I picked up a guy in Pleasant Grove. He was heading to work down in Lindon and it was going to be a pretty quick ride. As soon as I saw him standing on the corner by his house next to a chapel, the spirit whispered that I would be talking with him about the gospel. I just had to find a way to get into it pretty quickly because it was a short ride. He was from Ecuador but he spoke fairly decent English and he was a really sharp young man.
We talked about how long he had been here and then I started speaking Spanish with him. This is a departure from my normal routine because I want to honor the efforts they have put forth learning English. He said that he was very impressed by my Spanish and asked where I learned it. This was perfect. I saw my opening and took it. I told him that I learned how to speak Spanish in Argentina on my church mission. He said that he had friends that were members of the church and that they talked about religion all the time.
He said that he was Christian. I asked, you say you’re Christian, but weren’t you baptized Catholic? That assumption is not a big stretch by any means with a Latino and he acknowledged that he was baptized Catholic. He said that now he considers himself a Christian because it’s a little looser and not quite so steep in some of the traditions that he thought were incorrect. He said that the truth is that both felt a bit incomplete.
I asked him if his friends had talked to him very much about our church and if he had gone to church. He said that he had gone to church once and they had talked but that he had not ever heard anything that would make him think about joining our church. He said, especially a church that seemed to require as much as the Mormon church.
I asked him if he minded if I threw out some questions. He said, no! That would be great. Fire away! That’s all I needed.
Most of the time when I teach someone in my car, I have impressions of things to teach, concepts or specific things that I need to say to that person. This time it didn’t come like that, this time the impression was to ask this series of questions. I knew that it would lead me to how to approach this young man. It laid out in my mind very neatly and so I started.
What I was supposed to do was ask him a series of questions until he realized he didn’t have the answers and therefore he would realize he needed more. I knew this would point us to our discussion. I knew that this would be my opportunity to teach and testify but I needed to approach it properly.
I was a little bit worried because this is an aggressive act and there’s always a risk with the rideshare company if you make people feel uncomfortable. They will kick you off their platform. I said a little prayer and started in.
I asked him how he visualized Heavenly Father. He said he loved Heavenly Father. I asked him if Heavenly Father was the father of everyone in the world or just some of us. He said that Heavenly Father is the God of every single person. I asked him if he was the God of every person no matter where they lived or no matter when they lived and he said yes.
I asked him if baptism was important. He said, yes it’s very important. I asked him why baptism was important in a Christian religion. He said, well, you can’t go to heaven unless you’ve been baptized. I asked him if that was the rule for everyone or if there was anyone who was exempted from the need to be baptized. He said, absolutely not. I asked him if that standard held true for everyone no matter where they lived or no matter when they lived. He said, yes. Everyone needs to be baptized.
I took a breath and realized I probably sounded like Perry Mason on a cross examination. I chuckled to myself and continued.
I summarized for him. I said, so what you’re telling me is that every person who was ever born, no matter when they were born, no matter where they lived, needs to be baptized or they can’t live with their father in heaven. He said yes.
I asked, and each one of these people is a beloved child of a perfect, all powerful Heavenly Father? He said, yes, that’s what I believe.
I asked him if Heavenly Father‘s plan was perfect? He said yes. I asked him if God was just and he said yes. I asked him if every person who had ever lived would have an opportunity to hear the gospel and be baptized.
He thought for a good long while and said, I guess they would have to. I believe they would. I asked him how his religion teaches that people that were born 600 years ago in China, where they never heard the word of Jesus Christ or the name of Jesus Christ or about the concept of baptism could possibly be baptized and be taught. He thought about it for a moment and said, well, I’m sure they can somehow.
I said, it just feels right doesn’t it? He said, yes that would feel right. I asked him if I a just God would make an arrangement for that situation and he said absolutely. He said, “that’s so many people”. He said, when you think about that, there are more people on earth who don’t hear about Jesus than people who do.
He said, there’s China, India, parts of Africa and the Middle East where they don’t hear about Jesus. He said he was sure that God would make an adjustment for these people so that they could have the gospel someday.
I asked him what the specific teaching of his religion was regarding these people. He said after pondering the question for several seconds, there was no teaching in his church that he knew of. He said, let me think about what the Catholics teach. Then he said, I can’t remember them teaching anything about these people. I added, you’re right, they don’t believe in it to the extent that if a child dies without a baptism, they believe that child is not saved.
