One afternoon I was driving and I received a ride at Walmart on 13th South. I really don’t like going over to Walmart because the traffic is so horrible right there and it eats up a bunch of time. I went anyway because I would rather do that than get something that would take me on the freeway and it was like 4:30 in the afternoon. Walmart is better than the freeway by a little bit so I took it.
I pulled in and two young ladies got in my car. They were speaking Spanish and clearly didn’t think that I understood what they were saying. I listened to them for a little while enjoying their conversation. They were talking about living here in Utah and their struggles.
All of a sudden, I just jumped into the conversation speaking full on Spanish, they were shocked. I said, how long have you two lived here? They told me that they’d been here for a year.
It was a short ride and I started getting promptings that I needed to teach the gospel. The girl that was right behind me had a different feel and light than the other girl. I thought about it for a minute and received the impression that the girl behind me was a less active member.
I needed to get into a discussion quick. I used the line that I use sometimes. I said, so, are you guys members of the church? When they say no, I then say, you mean, not yet! We laugh, and it opens a door to a discussion.
I asked them, are you members of the church? The backseat was silent. After about 15 seconds of uncomfortable silence the one girl said, well, I am less active in the church. I haven’t been for a long time. The other girl then said, I am not a member, yet.
She stole my punchline. I had a smile on my face and I said, I’m glad you see it that way. I said, has she talked to you at all about the church? She said, no, she hasn’t, but I’ve wanted to find out about it.
She said, all I know is that you don’t believe in the Bible you have another book.
I said, we do have another book it’s called the Book of Mormon and it testifies of Jesus Christ. The less active member jumped in and said it’s even called the Book of Mormon Another Testament of Christ.
I told them that God loves everyone and that he loves all of his children. I told them that he sent prophets to his children here in America and he sent his son Jesus Christ to teach them. He gave them the gospel and gave them his baptism.
I told her that we are baptized by the same baptism that Jesus used to baptize her ancestors here in America. She said, what? I said, yes, we are talking about your ancestors and Jesus Christ came here to America to teach them the gospel.
I told her, part of that was the fact that he taught them about baptism and being clean. He taught them how to follow God and how to come home to God.
She said, that sounds really important to me and her friend said, it is.
I said, it was so important that they wrote it down. I told her that they engraved it in plates of gold metal so that it would last. I told her that the book included not only the visit of Jesus Christ to America, but all of the words the prophets received from God for her ancestors here in America.
I told her that the book was then given to Joseph Smith to translate. She said that she had heard about Joseph Smith! She asked, was he a good guy? I’ve heard he wasn’t.
I bore my testimony of the prophet Joseph Smith and that he translated the Book of Mormon by the power of God. I told her that we have prophets nowadays too because God loves everyone no matter who they are, no matter where they were born and no matter when they were born.
I told her that because God had prophets in Israel and prophets in ancient America it makes sense that he would have prophets today. I testified to her that God has prophets today and they talk to us and they tell us the things that he would have us know to bless us, protect us, and help us come home to God.
She was soaking it in and was smiling like she had just heard an important secret that everyone had been keeping from her. I told her that God does this because he’s our father and he loves us. She said, I love that. I asked her if she had a Book of Mormon and she said no! I asked her if she’d like one and she said yes.
I reached in and grabbed one of the Book of Mormons prepared by the Secrists and I gave it to her. She read the cover out loud. She said, the Book of Mormon Another Testament of Jesus Christ.
She said, I feel like this book is very important. I told her that it was and her friend assured her of that as well, stating that she had read the book. The spirit was in the car by now and it was testifying pretty strongly. I felt it the first time after I testified about Joseph Smith and I could see in her face that she had felt it.
Finally I identified the spirit, I asked her, what do you feel right now? She said, it’s excitement and peace at the same time. She said, I have a tremendous excitement to learn about this. I never had a clue that this was a thing, but now I want to learn about it.
I told her that as she reads the Book of Mormon, if she will pray, God will fill her with the same spirit. I told her when she feels the spirit she will know that it is true. I told her that this is how we can discern all truth.
She said, I don’t even think I need to read it to know that it’s true, but I would love to read it to know what’s in it because those things are true. I told her that the spirit would bear witness of that. Her friend then chimed in with her testimony of the peace that she felt when she was reading the Book of Mormon while she was being taught by the missionaries.
I asked her if she would like to go to church. She said she would love to go to church. She looked at her friend and asked, where do we go to church? Her friend said, well, I haven’t gone since I moved here and I don’t know.
I said, as luck would have it I have a telephone with the Internet and we can look it up. They laughed and I looked it up. I found that they meet in a chapel in Salt Lake City Sunday at 1 o’clock.
