the Book of Mormon.
I testified that the Book of Mormon was the word of God and an ancient record of god’s workings here in America. I told them that it contained the account of the visit of Jesus Christ to America after his resurrection in Israel. I testified that God loves everyone and that this book affirms that testimony and proves that God loves everyone not just the people who lived in Jerusalem at that time. I said, he loves everyone and sent his son to minister to them. I said “that is the Book of Mormon.” They were very intrigued by what I said but also and even more so by what they felt. The man said that he knew what I was saying was true. He said it just hit him like that, hard. His wife said she felt warm inside. I told them that this was the spirit helping them know that the things we had discussed were true. I said that God gives us truth, then he confirms it to our souls. I said that this is how you feel when his spirit is present confirming truth to our hearts. Tears were being shed by this man’s wife and he had a huge smile on his face. He said, yup! They said that they would love to have a copy of the Book of Mormon. I didn’t have one with me. I usually don’t carry one into the restaurant to watch football. I did however say that I would bring them one the next day. They gave me their address, phone number and schedule for the next day so I could drop by.

That next day, Sunday, I contacted the bishop of the area where they lived. I gave him my info on them from the night before. He gave me all of his phone numbers, as well as the missionaries phone number. I then took the Book of Mormon that was in my room at the Marriott, wrote my testimony on the front cover and took it over to their house.

I told them that I had contacted the bishop as well as the missionaries and that they would be reaching out to them later that night.

I left for home the next day but the missionaries came over and started teaching. I followed up with them for a couple months until their baptism day. They were excited and the ward was fired up. With that ward and a great bishop they were in great hands.

I lost contact with this family after a couple of years but I know that this night in that restaurant their lives changed forever. It all started because they decided to drink Sprite and be Mormons.

.God has a plan for each of us and it doesn’t involve quitting. God’s hand moves in his time. In one of my wards as a ward language missionary, there was a man named Ruben. Ruben was a great guy. He worked long hours at Target but was very generous with his time to everyone. His wife had been a member of the church for over nine years. It was her greatest desire to have him be baptized into the church but it didn’t seem likely.

He had known over 28 sets of missionaries! Each of those missionaries had taught him the discussions and he had failed to accept the gospel. To make matters worse he attended church every week and had been doing so since before his wife was baptized. He paid tithing with his wife and held a calling in the ward library. He had also given talks twice in Sacrament meeting. If there ever was a dry Mormon it was my friend Ruben.

Everyone wanted him to get baptized! Whenever anyone said hey, why don’t you get baptized, he would say I have already been baptized and the baptism my parents did for me is good enough for me. When I got got involved I felt an urgency for him to be baptized as well. I knew that no amount of preaching and testifying would touch him until his heart was open and his spirit ready to be touched.

The spirit started to give me ideas on how this needed to happen. This was a very unique case. The spirit took us right out of the box.

I became good friends with this wonderful man. He was from Argentina where I served my mission so naturally I enjoyed talking about Argentina with him. I would always sit with him and we would talk about Mendoza and how amazing that part of Argentina really is. We would talk about his family and the things he liked to do. We would go for rides up the canyon and watch soccer late into the night. We would talk about everything under the sun including specific prayerfully predesigned topics regarding the church.

Whenever we did talk about the gospel, the spirit was always present. I always testified and helped him recognize the spirit in those moments

This relationship and these rides were a little bit by my design because I felt that the missionaries and members had all just been trying to baptize him. They did it as a calling or they had to be in by 10 pm and couldn’t watch soccer. They found it hard to go to where he was, accept who he was and love him. This needed to happen first. He didn’t want to be baptized by people who weren’t in it for him. I needed to be a friend and love him rather than just make him feel like a friend and feel like he was loved. The real thing always wins.

It seemed to me that he had become so accustomed to having the spirit around him that it felt normal. Feeling the spirit as it testified was a challenge. We prayed together and spoke about feeling the spirit often. We started to make headway but I thought it was slow progress. I was willing to put in the work but didn’t know how long it would take.

Finally, one Sunday morning he called me and asked me if I would meet him in the library at the church. I zoomed right over there. He said that he appreciated my friendship and how he knew it was genuine. He then said that he was hopeful that I would be willing to prepare him for his baptism because he felt the time had come. I have never in my life seen anyone quite as happy as his wife when she came in the room and he told her. I thought she was going to cry all day long!

Even though he had been through the discussions 28 times and had attended church every week for nine years, we still gave him the discussions. It’s a little strange to give the discussions to someone who knows them as well as you do, ha ha!!!

He finally had worked on and earned a relationship with his father in heaven that moved him to his decision. Once he understood what he was feeling there was no looking back.

Finally his baptismal date arrived. He had been attending church in Orem since there had been just one Spanish branch. Now there were 12 Spanish wards full of people who knew and loved him. His baptismal service was packed and there was a tremendous outpouring of the Spirit. If the Spanish wards in Orem ever had a celebrity it was him on that day.

Shortly after the baptism my friend and his family moved back to Argentina. Before he left we talked about the importance of the gospel and understanding how the spirit works in a person who is seeking the truth. He wanted to help others figure this out. The following year they were sealed in the temple

He is currently a teacher at the Institute in Mendoza. One time when I was in a branch presidency in the MTC, we had a sister missionary from Mendoza. I was curious to know if she knew him. I showed her this picture and she got really excited. She said that he had been her institute teacher. She said he helped her learn how to feel the spirit and gain a testimony and that he and his wife were loved. Of course they were! How cool is that?

In the basement of a family I know, there are four rooms that they rent to people. Most of the time these people are from outside the United States and speak Spanish. When I go over to their house to visit, I always stop in and talk to the people who live downstairs.

One day I was sitting in my living room watching a TV program with my family and the spirit prompted me very loudly to get up and go over to this families home. I got up and went immediately because of the “right now” urgency the spirit had me feel! Heather was like where are you going and why? I really didn’t know and said something like “I have to check on this family.”

When I got there, I felt to go to these rooms they rent. In the common area sitting at the kitchen table was a man in his late 20’s that I didn’t know and had never seen. He had been a helicopter pilot in the Peruvian military and was here in the United States trying to find work as a pilot. I was impressed with the seriousness and business like approach he had. His head was definitely on straight.

When I first walked in, the spirit told me that he was the reason I was sent there so I jumped right in. We started talking about life, the gospel, and the Book of Mormon. He was intrigued by the Book of Mormon and told me that he would read it. I turned to third Nephi 11 and challenged him to read three chapters that night and meet with me and the missionaries the following night. He accepted that invitation.

We set the appointment for 7 o’clock the next night in our church house. I hoped that he would follow through with his commitment to read and show up but knew that there must be something special about him for the Lord to have sent me like that. It was clearly not an accident or coincidence.

The following night the missionaries and I went to the church house. I took my oldest son Kenny and the missionaries met us there. I was very excited when my new friend arrived. We got in the room and started with a prayer. Following the prayer the missionaries were about to start teaching our new friend. Right after they started to talk he interrupted them. He said, “last night I read the complete book of third Nephi and I have two questions.” First question, what is this authority that Jesus gave them to baptize? Second question, how can I be baptized by that authority? This seems very important to me.”

No words ever sounded more sweet to the ears of missionaries than these. It occurred to me that this was similar to the experience that Joseph Smith had when he was translating the Book of Mormon. Joseph came upon a scripture during translation about baptism and pondered about the authority necessary to baptize. He went down to the Susquehanna River where John the Baptist appeared, gave Joesph and Oliver Cowdry the Aaronic priesthood and instructed them to baptize each other.

The spirit was amazingly strong in that room. I told him this story about Joseph Smith and you could feel the presence of the spirit in the room. It was overwhelming. He had tears in his eyes and said these were for sure the words of God. He said, what I read in that book changed my life last night.

There was no way on earth. I was going to waste the opportunity to identify the spirit to him. I asked him how he felt right now. He said he couldn’t describe it in words, but his soul felt full.. He said he wasn’t sad, but he was crying. He said, I’m the opposite of sad. He said, the way I feel right now feels like love. I said, it is love, it’s the love of your father in heaven. He sent his spirit here to you to help you understand the truthfulness of the things that you are being taught.

He said, mission accomplished! I know this is true. I felt it last night reading and I knew I had to learn more about that baptism and receive it if at all possible. I said, it is very possible, that’s why we’re here.

I told him about Joseph Smith and the first vision. I started with the story about Joseph Smith looking for the truth and checking out all of the churches. I mentioned that he wasn’t able to find one that had the fullness of the gospel. He was looking for one to be verified to his heart by the spirit of God.

I stopped and said, I think that’s just like you. I feel like you have been looking for a while and have been quite frustrated in your inability to find what you have found here last night and tonight. He said, that’s absolutely true. It has been a long hard journey and I can’t believe you know that. I can tell God is with you.

I said, God can always be with us. It’s called the gift of the Holy Ghost. He said, I read about that last night. I said, the importance of this is that with that gift they could walk with God and he could direct their path. Isn’t that what you have been looking for? He said yes. I said, that’s what you found here.

I said, Joseph Smith was given metal plates made out of gold that had engravings on them. These engravings were writings of prophets who had lived in America before and after the arrival of Jesus Christ. They wrote their prophecies and the word of God as he revealed it to them. These people were your ancestors and those words were meant for you.

He said, I felt that and I feel that right now. I said, I know the Book of Mormon is true, I know Joseph Smith was a prophet of God and that we have a prophet of God in the world today. Because of this, I know that this is God‘s church and he directs it like he directed me to your door last night. He said, just like I felt last night, I want to be part of that.

He asked me if he could keep the Book of Mormon I had given him the night before and I said, absolutely! That’s why we give them out. We want the word of God to be in as many people’s hands and homes as possible. The Book of Mormon is a word of God just like the Bible and it brings us closer to God when we read it. He said, I’m going to read it, I’m going to read it all.

I said, as you read, you will feel the spirit testifying of the truthfulness of the things you’re learning. He said, just like last night? I said yes. I said, when you pray, God will confirm the truthfulness of those things to you again in your heart. I said, the spirit will help us in all aspects of our life with protection, comfort, and will give us knowledge that Heavenly Father needs us to have to serve him. He said, this is so cool. He said that it’s kind of like a guidance system on a helicopter. It helps you be in the right spot and make good decisions.

I told him about my impression to go over there the night before. I mentioned how comfortable I was sitting on my couch in front of my TV watching my football game, but God had other plans. I told him that God had plans for him. God had stretched out his hand and touched his heart.

I knew then that this man had been prepared by God and was ready to receive the gospel. Three weeks later he was baptized and to this day is a faithful man. He lives in Peru and he is a helicopter pilot for the Peruvian national police.

His life has been blessed by the church. He is an active member. He’s flying helicopters and he has both guidance systems working.

After the meeting, Kenny was bouncing off of the wall. He had felt the spirit and was exploding with the spirit on the inside even though he didn’t understand anything that was said. I took the opportunity to help him identify what he was feeling and teach him about the Holy Ghost.

When I was a language missionary, I was helping out in the Suncrest Ward. There was a man and his family who were originally from Mexico. They were living with his brother-in-law. His brother-in-law was second counselor in the Elders Quorum presidency but this man and his family were not members. His wife and children went to church and loved it. He went to church and tolerated it. He liked the missionaries and got along well with them but he wasn’t feeling baptism.

In his experience with 9 sets of missionaries, he had become a little bit jaded. It’s like they were non-stop trying to do an end run around him to try to baptize his family. He felt that they were trying to separate them and relieve him from his position by baptizing his family without him. He had his back up a little regarding this. He threw that in my face right away and said, what makes you think you’re the one? He said they had decided that whatever they did, they would do it as a family together. The continued persistence of the missionaries, when they tried to separate them, rubbed him wrong. He didn’t want to be swayed by emotional tactics. He felt like it was his responsibility to assure that his family made a good, sound, correct decision.

He had been living there and technically investigating the church for two years. The ward mission leader asked me to help him make this man a priority. The sister missionaries out of frustration had permanently dropped him because they said he would never make progress.

This was a great ward mission leader. Even though the missionaries showed no interest and dropped this family, the ward mission leader NEVER dropped them. He kept loving them, praying about them and working with them. He said he was looking for a miracle here. That is the business we are in.

I went over to their house and we hit it off instantly. He was very friendly and we had a lot in common. He was a cook at wingers and loved sports and as luck would have it I like to eat and love sports.

I started going by his work and buying wings. I decided that eating wings while doing missionary work is not harmful to your diet. I would also drop by his house and take their family treats on Sunday. Finally we had gained enough of his trust to start to teach. When I asked him why he hadn’t been baptized he said, “I haven’t gotten an answer “. He said, “when I do something I go all in and I won’t just do it because I like the messenger”. Here I need to get an answer from God or we won’t move. This is too important to us. I said, well, let’s help you get your answer.

I asked him, if you received an answer from God that you recognized, would you follow that and get baptized in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints? He said, yes I would, yes we would!! He said that if he got his answer they had decided as a family that they would get baptized together. He said they were a package deal, they all get baptized or they do not get baptized at all. They had decided to remain as a family unit in one church or the other. He said, with us it’s all about the family so we wouldn’t have it any other way.

I love to take people for rides to talk. It gets us away from distractions and allows us to be real with each other. We went for several of these rides together where we would talk and pray. Finally one night we were sitting there talking about the Book of Mormon. When we prayed, the spirit was really strong. I looked at him and asked, what do you feel in your heart right now? He said he felt peace and joy. I asked him if he knew what it was that made him feel that way. He asked, what is it? I said, that’s the Spirit of God! That’s how you feel when his spirit is present. This is how he reveals truth to you. He sends his spirit! When you feel that peace and joy you know that the things you are hearing are true.

He looked shocked! I asked him about his thoughts in that moment. I said, this very moment do you have any doubts about the truthfulness of the church? He said, no! I said, that is your revelation from God, this is how he answers your questions. We read Moroni 10:5 (5 And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things) and I explained to him that this was the power of the Holy Ghost telling him the truth of this thing. We had pulled over and took this opportunity to get out of the car, find a quiet, private place, kneel down and pray to God again that he might recognize that this was the answer he needed to take this step up to baptism. He received a deeper and further confirmation right there on his knees at that time.

He looked at me and said, I guess this means that I need to get baptized now. I said, yes! We set up his baptism and quickly taught the lessons to him again. Three weeks from that time his whole family was baptized. It was amazing. Twelve months later the whole family went to the temple and were sealed.

Today he has served in the Elders Quorum presidency and is currently Sunday School president in his ward. He is the head chef at an o great restaurant. We go there often :-). They are a great and powerful family in the church and are blessing many other families with their light.

In his two years investigating the church he had nine sets of missionaries but in the end the spirit won the day and it always does and always must.

I went to Argentina to help Karen get her visa worked out at the embassy. It was a great trip. We got to go out to President Baroni‘s house and have dinner. President Baroni was my mission President when I was young.

The trip was all organized very well and went smoothly. She got her visa and everything went as planned. Much of the success came because Elder Salas from my mission and President Salas from Kenny’s mission, the same person, helped a lot!

He set me up with the driver who drove for the church. He was there the whole time and helped us in so many ways. He even helped me find where I could buy boxes of the highly coveted Capitan del espacio alfajores one afternoon. We had fun together and you could tell that he was very used to being a great host. Imagine my surprise on my way to the airport to leave when I found out that he wasn’t a member of the church. I was shocked because he seemed like a member of the church.

I asked him if anyone had ever approached him about the church given the fact that he had driven almost every one of the apostles. He said that as an employee they didn’t discuss these things.

I asked, have any of them shared a testimony with you? He said some of them were very good friends and named a few. He said they had told him that if he ever had any questions he should ask but he had never asked.

It dawned on me that I am not an employee of the church therefore I was under no such restriction or obligation with regards to employees or vendors. I asked him if he knew what we believed.

We were in a short 10 mile ride to the airport that turned into an hour and 15 minutes stuck in traffic so we had plenty of time for this discussion. I started with talking to him about who the people were that he had been driving. They were apostles, including President Nelson before he became prophet. He remembered him fondly and was greatly impacted in those rides.

I talked to him about the church, the restoration and what we believe. It was a great conversation and the spirit filled the car. When I told him the Joseph Smith story it was obvious that he felt the spirit. I asked him what he felt and he described it as happy and warm. I told him that this was how he felt when he felt the spirit of God. I asked him if he would feel that way if the things I was saying were not true? He said, I don’t think so, I know these things are true.

I asked him to think back about when he drove President Nelson, Elder Bednar, President Oaks and President Christofferson as these were the ones that he mentioned. I asked him how he felt when they were in the car. He said he would never forget the feeling he had when they were in the car and that it was the same feeling he was feeling right now. I told him that they were apostles of Jesus Christ and his spirit was with them. He said, that makes sense. That’s why I felt that way.

I told him about the Book of Mormon and how it was the writings of ancient prophets in America. I told him that prophets are important because they reveal God‘s will and they help us through life‘s challenges. He perked up. I bore testimony of the Book of Mormon and again there was silence in the car and I could tell that it was profoundly affecting him and touching his heart.

Finally we were approaching the airport and I knew I would have to go. We had been communicating through WhatsApp and I had an idea. I gave him a Book of Mormon in Spanish and said that we should read this book. He said he would. I said let’s read it together.

I told him that I had the impression that if he would read this book and stick with it, one day he would want to be baptized. I told him I would come from the United States back to Argentina so that I could be the one to baptize him if that was OK with him. He smiled and said yes.

We started when I got home. We would read a chapter a day individually and then write our impressions of the spirit back-and-forth on WhatsApp. This gave me a chance to testify each day and him a motivation to read the book.

Some days we didn’t get to it but the vast majority of the days we did.

It turns out that he had a little brother who was struggling and through our study of the Book of Mormon over the next two years he was able to introduce his brother to the church and his brother was baptized. He had a sister that was trying to cause trouble. She seemed to have a really bad spirit with her. My friend had to make lots of changes in his life including being selective about those in his life.

He had two daughters from a previous marriage and was living with a lady. At first we talked about them getting married but it just never came together. Getting a divorce from his first wife was expensive and hard to do. Bit by bit as he came closer to the gospel this lady he lived with, who he wasn’t married to, got more in line with his sister and more antagonistic towards him and the church.

Finally she left. When she was gone I saw this as our opportunity. Now that getting the divorce from his first wife was out of the way as an issue and he wasn’t living with anyone else we had an opening. It had been over two years since we started reading and he was finally ready to be baptized.

I used the meeting house locator and found his ward. I called both my mission president, President Baroni, who lived in that area and his daughter to find out who they knew that could help. I put all of my contacts to work setting up a system for this young man. I alerted Elder Salas to what we were doing and away we went.

I promised him that if he would study and read and pray he would get his answer as to the truthfulness of the church and a confirmation that he should be baptized. He did exactly that. The missionaries who were teaching him set a date for him to be baptized.

I was excited and started to make plans to come down. The date fluctuated a little bit but finally I locked in my tickets. I was coming down one week after I got back from Paris on a business trip. That trip had been a one day meeting in Paris where I flew over on Wednesday and back on Friday. I was home until Tuesday when I flew down to Buenos Aires. We were to baptize him on Thursday.

10 days before his baptism and a week before his interview he told me that he had paid for a friend to get an abortion seven years earlier. It was not his child but it was a scar on his soul. He told me how sorry he was and how he knew it was wrong. He said that it bothered him everyday.

Knowing this was a serious concern for the missionaries, I called them immediately and they got their mission president out to see him quickly. I told them that this approach was wonderful because I had a nonrefundable ticket. I was pleased to hear they had all hands on deck. I decided to proceed with faith and trust that they would get him ready.

The mission president asked him to fast, pray and ask for forgiveness. He met with the president two days later. He said that he felt the sting of the sin leave as the mission president embraced him. The president told him that he was ready to be baptized. I was excited.

I flew to Buenos Aires and arrived the day before his baptism. I took him out to meet President Baroni and Sister Baroni as well. It was a great reunion and President Baroni bore his testimony. The next day was a baptism day and it was glorious.

The people in the ward rallied around him and I got to do the baptism. After many years I was finally back in the water in Argentina where I belong.

We never know who the people are that God has prepared or where they will be found. It’s important to be sensitive to the spirit so that we can open our mouth and say the right words when that time comes.

President Baroni passed away a few years back and I really enjoyed the fact that we got to do a little more missionary work together at the end. I love him and I thank him for what he taught me. He taught me to always be on your knees in your heart and to act on promptings in that moment.

With it being Father’s Day today I wanted to do a shout out to my dad. He was a man who had a strong desire to do the right thing regardless of the issue or personal risk. As a police officer he stood with strength against evil and was able to use the gospel to bless many of those he encountered in their worst moments. He passed away a couple of years back but I never saw him waiver in his sense of duty to his father in heaven, even in times of discouragement or difficulty. I love you Dad.

One day during the covid craziness I went to church and a lady came to me and asked, “Are you Bruce Nilsson?” I said yes and she became very clingy. She was Venezuelan and we were speaking Spanish but this clinginess had more to do with something else than with the language. I interpreted the meetings for her but wondered what it was. As I talked to her I found out that she was the wife of a person that had been a passenger of mine. I had worked with him and he had rejected the church. There was not a lot of light in that situation.

I had never met her before that day and I wasn’t even familiar with her name. She came to church a couple of times and I asked her if she had ever been baptized. She said no. I told her that we should start teaching her the gospel so she could fix that situation. She said she wanted to do that.

It was difficult to find a place and time to teach her because of her husband and his abusive influence. About that time I had just started a new company and we were putting together kits. I had the idea to give her a job. She would come over to our house and put together kits.

I figured that this would be a great way to get her in a good situation. I also figured that this would be a great time and place where the missionaries could meet with her. I called Elder Troyer. I told him about this lady and that she was trying to learn English and was at my house working for me while we were working with her learning English. I asked him if he could come by and teach her while she was at my house. He agreed and we set the date during her working hours.

I told her that we were going to start having the missionaries come by and she was fine with that. The missionaries went through the lessons very quickly with her. She accepted everything but wouldn’t commit to being baptized. It was the craziest thing. We felt the spirit many times and helped her identify it.

I gave her a Book of Mormon, one of the Books of Mormon prepared by the Secrists. I told her that it seemed to me that she really was looking for peace in her life and couldn’t figure out where to find it given her situation. I told her that when she reads the Book of Mormon she would feel that peace. The spirit testified of that and she noticed. I told her that if she would read and pray she could feel the spirit just like she was feeling it right then. She said, that is what I need. I will do that.

The issue however was the next step, what does that feeling mean and how does this knowledge obligate a change in your life? She wasn’t ready to commit to that change.

She would come to church, she would listen to the missionaries, she would read her scriptures and she would pray but getting her to commit to be baptized was just not happening. To add to this conundrum, she wouldn’t open up and discuss anything about her feelings, yet we knew the spirit had testified to her.

The elders were frustrated and I didn’t know what to do. I was praying hard about this one.

Time started slipping away and it was almost time for transfers. I felt very strongly that these elders were the right elders and knew we had to figure this out quick. One Friday night I was driving to Park City to do rides and I got a call from the missionaries. Elder Troyer was going to be transferred that next Monday. We only had 10 days.

I was heartbroken for Elder Troyer because I wanted him to see this baptism. As I was talking to Elder Troyer I received a revelation from God about what I needed to say to get her to decide to be baptized. I was so confident in that revelation that I told Elder Troyer to go ahead and set the baptism for his last Saturday in our area and that she would be ready to go. I also said she would be ready for an interview that next Sunday. They said, that’s great, how are you gonna pull that off? I told them that I wasn’t going to pull it off, the Lord would.

The next morning was a Saturday morning and I had been up late working until my customary 4 AM. Our friend showed up at my door at 7 AM to start working. As soon as she rang the doorbell I woke up with a start and had a very vivid recollection of exactly what had been revealed to me that I was supposed to say to her.

Filled with the spirit I stumbled downstairs and sat with her. I told her that it was time that we had a discussion about God. I told her that I could feel by the spirit that she had some questions but she wouldn’t open up about them. I said to her, your concerns are you don’t think you know enough yet, you don’t know how your husband will react and you want to have a greater witness than the one that you have had. You want an angel.

She said, how do you know this? I told her that it was revelation to my heart by the spirit. I told her that I was driving to Park City and the Lord revealed it to my heart. I told her that her answers were as follows.

There’s no way you can ever know everything about the gospel. I don’t know everything about the gospel and I’m still learning every day. I told her that the only way you can really learn for sure of the truth is through the gift of the Holy Ghost. When you have the gift of the Holy Ghost after you are baptized it can sear truth indelibly into your heart. This way you learn faster and you learn better. I told her that’s how missionaries learn the language. They learn it through a gift of the spirit. I told her that if she would get baptized and show that faith the Lord would recognize that faith and give her more knowledge. I told her that with that knowledge she would be able to answer the questions she had.

I told her that the Lord would bless her and protect her. I told her that her husband‘s heart would be softened. He would quit being so abusive and that he would even go to the baptism. Now that was a stretch but I felt to say it by the spirit.

I told her that the church would save her and that she was here because she was looking to be saved.

She looked astonished! She asked me if she could tell me a story and I said yes. She said she had a dream and in the dream she and her husband were at an amusement park. She was caught in the tracks of the roller coaster and the train was coming fast. She knew that she would die if it hit her. She called out to her husband to come and save her and he wouldn’t even look at her. He wouldn’t turn his head in her direction and he just ignored her.

A voice then came to her and said, he will never save you, go to the church and ask for Bruce Nilsson, he will help you. The next day she came to church and came up to me and said are you Bruce Nilsson?

As she told the story the spirit filled the room and I was humbled and a bit intimidated. Humbled because God knew my name and intimidated by the weight of the trust he placed in me. I hope I can always live up to that trust.

She said that now she knows that she was supposed to be baptized and she was ready. We called the missionaries and told them that she was ready for her interview the following day. She was baptized the following Saturday and her husband came to the baptism.

God is great

Since then her husband left her. She got a divorce and she has held tight to the gospel throughout. She told me it is the only thing that kept her going sometimes.

She had two daughters. One in Miami and another in Venezuela. They both were able to move here so they could be a family. She met a man who is a member of the church. They were married and he treats her very well.

I have talked to her several times about how she needs to always remember that God knows her and had sent her miracles. She agrees and is so grateful.

One time I picked up a guy in Orem very late at night. It had been a long day and it was like 3 AM and he was going home. It was a short ride but we seemed to hit it off really well. He was from an area in Argentina where I served.

During my mission I was sick and in the hospital for a while. I had been pulled prematurely from an area and felt frustrated with that. I didn’t think I got everything done that I needed to do in that area. It’s always kind of been in the back of my mind and that thought frustrates me.

This kid is from that area and when I picked him up and we started talking, I started thinking about that. Several years back I baptized another young man from that very same area as well. It just seems to me to be the case that even though I got sick and couldn’t finish the missionary work I needed to do in that area, Heavenly Father has compensated by bringing them to me here. It’s just awesome to realize that Heavenly Father doesn’t feel limited by illnesses, time or the geographic constraints that we see as being insurmountable sometimes.

We started talking and he said that he wasn’t religious but the spirit whispered to me then and said that this is what is he doing here in Utah. We were at the end of the ride and he was getting out. He told me that he took Uber this late at night for that short ride quite often. I decided that I would try to be in that area a lot because I wanted this conversation to continue.

A few days later, I was in that area about that time and there he was. As I pulled up, he was smoking. Sometimes this is discouraging to me but for whatever reason this day the spirit told me that this was my in. This is what I was supposed to use. I saw it as a good thing which is crazy.

As he saw me, he quickly put out his cigarette and hid the fact that he had been smoking. I smiled and waved. I asked him, how are you doing tonight?! He said he was doing good. As we started to go, I decided to jump right on in to it. I said, when I was in your area as a missionary, I got to be really good friends with a lot of people. Maybe you know some of them? I mentioned a couple people that I baptized in that area that have been bishops and leaders in the church.

A cool aside here is that one of these men who became a leader was 19 at the time. He came to the commandments lesson with a pack of cigarettes in his shirt pocket. I reached up, (he was taller than I was) pulled the cigarettes out of his pocket and threw them away. He was baptized 5 days later and never looked back. A great man.

My passenger said that he didn’t recognize their names but would possibly know them if he saw their faces because he went to our church for quite a while at one point. I asked, did you get baptized? He said, no I didn’t. I said, what you really mean to say is no, not yet!

He laughed and said that he went to church but quit going because he smoked sometimes and that wasn’t allowed. I said, well, it’s not allowed inside the building but anybody can go to church and they should go to church so they can get closer to God. He asked, do you think they would really let me go to church if they knew that I smoked?

I said, one of our former prophets, David O Mckay loved to say that the sweetest smell in sacrament meeting is the smell of cigarette smoke. I said, if we smell that, we know that somebody is at church trying to do better. They are trying to get better and learn. That’s exactly who we want at church.

I said, one of my favorite sayings is that the church isn’t a museum for perfect people it’s a hospital for the spiritually sick. We are all in there trying to get better. I said, you need to come to church. I said, I used to have a neighbor that smoked. When he came to church, between meetings we would go out and stand on the curb and he would smoke. I said, eventually he quit smoking because the spirit of God helped him. I asked him, do you want to quit smoking? He said yes. I said the spirit could help you too.

I asked him if he had ever heard of the atonement of Jesus Christ and he said, yes, a little. I asked him to teach me about his understanding. He said that the atonement was what Jesus Christ did to pay for our sins on the cross. I told him that this was really good and that was part of it. I told him, also part of the atonement was suffered in the Garden of. Gethsemane. I said, there he suffered all of our pains, infirmities, hardships and addictions. Jesus has already suffered this addiction you have. He has the power to help you overcome it if you will let him.

He said, I really have wanted to quit smoking and more than anything I was embarrassed when I went to the Mormon church in Argentina because I smelled like cigarette smoke. I didn’t feel like I fit in. I said, that was Satan telling you you didn’t fit in and it was Satan telling you that you shouldn’t go because you smoked. I said, Jesus Christ loves you and he wants you closer not further away and he wants you in church so that he can bless you and lift you. He said, that sounds awesome.

The spirit was really strong and I asked him what it felt like. He said, happy! I just can’t quit smiling. I said, that’s exactly how we should all feel in the presence of the spirit of our father in heaven. I said, when you feel that you know that the things you are hearing are true. He said, I know they’re true. It’s like I don’t even have a doubt.

I asked him if he had a copy of the Book of Mormon. He said no then yes and then finally he settled on a definite maybe but probably not here in the United States. I pulled one out of the glove box. It’s one of the books prepared by the Secrists and I gave it to him. He said, that doesn’t look like the other ones I had. What are these tabs in the side? I told him that this book is special because in the front it has questions a lot of people have and then the answers for those questions are marked in the sections by the tabs and are highlighted in red pencil.

I said, read through those questions and you might see some of your questions there. He said, this is cool. Is this mine? I said, yes. It was made just for you. He smiled.

I asked him if he knew what was in the Book of Mormon. He said, a little bit yes. He said, it’s about the people that used to live here in America. I said, that’s right, the ancestors of the Native Americans. I told him that they had prophets and that Jesus Christ himself appeared here in America. I told him that the writings of those prophets about those people are what makes up the Book of Mormon.

I said, it’s another testament of Christ because in tells us about the visit of Jesus Christ to America. I said, he descended from heaven and stood in front of the people and they touched the prints of the nails in his hands and feet. I said, they asked him to save them and he gave them baptism. That is why baptism is so important to us because it was given to us by Jesus Christ and we accept his invitation to be baptized. I asked him, how often do you accept an invitation from Jesus Christ? He thought about it and said, that’s a real deep question but I am here for it.

I told him that the book was translated by Joseph Smith. He said. I remember his story about seeing God the father and Jesus Christ. Talking about it brings it back. He said, it makes me happy. I said, well, that’s the spirit of God testifying of the truthfulness of that as well.

He said, that’s pretty cool how God can guide us like that. I said, with the spirit here confirming the truthfulness of these things to you, don’t you think you should do something about it? Don’t you think you ought to go to church and don’t you think you ought to quit smoking so you can be baptized?! He said, yes to all of those things. I said, once you are baptized, you will receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. You will be able to have God‘s spirit with you all of the time. I asked him if he felt any cravings for nicotine right then and he said no. I said, the spirit will help chase those away and give you the strength to overcome.

He said, I don’t know where to go to church here. We put his address into the meeting house locator and found the wards that he belonged to. There was an English ward, a Spanish ward, an English young adult ward and finally a Spanish young adult ward. So many decisions to make! I said, don’t let that overwhelm you. This is easy.

I asked him what time works best for him. He said around 11 o’clock. We identified the ward that met at 11. It was the family ward. I said, you go there this Sunday and ask for the ward mission leader. Tell him about the conversations we have been having and ask him if he could help you out. He said, I think I’ll do just that.

He said, I think I’ve been pointed in this direction for a while but I just needed a push. He thanked me, squeezed my shoulder and got out of the car. I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to keep track of this one. I’m sure it won’t be easy for him but I think now he has a better knowledge of how the spirit can help him overcome smoking and improve his life by becoming a member of the church.

One time I was working with language missionaries in Orem. I was helping a struggling branch establish missionary work. I went door to door in their branch, house to house. I asked the people questions with regards to their membership or activity. Many had been baptized before in other places and we had no idea who they were.

I Along with this re-gathering of lost sheep, we were also trying to become friends with those who had not yet been baptized. We were trying to get a feel for their level of preparation to receive the gospel.

I was knocking doors in a 4 plex and came to the bottom right door. I knocked and the lady answered. I told her who I was and that I was trying to get to know them. She emphatically said that she had no interest. She said that she hated the church. I was a bit taken aback but I said that if there was ever anything we could do for her to let us know. I thought that might provide a graceful exit. Upon hearing this she said, ” I have something for you to do”. She said that her husband couldn’t read and that if we could teach him to read, he might be Interested in what we had to say.

Later that day I met her husband. He was a friendly, hard working and humble man. He had lived a crazy life over the years as a taxi driver in Mexicali with all that this entailed including multiple affairs and frequent law breaking, etc. let’s just say it wasn’t a very holy existence. He said that now he was ready to take his life in a different direction.

We set reading appointments with him to meet three times a week, Mondays- Wednesdays – Fridays from 7-9 pm. This is when I and my Aaronic priesthood age sons would go meet with him.

