One Friday night Heather and I had just got done with the volleyball game and we’re hanging around at home for a while. It was late and I needed to go out to work. I thought about just staying down in the Provo area and even turned left instead of right coming out of our street but felt impressed to go to Salt Lake instead.
With only about three hours left to work, spending 40 minutes driving to Salt Lake didn’t seem like a great idea but thats where I decided I was supposed to go. I drove a few people around Salt Lake. It was snowing that night and people that would normally walk were taking little short rides which works very well for me.
I had the opportunity to take a couple of longer rides but I opted for shorter rides because I didn’t want to take long rides.
We were in the middle of the night time closing rush and I got a long ride opportunity. I’d been turning those down all night and thought to turn this one down too but felt impressed to take it. I had the thought that this was the reason why I was there in the first place. I took the ride.
I pulled up to the establishment where I was to give the ride and three guys got in my car. They were speaking a language I didn’t understand so I asked them where they were from. Some people get really offended when you do that and they say California, Arizona or something like that.
These guys said California and Arizona. I said, oh I’m sorry. I like to learn how to say hello and thank you in the languages of the people who are in my car. The two guys in the backseat apparently didn’t speak English but the guy in the front seat spoke really good English. I didn’t recognize the language they were speaking, so I thought I would ask what language it was. At this point, the person was still trying to be offended. He decided to test me. He said, how many languages can you say hello or thank you in? The guys in the backseat couldn’t understand what was going on in the front seat and they weren’t participating. They continued their chatter in their own language.
I said, other than English I think it’s 20 but I’m not sure. He said well, let’s go. Tell me the languages you can do that in and say the words. Before you start, I’ll teach you how to do it in my language. He said, we speak Armenian. He taught me how to say hello. It was not easy.
Then it was my turn, I started rattling off hello and thank you in the languages I know and he started counting them. Occasionally he would chime in with one that he knew. It didn’t take long for me to realize that he had an affinity for languages as well. This icebreaker with him turned into a conversation.
The last one I said was aloha and mahalo. He said, I love that one! I normally wouldn’t count that one or even say it but I felt like I should, and he lit up. He said, that’s 20 and you ended on my favorite. I asked, why is that your favorite? He said, I used to live in Hawaii.
I asked, why did you live in Hawaii? He said I went to school there. I asked, did you go to the University of Hawaii or Chaminade? He said, no, I went to BYU Hawaii. It’s always a little bit disappointing when you pick up a former BYU student from a drinking establishment but I’ve learned to take it in stride and understand it as an opportunity for discussion.
He said, I went for one semester to BYU Hawaii. I asked him where he went other than that semester and he said BYU Idaho. I told him that going from Idaho to Hawaii must have been a shock, but the greater shock probably was the weather shock. He laughed and said, that’s why we went there. We wanted to escape the winter.
I said, you went with friends? He said yes! I went with several friends of mine and my girlfriend and her friends as well. I asked, do you mind me asking how you go from being a BYU student to me picking you up at that place tonight? He put his head down and said, yeah, that’s fine.
He started telling me the story about how he had a girlfriend and he really liked her. When they went to Hawaii things got a little weird and he didn’t know why. He and his guy friends wondered what was changing with those girls.
He said that after a month and a half they started following them out at night. They found out that the girls were slipping out to the navy base and were being casual and physical with the sailors. He said, the sailors did what sailors do. The girls would go over every Saturday night and then go to church on Sunday. He said, it killed something in my heart.
He said to me it, dirtied them and it dirtied the church due to the fact that they were showing up in full participation after that kind of activity week after week after week.
He said that after the semester was over he dropped out of school and quit going to church. This was a lot of information. I prayed to know how to answer the question that wasn’t even being asked. I said, why in the world would you let some girl dictate what you do or how you exercise your beliefs.
I said why in the world would you allow some person that doesn’t really care for you dictate your relationship with God? I said, do you think those girls have spent 30 seconds since you last saw them thinking about whether or not you’re going to church? You’re not punishing anyone or making a statement to anyone but yourself and your father in heaven.
I realized that sounded bold but I felt that I needed to call him out on that a little bit. I said, it’s true that they sinned and did things they shouldn’t have done. It’s also true that you let the actions of somebody else dictate your progress with your father in heaven.
He said, well, I still know the church is true. I asked him if knowing the church is true is the same thing as being converted to the Lord Jesus Christ. I told him about Elder Bednar, where he discusses this very topic about how the Anti-Nephi-Lehies at first believed but when they were converted to the Lord Jesus Christ, they were willing to suffer death, rather than dishonor the covenants that they had made.
I said, you may have a testimony but we need to work a little bit on your conversion. He was silenced. I said, you need to have such a firm commitment and burning in your soul of the veracity of the church that nobody’s actions or words will have the ability to sway you from that belief. This includes the actions subsequent to those beliefs, including fulfilling, the covenants you’ve made.
