One night Heather and I had gone to the BYU volleyball game and I went out to work after the game. I had quit working about 4 o’clock so that we could make it to the ball game. It went five sets so it was late when I started working again.
I was going to start with a private ride. Before the game I had thought that I would drive for an hour or so before I picked up the private ride but because the game went long, I had to go straight to it. I picked up my friends at the Provo airport and took them to the point of the mountain and then decided to go to work.
Prior to the private ride, I had decided to work in Provo but I thought as long as I was in Salt Lake, I would work in Salt Lake. I drove from the point of the mountain down to Salt Lake City and it was 11:15 pm when I turned on my app.
The thing that was crazy is that at 11:15 there were no rides. I drove around for 15 minutes, no rides. Finally, I got a ride and I jumped on it without looking. It took me over to the Motel 6 just off of 600 S. and 200 W. in Salt Lake City. It was a pick up with three stops
As I approached the motel, I realized where I would be picking this person up. On advice from the police I never pick up people at that place. The police told me that they’re all druggies or prostitutes and I should never pick up there. They have told this me as I have pulled me out of there, and I’ve had them tell me as they were passengers in my car. They told me that it’s very dangerous. Personally, I believe that there are more drugs sold out of that Motel 6 than in all the Walgreens in the valley combined. It is a hive of activity after 11 PM.
I pulled into the parking lot and immediately put my car in reverse to get out of the parking lot and my plan was to just drive off and cancel the ride. The spirit said no. I prayed because I wanted to verify that feeling and it came to me again that I should not cancel the ride.
Out of the hotel and into and my car came a lady. That was of interest to me because it was a guy name who had booked the ride. She got in my car and everything seemed very disconcerting about her situation. She looked haggard and like she had been beat up and abused in every way.
I could smell incense, which usually people in that situation burn to cover up the smell of marijuana, which told me that she had been smoking marijuana or she was in a room where everybody was smoking marijuana.
I started the ride and it took us a half a block to the McDonald’s. We went up to the McDonald’s and she wanted to go through the drive-through but the line was very long so she decided she wanted to go in and order. She went in and they told her she had to go through the drive-through so she came back out and we got in the line. Finally, we had a chance to talk and I had an opportunity to find out why it was that Heavenly Father wanted her in my car.
I asked her why she was going to McDonald’s and she said to get food for her kids. I asked her how many kids she had and she said two. She ordered six double cheeseburgers and drinks with fries. She paid with a $100 bill which sends up red flags because that’s how those people in those sketchy businesses are paid.
I asked her how far away her kids were and she said they were at her apartment about 3 miles away. We got the food and we left. I prayed to have Heavenly Father help me navigate this one and the impression came to ask about her kids. I said, tell me about your kids.
She said she had two kids and asked how many I have. I told her I have three. I told her it’s hard to raise kids these days, but I suppose it was hard to raise us too. She laughed, then she told me, you’ve treated me so kindly, do you mind if I talk about my kids? I said, go ahead.
She told me that her kids were 13 and 22. She told me that her 22-year-old was a girl that just returned from a Mormon mission. My ears perked up. I realized then why I was inspired to ask her about her kids. I asked, how is she doing? She said that her daughter was doing great.
I asked where her daughter had gone on her mission and she said, she went to Washington state. I told her that’s very cool and how excited I was for her daughter. I told her that I served my mission in Argentina and it was an amazing foundation for the rest of my life and taught me the things I needed to know to make it through life. I looked at her in the mirror and said, I bet you’re proud of her. She put her head down and said, yes, I am.
I thought back and remembered as a member of a branch presidency in the MTC I interviewed thousands of missionaries, many of whom had parents who were spiritually in trouble or who had left the church. Their greatest desire always was for their parents to come back. I got the strong impression that the daughter had prayed for this blessing like many of those other missionaries had.
I looked in the mirror at her eyes and said, is your daughter trying to help you? Her eyes filled with tears as she said, she tries all the time. She’s such a good girl and my boy who’s 13 is a great young man.
She asked me if I minded if she opened up to me. She said, I feel like that’s what I’m supposed to do here. I think thats why I’m here with you. I said, go ahead.
She said, I used to go to church all the time. I was very active. I was married in the temple and I was a relief society president. One day my husband cheated on me and I lost it. I went into a spiral. She said, it shattered my world and I was never able to recover. She said, I just kept spiraling downward to the point where now I’m doing things to earn money that I would’ve never thought I would ever do.
She said, I can’t go to church because of the things I do, although I’d like to get back to the point where I could go to church.
Sometimes when I receive promptings it just opens up a floodgate and that was the case here, as I heard about her life and her disastrous downturn.
She took a breath and I said, do you mind if I share some thoughts with you? She said please do. I told her that there are two things that she has forgotten that she needs to try to remember.
The first one is that her Heavenly Father loves her and that love is unconditional. I asked her to think about how much she loves her children. She said she loved them with all of her heart. I asked her if there was anything they could do that would make her turn her back on them and she said no.
I said, well, why do you think that a perfect father in heaven who loves you perfectly would turn his back on you? I asked her why she thinks that God would not be there for her in her time of need?