We started by teaching him vowels, consonants and the sounds they make. We then started to read the Book of Mormon. This is how we taught our kids to read.

We would read the Book of Mormon while this man followed along. When we got to a one letter word like “y” which is “and” in Spanish he would read it. He soon moved on to 2 letter words like “yo” and “tu”, then 3 letter words etc. Finally after three months of this he was reading everything. One day he stopped reading, picked up the Book of Mormon and said ” I have taken reading classes from professional teachers more than 20 times trying to learn to read. They all told me that I would never read. They said that I was handicapped and not capable of learning to read.

Then you show up with no teaching experience and I can read! He said, I want you to know that it isn’t because of you. You don’t even know what you’re doing. He held up the Book of Mormon and started shaking it toward me and said, I want you to know that there is a power in this book. He continued to shake it and said, there is a power in this book that has unlocked my capacity to learn and made it so that I can read. He shook the book at me again and said “there is a power in this book” and I want to be baptized. I was good with that! Three weeks later he was baptized and I was good with that.

About a month later we were getting him ready to go to the temple to do baptisms for his father and grandfather plus have his aunt and mother baptized. He had done their family history work and was ready to go.

He was worried about baptizing them because his aunt and father were very strict Catholics. They had made him promise on their death beds to continue the family tradition of taking flowers to the cathedral every week and putting them at the feet of the virgin. Because of this he was torn and worried about following through with their vicarious work.

The day we were going to go to the temple he had an accident at work that required emergency surgery. They asked me to give him a blessing and off he went. When he got out of the hospital he was fired up to go to the temple to do the work. He said that he had a vision of his father and aunt dressed in white in a field full of flowers asking him to do their temple work and not to worry about the flowers any longer. He went to the temple the following week and took care of them.

As a new member, he did everything he could to become part of the branch. This was important to him as he had always been active in church. As a kid at his parents request he had always participated in church every Sunday. He brought that level of devotion with him and it was a wonderful thing to see.

He wanted to do home teaching and really tried to care for his people. If there were other people that didn’t do their home teaching, he would ask them if he could do it for them. He was all in.

The other side of this was that he was still a very uneducated and socially unskilled person. He hadn’t been through a refinement process in his life and it was certainly in work in progress. He paid his tithing much to the angst and chagrin of his wife. It made her so mad but he did it anyway.

He went to the temple to do baptisms for the dead often which made him very happy. What he wanted more than anything was to have his wife get baptized and join the church but the closer he got to the church the more antagonistic she became.

She was hateful, abusive and dismissive. She treated me well because I had done some things to help the family but that was about it. With regards to members of the church receiving any kind of olive branch from her it was not happening.

Finally, he’d been a member of the church for a year. He had passed the sacrament and became an elder. He wanted to go to the temple.

I want to make sure that this next portion is not read as being critical of leadership in his wards. They are some great men who I admire and consider friends. I know that they have a lot on their plate and are trying to do the best they can and somehow God finds a way to provide.

In his church classes, people would talk about the blessing of the temple and he wanted those blessings. He went in and talked to his branch president about this and his branch president said that he would not allow him to go to the temple because of his wife’s antagonistic behaviors. His heart was broken. He saw that there were a lot of women whose husbands weren’t members of the church that had been allowed to go to the temple and couldn’t figure out why he was different.

He thought about it for a few weeks and then changed wards. He moved his family four blocks east into another ward boundary and attended for a year doing all the things he had done before hoping to get the chance to go to the temple and take out his endowment. After a year, he went to the Bishop and asked if he had proved himself. The bishop said, I don’t feel good about this because of how hateful your wife is towards the church. He was stunned. He called me crying. He felt like they were treating him as if he were a second class citizen. We met and discussed a plan.

I called every Spanish-speaking Bishop or branch president in Utah County (there are many) and laid out the situation out warts and all. I asked each of them if they would be willing to help him go to the temple. Finally, in American Fork the branch president said yes! He said he would love to help him go to the temple. He said that he had to move into his ward and attend for another year. He said that if he would do that and be faithful and worthy, he would get him ready and let him go to the temple.

He moved his family to American Fork and encouraged by the branch president, he doubled down on his efforts and testimony. At the one year mark he went to the temple and took out his endowment.

The reason why I included this last part is because to me it’s very instructive. Why was he able to withstand all of the abuse and bigotry he perceived from people who he loved? It’s because of the power in the book. The power in the book that taught him to read was the power that changed his soul. It was the power that made him strong enough to withstand the kind of negative interactions that normally would chase a new member of the church away.

It was the power in the book that gave him the strength he needed.. Since that day his life has changed. His wife divorced him because she wasn’t going to be with a Mormon. With her endless mocking and abuse behind him he set his sights on his real goal. He met a woman in the ward, fell in love and they’ve been sealed in the temple. It all happened because of the power in that book. When our testimony is built on that revelation, it can withstand hell and deliver us to heaven, that’s his story.

This is an experience that happened to me some years back. It was one of the most amazing and impactful missionary experiences I have had. God is great and his love is eternal.

One Sunday, I had an assignment to be at the Spanish speaking ward down just off Geneva Road. It was a really good ward and it was very full. All of the people that I needed to see and had expected to attend arrived early and the meeting had begun. I always like to have my investigators sit with people in the ward and preferably with the people with whom they are receiving lessons.

I was sitting on the back bench and for whatever reason it was wide open. That’s your first miracle, a back bench open in an LDS chapel! I sat down and they started to do the announcements then the music started for the opening hymn.

The craziest compulsion come over me that I needed to lock my car. I was pretty sure that I had locked it when I got out of it but the feeling came over me very strongly again. As much as I hate to get up and leave a meeting during a song and deprive those in attendance of the sweet sounds of my angelic voice, I decided to get up and go out in the foyer to hit my key fob. I looked out the window to assure the light flashed on my car, indicating that it was locked.

I pushed the button a bunch of times and sure enough the lights flashed. Then my eyes caught on something. Beyond my car at the back of the parking lot there was a pavilion and grass field owned by the church. Walking across that field, I saw a Latino family, a man, a woman and a child. They were dressed in shorts, flip-flops, and T-shirts. They were walking from the parking lot over to the pavilion. The second I saw them the spirit said, that’s why you’re out here, go tell them that they’re supposed to come in here with you. They are supposed to be in church today.

The song was just starting and there was a lot of church left to go so I decided to follow the prompting. I walked out across the parking lot towards the pavilion and met them. I looked at them and said, you’re supposed to come with me, you’re supposed to come to church with us.

They look shocked. The lady said that they were not dressed properly. I said that it didn’t matter and that we would love to have them dressed just like that. After a pause they said said, OK let’s go. We changed directions and headed over towards the church. I thought, this is crazy! We went into the chapel and there it was, the empty back bench. It was almost as if Heavenly Father kept it empty for us that day.

They stayed for the whole sacrament meeting and loved it. At the end of the sacrament meeting we started chatting about where they lived and how we could get them hooked up with missionaries and teach them the gospel. They said that they were kind of all over the place but asked if they could meet the missionaries there at the church. I said, yeah, we can do it tonight! They said that would be great and we decided to meet at 7 o’clock.

We arranged to split with the missionaries and one of them went with me. At this time I was what was called a language missionary. We were allowed to teach the lessons under the direction of the Zone leaders and the Mission President. It was an amazing calling. We met that night and started teaching them about the apostasy and the Book of Mormon.

The spirit was there and they were eating it up. I felt very impressed to stop and say to them, “I feel by the spirit to tell you that you were brought here today by the power and hand of God. You know this without a doubt and the spirit is confirming this to you right now.“ I sat there for a second feeling with the spirit and knowing that the things I had said were the words that God put into my heart so I waited.

The lady spoke up and said, funny you should say that. She began to share this story with her husband glowing, nodding and grinning the whole time. She said, two weeks ago we were living in San Diego. It was a Wednesday night and we were both asleep. All of a sudden, at the same time, we both we woke up with a start and sat up straight in bed. We had both had the same dream.

In that dream we had been told to sell everything we had, quit our jobs and move to Utah. We didn’t even know where Utah was.

She said they got out a map and looked for Utah and found it. Then they decided they had better do what they had been instructed to do in their dreams. They quit their jobs. They sold their stuff and with their map in hand they started driving north to Utah.

They drove all day and late into the night. As they were driving through Utah, they wondered, where in Utah would Heavenly Father have them go. As they were driving up I-15 they saw a town named Orem. That impressed them because the word Orem is very close to the word Oren in Spanish. Oren in Spanish means they pray. She said, “we figured that of course God would send us to a place where they pray.”

She said we decided this was the place we were supposed to be and got off the freeway. We drove down this road just a little ways and saw this church house. It was all perfect and we knew it was what we were supposed to do.

We parked in the parking lot and slept through the night. This morning we woke up and looked around. There were a bunch of cars here at the church. We said a prayer and asked God to send someone to tell us where to go.

After we prayed, we got out of the car and started walking over towards the pavilion in the park and you showed up. We had asked God to send someone to tell us where to go and you said, you’re supposed to go with me. You’re supposed to go to church with us. These were the exact words that we were waiting to hear. We know that this is where we are supposed to be and that these things that you are teaching us are the things that Heavenly Father wants us to know.

The spirit was everywhere and it was strong. I asked them if they could feel it and they said yes. I asked them what it felt like and they said comfort and warmth. I said, that’s how you know that the things you’re hearing are true. That’s how you know God’s word and his truth. She said, that makes a lot of sense to me.

That qualifies as a successful first lesson and it proves that God is a much better missionary than we could ever hope to be. He moves people around and puts them where they need to be to carry out his purpose. That night they excitedly accepted a baptismal challenge.

From that point forward, they progressed really well. We worked with the bishop and he got them a place to stay so they wouldn’t have to sleep in their car. The ward stepped up and got food for them and helped them figure things out. They were baptized three weeks later and it was amazing. We all took them under our wings and she even wore one of Heather‘s nice dresses to her baptism.

They did really well. She started her own company making tamales and he worked with her, preparing their trailer and doing the physical part of the business.

Exactly one year after their baptism, they were sealed in the temple and it was glorious. She was Relief Society president and he was in the Elders Quorum presidency. They were doing really well with their business too and picking up odd jobs here and there. They have stayed so strong.

After about a year, their English was good enough that by the end of the second year they moved to an English ward because they wanted to contribute.

I got to take the family on a tour of the MTC before I was released. It was awesome. It was special and they loved it, especially their son. Even though the husband passed away unexpectedly the family, the mother and her son were strengthened by the church and their testimony gave them compfort. They knew there were an eternal family.

I’m sharing the story this week because their son who was very young when they were baptized is right now finalizing his mission papers. What an amazing story! What an amazing family. What an amazing kid with an amazing mother and the father and now the father gets to watch over his son on his mission.

It’s humbling through the years to watch a miracle like this blossom and an eternal family grow.

It’s really interesting that when you are doing deliveries you run into the same people. It’s almost a little community or several little communities. Over about a three week period I had noticed a couple doing it together.

Sometimes couples do deliveries together so one can drive and one can deliver. I’ve even taken Heather from time to time. A couple weeks in a row I noticed a man and a woman doing deliveries together. They looked strange like they didn’t belong together.

They didn’t look like they were married but they certainly looked like they were close and involved very much in a physical relationship. There was no light in their eyes.

I would always say hi and be pleasant with them but it just didn’t feel like their relationship was right. It kind of felt forced in a way.

One day he wasn’t there and she was driving and delivering alone. I felt the prompting of the spirit that I needed to turn off my app and pay attention so I did. When she saw me she said hi and we started to chat. I asked where her partner was and she awkwardly said that he wasn’t there today. She said he had other things to do.

As we talked I felt the spirit prompting me with some insight into their situation. I asked her if it would be OK if I mentioned some things that I observed with regards to them and their situation . She said, usually that would be a no but today I would really welcome it.

I started telling her that to me it was clear that they were not married. It was clear that they were living together. I said, bottom line is I t’s a relationship you know you shouldn’t be in. I said, the main reason why you are driving is to make extra money so that you can party, drink, do drugs and all the other things that go along with that.

She said, that’s amazing. How do you know that? I said, you know the answer, you’re a member of the church. You know about the Holy Ghost. She said yes. I said, the Holy Ghost goes whispers to our hearts and tells us the things we need to say and the things we need to do. God put those words in my heart.

She started to tear up and said, I’m speechless. After a minute, she said, I’ve been divorced for about five months and I’ve been seeing this guy for about a year. He is still married and working towards a divorce. It’s been a real messy and ugly situation.

I asked her if she regretted the path she had taken. She said, every day almost constantly. My life before seems like a different lifetime. Given that I’ve been doing all of these things and haven’t been to church in about five years, why would God give you any prompting or information regarding me? I was pretty sure that God didn’t care about me, especially after all of the things that I have done.

This was very interesting to me. I saw that she knew right from wrong and she had purposefully chosen to do wrong. I also saw she had a consciousness of the disaster her life had become due to those decisions.

I said, Heavenly Father really cares about you, he loves you, he’s your father. All he wants is for you to be happy and he knows that the best way to be happy is to do our best to keep the commandments. He gave us his son, Jesus Christ, so that when we make mistakes , we can come back. No sin is permanent and no mistake is fatal. If we look to Jesus Christ we can live. We can be happy.

She said, I feel like there’s a fire inside of me. I feel what you’re saying. I was raised in the church and I knew all the things you said in my brain but right now I’m feeling it in my heart. Do you think he really could save me? I said yes, why else would he send me? Why would he give you that feeling of confirmation of the spirit in your heart?

She asked, how do I do this? I said, first off you have to realize that Satan, who you followed into this hole is the one that makes you question the power of Jesus to save you. As far as things you need to do, you need to dump the guy. He’s no good for you right now. You’re not good for him. Dump the guy and focus on your father in heaven. Focus on doing the things he would have you do. Get back on the path, find comfort in the commandments and in the presence of your father in heaven.

I asked, do you feel comfortable right now? She said yes. I said, that’s the spirit of your father in heaven, have you missed it? She said, I don’t ever remember feeling it this strong. I said, it’s a wonderful thing. She asked, how do I come back? I’ve made a mess of my life. I said, the atonement specializes in cleaning up the mess that people make up their lives. That’s there for you. Christ did that for you.

The first thing you need to do to start is to dump the dude for good, don’t go back for anything. She said that she was already in that process. That is why he wasn’t there with her lately. I said, next you need to start praying every day and more than once. I asked how long it had been since she prayed and she said probably 10 years. I said, your father in heaven wants to hear from you. I asked if she could imagine as a parent how frustrated she would be if her children never talk to her. How frustrated it would make you to do so many things for them yet not have them want to talk to you.

She started to tear up again and through those tears she said that she knows how he feels. Her children don’t ever want to talk to her. She said, they are upset by how things are and how I blew up their lives. I said, through the spirit your Heavenly Father can help you change and can also touch their hearts. This is what he wants to have happen. That’s who your Heavenly Father is. He has given you everything and he has blessed you even when you have chosen not to obey. He wants to hear from you just like you want to hear from your kids. He wants to talk to you. When we pray, we can feel the closeness of our father in heaven and he can be with us just like a good father, the best father. You need to start to pray.

You need to be around the spirit as much as you can and that means you need to go to church. When you go to church, you get a chance to serve other people which is what Heavenly Father would have you do. You can feel the spirit and be blessed by the spirit. People pray for you and you get a chance to pray for others . Going to church helps us find a path and stay on it. One of the things that Jesus commanded us to do was meet together often. He commanded this because we need this association. We need those examples and we need those opportunities to serve. You need to go to church.

When we go to church the most important things we do is take the sacrament. Taking the sacrament helps us renew our covenants with Heavenly Father. It will take you a while to get your life straight but when you do, the sacrament will be a great blessing for you. It will lift you and it will bring the spirit into your heart . You need that spirit and you will need to tap into it every week to maintain your relationship with your father in heaven. If you don’t take the sacrament, it will be like not having gas in the tank. There’s no power. If you want the power of God in your life, you will get worthy to take the sacrament and then take it every week. This way you can walk with God. You will see his path and know the things that he would have you say and do.

You need to read the scriptures, especially the Book of Mormon. This is how you learn what Heavenly Father wants you to know. It’s not just the things that are written in there but it’s the things the spirit teaches you while you are reading it. God will personalize it for your life. Reading the scriptures will allow God to personally instruct you and guide you through the words of his prophets and the promptings of his spirit. You will learn about the covenants that we need to make to stay on his path to happiness.

If you do these things, you will see the path you need to take. You will be able to hold onto the iron rod, you will be able to feel the spirit with you and understand how to work with it. You will learn to let the spirit guide you back to your father in heaven.

She said, I have sure made a mess of things. I didn’t think I could possibly reverse course. I thought I was too far gone. I don’t even know which ward I go to or where we meet. I got on the Meeting house locator and looked up her ward and her meeting time. It was at 11 and she was pretty excited that it was not at 9 o’clock. She said, at least I’ll be rested. I didn’t want the 9 AM. I laughed.

I asked her if she would commit to go to church and she said yes. I asked her if she would commit to read the scriptures and she said yes. I asked her if she would commit to pray and she said yes. I told her that making church a priority and getting worthy so she could take the sacrament should be a central focus of her life right now if she wants this change and those blessings. I told her that it would bless her tremendously. She said that needed that and she agreed to do it.

She said, I’ve never quite felt the spirit this strong. I’ve never had God reach out just for me but I feel like that’s what happened today. After this she had a delivery and had to go. I went about my business as well.

I had seen her almost every other day for a few weeks leading up to this. After that day, I didn’t see her again for about a month.

When I saw her again, she had a light in her eyes. Her countenance had begun to change and she had a smile on her face. I said, you went to church, didn’t you? She smiled and said, yes. How can you tell? I said, I can see it in your eyes. You’ve been touched by the spirit. She said, every day and every week since we met. It’s awesome. The dude is gone and I am changing my life.

You do the Hokey Pokey and you turn your life around. That’s what it’s all about.

Lately I’ve been doing a lot of deliveries. It kind of happened out of necessity and it’s been a different approach. You don’t have people in your car as a captive audience.

One thing I do know and that I have a testimony of is that if you’re willing to open your mouth God will put people in your path. If he can trust you to receive and act on revelation, you will get it.

The deliveries go all over the place, from one business to the next. The company has a store and from that store deliveries are done all over Utah County. Many times drivers pull up to that store and wait in their car until they get an order. I have found this especially during the slow times that this is the most profitable approach.

One day, I was sitting there and I looked next to me to the right. There was a lady in a silver Infiniti and she was shining. I looked at her for a second and thought, if I was giving her a ride, I would teach her the gospel.

Then the spirit said, well why don’t you teach the gospel then. I thought, yeah, why don’t I teach her the gospel. Approaching someone in their car, especially a young lady is fraught with danger, but the spirit indicated that I should go and so I did.

I walked up to her window and she rolled it down. I started with small talk about orders and strategies. I asked how long she had been doing this. She said she had been doing it for a few months and that she likes to deliver from the store. I said, I think I’ve seen you here quite a bit. She said, I think this is the best place for me to work. I like the system with the pick ups here, it’s pretty easy.

She was clearly Latina and I asked her where she was from. She said she was from Venezuela and she was working hard hoping to find a basement apartment.

I asked her if she was part of any religious group that could help her and give her a network of friends to help as well. She said no. I asked her if she was a member of the our church. She said, the Mormons? no! I said, you mean, not yet. She smiled wide and said, I guess not yet. I could tell from the conversation that she was open to discussion.

Just then I got an order and she got an order too. I said, I’ll catch you next time. We’ll talk some more. She said OK and we went. The thing is I don’t think it’s very common to see the same person there. To run into the same driver is certainly like finding a needle in a haystack but the spirit indicated to me that we would indeed be talking some more.

It didn’t take long! About two hours later, we were both there again. We picked up right where we left off. I asked her what religion she was and she said Catholic. I asked her if she had friends that were members of the church and she said yes. She said that she had been to our church a couple of times, but that she was Catholic.

She said she was Catholic because of the traditions of her family and she just didn’t see throwing out those traditions. I said, so it’s important to you to honor the traditions of your ancestors. She said, absolutely. I said, I have a story for you!

I asked her if she had heard of the Book of Mormon and she said yes. I asked her if she had read the Book of Mormon and she said no. I asked her if she knew what was in the Book of Mormon and she said not really. I said, I think you would like what you would learn about your ancestors in the Book of Mormon. She asked, my ancestors? I said, yes. She said, no one ever told me that.

I asked her if she believed that God loved everyone the same no matter where they were from and she said yes. I asked her if Jesus died for everyone not just the people in Jerusalem and she said yes. I asked her if God was all powerful and could do anything he wanted to do and she said absolutely.

I said, why would an all knowing all loving father in heaven that has the power to do anything, only send his son,Jesus Christ, to the people in Jerusalem? Why would an all knowing all loving father in heaven only have prophets in Jerusalem? Why would he only give his word to the people in Jerusalem? Does that seem fair?

I said, nowadays that may be fair because we have television and satellites plus the internet. You can be in one place and minister to the world. Back then Heavenly Father had to send prophets. It is God’s way to do things. He ministers to his children one by one.

She said, yeah, that makes more sense. I said, we believe that God had prophets in America that blessed, taught and guided your ancestors in the things that God would have them learn. God loved them and he blessed them with his word through those prophets.

Jesus said in the Bible, other sheep I have which are not of this fold and that he said he was going to visit them. We believe that when he said that, he meant that God had other children in other places, not just in Jerusalem, and he was going to send his son to minister to them because God ministers to each people and each nation.

We believe that Jesus Christ came to America and visited your ancestors. He blessed them, he taught them and he gave them baptism and commanded that they all be baptized.

This is all in the Book of Mormon. It’s the spiritual heritage passed down from your ancestors about your ancestors and their relationship with God. I said, each one of them was blessed by the word of God. Jesus Christ descended down from heaven in front of them. They touched the prints of the nails on his hands and feet. He blessed their children and wept as he held them in his arms. This is your religious heritage, not human sacrifice, not Catholicism but a true connection to the God of Israel, who paid for our sins and blesses our lives to this day. That is your religious heritage and it’s found in the Book of Mormon. She said, I never knew. We the each got an orders and off we went.

Two days later there she was again. I have to impress upon you that this just doesn’t happen but there she was. Picking up where we left off, I asked her if she had a Book of Mormon and she said that she had been given one once by a friend. she said that she was not sure if she knew where it was. I pulled out one of the Book of Mormon’s that were prepared by the Secrists and gave it to her. I had her look at the questions of the soul and how to find the answer. She said, this sounds like it’s going to be fun reading. I love to read.

I said, do you find it to be strange that we keep ending up here together? She said, I was just thinking that. It is really strange.
She said, but not strange in a bad way. I have a really nice feeling when we’re talking. I actually have found myself hoping you’ll be here.

I said, that’s the spirit and when we’re talking about these things, your spirit recognizes the spirit of God in the words that I say because they’re true. I said, your spirit hungers to know the truth of its connection with Jesus Christ and the religious heritage of your ancestors. This is why you’re here. This is why you’re in Utah. I held up the Book of Mormon. I said, you’re here to receive this.

I told her, if you will pray, when you read this, your spirit will react, you’ll be happier and you won’t know why. God will bless your life If you will follow through with the things you have learned here.

She said, should I go to church? I said yes. Then we got orders and off we went. I didn’t see her for a week but then I saw her again. I asked her if she still wanted to go to church and she said, yes, I want to learn more about this.

We looked up her ward in the meeting house locator. Then I gave her my phone number just in case she had any questions. She asked, could I come to church with you someday? I said, yes, but you might want to go to your church because that’s where the people that live by you go. She said, that sounds awesome.

I felt prompted to promise her that this is why she was here at this time to receive this message. This is why we kept being put together here in this parking lot. I said that it is clear that this message will bless you, it will honor her ancestors and it will bless your family through the generations going forward. I said, that’s why God put you here so you could be ministered to as well.

She said, that’s a beautiful thought. I said, remember, we believe in Jesus and the Bible so you don’t have to give up anything. We celebrate Christmas and we honor the great people in the Bible like Mary. We just don’t pray to them. I said, you don’t have to give up your traditions. Bring your love of God and your love of Jesus and your love of the Bible with you and we will add onto it another chapter and another testament from your ancestors here in America. I said, now you’ll get the full picture.

I said, when you read the Book of Mormon, the spirit you will be feeling is the spirit of God. You will feel that spirit guide and direct you in the things that you should do. I said, when Jesus was in America, he commanded all your ancestors to be baptized and he extends that invitation to you. I asked, does that sound like something you would want to do? Would you consider being baptized, like Jesus instructed, by the authority he gave them to baptize? To be baptized just exactly like your ancestors were? She said, that sounds pretty cool. I think I would. I said, that is what this is all about. This is how we come to Christ, by learning his word and doing the things he has commanded us to do.

She said, I like that. Let’s do that. I asked her if she knew any missionaries and she said they live just two houses down from where she lives. I said, take this Book of Mormon and show it to them and tell them what you felt here and that you want to learn more. She said, I’ll do that. This is great.

I asked her what she felt and she said she felt very happy like she had just received a surprise that she had not been expecting and she didn’t know what it was.. She said, it’s a very deep and profound happiness. I said, that’s the spirit of God witnessing to you that these things are true. She said, as you said these things I’ve had no doubt, I didn’t feel weird or like they were wrong. She said, I think you’re right.

We got another order and off she went. Keep an eye open for her in church Sunday

One night I got a late pick up from Lindon to the airport. It was a good ride financially and I was excited to get it. I picked her up at a really nice house only a few blocks from the Lindon Temple. You could see the temple was almost in the back yard of this home. It stood up there shining bright and it was very pretty at midnight.

She got in the car and we started to drive. I said, wow, the temple is really pretty at night lit up like that. She said, yeah I suppose, I just feel bad for the family whose land it is on. I thought to myself, such a negative take. She went on to talk about how some of the kids wanted to get more money out of the land and were not happy with the churches approach. One of the children was upset at the mother who had made the deal.

I said, I’m sure the mother considered it to be an honor to have such a beautiful building, a house of God, on her property. I said, I’m pretty sure that’s where her head was. The girl said, yes, but in my opinion the church had taken advantage. I asked, are you a member of the church? She said, well kind of. I’ve been baptized and I was married in the temple.

Right away, I felt really prickly vibes and felt that there was a bigger problem. It was like a puzzle and none of the pieces fit. On the outside, she looked like a member of the church. I found it strange that she sure was dressed up and fancy up for a red-eye flight.

Even though the discussion of the church had drawn a little prickly vibe, I felt prompted to continue talking about it. I decided to start by talking about her and her life. I asked her where she was from and she said up in that area. I asked her if she went to college and she said yes, BYU Idaho and then she went on a mission. After her mission she finished up back up in Rexburg.

I said, I’m from Ucon, Idaho! She said, I hate Idaho. She said, it’s too cold and there’s nothing to do. She said, all of the people there seem like they are mud farmers and those are not the kind of people I like associating with.

Right away, I could feel the lack of joy this person had in her soul. She was almost a black hole. Clearly, she had not figured out that you’ll be happy if you decide to be happy. I asked her if anything good happened at BYU Idaho. I could see that she had a ring on her finger and I assumed that’s where she met her husband. I expected to get some answer regarding that. She said, no, not really.

I asked, what about your husband? Did you meet him there? She said, yes but again that wasn’t such a great thing. Then she spent the next few minutes in a litany of shortcomings that she perceives her husband to have. She said, I don’t like being in a toxic relationship. I said, no one should be in a toxic relationship.

I asked, what are the things your husband does that are toxic? She thought for a minute and she said, well, we don’t go on good vacations and we live paycheck to paycheck. I’m getting a promotion at work soon and we can finally start to afford some things. I asked, do you have kids? She said she had two girls.

Then she said, as soon as I get my promotion, I’m going to get a divorce. All of a sudden the spirit impressed on me that the temple being there in the backyard and her having a problem with it all seemed to make sense. It was reminding her of the covenant she made and at that moment she had neither love for her husband or a desire to follow those covenants.

I asked her if her husband had done something that made her want to get a divorce. I was wondering if he had been unfaithful or if he was abusive. I asked her if this was the case. She said that he hadn’t been unfaithful and that he wasn’t abusive but he just wasn’t living up to her expectations. She said, I can do better and I shouldn’t have to settle.

I was speechless and that’s not an easy thing to accomplish. I prayed for guidance and what to say. You don’t want to tick someone off really bad, but I felt like I needed to say something.. I got the impression that on this trip she was going to be with a coworker and they were planning on having an affair.

All of a sudden being all gussied up for a red-eye flight made a little sense. I’ve done more than my share of flying in my day and I’ve taken a lot of red-eyes but never once did I dress up for a red-eye flight. I was in sweats, T-shirts and sleeping on those red-eye flights. This was truly not the case. This fact confirmed the prompting that I had received.

It also gave me a window into the reasoning for her negativity towards the church and her husband. She had to demean those things to justify the step she was planning to take.

I felt prompted to talk to her about the atonement, so I did. I talked about how we feel powerless in our lives sometimes and how things don’t go the way we expect. I said, when this happens, we can turn to Christ. When this happens, the power of the atonement of Jesus Christ can lift us through our disappointment and fill us with purpose.

I said, you have the gift of the Holy Ghost and if you get your mind right and your heart right, the atonement can lift you through the disappointment and the trials in your life. I said, no one is perfect and all people will fail you, including your husband. I said, you’ve also failed him, but through the atonement, you can be healed and lifted together. I said, that’s the plan.

Knowing that she had been on a mission roughly during the time that I have been in the MTC serving in branch presidencies, I knew that she had seen the Elder Bednar talk called “Character of Christ”. I saw in front of me, the result of not turning out in love and service, but turning in to the natural man. Turning in to your own carnal desires.

I mentioned that talk to her and asked if she remembered seeing it. She said said that she remembered that they went to it but she didn’t remember very much about it. I talked about it and said, it’s through the atonement of Jesus Christ that we can have the power and strength to turn out and serve other people. We can become God‘s hands and lift ourselves while we lift them.

I said, no situation is perfect, but even in a bad situation or a difficult one, we can be happy if we look to Christ and turn out just like Elder Bednar taught. She was quiet in the backseat.

I said, sometimes when our expectations are not met, we blame other people. We lose sight of Christ and lose contact with the spirit. I think what happens after that is you become critical and very cynical. Finding fault becomes a method of assuaging the angst you feel.

Christ would have you turned to him to assuage that angst, to mend that heart and make it possible to decide to be happy. You find what you look for. If you look for problems, you’ll find them.

I said, I’m sure your husband‘s not perfect, but is it really worth blowing the whole thing up when by turning into Christ, you could both become better.

I said, one of the most important things in marriage is forgiveness. We need to get forgiveness, but we also need to give forgiveness. If we don’t forgive others, how can we expect to be forgiven ourselves? If we don’t forgive others, we carry their burdens around with us too.

I said, when was the last time you purposefully looked for the good in your husband? She said, well, probably never. I said, if you look for the good, you’ll find the good.

I told her about when my kids went to school and if they were struggling, I would tell them to come home with a list of five things that they liked. After a few days of that they would like school because they started accustoming themselves to looking for the good. It is all in Llooking for things they like instead of the negative. I said, it works that way in marriage too. If you train yourself to look for the good things, you’ll find them. If you look to Christ, he’ll lift you through the atonement and if you turn out in service to others you’ll be happy and you’ll have the spirit of God with you. I said, that’s a good foundation.

She said, everything you’re saying makes sense and I know it’s true. I just don’t know if I want to put in that work. I said, God‘s not going to force you to be happy. You can be happy, you can be sad or you can be miserable. It’s kind of all up to you. I said, the things you’re thinking, the path you’re going down and the actions you were planning to take will not make you happy, peaceful or fulfilled.

She asked, what do you know about the path I’m planning to take? I decided that this would be the time to talk about the prompting that I had earlier. I said, you’re planning on having an affair with the person you’re traveling with. You’ve been talking about it and your heart’s been set on it. This is why you recently become very antagonistic in your relationship with both your husband and the church.

You’re finding reasons to criticize them so that you’ll feel more justified in the actions you’re preparing to take. Satan is whispering in your ear. He’s whispering about these things and changing your perspective. Don’t let him shape the battlefield. Why would you let Satan lay down the rules to the game to determine whether or not you’re happy or whether or not your marriage is successful?

It’s Satan telling you that you shouldn’t have to settle. You need to spend less time on TikTok listening to divorced women and you should ditch your divorced friends that complain, nonstop about how horrible their husbands were. She said, you just called out exactly what’s going on. Scrolling TikTok, and talking to my friends about our relationships lately has been my entire social life. How did you know? I hadn’t even realized myself that this was a problem. It clearly is.

The only thing you could hear in the car was the humming of the wheels on the road and a little bit of sniffling coming from the backseat. I said, God joined you and your husband together and you need to fight for that union, the blessings promised and the peace available to people who follow Christ and jeep their covenants.

She asked, how did you know that’s what I was going to do on this trip? I said, right after you got in the car, the spirit whispered that to me. You know that this is true.

I could feel the power of the spirit behind my words. I said, this is why I talked about the atonement. God gave me those words to tell you so that you could look to him. They answered your questions. As I talked about the atonement, in your mind, you saw how what I was saying would rectify any situation that you were confronted with.

I felt prompted to talk about the character of Christ. God has seen you turn in and you’ve got so much ability and capacity to bless others if you would turn out. That’s why we’re here. That’s why I got your ride.

God does not want you to blow up your family, blow up your marriage, blow up your covenants and jump off the deep end. It’s time to seek first the kingdom of God and then wait for other things to be added to you.

The spirit was moving in the car and had been for some time. I could feel at times that her spirit was resisting, but there was nothing she could say because everything I was saying was true. She was confounded.

I asked, do you remember what the spirit feels like? She said yes. I said, have you felt it here in the car? By this point, she was sobbing and she said yes.

I told her that following God and keeping your covenants is not settling. I said, it’s never settling to step up and be a woman of God. It’s never settling to do the right thing. It’s never settling to serve others and as a former Idaho mud farmer adjacent person, it’s never settling to be a mud farmer. The only time it’s settling is when you settle for things of this world and deny your spiritual birthright through disobedience. The very essence of settling is turning in to the natural man. Quit doing that.

