I have kind of an update from something‘s cooking in the Vineyard. When I wrote that story, he had gone to church with me and said that he wanted to be baptized. I had introduced him to the bishop and the missionaries. I thought this thing was going to be easy.
Three weeks later I hadn’t heard anything and I reached out to the missionaries and they said that they hadn’t been able to get with him to set a date. I confirmed with them that he had attended church every Sunday and was part of the choir and attended choir practice every Sunday. I asked them how that could possibly be. I suggested that maybe they pull him out of the gospel principal class if they were having problems hooking up in the week. They said they would try.
The following week I called them after their meetings were over and after I had returned home from church myself. I asked them what date they were able to set for his baptism. They said they hadn’t been able to set a date because they hadn’t been able to teach him. I asked them if it would be possible for me to pick him up from work at 1 AM, drive him home and talk to him to try to set a date. They said for me to go ahead.
I sent him a text and picked him up that night. I asked him when he thought that he should get baptized. He said, I don’t know anything about your church other than the spirit I feel there and what we have talked about in your car. I asked him what the missionaries had taught him and he said not one thing.
We spent the next hour and a half talking about the first vision and the Book of Mormon. The spirit was there and we identified it. He said that he felt fired up by the spirit and was ready to be baptized. We set a date for two weeks in advance so that they would have time to teach the lessons. We were both really excited.
I told him that the missionaries had to meet with him about six times to teach the stuff that I had taught him and some other things. He said, that sounds great.
I asked him when would be a time that the missionaries could meet with him and he said any day between one and three in the afternoon. He said he had very few nights available, but all of his afternoons were wide open.
I texted this information to the missionaries and left it in their hands again. The night before the baptismal date that we had set, I got a text from the missionaries telling me that they hadn’t been able to teach him any lessons and that he wouldn’t be ready to be baptized the following day. This is six weeks now.
I was very frustrated but I felt like the Lord had put me in a unique situation here to help get this man over the line. I met him after work that night and he reiterated to me what the missionaries had told him. He did say that they met one evening with a family but they ended up talking to the family and not teaching him. He said it was kind of confusing and very frustrating. We talked about the commandments and the plan of salvation. The spirit was there and I testified. We set another date for his baptism that had been suggested by the missionaries for two weeks later.
By this point, I decided that I was going to go over every Sunday night and drive him home from work.
That Sunday I asked him what days he met with the missionaries that week. He said that they hadn’t been able to meet with him. I asked him to give them a call the next day or send them a text telling them when he was available. He said that he would. I told him that I would follow up with him. At the end of the week when I did follow up with him, he said that the missionaries hadn’t been able to meet with him again that week.
By this point it had been over a month since the missionaries talked to me. They quit returning my phone calls and would not answer my texts. I was very frustrated that we had blown through two baptismal dates and not had a discussion. We had a guy who wanted to get baptized and goes to church every week and I couldn’t believe we were making it this hard.
That Sunday night when I picked him up. we talked about all of the issues in his life and how he will be blessed if he would follow God even though sometimes it’s very difficult. I said that you have to keep at it. I asked, do you want to feel the spirit all the time? He said yes. I said, we need to follow through with this.
I had an idea. I said, it seems to me that you’re asking the missionaries when they want to meet with you. It’s their job to meet with you at your convenience. Send them a text setting the dates and times. I told him that I wanted him to include me on the text. I said, in that text, tell them that you can meet Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at 2 PM this week and next week.
I said, in those times they should be able to teach you the things that you need to know and prepare you for your baptism. He said he would do that and he did. The missionaries responded and everything was great. They set a baptismal date for April 20th and everything was great.
Thursday night, the 18th, I was driving in Orem at 2 AM. I had just finished talking to one of my friends who drives about how I had a baptism on Saturday and how excited I was. During that conversation I got a ride to pick up my investigator friend from his apartment complex and take him to his second job.
I’ve never taken him to his second job before. At first I thought that this was quite a coincidence, then I realized that I don’t believe in coincidence and so I prepared myself. I prayed all the way there.
He came out, got in my car and the first thing he did was apologize to me that he wouldn’t be getting baptized on Saturday. It was now Friday morning at about 2 o’clock. I asked him why. He said, tithing. He said no one told him about tithing.
I asked him what the missionaries told him when he said that he didn’t want to be baptized because he didn’t know about tithing. He said, they rescheduled my baptism for three weeks from now.
I decided that I was going to teach him about tithing on his way to work. He had talked to me about how he had all these bills that he was trying to get cleaned up. He wanted to get his financial house in order so I knew this was a sensitive topic for him.
I read him the verse from Malachi 3: 8-10 and talked to him about how God would open the windows of heaven and give you a blessing so great that you wouldn’t be able to receive it all. I told him these are spiritual blessings and temporal blessings. I told him that one really cool thing about this scripture is that God says prove me with this. I told him, throughout the scriptures God says we’re not supposed to ask for proof except with this scripture. God says to prove him with tithing. I promised to him that if he would pay his tithing, go to church, continue reading the Book of Mormon and say his prayers, God would bless him, his finances and his spirituality. I told him that if he would do these things, he would see the hand of God in his endeavor. I talked to him about learning to pay tithing and how in my personal life, I have seen God make things work out when there was no way it should have.
I told him about teaching tithing to very poor people on my mission who were tremendously blessed and never miss paying tithing because they have seen God’s hand in their lives because of it. I told him that these people attribute their ability to take care of their families even in their poverty because they pay tithing. They say the blessing of the Lord is what feeds them. I told him that it’s time for him to show some faith.
I said, you feel the spirit don’t you? He said yes. I asked , what does the fact that you feel the spirit right now mean? He said, it means that I should pay my tithing. It means that this is what God would have me do.
I said, so your situation is resolved! You can be baptized! He said, yes, yes I can. He asked , what do I do? At three in the morning there’s not much you can do but I told him that he should send a text to the missionaries. He asked me if I thought it would be OK for him to send them a WhatsApp message instead. I said yes.
He sent that message saying that he had talked with me and felt the spirit regarding the law of tithing. He said to them, I am ready to commit to live the law of tithing and to be baptized. He told them that he still wanted to be baptized the following day if it would be something that they could still arrange.
I watched carefully to make sure he hit the send button and wondered what the deal would be the next morning when the missionaries received that message.
I dropped him off at work and went home. That was my last ride of the night. It’s kind of funny how God works that way.
In the morning at 8 o’clock, I woke up with a start. The first thing on my mind was the missionaries and I decided to take a play out of his playbook and use WhatsApp. The nice thing about WhatsApp is that you can see when they look at your message.
I sent the missionaries a message and asked them if they received his message. They said yes! They said that they were very excited. They said that they had the church ready to go for 2 o’clock on Saturday and they had contacted everybody that needed to be contacted.
They said, it’s a miracle! I believe they are right, it is a miracle! God is great! Hurrah for Israel!!!
Sometimes God sends you a lift 