She said, I blame God. I blame God for what happened to me. She said, he could’ve stopped it. I told her that Heavenly Father is a perfect father who loves us. I testified to her and the spirit bore witness. The spirit it entered the car and I said, do you feel the spirit? She said, yes. I said, that is the love of your father in heaven. He loves you!
I said, our Heavenly Father gives us agency. I said, if our Heavenly Father had forced us to do everything we were supposed to do and took away our free will to choose, would we be happy? Would we blame him for not being happy? She said, probably. I said God needs to give us the ability to act for ourselves so that we can work out our salvation and learn the lessons of success and failure.
I told her that because we have this agency, sometimes we use it poorly. When we do it almost always negatively affects other people, but that doesn’t mean God loves them less. It just means that someone misused their agency.
I told her that Satan is there to take advantage of this and that is the trap that she had fallen into. I told her that Satan says blame God. He says that it’s the people at your ward who are hypocrites along with the other people you know that are in the church who are also hypocrites that are the problem. Satan tells you to leave and that you can’t go to church. Satan tells you not to pray. Satan tells you that God doesn’t love you.
I told her, Satan is a liar, Satan is a manipulator. I told her that she had been deceived by Satan.
I told her that God, on the other hand, stands there and points us to Jesus. I said in the atonement Jesus suffered for all of our sins but not just our sins. He suffered for all of our hardships, our infirmities, our injustices, and all of the pains we would have to suffer in this life. He did this so that he can lift the burden from us.
God points to Jesus as his way of helping us cope so that we don’t have to turn away from him so that we can embrace him. She said, I never thought of it that way.
I told her that the atonement is the thing that helps us when everything‘s wrong. I told her when our life is burning down around us he can lift us. I told her that when we don’t feel worthy the atonement is the thing that can help us get to the point where we are worthy.
I told her that Satan says blame God. Christ says love God. I told her that love is more powerful than hate and blame and our love for God is the most powerful love. The spirit was burning in the car and she said, you know, I know that I’m supposed to be here in your car to hear this. Thank you so much for saying that to me. I needed to hear that.
We were rounding the corner to the apartment for her so she could run in and drop off the food. Then I was supposed to take her back to the drug and prostitution motel.
I said, one thing is for sure, Satan has his hooks in you. He has convinced you that you can’t go to church. You need to go to church! She said, I want to get to the point where I can go again.
She said, I think about that all the time. I want to get to the point where I can go again. I told her that she doesn’t need to wait to get to the point where she can go again, she needs to just go. I told her that the church isn’t a museum for perfection. It’s a hospital for the infirmed. I told her that everyone there has sins.
I said, what you’re worried about is what everyone will say. You need to understand that everyone there has sin of all types and all levels. You need to ignore what everybody else is saying. Pray to your Heavenly Father that the atonement of Jesus Christ can help you understand and love those people, even though they may be judging you. This way you can be tolerant of their sin, which is judging.
You need to go back to church and the spirit. The people at church will help you get to the point where you can be worthy to participate in church like you previously did.
I told her that Satan had sold her on the notion that she had to clean her life up before she could go back to church. I told her that this was not the way it works.
I told her that Satan had been whispering to her ever since her husband cheated. I told her that Satan had whispered to her and told her to blame God, he had told her to do the things that she’s been doing, and he had told her not to go to church. He told her she couldn’t go to church and she was listening to him and doing everything he said. I said, have you ever thought that you would be the kind of woman that would do everything a man told you to do without questioning him?
She said, no, I wouldn’t do that! I said, that’s what you’ve been doing. Satan‘s been telling you what to do and you’ve just been letting him guide you around. It’s time to stop!
I said, you need to go back to church and work through it. I told her that her daughter was praying for her tonight. I told her that her daughter was praying for a miracle. I told her that I knew that while her daughter was on her mission, she was praying for her and that’s why she was in my car.
I asked her again, what have you felt in my car? She said, I felt peace, I felt love, and I felt the spirit. I said, these feelings should be a testimony to you that the things I’ve said are true and that God has a plan for you to come back. He’s even given you your daughter as your own personal missionary.
I told her that God wants her back now God wants to help her get there. The church is the hospital where they bandage you up and put the medicine on you to help you overcome your challenges. she said again, I know that God put me in your car tonight. I was supposed to hear this.
By this time we were at the apartment where her daughter and son were and she was going to run in to take the food to them. She was supposed to come right back out and get in the car. She said, I’m going to mention this ride to my daughter. I said, that’s great! Why are you going back to that place? She said, I don’t know.
She got the food and went into the apartment. I waited for 15 minutes and then I texted her on the app and I said, are you coming back out to go? I hope you’ve decided to stay. I can just end the ride. She said, just a minute.
Then she texted me back and she said that she had been talking with her daughter about our ride and she had decided to stay there.
I told her to remember to go to church on Sunday and she said she would. I ended the ride and drove off. I couldn’t believe the turn that ride had taken. I couldn’t even believe I picked her up but I knew that Heavenly Father had sent me in there to pull her out of that den of iniquity. I was happy he did.
That daughter who just finished her mission, who prayed for this opportunity, was having her prayers answered that night and God was going to see to it!
Sometimes God sends you a lift 