She said, I’m a wreck. I had my plan all worked out. I don’t know what to do. I said, pray. I said, I feel like it’s been a very long time since you prayed. By praying, I don’t mean just saying words but communicating with your father in heaven. How long has that been? She said, it’s been a very long time, many years. I said, it’s time to do that again. It’s time to do that on the airplane. It’s time to do that in your hotel room. It’s time to do that with your family and it’s time to do that before you go to bed and when you wake up.

I said, my Mission President used to tell me to start a prayer before I left the apartment and walk all day on my knees in my heart. It’s time for you to pray. I said, you brought Satan in and if you don’t get the spirit with you, he will ravage you and your family. That’s up to you. How do you want that to go?

I said, remember that wickedness never was happiness and there’s nothing more wicked than blowing up your family and that will never make you happy. I could feel the spirit still testifying through my words and the impact was landing.

I said, if you follow through with this, it will be a disaster for the rest of your life. God sent you his spirit tonight to help you realize that. Don’t turn away.

She said I certainly was not expecting this on my ride. I’ve set myself up a little bit and I have some work to do to get out of it. I asked her if she could still feel the spirit and she said yes. I said, what does that mean? What does it mean that you feel the spirit right now? She said, it means that what you’re saying is true, I need to do these things.

I said, God will put the words in your heart to say if you will be your knees in your heart. He will help you negotiate this because he wants you back.

We were coming up on the airport and she composed herself and she said, the only way you could’ve known all these things and spoken to me like this is through the spirit. I know God sent you. I should have learned these things before. I said, it’s not too late. God wants you to be happy and he will be there with you. He will walk with you if you will have him. If you will access the atonement, look for the good in others, quit being critical and start turning out in love and service to others like you learned in the “Character of Christ”, you can make this happen. You can save your family and you can save your soul. It’s up to you but tonight is a crossroads.

We were pulling up to the drop off and she said, I had it all figured out. I said, yes, but it takes faith to step into the unknown and follow God. That’s what you need to do. She said, I will. She thanked me, shook my hand and got out of the car.

Sometimes rides are a pleasant conversation and sometimes everything gives way to the spirit from the start. The first 2/3 of this ride were flat out a struggle, a wrestle, a fight. I could feel the resistance but I could feel God fighting back. God weighed in. Now she needs to do the right thing. I believe she will.

One night I was driving in Park City and it was about that time when everyone picks up and goes out to socialize and drink. It was during spring break and there were lots of people taking advantage of the drinking establishments around town. College kids everywhere.

I got a ride to go up and pick up three people. When I got there, there were three young men, very excited to get their night going.

When I pulled up, I noticed that these were pretty large young men 6‘4“+ and they were loud and having a good time. They asked if they could put someone in the front seat. Normally, I don’t like that for safety reasons but I acquiesced, this time due to the fact that I didn’t see how all three could fit in the backseat together.

When they got in, I asked them where they were from. Two said, we go to the University of Alabama and the other said Auburn. I said, well, you guys aren’t supposed to like each other. Are you sure you’ll be OK back there in the backseat like that? They laughed and said they had been friends forever but they loved football so they got it. That night I happen to be wearing my blue stretch Y logo BYU hat.

I don’t know why I was wearing it.  Normally I don’t wear it In Salt Lake, it can really hurt you. In and around Utah there are people that will not tip or will even give bad ratings because you identify with BYU.

The guy in the front seat said, how about you, BYU, Do you want to go get a drink with us? They all started to laugh. One said in a mocking tone, that’s right you can’t because of your honor code and all. Then they gave me the business about how the only real football is SEC football and that we could never make it in the big leagues, stuff like that.

I laughed and said so, we’re talking trash, huh? They laughed and said, always. I said I’ve got a question about Alabama, will you answer it for me? They said yes. I asked them why Alabama puts “roll Tide” on all of their gear. They were puzzled and said, we don’t know. I said, because they can’t spell elephant. They shouted, hey, and then started laughing. (Alabama’s mascot is an elephant for some inexplicable reason )

I have to confess that I didn’t come up with that all by myself. A lady I baptized about 10 years ago named Tasha who is a huge LSU fan told me that joke just popped into my mind. I followed up quickly by saying, hey we did pretty good when we played you out there in the 90’s. We lost by a field goal.  After that you canceled the return game in Provo that was promised. I guess we are a little too scary for ya’ll. 

I said, you guys used to be great back when you were the only people paying their players but now that everyone can pay players  it’s making it a little tough on you. I’m so sorry that happened to you.

By this time everyone was laughing, we all had our pound of flesh and we started talking about each university. They asked me if I knew any of the former players that had played at BYU. I told them that when I was in school I knew and was friendly with Steve Young. I was good friends with his brother Mike. I also showed them the picture I have with Andy Reid, who I also knew when I was at BYU. From that moment on, I had instant credibility.

I quoted President Samuelson, who said, when it comes to the SEC, we are at a bit of a competitive disadvantage. Football is their religion and we already have a religion.

The guy sitting in the passenger seat said, tell me about this honor code you guys have. Is it true that you can’t drink? What’s that all about?

I asked them if they were religious and they said that they were Christians. I said, great. That means you believe in the Bible. They said, yes, we do and  all of the teachings of Jesus Christ. I said, perfect! We do too.

I said, we believe that the Bible was written by prophets and apostles. I said, these were people called by God to write his word he revealed his word to them, and they taught the people God’s word. They wrote his words. I said, that’s the Bible, the word of God.

The one in the seat next to me said, I didn’t think you guys believed in the Bible.
I thought you guys believed in the Book of Mormon. I said, yes, we do. We believe that they’re both the word of God because we believe that God loves everyone not just the people in Jerusalem.

They were caught a little off guard by that statement. They said, we believe God loves everyone too, what does the Book of Mormon have to do with that? I said, we believe that God shows his love to his children by giving them commandments and laws to live by. He does this so they’ll be happy. That’s what commandments are, rules to make us happy. They are guard rails so that we don’t fall off the cliff.

I said, for example, do either of you know someone that got divorced because of infidelity or had a child outside of marriage? They laughed and said, we know several. I said, how much peace do they have in their life with that situation. The one right next to me said, every person I know in that situation regrets it. Every person I know in that situation wishes they could go back and do it again and not make that mistake.

I asked, then, if they had obeyed the commandment would they have been happier? They said, yes. I said, these laws, that God gives us in the Bible and through his prophets are eternal. It’s a one-size-fits-all thing. It’s the same law for everyone in the world, regardless of where they live. They agreed.

I said, did God love the people who lived in America 2000 years ago? One of them said, yes God loves everyone. I said, would God withhold his love and happiness from them by withholding his word and his commandments?  Would a loving God who is a loving father make sure all of his children had a pathway to happiness that would bring them home to him?

They said, that sounds more like it should be. I said, that’s why we have prophets. I said, prophets here in America wrote their revelations just like prophets in the Bible. Those revelations were translated by a prophet using the power of God. This is what we call the Book of Mormon. It is the word of God revealed through his prophets to the people who lived here in ancient America.

I said, we are the religion that believes that God loves everyone not just the people in Jerusalem.   We believe that Jesus Christ died for all of our sins, not just the people who lived in Jerusalem. We believe that the gospel is the same for everyone and the rules are the same for everyone no matter where they live or when they lived. We believe that salvation is for everyone who will accept the gospel and follow the teachings of Jesus, regardless of when they lived or where they live. Not just Jerusalem and not just in modern times or favorable places.  The Book of Mormon is a testament of Jesus Christ, his love and his sacrifice for every one of God‘s children.

The guy in the passenger seat said, that’s really cool. I never thought of the gospel like that. I said, if God loves everyone, if he is their father then why would he stack the deck against many of his children and make it impossible for them. I said, it’s kind of like playing a game at Alabama, you have to play the team and their officials. I couldn’t resist the dig!  I said, Heavenly Father made sure that we all have the same opportunity to know his son, Jesus Christ.  He gives us the opportunity to accept the gospel so that we can be saved. I said, if that weren’t the case, God would not be a loving and fair father. What kind of father would condemn most of his children without an opportunity?

The passenger next to me said, I like that. I’ve always had that question about what would happen to people that never heard of Jesus Christ. I said, Heavenly Father makes sure that every one of his children will hear about Jesus Christ and every one will have the opportunity to accept him through the gospel.

I said, we even have a prophet today in the world. He receives revelation from God and helps us. I said, today it’s chaotic and there are things that didn’t exist back when the scriptures were written.  It’s important for us to have God’s take on how we need to act and react to those things. This is why we have a prophet and apostles today. They lead and guide us. That was the organization of the ancient church that Jesus founded and it’s the organization that exists today.

The way the conversation was going was really interesting in that everybody was participating, but to me, my focus kept being drawn to one of the guys. He was the one that was sitting in the passenger seat.  He was genuinely interested in the things I was saying. I could tell that he was soaking it in.

On top of that I could feel the spirit in the car and I could tell he did too, so I turned to him and asked, how does it feel when you hear that? He said, It feels cool, it feels like it’s right. It makes so much sense. I said, the reason that it makes sense is because God sends his spirit when truth is being taught.  His spirit confirms that truth to our hearts. That’s how we know that it’s right. He said, I agree with that.

I said, BYU is run under the direction of our prophet and apostles. One of the rules we have in our church is that we don’t drink, smoke or do drugs. We have been given a promise by our prophets that if we don’t do those things we will be physically stronger and mentally better. I said, it mentions that we will have great treasures of knowledge available to us. I said, that’s a promise from God through his prophets.

One of them said, well that makes a lot of sense. Everybody knows that drinking is stupid and then we go out and do it anyway because it’s fun! He said, it doesn’t take a prophet to know it’s bad though.

I asked him when it was that they started doing research on the damage these things do to your body. He said, I think about the mid-1900’s. Before then,  pretty much everybody smoked and drank. Now they have warnings all over the place.

I said, our prophet gave us these warnings in the 1830’s.  I asked, how did he know? Everybody was doing it. How could he have known?

I said, he knew because he was a prophet of God. He gave us this law so that we could be happy. He gave us this law so that we could be healthy. It’s part of the honor code at BYU that you asked about. Each person that goes to BYU has to sit down with their religious leader and promise that they won’t drink or party and that they won’t have sex out of marriage.

In a joking way one of them said, how many wives does a BYU football player get to have? He said, there’s a recruiting angle here. I said, the honor code restricts them to only one wife! Everyone laughed. I said, actually, the church practiced polygamy in the past, but it has been forbidden for the last 125 years. He said, so you guys are pretty much Christians. I said, yes, in every way. We believe in Christ and we believe that only through  the atonement of Christ can we be saved and access his grace that saves us all. All three of them said amen. 

One of them said that obeying those rules would cut down on a lot of drama, a lot of frustration and a lot of stress. He said, I’ve always wondered how BYU always manages to do so well. They have a cheat code called the honor code.  

Everyone was kind of participating in the conversation but it was really funny, or better said interesting, how there just seemed to be almost a bond or a connection that developed between me and the passenger in the front seat. The other guys weren’t hostile, they were in and out of the conversation, but they were mostly making their plans for the evening while I spoke with the guy next to me.

He said, I have had a religion my whole life but I haven’t been religious. I’ve kind of felt lately that this part of my life was being ignored. Right now I feel like what you’re saying is scratching that itch. It’s like it’s something I’ve needed to hear.  This is why I am here tonight. 

We were pulling up to the place where they were meeting their friends for the evening activities. The guy sitting next to me said, I’ve been really impressed with the things you said. You are not at all what I expected a Mormon to be. Your friendly, you are normal and I felt the power of God in your words. How can I learn more? I told him that there are members of the church at his university. I told him that a girl in my neighborhood went on a mission down there so I know there are missionaries on campus of the University of Alabama.  He asked, how do I find them?

Using his phone I jumped on the Meetinghouse locator and put in his address.  The screen popped up the information that said what ward he belonged to, where they met and what time they met. It also had the name of the Bishop. I did a screenshot for him so that it would be in his photos. I said, if you go there, they will be able to help you learn more.

I asked him if he would like me to give him a Book of Mormon. He said, yes! I reached into my glove box to get that Book of Mormon but I was out. I had given out the last one the day before and I hadn’t replenished my stash. I said, normally I carry a Book of Mormon in my car with me to hand out but I am out.

I asked, how long are you guys going to be here? He said that they were going to leave in three days.  I asked him if it would be OK if I dropped by the following day with a Book of Mormon for him. He said that would be amazing. We set a time for 5 o’clock the next day. .

The next day I took him his Book of Mormon. He told me that he had figured out where that church house was and that he was going to go when he got back.  

I think it’s interesting that there were three people in the car and all were friendly and engaging regarding the gospel. One of them felt the spirit and was moved. Heavenly Father brings us along and the spirit speaks to us when we are ready to hear. I assume that down the line at some point the other two will be ready as well.

I picked up a guy at a hotel in Park City He had just gotten off work. He was on an internship B1 visa. They use these visas in tourist destinations to staff hospitality businesses in the high season. The people work the season, travel for two weeks then go home. In the winter there are thousands of these workers in Park City and 90% of them are from Latin America.

Earlier in the evening I had taken a couple from that hotel who had gone there to eat at the restaurant where this man worked. The restaurant had big problems in their ability to charge credit cards that night. The system was down. They ended up giving everybody free dinner. I’ll let you know if I ever find out that’s happening again.

I picked him up and he said that it was crazy at work. I asked him if he liked his job and he said he liked his job a lot. He said the people here in Utah are really nice and he loves the area because it’s so peaceful. The spirit wispered to me, “ here you go. Tell him why”.

I followed that counsel and asked him if he wanted to know why it feels so peaceful here in Utah. He said yes. I told him it’s because the people here try to follow Jesus Christ. I told him that the people here treat each other well by comparison with other places because many are trying to do the things that Jesus Christ would do and be more like him.

I told them that Jesus Christ gave us commandments and when we obey those commandments we are happy When we obey the comandments we have God on our side and in our hearts. He said, I believe that. I told him that the people here try to obey those commandments given by Jesus Christ and so they have God in their hearts. He said, that makes total sense.

He was from Columbia and I asked him what he knew about the church. He said he really didn’t know anything. I asked him if he had ever seen the church or missionaries from the church in his home town in Colombia. He said he didn’t know anything about the church until he got here but that he had felt a tremendous curiosity to learn more. He asked me what the differences were between what he had been taught and what we believe.

I told him that we believe that God is a God of all of the world not just Jerusalem. I said that God sent his son Jesus Christ to America because God has all power. I asked him if he had ever heard this. He said no. I asked him if he believed that God loved him and he said yes. I asked him if he thought that God loved his ancestors as much as he did the people in Israel. He said, yes, for sure. I asked him why God would deny his son to the people in America when he had the power to send him here to visit the people. I said, if he loves them the same why would he do that. He said he couldn’t think of a good reason

I told him that God sent his son Jesus Christ to his ancestors here in America. I testified that he descended from heaven full of resurrected glory and stood on the steps of their temple. He let the people worship him. I said that these people, this man’s family, touched the prints of the nails in his hands and feet. They knew that he was their God that they had been waiting for. He blessed them, taught them the gospel and loved them. He blessed them and their posterity which included him.

The spirit was in the car and I asked him how he felt. He said he felt really warm and good. He said that it felt like the sun was shining on his soul. I said, the reason why you feel that way is because God is testifying to your heart and telling you that the things I am saying are true.

I told him that if I wasn’t telling the truth, the spirit of God would not be here. I told him that God does not lie to his children. He said, that makes sense. I asked him how it felt to know that Jesus came to his ancestors. He said, it feels amazing and it feels right. He said it was almost like something he had know but forgotten over time. I told him that this is exactly what had happened.

I told him that before he was born he lived with his father in heaven. He loved how it felt there. I said that he and God had a real relationship of love. I said, when you were in his presence, it felt something like what you are feeling right now. When you lived there, you were taught these things and you knew all about the visit of Jesus to your ancestors. Due to this knowledge, your spirit recognizes it now as I teach it. This is why you were feeling the spirit of God.

I told him that when Jesus was done teaching and blessing the people here in America, he went to other places around the world because he is the God of the whole world not just Jerusalem.

I told him that God had prophets in America just like he had prophets in Jerusalem because he loved the people that lived here. He said, that makes sense too. I told him that God gave revelations to them and they wrote them down. I told him that they also wrote down the account of the visit of Jesus Christ to America and the things he taught while he was here to his ancestors. These writings talk about the blessings he left with them and on their posterity.

He said, I love this. I told him that all of those teachings were written on plates, golden plates in the language that they spoke. I told him that they were buried in the ground and that Joseph Smith, who was called to be a prophet by God, was given power by God to translate them into English. This is the Book of Mormon.

I told him that God always used people who were not necessarily capable of doing things so that he could show his power through that person. He didn’t call a world renowned translation specialist, he called a boy. He called Joseph Smith when he was only 14 years old.

I told him that God sent David a young boy to slay the mighty Goliath. He said, yes. I asked him if a small boy should have been able to defeat the greatest warrior in the world. He said, no. I asked him how he did it and he said the power of God.

I told him Joseph Smith had a third grade education and there’s no way he could translate a book like that except for by the power of God. I told him that God uses his power working through us to accomplish miracles and that the translation of the Book of Mormon is one of them. He said, that gave me chills. I said, Joseph Smith was called as prophet to restore the Church of Jesus Christ on the earth in our day. This revelation has continued. We have a prophet of God on the earth today who God works through to give us the knowledge he would have us receive.

He looked at me with his mouth open and his eyes filled with excitement. He said, that’s amazing! I said, just like God loved the people that lived in America he also loves us and that’s why we have prophet. He said, this is good! I asked him if he wanted a copy of the Book of Mormon and he said yes quickly followed by, your sure? I reached into my glove box and pulled a Spanish copy of the Book of Mormon prepared by Secrists. I explained to him that this book was the spiritual heritage of his family. I told him that Abraham was told that his seed would be scattered throughout the world and this book tells how part of that happened.

I told him that this book is also the way that we are going to gather the house of Israel and prepare for the return of Jesus Christ. I told him that this book is the cornerstone of that restoration back to the actual church of Jesus Christ. I said that along with the Bible, this book teaches us how to act and how to show our love to God.

I told him that this book teachers about the blessings given to him and his ancestors. It shows them the love God has for them. He said, I’d love to read it. I said, that is why God put you in my car tonight and why I have this Book of Mormon for you. He wants you to read it. He wants you to know how much he loves you.

He asked me if we could sit for a while. We did and we talked about the importance of having revelation and the importance of that feeling that he was feeling and how God had given that him so that he could know that these things were true. I told him that he will feel this feeling as he reads and that’s how he will know that the Book of Mormon is true. That is how God will bear witness to his soul of its truth. I said that this is how God guides us.

I showed him Moroni 10:3-5 and told him that if he will pray to God while he is reading this book and feel, he will know its truthfulness by the spirit. I said, it’s a promise from one of your ancestors and from God.

He asked me how we pray. I instructed him on the four steps of prayer that we taught on our mission.
Address our Heavenly Father.
We thank him for everything we have.
We ask for the blessings we need including his spirit as a guide to know that the Book of Mormon is true
We end in the name of Jesus Christ.

I told him that it’s kind of a free form thing where you can open your heart and discuss anything you want with your father in heaven. He can bring the spirit to bear on any circumstance and help you throughout your life.

I told him we have prayer, we have the Old Testament, the New Testament and now we have this book which is another testament of Jesus Christ. I said, this testament, the Book of Mormon, testifies that God loves everyone not just the people in Jerusalem. This is why he sent his son Jesus Christ to them. He said, what an amazing message. I can’t wait to read this book. I love to read and I promise I will read it.

I asked him if he knew where there was a church house in his hometown. He said that he wasn’t sure. I asked for his address and plugged it into the meeting house locator. The result was very surprising to us. When the page came up, it had a picture of the church house and the name of the bishop of the ward. He said, I live really close to that building. When he looked at the bishops name, he said, I know who that man is. I know his kids. They are awesome!!

I said, when you get back, you need to go up to these kids you know who are the bishop’s children and tell them about our ride tonight and what you learned. You need to show them your Book of Mormon and tell them that you know this is true. Ask them if they will go to church with you.

He promised me that he would do this. He said that he really wanted to go to church because he wanted to be part of this, this feeling, the feeling he felt in the car, the feeling he felt in Utah and the feeling he felt with God.

He reached out shook my hand, thanked me again and left the car.

In my driving people have always commented on how much they enjoy the cleanliness of my car and the service i provide. They come and go frequently to Park City. Some have asked me to kind of be their permanent ride. I like this because they pay me in cash and everyone’s happy.

I have one such person who is a Jewish man from back east. He has a home in Deer Valley in a condo community with many other people from back east. In these condos there is a large Jewish community. Apparently he has spread my name throughout that community.

I get new calls all the time to take people to the airport who are Jewish. Sometimes they are rabbis, sometimes they are orthodox and sometimes they are not practicing Jews at all. I get along really well with them and it’s been a profitable, good relationship.

One of these people had his son-in-law in town with his granddaughter. He had me take the son-in-law and the granddaughter to the airport one morning at 5 AM in a snow storm. It was a lovely trip up Provo Canyon 35 miles an hour.

When I finished the ride the young man asked me to help him the following week when he had some business associates in town. I said I would and the following week I was able to give rides to many of them. The last ride of that week was the same man who was the son-in-law. This time he didn’t have his daughter so we had some uninterrupted conversation time.

As we started driving I had the impression that I was supposed to give him a Book of Mormon. I carry several in my car so that’s not a problem but I have rarely given a Book of Mormon to a Jewish person. I don’t have a large base of experience to draw from with Jewish people so I was a bit unsure and little bit awkward as to how to approach it.

As we drove, the prompting came back again two times. As we came out of the mouth of the canyon heading towards the airport I decided I better get with it. We were finished talking about business and everything else I could think of.

I asked him if they were practicing Jews. I don’t even know if that’s the way you’re supposed to say that but it is how I asked it. He said, interesting that you would ask that. It’s quite the topic of discussion in my family these days.

He talked about his family and how his wife comes from a split Jewish Christian background but is now 100% observant as a Christian. He comes from a very traditional Jewish background. This had become quite an issue with everybody and he felt like they were between a rock and a hard spot with regard to religion. No matter what they do, somebody’s not going to be happy. His mom in particular was not happy when they talked about going to a Christian church but his children love going to a Christian church. He said, my kids really love learning about Jesus.

He said that his mom believes that they are of the house of Israel and that means something. It is really a sticking point.

He said that in his heart he also has a dilemma. Many times they just don’t go. He told me that he thinks it’s wrong to deny his children a religious upbringing. He said, if we don’t give them a religious upbringing it’s like taking the opportunity for them to know God and their place in the universe away. Time is important here. He didn’t believe people ever come back to it if they’re not taught it while they’re young.

I agreed with him and asked him what he knew about our church. He said he knew very little. He said that he drives by the Washington DC temple from time to time and it is beautiful. I agreed with him on the DC temple.

I told him that our church has a lot in common with the Jewish religion. I told him we have a health law and they have kosher. I told them we believe in prophets and they believe in prophets. They consider themselves children of the prophets. I told him we believe in the same God.

I told him that the biggest difference between his religion and our religion is that we believe that the Messiah has come and it is Jesus Christ. I told him that they don’t believe the Messiah has come and they’re still waiting.

He agreed with that comparison and said, it sounds about right. I asked him if he’d ever heard of the Book of Mormon. He said yes but he didn’t know anything about it

I talked about the Book of Mormon and the story it tells. I said it was written by and about a Jewish family in Jerusalem. I told him that the father of that family was a prophet. It says that before Babylon conquered Jerusalem in 600 B.C. he took his family and they escaped. I told him that this family was brought by the hand of God to the Americas. He laughed and said, we are the most wandering bunch of people ever. I laughed and said that even though this is true, God remembers his people of Israel and he gave them prophets to lead them in their wanderings. I said that many prophets descended from that family and they received revelation from God. They wrote those revelations down and God preserved them. I said that these revelations are the Book of Mormon.

I told him that the book is a spiritual account of this Jewish family and their interactions with God. I told him that where we believe that Jesus is the Messiah, we also believe that God is all powerful and he sent his son Jesus Christ to America to visit these people. I told him that this account is contained in the Book of Mormon. I told him it testifies that Jesus really is the Messiah and that he went to God’s children all over the world to save us all. He came to gather scattered Israel.

He thought that was cool. The Book of Mormon being a history of a Jewish family was something that he was intrigued by. I told him that the purpose of the Book of Mormon is to convince both the Jew and the Gentile that Jesus Christ is the Messiah and the son of God.

I said that the power of God is the thing that will gather Israel as prophesied and the Book of Mormon is the instrument we use to gather Israel. I talked to him about the tribes of Israel and how they were scattered all over the world. I mentioned that this included this family of people in America that were brought there by the hand of God from Jerusalem.  I told him that the purpose of the church of Jesus Christ was to gather Israel in these days. 

I told him that we believe that we are part of the house of Israel from various tribes and then when we go out and do missionary work we are gathering Israel. I said, this is why we are not antagonistic towards Jews as many religions are. He agreed with me that many Christians have been very antagonistic but that this approach was new to him.

I told him that where the Jews believed in prophets we still believe in prophets. I told him that the Book of Mormon was translated by the power of God through a prophet named Joseph Smith. This man in my car was from New York and he knew exactly who Joseph Smith was.

I told him that Joseph Smith was a 14 year old boy looking for the truth and God called him to be the prophet to restore his church on the earth just like it had existed in Israel 2000 years ago. I told him that Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God. I testified that he received these plates, engraved by prophets who were the people who had lived in America. They were all descendants of this Jewish family. Joseph Smith interpreted the engravings into English so that we could have them today.

I testified to him that we also have a prophet today that speaks with God and maintains that line of communication with God that is foundational for our religion. I said that this line of communication through prophets has been foundational for the people of God throughout the centuries. He agreed.

The spirit was with us in the car. He noted it by saying, ”I feel so calm and peaceful right now”. He noted that it was a profound peace. I said, it is the spirit of God. God gives us his spirit to confirm truth. When you feel that, you know the things you are hearing are true. He said, “that makes sense” I feel truth in everything you have said.”

I asked him if he would like to have a Book of Mormon and he said, yes! Very much so! I reached into my glove box and pulled out one of the Book of Mormons prepared by the Secrists and gave it to him.

He was intrigued by the tabs and the questions in the front and I explained how he could answer the questions by reading the pages indicated by the tabs. I told him to feel for the spirit.

He said, this may be the answer I’m looking for! Where you guys are of the house of Israel, maybe this is a way forward for us. That might make my mom calm down and I know my wife wants a Christian religion. It seems like this might be my answer. I am going to read this.

I asked him if he knew any members of our church. He said he knew a guy at work who was part of something called a Bishop Rick in our church. I smiled and said, it is a bishopric and it means that he has responsibility to watch over the people in your area. He is supposed to help them in their lives and nurture them spiritually.

He said, he is a really good guy. I said, go to him with your Book of Mormon and let him know about our conversation and the spirit you felt. He should be able to answer any questions you have. He said, this is something I want to do.

He said, this ride has been amazing and answered so many questions. I love that I can be both Christian and of the house of Israel. That feels right and it should make everyone happy.

We had arrived at the airport and he said, this ride has given me so many answers, brought the spirit of God and given me a sacred book to read. This has been incredible. He generously tipped me and left for his flight but what was poured out in generous abundance on this ride was the spirit of god. Look out Bishop Rick

One day I was in Orem and I picked up a ride for about $25 going north. I thought, that’s a pretty good ride to Salt Lake payment wise. I was excited to take it. They don’t give you very good foresight as to where you’re going just a quick view of a small map and I really didn’t have time to focus on it but I accepted it.

I picked up this young lady over by Geneva Road and when we started to move, I saw where she was going. Mantua ,Utah! I don’t know how many of you know where Mantua is. Most people know it as the place where they get pulled over between Brigham City and Logan. The Mantua cop is infamous and persistent.

I thought,oh my goodness, that’s not so great for $25. One thing you know is from far that away there won’t be a ride coming back so that’s about three hours for $25 and a less than desirable trip.

I sat there there feeling sorry for myself for a moment over having roped myself into this ride. I heard the words, she needs your help. I looked in the mirror and what I saw or at least my first impressions of what I saw were a 35-year-old woman who had clearly been worn by life.

The spirit came over me and I felt great compassion for her. I thought about how hard life had apparently been to her. Little did I know many of my initial suppositions were wrong, as they tend to be when we rely on our eyes and not the Lord‘s eyes.

I did know, however, that she needed my help so we started to talk. Right off the bat she said that she was a student at UVU. This took me by surprise. I asked how was it hanging out with all of those young kids.

The look on her face let me know I had stepped in the mud a little bit. She said, I’m 25 so there’s not that much difference in age. Inside I was shocked and I tried not to let my face betray my feelings. I said, in an attempt to recover from my previous gafe, yeah but freshman are 18 How is it dealing with freshman. We took that and ran with it. I felt like I dodged a bullet.

Early on in my life I sold insurance and I learned that if you had to guess an age you guess 10 years below what you think they are. Why didn’t I apply that principle in this situation? It would’ve made the start of this conversation a lot easier. We went with the how is it dealing with 18-year-olds.

She said they were crazy but in her life she had grown out of her crazy faze. I asked, what was your crazy faze? She answered, I was a drug addict and an alcoholic from the time I was about 15 until I was 21.

She said, those years beat me up. I found a program and I got sober and clean. I’ve been sober and clean for four years now and I’m a counselor at that same rehab where I got sober.

I said, that’s great! I’ll bet you provide great insight and help. She said, it helps me maintain the principles that helped me with my sobriety and yes, I get to help other people. We talked for a few minutes about the concepts and program that they had.

I mentioned to her that my parents had served an addiction recovery mission. I said, it was their third mission and they really enjoyed helping people in the biggest fight of their lives.

As I was saying this, I received an impression that this young woman had grown up in the church. I felt she had been abused and discarded. I felt that she had been taught by those around her to blame the church and its leaders for her situation. I felt that this hurt little girl had fallen in with people who had an agenda that pulled her away from the church. She had got in with this bad crowd and acted out to find acceptance and camaraderie. From that point on it was a steady decline.

As I had these thoughts, the spirit told me to share them now. As I began to think in my mind how to formulate the words I was going to say based on the revelation I had received, I looked in the mirror and I no longer saw a 35-year-old woman. I saw a daughter of my father in heaven who had been pulled away and knew that he wanted her back. She needed help.

I asked her if she believed in miracles. She said yes. I asked her if she believed that God works through one person to help another. She said, I see it every day. I asked her if she would mind me sharing some impressions I had from the spirit. She said, I’m not Mormon anymore. I asked, well, do you mind if I share my impressions? She said, go ahead.

This was not a robust invitation but it opened the door and I walked through. I said, when we were baptized, we got what’s called the gift of the Holy Ghost. I asked, do you remember when you got the gift of the Holy Ghost? She said, yes. I was a Mormon but I don’t believe in that anymore. She said, I can tell you are a Mormon. You just have that feel to you.

I said, I’m glad I have that feel to me. I call it the spirit. The Holy Ghost can walk with us and help us make good decisions. I said, the Holy Ghost can comfort and lift us. The Holy Ghost can tell us things that we need to know to help other people and that’s where I got these impressions I want to share with you. She said, OK.

I repeated back to her the things about her life that I have previously written a couple of paragraphs above. Upon finishing, this girl who had been quite chatty was quiet. She didn’t say a word. I wondered if the darkness of my comment had offended her.

In my discussion of my prompting, I told her that I believed that at least some of the people who had abused and discarded her were church members, leaders, and family who are members of the church. I told her that her friends had told her to blame those people and this had created a wall between her and them.

She said, that’s exactly right! I love that wall because no one should ever have to go through what they put me through! Her defiant tone caught me a bit off guard but I decided to press forward.

I’ve had a lot of experience in my life with people who refuse to let go of the bitter hatred they have for people who have harmed them. I mentioned this to her and told her that hatred can consume you sometimes. She said, it’s what pushes me through.

It gives me the intensity I need to live my life. I asked her if she ever got tired of having that hate in her heart. I shared a couple of stories with her of people that didn’t forgive and in the end it becomes a cancer. I talked about my great grandfather and how the most part of three generations have been destroyed because he wouldn’t drop it.

She said, well, I see that and I hear that but I’m not part of the forgive and forget, all is well crowd. I said, there’s a difference between forgiving and forgetting. I said, forgiveness is the eternal principle and forgetting is not.

I said, that’s where Jesus Christ comes in. She said, I don’t believe in Jesus Christ. I said, in your seven step program, don’t you confess a belief in God? She said, we believe in a higher power. Yes, I do believe in a higher power.

I asked her if she believed in Satan. She thought about it for a moment and said, I believe there are bad people so believing there is a Satan is not that hard for me. I said, I believe that there are evil people and that Satan is the inspiration behind everything they do that is evil. I asked, if Satan is pushing people to do bad things and you have felt that, who would be pushing people to do good things? I also believe you felt this good in your life. I said, it’s got to be so much more than a higher power!

She said, I never thought of it that way. I said, your father in heaven is a loving Heavenly Father and all good flows from him. When we are rebellious we are rebelling against him. When we do bad things, it is an offense to him.

I said, when those things were done to you as a child, that offended your father in heaven because he loves you. You are his daughter. Your spirit was with him for thousands of years and his heart broke for you.

When I testified of the love of her Heavenly Father, the spirit entered the car and she began to tear up. She said, I never thought of it like that. Why did he make me suffer if he loves me?

I said, he didn’t make you suffer. He gives each of us our agency. He doesn’t force us to do anything. If he did, we couldn’t grow and if he did, we couldn’t learn. Some people misuse their agency to do evil. They misuse their agency and listen to Satan. When they do, others suffer. It’s not God causing the suffering. It’s Satan and evil people inflicting that suffering.

She said, OK. I get that but how does that make it right? Why would God let people suffer? I said, this is one of the great questions that a lot of people ask and the good thing is there is an answer to it. She said, I’m all ears. I have seen a lot of people be damaged by that suffering.

I said, it’s all about Jesus Christ. Heavenly Father sent Jesus Christ to earth to make it all right. He suffered the atonement which gave him the power to lift us. Many times when we think about the atonement, we think about the resurrection and that is a huge part of it. Due to the fact that Jesus was resurrected, every person who ever lived will live again. They will all be resurrected.

He did so much more than that. He suffered for our sins, our infirmities, the injustice we face and the oppression we experience in our lives. Every horrible negative thing you have ever felt or you will ever feel was also felt by Jesus. His suffering was so great that he bled from every pore and God sent angels to him to strengthen him.