He said, that’s crazy. I never thought about that. There’s a great big hole in this whole thing. I said, that’s true! I said, these religions teach some very good things but they don’t have the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
I said, all of the things that you’ve said about needing to be baptized, needing to confess Jesus, needing to have faith and being saved by Jesus are all very true. They were taught in the Bible and that’s how it’s done. Jesus Christ is the only way back to our father in heaven. I told him that baptism is the key that opens the door and without a baptism there’s not one person that can get back to our father in heaven. I told him, you’ve taught me good doctrine but you don’t have the fullness of that doctrine. I said, there are a couple of things you are missing to get to a fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
In the Bible, in Peter, it talks about how Jesus went to teach the gospel to the spirits in prison who had not been taught during their lives so that they could have the teachings of the gospel. He did this during the three days after he was crucified and before he was resurrected. I told him, this is very important because now we know that everyone of God‘s children no matter where they were born or when they were born, under good or bad circumstances, will all be taught the gospel of Jesus Christ. They will all have a chance to accept Jesus Christ as their savior. We learned that from the apostle Peter and that’s true.
I told him that in the New Testament it also talks about baptism for the dead. I told him that it was a teaching of Jesus Christ that was mentioned in the Bible because they understood the importance of providing a baptism for everyone. They need baptism regardless of whether they learned the gospel on the Earth or after they passed.
I told him that this is God‘s plan. I told him that God has a plan to save every one of his children, no matter where they lived or when they lived. They all receive the teachings of Jesus Christ and they all have a baptism performed for them so that they can return home to their father in heaven. He said, that’s beautiful! Why don’t they teach that in church?
I talked to him about the apostasy and how the church was originally founded by Jesus Christ. I said that when he founded the church it was perfect. It had all of his teachings and all of his doctrines. It taught the importance of ordinances and covenants. It was a complete church. It was a perfect church. It was founded and organized by Jesus Christ who was perfect.
I asked him if he thought Jesus was perfect and he said yes. I asked him if the church that Jesus Christ founded was perfect. He said yes.
Then we talked about how evil people killed all the apostles and all the prophets. I used my analogy of the mirror. If you have a big mirror hanging on the wall and it is held up by 12 pegs for support what happens if those 12 pegs are removed? What happens to that mirror? He said, it falls onto the floor and breaks into 1 million pieces.
I said, that’s exactly right and that’s what happened to the church. Jesus organized his perfect church with prophets and apostles. They were the pegs that held it up with all of its doctrines, ordinances and covenants. I said, one by one, those apostles and prophets were killed. They spred out all over the world to teach of Jesus and one by one they were killed by people who were evil and wanted to stop the gospel of Jesus Christ.
These disciples wrote down some of their teachings and that’s why we have the Bible and religion today. I asked him, what happened to that church when all of the pegs that held it up were taken out? He said, I guess it fell. I added “and broke into 1 million pieces too”? He said yes.
I told him that people still loved the teachings of Jesus and they had the writings of these apostles that 400 years later became the Bible. In the meantime, they grabbed a hold of these teachings. They went to the mirror and grabbed little pieces, as many as they could carry and put them on the wall and continued using them as if it were the full mirror, even though they didn’t have the complete mirror.
Many of the pieces were lost. Some people would grab one piece of the gospel and others grabbed another piece of the gospel but nobody had the full gospel. Nobody had the full mirror. They just couldn’t put all the pieces back together.
This is where we lost some very important parts of the gospel like God‘s plan to save all of his children, no matter where they lived and no matter when they lived. I said, today we have that knowledge and that doctrine. I said, we believe that all those people are taught in the spirit world and have the chance to accept the gospel of Jesus Christ under perfect circumstances.
I asked him if he’d ever heard of our temples. He said, yes. There is one right down by the freeway and there’s one in American Fork. I said, that’s right. He said, I went outside of one with my friends one time. It’s a very peaceful place. I said, that peace that you felt when you were there was the spirit of God. That’s his house and it is a very holy place. He said, you could feel that.
