She’s got friends in high places

One afternoon I was working in Provo. I’d had a couple rides and got another one over near where we used to live when our daughter was born. I pulled up and I waited for what seemed to be an eternity.

I was ready to leave because we only have to wait seven minutes and I was double parked. I got a message that said, I’m coming. Once I hit seven minutes I can leave regardless of any communication that’s happened. I said OK but that didn’t mean I needed to stay passed the seven minute mark.

I had the feeling that I was supposed to take this ride and so I waited an additional couple of minutes. I looked over and there she was. It was a young lady with a motorized scooter. I popped the trunk in my car and she folded it down and put it in the back.

I hadn’t had a good look at her yet, but when she finally got the car I was pretty surprised. For such a young woman, she sure had a tremendous number of tattoos on her arms, face and neck. She had the smell of cigarettes on her and she was quite disheveled as she sat down in the seat.

I started to go and said, how are you doing today? She said, uggg. I said, that good huh? She laughed and then she said she was in a hurry and she apologized that it her took her so long to get there. She thanked me for waiting. I started praying to know why I was supposed to wait and what I should say.

It seemed to me that this girl had problems and the spirit directed me to know that even though she participated in a lot of bad things addiction wasn’t one of her problems. It was her behavior. I got the impression that she was more of a follower.

I asked her, do you mind if I say some things, some impression I’ve had since you got in the car? She said, yes! Go ahead. I looked at her eyes in the mirror and I said, you know, you need to surround yourself with better friends.

I told her, you know that and you keep putting yourself in a position to find better friends but in the end you end up with the same crowd. You need to find better friends.

She said, that’s amazing. I feel like I’ve been drowning. I moved here to Utah to get away from some of my problems and I found them here again. It seems like those kind of people just find me.

I told her, well, you need to put yourself amongst a group of people that don’t participate in the things that drag you down. I said, you need to put yourself amongst a group of people that will lift you and support you, not tear you apart and drag you down.

I said, you have broken the law and done drugs largely because of the groups that that you have associated yourself with. These people do not have your best interest at heart and they drag you down. I said, you find it hard to be a leader and stand alone and you go with the group.

I said, you came here looking for a better group and end up going to the same kind of people here that you left behind.

She said, that’s amazing! Right now we are going to rehab counseling. Not because I’m addicted but because it was court ordered as part of my sentence. I committed some crimes with these people and they left me twisting in the wind. Due to the fact that I had drugs in my system, they mandated rehab.

I said, you need to find new friends. I knew this was the second or third time that I had said this but finally she reacted to it and she said, yes I do. Where would I go to find the kind of friends I need?

I told her, you go to church. If you go to church, you will find the kind of people you need to surround yourself with. I told her, if you will try to be like those people, you can have the light of Jesus Christ in your life. It will pull you away from evil.

I told her that with the light of Jesus Christ, she will see that the people who are evil, many times, will shy away from her. I told her that this is what she needed. She needed to go to church and meet that group.

She said, I’m not Mormon and they don’t want to help me. I said, what do you mean they don’t want to help you? She said, well, I tried one time to get help. They sent me to a transient Bishop and he was no help at all. It was almost like he was trying to push me out of his office and there was no group. He did not invite me to go to church. There was no love in that room.

I told her that everyone has bad days sometimes, including Bishops. I assured her that God loved her and that he loved her more than she could imagine. I told her that before she came to earth she lived with her father in heaven, his love love was the most powerful thing in her existence. I told her that his love was in the car today. She said, I feel that.

I asked her where she lived now and she said she lived in an apartment with her brother. I asked her why she didn’t go to that Bishop instead of the transient Bishop. She said, I didn’t know where to go and I went to where I was told.

I looked up her ward and told her where they met and what time on Sunday. I said, this is where you need to be. I said, will you go? She asked, do you have to be a Mormon? I’m not a Mormon and I think that’s why they didn’t want to help me before.