By suffering these things for us it makes it so that if we look to him, he can relieve our suffering. She said, how does that work? I said, when you have faith in Jesus Christ and you ask God to apply the atonement of Jesus Christ in your circumstance the power of the atonement enters your life and lifts your burden.

When you have sinned, it cleanses you of the spirituall effect of that sin. When we are sick or otherwise suffering, the power of the atonement of Jesus Christ can literally minimize our suffering.

I told her the story I heard from Elder Maxwell about the children in the cancer ward at the hospital when he was having his treatments. He talked about how painful these treatments were and how this pain was debilitating for many of the adults but the small children were happy and playing as if they weren’t even sick in many cases. He said, their parents were, in many cases, much worse off than the small children. He taught that this is because the small children have faith in Jesus Christ and are covered by his atonement whereas adults need to learn to seek the atonement of Jesus Christ to bless their lives.

I said, it works like this in my mind. When something bad happens to us Satan tells us to blame God and the church. Many times we do. Many times people are horrible animals and they do things they shouldn’t and Satan says, blame God but we know Satan is a liar.

God points to Jesus and says look to Christ and live. Through the power of the atonement of Jesus Christ, our burdens are lightened and we can have joy even in our darkest circumstance.

I said, it’s like if you had seven clear glasses and you filled them with different levels of Kool-Aid. Later decided you wanted them all to be even. What would you do? She said, take some from the one that was the most full and use it to make them even. I said, that’s how we look at it as human beings and that’s how Satan wants us to look at it. He wants you to think that you have to take from that person to give to the other but that’s not how Jesus does it. I said, through the atonement of Jesus Christ, he just comes in with a new pitcher of Kool-Aid and fills everyone to the top. He makes up the difference. When there’s an injustice, he makes up the difference by lifting us. When there’s unfairness he makes up the difference by lifting us. When we sin, he makes up the difference by lifting us. When there is illness, he makes up the difference and lifts us. If we look to him, we can live.

She said, wow, I never understood it like that. I said, that is why when people look to Christ, they are able to overcome things where before they were not able to do on their own. That is why the “higher power’ is a very important part of what you guys are doing and what you guys are teaching.

As you teach people to use the atonement of Jesus Christ ( higher power) to fight their addiction you also can free yourself from the bonds of anger and hatred by looking to the atonement of Jesus Christ.

The spirit was in the car and she had tears rolling down her cheeks. She asked, will that still work for me? I said yes. I asked her what she was feeling. She said, hope and relief. She said, I feel like a burden has been lifted from my shoulders. I said, that is what Jesus Christ can do. If you ask your father in heaven to bless you through the atonement of Jesus Christ, you can have your burdens lifted in a very real way. It can change the way you function and deal in your life.

I said, when you feel this, you know that you are feeling the spirit of your father in heaven and the things you are hearing are true. This is how we know when we are hearing truth. God testifies to our souls by sending his spirit and he has sent it here to be with us today. Today you know that these things are true. She nodded and said, you’re right! I feel like these things are true. I said, that is the spirit of God working with you.

She said, I love that! How do you keep it going? I said, you go to church and you take the sacrament. I asked her if she remembered taking the sacrament and she said yes. I said, during the sacrament, we remember Jesus Christ and his atonement and the blessing that it is in our life. I said, I believe it’s very key in our ability to access that power on a consistent basis.

She said, I’ve kind of been feeling lately that I needed to go to a church but I didn’t know how to do it. I didn’t know how to go about it. I said, God has been reaching out to you and he put you in my car today so that we could have this conversation. I told her that when she first got in I heard the spirit whisper to me that she needed help.

Your father in heaven knows who you are and he knows what you need. He knew that you needed to be lifted today. He knew that you needed to learn about Jesus Christ and the atonement. He knew that you needed to feel his spirit because it’s time to quit looking back and start looking forward.

I said, like I said before, you’ve had your experiences and you can move on from the hate and remember never to make those mistakes again. You can do all this without that heavy pain in your heart that you’ve been carrying around. She said, it’s so heavy.

I said, Satan teaches people to self medicate with alcohol and drugs. That is a counterfeit and he is a liar because it only drags you down to addiction and away from the grace of God through the atonement of his son Jesus Christ.

She said, you might as well go with the real thing instead of the counterfeit. She said, this is a change I need to make. I need to start looking forward and quit hating on the past. I said, with the love of your father in heaven and through the atonement of Jesus Christ you can make this happen. You can make that change and feel in your life like you do here tonight in the car. She said, I want that so much.

I asked her where she lived. She said she lived in Orem. She said she grew up in Mantua but that she lives and works in Orem. I said, well there are plenty of churches in Orem. We ought ta find one for you to go to this Sunday. She laughed and said, there are two like a block from my house.

We got on the meeting house locator and looked up her meeting time and her Bishop‘s name. I said, you need to go to church on Sunday and when you go, introduce yourself to the Bishop. I said, tell him that you are there to feel the spirit and access the atonement in your life. He will know what to do and how to help you from that point.

She said, that sounds like a great idea. Like I said, this is something I felt like I needed to do. I can’t believe how good it feels right now in my heart. This is a high I need to chase. I said, God will walk with you and bring you home. He will fill your heart with peace, love and joy through the atonement of Jesus Christ if you will allow him to do it.

I said, you need to pray and talk to your father often. I asked her how often she prayed and she said she hadn’t prayed since she was a little girl. I said, the good thing is you’re still your father in heaven‘s little girl and he’d love to hear from you. I said, pray at least a couple of times each day. I said, on my mission my Mission President told us to walk around all day with a prayer in our heart. I found that’s the best way for me to have the spirit with me.

I said, you need to read the Book of Mormon. I asked her if she had a Book of Mormon and she said no. I reached into my glove box and grabbed one of my Book of Mormon’s from the Secrists and gave it to her. I said, this is yours and you should read it. She said, I love to read, I will do that.

If you want to feel this spirit always you need to go to church. You need to get to the point where you can take the sacrament. If you do these things you will be filled and you will feel compassion and love in your heart where hatred used to be.

I said, just because you’re doing the right thing doesn’t mean that everyone around you will be perfect either. There will still be people that say things and do things that will offend you or upset you. They might judge you or make you feel uncomfortable. If they do, remember that you’re not here for them. Remember that you’re here for your father in heaven and your Savior Jesus Christ. Remember that you’re here for the cure which is the atonement.

I said, in the end that judgment is their sin and they need to repent of that. Don’t let things that people say determine what you do. She said, that’s good council. I know lots of people that talk about how judgmental other people are. I said, yeah, people are horrible animals but that’s why we have the atonement and that’s why we have repentance and forgiveness. That applies to those people too.

You take care of you and be a light and you’ll see that other people will follow. I said, imagine how much better you’ll be at your job of helping people if you have the light of Christ with you and the feeling of God’s spirit roundabout you like it is in the car tonight. If you have that, imagine how great you will be and how many people you’ll be able to help. She said, this is amazing and it’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to go to church on Sunday.

We had finally arrived in Mantua and I pulled up to the house where I was dropping her off. She asked if she could shake my hand and she said. I will pray tonight and thank God for sending you.

I’m glad he sent me too. Oh, by the way, the Mantua cop didn’t pull me over, which is also always a win.

One night I was coming from Salt Lake and I was looking for a ride. You’re always looking for a ride on your way home from Salt Lake because you don’t want to pay for that gas all by yourself. You would rather have a rider contribute. Usually when I do this, I get to about the Thanksgiving point exit and I turn off my app. When you’re that far down the road, you don’t want to get a ride back to Salt Lake. You also don’t want to turn a ride down because then they penalize you.

Just as I was about to turn it off, I got a ride. It wasn’t perfect. I Decided that it was better than going home alone and paying the gas myself. Plus on top of that, it was a paying ride. So off to Alpine I went.

One of the neat things about driving is that you get to talk to people and find out about their lives. One of the most frustrating things is when somebody gets in your car and they talk to someone on the phone for the whole ride.

When my rider opened the door to get in my car he was on a phone call with a friend. It was an intense phone call. The kind of phone call you feel guilty listening in on. The problem with this is that there is really no way to get away from the personal nature of a phone call like that. You are less than 3 feet away from the person and you hear everything, sometimes on both sides of line. This young man was being ripped apart.

At first, I tried to think about other things and not pay attention to what was going on. I could tell it was a very emotional conversation and there were tears being shed. I thought again about listening in but that’s not me. You kind of feel like you’re invading their personal space! As I was having that thought I received a prompting that I should listen in because maybe I could help. I remember those distinct words coming to my mind and I thought I was supposed to get involved here and make a difference. The problem is that between the pace of the conversation and the subject matter I didn’t know if I could get a word in edgewise before we got to the destination.

I think we have all learned that when you get that prompting you do the thing and you consider that you were put there to be an instrument.

I tuned in. It was a conversation between he and his friend in California. From his conversation with his friend, I kind of picked up the backstory of the situation.

This young man was apparently very important at some level in the music industry. He could’ve been the most famous singer in the world and I wouldn’t know because unless you score touchdowns, I don’t know your name. He and his wife were originally from Utah.

He and his family were living in Los Angeles now. He had a wife and at least two kids. I’m not exactly sure what the true number was but I do know there was more than one because he kept talking about his kids, plural. They had gotten a divorce in the last two years. He talked about how evil his ex-wife is. Apparently, she had an affair with her trainer at the gym. As Luck would have it he was a friend of hers from high school in utah.

Following the discovery of the affair, she had let him know that he was the worst person ever and that she was getting a divorce and moving to Utah. I gleaned that the reason why he was here was to visit his children. He comes up at least a couple of times a month to visit his kids.

That’s the story behind the young man. There was a lot of anger, hurt and frustration in the dirty tricks and character assassination he felt like his children were being programmed with. As he talked about them, I knew that he loved his children and that his heart was broken. He was so very angry about his situation. I looked in the mirror and I could see the hurt and anger on his face.

Finally, he finished the phone call with his friend and sat there in silence. I decided that this was the time to break into his silence. I said, tough night, huh? Choking back tears he said, yeah. I guess you could say that.

I said, I hope you don’t mind but I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation. It sounds like a really difficult situation. He said, you could say that again. Then he said, don’t ever let your wife get on Facebook. Nothing good comes from associating with your high school friends.

When he said this, it kind of completed the picture for me. I could see how there in Los Angeles he was very busy in the music industry and she found a friend from high school that worked at the gym. Next thing you know their marriage was over. I said that to him and asked if that was the scenario and he said, exactly.

He said that he couldn’t believe how vicious she got. He also couldn’t believe how supportive everyone around seemed to be of the unfair, vindictive nature she exhibited. He said, everyone just changed. There is plenty of temptation in my industry but I was always faithful. I did my best but that wasn’t enough for her.

He said, I just left my kids and they were crying and begging me not to go. It ripped me up. He said, when I came out of the room there she was laughing and calling me a loser.

He said, she goes to church and has support from everyone. If they could only see the real her. Then he started to cry. He said, she’s very persuasive. She puts on a great show and she cries on queue.

I said, do you blame the church? He said, yes. I used to go to church all the time but I haven’t been able to go back. He said, I quit going because I felt like there was so much anger towards me from everyone. I don’t know what she told them but whatever it was, it was a lie. It was vicious and people who previously were my friends won’t even look me in the eye.

It’s the same thing she’s doing to my kids and I don’t know how much more of it I can take. I asked him if he had other girlfriends. He said, when we were married I did not but now I do. I asked him if he partied. I know that the parties in Hollywood are pretty intense and they come with lots of expectations.

He said that he didn’t party when he was married and when he was going to church but in the last year since this all happened he had become a pretty notorious partier.

I felt at this point like the whole thing was laid out in front of me and that I understood both by the spirit and the things that he was saying what I needed to say.

I said, I can feel right now that you’re reeling from the pain, the injustice and the aggravation of the situation along with the loss of friends and personal networks. You feel like you were just doused with gasoline and thrown into the fire. You have hate in your heart and you have used drugs and alcohol to soothe that pain. I said, that’s not the way and it only validates what she has said.

I said, the feelings you’re having right now remind me of something that Joseph Smith was told in Liberty Jail. I opened my Doctrine and Covenants app to section 122 and read these three verses to him.
6 If thou art accused with all manner of false accusations; if thine enemies fall upon thee; if they tear thee from the society of thy father and mother and brethren and sisters; and if with a drawn sword thine enemies tear thee from the bosom of thy wife, and of thine offspring, and thine elder son, although but six years of age, shall cling to thy garments, and shall say, My father, my father, why can’t you stay with us? O, my father, what are the men going to do with you? and if then he shall be thrust from thee by the sword, and thou be dragged to prison⁠, and thine enemies prowl around thee like wolves for the blood of the lamb;
7 And if thou shouldst be cast into the pit⁠, or into the hands of murderers, and the sentence of death passed upon thee; if thou be cast into the deep⁠; if the billowing surge conspire against thee; if fierce winds become thine enemy; if the heavens gather blackness, and all the elements combine to hedge up the way; and above all, if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience⁠, and shall be for thy good.
8 The Son of Man hath descendedbelow them all. Art thou greater than he?

I told him, when we are in a bad situation, this is the knowledge that gives us hope and let us know that we will be OK. It’s the atonement of Jesus Christ.

He said, I know I need to repent. I said, the atonement isn’t just for repentance but yes, you need to repent. You need to clean yourself so that you can feel and be directed by the spirit of God more purely and intensely.

I asked him if the things mentioned in those verses spoke to him. He said yes, it sounds like a bad day! I said, that’s just the point and our father is there for us in our bad days if we will turn to him instead of drugs and alcohol.

He mentions that the son of man has descended below it all are you greater than he? I asked, what does that mean? He sat there quiet for a minute and I decided to answer my own question because it wasn’t rhetorical. I said, it means that Jesus suffered all of the pains, infirmities and injustice that we will ever have. If we will turn to him, he will heal our wounds and lift us through.

Right now you feel like you’ve been beaten up a little bit and you’re acting out in response. It’s time to turn to Jesus Christ and let him heal your heart and lift your spirit. It’s time to go back and become the man your father in heaven wants you to be. I said, this is all possible through the gift of the atonement of Jesus Christ and he can bless your life if you will let it.

I said, for you, part of that is that the people at church shunned you. They judged you and they were not good to you. I asked, are you the kind of person that lets other people dictate how you’re going to act? Or are you an independent free thinker who acts decisively in his own interest? He said, I’d like to think that I’m the latter. I said, why then would you let what other people think and say affect your well-being whether it be physically or spiritually ? Why would you let judgment from people at church determine what you’re going to do?

It seems to me that they need to learn a lesson and that lesson might best be learned by you going to church, picking out the worst most judgmental of the bunch and sitting by them. Show them love and watch them squirm and then change.

They know what they’re doing is wrong and confronted by your love, they can change their hearts. When Jesus told us to love people, even those who hate us or despitefully use us, he had your situation in mind. If you reach out and follow Christ in this way, it will change the people around you.

He said, that’s an interesting way of looking at it. I said, you’re not punishing anybody by leaving except yourself. You’re punishing yourself because somebody else committed a sin. That doesn’t sound very smart to me. I have done this and I can tell you it works. People change when they’re confronted with love. He said, I never looked at it as me running away and punishing myself. That’s powerful!

I said, the other thing you need to do is pray. You need to pray to your Heavenly Father and ask for his help. Ask him to let you feel his love. He said, I don’t think I’m worthy to pray. I said, well, that Satan right there. God is your father and he always wants to help you. He always wants to hear from you and he always wants to bless you.

You’re a father. If one of your children needed help but they had done some bad things would you reject them or would you help them out because of your love for them? He said, oh man! When you put it like that, of course I would help them.

I said, your father in heaven is our father. He is a perfect father and he can’t wait to hear from you. He can’t wait to bless you and he can’t wait to help you become a better person so that you don’t commit those sins. He’s there for you all of the time. You just need to reach out. I said, you can never “not be worthy“ to pray. Once you understand your relationship with God, this makes all the sense in the world. You are his son and we know how fathers are.

He said, I will do that. I said, while you’re doing that, you might want to pray for your ex-wife too. He said, why would I do that? I said, because you want God to soften her heart. It sounds to me like a change of heart could be in order there. He laughed and said, I guess you make a good point.

I said, not only should you pray to your father in heaven for your benefit but you should pray with your children. When you are with them, you should kneel and pray with them. I said, if you do, they will feel the spirit. I said, if they feel the spirit when they are with you, they will begin to associate that wonderful feeling with being with you.

The spirit was in the car and he had stopped crying and he was listening intently. I asked him, do you feel the spirit right now? He said, oh wow yes. I said, what does that mean? He answered, that god is here? I said, yes, and it means that the things we are saying are true. God is testifying of the truth of the things we are saying and of his love for you.

How would you like to be able to give the gift of that feeling to your children every time you are with them? He said, that would be amazing. I asked him if he thought they would believe the evil things said about him if this is what they felt when they were with you. He said, it would be harder for sure. I said, one day they will put that all together if you will walk with the spirit and bless their lives with it.

I felt by the spirit to promise him that if he would refuse to speak evil of their mother to them or fight with their mother in front of them plus have the spirit about you, in the end, everything will change. In the end, they will move towards you and you will have the relationship you desire.

I told him about a lady I worked for when I was a student janitor at BYU. I told him how she had divorced her husband because he was not faithful. It was funny how she could not go five minutes without trashing that man. She hated him and anyone that had anything good to say about him. Meanwhile, he had repented and come back into full fellowship in the church. He was active and doing well.

Her problem was that she hated him so badly that she hated the people that let him back in the church. She hated that her children wanted to be with their dad and that hate ruined her relationship with her children and everyone in her life. I said, hate is cancer and it will kill the relationship that it is planted in. I said, don’t be hateful, be full of the spirit and they will come to you. Be that kind of person for your children and it won’t matter what their mom or anyone else says. They will feel that, your love and the spirit of God with you. Eventually God will make things right.

By this time we were in the driveway in front of the house he was staying at. He asked me if I would pray for him. He said, could you help me through the night tonight with a prayer? I said yes! I would love to but I want you to say a prayer too.
I said, I’ll say a prayer and then you say a prayer. He said OK.

As I began to pray, I could feel the love of our father in heaven powerfully enter the car and I’m sure it pierced his heart. I asked our father in heaven to bless him and heal his soul. I asked him to bless his children and protect them. I asked our father to bless him that he could prepare to be the spiritual leader he needed to be for his children.

When I finished the prayer, he was crying again. Clearly, he had felt the spirit like I had. I asked him what he thought about what I said in the prayer. He said that they were the words from God to him.

Then it was his turn to pray. It was almost like he hadn’t prayed in so long that he forgot how and I had to coach him up a little bit. Once he started his prayer, the spirit came in the car again. I knew he felt it and I said, did you realize that when you prayed you felt the same love you felt when I prayed. It testified to you. I said, like I said, your father in heaven loves you and he wants to hear from you. Now take that love and the spirit of God to your children.

He said that he was going to see his kids the next day and that is exactly what he would do. He wanted to pray with them. He said they liked Bible and Book of Mormon stories. He said that he would share some with them as well.

I told him that if he would do that, he would never lose his children. The spirit was strong and he had flowing tears of happiness, hope and possibility. He said, I can do that.

He gave me a huge tip and got out of the car.

One late Friday evening I was working downtown. I have discussed here before that Friday evenings are one of the times you make all of the money you didn’t make the rest of the week and so they’re very important. I got a ride down to around 45th South. My thinking was that I would just head right back up to town but I forgot to put the pause on. I know it sounds like a lot of stories start like this but 98% of the time I am successful in pushing the pause button! This time I was not.

Right before I dropped them off I got another ride. My first reaction was, dang I should have put the pause on. Then the spirit reminded me that my main purpose here is not always to make money. I felt that I needed to keep the main thing the main thing. It was impressed upon me that this ride was important. Once I dropped off, I saw where the next ride was going. My heart sank, it was time to call upon faith.

The ride that I was going on was heading down to Bluffdale, south of where the prison used to be on that side of the road. That’s nearly the point of no return. Then I felt an assurance that this was a ride I needed to take. I felt like I needed to have faith and the Lord would provide if I did what he wanted me to do. I took that ride.

I pulled up to the apartment and these two people came out. It was a young man and woman. The apartments were around 45th south and around 20th East. That makes for a long trip as I had feared.

When they got in the car, I could see that it was a husband and wife and they were apparently having issues with someone. The spirit around them was quite agitated and contentious. They were a little testy to say the least.

I asked how they had been doing and they said that it had been a long day and that people are horrible. I laughed and said, that’s for sure but every now and then you’ll run into a good one that will reaffirm your be belief in humanity. I could hear like courtesy chuckles from the backseat.

I asked what was wrong because it was so obvious that something was wrong. They just left the home of some family members and there had been a contentious exchange regarding society, the world and its condition. The wife said, I’m so bugged. I just want to go to sleep and that was the last thing I heard of her until the very end of the ride. She was out.

I kept talking to the husband. I told him that it was very obvious that they had not had a great evening. I said, the vibe you guys got in here with was kind of bad. He said, I know we were both caught off guard tonight and it was a horrible feeling. I hope we can shake that feeling quick.

I said, do you mind me asking what it was? What was it that made your evening so horrible? He said, that’s a great idea, maybe I can get it off of my chest.

He said that these people were cousins and that they had always gotten along pretty well. They never discussed the things of the world and current political issues. He said that happened tonight and it didn’t go well. He laughed and said, we might need to get new cousins.

He said they disagreed on everything from gender politics to presidential politics and back. He said, the thing that tore it for me and my wife was that they said they hate Christians. He added, but we are Christians and that started a heated discussion that ended with them storming out of the house. He said, I don’t know that we can go back. I don’t know if we’re welcome.

I said, for the record I agree with you and your wife. I said, Jesus Christ, his atonement and his love is the only thing that can turn the ship around. He said, exactly! How do they not see that? He said, they mocked the Bible and said that it was nothing more than a bunch of stories made up to control people. He said, I believe in the Bible and so does my wife. We believe in Jesus Christ.

It was kind of strange at this point because the intensity in the car turned from an anger intensity to a spiritual intensity because of his testimony and his belief. It was pretty awesome to feel and all of a sudden I had so many things to talk to him about.

I said, yeah, here you have been testifying of Jesus and standing up for what you believe. That’s amazing and I applaud you for it. It’s really tough these days to stand up sometimes.

I mentioned to him that as a driver, I get lots of opportunities to stand for Jesus. I told him that I’ve had several times in my car where people have just become unhinged and began spewing profanity at me because they knew or assumed that I was a member of the church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints. I said, one time I had a lady screaming in my ear for about 20 minutes of a ride. I know how that made me feel so I know how you feel here tonight.

He said, that’s just unacceptable. I said, you know the thing is that through the power of the atonement of Jesus Christ, we can have the wounds caused by those feelings and by those words healed. You can go on with your life and not let those negative feelings affect you or change you.

I said many people fall into the trap of just hating the other person and that’s not what Jesus would do. He expects us to lean on him and listen to the words of his prophets.

He said, that’s why I read the Bible. I said, I do too, I read the Bible and the Book of Mormon. He said, I don’t know anything about the Book of Mormon. I said, it’s a book that was written by ancient prophets here in America. They wrote down the revelations that they received from God. I said, we believe that God loves everybody not just the people in Jerusalem and that he had prophets in America and he gave them his words. I said, they wrote down those words and the translation of those writings are the Book of Mormon. He said, I like that, they are the word of God right? I said yes.

I said, these writings were given to a prophet. He translated those writings by the power of God and because of this, we have the Book of Mormon, another Testament of Jesus Christ. We have prophets today. They give us guidance and help us know the will of God. He said, that’s way cool. I thought we were down here just kind of bumping around on our own.

I said, the Book of Mormon also talked about how Jesus came to America after his resurrection in Jerusalem. He said in the Bible that he would go to his other sheep. We believe that some of his other sheep were here in America and he went to them because God loves everyone. He said, I like that.

I said, through obedience to the gospel we can access in the power of the atonement of Jesus Christ. We can all have his spirit with us. I said, that’s what this is all about. We are here to learn to walk with God. He wants us to repent, be baptized, and have the gift of the Holy Ghost with us. That is what lifts us out of a bad situation. That is what gives us strength in turbulent times.

He said, those are very wise words and these are very turbulent times. That is how this discussion started tonight. We talked about the corruption in the world and in the government. We talked about the corruption in the political movements and how their point is to thwart God. He said, we especially feel strongly about this regarding the gender issue. We feel that God made us who we are and that God was right. We feel that it dishonors God to reject his work and that was a huge flashpoint tonight.

I said, that had to be hard but God loves us for doing the hard thing. He said, I guess we just should have been more vocal all along so it didn’t happen all of a sudden. You never know how it is going to go when you start talking about politics and corruption. He said that these discussions can take on a life of their own. I laughed and said yes, they can.

I said, do you remember the Book of Mormon I talked to you about? He said yes. I said, the prophets here in America wrote about the same things that we were experiencing in our world today. They wrote about how Satan had entered into the heart of man and had corrupted their hearts. Once they were corrupted they then corrupted the government and their society.

I said, the book talks about how they fought back against these groups of people they called secret combinations. One of the prophets in the end of the book warns us that in our day the same secret combinations that destroyed their society would be amongst us here in our day. He told us that we are to be vigilant and fight against it.

He said, that’s astounding! I would love to read that. It sounds like something we should have. I said, it is. The prophets talked about what they did and what the signs were. They talked about the bravery of the people and told us how to be safe. That’s the purpose of the Book of Mormon. It was written for our day so that we can be better followers of Jesus Christ.

I said, it talks about the importance of baptism. When Jesus came to America, the first thing he did was give them authority to baptize and commanded them to baptize each other. He commanded each one of them to be baptized as we are all commanded to be baptized by that same authority and in that same way. He said, that sounds important.

He asked, where do I get a Book of Mormon? Do I just go down to the bookstore? I said, no, I have one right here. I gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon prepared by the Secrists . He asked, how much do I owe you for this? I said, you don’t owe me for this. You only need to assure me that you are going to read this and pay attention to the spirit of God that accompanies the words in this book.

The spirit was strong in the car by this point. Testifying of the Book of Mormon had brought the spirit and it had completely chased the anger and frustration of their evening away. There was a tremendous peace and an excitement that had replaced that feeling and he was into it.

I asked, do you feel that? He said, yep, it’s pretty incredible and I think I’ll be able to sleep tonight. I was so angry before but now my heart is full of peace. I love this feeling. I said, that’s the feeling of the Holy Ghost. When we feel that, we know that the things we are hearing are true. It brings us the peace of the spirit of our father in heaven and calms our souls in troubled times.

He said, it’s worked like a charm here tonight! He said, I’ve never heard anything positive about the Book of Mormon until tonight but it can’t be wrong. If it teaches of Christ and brings the feeling we are feeling right now, it can’t be wrong. He said, I love to read! I’m going to read it.

I asked, do you have any friends that are members of our church? He said, yes, well, kind of. I laughed and said, that was very committal of you! Who are these friends that are members of the church? He laughed and said, well, my neighbors are members of your church so I guess you would really call them acquaintances. I guess they are not really good friends to this point. It’s not personal like that.

He said, they keep wanting us to come over on Monday night and barbecue with them. We’ve thought about it but we’ve never done it. It has just felt kind of uncomfortable because we don’t know them even though they have been very friendly and we get good vibes from them. I think we need to look into that Monday night barbecue I guess.

I said, you should walk up to them with your Book of Mormon in your hand and tell them about our ride. Tell them about what you felt here in the car and ask them if they’re still on for the barbecue. I said, this is how you fill your stomach with good barbecue and your heart with the spirit of God all at the same time. It’s a 2 for 1.

He said, that sounds like a great plan. I have loved the feeling here tonight. I’ve loved how it took the negative emotions and feelings in my heart, and just tossed them out the window and replaced it with the spirit of God. That’s what we need. I said, that’s what we need to have, you need to have the spirit of God in your home in these days. We all have to go out amongst the evil, but if we have the spirit in our home, it can be a refuge.

He said I like that!

Just then we hit a bump that I didn’t see and the bump woke up his wife. We were about two blocks from their house. After she woke up, she sat there for about 10 seconds like she was confused. Then she yelled, oh my gosh what happened in here? Her husband said, what do you mean? She said, when I went to sleep, there was a horrible cloud over us. It felt terrible in my heart. Now I feel peace and happy. This is awesome. What happened in here?

He smiled and said, we’ve just been talking about Jesus and the Book of Mormon and he held up his book. He said, you’re going to love this.

We pulled up in front of their house and they got out. It was 1 AM and the bonuses downtown were at their peak. I knew I would never make it in time to take advantage of those bonuses.

I knew, however, that I had done the thing my father wanted me to do and that is the bonus. I got to see this young man open his eyes and make a plan that can lead his family back to our father in heaven with hearts full of the spirit and stomachs full of barbecue!!

One night I was driving in Salt Lake and I picked up somebody in Millcreek. I pulled up in front of the apartment complex and waited a few minutes and then she came out. I could tell that there was a problem because she was crying as she slammed the door of the house. She ran out and got in my car.

I asked her, how are you doing tonight? That’s a question that gives her the opportunity to talk if she wants to. She began to sob. She cried a lot but through her tears she choked out the words, my mom just died. She said, I found out here at this party at my friends house. At least I thought they were my friends. When I told them that my mom had died, they put up with me for a few minutes then called you to come and get me. They told me that I was bringing everybody down and that I was ruining their party.

She said, I thought they were my friends. Aren’t friends supposed to be there for each other? She began to cry even harder. Immediately I felt compassion for her situation but also quite a measure of our father in heaven‘s love for her. I could see his little girl in the backseat and I knew that she needed his spirit to get through this.

What a double whammy! Lose your mother and find out that your friends are a bunch of jerks all within about 15 minutes. My heart went out to her.

I felt the spirit start to guide the discussion. I asked her to tell me a little bit about her mom. She told me about her mom‘s life and how they had been very close. She talked about how her father had passed away and since then it had just been her and her mom and now she was gone.

I asked her what she knew about death. She looked at me like I was really fuzzy or something. She asked, what do you mean? One minute you’re here and the next minute you’re gone. Death means nothing is left.

I asked her, don’t you believe in God? She said that she hadn’t believed in God ever. She said that her parents forced her to go to church when she was little but that she hadn’t spent any time thinking about God in many years.

I said, I want to take a second here and tell you what I believe if that’s OK. She said yes. I started testifying of a loving father in heaven, who loves each one of us, who knows each one of us and wants to be with each one of us.

I talked to her about how God places us here on this earth so that we can learn and progress and then he brings us home, back to him. I said, we call that death and as unnatural and horrific as it feels, it’s a very natural part of our progression. It’s when we go home. Our father in heaven is all about bringing us back home.

I said, that’s why we’re here on earth, to learn the things we need to know and the things we need to do so that we can be prepared to go home. Death is not the end. It’s not the end of our spirit and it’s not the end of our life. I said, Jesus Christ was resurrected so that each one of us can one day be resurrected from death. Knowing this takes away the sting of death. Death is not permanent. It’s just the next thing.

I said, Jesus Christ also paid for our sins so that we can walk with God while we’re here on Earth. That way we can prepare to meet God and go home to our loving father. I said, what happened tonight Is your mother went home to her loving father and and they are so happy to see each other.

I said, the thing about Jesus is not only did he die for our sins and was resurrected so that we can live again but he suffered for all of our pains, injustices, losses, and infirmities. All of these pains of this life were paid for by him so that we can look to him and be saved. We can look to him and be comforted.

I had the impression that her mom had suffered with significant disease for an extended period of time. I said, looking to Christ is what your mom did. This is why even though she had tremendous medical problems and was in significant pain she didn’t complain. She looked to Christ. My passenger said, that’s for sure! She went to church every Sunday. She started going to the Mormon church by my house and was baptized when I was 17. She sure loved that.

I said, your mom has suffered extensively for a long time and now that suffering is over. She’s in the arms of her Savior. She’s in the arms of her father in heaven and that pain is gone. She asked how I knew that her mom had been sick for a long time. I told her that when we walk with our father in heaven’s spirit, he can put things in our hearts to say that we don’t know, but we know they are true.

After talking about Jesus and having talked about her mom, a spirit of peace came over the car. The spirit of our father in heaven was there and she had began to gain her composure.

I said, as we are talking about the atonement of Jesus Christ and your mother, we need to realize that just as looking to Christ made her able to bear her burden, looking to Christ right now can help you bear your burden today. This death is an awful thing for you to bear right now. It’s important to remember that Jesus already suffered this sorrow for you and that if you look to him, he can help give you hope and lift you through the pain that is in your heart.

She asked, how do you do that? I said, first you believe in Jesus Christ and then you pray to your father in heaven and ask that the power of the atonement of Jesus Christ intercede in your behalf. This way you can feel the love of your father in heaven and have the power of the atonement of Jesus Christ lift your burdens. If you pray to your father in heaven with faith in Jesus Christ, the power of his atonement can help heal and comfort your heart.

She said, I don’t know that I believe in Jesus Christ. I was raised not going to church but I feel like I don’t hurt as bad as I did when I first got in the car. Can you teach me how to do this?

I said, yes!

The spirit was very powerful in the car and I could tell she was feeling it. I was praying in my heart that the Lord would comfort her. I also felt very strongly that by identifying the spirit to her and helping her out right now it would turn her life around. There was a reason why I was the driver who got this ride.

I asked, what are you feeling right now? She said, to be honest, a little numb. That is an improvement over how I felt when I got into your car. At first when I got in, I was angry, I was hurt and I missed my mom so much.

Now I still miss my mom but through our conversation, the anger and the hurt has been lifted. It’s kind of amazing. I said, that’s the effect of the spirit of God. When he touches your heart, it heals. Through prayer and living the way our father in heaven has commanded us to live, we can have that kind of peace in our hearts all the time.

She asked, could you show me how to pray? Would you pray with me? I need to have this peace. I taught her how to pray the way we taught people in our mission with these four steps:

Heavenly father.
We thank thee for
We ask thee for
In the name of Jesus Christ amen.

I explained to her that we pray to our father and then he blesses us with his spirit and with the blessings of the atonement in our lives. I said, that’s what you need right now.

