His most important investigator ever

One night I was done working in Park City and I decided to go work in Salt Lake. I got three rides. The first two took me from downtown to like 70th south and Taylorsville. I was hoping to get downtown and pick up a lot of little rides, so I went back downtown again.

When I got downtown I got one more ride. I decided that if this one was more than 15 minutes I was going to cancel it so I could rack up my numbers of rides. A ride came and it was 35 minutes. It was going all the way down into the homes south and west of point of the mountain. I didn’t want that ride. I went to cancel it and the spirit said no.

I like it when that happens because I know that fun things are about to come forth. I went over to a bar/restaurant to pick up a husband and his wife. They came out after having a fun evening with friends. Clearly they had partaken in some drink, but they were not inebriated by any means. With the low alcohol levels in Utah it’s just smart that if you’re going to drink at all that you not to take a chance.

His name was a little different and I pronounced it when he got in the car. Usually when people get in the car I say their name first so that they know that I’m supposed to be their driver. This puts them at ease and lets them know that they’re safe and that this is where they should be.

His wife started teasing him about how I said it because I said it with an English pronunciation. It turns out that he’s Filipino and that I should’ve used more of a what I would consider to be Spanish pronunciation and I would’ve been correct. She spent a couple of minutes laughing at him and telling him that he says his name wrong.

I then jumped in and said, well I speak Spanish and that’s how I would’ve said it if I’d been pronouncing it in Spanish. They said how well do you speak Spanish and I said that I do interpretation. They looked at me and said, you’re very white! How did you learn Spanish? She was Latin looking and he was definitely Filipino looking and I smiled, racial profiling is alive and well.

I said, I went on a Mormon mission to Argentina and I learned to speak Spanish. They asked me how I was able to remember it after all these years. I told them that when I was in the MTC Elder Packer had come to the MTC to speak to us. I told them that he promised us if we would say our prayers and read our scriptures in the language of our mission that we would never lose the ability to speak that language. We would have it and be able to use it to build the kingdom of God.

It dawned on me that I was preaching about prophets and prophecy to people that I just picked up from a bar so I decided to bear my testimony. As I bore my testimony of the principle of revelation, based on the prophecy of Elder Packer, the spirit whispered to me that the man was a member of the church but she was not.

Just as soon as I had finished, I decided to find a way in this 35 minute drive to bring up more about the church. She lead off by saying, is it scary to have people in your car that you don’t know? I decided that I would take that. I told the story about the man who came over the seat trying to choke me and attack me but that when he touched me he was zapped and fell down, almost as if he had been hit by a taser. I’d been talking about the Book of Mormon so I talked about how Nephi had touched his brothers and they had been shocked.

I said, you know, the Book of Mormon is true and I wouldn’t have understood what happened in my car If I hadn’t read that God had done it before in the scriptures.

Her eyes were wide open and she said, wow! She said, at first I thought you would be scared to have people in your car but if you’ve got God protecting you like that you don’t need to be scared, do you? I told her that I believe that God protected me and that I wasn’t afraid. I told her that God had prompted me not to pick up people at times and other times he had protected me.

I told her that God protect us when we do the things that he wants us to do and when we follow his prophets and their words. I told her that my ability to speak Spanish and the protection of my car were both evidences of God‘s protection because of obedience.

I told her that I prayed and blessed my car so that the spirit of God would dwell in my car. She said, we’ve both felt that since we got in your car. It’s been an amazing peace. We’ve never taken an Uber that felt like this. I told her it’s because the spirit of God was here.

Then I looked at him and asked, are you two religious? He said, she isn’t. She said, he used to be. The spirit had already indicated this to me. This gave me comfort and the knowledge that they were telling me the truth.

I told them that the thing about the church is that it’s where we get commandments from God so that we can be blessed and protected. In the scriptures, we read the actual words that came from the prophets of God and in church, we listen to live prophets of God. I told them that this is what I did on my mission. I taught those words to the people and brought this peace to their lives.

I told them that the peace they felt on my mission was just like what they were feeling in the car right now. He couldn’t handle it anymore. He said, I went on a mission. I asked, when did you go on a mission? He said in 2009 to the Philippines. I said, that’s awesome.

The distinct prompting came over me to say these words. Your Heavenly Father knows where you are. He knows what you’re doing and he’s been wanting you to come back. I said, you thought he didn’t care about you. You thought he wouldn’t notice if you were gone but tonight he sent me to let you know that you were wrong.

I told him that for years he had been laboring under the assumption that God didn’t care but God did care and that he needed him. He said, I didn’t think anyone knew and I didn’t think anyone cared.

I asked him when he was in the MTC, and which MTC one. He said he was in Provo. I told him that it was before I started serving there in 2012. I told him that what he learned in the MTC was how to recognize the spirit he was feeling tonight in the car. I told him the spirit can lead him and guide him and walk beside him and help him find the way.

He laughed and said, that sounds like a song I heard once. I said kind of funny how we learn these things when we’re little. I told him that to others this spirit is how we turn their hearts to their father in heaven and get protection in these perilous days.

By this time he was animated. The spirit had lit him like a firecracker and he was poppin. You could feel the joy coming from him in the backseat after being enlightened by the spirit. I told him, you remember what it felt like don’t you? He said, yes. I said, you’ve missed this haven’t you? He said yes, I didn’t realize how much. I said, your Father in Heaven wants you back, will you come back? He paused, looked at his wife and said, yes.

I looked at her and said, what do you think about what you’re feeling right now? Would you like to feel this in your life all the time? She said, yes. I told her that I had used a story from the Book of Mormon in our trip. I told her that the Book of Mormon was the word of God just like the Bible. I told her that it was translated by Joseph Smith and that it was the words of the ancient prophet in America, her ancestors.

I told her that these words spoke to her, in the car and they were speaking to her right now. As I testified of their truthfulness she said, I believe you because of what I’m feeling. This is incredible. I asked her if she had a Book of Mormon of her own. She said, no. I reached into my glove box and grabbed one of the Book of Mormons prepared by the Secrists to give to her husband. I said, do you have a Book of Mormon? He said, yes I have a few. I gave it to him and said, you give this your wife. I want you to teach her just like you taught people on your mission about the Book of Mormon.

I want you to teach her about Joseph Smith. I want you to teach her about the plates. I want you to teach her that Jesus came to America and taught the people to be baptized. I want you to baptize her. He took the Book of Mormon from me and said, I will do that!

He said, this book has tabs in it, just like my Book of Mormon does! He said, this is so cool. This was made for me to give to her. She looked at him with a big smile and said, yeah! Get to it!

I laughed and said yes it was. I said, God knew you were coming here tonight and he sent gifts for you.

I told him that he remembered what it was like to be a missionary tonight in the car. I told him that the spirit accompanies the truth and testifies of the truth. His wife said, this would change everything for them. She said, I want that.

She asked, can we really have this feeling all the time? I said yes, your husband had just forgotten but together you can build a life based on this feeling.

She said, the second I got in this car I felt something different. The second I got in this car I knew that this was different and that I was supposed to listen. The man reached up and gently grab my shoulders and said, you are a great man. I told him that he is the man, when he follows the promptings of God.

I told him that God put them in my car, God gave me the words to say, and he sent his spirit to testify to them. I asked him, on your mission when you had an investigator that had felt the spirit what did you do? He said, first we got really excited and then we baptized them. I said, well tonight your wife has felt the spirit and she knows that it is true, so what are you going to do? He grabbed my shoulders again and said, you’re awesome, thank you so much.

They got out of the car and went into their home with HER Book of Mormon.