She said, we can do this, this will be fun, we need to go! I looked at her friend who was also feeling the spirit, apparently for the first time in a while, and I said, do you promise that you will go to church on Sunday and she said yes! I said, do you promise that you will take your friend to church? She said yes. I turned to her friend and I said while you are at church, there will be some missionaries. I said, your friend here will introduce you to those missionaries and they will teach you more about these things so that you can have the same baptism that Jesus taught to your ancestors.
She said, I want to have that and I’ll make sure she takes me. She opened up the Book of Mormon and thumbed through the pages. She said, I’m going to read this book. She said, I love how it’s all marked out and customized with these questions. She said, I love that!
Her friend asked me if I had another one for her and I didn’t have one because I had given the other Spanish one away the day before. I really need to restock every day!
She said, that’s OK. I’ll make a copy of the one she has so I can have my own! I thought that was awesome and I said that it would be a really good project for Sunday after church. She said that they would do it.
I said, you guys were supposed to be in my car today. God put you in my car today so that you could get back on track and help your friend be baptized. They both nodded. The less active girl said, I will follow through and I won’t let that happen again. The nonmember said, I’m going to get baptized. She said, I can’t believe the spirit I felt in the car. I know that God put me here to get this message.
Her friend was overwhelmed and you could tell the spirit was helping to deepen her conversion while it was loving her friend into the path that leads to baptismal covenants.
They thanked me and got out of the car. This is going to be good. I’ve often talked about the movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life” where George Bailey was only willing to save himself because he was saving someone else. He was ready to throw himself off the bridge, but when he saw the angel in the water, he jumped in to save the angel thereby saving himself.
I think that is a true principle and we saw it in the car. People will do almost anything to save others even if they lack the will to save themselves. Clearly, the girl was less active but the spirit rekindled in her a desire to become active, serve God and save her friend.
Extra little story.
I picked up a lady at Smith’s. She was Brazilian and so I got to try out my very limited Portuguese. I noticed that she had jumper cables with her and I thought that was a strange purchase for a woman to make and Smiths was a strange place to make it.
As we drove toward the drop off location we talked about Spanish and Portuguese. I told her that I speak Spanish fluently but I understand almost all Portuguese when it’s spoken. She said she was about the same in Portuguese with regards to Spanish. She asked where I learned my Spanish and I said, I learned on my mission in Argentina.
I told her that I served up in the northeastern part under the Brazilian border so I heard a lot of Portuguese. She said that makes sense. I told her that I also served in the MTC in a Portuguese branch.
She said that there are two Portuguese congregations near her house. The Spirit had indicated to me that she was a member, even though she had said she wasn’t and so I said, oh, you’re a member. She said, well, I said no before but kind of. I used to go a lot. I said, were you baptized? She said, yes! I said, well, then, you a member.
I said, you have to just start going to church again. She hemmed and hawed for a minute and then said, well maybe. I told her that we have an apostle that’s from Brazil now and told her about Elder Soares. She was really excited about that. I told her that he talked in conference just last week.
I told her that she can’t let him represent her country alone! She had to get into it. I bore my best Portuguese testimony to her. Keep in mind that when I was in the MTC, I bore my testimony in Portuguese and the missionaries laughed at me. They laughed at my Portuguese and I told them that they shouldn’t laugh because I was learning it from them. I said that this was an indictment of their own Portuguese.
My efforts were appreciated and she really enjoyed my Portuguese testimony. She said, I feel peaceful in your car, I feel really good in your car. I told her, flat out God wants you to go to church. He misses you. God wants you to pray! God needs you to pray. She lowered her head and said, I guess you’re right I need to do those things. I asked her if she would promise me that she would go to church. She said, yes. She said that she missed this feeling, the feeling of the spirit.
She said, excuse me for a minute. Then she picked up her phone and in Portuguese was asking people if they could give her car a jump.
After several failures, I could tell that she was frustrated and I asked her if she needed some help. She asked me if I knew anyone that would jumpstart her car. I said, yes, I would. We pulled up alongside her car and I was able to get the jumper cables on the battery. I told her to turn the ignition and the car started right away.
As I went to get in my car, I told her that she needed to remember that she had promised to go to church. She promised me again that she would. Hopefully my going the extra mile will help her get that extra little bit of courage that she needs on Sunday morning.
I’m pretty sure she’s going, she seemed sincere. I’m about one hundred percent sure that God put her in my car so that I could help her jumpstart her car and help her jumpstart her membership.
It would’ve been easy enough to just help her jumpstart the car but I’m glad that God let me do it in a way that I could open the door to the discussion that would bring her back to church.
Sometimes God sends you a lift 