I said, what I’d like to do is have me pray for you and then have you do a prayer yourself. She said, I don’t know about that, I think I would feel really silly. I said, you’re just talking to your father and he loves you. I said, compared to God we are all silly, silly little kids. She laughed and said OK.

I began to pray and I felt the spirit of God. I asked him to bless her that the atonement of Jesus Christ would lift her burdens and heal her heart. I asked him to walk with her so that she could bear the trials she was going through.

Then I turned to her and said, it’s your turn. She gave a real innocent beginner prayer like most investigators do but wow, was it powerful. When she finished, she was crying but they weren’t the same kind of tears from before. Those were tears of hurt and pain. Now, with a little understanding and in the presence of the spirit of our father in heaven, her burden had been lifted some already.

She said, I can’t believe how different I feel now. I guess I probably should have gone to church with my mom. I said, where is your mom going to have her funeral? She said, I don’t know. I asked do you suppose you’ll do it in the church where she attended? She said, that sounds like a great idea, probably so. I said, as you are working with the Bishop preparing for the funeral tell him about our ride. Tell him about your prayer. Tell him about what you felt and ask him if he could teach you more about this.

She said she could do that. Her mom‘s Bishop lived right across the road from where her mother lived. She said she met him a couple of times and that would be an easy conversation to have.

By this time we had arrived in front of her house. It was an apartment in North Salt Lake. It had been about a 20 minute ride but there had been a lot of water under the bridge during that ride.

She said, I don’t know how I would have made it through the night without this ride. I said, with what you have learned now you can have this with you all of the time. She said, I’m going to do that. Tomorrow morning I’ll go over and talk to the Bishop about what we need to do and about our ride. She said, I’ve got like 500 missed calls on my phone, he’s probably already tried to contact me.

She said, thank you for teaching me to pray. I asked her, out of curiosity, at what point tonight did you realize that your mother’s spirit was here in the car with us? She said, I started feeling it when you started talking about Jesus. My mom loved Jesus and I felt her here. I still feel her with us. I said, I think she wants you to talk to the Bishop too. She wants you to learn. She said, I think you’re right. She always wanted me to go to her church with her. I said, now you will. The thing is that just because she has passed to the other side doesn’t mean she is not by your side. She may even be more capable of helping you now.

I said, your mom‘s ward will rally around you and if you’ll allow them to be your family and friends, you’ll find something there that you didn’t find with your friends at the party tonight. You’ll find people that really care and people who will love you and will be there for you. She said, that’s what I need.

I said, you know that your mom would not have been pleased with the kind of things that were going on at the party tonight. She said, you’re right. It is amazing how you know these things. I said, the spirit gave me the insight to know that it was not a good party to be at and some very unworthy things were going on there.

God pulled on you and your mom pulled you out and they are now showing you a better way. Now you need to take it. She said, if I can have peace, I am there. I will talk to mom’s bishop about that.

She said thank you very much grabbed my shoulder then shook it. With a smile on her face, through her pain, she got out of the car and went in her house.

One night I was driving in Salt Lake and I got a trip down to the south end of the valley. A lot of times if that happens you want to just get right back up to Salt Lake as fast as you can. That particular night there was a Real Salt Lake soccer game and I don’t know if you’ve ever been in that traffic jam, but it can be daunting.

I meant to put my app on pause so that I wouldn’t get one of those soccer game rides. I thought I did anyway but lo and behold a ride popped up that had me picking up at the game and driving down to Draper. This is further away from where I wanted to be and in that massive traffic.

It took me a minute to weave through the cars and the people to get to the spot where I was supposed to meet my passengers. They weren’t there and the time started ticking on the clock. At five minutes I could leave and head back to Salt Lake.

As I sat there contemplating my escape, the spirit impressed upon me that I was not to do that. I didn’t know why but that’s normally all the reason I need. Five minutes came and went and I was onto six minutes when all of a sudden. all three doors on my car flew open and great big huge human beings jumped in my car screaming loudly.

I was a bit startled and quite intimidated. Three of these people were at least 6’3”and over 250 pounds. One was a bit taller and another bigger. The last one was a young lady who herself was probably 6 foot and 200 pounds. It was a big crew. Two of them had University of Utah shirts on. We had quite a collection of large people in the car. We had two Polynesians, a Latino and an African-American along with me.

They did however, seem to have had a really good time. They were enjoying the game and enjoying talking about everything that had gone on that evening. Then the topic turned to religion. They all started talking about how bad they hate our church and the members of the church. This conversation went on for three or four minutes and finally one of them looked at me and said, I’ll bet you’re Mormon, aren’t you? I said, 100%.

Their discussion was loud and spirited. There was anger and mocking in the tone of the conversation. They believed the church to be racist, they thought Joseph Smith was a fraud and they thought that tithing was just ripping the people off. They were very adamant and very forceful with these ideas.

The lady asked, how do you feel about all the things that we said? I said, everyone’s entitled to their own opinion but from what I’ve heard some of your information is incorrect. I was beginning to wonder why the spirit wanted me to take this ride.

One of the guys piped up and said, we all used to be members of that church so we know what’s what. I said, well the information that you guys were sharing just now was incorrect. That’s all I was saying. The tension was thick in the car.

You don’t want to make four people who are all bigger than you angry in an enclosed environment, but I felt like it was important at that moment to stand up. I felt like it was the thing Heavenly Father had wanted me to do. I felt that it was the reason why I had be given the prompting. One of the guy said, do you think you can answer our questions?

I said, look, I have the gift of the Holy Ghost and with the help of the Holy Ghost I can provide truthful answers to your questions. I asked, are you so full of hate that you can’t listen or are you able to be touched by the spirit?

They were shocked. I don’t think they anticipated my opposition and in a way I think they were impressed that I would go against the flow like that. A lot of times people think that everybody will just be quiet and let you run over them and I think that’s what they had expected.

On top of that, them being large people and very loud was a factor. I’m sure in their minds this made it less likely that I would say anything. One thing for sure is that by me standing up like that, it created an environment of respect. They respected me for standing up and started asking questions.

One of the guys in the backseat said, I am black, why doesn’t the church think I’m as good as they think you are? Why would the church discriminate against me? They all chimed in with their little statements of support, like yeah, what about that?

I said, how have you been discriminated against in the church? I said, how have you ever been racially mistreated? He said, well, I haven’t but you do know that back in the day they didn’t think the black people were as important as white people.

I said, I don’t think that’s the truth. We believe that all of God‘s children are important, including both black and white people. I said, for sure there are some people who say or do things that are unkind or out of line, included with that is some racism from time to time. I’m sure of it because we all fall short.

He said, you know that we weren’t able to hold the priesthood. That’s racism. I said, I could see why you would say that. This disarmed him a little bit. He said, what’s your answer? I asked him if he attended a church now. He said that there was a black church that he attended once he left our church.

I asked him, how many people in that congregation hold the priesthood? He thought for a moment and said, I guess just the preacher. I asked, you mean none of the fathers in the homes hold the priesthood? He said, no. I said, the fathers in the home can’t give blessings to their children to heal them when they’re sick. They have to get the preacher. Does he even do that? He thought about it for a moment and said no. I said, so with the exception of the preacher in your church none of the black people in your church hold the priesthood. He was quiet.

I asked, when you attended our church, was the whole congregation black? He said, no there were Hispanic people and white people. I said, that’s right.

I said, the black church was created because of racism. White people didn’t want to worship with black people and black people didn’t want to worship with white people. I said, in fact, since the founding of our church, we’re one of the few churches in the country that didn’t create separate congregations based on race. Everybody worships together.

I said, this was a particular problem for the people in Missouri. When the church was in Missouri there was a lot of racism. Missouri was a slave state and in our congregation you had white people and black people sitting next to each other and worshiping God at the same time. That was an issue.

From that time all the way up until the mid 1960s mixing races at church was not a thing and it still isn’t today in a lot of congregations with the exception of our church. We believe that all of God‘s children are the same and that they should worship together. Since the 1970’s every father in every home who’s worthy has the priesthood and he can give blessings to his children and his family.
That is the power of God in the hands of every father in every home, black, white, Latino, regardless of race. No other church has anything like that.

I asked, are you sure that our church is racist? To me that sounds like the most progressive church with regard to race. I told them that when I was a child my grandma always taught me that the black people who obey the commandments would one day have every blessing of the gospel and that day came long before you were born.

He was quiet for a moment and then said, I’ve never heard anyone talk about it like that. It makes me wonder why I was so angry? I said, me too and then we laughed.

I said, next question. The young lady piped up and said, I’ve heard a lot of things about Joseph Smith and things he did that were kind of bad. I said, so what you’re saying is that Joseph Smith wasn’t perfect. She said, yes!

I said, said, of course he wasn’t perfect. No one in the history of the world except Jesus Christ has ever been perfect. I said, Moses wasn’t perfect. Peter wasn’t perfect. No one is perfect except Christ.

I said, we need Christ because we are saved by his grace. If we don’t look to Christ, we cannot live, there is no other name that can bring us salvation.

I said, Joseph Smith wasn’t even a saint. He was a prophet. I asked, do you know what a prophet is? She said, why don’t you tell me. I said, God calls people who are ordinary people but who have tremendous faith to serve him. He reveals his words to them for the rest of us. That is a prophet. He receives revelation from God and tells us the word of God. It doesn’t mean he’s perfect. He still needs to repent and he still needs to work at being better but by calling weak or insufficient people God shows his power.

We have evidence that some of our prophets have not been perfect. They were fans of the University of Utah! There was a smattering of laughter from the backseat.

I said, look at Joseph Smith, he had no education per se, yet he translated the Book of Mormon and founded the church. I asked, do you think he could have done that on his own? With his limitations and education do you think he could have done that on his own? She said no. I said, that’s where the hand of God comes in. He calls prophets and he makes them more than they are. I said, Joseph Smith was chastised by God and he had to repent but bit by bit he established the kingdom of God on the Earth. He established the church of Jesus Christ under the direction of Jesus Christ.

I bore testimony of the first vision and the divinity of the call that Joseph received that day. I testified of the Book of Mormon and the spirit entered the car. She just sat there in silence. This was noticed by one of her friends who said wow. I have never seen anything shut her up! Everyone laughed but the spirit was working.

At the first of the ride it seemed like a wrestle but now most of the wrestle was done. The spirit was touching all of us in the car.

Then the other guy in the backseat said, what about tithing? The church has so much money and they expect everyone to pay tithing. They even have problems with the government.

I said, tithing is not a penalty or a tax. That’s how you’re looking at it. Tithing is a blessing. I don’t pay tithing because I’m afraid not to or because somebody tells me I have to. I pay tithing because I know if I do, God will bless me. I know it’s something I’m supposed to do because God wants me to do it and that if I do it, I will have his spirit in my heart and his power roundabout me. That’s what I need.

The girl said, we’ve been able to feel his spirit roundabout you in the car tonight.

I said, I don’t care if they burn the money in a furnace. It just doesn’t matter because once I’ve paid my tithing I know that the Lord will bless me. It’s all about faith and obedience. He was quiet.

I said I just want you all to know that I know the church is true. I know that Jesus Christ has a prophet on the Earth today. I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet and he translated the Book of Mormon and I know that God has sent his spirit here tonight to calm your hearts and to chase away the evil thoughts you were previously voicing.

They said, we like you and we could tell you were telling the truth. I said, I like you too! I said, God didn’t put you in my car tonight by accident, he didn’t send his spirit by accident. He wanted you to feel his love. He wanted you to have your questions answered.

They all acknowledged feeling the spirit. I could tell in their eyes and in their countenance that they had been touched. I knew it was time to make a challenge. I challenged them to do something that they thought they would never do again in their lives. I said, God also wants you back. I asked, do your parents still go to church? They said, yes. I said, this week sounds like a good week to go to church with your parents, doesn’t it?

I said, you guys have been afraid to ask your parents these questions you asked me tonight. I’m glad God put you in my car so we could have this talk. He sent his spirit so that you would know the truth was spoken. I said, now you have to do something with that. Now you have to do something and that is go to church.

The guy that started it all said, wow, you just said that! He said, I accept your challenge. Everyone else said me too. They all thanked me and got out of the car. They started walking towards the house.

The guy who’s question I first answered, turned around and came back and tapped on my window. I rolled it down and he said, I think I’ve been deceived over the years by people I trusted. No one made me feel the spirit. I could only feel anger. Thanks for bringing the spirit back. He turned around and went in the house.

These kids had been blinded by Satan but that night we were able to pull the blinders off. I don’t believe God put them in my car on accident and I believe that they will be going to church more often, after all, they loved feeling spirit.

One day I was driving in Salt Lake and I picked up two girls from the capital. They were dressed in nice dresses and they were headed over to. Millcreek where they had an Airbnb.

They were from the East Coast and were here for the wedding of their girlfriend from college. They had gone to college at Rutgers and had lived their lives entirely on the East Coast. They had never seen mountains like we have and they were enjoying the scenery. The three of them were pretty inseparable and so they were here to celebrate. One curious fact that I found interesting was that the Utah capital building is one of the top 10 destinations for weddings in the United States. People go there because of how pretty it is. It also kind of looks cool up on the hill with a view over the valley. Those are the only reasons I can figure anyway.

As we know, there is a much better place to get married just down the hill or at least there will be when it’s back in business! As we drove by the temple and with the topic of discussion being marriage, I told them that my wife and I were married in that building right there in the temple.

They said, reeeeallyyyyy? You’re Mormon? Some people think of us and confuse us with Amish or Menanites. I think there was a little of this confusion going on. I laughed and said, live in the flesh, right here. They laughed and said that’s awesome. One girl asked me if it would offend me if she asked questions about our church. She said, I don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable or angry but I have questions. I said, I may not have all of the answers but as luck would have it I do have a few, and I would love to entertain your questions. One of them said she worked with a lady who was a member of the church but that she didn’t ever feel comfortable talking to her about it. She said she thought she might get in trouble at work if she offended her. It was a busy time of day and this ride was going to take a while so I thought this would be fun.

The first questions were questions that I get a lot. They are, so do you watch, Housewives of Salt Lake City, Sister Wives, or Mormon Wives on TV? I told them that I had never seen even one second of any of those shows but that I had given rides to a few of the crew and some of the stars for each of those shows. I told them that they are not very impressive and not someone you would want to pattern your life after for sure.

They laughed and said that they seem pretty trashy and not at all how they had imagined Mormons to be. II told them that when people leave the church for whatever reason they go out of their way to embarrass the church or to represent it poorly. I told them that when I had those people who were in those shows in my car they carried kind of a nervous uneasy feeling about them. I said, I prefer the awesome vibe you to bring.

One of them said, I don’t know if we brought it with us but we noticed that you have a very peaceful feeling in your car. I told them that you can always have the peace of God in your heart if you do the right things. I told them that that one of the main purposes of the church is to help us live in such a way that the spirit of God can be with us. It brings peace and it brings joy.

One of them said, I’ve noticed that same feeling in general around town. That’s pretty cool. I said, as people live the gospel you can change your society.

One of them said, well after that, I don’t know that I want to ask the rest of my questions. They might be offensive to you. I said, not offensive at all, fire away. She said, OK, tell me about polygamy, what was the deal with that.? Who are these people that do it?

I talked about the history of the church and the reasons for polygamy. I told them that it was about 125 years ago when it was banned in the church. I said, you get kicked out of the church if you have more than one spouse. I said, there are people that are polygamist but they are not members of the church. It is not allowed. Those who are on TV and other shows are not members of the church.

The other one then said, what about not drinking? You guys don’t drink, do you? I said, nope. She asked have you ever had a drink and I said no. I said, it’s part of our doctrine called the Word of Wisdom. I told them that it was a health law given to us by God to see if we would obey. Most active members of the church are really good about obeying it too.

They asked, can you drink Coke? I laughed and said, yes. It says that we can’t drink alcohol, tea, coffee, or use tobacco. I said, it forbids use of illegal drugs too but it also tells us to eat fruits and vegetables and be healthy. It’s kind of a well-rounded approach.

I mentioned that in the 1800’s when the law was given, everybody drank and smoking was no big deal. I said that our prophet, Joseph Smith received this revelation and at the time everybody thought he was crazy. I said, since then science has come around.

I said, this is why we have prophets. They give us knowledge and they give us light. They tell us the things God would have us know to protect and help us be better.

One lady said, “that sounds incredible”. It sounds like exactly what everybody should have. They said it would be great to know what he says. They talked about how usually they don’t drink too much but this weekend they had planned a little deviation from their normal course. I laughed. I said, I always obey because it is not only a rule of the things we shouldn’t put in our bodies, but it also has a promise of strength, wisdom and knowledge. I said, I’m a little limited here. I need more of all of those things.

I said, you guys are from back east. Our church was founded in New York. It was funny because they had no idea about the history. I told them about Joseph Smith and the Sacred Grove. I told them about how Joseph went there to pray and how he saw God the father and Jesus Christ. I said, they called him to be prophet. I told them that the Word of Wisdom is an example of what happens when a true prophet prophesies. I told them that since the days of Joseph Smith we have had a prophet leading our church. I said “today we have a living prophet who speaks with God and reveals his will to us.

As is always the case, when I testified of the first vision, the spirit of God entered in the car and they felt it. One of them said, I’ve never felt peace like that. I said, that’s the spirit of God. When we feel that spirit, we know that the things we are hearing are true. When I testified of the prophet Joseph Smith, God sent his spirit. That’s how you know it’s true.

One of the ladies said, we didn’t know we came here to get a new religion! We thought we were here for a wedding. They laughed. One said, did Joseph Smith teach anything else? Did he write any books that I could read? I told them that he wasn’t a huge author and he didn’t write lots of books but that he did translate a book written by ancient prophets in America.

I told them that the prophets in America had received revelation from God just like the prophets in the Bible. I said that they wrote them down and Joseph Smith was given these records. I said, he translated them so we have them today. I said, they include the visit of Jesus to the people here in America. That shocked them. They said, we have never heard of anything like that. I testified that Jesus came to America because he is God’s son and he loves everyone not just the people in Jerusalem.

I told them that God sent Jesus to everyone not just the people in Israel. I said that the Book of Mormon proves that God loves everyone in the world not just the people in Jerusalem because it testifies of the truthfulness of his visit. One of them said, “I love the Book of Mormon…. the play anyway.” I never really knew anything more about it.

They asked, why is it called the Book of Mormon. I said, a prophet named Mormon was one of the ancient prophets in America. He wrote and compiled the writings of those ancient prophets in that book and Joseph Smith translated it. It is called the Book of Mormon because he put it together.

One of them said, that’s pretty cool. Where do we go to get a Book of Mormon?
I would really like to have one. I reached into my glove box and grabbed one of the Book of Mormon’s prepared by the Secrists and handed it to her. I said, this is the Book of Mormon, another testament of Jesus Christ. I asked her to open the front cover and see the questions written there. I said, the page number by the question correspondes with where you can find those answers in the book. It’s a good way to start.

We were just pulling in front of the house where they were staying and She said, I think I should read the whole book. I said, I agree. Her friend said, what about me? Do you have a book for me? I laughed and said, absolutely. I pulled out another book and handed it to her.

I looked at the one who had a friend at work that was a member of the church. I told her that I am 100% sure that if she talks to her friend at work about the church , her friend would not be offended. I said, in fact, she would really enjoy the opportunity to talk to you. I said, a lot of people would like to share the gospel but they are afraid. They don’t want to lose friends.

I told her that when she got back, she should take her Book of Mormon to work and show it to her friend. I told her that she should tell her about what she felt in the car. I told her that her friend would be able to answer all of the questions that she still had.

They were really excited and really giddy. They promised that they would read the Book of Mormon. The girl with a member friend at work said, this will provide a lot of conversation fodder for me and my friend at work. We spend hours together. I expect I will learn a lot more about your church now that I know that it’s cool to ask.

They got out of the car and walked away. They came here for the beauty outside but they found out how beautiful it can be when we have the spirit inside. They were very determined to read the whole Book of Mormon and said that they love to read. I think the Lord has a plan here and it’s awesome.

It’s interesting to see how confused people are in this world about what makes them happy even as they do the things that aren’t making them happy. They listen to people who lie to them and it sets them up for a life that is less than what their father in heaven would have it be. I get the opportunity to drive with a lot of young people who have really screwed up ideas about life. I can’t just come out and tell them how screwed up their life prospective is. That said, I love to ask questions and I do.

One Friday night I had an outstanding opportunity to have one of these discussions. I picked up a girl from a house party in Sugar House. I was taking her to her friend’s house up by the University of Utah where they were going to continue their weekend socializing. She seemed to be about 21 years old.

As we started to drive, I got the impression that I should have a discussion about the church with this girl. I kind of felt like she felt lost. On the outside, she didn’t seem lost. She seemed confident and knew exactly where she was going and what she was doing so that’s where we started.

I asked her what she was majoring in and she said she had a double major with only one year left until graduation. I asked, so how do you see yourself in 10 years? She very quickly rattled off her goals.
Graduate from college.
Get her graduate degree.
Get a good job in her field.
Rise to an executive position.
Travel and see the world.

I asked, then with that information, I asked, who do you see yourself being in 10 years? She said that she saw herself as an incredibly aggressive, successful businesswoman. I asked her what her legacy would be and she said that everything she had mentioned is the legacy she wanted to leave.

Those were her goals. I asked if she had any other goals and she said no. I asked her if those were the same kind of goals all of her other friends had and she said yes. I asked her if these were the kind of goals they encouraged her to set in her major and she said, absolutely. I asked her if she had any personal goals about her life. She said no, just the ones she had mentioned.

Then I said, you mean, you don’t have personal goals for you as an individual and as a human being outside of this identity that you are trying to carve out for yourself in a business climate? She thought for a minute and said, that’s a really good question. No one has ever asked me that question.

I asked her if she had ever thought about family. She said that she didn’t think that with the life she had planned that there would be much time for that until she was in her mid 30’s. She said she thought she’d worry about that then.

I asked her if she minded me telling her a story. She told me to go ahead. I told her about a friend of mine that spent his whole life working for a major company. I told her that he had been very successful and the company couldn’t have gotten along without him. I said that he was involved with every decision and everybody respected him. I told her that when he walked in the building, everyone said hi.

I could see in her eyes that she thought this was really cool. Then I said, it came time for him to retire. They had a party, he was celebrated and then went off to his life after retirement. He talked about how a few years later he went back to that office. He didn’t recognize anyone. Someone else was in his office and no one cared who he was.

Eventually he found a couple of people that remembered who he was but they were busy doing other things and moving on to the next project. He realized that day that this company that he thought was his legacy didn’t know who he was anymore and didn’t care who he was. They had paid him generously for the work that he did and once he was gone, it was onto the next guy.

She said, that is sad. I said, not really. She said, what do you mean? I said, he had five kids and 25 grandkids. In the eyes of those grandkids, he was the world‘s greatest hero. He loved them and they loved him. He realized that those grandkids were his true legacy. It was not the business where he had earned a living but the grandkids he had sacrificed for that gave his life purpose.

I told her that this man was so much richer than the money he had in the bank and that his legacy in his family was his true wealth. She was stunned. There was silence. Where before there had existed almost a cocky confidence, you could feel a wave of doubt creeping into her mind.

It was quiet in the backseat for a minute and she said, no one has ever talked to me like that. No one has ever told me anything except, go get that brass ring, compete hard and take no prisoners. She said, I’m stunned by what I’m feeling right now.

She said, as you talked about your friend and his family, there was such a warm peace that came over our conversation. Everybody in our circle considers family to be a nuisance or an obstacle. She said, in some of my classes they even tell us that we want to put that off until we are well established and have achieved our goals. What you said hit me hard.

I asked her if she had any friends who were not on that corporate track. Friends who may have goals of family, etc. She said she did. She said that she met some girls her freshman year who wanted to get married and have a family but they were really Mormon. She said, everybody made fun of them.

I asked, how did you feel around them? She said, a lot like I have felt here in the car when you talked about your friend. It was always very relaxed and peaceful around them. She said, I really would have liked to have spent more time with them but the other group of people pulled me away.

I said, remember how you said that they were really Mormon? She said, yes. I said, I am too. I said, as a member of the church we believe that if we obey the commandments of God and do the things that God would have us do, we can have peace in our souls and his love round about us.

I told her that we lived with our Heavenly Father for thousands and thousands of years and that he loves us. I told her that this love is the most central part of our existence and that we can’t be complete without it. I said, this is why people are chasing shiny objects. They are trying to find the thing. I said, that thing they are looking for is their relationship with their father in heaven.

I told her that that feeling of peace that she is feeling is the spirit of God and his love. I told her that this is the same thing she felt in his presence for thousands of years and tonight in the car, her spirit has recognized it.

I said, one of the greatest blessings that we get from being obedient to our Heavenly Father is the opportunity to have families that are eternal. A true legacy that stays with us forever. I said, this is what my friend had. That’s why he had a legacy. He didn’t buy the lies that the world told him.

He didn’t buy the lies that Satan put in his ears. He listened to God and found peace. That was more important to him than all the money and position the world could provide. I told her that if you ask him today how he wants to be remembered, he will say a husband, father and grandfather. He doesn’t even mention his extremely successful business career.

I told her that at school, in the university, they see it as their job to lie to her. They are trying to get her to look away and chase the shiny objects. They don’t want her to consider the things that are real. The things that are lasting are the things God gives us such as our families and his spirit.

I told her that a young family with children and no money can be more happy and more fulfilled than a millionaire business person or a captain of industry if they can have the spirit of God in their heart and the peace that comes from it. I said, you can’t buy that.

I said, look, there’s nothing wrong with having a career and making lots of money. Having power and influence is a good thing if you use it properly, The issue is that there are some things that are good like having a career. There are some things that are better like being a good person. There are some things that are best, which is having this eternal perspective and the peace from God in your heart.

By this time we were sitting outside the house where we were going but she asked if we could talk a little bit longer. She said, this has been the most incredible ride. You’ve taken everything I thought I knew and turned it upside down.

I said, it’s not too late to get started on a new set of priorities. She asked, how would I do that? I said, do you remember the girls from freshman year? She said, yeah. I said, look them up, go to church with them and put yourself in situations and in places where you can feel the spirit of God. Let him direct you.

She said, one of those girls just lives down the block. We just passed her house. I think I’ll go talk to her tomorrow.

I asked her if she prayed. She said that when she was a little girl she prayed but not since then. I talked to her about prayer and the power of prayer. I told her that it’s how we speak with our father in heaven and it brings his spirit. She asked if I would pray for her and I said I would. She asked if I would teach her to pray and I did. She asked, how often can I pray? I said we should pray every morning and night and whenever we feel like we need to have our father in heaven with us. We pray so he can send his spirit. She said, I like that.

I asked her if she ever heard of the Book of Mormon and she said yes. She said that those girls had tried to give her one freshman year. She said that she didn’t take it when they offered. I reached into my glove box and grabbed a copy of the Book of Mormon. It’s one of my copies prepared by the Secrists. I gave it to her and said, well this time I think you’re supposed to take it.

I said, the Book of Mormon is a collection of writings by prophets and is the word of God. When you read his word, you feel his peace. If you read this book, you’ll find answers in your life.

She opened up the front cover and saw the questions of the soul and said, I’ve had a lot of of these. Are the answers in here? I said yes.

She said, I guess I have to go but this has been a truly amazing experience. I think tomorrow morning I’ll go over and visit that girl from my freshman year. I said, ask her if you can go to church with her. I said, she would probably love to take you and you will be amazed how many really cool people you’ll meet. You’ll also be blown away by the love and peace that you feel.

She said, I’m sold. I’m down for a new experience and I feel like this is something I need to do. It’s going to be a change. I think I’m ready for that challenge. I’m done being lied to. She patted her Book of Mormon then my head, smiled and got out of the car.

I actually gave her a ride a couple weeks later. I picked her up on campus and drove her home. I asked her if she went to church and she said that she had gone and was going. She said she prays every day and she reads the Book of Mormon. She said she’d been introduced to some elders and they were amazing. She said, I love having this in my life. I had felt like there had to be something else for a while but I just couldn’t put my finger on it. She smiled and said this has to be why we have ride share. I laughed.

When I first started driving more down in Utah County I was trying to learn where to be to make the most money. I learned really quickly that rides from Provo took you south and rides from Orem took you north.

If you want to stay in Utah county you don’t want to go to Lehi or American Fork, which is where you end up if you start it in Orem.

I started my evenings from Provo. There’s no way they will bump you down to Nephi and it kind of gives you a limit in that way. For me was this was exactly what I wanted. I would go down by the mall and turn the app on.

The first time I went down there, I got a ride right at the entrance to the mall. The passenger was a young lady in her 20’s. She was the manager of one of the restaurants in the mall and she closes up several nights a week. She got in the car and we started to drive.

We were going to Spanish Fork and so we had a minute to talk. She was very friendly and she liked the music I was playing on the radio. It was your typical 80’s throwback stuff. No one gets worked up when you play 80’s throwback stuff. It’s kind of like today’s elevator music. We were right in the middle of a song by Journey! One of my personal favorites.

It turns out that she really loves karaoke and this was the stuff that she liked to sing so she was belting it out from the back. She had a really nice voice so that was fun to listen to. As she was singing, I got the impression that she was a member of the church but she had strayed.

I got the idea that she had lost her belief in God and her faith in the church. The prompting that I had was that she was all in on the professional thing and that she had just dismissed spiritual things from her life. I was prompted that tonight was going to be the night that we were going to make a difference. The spirit was going to touch her.

I told her that I don’t sing because nobody wants to hear that. I said that singing, church songs in Spanish would be the only exception. I told her that I sing so bad that one time when I was singing in church my wife said Shhhhh. She laughed and thought it was funny. She said, it sounds like your wife is awesome. I said, yep.

I told her that church is a place where people ought to be comfortable coming and bad singing could possibly have a deleterious effect. I felt prompted to start tapping into the revelation I had received. I asked her how long ago she quit going to church. She was surprised and asked me how I would know that she didn’t go to church. I told her that I had received the prompting from the Holy Ghost. She asked, what did that prompting say? I said, that your father in heaven loves you very much and he wants you back. It seems like you’ve forgotten.

I started talking to her about living with her father in heaven for thousands of years and the love we had for him and the love he has for us. I told her that that this love manifests itself by the way we feel the spirit. I said, when we feel the spirit, that’s the same way we felt for all of those thousands of years in Heavenly Father’s presence. I said he loves us and he gives us his spirit. I said, it helps us, it lifts us, it comforts us, it teaches us and it helps us be better.

As I was talking about our father in heaven‘s love and the spirit, the spirit was there in the car. We had started with a friendly vibe and it had nicely matured into a very spiritual feeling. I asked her if she could feel it and she said yes I asked her to identify it, and she told me that it made her happy. She said that it made her feel bubbly.

I said that when she was young, they had talked in church about getting answers to your prayers and she hadn’t been able to recognize it. I said, what you’re feeling right now is a way that God answers your prayers. He sends his spirit and your spirit recognizes its presence and the truth that has been spoken.

She said, that’s really neat! I wish they had taught me this when I was younger. I said, once you learn about the spirit it can teach you a lot of things. I shared with her a couple of my stories from my blog about experiences with the spirit and revelations. I told her that God gives us his spirit to help other people. I told her that the spirit is really strong and it can strengthen us and lift us. It can make unbearable things bearable, hard things possible and good things amazing.

I said, this is why it’s so important for us to have the spirit with us at all times. I said, when we quit going to church and quit walking with the spirit, we lose that power and that lift. She said, I felt that but I didn’t realize how much I missed the spirit until just now in the car. I haven’t really realized how much I missed it.

I asked her how often she prayed and she said she had quit praying. I said, you need to start. Your Heavenly Father wants to hear from you. You need to pray at least twice a day but it’s also good to have a prayer in your heart all the time. I asked her if she would commit to start saying her prayers. She said she would commit to once a day and try to work up from there.

I asked her if she had scriptures and she said no. She said her family did but she hadn’t seen her scriptures in years. I gave her a copy of the Book of Mormon prepared by the Secrists and showed her how the book is laid out with the questions of the soul.

I testified about Joseph Smith and the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. The spirit also testified to this truth and she felt it. She said, “that was powerful.”

I asked her to read those questions and she said, wow! I have these questions. She said, I guess I should know these since I have been a member of the church all of my life. I said, a lot of times we don’t pay perfect attention in youth programs and when we’re young but God does forgive us. He gives us a second chance, that’s why I’m here. I believe God put you in my car today so that you could feel his spirit, feel his love and resolve to do better in your life.

She asked, do I have to go to church with my parents?. It’s been kind of dicey. I said, go to church somewhere. We looked up her singles ward and I said, why don’t you go there? She said, that sounds good. I’ve never gone to church without going with my family. I think that would be fun.

She said, it’s probably good timing for me to do some of this stuff. My brother is getting back from his mission next week. I said, that’s awesome! Where did he go? She said, Argentina. I said, well that’s where the best missionaries go! I told her that I had gone to Argentina for my mission and what I learned there is my foundation for everything.

I said, when you see your brother, look into his eyes and ask him to bear his testimony to you. When he he does, you will feel the same spirit we’re feeling right here in the car and you will know that the things he is saying are true. She said, I know it’s true tonight and I can’t wait to talk like that to my brother. She said again, I can’t wait.

She said that she had some friends she had started doing things with about three years ago. They had decided that the church wasn’t true. They quit going to church and rebelled against the church. She said, then tonight happens and it kind of squashes that whole idea.

I said, do you doubt what I said here is true? She said, no! I’m sure of it. It’s just that the feeling in the car makes it feel so right. I said, when you pray and when you read the scriptures, you will have that same feeling, and you can always have that assurance. Your father in heaven will give it to you.

I said, all you have to do is your part Pray, study, go to church and try to live the gospel and God will lift you at every level throughout your life.

She said, this is what I’ve been looking for. This ride has been incredible. I didn’t think God knew where to find me and now I know he was there all along.

Over the past year, I have seen her a couple more times. I had given her my blog and she reads it. The other two times I saw her she talked about some of the stories. One of those times when I gave her a ride, I picked her up in Salt Lake at the University of Utah. She was there for a concert. She said, you know, God keeps putting us back together. It gave her another chance to feel the spirit in my car and share her growing testimony with me. She’s doing a lot better and she’s attending church. I can tell her father in heaven is very pleased with her because she’s got the spirit with her. She is also helping those friends of hers find their way back.