I felt very strongly prompted to bear my testimony of the love of our father in heaven and of Jesus Christ. I testified of Joseph Smith, the first vision and the truth of the Book of Mormon. As I bore this testimony, he started to crumble in his seat.
When they started out the ride, he was sitting tall and kind of aggressive with me. Now he had collapsed in his seat and he started to cry as I bore my testimony. I could feel the spirit there and I asked him if he could feel that. He said, yes. I asked, what does it feel like? He said it feels like a long lost friend. I told him, that is your father in heaven and that is the spirit of your father in heaven.
I told him that he didn’t intend to apostatize or leave the church but that faced with tribulation instead of embracing God, he had blamed God and his church.
I told him that he had thought that he could get to heaven on his own and that all he had to do was pray. I received the very distinct impression that this was a very prayerful man and that he prayed often.
I told him, you pray often to your father in heaven and that has not changed. If anything it’s increased but you’re not listening when you pray. You’re not reading the Book of Mormon and you’re not going to church.
I told him that the question he had is, why do I have to go to church when everybody there is so fake? I said, that’s your question, isn’t it? He said, yes. I told him that the church is where sick people go to get better and they are not the perfect people as the aspired to be and neither was he as evidenced by where I found him tonight.
I told him that when we go to church the focus is on God. We prepare to go to church, we repent, and we go to take the sacrament. I told him that if somebody takes the sacrament without repenting that it’s just bread and water. They’re not renewing a covenant and it doesn’t damage anyone else in the room.
I told him that what does damage you is when you don’t take to sacrament. I told him about when I was on my mission and I was struggling and it was hard. I didn’t speak the language. My companion didn’t like me and I was miserable. When I took the sacrament it filled my tank and lifted me. The spirit pointed me to my purpose and let me know that this spirit was what I had to offer the people. It let me know that this is what they needed to feel, this communion with God and the ability to have his spirit in their soul.
I told him that he hadn’t had that because he quit going to church. As a result he felt lost because of this he had wandered into forbidden pathways. He had made bad decisions and he was blaming other people. I told him, you can’t blame other people. This is on you. Everybody makes mistakes but you have to be willing to worry about your mistakes and not other people’s mistakes. They’re not talking about you, they’re not worrying about you, so you have to worry about you. You have to take care of you and the way you do that is you come to church, you take the sacrament and you renew that covenant with your father in heaven.
He was crying, visibly and audibly. The spirit touched him and had prompted me to be bold and even plain with him in the words that I used. It’s not a highly suggested approach to one’s customers!
I told him, furthermore, the kind of woman you’re looking to marry is not the kind of woman that you’ll find in that bar where I picked you up tonight. That woman in that bar tonight is someone that will lead you further away, not closer, to God. The woman you will find that will help you and bless you will be found in church.
A little bit earlier we had talked about how the ladies these days in the bar scene are very promiscuous and aggressive. I asked him if that’s the kind of woman he wanted to have as the mother of his child. I asked him if he wanted a woman who had been shared by many men and he said, no.
I said, so why are you looking for the woman you want in that environment? Satan has convinced you to go there but all you meet with is disappointment. He has told you that you were disappointed at church too, in an attempt to pull you away into his trap.
We pulled over and let his friends out at their apartment and continued onto his apartment. This gave me the opportunity to be more personal and to double down.
I told him that due to the fact that the spirit was so strong in the car, it was clear to me that God had put him in my car so that he could have a course correction. He needed to get back to church, get close to God and make himself a viable candidate for the kind of woman that he wanted to marry.
He said, I haven’t cried in years and I’m sobbing like a baby. We were pulling up to his house right across the road from the church house. I said, Sunday is fast and testimony meeting. This week you need to go to church. That’s why God sent me. This week you need to go to church and be filled with the spirit of God. You need to get right with God, you need to go to church and commute with him. You need to fill your tank.
I told him this is why I was sent here to get you today. He said, everything you said is true and most of them are things that I have thought but I haven’t dared say them out loud. I know God sent you tell me these things. I know that I need to make this change.
I told him, God didn’t just send me to tell you these things he needs you to commit to go to church on Sunday. He said, I’ll try. I said, God didn’t send me here to have you commit to try. God sent me here and gave me these words so that you would commit to do.
I said, how does it feel to be so loved by your Heavenly Father that he sent someone to help you see the path again. It’s time for you to get right with God, have his spirit and find that path forward with him as your guide.
I asked, will you commit to go to church on Sunday.? He said, yes I will! I will commit. With tears running down his face he said, thank you for bringing this message to me. He said, I will do that. He got out of the car and started walking away.
In this ride it was almost as if he were in a zone. I could see the spirit working with him and I could see Satan fighting not to lose him. In the end, the spirit of the Lord chased Satan out and the peace of the Lord settled in his heart and blew his mind.
It’s important for us to understand what Elder Bednar taught and this is that our conversion has to be a conversion to the gospel of Jesus Christ and not the social structure or the people in it because they will fail you as they had this young man. Christ will never fail you and we need to build on that rock.
Sometimes God sends you a lift 