One day I picked up a girl from work and was taking her to her home. On the way we talked about the church and I gave her a Book of Mormon. I didn’t feel like I could ask for personal information so I didn’t but I immediately started making a plan to find the missionaries in that area and point them to her door anonymously.
While I was driving around the block, after entertaining which ward she would belong to or which building she might go to, I got another ride that was close by.
It was another young lady that I was picking up from a preschool where she worked. When she got in the car I could immediately feel that she had a soft heart and was very approachable. The spirit was letting me know this before we even started talking. I knew that there had to be a reason and I knew what that reason would be.
I was taking her from Orem down towards BYU so I knew that she was a member of the church but also felt that she was unsettled and in some kind of distress with regards to her membership.
These are the things that the spirit began saying to me and they guided the next 10 minutes of our drive. After the standard pleasantries, I jumped right to tell her what I had been doing. I told her the story of the previous girl and that I’d been formulating a plan with regards to getting the missionaries to the previous girl. When I looked at her face in the mirror, she seemed shocked that I would talk about religion.
She said, you’re the first driver I’ve ever had that talked about religion to me. I told her it’s because we’re not supposed to talk about religion. Then I said that I felt like I was supposed to around her.
I told her a little bit about my story and that God puts people in my car like the young lady who had previously been in my car to receive a message.
Then I felt impressed to tell her that it wasn’t just nonmembers. Many times Heavenly Father will put a person in my car and I’m prompted to tell them things even though they are members. I shared a couple of my stories from my blog with her and told her that this happens quite frequently and that I always try to be close to the spirit.
I told her that there are a lot of members who go through the motions and fall into and out of activity because they are disillusioned, disaffected or upset. I told her that I get a lot of these people in my car, and I have an opportunity to help them focus on the important things. I told her that I get to testify to them of their Heavenly Father’s love and what the Lord would have me tell them.
I could tell she was very engaged in the conversation. She asked me what some of the things were that people were struggling with. I told her that with people her age a lot of times it has to do with the history of the church, the history of the leaders of the church, the doctrines and teachings of the church and nowadays many times young ladies are unsettled about their memberships because of their activism with LGBTQAI+ and other social justice issues. I told her that a lot of young people also struggle with the pressures of the expectations of society to participate in the debauchery that is rampant these days. I went with these issues.
She said that she could see how this might be a problem. I could see that she was one of these people. I looked at her in the mirror and she was engaged. Her eyes were wide open and she was leaning forward. I decided to go in with what the spirit was telling me right there at the time.
I told her, I believe Heavenly Father put you here for me to give you a message too. I told her that she had become inactive and that she was struggling with her testimony. I told her that she had found it difficult to stay active due to the judgments of others and that she was fighting back against her upbringing a little bit.
I told her that her father in heaven loved her tremendously and that I could feel it in my heart. I felt very impressed that the people in her ward and family had pressured her tremendously to serve a mission and because she hadn’t she had been ostracized. I told her that her father in heaven loved her and that serving a full time mission was not her responsibility. It was only an option and her father in heaven didn’t require it from her but that he loved her. I told her I could feel this love and I wanted to help her feel his love for her. She had tears in her eyes and she said that this was a huge issue for her.
I talked to her about living with her father in heaven and that love. I talked to her about that being central in her existence from the beginning. As I talked about her Heavenly Father’s love, the spirit was undeniable in the car and you could feel it. It was touching both of us. I asked her what she would do to save a child. Where she worked with children this was a very very personal question to her. I didn’t even think about that when I asked it but that’s how she answered it. She said, I would do anything to save a child. I asked her if it was her child, is there anything that could keep her from trying to save that child and she said no.
I told her that was how her father in heaven felt. He loved his children and he wanted them to come home safe. I told her that he gave us a savior, Jesus Christ. I told her that Jesus Christ taught us how to come home. He suffered in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross for us then he was resurrected so that we could all come home.
I asked her what she thought about when I said atonement and she said, all of my sins. I asked her if the atonement had any other application other than the forgiveness of sins and she said she didn’t think so. She said that she’d always been taught by her parents and by everybody that the atonement was about repentance.
I told her that there are a lot of people that don’t access the full power of the infinite atonement, only the very important part regarding repentance.
I told her that when Jesus suffered for sins he also suffered for our infirmities, injustices, anxieties, and all the problems that we would go through. This is how he lifts us, how he gives us relief and makes it so that we can manage in life.
I asked her if she had problems with terrible anxiety. She said that she did. She said that she didn’t think anyone could possibly understand and she asked me how I would know that. I told her I knew that because the spirit whispered it to me, I told her that Jesus Christ suffered this for her so that she could look to him.
I told her that he understands and he loves her. He can lift her if she will learn about him and his sacrifice. I told her that if she would learn to trust him, he could help her through her issues of anxiety and other things.
I kind of got a laundry list in my heart of things to say right then. I told her I felt like she hadn’t gone to church in some while because of the fact that she felt that the people were very judgmental. We were sitting right by apartment number 54 and I looked up at that apartment and then said, how much time did you spend thinking about the people in apartment number 54 today? How much time did you spend thinking about the bad things that they do, or may have done or what they wore last time you saw them? She said,not a second.
I said, we’re all the same way. We are too busy to be very judgmental. I asked her how much time she thought that the people she thinks harshly judge her spent thinking about her that day. She said, I never thought of it that way, they probably didn’t think about me at all.
I said, that’s probably true. We don’t spend nearly enough time thinking about the people around us. She laughed. I said, Satan has whispered that in your ear. He’s whispered in your ear that these people are judgmental and that they don’t want you there.