One night I was driving in Provo and I got a ride to pick up a guy and take him to Springville. I picked him up just off the south east side of BYU campus. As I pulled up, I saw this huge man. He was about 24 years old, at least 6’2” and probably 450 pounds or more. I wondered if he would fit in my car. I push my seat all the way to the front so there is plenty of room. After a small struggle he got in. He had long scraggly hair and smelled like cigarette smoke.

This is always a challenge when someone smells like cigarette smoke because you know you’re going to have to air your car out afterwards. It kind of makes you mad. I guess what I’m trying to say is that looking at this guy and seeing his whole presentation he might not be the perfect person to take in your car. As I had these thoughts, the spirit came into my heart and said this guy needs you. This guy does not know who he is and you need to tell him.

We started to go and chat. He had been there at a gaming place where he played interactive games with people around the world. This kind of followed the stereotype that I had in my mind for this guy. He seemed shy and from the things he said I could tell he didn’t have friends. I could feel the loneliness in his life.

When I felt that loneliness, my heart changed from being judgmental to trying to relate and lift him. As a former football coach, I’m very used to talking to great big dudes. So I asked him, did you ever play football? He said no. He said that he was more of a car guy and he would just go out in the backyard and work on cars by himself. He said, I just have really never had any friends.

It was clear to me that his social isolation had not been a recent occurrence and my heart broke. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to go through life without friends.

I asked him about his parents and he said that they were divorced and he ended up living out in the middle of nowhere with his grandma until she passed away. Neither of his parents wanted anything to do with him. The spirit prompted me that there was a lot more pain to this story and my heart went out to him. All of this painted a full picture. Here was a kid with no friends, no family and few social skills, he didn’t feel loved and had very low self-esteem.

As we were driving down the road, I felt impressed to talk to him about our father in heaven. I said, life is rough but it’s good to know that God is always there and that he loves us. He said, I’ve never felt that. I’ve always felt like I was alone.

I taught him that we all lived with God and that we developed a relationship with him. A relationship with love and trust. I said, we spend the rest of our life, trying to fill the need to have that love in our lives. I said, the problem is, the world doesn’t teach us how to find that.

I turned and looked at him and said, I want you to know that your Heavenly Father loves you, his heart breaks for you and he wants you to have loved ones and friends in your life. He wants you to have a family and he wants you to be happy. I said, you’re not happy right now and that’s not part of his plan. Your happiness is part of his plan.

He said, why don’t I have friends then? Why didn’t my mom and dad stick around? Why didn’t anybody at school want to be my friend and why do I live alone now in a horrible little apartment?

I said, well, Let’s look at this and see what we can figure out. I said, first off, there’s nothing wrong with you. You’re awesome! I said, I think maybe you withdraw yourself from social situations because you don’t believe you belong in them. You don’t believe in who you can be. I said, I want you to start with you are a son of your father in heaven and he loves you very much.

I said, the God that created this world and everything that we love knows who you are and cares deeply about you. As I said this, the spirit came into the car and it was unmistakable. I asked him if he could feel the spirit, and he said yes. He said, I’ve never really felt anything like this.

I told him that what he was feeling was the spirit of God. I said that his spirit had a very unique reaction to the presence of the spirit of God and that’s what he was feeling right then. He said, I feel warm and engaged in this conversation. Most of the time when people talk to me I just blow it off. I love what you are saying.

I told him that he could feel this whenever he wanted. I told him that if he would read the scriptures, pray and live his life like God wanted him to, he could have that spirit and feeling with him often. He said, that would be awesome.

I asked him why he did gaming up there by BYU. He said, there are lots of people there and I just get a good vibe from them. I asked him if they were BYU students and he said yes.

I told him that those BYU students were members of the church and they understood what I was saying right then. I told him that they carried God‘s spirit with them and that’s why he liked to be around them, even though he didn’t talk to them or interact with them. He thought about it for a second and said, that’s interesting.

I asked him if he was a member of the church. I already knew the answer to this from the spirit but I felt prompted that I needed to hear him answer the question.

He said, no, I’m not. I don’t think they would want me. I asked him what made him say that and he said that from a young age, the people that went to the church, treated him very cruelly, especially the girls. He said, I just decided I would back away.

I said, I want you to know that your Heavenly Father wants you in his kingdom. He wants you to be a member of the church. I told him that it’s terrible what had happened to him in that people hadn’t treated him well. I said, sometimes people can be horrible animals and the reason we go to church is to be better. We don’t go to church because we are perfect, we go to church to get better. I said, I’m glad they went to church and I hope they get better. He laughed. I said, someday they’ll have to ask your forgiveness. It might not be in this lifetime but they will need to ask for your forgiveness. Your job is to get to know your father in heaven and feel his love to the point that you can forgive them and feel comfortable in their presence.

He said, that’s kind of a cool way to look at it. That way everyone changes and grows. I said, if those young women that were mean to you do the things they should, eventually they will see you like I see you here today. As a son of God and someone of great value.

He asked, do you really see that? I said, yes I do. He said, you’re the only one. I said, no, I’m not. As people change and repent they can also learn to see people the way their Heavenly Father sees them. I said, that also requires that you change and repent.

I said, when was the last time you prayed. He said, I don’t think I ever have. I told him that prayer is how we talk to our father in heaven and that you should pray anytime your heart hurts or you feel alone. He asked me how you pray. I taught him the four steps of prayer like we did in our mission. I told him that then he could just open his heart and pour it out to his father by doing that.

He asked if I would pray for him right then in the car. We pulled over there between Provo and Springville and had a prayer. The spirit was intense. After we finished the prayer, we got on our way. I asked him if he had the scriptures and he said no. I reached into my glove box and grabbed one of the Books of Mormon prepared by the Secrists and gave it to him.

I said, this is the Book of Mormon, along with the Bible it teaches us about Jesus. He said, I’ve heard of the Book of Mormon but I don’t know much about it.

I said, God had prophets in Jerusalem and in America. He gave them revelations and they prophesied and taught the people. That’s how we have the Bible and the writings of these prophets in America were translated and that’s how we have the Book of Mormon. It is the word of God just like the Bible.

He said, well, I don’t have a Bible, but I heard the stories from the Bible when I was a child. My grandmother would tell them to me. I think it would be fun to read the Book of Mormon. I love reading.

I asked him what he wanted in life and he said that he would like to find someone who could love him. He said he’d love to get married someday if he could find someone who would have him. He said that he never felt love except from his grandma. He said, that’s what I want in my life but I just don’t see it happening.

I asked him where he went to hang out with girls. He said, what do you mean? I said, well if you wanna find a girl, you gotta go to where they are. Where do you go to find the kind of girl that you want?

He asked, where do you find the good girls? I said, in church. You need to go to church. He said, will they let me in, look at me! I said, absolutely they’ll let you in. They’ll be excited to have you there. I told him, I promise if you will start doing the things we are talking about like praying, reading the scriptures and going to church, you will find friends. I said, as we obey the commandments, the light from God‘s spirit shines from our face. We become more attractive than we are. I said, I really mean that.

I said, when that spirit shines from your countenance people will be drawn to you that in a worldly scenario would not. I said, if you do these things, get baptized and have the Holy Ghost with you, you will see doors open up that you never imagined could open. I said, you will be happy.

By this time we were sitting in the parking lot by his dumpy apartment. It looked like the kind of place where the leftovers and refuse of society would live. I asked him if he would commit to going to church, reading the scriptures and praying. He said yes.

We looked up the address of his church and meeting times. His church was on the same block behind his apartment so this was easy to remember. He laughed and said, wow, with it being that close I guess I have to go. He said, things changed for me during this ride. He got out of the car and walked into his apartment.

The spirit whispered to me, you’re not done with him.

The next week, I picked him up at the same place again. This time no cigarette smoke and he was happy to see me. He said that he had been praying and reading but that he didn’t go to church because he overslept. He said that he had to get off the computer earlier on Saturday night. We laughed because it’s always something.

He talked about how much better he felt and I could see it in his eyes. Some of the pain was gone but he still needed to follow through.

Just then I had problems with my tires. The indicator light was on and he noticed it. He said, let’s pull over, I can help. He said he worked three years in a tire store before he got his training in tech. He said, I know all about this. He helped me out and told me what to do. He said, after how you helped me, I’ve got to help you! He told me that I needed to go to the tire store and he told me what to tell them.

I said, I’ll do that first thing tomorrow. I said, you also have an assignment. This week you need to go to church. He laughed and said, I fix your tire and you fix me. We chuckled and then I dropped him off at his house.

The next week I picked him up at his apartment. I was taking him to a laundromat to clean his cloths. He told me that he had been to church and that he really liked it. He told me that the people had treated him well. I asked, did they introduce you to the missionaries? He said yes.

I asked him why he was cleaning his clothes and he said because they were dirty. I asked, would you walk around with dirty clothes? He said, no, well, not too dirty anyway. I told him that this was a metaphor. The missionaries wanted to help him be baptized as we had previously discussed. I said, when your baptized it cleanses you of your sins so that you can be pure before God. It’s like God taking you to the laundry. He laughed and said I like that.

The next week, I got him again but he wanted to go to a nicer laundry this time. He was smiling and had a little bit of a shine about him. He had a pretty fresh and substantial haircut. I couldn’t help but compare and contrast the feeling around him and the look in his eyes with the one I saw the very first day. It was an incredible difference. Just the exposure that he was having to the love of his father in heaven was turning him into a different person.

I asked him if he had talked to the missionaries about a baptism day yet. He said that he was moving apartments this week and that they were going to set a date once he got in his new apartment. He said, I will still attend church in the same building.

I let him out at this new laundromat and haven’t seen him since. It is very rare that I get the same person twice. It’s even more rare that you get them three times but you never get them four times. I got to see his progression. Heavenly Father picked him up in the lowest of lows and decided that he was going to touch this young man. I believe that one day soon he will have all the things he wanted in his life.

One day I was driving around in Salt Lake City trying to get some rides. I mean I was looking for pretty much any ride and it was very slow. One of the issues that we have had over the last few years is that the immigration community has been encouraged by the state to take rideshare jobs.

They help them get drivers licenses and Hertz rents them cars. They can go from just having arrived to driving rideshare in a matter of a couple of days thanks to the help from the government.

What this does to us is it makes it very hard to get rides. Where there used to be 25 to 30 drivers downtown at any given time, there will be 200 downtown. Usually this pushes you out of downtown where there are fewer rides but also less competition for those rides. I was headed out by West Valley City. The key is to go to West Valley City and not go to the airport. The same reasoning applies at the airport. There used to be 15 to 25 drivers at the airport and now there are 150.

I got a ride at an airport hotel which isn’t considered the airport zone and sometimes there are rides to be found there. As I got to the hotel to pick them up, I remember being grateful for the ride, even though it was just into Salt Lake and not much money.

As I sat waiting for the passengers, the thought came to my mind about the spirit putting me where I need to be. I thought about one of my favorite areas in my mission. I requested to be sent there because no one had baptized there in years. I knew that if I was obedient and worked hard we could baptize. We built a baptismal font the first week and then baptized 15 new members in the next two months. It was awesome.

I thought about one man that I baptized from that town. He was a pilot. He later moved to Brazil for work and one of his daughters served as a missionary at Temple Square. A true miracle.

I hadn’t thought about this man named Armando and his family for quite some time and I took a minute to reminisce. His baptism in our newly constructed font was truly spectacular.

As I was thinking about this, a couple came out of the hotel and got in my car. They seemed to be excited and very chatty. They had very thick Brazilian accents and I decided to extensively use my very limited Portuguese vocabulary.

They asked me where I learned Portuguese and I laughed. If they were listening very closely, they clearly knew that I hadn’t learned Portuguese! I told them that they were very kind but that the Portuguese I knew, I learned by serving with the missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints. I said, I worked with them while they were preparing to go to Brazil. They were learning Portuguese.

I said, pretty much all I know how to do in Portuguese is pray. I know how to tell you about the things I know in the church to be true and also basic general pleasantries.

They laughed and said, we’ve known a lot of Mormon missionaries over the years. They seem like amazing young men. It’s fun to talk to them and you are correct, many of them don’t speak very well at first but they get better fast. I said, yep! I served in Argentina and it was the same way with me.

We talked about Argentina and Brazil and what they have in common. Then we talked about the soccer rivalry, etc., for a few minutes and then I asked, did you get baptized in our church yet? Did any of those young missionaries teach you the gospel? They said no. They said they never considered it. I then sensed that this is why they were here. Following that impression I decided to jump right in. I asked, Is that why you’re here? I have a feeling that’s exactly why you’re here.

The woman said, funny you should say that. We left Los Angeles and were flying to Chicago. Our plane got diverted because of some system glitch and we are stranded here for a couple of days. I never thought of it that way but it could be that this is why God put us here.

She said, we were always curious to learn a bit more but we never had time with our busy lives. She said, we don’t have any friends in that church and so the right time just really never presented itself to us. We are headed into town right now to see what’s there. Maybe we could learn some stuff about the church while we are here. This might be our chance.

Those words are music to my ears!

I told her that this would be awesome. I talked to them about Temple Square. We talked about the different buildings and how the work that goes on all over the world is coordinated in those buildings. I told them that one of our apostles, Elder Soares is from Brazil. They were very impressed at this as well as the historic nature of everything. They were also impressed by the cleanliness they saw and they commented on how peaceful it was.

I continued kind of with a tour driving around the block. I talked to them about the pioneers and how they moved out here to escape persecution. I told them that the pioneers built these buildings as a labor of love and a sign of devotion to their father in heaven. They loved the temple and I told them that this is where my wife and I got married. They were duly impressed, I told them that tours of all of the buildings were available except the temple.

They were a little bummed by that but I told them that it’s a sacred place. I said that we have to prepare ourselves to enter and it takes considerable work for a member to get ready to go there. They accepted that as we continue driving around the block.

We got to the family history library. I told them that in that building we have records from all over the world. People can come here and look up their family history. I told them that if they had free time tomorrow, they might want to come back and do this.

Just then we saw some missionaries. They said, like we mentioned, we’ve seen a lot of missionaries from your church in Brazil. I said, that’s cool because there are missionaries from Brazil here on Temple Square. They said, really? I said, yeah. I said, when you get out and go see things, you should ask for a missionary from Brazil. I told them about the daughter of the man I baptized who served there at Temple Square. They thought that was really cool. I thought about how God had placed those thoughts in my head before the ride. They said that for sure they would ask for a missionary from Brazil.

He said, I think there are quite a few differences between our churches. Do you guys believe in the same Jesus we do? I said, absolutely and while there are some differences between our church and your church, we also have a lot in common. I took this as an opportunity to start teaching. The ice had been broken and the water was fine.

I told them that we believe that we have a Heavenly Father just like they do. We believe that he loves each one of us and we love him. I told them that we lived with him before we came to earth for thousands of years.

Due to the fact that they already felt good being around Temple Square, testifying of the spirit and the love of our father in heaven amplified everything. I told them that our father in heaven loves us so much that he does everything he can to help us and he has given us the gospel so that we can know how to come home.

I asked if they had ever heard of the Book of Mormon. They said they had but that they didn’t know anything about it. I told them that it was the religious heritage of the people who lived in America in ancient times. I told them that God had prophets in America because that’s how he speaks with his children and that’s how he blesses them. He gives his instructions to the prophets and they bless us with that knowledge. I told them that here in America, like in Israel they wrote their prophecies. I said that this is why we have the Bible. I said that here in America they wrote these prophecies on plates of gold. I taught them that in modern times these plates were given to our prophet Joseph Smith and he translated them by the power of God. I said, that translation is called The Book of Mormon and it is the word of God. It is a companion with the Bible. I told them that the Book of Mormon teaches us that God loves everyone in the world not just the people in Jerusalem.

They were focusing on everything I was saying. They were emotional and the spirit was touching their hearts. She said, I love the idea of God knowing and caring about my ancestors.

I told them that it was more than that. I said that this book contains the account of the visit of Jesus Christ to the ancient inhabitants of America. It was silent in the car and he said, what? I’ve never heard that. I said, God loves everyone and he sent his son for everyone not just the people in Jerusalem. I said, Christ said he was going to his other sheep and this is where he found them, right here in the Americas.

I told them that Jesus taught the people to have faith, repent, and he gave them baptism. He gave them authority to baptize and taught them how to be baptized. Once he taught them about baptism, he commanded them, every one of them to be baptized. I told them that when we are baptized, all of our sins can be forgiven and we can become clean before God. I looked at them and asked them how it would be to be clean and know that you’re worthy to be in the presence of God. They said, that would be like a dream. That’s why we go to church to try to get to that point. We would love that.

I said, it’s important that we do it the way Jesus taught. I said, this is all in the Book of Mormon and when I said that it was the religious heritage of your ancestors, I meant it. Jesus came to America and he blessed their children, he held them in his arms and he wept. I said, those were your ancestors. The spirit was strong in the car. I asked them what they felt. They said, we feel emotional and very happy. I said, this is the spirit of God and when you feel this, you know that the things you are hearing are true. You know, God doesn’t send his spirit when false things are being taught. He sends his spirit to testify of the truth. I said, the fact that you’re feeling that right now lets you know that the things I’m teaching are true, that Jesus came to America and that the Book of Mormon is true.

They said, we feel that! I think you’re right. I asked them if they had ever stopped and talked to those missionaries for a bit. They said, not really like that, but they had seen them and had small conversations with them. I asked, what did you feel? She said, when I’ve been around them I feel happy and I feel like I know that they are good. He agreed and said, you just feel their goodness, they are good kids. I said, they go there to teach these things. They go there to take the knowledge of Jesus Christ coming to America to your people. They go there to take the fullness of the gospel and the baptism of Jesus Christ to everyone who will accept it. That’s what they’re doing.

I reached into my glove box and grabbed a Book of Mormon. It’s one of the Books of Mormon prepared by the Secrists. I gave it to the husband and said, this is the Book of Mormon. It was translated from the writings of your ancestors. As you read that book you will feel the same peace you felt here in the car and you will be filled with the same joy you have been experiencing.

They were excited and said they wanted to read that. I told them that while they were at Temple Square they should have the Brazilian missionary get them a Book of Mormon in Portuguese. They said they would. He asked me if he could keep the one in English I had given him. I told him, absolutely.

I talked about the prophet Joseph Smith and how he was looking for truth just like they had been looking for truth. I told them that he read in the Bible that he should ask God. I said, when he did, God the father and Jesus Christ appeared to him. They called him to be the prophet to restore the church of Jesus Christ on the Earth. That is our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I said, later, one of the prophets who wrote the Book of Mormon anciently, appeared to him. He gave him the plates and that’s how we have the Book of Mormon today.

Like I’ve said before, nothing brings his spirit like the first vision. When you tell that story and testify of the Book of Mormon, the spirit surges. I took that opportunity to identify the spirit one more time. Again, I told them that the spirit testifies of truth and the things I was saying were true. I told them that now they knew this because the spirit had been present. They agreed. She said, this is incredible. I love how I feel.

They told me that they were going to get out of the car right there and go start looking for a Brazilian missionary. I said, when you get back to Brazil, you’re going to have to find the missionaries there too. You should invite them over to eat, they love to eat! They laughed and said, that won’t be a problem because the church house is just down the block from our house. They said, the missionaries walk by all the time. we are excited to learn more both here in Salt Lake and back at home. I pulled up to let them off at the south entrance by the assembly hall.

They said they would like to get going so that they can have that baptism and be clean. They committed to do this right there in the car.

They got out of the car and now they knew why they were diverted to Salt Lake. It was meant to be. It’s why they were there. Credit Delta with the assist.

I picked up a girl at the Marriott downtown who had been visiting some friends from out of town. It was the birthday of one of her friends. She got in the car and was acting excited and happy. While she was acting excited and happy the spirit told me that she was over playing it and that really she was devastated on the inside.

I felt prompted that she had really tried hard to be friends with these people and that they were blowing her off. I felt like she was alone and discarded by the people she considered friends.

I asked her if she would mind me sharing a couple of observations with her. She said, no, go ahead. I proceeded to tell her exactly what the spirit was telling me about her friends and what she was feeling in that moment even though she was putting on a happy façade.

She teared up a bit and then asked ,are you a mind reader? I said, no! I told her that in our church when we get baptized we are given the gift of the Holy Ghost. I said that one of the gifts of the Holy Ghost is that it gives you the gift of prophecy and revelation. I said that through the Holy Ghost, God had revealed to me what she was feeling. She was shocked. She said that she didn’t even think that God knew who she was. She said that she wasn’t even sure there was a God. I assured her that indeed there was a God and I bore witness to the fact that what we were feeling there in the car was an effort on his part to show her that he loved her.

I told her that I felt that there was a hole in her life and she was trying to fill it with people and things. I said that it needed to be filled with the spirit of God. She muttered, that is right on, how could he know this? I told her that I wanted her to pay attention to how she felt right now. I asked her how it felt in her heart. She said, peaceful and amazing. I told her that this is how she feels when the spirit of God is with her.

I said that as a daughter of her father in heaven she had developed these feelings with him due to the loving father-daughter relationship she had with him before she was born. I said, your craving to feel this is a hardwired part of who you always have been. You can feel this when you pray, read the scriptures or go to church. She asked me if you can have that feeling all of the time. I said, yes, God is our father and wants to be with us as much as we will have him.

I asked her if she had a Book of Mormon and she said no I grabbed one of the books prepared by the Secrists and gave it to her. I said, when I read this book I feel the spirit of God. This book teaches the gospel and carries his spirit to those who read it. This is your copy. She smiled and thanked me

I asked her if the pain of the rejection and loneliness was still with her. She said, that’s incredible, no, it’s not. It’s gone. I told her that right now this space was filled with the power of God and his spirit. I told her, in the presence of God his love consumes us and makes us feel like we are home.

She said, that’s beautiful, how do you know these things? I told her that I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints and that we are taught through the scriptures and by prophets to rely on God. I told her, we have prophets who speak with God and speak for God to us. By following their counsel we can make sure to always fill that hole with his spirit. She said, that’s amazing.

I sensed that this was all a lot for her right then. I told her that she felt like she was trying to eat an elephant right now and she didn’t know where to start. She laughed hard. I told her that her life wasn’t organized like she wanted it to be and that another big project wasn’t her priority right then. She said, you’re right. I said, God wanted you to have this experience tonight. That’s why he put you in my car. He wanted you to feel his spirit and his love. He wanted to lift you tonight and that’s why he put you in my car.

I told her that right at that moment she was thinking of a friend who was a member of the church who went on a mission and considering whether or not she should approach him about what we were discussing. She said, how did you know that! She said, that freaks me out a bit but in a good way. I said, it’s the same answer, God whispers the things he would have us do and the things he would have us say to our hearts. He expects us to say them. I said, tonight he is focused on you. He wants you to learn to be truly happy and know that you are appreciated and loved. You are his daughter.

I told her that with regard to speaking with that friend, she would feel an urgency develop, an urgency to know for herself the truth. I said that the feeling tonight was a seed that would grow. I told her that God was revealing that friend to her so that she could know where to turn.

She said that this trip had opened her eyes to God and to the church for the first time. I told her she should go to her friend and tell him exactly what had gone on in the car. She said, that’s exactly what I will do.

I asked her where she was from. She said she was from Orem. I said, wow, I’m from Orem. I asked what high school she went to. I ask this because we can’t ask where they live but this is a way around that rule. She said, Mountain View. I told her we used to live over there by Lakeridge and have many good friends there.

She said that growing up in Orem and going to Mountain View you would think that she would have had a greater exposure to the church. She said that she knew a bunch of Mormons. She asked me if they knew these things that we had discussed. I said yes. She laughed and said, it seems like maybe they should have shared something like this with me. She said, I guess that I probably would have just rejected it.

I said, everyone is prepared at different levels and at different times. It seems like this is your time. She said, I think that you are right. This guy I am supposed to talk to is one of the good guys. I have always felt something like this around him. I can’t wait to ask him.

We had arrived at her destination and she was on her phone. I told her thanks and I bore my testimony to her. The spirit was strong and she was smiling. She showed me her phone and I read the text that was on her screen. It was to that guy and the text read, I want you to teach me about the peace you have in your church.

That answer will be awesome!

I got a call to go over and pick up a lady in a trailer park by the Maverik on Redwood Road and 400 south. On the way over to pick her up I got a message from her saying that she wasn’t at the trailer park anymore. Ahhh, a moving target. We get those sometimes and it is an adventure in a normally predictable scenario! She said that she was over by the Maverick but she didn’t have her tracking on. Finally, after a bit more communication, I was able to locate her. It took some effort but felt I compelled to keep looking rather than just cancel so as she got in the car I was wondering why. Why didn’t I just stay where she was supposed to be? That is what we are supposed to do. I knew there was something I needed to do here. There was some reason for the prompting. I though sometimes people just need help,

Sometimes people are running away from something or not wanting to be seen near their house for whatever reason. Sometimes I get to testify but always there is a reason when I feel urgency like that. I became curious. I usually don’t ask questions about it because it’s not permitted but I always have to wonder.

I turned into the confusion that is the crowd at that gas station all of the time. In that crowd is where I found this young lady. She was almost two blocks from where she was supposed to be. She got my car and there was a sense of relief. Given the weird circumstances and what I would consider questionable choices of risky places to be picked up, she seem to be pretty together. The conversation that ensued surprised me quite a bit. As we started swapping stories she happened to mention that she couldn’t find a situation in her life where she could meet a decent guy. I asked her to define a decent guy because I know a bunch of them. She said that she wanted a guy that wouldn’t cheat on her. She said she recently had two boyfriends and both of them had cheated on her.

She said that she was taking the year off of relationships to work on her and to get her life in order. She was going to finish her degree and start a business. She wanted to be able have enough money and get her daughter back from her grandparents.

When someone says something like that it is normally obvious why someone else would have the child. They are clearly struggling with life. This did not seem to be the case here. I asked her if the custody of her child was ordered by the court. She said no.

She said she voluntarily sought out the grandparents of the child to take care of her. Even though the courts were not involved, she clearly had had tremendous problems. The business she wanted to start involved drug rehab and she seemed to have a passion for that.

She talked about how when she got her things together she would go and get her daughter back. She said for now it’s like they are best friends. She said she goes over and sees her every day and that her little girl is the light of her life.

The spirit started helping me to understand that this girl was a member of the church even though she hadn’t indicated it at all. In fact she had indicated a history of behaviors that would not be considered reflections of a member of the church. The spirit then started whispering to me and I said the words that the Lord put into my heart regarding the impressions I had.

I said that I knew that she had been hurt and that because of that she didn’t feel like she deserved to have a quality man in her life. I said that because of this she had settled for guys that didn’t put God first in their lives. I said, unless he does that he will never put you first. I told her that she judged herself very harshly for her mistakes and because of this she didn’t feel like she deserved to have happiness in her life. I said that because of this she didn’t seek out the kind of man that could bring this level of relationship success with him into her life.

I told her that I believed that this was happening both consciously and subconsciously. I looked at her and said, I believe you know exactly what I mean. The thought that you aren’t worthy of a godly relationship comes from Satan. I said that it was a lie told to her by Satan. I told her that Satan is the one who doesn’t want you to be happy. I reflected back on the scene at the Maverik where I picked her up and the horrible state of those around her there. I realized that she had been plucked out from that throng of iniquity and that this was an apt metaphor for this young lady’s situation.

I felt like at some point she had been baptized so I started talking about her relationship with our Heavenly Father. I told her that she was a daughter of her father in heaven and that I knew she had been baptized but hadn’t been to church in a very long time. She said, yes I was baptized almost exactly 3 years ago but I only attended for about six months. How did you know that? I said that I had felt an impression that this was the case. I said, you need to get right with God and start dating returned missionaries and worthy young men who want eternal families. I told her that she needed to go to church with other young people. This girl was only 21 or 22 years old. I told her that she had relegated herself to horrible situations by choosing to surround herself with people that weren’t good people. I said, quit telling yourself that you don’t deserve better.

She said, that’s what everybody told me. They all told me I needed to go to a singles ward. Maybe they’re right. I said definitely they are right! She asked, how did you know all of this?

I told her that through the gift of the Holy Ghost, Heavenly Father whispered to my heart these things about her so that I could say them to her. I told her that she was in a position in her life right now that she needed to know that her father in heaven loved her. She needed to know that he had sent this message to her so that she would know 100% for certain that he loved her. The spirit was in the car and you could feel this daughter of our father in heaven for the first time contemplate being loved by a perfect father.

I asked her what she felt right then. She said, warm, happy and safe. I told her that this is how she feels in the presence of the spirit of God. I said, your father in heaven sent this feeling so you could feel his love. I said that when you feel this you know that the things you are hearing are true. I said, by contrast, when you have thoughts that make you uncomfortable, anxious or angry they don’t come from God.

I felt a prompting telling me that she was using the grandparents of the child, not her parents to care for the child. It occurred to me that there was an issue with her family. I told her that her father in heaven loved her and he prepared a way for her to be happy not just get by. He wanted her to have a loving, righteous and wonderful family. He wanted her to live happily and not in misery. He wanted her to be excelling not doing the bare minimums to get by. I asked her if that isn’t what she wants for her daughter? She said yes. I asked her, with this being the case, doesn’t it make sense that a perfect loving Heavenly Father would want the same for you, his daughter? She had tears in her eyes and nodded her head.

I told her as a daughter of God he expected more. I told her that it’s important that she pray. The spirit prompted me that she hadn’t been praying and I said, it’s been quite some time, hasn’t it? She looked down and then said yes. I told her that she needed to start praying today.

I told her that Jesus Christ had paid for her sins but not just her sins, for all of the embarrassment, angst and pain she felt as a result of the bad things that had happened to her and that she had done. All she had to do was turn to Jesus Christ and he could lift her pain and he could heal her wounds.

I sensed that those wounds had become a very big part of her make up and that Satan was exploiting it to make her feel like she didn’t deserve happiness. He made her feel like she didn’t even deserve to be called a daughter of her father in heaven.

I started talking about the things Satan whispers in our ears by mentioning the promptings I had received. I told her that Satan says God doesn’t love you. Satan says God can’t love you because you’re flawed. Satan says that you shouldn’t pray. Satan says that you shouldn’t go to church and that everyone at church is judging you.

I asked her if she knew that Satan is a liar and she said yes. I asked her if she had heard him whisper these things to her and with tears in her eyes she said, yes all of the time. I asked her why she believed a liar. I told her that Satan is a liar so everything he does is a lie and everything he says is a lie. I asked her, when he whispers those lies, how do you feel? She said, angry, hurt and hopeless.

I told her the opposite is true, her father in heaven loves her more than anything just like she loves her daughter. I asked her again how she felt in the car, she smiled and said awesome. I said that this is how truth feels. I said that she needed to take notice of the difference in the way God and truth make her feel and how Satan’s lies make her feel. I told her that God wants her to go to church and carry a prayer in her heart. I told her that the things that Satan whispers in her ears are put there to keep her from being happy and to keep her from being successful. I told her that she needs to do the opposite.

I told her that the Book of Mormon teaches us that anyone who teaches us not to pray or any feeling we get that we shouldn’t or can’t pray is bad. I asked her if she knew where that kind of thought or prompting would come from and she said, Satan.

I told her that this holds true and works the same way for attending church. Any feeling or thought you have that tells you not to go to church, that you are not wanted there or will be judged there is bad. I asked her, who is it that would put that in your thoughts and in your mind? She said, Satan.

I told her that she was very special to her father in heaven and that for some reason today her father felt like she needed to know that he loved her. He needed her to look to him. I told her he needed her to learn to look to his Son and his atonement to heal her wounds. I told her that she needed to go to church and she needed to pray.

She told me that she had been really struggling today and that this car ride was what she needed. She said, how often do you get a message right from God? I feel special. I said, to your Heavenly Father you are special. You are his daughter.

I have to agree it was special. We made a plan for her to go back to church. We looked up her ward and meeting times. I told her that when she goes there she should feel for the spirit we had felt in the car. That way she would know she was home. She said, yes. This is so different that I felt in that crowd where you picked me up.

We had arrived at her destination. She wiped her tears, smiled and said, thank you for everything. This has been amazing

I know she has a plan and I hope she gets everything together so she can get her daughter back and get her life on track. After our conversation she seemed determined to do just that but this time not all by herself. She knows she has a father who will help her and an older brother who will lift her.

One Monday night, it had been unusually slow. I had been out quite a while and it was very late. I was in Salt Lake trying to get as much money as I could but it was no use, there were not a lot of rides.

I got a ride to Tooele. I never want to go to Tooele if I can avoid it. It is a long way, they don’t pay much and whatever they pay is almost irrelevant because you come back without a passenger so you end up loosing money. I felt a prompting that night telling me that I should go so I took it. It was an act of faith.

The ride was a guy going out to get on the semi truck that he was driving coast to coast. He parked it in Tooele and came into town. He had been struggling to find a ride back to his truck. We had a nice ride and a good conversation but I didn’t feel any prompting so I didn’t pursue a religious line in our discussion.

Just as I was about ready to drop him off in Tooele at the truck stops by the freeway, I got another offer for a ride. This is not normal out there but welcome on such a slow night and maybe a way to offset the cost of gas. This one would take me south down deep into the heart of Tooele and would be quite a distance. I looked at my gas gauge and it was way low. The gas light had come on. Due to the fact that I was almost out of gas, I reconsidered it for a second but I felt very impressed that I needed to take this one ride.

The thing is I would lose the ride if I stopped to get gas. I felt compelled to ignore the light and go. I took this one not knowing why but knowing that I was supposed to, that is why I was there. My mind was wandering and wondering what could be the purpose here.

I drove about 12 miles down a road and took a left out into the boonies. I went around the corner and there was the young lady who I was supposed to take. She got in the car and seemed pretty excited that I was able to find her. She said no one could ever find her. She said 6 drivers had cancelled and she had been trying to get a ride for two hours.

I told her that I never walk away from somebody that needs help. I knew this lady was the person that God wanted me to talk to, the real reason for the trip and the words that came to my mind just flowed. I said, you don’t think you’re good enough. You don’t think you are enough and you don’t think that you’re worthy of love. Especially God’s love.

I started in immediately talking about our father in heaven and how we lived with him in the preexistence for thousands of years. He loved us and we felt that love. I told her that we knew that feeling and loved it. It was the most important and stabilizing feeling in our existence. I told her that when we came to earth, we forgot that and we missed that but our souls have a place where that feeling belongs. I said , when that feeling fills that spot we feel whole.

