One Friday I was mowing my lawn and thinking about the scriptures I was listening to. I like to listen to the scriptures while I mow my lawn because I can focus on what they’re saying and focus on what the spirit is teaching me. I were in Helaman and it was talking about the secret combinations. I had the impression to look and see for sure which chapter I was in.
It was chapter 6 .
I thought about the secret combinations and how God is preparing us with the Book of Mormon so that we can recognize and be ready to live and stand with and for God in the last day.
Fast forward to Wednesday. I picked up a man on West Temple at the Salt Lake bees baseball game. I was taking him quickly over to his hotel which is by the triad Center. On the way over we started talking about things in our society that are trying to tear down the family and individuals. We also spoke of iniquity in our society and how bad things are going. We started talking about the corruption politically but we were at his hotel and it was time for him to go.
But then something happened, he said, I’m staying at the Four Points Sheraton by the airport not this one! He said, dang this is the address I put, I guess I put the wrong hotel. I said, I’ll just turn off my machine and I’ll drive you out there. He said OK and off we went. I felt the prompting that the door had been opened to discuss with this executive from Texas about the church. The door has been opened to the Book of Mormon and I went straight for what I learned and had been revealed to me on Friday while I was mowing the lawn.
I talked about how we have prophets and that there were prophets in ancient America. They had faced the same crisis and faced the same issues about people in high places in the governments who would set people up and do things to protect themselves in their iniquity.
We talked about how Satan is trying to tear down gender and gender roles and and then families and then the church and then society so that he can rule the world.
I told him that those prophecies are in the Book of Mormon. He said, my best friends are members of your church. I knew you were a member of the church all along. I asked, did they talk to you about the Book of Mormon before? He said yes. I could tell he had some questions and issues that he hadn’t felt comfortable challenging them with.
I told him first off the Book of Mormon is true and if you want to learn about the secret combinations that we’ve talked about today we’ve got that covered in the Book of Mormon. I asked him if he had one and he said yes. I told him to read in Ether and then Helaman six. I told him that Helaman 6 talks about their activities that correlate with today and that Ether talks about how we need to recognize their presence amongst us today. We can recognize these robbers in secret combinations.
I got the prompting of what the next thing I should say would be. I set it up by saying, have your friends talked to you about becoming a member of our church? He said yes but we’ve never quite been able to get there. I said that the spirit is telling me that the issue you have with becoming a member of the church is that you feel like you would be a traitor to what you’ve done in the past. There have been some members of our church who tactlessly have told you that or made you feel that we believe what you did in the past is evil or needs to be undone. I said I can assure you that nothing like that is true.
I told him that God loves him for his diligence and his love. God loves the prayers that he has uttered and loves him. He said I know that and I feel bad. I told him, we’re not trying to take that away from you. We’re not trying to take away anything, we’re trying to add to what you already have.
I told him about the mirror and how it broke. The mirror represented the complete church of Jesus Christ and when it broke people grabbed the pieces they loved and reformed churches around them. I told him that we just bring the whole mirror back the way it used to be because there were things that were lost.
I told him that the Book of Mormon was the word of God and that in the Book of Mormon we learn what some of those things were that were lost and we confirm other things that we know to be true from the Bible. I told him we love the Bible.
He told me he can’t bring himself to leave Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. I said I love those guys and the work they did and the work that is the Bible. I told him it was the word of God and the Book of Mormon is its companion. I told him God loves and stands by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The Savior chose them and they wrote God‘s word.
I told him one thing the Book of Mormon teaches is that God loves everyone, not just the people in Jerusalem. I told him God loves all his children and he’s a perfect God. He loves all of us and the Book of Mormon peaches that Jesus came to America sent by his father because he loves all of us. He taught the people here and loved them and then said still other sheep I have which are not of this land or the land of Jerusalem or the lands roundabout and he went to them.
I told him that God is perfect and he loves everyone and he wants to bring everyone home. I discussed with him traditions in Buddhism and Shinto where a person who was the son of the great king came many years ago and taught them how to live and love. I said, who does that sound like? His eyes were as big as saucers. He said, that sounds like Jesus Christ.
I said I believe it is. And when he came to America that’s just what he did. He took these people who had been in darkness after calamity for three days and three nights, he appeared to them and they touched the prints of the nails and they knew they were in the presence of God and they asked him to save them. I told him that he did save them. He immediately called 12 and gave them the authority to baptize and instructed them how to baptize. This covenant brought these people to a new level, to a new covenant and that he didn’t spend one second ripping on them for what they believed and how they worship him previously.