I told her that they wanted to help. I assured her that the Bishop in that area would lift her and help her. I told her that all the other kids in that area were going to church in this ward and that she should go with them.

She said, OK, how do I do that? I told her that I could have mssionaries come over, introduce themselves , teach a little and take her to church. I told her that if she walked in with the missionaries, everything would be OK.

She said, that sounds like what I need to do. I would like to have a good religious group with good values that could lift me and help me so I don’t fall back into the problems I’ve had.

I asked her if she ever heard of the Book of Mormon and she said, yes! I asked her if she ever had been given a copy and she said no. I talked to her about Joseph Smith and how God the father and Jesus Christ appeared to him and called him to be the prophet.

I talked to her about how we believe in prophets. We have one today. I told her that there were prophets in ancient America and they wrote down their prophecies and that’s what the Book of Mormon is. I told her that it extensively teaches us about Jesus Christ and his atonement.

I told her that what I get out of the Book of Mormon more than anything is, I need to look to Jesus Christ for salvation. I told her that the Book of Mormon teaches extensively about the atonement of Jesus Christ. I told her that in today’s world we have sin and evil hounding us everywhere. There is a lack of justice and persecution is around every corner so the only way we can make it through is by using the atonement of Jesus Christ as a shield and as medicine to heal our wounds.

I told her that our sorrows, afflictions injustices and sins will be swallowed up in the atonement if we will allow Jesus to do that I told. I told her that if we look to him, he can heal us. I told her that he can heal our bodies, our spirits and set us on a path so that we can have the light of the spirit of God with us.

I reached into my console and pulled out a copy of the Book of Mormon prepared by the Secrists. I gave it to her and told her that in reading this book she will feel the spirit of God and it will prepare her to learn how to access the atonement. I told her that this book will prepare her to be baptized, be given the gift of the Holy Ghost so that she can carry that light with her.

The spirit was strong as I testified of the impact of the Book of Mormon on my life and I could see that she was feeling it. I asked her what she felt and she said that she felt just like she always wanted to feel, hopeful and peace.

I told her if she has that light, good people will be attracted to her and she will have protection from those who are not good.

She said, that’s what I need, that’s what I want. She said, just before you got here I was praying to God that I could find help in this way. She said, I want to ditch everything to do with my life and I want a new one. I want new friends, I want new feelings and I want a new understanding. This seems perfect.

She said, I was praying but I never had any idea that it would be my driver that would bring me the answer to my prayer. I said, God put you in my car and he gave me the words to say so that you would know they were from him. That is why these thoughts are coming to your mind, because God put them there. She said, I know that’s true.

I went into the Tools app and looked up the mssionaries and sent the referral.

By then we were at her program and she had to get out. She thanked me and said that she was blown away by the spirit she felt. She said, I’ve never felt anything like that. She said that there was true power in the car and that when I said things, it was like it cut all the way through.

She said, one thing I have learned in all of this is the God still loves me, even though I doubted it. I doubted it when I couldn’t find good people and I doubted it when I didn’t get help from the church. Now I know that God sent you and that he does love me. I know I matter and that matters to me.

She said, how did you know what to say? I told her that when we’re baptized we get the gift of the Holy Ghost and the Holy Ghost whispered to me the things to say to her. She said, I would like to have that. I said one day you can. Do what the Missionaries say and one day you will have the gift of the Holy Ghost and it can be your constant companion. It can keep you out of trouble and it can give you discernment to make better choices with regard to the people in your circle. She said, this is just what I needed, thank you. She told me that her parole officer had told her that she would be able to be off of parole in September, two months early. She could use this as a springboard into her new life. She said I like that. She got out and she went in.

As soon as she was out of car, I called the sister missionaries indicated as the missionaries for her ward. I gave them her name and phone number and told them that they would be getting the referral that I had sent in. I gave them some background and they said they would be on it.

One thing for sure is that when God is the one is looking out for you, you always have a friend.