I got the impression that she was using drugs but felt like I shouldn’t say anything just yet. I felt like she needed to feel the spirit of God and his love right now.

I said that Satan fills that hole with, she interrupted me and said evil. I nodded my head in agreement.

She said, I don’t know how you knew that I use drugs but somehow you knew. I told her that God had brought me clear out there and put her in my car. I told her that he gave me the words that I had said. She said, I have no doubt that he gave you those words because there’s no other way you could know.

I said that God didn’t just put me there so that I could say those words. He put me there so that I could tell her and she could know that he loves her. I said, he wants you back. We hadn’t mentioned the church yet but the spirit indicated that she was a member of the church. I said, you are a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints, so you have been taught these things.

I told her that I felt like she had quit praying then she started falling away. She said, it’s been a long time since I went to church. I am not worthy of God’s love.

I said, God is a father! He loves us, no matter what we’ve done. I told her that God is a loving father who works endlessly to bring his children home safely. I told her that he loves her and when he says that it’s his work and his glory to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man, she is part of what he is talking about. This is his work and you are his glory, his child that he loves so much. You are his work and God doesn’t quit on the job. I told her that he wants to hear from her. He wants her to pray.

I said that her Heavenly Father had sent me so that she could know that he loved her and that there was a way out.
I told her that Satan had lied to her. He had filled that hole in her soul intended for the spirit with drugs, alcohol and riotous living. He takes away the gift of agency given to us by our father through addiction. I said that Satan has always been the enemy of our agency. I told her that our Heavenly Father is all about freedom and that he wants to free her from that curse.

I told her that if she will fill that hole with the spirit of God, it will lessen her craving so that she can fight and win if she will. I asked her if she could feel the spirit of God that was burning in the car like a furnace on a cold night. She was crying profusely and she said, yes. I haven’t felt this in years but yes. I told her that her father in heaven was giving her a hug and that hug was giving her power.

She said, you don’t understand where I am in my life but you seem to know everything about me. I told her that she needed to go to church. She said, my parents are very Mormon but I can’t go to church with them. She just couldn’t do that after everything that had happened.

I told her, you start out going to church somewhere! Go to church every week! I told her to go to church and eventually the spirit will change her heart and she will be able to go with her parents. I told her to work up to it. She said, I think I can do that.

I told her that I could feel that her big hesitation was that every time she drove by a church satan whispered in her ear that the people there are judgmental and hypocritical. She said, that’s very true.

I told her that most of those people aren’t thinking about her or talking about her. They are busy with what’s going on in their own life. Besides that, I said, if someone is judging you, it’s a perfect opportunity to not return the favor and not judge them. Judging them for their actions makes you every bit as judgmental as you say they are! I said, you don’t want to be a hypocrite, do you?

She laughed and said, you’re right! I said, the thing that works for me is to go up and put my arm around people who I think are judging me and tell them what a great example they are. This softens their heart every time and mine too.

She laughed and she said that she should try that. She said, I know that God sent you here tonight. I know that he sent his spirit with you. I can tell because I feel it so strongly around you and in your car.

I said, while you’re feeling that spirit, I want you to pay attention to your cravings. Are they as strong as they were? She thought for a second then had a huge smile and said, no! They are still there a little bit but they are not nearly as intense like they were.

I told her that this is the effect of the spirit of God filling that hole in her soul where it belongs. I told her that with this power filling her soul, she would have the strength to conquer the impulse to feed her addiction. I said, you have to be all in thought. If you leave an inch Satan will exploit your weakness and drag you down.

I told her the church has an addiction recovery program and she needs to be in it. I helped her find info on it and told her to ask the bishop to help her get hooked up there. She told me that she would do that.

I had received a prompting that she was contemplating a decision to commit suicide. I told her that she had considered doing some awful things to herself and that God wanted to stop this now. He still had work for her to do and he knew she was worth saving, even though she saw no value in herself. She was stunned and crying. She muttered, ” I didn’t tell anyone that”.

We were at the place she was going and I ended the ride with the same phrase I began the ride with, I said, you’re good enough, you matter and your father in heaven loves you.

She said through her tears she wished she could give me a hug. She reached up and grabbed my shoulders. She said, I know that every word you said here was true tonight. You told me things about myself that you couldn’t know and I know that God is with you. She said, Heavenly Father sent you just in time.

She said, I’m going to do these things. I’m going to go to church and pray so I can have the spirit in my soul.

Addiction is a hard thing and the people who are addicted, feel trapped and lonely because Satan has beaten them, lied to them and left them discarded. To watch the spirit pull them back into it and give them a fighting chance is a wonderful thing. That’s what happened that night.

As soon as the ride was over I got gas. There was a Maverik one block away like God had placed it there himself. Then I headed back empty in that I had no passenger but full in every way that matters.

One night it was very late and I was on my way home. I had a ride take me out to West Valley and I thought that would pretty much do it for me. I forgot to turn off my app so that presented a problem when this particular ride was sent to me. I thought, just do one more ride. I picked the passenger up at the company where she worked. It was very surprising because it was a guys name on the ride but she was clearly not a guy.

She got in the car and I asked, so you’re headed home? She said yes and that she was very happy to be going home from work. She got off early that day and so she was excited about that. I asked her how things were going and she said really well. At first she seemed very happy and calm, a typical late 20’s girl who seemed to be doing just fine.

I was receiving promptings of her being overwhelmed and that there was a lot being put on her plate right now. I prayed quietly for a second and then I started to say the words that were in my heart.

I asked her if she minded me sharing some thoughts I was having. She said that would be ok. I told her that she was feeling a tremendous amount of stress about her ability to take care of the family right now. I told her that I get the feeling that she felt overrun by the demand that her family plus extended family were placing on her. I told her that she felt judged, shunned and inadequate. In the end she just felt overwhelmed.

As I started to speak I could feel the spirit just hit in the car. It was almost like the spirit knew how much time I had (which was only about 12 minutes) in this short ride. I felt that Heavenly Father really needed to hug this daughter of his tonight.

I told her that she felt like she was trapped and that no one knew or understood what she was going through. I told her that she didn’t feel like there was anyone she could talk to about this. I said that she was almost to a breaking point in her mind and this was a cause of great concern to her. I said, you are suffering in silence. You don’t have anyone you feel you can tell.

She started to cry and asked, am I that transparent? I said, no! You understand about the Holy Ghost. When we are baptized we get the gift of the Holy Ghost and it whispers to our hearts the things we should say and this is the message that I felt in my heart that God gave me for you tonight when you need it.

I also knew by the spirit that she was a good member of the church and she was an obedient daughter of our father in heaven. I could feel that and I knew it was true. I asked, do you feel the spirit right now? She said, yes! I feel it so strong. I said, the spirit always accompanies truth. It is how God tells us that the things we are hearing are true. This is how you know that this message is for you.

With her being a member of the church and the spirit present, I felt the impression to talk more about the atonement. This being the case I went straight into the Book of Mormon. I talked about how Alma‘s people in the valley of Helam relied on God and their faith in God. In return through the atonement of Jesus Christ, God lifted their burdens so that they were so light they could barely feel them. Even though they were slaves they were blessed and happy through their faith in the atonement of Jesus Christ. She said she hadn’t remembered reading that like this before and the car lit up with her smile.

I talked to about the Garden of Gethsemane and how Jesus Christ suffered there. He suffered everything so that he could understand what we were going through and so that he could lift us through our problems. I put it out to her that he was a God and therefore could not be killed. For us he just stayed there and took it until it was done and he had bled from every pore. This is how we able to be redeemed. This is how God lifts us through the challenges in life. I said, look to him and live. Look to him and he can lift your burdens.

I told her that because of the atonement, Jesus Christ understood exactly the pressure, exactly the pain and exactly the stress that she was feeling. I said that if she would rely on him, he could lift her like he lifted the people of Alma in the valley of Helam and make it so that she could do this difficult thing that had been required of her at this time.

She said, I can’t believe God sent you to me tonight. It is an answer to my prayers. She said that earlier that day she had prayed for help. She was at a breaking point. She said that she couldn’t believe how fast and directly her prayer was answered.

I told her that God loved her and that he was her father. I told her that she enjoyed a loving father-daughter relationship with him and he loves her more than she could ever know. I said, that’s why he sent Jesus and that’s why he gave me these words to say tonight.

She said, this is exactly what I needed tonight. I was at my breaking point. She reached out and grabbed my shoulder with her hand and said, thank you so much, you will never know how much this means to me. She got out of the car and went inside her home.

One night I was driving and I had a pick up in Springville. I picked up this guy by an apartment complex just off Main Street. He had a giveaway member of the church name. It was Moroni. When I pulled up, my first thought was, well this is going to be a member of the church and probably won’t be a ride where Heavenly Father has a plan for missionary work. I mean, I was in Springville and his name was Moroni. I guess you should never pre-suppose things like that and I learned my lesson this night. Sometimes we just don’t know how this is going to come about, but if you follow the spirit, sometimes you’re surprised.

I waited for him for quite some time and finally he came out. The app had put him on the other side of the building. Because he was on the other side of the building it took him a long time to get to me. I considered canceling the ride. It was not a great ride financially. I was going to be taking him to West Valley for what ends up being very close to the actual amount I would be paying for gas.

Sometimes, when there are a lot of drivers, they just totally take advantage of us and this was one of those times. As I considered canceling it, I received a strong impression that I was not supposed to. Given my observation of his name and where I was picking him up that seemed to be a little strange and out of order, but I decided to go with it.

Finally, we hooked up and he got in the car. We started driving and chatting. He needed to go to West Valley to get a work truck and that’s why I was taking him. I was trying to find out why in the world I was receiving an impression to give this man a ride. He gave off total member vibes largely because he was a member.

I said, so your name is Moroni? We had a prophet by that name. He laughed. I said, I’ve always found it important to be on the ball just like Moroni

I hadn’t told that joke since I was in the MTC and it’s one of my favorites. I asked him if he carried his ball around so he could stand on it and we joked about it a little bit. Then he said, the funny thing is that I am a new member of the church .

He was baptized about 14 months ago and he still had a shine to him. I thought this was great. He mentioned that he had been teaching in the primary since he was baptized but now he was going to teach elders quorum. He was pretty excited about that.

I asked him how he got to have the name Maroni without being a member of the church. He said that he was raised in Utah with a group that he said, consider themselves to be a different branch of the church.

I assumed when he said that it was a polygamous group that had broken off from the church. He seemed to be pretty timid to share this information but I moved quickly to put him at ease. I told him that when I coached at Orem, we had a basketball player who was from a polygamist family. I said, that was a great kid and a good ball player.

That took the trepidation out of his voice and he started to speak freely with me about his life. He was married about 14 months ago right after his baptism. He said that it was a tough pill to swallow for his mother-in-law. He said, I guess I could understand that. I’m sure she thought I was trying to take her daughter into a polygamist compound or something. He said that he was making progress with the mother in law though.

He said that his family was a member of a polygamous group called the AUB. He said they have members in Mexico, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and Utah. He said that he was always taught that President Taylor called the original members of the UAB to continue practicing polygamy after the manifesto to keep it alive.

He said, I don’t believe that, but I believe that they believe it deeply. He said, I don’t think I ever really believed that so it made sense for me to leave. I asked him if there were any repercussions from him leaving and he said that he was just kicked out and he had no access to anything from the family. He was on his own. He did say, though that his mother was allowed to still be around him. He said that she went to his wedding reception and to his baptism.

This is about when I started to get promptings as to why he was here. I felt prompted to discuss faith with him and how by showing faith and trusting in the Lord, he can lift us through our challenges. I knew that he had seen a lot of challenges, leaving his family like that, but I knew that if he trusted in God, he would make up the difference.

He knew all of the Book of Mormon stories. He had been raised with the Book of Mormon. He said that in their family, they watch general conference all the time. They didn’t really consider themselves outside of the church, just a different branch so he knew the Book of Mormon really well. He said, they say all the right words in the UAB but they don’t have any of the power. They don’t have the covenants and the gift of the Holy Ghost.

I told him that he’s showing a lot of faith and that when we show faith in the Lord and trust in him, he can bless us with increased capacity in every way. I told him about Nephi and his bow I talked about how because the bow broke they had to learn to look to God instead of their own abilities, their own possessions and their own skills. They had to trust in the Lord. I told him that what he had done by leaving it all was a very similar story.

I felt like I needed to talk to him about the atonement. He like many people only considered the atonement as a part of the repentance process. I talked to him about the role the atonement plays in lifting our burdens and helping us forgive other people. I told him that the atonement makes it so that we can suffer injustice and not feel aggrieved. It makes it so that we can show love to and forgive those who persecute us.

He said he hadn’t ever considered that but it was really something that touched him in that moment. The spirit was really strong in the car and I talked to him about it. I asked him what it felt like and he said that he understood the feeling of the spirit. He said it felt like he was lifted right then. He said that he felt like this was an important ride for him and that he wanted to listen.

Then I had a prompting as clear as any prompting I had ever had. I was taught in this prompting that his grandparents, great grandparents, and all of their families had learned about the church all of their life. They had believed in the teachings of the church but they hadn’t had the ordinances available only through membership in the church. I had the very distinct impression that as they had been taught pure doctrine in the spirit world, they quickly received it and accepted it.

I asked him about the temple and he said that he just got his temple recommend and loved to go there. He said that before he got his temple recommend he would go to the temple and sit on the grounds and just soak it all in. He said that since he got his temple recommend it had changed his life.

I asked him if he had done any work for his grandparents, great grandparents, and their families. He said no. He asked me if it would be possible given who they were. I said, absolutely, that’s the point. He asked me how he would go about starting that work. He said that his family would be zero help if they knew why he was asking questions about family member and dates.

I told him to go to his stake genealogy library and they would be able to help him. I also told him that he should ask around in Elders Quorum because for sure there would be somebody there who would know how to help. I said, the first thing I would do would be call your mom and get as much information from her as you can without letting her know what you are doing.

I said, as soon as you get the information, someone in your ward can help you assemble the information and prepare names to go to the temple. I said, you can go to the temple and bring all of those people the covenants they need and have been waiting for.

I talked to him about the impression that I had about his family members and how they had accepted the gospel and were ready to be baptized and make these covenants with proper authority. I said, they have been reaching out to you. Now that you are a member of the church they see you as their pathway to exaltation. They have been reaching out to get you to do this work. I am here today to help you recognize that.

He started to get emotional. He said, I keep having thoughts and promptings about my ancestors while I am going to and in the temple. I thought I was crazy, but I’m realizing right now that they are calling out. They want to join the church, they want a real baptism and to be eternal families. He said, as strongly as we are feeling the spirit in the car, I know that God is confirming this to me.

He said, it’s amazing how we were put together in this ride and you are preaching me the gospel. You are helping me bring the gospel to my family. I’m sure they have accepted the gospel. This is what God and my ancestors have been trying to tell me and I just didn’t get it. This is why I’m in this car today.

He said, I don’t believe in coincidence but I do believe in revelation and I believe we’ve witnessed revelation here in the car today. We are going to save my family.

By this time we had arrived in West Valley City at the place where he was going to pick up the truck. He told me that the ride had meant so much to him but more than that it made it so that he knew that he wouldn’t be alone, he knew that he would be with his family.

He loved going to the temple before, but now he is going to love going to the temple with a purpose. Heavenly Father has a work for him to do and his grandparents are waiting.

I picked up a guy over in Rose Park off of Redwood Road. He said he used to live in Orem and so we talked about Utah County and how he wished that he could afford to own a house in Orem. We talked about where you would have to move to afford a house, like Santaquin or Genoa, places like that. We talked about how with all of the manipulation that’s happening with the housing market it’s only available to a few people.

He talked about how the people of the world economic summit in Davos said that by 2035 home ownership and car ownership for the average person should, for the most part, be done away with. He said, you can see that we are on our way to that. People are buying up houses and inflating prices. Cities are making streets less drivable while the government mandates expensive electric cars that aren’t attainable for most people.

He talked about that for a while and said, it’s almost like they all get together and have a plan and it makes you believe that there’s something bigger against us. He said, it seems like our political leaders are in on it and there’s no hope, there’s nothing we can do.

We talked about how politics has become very corrupted. He mentioned how they protect each other so that they can get rich off the people, they rape and pillage the society and seem to have evil agreements so there are no repercussions. He also mentioned the Epstein island abomination specifically as an example.

I had the impression that he was a member of the church even though we were heading to the bourbon lounge. I said, I get the feeling that you’re a member of the church. I could see in his face that he was doing the math based on my statement. He knew that we were going to a bar and that he asked me to take him there. He said, I used to be, I don’t do that anymore.

I said, well, I am going to talk to you about the Book of Mormon. He looked down and said, OK. I talked to him about the state of things in the books of Helaman and Third Nephi. I discussed the secret combinations with him and what the purposes of those secret combinations were. They were to steal, gain power, have whoredoms, all the while escaping accountability because of their connections.

He said, wow! That sounds exactly like today! I don’t ever remember hearing about that. I said, funny thing is that the book was not written for the Nephites. The book was written for our day. I told him that by reading that book we will more plainly see what’s going on in our day. I said, It seems to me that this is what you are really looking for.

I had the impression to tell him that not only was he a member of the church but that he hadn’t prayed in years. I told him that he felt like in his life he had been marginalized and ignored. He had been judged by the members of the church and his family so he decided that he would punish them by not going to church.

I told him that this approach is not very smart. I told him that hurting yourself does not punish other people. I said that it doesn’t teach anyone a lesson or bring anything positive. By embarking on the no church, no scriptures, no prayer path he was just hurting himself. I told him that without prayer and without going to church and without the scriptures there is no way that he could be successful in this life like he wanted to be. I told him that without doing these things there was no way he could hear the spirit and be guided.

I told him that Satan had waged a war on his insecurities and his guilty conscience. He had use these insecurities as a cudgel to drive a wedge between he and his father in heaven. He had separated him from the spirit and was continually working to keep him in the dark.

He said, I can’t believe how light I feel and how much light there seems to be in the car. It is incredible. I told him that the Holy Ghost was testifying to him that the things I said were true. I said that this feeling is how we know truth. When we feel this we know God is near.

I asked him if he had a Book of Mormon and he said he did. I told him the Book of Mormon was the key. I said, in the Book of Mormon it says that any spirit that teaches a man not to pray is of the devil. I added to that any voice he hears that tells him not to pray is of the devil and any voice he hears that tells him not to go to church or read the scriptures is also of the devil.

When he has the thought that he shouldn’t go to church for whatever reason, whether it be lack of worthiness, lack of sleep or having been in a bar that week, that voice comes from Satan not from God. I told him that God would have him in church, regardless of the week’s activities, trying to do and be better.

I told him that God would have him pray and I told him that God would bring him closer to him. I told him that he is a son of God and that is incredible. God would never turn his back on him. God wants him to be happy.

I told him that the people who have judged him were also sinning. I asked him if he thought that they deserved understanding for the struggles they were having with their sin in the same way he felt like they should be understanding of his sins. He thought about it for a second and said, you know, I never thought about it like that. My stance was rather hypocritical. I told him that we all fall into that trap. I told him that we all need to repent and that if there is somebody that is being judgmental of us we should run up to them, put our arm around them and thank them for being so good to us. I told him that it would change the whole dynamic and we could start being brothers and sisters again. He said, I like that.

Then he looked down at his feet. He said, here I am going into a bar to meet a friend. I said, that’s fine, there’s no rule against you having a 7-Up and talking to your friend. I told him that he could even go out on a limb and have a Gingerale. I told him no one would ever know the difference but God will be pleased. He laughed.

I asked him if he knew where his Book of Mormon was and he said yes. I asked him if he would read Helaman and third Nephi this week and he said yes. He said, I’ll have to shake all the dust out of the book but I’ll do it. I told him that many of the problems he saw in the world would be discussed in that reading.

I pulled out one of my Book of Mormons and had him read Helaman 6: 21-24.

21 But behold, Satan did stir up the hearts of the more part of the Nephites, insomuch that they did unite with those bands of robbers, and did enter into their covenants and their oaths, that they would protect and preserve one another in whatsoever difficult circumstances they should be placed, that they should not suffer for their murders, and their plunderings, and their stealings⁠.

22 And it came to pass that they did have their signs, yea, their secretsigns, and their secret words; and this that they might distinguish a brother who had entered into the covenant, that whatsoever wickedness his brother should do he should not be injured by his brother, nor by those who did belong to his band, who had taken this covenant.

23 And thus they might murder, and plunder, and steal, and commit whoredoms and all manner of wickedness, contrary to the laws of their country and also the laws of their God.

24 And whosoever of those who belonged to their band should reveal unto the world of their wickedness and their abominations, should be tried, not according to the laws of their country, but according to the laws of their wickedness, which had been given by Gadianton and Kishkumen.

He said, that nailed it. That is exactly what has been making me feel helpless. I told him that the Book of Mormon teaches us what we need to do to be ready in every way to fight for God. I told him the spirit could speak to his heart and would speak to his soul and teach him how he needs to act and prepare in these days because that book was written for him. It was written for us today. I said, we will face many challenges in our day and we need God’s help. That is why God gave us this book.

There was still a really nice spirit in the car and I could tell that he was feeling it. I asked him, do you still feel the spirit? He said, yes I do. I have felt it since you testified. I have felt it every time you spoke.

I told him that there was a reason that I was there that night and there was a reason that God had given me the words to say. He said, I figured it was something like that because you seem to know all about me. You seem to know things that I didn’t tell anyone. I told him that this was the spirit and it was here because God had a message for him and it was that he was supposed to come back.He said, how can you say no to that?

I said, you can start by not drinking tonight and by going to church this week. You can start by saying your prayers and reading out of the Book of Mormon every day. He said, I never have really seen a purpose for doing those things. It didn’t seem like it mattered whether or not I was active or whether or not I was a member. He said, now I see that it matters to me and it matters to my father in heaven.

I told him that God had sent me with this message and given me the information to know about his life. I told him that his father loved him and wanted him back. I told him that he was important and he belonged. I said that with the spirit he could help other people. He told me that he felt like for this first time in years God knew who he was. He said, I feel like I’ve been lost but this feeling here in the car tonight makes me feel like I’m not lost.

I asked him if he would commit to do those things, read, pray, go to church and not drink tonight. He said, yes!

I said, it’s easy to go along in life and believe that you don’t matter because everyone in life tells you that you don’t matter. Tonight you found out that you do matter and what you do matters. He said, thank you.

He said, I have changes I need to make. I am grateful that God sent you to help me make them. Starting right now, I’m not drinking tonight! He got out of the car and met his friend on the corner by the door and went in.

I think he was led away a little bit at a time until he was disillusioned and felt like he was drowning. Satan told him that there was no life preserver coming and he believed him for a while until God decided to send him a lift.

It was interesting to see him during the ride. He started out as a non-Mormon then admitted he was a member of the church but very inactive. As we discussed the doctrines of the church in the Book of Mormon and the peace the gospel brings he opened up and blossomed right before my eyes. In the end it was basically like he was wanting to see if it was possible for him to come back. What a transition! What a change the hand of God can effect.

One day I had just finished washing my car. It was a little earlier than I usually turn on but I decided to turn on anyway. I thought, maybe I could get something quick. Usually that early in the morning it’s pretty quiet and normally it doesn’t make any sense.

I wanted to head to Salt Lake and I thought in the back of my mind maybe I could catch something that way. As I started to drive up by McDonald’s I got a ride. It was Lehi to which is on the way to Salt Lake so I was pretty excited. I had to go over by the Lakeridge stake center in Orem to pick her up. I was taking her to her job in Lehi

It was a pretty interesting feeling when I saw her. I felt like I’d had her in my car before or had known her from somewhere before but I quickly decided that wasn’t the case. The spirit was saying that she wasn’t happy with her life and that she was contemplating her membership in the church. I previewed that she had some serious questions about how things are in the church and that she was a returned missionary but very unsatisfied about her mission.

These were just my impressions and I hadn’t confirmed any of them with her and she hadn’t said anything yet. I asked her where she was from and she said Ogden and then I said, you went on a mission, didn’t you? She said that she had served a mission and asked me how I knew. I said, when I look at you, I just think, that girl was a sister missionary. She said, thank you. I didn’t think people could see that in me.

I said, I could because I think the spirit has helped me know that. I asked her if I could tell her a story or two. She said that would be great and I decided to share a couple of specific stories. The first one was from my mission.

I shared with her that my mission started as a normal mission. I was called to a two-year mission but we ended up spending over 12 weeks in the MTC when we were only supposed to be there for eight. We were very frustrated because we felt like we were just spinning our wheels. I talked to her about how excited I was when I got to Argentina but three months later Argentina and Britain got into a war.

Because of this war, we had to sit in our apartments with our bags packed every day. I lost about three months of my mission sitting in my apartment and dodging angry members who looked at us as spies in the town where I served.

Simultaneous with the beginning of the war was a general conference where we found out that the church had changed missions from 24 months to 18 months. This was devastating news and none of us were happy. I hadn’t been out a full year so I didn’t get a choice. I had to come home at 18 months and I had to sit in that apartment and watch my time tick away.

Once the war was over and tempers had cooled, we were able to resume regular proselytizing and start our missions up all over again. We were blessed with a lot of success and I got transferred to another town where I felt a tremendous urgency. Unfortunately, within a month, I fell sick as well. I was sick in the hospital for two weeks and in the mission home for another month and a half.

For those who are counting that’s one month lost in the MTC, six months lost in that general conference, three months lost to the war and another two and months lost to being sick. When you count the normal two months of MTC as non-proselytizing, I figured that I was a missionary for only 9 months of what originally was a 24 month call.

I worked as hard as I could in those 9 months but I always felt like I hadn’t done all of the work I was supposed to do, especially in the area where I served when I got sick. I was pulled out of there and I felt like there was unfinished business.

I told her fast-forward 20 years and I was a ward mission leader when a man moved into my ward in Orem. He was born and raised in the area that I served in when I got sick. We were able to baptize him and I felt like god brought to me. I told her that I believe that God doesn’t feel restrained by missions or boundaries. He puts us in the places we need to be. I told her that all throughout our lives people who we are supposed to teach are put in our path. I said, your mission never ends, you just move areas. God will put people there for you to teach.

I told her that it was important for her to realize that God was happy or satisfied with her mission but he had so much more missionary work for her to do. She asked me, how did you know I wasn’t satisfied with my mission? I said, when I look in your eyes, I can tell. The spirit is whispering to me that you feel like you had unfinished business and you were not able to accomplish what you initially thought you were going to be able to do on your mission.

She said, only the spirit could have told you that. I was so excited to go on a mission and receive my call. While I was preparing to leave, I had some health issues and because of that my mission had to be changed to a service mission. I was never able to do the things I wanted to do, teach the people I wanted to teach or be the missionary I thought I was supposed to be.

I said, there is still a lot of time for you to be that missionary. God knows who the people are that are waiting for you and they are not just in the area of the mission you were called to. Even though you didn’t get to go there, he can bring them to you wherever you are if you are ready.

She asked, how do you do that? I said, by saying the words the Lord puts into your heart like I have here in the car today. I said, if you’ll do that, people will recognize the authority you speak with and your testimony will pierce their soul. This is what the people that are waiting for you deserve.

I said, when we leave our mission, we leave the scripture study, we leave the prayers and we leave the testifying spirit. That is why we feel different. That is why it’s harder to be a missionary because we walk away from that level is spiritually. I told her, that’s a choice and you can choose to pray, study and follow the spirit with exactness. If you do that, God will put your people in your path.

I told her that because of Covid, I had lost my job and been put in the car. I shared several experiences with her and testified to her that God puts people in my car to receive the gospel. I told her about several of them and I know that I was still doing the work that God called me to do.

She said, if God puts things in your heart to say, what does he want you to say to me? I told her that he wanted me to tell her that he loved her, even though she didn’t think he did. He wanted me to tell her that he was so grateful for her service on her mission. More than anything, he wanted her to live righteously and be happy. I told her that she felt like her mission was a disappointment both to her and God. I told her that the way people looked at her when she said she had been a service missionary bothered her and she felt like she let her family down. I said to her that all of those negative thoughts were lies. I told her that they were lies placed in her heart by Satan to distract her from the path. I told her that God sees her as a powerful voice and knows that she has a powerful testimony. He wants her to share that but first she has to rekindle it.

I told her that it was important for her to go to church. I told her I felt like she had quit going to church and praying like she should but God wanted her to start again. I told her that God had put her in my car that day for this message.

She said, I felt the spirit here stronger than I have in a very long time. I wish we had more time to talk.

By this time we were at her work and she said, I’d love to sit here and talk but I have to go to work. I said, I’ll pray for you because you feel inadequate for a lot of reasons and God can help you. I said, I feel like we are going to get another chance to chat and finish this conversation.

I don’t know why I said that, who would ever say that! Very seldom do you see the same person twice. Yet there I was prompted by the spirit saying it.

The next week I had almost the exact same experience. I left early, I washed my car and I got a ride to go over and pick up this same young lady. When she got in the car I said, now we get to finish the talk. She smiled and said, I can’t believe it! This is really freaking me out a little bit.

She said, last time I don’t think you got to finish everything you wanted to say. We got to work too fast but it was awesome. I said, do you want me to tell you the rest of what I felt like I was supposed to say? She said, yes! I can’t wait.

I said, it’s all about the atonement. I said, I feel like there are some things that you have done that you’re not proud of. This is one of the reasons why we have the atonement so that you can cleanse yourself and be pure before God. That’s how you make yourself able to receive revelation and know God‘s will.

The other thing is, you feel judged and ridiculed by some members of the church. You don’t think this is fair and you have adopted something of a victim mentality with regard to this. I said, the atonement is also for that. It is how God makes all things right. We look to him and through the atonement he can lift our burdens, mitigate the injustice, minimize pain and lift us out of our fallen state. It’s important that we look to God and access the atonement of Jesus Christ. There is no other way because everyone is persecuted, everyone suffers and everyone feels alone. The only way to stand with power in this life is through the atonement of Jesus Christ and his power.

I feel like you’ve been overwhelmed by the inadequacy you felt on your mission, the things you’ve done since and the things in your life. You have let Satan get the upper hand.

I told her that the important thing for her to remember is that everyone feels this way. Everyone does bad things. Everyone feels inadequate and everyone fights through tribulation.

I told her that everyone at church hears that voice in their head saying that they shouldn’t be there or that they are not worthy or that people are judging them. I said, that’s just flat out Satan and he’s trying to dissuade them from good and bring them down.

I told her that in the Book of Mormon in the valley of Helam, the people were held as slaves and given tremendous burdens to bear. They didn’t even feel their burdens because of the atonement. God lifts us through our adversity if we will let him. I said, that’s the thing I needed to tell you that I didn’t get to say.

You need to realize that the atonement is for repentance but not just for repentance. You need to understand that the atonement is the thing that can lift you through your issues so that you can feel the love of God. You need to feel the love of God so that you can know that the mission you served was everything he wanted it to be. You need to feel the love of God so that you can know that he loves you and he will be there to help you be the person he needs you to be now.

I said, if you will embrace the atonement of Jesus Christ, go to church, read your scriptures and say your prayers, God will put people in your path so that you can bear the testimony you’ve always wanted to bear and be the missionary you always knew that you could be. It’s up to you.

I said, how do you feel right now? She said, I feel just like I did before in your car. I feel the spirit.

I said, what does that mean? She said, it means that the things you’re saying are true. I said, what are you going to do about it then? She said, I guess I need to go to church, read my scripture, say my prayers and learn to have the atonement be a bigger part of my life.

I asked her if she felt the spirit when she said those things and she said yes. I said, go with that, seek it out and walk with it. She said that she was going to be changing her life and getting back to where she knows she should be. She said that she never thought of being a missionary outside of the mission field. I told her that there are people that baptize more people after their mission than they do during their mission. I asked her if she thought she might be able to be one of those. She smiled and said, yes, that would be awesome. I said, if you will be that person, God will bring people to you. He will bring your people to you.

By this time we were arriving at her work again. She got out and she thanked me for the ride both times. She said, two times, it’s been a miracle. I have to say I agree.

As she got out of the car, I looked at her and her countenance had changed. She was starting to see herself the way God sees her. That was the miracle.

One evening I was just about to go home for dinner and I was coming down I-15. I got a call to go to Walmart and pick up some people. Walmart this time of year is a mess just in case you didn’t know.

It took me a minute to find them but I eventually found them. It was a mother and an adult (17 year old) son. I helped them load their groceries into the back of my car and started to drive. We don’t see exactly where it is they are going, we only see turn by turn directions, So I started to drive.

As we started to drive I noted that they didn’t speak English so I started speaking Spanish to them. They were a little shocked to say the least but they were excited and we started talking.

I asked them where they were from and they said Santa Cruz Bolivia. Then I asked them why they were here in the United States. She said that they were political refugees. She, her husband and her family came to the United States two years ago. Her husband was a journalist that had to escape for his life.

I asked them what they thought about Orem. They said it was the most beautiful place that they had ever been. They said it was not just the scenery but that the peace they felt was incredible. I asked them why they thought that there was peace here in Orem. They said that they didn’t know and hadn’t really thought about it but they enjoyed it and could certainly feel it.

I told them that it was because the people that live here in large numbers follow God. Due to the fact that God is in their hearts, peace surrounds them and their community. I asked them what they knew about our church. They said that they really didn’t know anything about the church. They said that they attended the Catholic church because it’s like five blocks away from their house and they had been Catholic their whole lives. I told them they should go to one of our churches because we are so much closer to their house and they could find out what we have that brings such peace. The mom said that there is one of our churches right across the road from their house.

The mom asked if i thought it would be fine if they attended our church. I told her we would love to have her come and that we could send some missionaries out to help her understand what was going on.

I asked her if she had ever heard about the Book of Mormon. She said she heard about it but didn’t know anything about it other than that it existed. I told her that it was scripture and that it was a companion to the Bible. I told her that it was full of the writing of ancient prophets who lived here in America. I told her that the Book of Mormon testifies of the divinity of Jesus Christ and his desire to bless all of his children in the world.

She asked me where the book came from and I bore my testimony of Joseph Smith. I told her that Joseph Smith didn’t know which church was true. He read the Bible and found the key to getting knowledge from God is through prayer. He went to a grove of trees near his house where he knew he could be alone and he prayed. I told her that God the father and Jesus Christ appeared to him and called him to be the prophet. I said that he was called to restore the church of Jesus Christ and all of its truths on the earth again. She said, I just got chills when you said that. I said, it’s because it’s true. I told her that this is how she feels when God’s spirit touches her soul. He does this to help us know truth.