I showed him the picture I have of 600 AD ruins in Mexico that depict a king God, a descending God and the space for another God is empty. I told him given what we know about Jesus Christ ascending to heaven being the son of God and the Holy Ghost not having a body, what would you say that’s depicting. He was shocked. I asked him how they would’ve known about this in America 600 years A.D. How would they know these things to portray them. How could they have found out? He said he was shocked and there’s no way they could’ve known. He said that this blew his mind.
I asked him if he’d ever heard about temples and he told me that his neighbor had talked to him about temples. I asked him if he’d heard about baptisms for the dead and he said he had. I asked him what his religion taught about God’s plan to save all the people who would never hear his word but require baptism to be in the presence of God. He was stumped. He didn’t know.
I said, if God had 24 children and he had a big house with 24 rooms, one for each child. And he knew that someday there was going to be a fire, which of those children would he plan to save? He immediately said all of them God is perfect and he has a perfect love for each of his children. I said yes!
I asked him how God could save his children that were born in Africa or China 500 years ago and he said he didn’t know. I told him it was baptism for the dead. God gives us the opportunity to help them be saved. He said, that was one of my questions, it always seemed a little weird but today in this car with the spirit it seems perfect.
He said the baptisms for the dead thing was one of my big questions and you answered it. It’s not only something you do in the church it’s part of God‘s perfect plan.
I had him identify what he felt he said peace calm and an assurity that the things were talking about are of God. He said he felt the spirit of God and I’ve known it was here. I’ve learned so much. He said that the angst he felt about the future and the anger he felt about the politics we’re gone. I told him to the spirit brings peace to our heart in a troubled world. He just felt a portion of that.
We turned back to the Book of Mormon. I told him that this book brings the rest of that mirror back to us and helps us understand the Bible. I told him that Joseph Smith was a prophet. He said he knew about Joseph Smith because his friends told him. I told him that he was a prophet and translated that book. The spirit bore witness and I could tell he was feeling it.
I asked him what he was feeling and he said he was feeling hope and like there’s a plan and like God was in charge. I told him that that was the spirit. I asked him to focus on the feelings that he was feeling not the thoughts that he was having previously.
I asked him what it meant that he was feeling the spirit and he said that the things we were talking about are true. I went back and reiterated the things that we had talked about. I talked about the Book of Mormon and Jesus coming to America and baptism and Joseph Smith. I said, if the church wasn’t true and if these things weren’t true what would you feel as I said those things? He said he would feel anxious and confused. I asked him how he felt again and he said peaceful and calm and he has an assurance that these things are true.
I asked him if he had a Book of Mormon with him on the road, previously he told me that he had been given one by his neighbor. He said that he did not. I told him that I would like to go back to the first of our conversation and have him read what a prophet in the Book of Mormon said about our day with regards to the secret combinations. I reached into my glove box and got one of the Book of Mormons that was prepared by Sister Sicrist and gave it to him. I gave him the reference that I had been taught on Friday while mowing the lawn and he said he would go in and read it tonight.
I told him that the reason he needed the Book of Mormon was so that he could understand that when Jesus came to America, he extended an invitation to those people to be on a higher plane, to accept a higher covenant, to receive more power and blessings. He said, you mean like being married forever? I said yes.
I told him that Jesus brought this to those people and that he needed to have that power so that he could gather his family and protect his family in these troubled times. I told him it’s important that we have a prophet, it’s important that we have warnings from these prophets.
He mentioned how amazing this ride had been and how it has changed his life. It gave him a chance to get answers to the questions that he was afraid to ask for fear of offending his friends. I told him that the invitation that Christ extend to the people of America to be baptized and accept this covenant is the same one that is being extended to him right now.
I told him that God puts people in my car for a reason and that he was put there tonight. He said that was very true and it was clear to him that it was the case. He said he was put there by God to learn these things and he thanked me for teaching him and said I accept.
He said he was going to read tonight and when he got home he was going to talk to his neighbors about the church, again. I told him it’s now at a point where he understands that God isn’t trying to replace his faith that god loves him and wants him to take that next step.
I have no doubt that he will
Sometimes God sends you a lift 