I said, in that temple, we do what we call baptisms for the dead, where we are baptized in behalf of someone who has passed away. These people died without receiving their baptism. I told him that every person that has ever been born will have a baptism performed for them in one of these temples. I told him that we have temples all over the world and this is what we do there. I said, this is God‘s plan to give every one of his children the chance to hear the words of Jesus Christ and accept the baptism of Jesus Christ performed for them. That way every one of God‘s children can come home to him. That makes it a perfect plan.
I said, a perfect father in heaven with perfect love for his children would create a perfect plan that would give each one of them a chance to come home to him. He said, wow that’s incredible! That’s deep! I’ve never thought about that.
I asked him if he’d heard about Joseph Smith. He said yes. I told him that Joseph Smith was a young man just like he was. He was looking for the gospel of Jesus Christ and he went to all the churches in his area. He found out that each one of them had a piece of the gospel of Jesus Christ but he couldn’t find one that had all of the pieces together.
I told him that this concerned him because he wanted to have the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ with all of the teachings and all of the ordinances but he couldn’t find that church. I said he read in the Bible that he should ask God if he needed wisdom.
He decided to do exactly that. He went to the forest, knelt and prayed. God the father and Jesus Christ descended from heaven, appearing to him and called him to be the prophet. I told him that they called him to be the prophet to restore the whole church, the whole gospel, the complete mirror just like Jesus Christ had when he was on earth.
I said, that’s our church, just like the church of Jesus Christ of old. We have a prophet, apostles and all of the ordinances to save all of God‘s children no matter when they were born or where they were born. I said, that’s what a loving Father in heaven would do.
He said, that sounds exactly right. I had never thought through that before. I kind of looked at it as just choosing the church where you had the most fun or liked the preacher but you make a good point. It has to be the church of Jesus Christ. It has to be the exact church of Jesus Christ.
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again when you teach about the prophet Joseph Smith and the first vision, there’s nothing like it. The spirit always comes in the car and it was incredible. I could see it opening his heart and his mind and it lit him up. I asked him what he felt and he said, I feel like what you’re saying is exactly true. I’m wondering why my friends didn’t say that to me and I’m thinking that I need to ask them about it here when I get to work.
I asked him what he felt in his heart and he said tremendous peace. I said, that’s what you felt at the temple too, isn’t it? He thought for a second and said yes. I said, that peace is how you know that the spirit of God is testifying to you of truth. When you are around the spirit, this is how you feel and the spirit comes to let you know that the things you’re hearing are true.
He said, I can’t argue with that. I think everything you said here was true. I told him that Joseph Smith also translated the Book of Mormon. He said, I know about the Book of Mormon. My friends gave me one.
I asked him if he knew what was in the Book of Mormon. He said that he really didn’t know but he was interested to find out especially now.. I asked him if he wanted me to give him a quick sneak peek. He said yes.
I said, it goes back to the fact that God loves everybody no matter where they live and your ancestors here in America were no different. God loved them and the way God shows his love is by giving us commandments and he does that through prophets. I told him, there were prophets here in America amongst your ancestors.
I told him that they wrote down their prophecies on metal plates, including the account of the visit of Jesus Christ to his ancestors here in America. I told him about how Jesus descended from heaven after his resurrection. He taught the people, blessed the people and gave them this same baptism. I told him that he commanded them to be baptized, even though they had already been baptized before. It was an invitation to receive his baptism, to this new level of discipleship and understanding. It was a perfect baptism.
I told him that those plates were given to Joseph Smith and he translated them by the power of God. That is why we have the Book of Mormon. It’s another testament of Jesus Christ. It is more evidence that Jesus Christ is the savior of all of the world.
We were pulling into his work and the spirit was burning in the car. He said, I’m gonna read my Book of Mormon. I’m going to go in here to work and talk to my friends. I just never realized that I didn’t know God‘s plan at all. I want to do what God wants me to do. I want to find the truth.
I told him that if he will read the Book of Mormon and pray, his friends will be able to help him. He said, they’ve been trying already but having you ask, these questions made me realize that I needed more information. It all makes so much sense. He rubbed my head and said, this has been a great ride! I’ve learned things I needed to know. I’ve got answers I never knew I needed but now I know they’re important and I felt the spirit of God. This was a perfect ride. You’re awesome. He got out of the car and went into work.
Sometimes God sends you a lift 