I said that later Joseph Smith was given the records of the ancient American prophets written on plates of gold. He was given the power of God to translate those writings and that translation is the Book of Mormon. I said, it came directly from God and those ancient prophets to us to help us navigate this troubled world.

She said, we really do need that now. She said that she could see why there would be peace here if we get help from God to navigate trouble in life. She asked me if I would bring one of these books by her house. I said, why don’t I just give you one now. I reached into my glovebox and grabbed one of the Book of Mormons prepared by the Secrists and gave it to her. She asked if she could have another for her husband. She said he would want his own. I didn’t have any more in my car but she didn’t live far from my house so I said I would bring it by for him the next day.

The next afternoon when I got there she said she had been waiting for me all day. She wanted me to show her a little bit about that book. I gave her the book and I showed her different parts and scriptures I like. I showed her the questions of the soul in the front cover and pointed to third Nephi where Jesus came to America. I told her that he called 12 apostles and gave them authority. That is the same authority that we have in the church today, we call it the priesthood. I told her that this authority is a big difference between our church and other churches.

She said, do you have that authority? I said, yes. She said, with that authority can you give blessings? I said yes. She said, I would like you to give me a blessing. I could really use a blessing from God.

I asked her husband if it was OK. He smiled and said, please do. I gave her the blessing. When I put my hands on her head the spirit rushed in the room and filled her heart. She was crying and through the tears she said that she understood now where the peace comes from. She said she wanted to have this peace in her life. Her husband said, I love that! She said to me that she would read the Book of Mormon and that she wanted to attend church. She said that it is incredible how her whole life she believed in God but never felt him in her heart like she did right then.

I gave her the information about when and where their ward met for meetings in both English and Spanish so she could make the best decision for her family on which one to attend. She was so excited and she and her husband agreed to go. I asked if I could have missionaries stop by and teach them more. Her husband said that would be great. I found their ward and their missionaries to set it up. I know that they went because I saw them at the church a few times and I think they were baptized. I think they have moved but now understand the peace of the gospel and it can go with them.

The thing that struck me most about this is that she was just looking for someone to ask the question she didn’t know how to ask. She felt his peace around her and it prepared her. I am happy that the Lord trusted me with the opportunity to be that person. I realized that they were here to find peace and safety but they found safety in the peace God brings.

One day I was down in Lehi and trying to go to Salt Lake. I like to be hanging around in the Sandy/Draper area because you can get good rides there sometimes. I was offered a ride to go to Orem and I was trying to reject it. As I touched it, it wouldn’t reject. The app wouldn’t respond to my touch. I let it expire by just ignoring it and it finally went away. To my surprise it sent it to me again. I figured that there must be something special about this ride so I decided to take it besides I wasn’t about to waste another rejection on it.

I pulled into a medical clinic by the Timpanogos Highway where a man and a woman got in the car. They didn’t seem very clean and I’m always a little uncomfortable picking up people who might be sick. When I have someone that might have been sick, I have to clean my car because I don’t want be transmitting any viruses around the valley or taking them home.

On top of this, they looked a little wild and a bit unconventional. As I was sitting there, passing judgments on their looks and the diseases they were apparently being treated for, the spirit chastised me. I remembered President Hinkley, in a conference talk saying something to the effect of they may not look like much but they are children of God. Then I had the memory of him saying something like you’re not so hot yourself. I don’t know whether he said that or the spirit told me that but I remembered that talk in that moment.

As we began to ride, I got the very distinct impression that they were seeking the gospel and they didn’t even know it. I started talking to them about where they were from. The man was about 40 years old and the woman was a similar age.

He said that he was originally from California and she said she was from Arizona. They had moved here recently but were pretty ambiguous about it. I got the impression from the spirit not dwell too much on that and start getting into what they felt and why they liked being here. Many times this is a discussion I have had with people that leads to a discussion of the church.

I asked how they liked it here and they said they loved it. He told me that he had never been in a place that was so chill and peaceful. I said, it’s because there are a lot of the people here who try to follow God. I asked him what he thought about seeing temples and chapels everywhere. He said that it was different than what he was used to but that he really liked it. He said, God is good.

I said, a lot of people these days chase things in their life and these things take them away from God. When these things take them away from God, they take them away from peace and they take them away from happiness. I told him that a lot of people who live here are constantly seeking that peace and happiness. They are doing what it takes to make sure that they have it in their life. I said, the way those people follow Jesus creates peace in our society by following God and his commandments. I said that this is how we feel close to him in our lives, in our families and in our society.

He said that he knew lots of people that complain about the fact that there aren’t bars on every corner and how they can’t do some of the things they want to do. He said that he thinks this peace is more important. I told him that I could tell that it was important to him.

I looked in the mirror and they no longer seemed to me like they were smelly disheveled people. There was a certain light that I hadn’t seen before. It’s amazing when we look at people through God‘s eyes versus what we see when we apply our own prejudice.

I told him that the church and the influence of the church was not just the source of the peace that he was looking for in his life, if he was willing to make the changes and commit to follow Jesus Christ, membership in the church would bring him that happiness. I asked him if anyone had ever talked to him about joining the church and he said no. Then he paused and said kind of. He said that when he was in jail, the Mormon church had people come in and talk to him. He said that they would read scriptures to them and that this greatly impacted him.

I said, oh, how long ago were you in jail? He said that he just got out recently but he loved that these people would bring messages to him twice a week. He said that it rang true because he felt the same peace from what I was saying as he did when they were talking to him.

He said that in his life, few people had ever talked to him about God and when they did, he loved it. He said, it feels really good here in the car. I love hearing you talk about God. I told him that when we teach the word of God, he sends his spirit and it testifies of the truthfulness of the things that we say. I told him that this is what he was feeling now and that it was God’s way of confirming the truthfulness of these things to his soul.

I asked him if they gave him a Book of Mormon when he was in jail. He said they weren’t allowed to give him a Book of Mormon but they read to him from that book. He said that he always felt the spirit of God. He asked, do you know where I can get ahold of one of those books?

I told him that I would give him one. I said, we are headed to Orem. We’ll just drive by my house and get one. I happened to be out of them at the time. Usually, I travel with three or so in my car. I had just given my last one away and I hadn’t replenished.

I told him that it was really cool that he was visited in prison because that’s exactly what Jesus would do. I told him that Jesus loved everyone. I told him Heavenly Father loved everyone. He doesn’t just love the perfect people because no one is perfect. He doesn’t just love the lucky people because no one is lucky all the time. He doesn’t just love the rich people because most of his children are not rich. I told him that God loves all of his children, no matter where they live, and no matter when they were born. I said, God loves all of his children, even if they’ve made mistakes. That’s why we have repentance.

I told him repentance is how we clean ourselves of sin and how we make changes in our lives. I told him that the process of repentance can help us become a new person that follows God and can walk with his spirit.

I told him that the spirit he was feeling right now in the car lets us know that God is present. I said that seeking that feeling and that presence will lead us back to him. To have that with us all of the time helps us know the things we need to change and the things that we need to do. It helps us change the way that we act and talk. It helps us change the way we think about life.

I told him that it requires that we think about helping other people and blessing those around us. I told him that it requires us thinking about Jesus Christ and trying to become like him by reading the scriptures and try to live like he taught.

I said, that’s why it’s so important that you get a Book of Mormon so you can start to read it. As you read it, you will feel the same spirit that has been in the car. It has been here today and you know that it’s true because you felt it in prison. You have felt it and you know it comes from God.

I told him that once he has repented, he needs to be baptized. I said, we are commanded to be baptized so that we can enter into the kingdom of God. I said, it teaches that in the Bible. I said, in the Book of Mormon it also teaches about baptism. I said, Jesus Christ descended from heaven and gave the people this baptism so that they could take that step up in discipleship and follow him. That’s the invitation he gave them and that’s the invitation we are giving you here today.

I told him that when we repent and are baptized, our sins are washed away. I said, you know those horrible memories you have of your sins? You know the pain you feel in your soul every night when you close your eyes because of them? This pain can be erased. Your sins can be washed away as if you had never committed them. You can be blameless and pure before God.

I said, Satan has told you as long as you can remember that you’re gone, that you’re junk, that you’re no good and that you are irredeemable. That’s not how God sees you and that’s not how I see you here today. I see you as a son of God and he wants you back.

I said, the Book of Mormon is all about repenting, changing, being baptized and getting the gift of the Holy Ghost. It’s all about coming home to your father in heaven. I said, the whole program is in that book.

He asked, how do you know those things? That’s exactly what it’s like when I close my eyes and try to sleep. It was always easier for me to sleep after I had been with the Mormons in jail. I want that rest. I told him that God had given me those things to say so that he could know the things I was saying were true. I said, this rest will be found through baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost. You can become clean from your sins and walk with God. This is what you want.

The place they were going was only about four blocks from my house so I figured that we could just drop by and grab a Book of Mormon for him. I asked him, if I give you the book, would read it? He said that he has wanted to read that book for a few years and that he would love to read it now. He said that it would be top on his list of priorities.

Just then his girlfriend piped up. She had been very quiet, unusually quiet. She had been texting on her phone. She said, he might not be a member of the church yet but that I used to be. My sister even went on a mission but I have been out of the church for at least 20 years. I said, welcome back. This is a good time to get back with it.

I told her that God puts people in my car and gives me the words to say to them. I said, I felt the spirit here today and I felt like I am saying the things Heavenly Father would have me say to help him find the light of the gospel in his life.

I said, it’s no accident that you are also in his life. I said, your Heavenly Father is reaching out to you as well. He wants you to come home. He wants you to come back to the church. She said, I don’t even know why I left. I guess I just got carried away with friends and quit doing the things I was supposed to do.

I asked, are you willing to turn that around? I said, he’s trying to get right with God and you could be a great help. You could be God‘s hands, it would kind of be like a mission.

She had felt the spirit in the car and was very emotional at this time. She said, I’ve already texted my sister. I did it while you guys were talking. She is going to help! I think this is exactly what we need.

The man, talking about his girlfriend said, that’s why I love her . She is the best thing in my life. It will be so much fun to do this together.

We pulled into my driveway and Heather was outside. I asked her if she would run in and get a Book of Mormon. She smiled and said yes. As she turned around to run and get the book, the lady commented, she is beautiful! Did you see the light in her eyes? That is what I want.

I said, you too can have that light in your eyes and the spirit in your heart that we have felt in the car today. That’s a promise from God and it helps us through life. It helps us make the changes we need to make to come back and live with him.

Heather came out with the Book of Mormon and I handed it back to my passenger. He held it close to his chest and said, scriptures from this book have been a part of my life for a good period of time now. I want to learn all about this. I want to walk this path with her.

They gave me their assurance that they would go to church on Sunday with her sister. By this time, her sister had already responded and was excited to be part of this. I took them to her sister’s house and they got out and went inside.

Everything came together that day. There was the good work of the people that run the prison branch in bringing light into that dark darkness and Heavenly Father being there this day to bring him the tools necessary to bring this altogether.

They were really excited and even sent me a text through the app the following day thanking me for the book and assuring me that they were on the path. They said her sister was on it. God was on it that day and I’m grateful he used me.

One night I was in Orem and trying to drive south. As per usual whenever Heavenly Father has something for you to do, it goes in a direction that doesn’t follow your plan. Of course I got a ride from Orem to up north above the Timpanogos Highway in Traverse Mountain.

The house where I picked this ride up was about four blocks north of where I used to live when we lived in Lakeridge. As I sat there entertaining the circumstances of this ride the spirit told me that I needed to be ready to be engaged. At that point, I knew for a fact that this was an errand for Heavenly Father .

This young man came out of the house and got in my car. He was about 24 or 25 years old and very chatty. That makes it easier to get into a conversation. When people are quiet it’s very difficult. This guy seemed to be something of an open book.

I felt he hadn’t gone on a mission but I felt like I needed to ask him if he had served. It didn’t make sense at the time but I obeyed and asked. He said that he didn’t go on a mission. That’s all he said. He didn’t talk about his religious life at all. I was hoping to get an idea of how to start.

He talked about how 3 of the last five years he had lived in Bethlehem. We talked a little bit about the situation over there and the complexity of the issues. I had the impression from the spirit that he was a member of the church so I asked , did you go to church over there? I told him that I have a friend, Mark, who was the district president in Israel when he worked for the FBI in the embassy.

My passenger said that was cool but he didn’t know my friend Mark. I told him that my friend Mark said that they have lots of interesting rules for the church there in Israel but that it was an amazing experience. My passenger agreed with that. He said that he had attended church in the BYU Jerusalem Center. We talked about the security of the whole situation for a minute and then I got the prompting to ask him the big question.

I got the impression that he had been inactive for a couple years since he got back from Israel. I felt that he didn’t go to church anymore. The impression continued letting me know that tonight he was going to a party where unworthy things were going to be going on. These were things he knew that he shouldn’t be participating in.

I asked him, when did you quit going to church? He was a little surprised and said, how do you know that I quit going to church? I continued telling him that he had been inactive for a while and that he was going to a party tonight that he really knew he shouldn’t be attending.

He was quiet for a moment. He asked, how did you know those things? How did you know about tonight like that? How did you know about my life like that?

I told him that one of the things that the Holy Ghost does is it tells us the things that we should say. I told him that I didn’t know these things but the Holy Ghost did and he whispered them to me to say. I said that he did this so that he would listen to the rest of the things I had to say.

I said that I felt like he had kind of become very casual with the church during Covid and got used to not attending church. Then later he fell into skepticism, indifference and finally questioning his belief. Along with the skepticism and indifference came extended exposure to rough crowds and dabbling in sin. It had become more like rebellion at this point.

I asked him, are you intentionally rebelling against God? That’s pretty serious. He thought about it and said that he didn’t think of it like that. He said that he was just going along with his friends but hadn’t considered the rebellion thing.

I asked him if he wanted to be that guy? I asked if he was ready to be the guy that rebelled against God and he said no. I said, I guess you have to start making a plan to come back then.

He said that he had thought about that a couple of times. Each time he fell short because he had come to the decision to come back he had the feeling that he was already too far down the road. He thought that it would be just too hard for him and it would be embarrassing to him and his family.

I told him, that’s not true! I said, Satan is the one in your ear telling you that you have gone too far. It’s Satan telling you that your family won’t understand. It’s Satan telling you that people will judge you and that you will feel embarrassment instead of relief. Instead of giving you peace, Satan is trying to confuse you.

I told him to tell Satan to get lost. I told him to quit listening to Satan. I told him that it’s time to choose a team and Satan‘s team was going to lose. I told him that we want him back on our team. I told him that Heavenly Father wants him back And that’s why he was in my car tonight.

As I said this, the spirit was really strong. He said, I haven’t felt the spirit like this in a long time. He said, I can’t believe you’ve called me out but you’ve done it with love and your words have touched me.

He asked, how do I come back? I said, these are the same answers you’ve been told your whole life. You have been told to go to church and repent so that you can be ready to take the sacrament. The sacrament will fill your soul with power so that you can withstand temptations from Satan as well as the people around you. It’s very important that you go to church and get ready and worthy to take the sacrament.

I said, you haven’t been praying, have you? You haven’t been talking with Heavenly Father. He quietly whispered, no. I said, you need to say your prayers. I’m not talking about once a day. I’m talking about morning and night. You need to have a conversation with your father in heaven throughout the day. I said, have him walk with you in prayer. If you do that, it will push unworthy things away and you can walk with God back to his presence.

I said, you need to repent every day for the small things and the big things you do. You need to have the atonement in your life to lift you above the errors of your ways. I said, the atonement helps us in so many ways. It can ease the pain and suffering that we go through in life. The atonement of Jesus Christ is God’s plan for us to be able to be happy in a fallen world. Wrap yourself in the atonement and let God lift you.

I said, you need to read the Book of Mormon. That book has a special spirit with it. As you read the Book of Mormon, the Lord will teach you how to come closer to him and show you which parts of your life you need to change. You need to read it every day and regain a testimony of that book that will burn in your soul.

I asked him how he felt right then. He said that he felt amazed, astounded and a tremendous energy. I told him that right now he had a desire in his soul to do the things I had told him to do. He said, that has to be the spirit. I told him that it was the spirit. I said that the spirit is a way we communicate with God. I told him that when he feels that, he knows that the things he is hearing are true.

He said, I know these things are true and this is what I’m supposed to do. He said, I’m blown away that all this has happened on the ride tonight. He asked, do you have a Book of Mormon that I could have? He said, I want to have it with me tonight. I think it will bring me protection.

I reached into my glove box and pulled out a Book of Mormon prepared by the Secrists. I gave him the book and said, there’s a power in this book. That power will touch your soul and help you transform your life back to where you want it to be. It will help bring you into harmony with the spirit and with your father in heaven. He took the book and said thank you.

We were just pulling up to the apartment where I was taking him. He said, I don’t think I’ll be here very long tonight and I’m going to be looking for some new friends. I think that’s one of the changes I need to make.

I asked him how that came into his mind. He thought about it for a moment and said, I think that’s what God wants me to do. I said, that’s right. This is how we change.

He reached up, shook my hand and thanked me for the ride. He thanked me for talking to him in a way that nobody else had. I said, keep in mind that the words were not my words. They came from God because he loves you. He said, I will always remember that and I will always remember this ride. He got out of the car and went in the apartment.

One day I got a call to pick up a young man at a dry cleaner in Orem and take him to his home in Highland. That’s a pretty long ride and you discuss a lot of things in a ride like that.

We talked about dry cleaning and why my shirts are never ironed the way I want them to be and why buttons come off sometimes… things like that.

I asked him if they had always lived in the area and he said that they had. Earlier they had lived in Murray but then moved to Highland because it was closer to their store they owned in Orem. I said, that’s still not very close. He laughed.

We talked about things like how long it had been since he was in high school and what he was doing for college. Then I asked him about his friends and what were they doing. He said, “most of them are on missions.”

I asked him if he was planning on serving one too and he said that he didn’t consider himself to be a member of the church. I said, “for clarification purposes what exactly does it mean that you don’t consider yourself to be a member of the church?” He said that he wanted to explore all the world’s religions before he settled into one.

I told him that there are a lot of interesting things in the religions of the world. I had taken a class at BYU called “religions of the world” and really enjoyed learning about them so I could see why that would be important to him.

I asked him if he had been baptized into our church. He said, yes! When he was a kid the missionaries came and baptized their family but his parents had left it up to him to decide what he wanted to do once he turned 15, so he was on this quest.

I asked him what he was looking for in a religion. He said that he was looking for a fit for his beliefs and his way of thinking. It kind of seemed to me like he was a high school athlete hoping to be recruited by a college and choosing between a few. He wanted something that was easy and didn’t require him to make any changes in his life or attitudes.

I asked him if he was also looking into the church that he belonged to. He thought for a minute because he hadn’t considered that. He said that he was just looking at the others but that upon reflection he probably ought to look at his church too.

I asked him if there was a God. He said yes, he believed that there was a God. I asked him if that God cared about us or not. He said he’d never thought about that question but that he believed that God cared about each of us. I asked him if God knew him personally. He said that he didn’t know but that he hoped so.

I asked him what would be the purpose of God creating us and our world? He said, that this is another good question that I haven’t thought of. I asked him if God loves us, if he created us, if he cares about us, what is our end game with him and what happens after we pass on? If God is eternal and his love for us is real, would he create us and then just let us die and that be it? Doesn’t that seem like a waste? Would a loving father do that? He said that these are not questions that he had considered but they were very important questions in his quest.

I want to let you know that I didn’t rapidfire these questions at him but for the purposes of writing them down it might look that way.

I asked him if it was important to him that the religion he chooses be able to address these questions in a clear way that makes sense, given that he believes that God loves us. He said yes.

He said that he love these questions and wrote them down. He said they were absolutely important in the scope of the decision that he was making.

I knew right away that this was not a family that said lots of family prayers or read the scriptures together. That more than being apostate this young man had not been taught. He had not been taught the scriptures. He had not been taught to pray and he had not been taught about the spirit. Basically, he had not been taught the gospel although he assumed that coming from membership in the church he had that covered. It took about five minutes and he recognized that he did not have that covered.

I bore my testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith and of the first vision. I talked about how Joseph Smith had very similar questions about which of all of the religions were true and that it led him to ask God.

I bore my testimony of the plan of salvation and about how God knows each one of us and we know him. I told him how our spirits react to his presence and we feel our love for him. When I started talking about our father in heaven‘s love a peaceful wonderful feeling came over us. He asked, do you feel that? I said, yes! He said that is the most incredible feeling. I said, that is your spirit recognizing that the spirit of our father in heaven is here with us today. It recognizes that feeling and remembers our father in heaven. God sends his spirit and these feelings when we talk about truth.

I told him that this feeling is how we can know we are doing the right thing and making good choices that God approves of. When we make right choices, his spirit, the Holy Ghost, can be with us. He said he had never felt that so strongly. I asked him if he prayed. He said he prayed when he was a little kid but that he always said the same things and jumped in bed really fast.

I told him that what I was talking about was a prayer where he communicates with his father in heaven, asks him questions and feels for impressions and answers. He said he had never done that. I told him that when he did, he could feel the same feeling that he was experiencing today in the car provided the things he was praying for and about were true and right. That’s how God cauldron guide him in his quest and that’s how God could tell him the truth.

I asked him if he believed that there was one truth? I asked him if this search was just a matter of finding it? He said that he supposed that there was one truth. I asked him what would be the best way to find out what that truth is. He said with a smile, “for God to come down and tell him.” I told him that this is exactly what prayer is, an opportunity for God to commune with him and reveal his will to him. I said, that when God is revealing his will to you, it feels like we are feeling right now.

I asked, does that help you on your quest? He said, absolutely! Even though I already knew the answer I asked, him have you ever read the Book of Mormon? He said that he had not read the book. I told him that the book was true, that it showed how God loves his children and how he blesses them. It shows that God loves all of his children and supports them through their trials. Where we have weaknesses, he is our strength.

I asked him if he thought he could know the truthfulness of the church without reading the Book of Mormon? He thought for a minute and then I said, let me tell you that you cannot know of the truth of the church without reading and receiving an answer about the Book of Mormon.

I told him that if the Book of Mormon is true then Joseph Smith, who translated that book, was a prophet. If Joseph Smith was a prophet, then the church he organized is the church of God and we have that church on the earth today.

I told him about how I, as a young man, had done just that. I read the Book of Mormon and then prayed to receive my answer. That answer changed my life and how I approach everything in my life. I told him that the Book of Mormon taught me the answers to every question we had discussed that day in the car and that each one of those answers had been confirmed to me by the spirit that we had felt in the car that day.

He told me that this had opened up another perspective to him that he hadn’t considered. The confirmation he was receiving of the spirit showed him how important the words I was saying were.

I told him that as a member of the our church, it is an incredible thing to study the religions of the world. They have a lot of interesting good traditions and beliefs. Knowing the truthfulness of the gospel helps you pick out the truth in their religions and see the good things that are found in their beliefs. Your understanding of the spirit helps you know that truth is found in many religions but that there is only one church that has all of the truth and authority.

I told him that armed with this knowledge, his curiosity and journey into the world of religious practices would be enhanced and he would have a better understanding. The spirit always enhances our learning of truth.

I asked him if he had a Book of Mormon and he said that he did. I asked him what his next step should be and he said, read the Book of Mormon and find out if it’s true. I told him to start with the confirmation of truth that he had received in the car that day. I said, that means something. He agreed and said, it sure seems like we have been speaking truth here today. I asked him if it would be OK if I prayed for him in this endeavor, he said yes.

He said that this was the most incredible ride he had ever been on and that he hoped to get me again as a driver soon. I look forward to that.

One day I picked up a lady in Sandy. I picked her up at work and she was headed over to her boyfriend’s house. We talked a minute about what she did for work and what she did for work as we were driving.

She was from Sudan and had been in the country about eight years.. She spoke perfect English and was in her early 20s. I could tell that she had been totally influenced by the culture here because of the huge nose ring she had going on.

I have to admit that there have been many times that the spirit has had to override me with regard to people that seem steeped in the crazy cultural traditions of the day. This was one such occasion. I knew I was supposed to talk to this girl about the gospel but I thought, what could I possibly have in common or how could I start this conversation.

As she talked about her boyfriend and how they were getting ready for Halloween, I felt prompted to ask her when they were going to get married and how many kids they wanted to have. As I have mentioned before, this is kind of forbidden but given the context of the conversation and the fact that I felt prompted to go in this direction, I decided to ask.

She paused for a moment and the smile that had been on her face disappeared. She said, I’m not sure. She said, I think it will take years for us to get to the point where we can get married. I asked her how long they had been dating and she said two years.

I talked to her about the difference between building your life and then performing a corporate merger with another person and calling it a marriage versus meeting someone, starting your life and growing your life together. I told her people successfully do both things but I prefer the latter.

I said, when you can start with nothing and sacrifice together, it brings you together. She said, I had never thought of that. That makes a lot of sense. Maybe we need to revisit this.

By this time we were on I-215 turning onto the 47th south exit. The temple was right there in front of us. It’s a beautiful temple and I’ve used it before to bring up the church. The spirit moved me and I smiled as I realized Heavenly Father is always in charge.

I said, isn’t that a beautiful building? I’m a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints and that’s one of our temples. I asked, do you know what we do in those temples? She said, no I don’t but they’re beautiful and I’ve always wondered. She said, as I drive by I am always mesmerized by its beauty. I even went on the grounds one time and it felt so peaceful. I can tell it’s an amazing and important building. She said, I can tell that the spirit of God is there. She asked, tell me, what is it that you do in there?

I told her that it’s a very special place where we are married. I said, that goes right along with our conversation. When we are married, we are not just married until death, we are married for time and eternity. I said, because we’re married in the temple, we know that we will never be permanently separated and that in the next life, we will still be married and our families will be with us. For us it’s all about the family.

She said, that’s awesome! How does that work? I said, when Jesus was on the Earth, Peter was given power and authority to seal things on earth that would be sealed in heaven. That authority was given to our prophets who lead our church today. They have this authority and we use it to seal marriages on earth and they are sealed in heaven. We use it to seal children to parents on earth and they are still sealed in heaven as well. We are all sealed to our father in heaven as one big heavenly family. That’s what goes on in that temple.

I said, we also go in there and are sealed or married for our ancestors who have passed away. They are given the opportunity to accept that sealing so that they can have this blessing for themselves and their posterity. Our ancestors made it possible for us to be here and we make it possible for them to be together with us eternally. It’s all a family thing. She said, I like that! That’s why that building feels special.

I told her that in that building we make sure that every person who was ever born anywhere on the Earth has the opportunity to be baptized. She said, what? I said, in the book of Peter it talks about how every person is taught the gospel after they leave this life. The Bible also teaches us that every person needs to be baptized to enter into the kingdom of heaven and be with our Heavenly Father.

I said, in the New Testament, it also mentions baptism for the dead. We do those baptisms in this temple and in all of our temples. We go there and are baptized for a person who has passed away. They then have the opportunity to accept that baptism so that they can enter into the kingdom of God. I said, again, it’s all about family and God being the perfect father of his family wants to provide an opportunity for every one of his children to come home.

I asked her how many people in the history of the world die without hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ. She said, most of them. I asked her if God loved those people and she said yes. I asked her if an all powerful God would give them an opportunity to come home and she said yes. I said, this is the way.

She said, I love that! As you were explaining that, it made chills go up my spine. I’ve always thought it was important to seek out the love of God. I was taught that if babies weren’t baptized, they went to purgatory. She said, my dad is a very strong Catholic but I never believed that. What is your teaching on that? I told her that babies and children who are too young to commit sin are saved through the atonement of Jesus Christ. His sacrifice pays the price and covers them. I said, they all go to heaven.

I told her that God provides baptisms for and teachings of the gospel for every one of his children. Those who pass away before they are accountable, do not need baptism because they are saved by the atonement of Jesus Christ and go directly to heaven.

The purpose of baptism is to cleanse us of our sin and they that have no sin are saved through Jesus Christ. Everyone else will be taught the gospel and have a baptism so that they all get a chance to be saved in the kingdom of God. That’s the importance of that building.

She said, that’s why there was such a great feeling there. It was a very spiritual feeling and if that work is going on there, it would make sense that it would be a building surrounded by the spirit.

I said, you ought to feel inside of it! It’s incredible. She asked, how do you get to go inside? Don’t you have to be a member of your church? I said, yes! I said, the good thing is that it is an easy thing to accomplish! She laughed.

I said, we are all about families and we are all about the love of our father in heaven. We believe he loves everyone, no matter when they were born or where they lived on the earth. He’s got a plan for everyone. We believe that he sent his son, Jesus Christ, to atone for the sins of everyone and to bring them home. That is the promise of the gospel and it’s fulfilled in the temples.

I told her the gospel is about love and that God loves all his children. I told her that the way God shows us his love is through prophets and revelation. This is why we have the Bible. God revealed his word to the prophets in the Bible and they wrote them down. This is why we have the Old and New Testaments. These books are from men of God, writing about their revelations and their interactions with God.

I told her that God had other prophets in the world. He had prophets here in America because he loved those people too. I asked her if she thought God loved the people who had lived in America anciently and she said yes. I told her that they received revelation and waited for the arrival of Jesus Christ. I told her that they were baptized and taught the gospel.

I told her that after Jesus’s resurrection, he told the apostles and people in Jerusalem that he had other sheep that he was going to visit. Then he ascended to heaven.

I said that in America, he descended from heaven in glory. I told her that the people touched the prints of the nails in his hands and begged for salvation. I told her that as a response to this, he called 12 and gave them authority and power to baptize. He gave them authority to teach the gospel. He commanded that they and all of the people be baptized even though they had previously been baptized. He commanded that they be baptized to a new level and a new covenant. I told her that the things we do on our temple are part of that new level and new covenant. She said, that makes sense.

I told her that these prophets wrote down their revelations on metal plates and they were translated by the prophet Joseph Smith. That is how we have the Book of Mormon. I said, it’s the word of God and another testament of Jesus Christ.

As I taught about the Book of Mormon and Jesus coming to America, the spirit was really strong in the car. I could tell that she was moved. Her eyes were fixated on mine through the mirror. It was almost like a trance and it was very intense. I could tell by the look on her face that she was feeling the spirit and I asked her what she felt. She said that she knew the things that I was saying were true and she had a hunger to gain more knowledge.

I told her that this was the spirit of God and that it was revealing to her the truthfulness of the things I was saying. It was also bringing to her mind the recollection of the spirit she felt on the grounds of the temple. I said, this is how he brings us home. We seek and follow that spirit.

She said I feel like everything you’re telling me is true. I said, it’s all about a father bringing his children home. He loves everyone and when Jesus was done in America, he said he still had other places to go. I told her that if you read Isaiah, he was going to Asia, Africa and other places.

I asked her how firm the belief of her family in Africa is regarding Jesus Christ. She said, they love Jesus. She said, many people in Africa are being killed because they will not deny Jesus. They love him so much. She said, we used to have these killings in my country, but not anymore. We love Jesus.

I told her that the Book of Mormon was for her. I told her that I believe Jesus went to Africa. He held their children and he blessed them and their posterity, which includes her and the other people in Africa. I told her that their spirits recognize this blessing and it burns in their souls. That is why they are willing to risk everything for that light.

I said, when you read in the Book of Mormon about Jesus coming to America, that’s exactly what he would have done with your ancestors in Africa. He would have loved them. He would have taught them and he would have given them baptism. He wanted to bring them home. I said, it’s clear to me that this blessing is still burning in the hearts and souls of the descendants of those people who received that blessing. I said, I believe that this book is important to you.

She had a tear in her eye and she said, that makes a lot of sense. Our culture feels a very close relationship with Jesus so this makes so much sense. We know we are children of God and that Jesus loves us.

I told her that once I had had a man in my car that was Buddhist. He said that they believe that they worship the Budda, who is the son of the great Budda. They say that the son of the great Buddha came down and dwelt amongst them. He taught them how to live. I asked, does that sound familiar? She laughed and said, yes, it does, wow yeah!

She said, I’ve heard stories like that all over the world, including Africa. They never made sense to me until today. God loves all of his children.

I asked, would you like me to give you a Book of Mormon? She said, my cousins are members of your church. Last year they gave me a Book of Mormon and it’s sitting on top of my bookcase. I’ve never touched it but I will now. I’m going to read that book.

I said, as you read that book, you should pray and feel for the spirit. I told her that it would feel similar to what she was feeling in the car today. By the presence of that spirit, she would know the truthfulness of the things she was reading. I said, God doesn’t expect us to bump around in the dark. He sends us his spirit to reveal his truth so that we can find the path. Reading the Book of Mormon is an important part of being on that path back to God.

She said, that’s where I want to go. I asked, do you remember when I said that Jesus gave them his baptism? She said yes. I said, do you remember that he gave them the authority to baptize? She said yes. I said, we have that same baptism today and he is extending the invitation to you. He put you in my car today to extend an invitation to you to receive this baptism, to read the Book of Mormon and come home to him.

She said, I got chills up my spine again when you said that. I believe that’s true. She said, there’s no such thing as coincidence and I’ve always been a person who loves seeking out truth. One thing I know is that today I heard a bunch of it.

We were pulling into her neighborhood and I felt like we needed to get her into a situation where she could follow through. I asked her if she was close with her cousins. She said, yes, they are close. They do family get togethers, but they had never talked much about religion. She said, they gave me the Book of Mormon last year and I know they were baptized a few years ago but we usually don’t talk too much about it.

I told her to text her cousins and tell them about our ride and tell them that she wanted to know about being baptized. She said, that’s a great idea! She sent the text right then. Unfortunately they didn’t respond while we were in the car. That would have been cool but I’m sure they will be excited.

I said, you know, I’ve had the feeling that you’re being weighed down by some things that you’ve done that you know weren’t right. I want you to know that when you repent and are baptized, those sins will be washed clean from you as if you had never committed them. This baptism will make you clean and pure. It will lift you to that next level of discipleship.

She had tears in her eyes and said, I don’t know how you knew but I was just thinking about that. I was wondering if I was worthy of this. What you just said came straight from God. I said, his spirit has been here and he wants you home. It all starts with your cousins and with you being baptized.

As we pulled up to her house, she said, no, it all started in this car. God touched my heart and your testimony burned in my soul. I know what I need to do.

She said thank you, got out of the car and walked into the house