I said, because of this you felt anxiety going to church. You’ve given room in your heart for Satan to convince you of this and because of that you haven’t been to church in quite a while. I said, I don’t think you’ve even been to church so far this year, have you? She lowered her head and said, no, I haven’t.
I told her that when she goes to church, Satan is going to whisper things like that but he whispers things like that to everyone. Anything that tells you not to go to church or anything that tells you not to pray is from Satan, not from God. It pushes you away from God because that’s what Satan does.
I told her, once you quit praying and going to church it weakens you and Satan can then lead you down other paths. I told her that when I was on my mission, I learned about the importance of taking the sacrament. I told her that especially the first of my mission I felt empty and tossed around by my mission. I told her that the only time anybody ever understood me was God when I was praying or when I was feeling the spirit. I told her that when I took the sacrament it filled my tank and that this is how it works.
I told her that we go to church to take the sacrament and have our tank filled so that we can have the power we need to fight Satan. His pressure is relentless and unless we have the power of God with us it is very difficult to do the right things and make the right choices.
She said, when you say it like that it sounds very clear. She said, I was raised in a very strict religious home and they didn’t explain anything to me. I said, your parents love you and it’s the opposite of being judgmental. They just want you safe. They see you as their child in a dangerous situation and out of their love for you they tried to hold on to you. I said, it looks like being overbearing and it may be to you but to them they are just trying as hard as they can.
She said, I talked to my dad yesterday. He said that he was praying for me and that he loved me. She said, he really doesn’t know how to talk to me so that makes me think that what you just said is true. I told her that the most important thing is that he loves her and he was praying for her.
I told her she wouldn’t be the first person to be put in my car because their father was praying for them. I told her that her father has a lot of fears for her safety and that Heavenly Father knows how hard it is to be a parent. When her father prays to Heavenly Father with faith, Heavenly Father listens. I could feel the rush of the spirit when I said that and I asked her if she felt it and she nodded fervently and said, yes I do.
I said, back to the thing about praying. I kind of feel like it’s been a couple of years since you’ve prayed. You quit praying and then everything got worse with regards to the anxiety and everything. Then you left the church.
She said, it’s kind of amazing, you hit that right on the head. I thought I could skate through without you knowing that but clearly our father in heaven didn’t have that plan.
I told her that Heavenly Father misses her and wants her back. He wants her to pray so that they can communicate just like her father had wanted to talk to her the day before, to communicate with her. I said, the good thing about that is your father in heaven is perfect and that if you’ll develop that communication, it will be perfect as well.
I told her that when she prays she should pray until she feels the communication. She said, well a lot of times I just don’t feel like I should pray. I said, it helps us to know that the Book of Mormon teaches us that whatever teaches or inspires us not to pray is not of God, it’s of Satan. Satan is the one that makes you feel self conscious when you pray. Satan is the one that makes you feel weird when you pray. Satan is the one that tells you there’s nobody there listening to you. Satan is the one that tells you that your prayers are never answered and none of that is true.
I told her that with regards to judging, if anyone IS judging, they are committing a sin. I told her that just as she expects other people to be tolerant of her sin and loving of her regardless of her sin, she also needs to be tolerant and loving of these people who sin against her. I told her about a person that has a problem with me in my ward and my plan is to go up and tell them I love them and I just want them to know that and if there’s anything that I can ever do for them to let me know. She said, that would disarm the whole situation.
I told her to go up to these people put her arms around them and say, I love you and I think you’re a great example. I think that would change everything. She said, this is a great way to look at it. I need to do that.
I asked her about the spirit she was feeling, the emotions in her heart and what it meant about the things that I was saying. She said that it meant that the things that I was saying were true.
I told her that when she feels the spirit she knows that the things she’s hearing are true. I told her, that’s how God reaches out. I asked her again to identify what she was feeling and she said she was feeling an amazing amount of peace and joy. I told her that this is how she felt in the presence of God in the preexistence and that this feeling is what she should look for. I told her that this is how God would confirm to her the truth.
I told her that I believed that she had not understood that she had ever received a testimony by the spirit. I told her that this is a common thing. Many people grow up in the church around the spirit and feeling the spirit without understanding what it is.
They want a huge emotional outpouring or manifestation. It doesn’t always come like that. I told her that what she was feeling right now was the spirit of God and it was confirming these things and that now she knew that God confirmed them to her. I told her that in the past she had justified leaving the church by saying that she didn’t have a testimony and had not received a witness.
I told her that from now on, she couldn’t say that, because now she knew and I knew that she knew.
We’d been sitting in her parking lot for quite a few minutes at that point and I said, well, I need to get you out of here but I want you to know that your father in heaven knows who you are. He loves you and want you back. I told her that nobody is judging her anymore than she is judging the people in apartment 54. I told her that she needs to make a move here because this is the time.
I felt prompted to bear my testimony of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, so I did. It came with power and I could tell it touched her heart. She said, I know that’s true. I’ve heard those words so many times before but today they resonated in my heart.
I asked, well, now that you have this new understanding that has been confirmed by the power of the spirit what is your next step? What do you need to do? What action do you need to take?
She said, I need to go back to church. She said, I can’t believe I let myself go like that. She said, I need to quit judging others like my parents and other people whom I have perceived to be judging me.
She said, I will go to church this Sunday. She said, that’s exactly what I’m going to do. I asked, just this Sunday? She said, no, I am back, you’ll see.
She smiled and then got out of the car and went into her apartment. It’s good to know she’s back.
—-update——-
At the end of last year, I gave a ride to a young man and wrote a story about it. Yesterday was his baptism day and I was fortunate enough to be asked to participate. Here is a picture from the baptism and I am including a link to that story below.
Hurrah for Israel!!!
Sometimes God sends you a lift 