One door closes and sometimes that’s a good thing

I left to go to Salt Lake City one afternoon and I almost made it! There were lots of bonuses in Salt Lake and I was after them. I was in Lehi going over the point of the mountain when I got a seven dollar bonus. I had to go onto the frontage road to get it. The roads seemed impenetrable to me. For whatever reason there was a lot of traffic and it looked bad. I was sitting there in a traffic jam on the frontage road with my bonus on the line and I was feeling the spirit working with me and I knew there was a purpose to this. I got a call to go get a ride in Lehi pick up a guy and take him to Pleasant Grove.

I took him and dropped him off and then decided I would just go home. As I started home there was another little bonus right by my house and so I decided to go get it. Once I had the bonus I got a call to go get one person and then that call switched to another. I was to pick a lady up at Smith’s by my house. I thought, that will be easy.

I pulled in the parking lot and the traffic was terrific. I picked her up and I said this GPS wants me to go on the freeway but that’s gonna be a disaster. Is it OK if we go a different direction and she said “I’ve got all the time in the world so it doesn’t matter to me whether it’s the fastest route or not”. “I have had a bad day.” I could feel a sad day bad day vibe and the spirit whispered that she needed help from her father in heaven.

She talked about how she had a boyfriend. She had been with him for seven years. She thought he was different and she had even gone to counselors and stuff but he was violent. Today it all ended and she was not doing well.

The spirit told me what to say. I started to say that God loves her first off. He wants her to be happy but when we make choices that are not part of God‘s plan we walk away from his power to help us with our problems.

I told her that when we follow the commandments, God is with us. When we make choices to step away from the Commandments we are on our own and we have to do things by our power and our abilities. I told her that we are not capable of that, it never works out. She said you don’t know how right on you are with what you were saying

I told her that God had sent me there that day to give her this message. The messages that through Jesus Christ, his power, his love and his atonement she could move back into feeling of the spirit of God. Then she could feel his power and have him protect her and fight with her battles with her.

I talked about the atonement and how the atonement of Jesus Christ makes it so that we don’t have to feel the sting of our failures, inequities and embarrassment. We talked about how Jesus makes it all equal. I talked about him taking it on so he can sooth our pain

I told her that I felt that she was afraid to go home tomorrow because her parents had told her not to do this in the beginning and that she felt embarrassed to have failed in this relationship. She didn’t want to face the disapproval of her parents. She said that was 100% correct. How do you know that?

I could feel the spirit really strongly in the car and I asked her what she was feeling and she said calm. She said this whole day has been frantic and she had been disheveled and confused. She said, right now I feel calm and peaceful. I said that’s how you feel in the presence of the Spirit of God. She said that she felt it the second She got in the car.

I told her that God gives us the spirit so that it can reveal truth and it is here today because things that are true are being taught. She agreed.

I again told her that the atonement of Jesus Christ made it possible for her to put this behind her, move on and learn. I asked her if she was a member of a church or a religious person and she said she was a Catholic. She said that she had lived in Tennessee and had come out west to go to Idaho State University in Pocatello.

I asked her if she knew members of the church or had some members that were friends and she said yes! The girls she went to college with were some of the most beautiful, wonderful women she’s ever met in her life. Beautiful on the inside and the outside. She said that many times she wanted to look into the church and find out what they had because she recognized that they had something and she didn’t know what it was.

I said this is one more reason why God sent me tonight to help you in your time of need and help you have an opportunity to do just that. I pulled out a Book of Mormon and asked her if she had ever seen a Book of Mormon. She said she had but she didn’t know what it said. I described it as being revelatory writings from ancient prophets in America. I told her that those prophets wrote the revelations from God. I told her about Joseph Smith and how he saw God the father and Jesus Christ and was called to restore the church of Jesus Christ after it had been taken from the earth. I used the mirror analogy with her to explain to her that the other churches were not bad, that they just didn’t have the full mirror or the full truth. I told her that Joseph Smith also translated the Book of Mormon so we have this ancient text today.

I told her that one of the things the Book of Mormon does is it teaches that Jesus loves everyone not just the people in Jerusalem and that he came to America. I explained that when he came to America he taught the Nephites . I also told her that when he came the first thing he did was teach these people who had previously been baptized how they should properly be baptized and by what authority.

I told her that what it was not a repudiation of the baptism that they’d done before but a new level of discipleship with covenants. I told her that it’s like in a video game when you go to a new level. She understood that.

I said in our church people get baptized even if they’ve been baptized before in other religions. In our church they are baptized by the same authority and in the same way Jesus Christ taught, then they get the gift of the Holy Ghost. I explained to her about the Holy Ghost and how it teaches us and guides us and helps us feel the presence of our father in heaven.

I talked again about what we were feeling right then in the car and we identified it. I discussed with her that her father in heaven and she had a relationship and this is what that relationship felt like. Her spirit was excited right now because it was feeling the presence of her father in heaven. She was really happy.

I talked to her more about the Book of Mormon and how when the prophets were teaching God would use the gift of the Holy Ghost and the gift of revelation to open the hearts of those they taught. I told her that I believed we had experienced a revelatory experience like that in the car that night and she said she knew 100% that was the case.

I told her that I would help her find a bishop in her town in Tennessee. I looked it up for her and I texted her the information. She is excited to have the sister missionaries come over.