Welcome back, we’ve been waiting for you. Your meeting starts at 11.

One day I was driving a guy from southwest Provo up to the river bottoms shopping center. When he got in the car, he had great big huge noise canceling headsets on. That truthfully is a sign that says “don’t bug me, I don’t want to be bugged.“

Right off the bat, I felt prompted that I needed to talk to this young man about the church, so figuring out a way to do that was important. You will get a poor rating more quickly than anything by talking to someone who doesn’t want to be talked to. It kind of amazes me how you can get in somebody else’s car and then be vindictive and angry when they talk to you. I, on the other hand, can’t shut up and for whatever reason sometimes fall into this trap. I have become quite proficient in many topics so as to keep there from being uncomfortable silence.

The GPS took us around the corner right by my brother-in-law Johnny’s old house i mentioned to him that my brother-in-law used to live there. He grunted, “I’ve only lived here six months”.

I decided I needed to find a better way because I knew I was supposed to talk to him. As we drove down the street the feeling intensified and I was racking my brain trying to figure out something I could say that would start a conversation and would allow me to bring up the church.

I decided to go with what he had given me, which was that he wasn’t from that neighborhood originally. I asked him where else he had lived. He said, all over Utah. I asked him if his parents were from Utah. He said that his mother was from Utah. She was from Utah County but his dad was from Mexico. I asked him how they met and if he spoke Spanish. He said he didn’t speak a word of Spanish and that they met on his mother‘s mission.

I had momentary doubts about the prompting I received because if he had a returned missionary mother and she had married someone from her mission, certainly I wouldn’t be getting the nonmember vibes. I was thinking that if this were the case, I wouldn’t be prompted to say the things I was feeling like I needed to say.

I asked him what ward he went to which again is a toe in the water kind of approach and then he told me what I needed to know. He said, well, not really any. I consider myself to be Catholic because my dad is Catholic and I was baptized and took the communion as a Catholic. I consider myself to be Mormon because my mom is Mormon and I was baptized as a Mormon but that is as far as it goes. Neither one of them is really my church. I don’t have a church, I just don’t go to church.

I said, that’s interesting. Did your mom tell you why she went on a mission? He said, I’m guessing it was to meet my dad but she’s never told me why or had that conversation with me. I said, she went on a mission because the spirit of God told her that she should. I told him that when we read the Book of Mormon we feel the spirit of God and it encourages us to do the things that God would have us do. I said, having the spirit of God prompting her to want to go share that with other people is why she went. He laughed when he said, so she didn’t go there looking for a husband? I said, probably not but it worked out pretty well for you! We both chuckled.

I asked him if his mom still went to church and he said that she never did while he was growing up but now she goes with his grandma. I asked him if he knew the differences between our church and the Catholic church. He said, no but I would be interested to learn someday. I asked, what about today? Why don’t we learn some of that between here and your work.

About this time, he sat up in his seat and took his headphones off. I knew the spirit was moving with this guy and that the next few minutes were going to be important. I looked down at the GPS and we had about nine minutes remaining in the ride . I figured that we could cover some good stuff between here and there.

He said, I really don’t even know the basics of the Mormon church. I know that there’s a Book of Mormon because I have one but I don’t know anything about it. I know that there’s a person named Joseph Smith but I don’t really know who he is. I know that they have a prophet in charge of their church today but I don’t know what any of that means.

I thought that was a good point to start. I asked him if he knew what a prophet was. He said, not really, is it like the pope? I told him that the pope is the head of the Catholic church but that he’s not a prophet. I said, a prophet is a person called by God to receive revelation for all of the people in the world. When God wants to speak to the world, he speaks through his prophet. He gives him the words to say and the things to teach. He truly is a living conduit of revelation from God.

I said, even the pope himself has said that he’s not a prophet but rather he is the caretaker of the church. We believe that God has always had prophets. We believe that this is how he works and because of that he has prophets on the Earth today.

I said that after the prophets in the Bible died we went a long time without prophets until Joseph Smith was called to be the prophet to restore the church of Jesus Christ on the earth. He said, I know Joseph Smith was important. I said, Joseph Smith was just a little younger than you and was looking for the true church. Joseph Smith said that all of the churches claimed to have the truth, but they all taught different things and he didn’t know which one to join. My rider said, Bingo! I can relate.

I said, he read in the Bible, in James, that he should ask of God and decided to do just that. He went to the forest and prayed. When I said this he interrupted and said, well that makes sense because when I’m in the forest I feel close to God. I think that’s a good place to go.

I said, he said that he went to a quiet place in the forest where he had previously decided to go. He knelt and prayed. I told him that Joseph Smith prayed and asked his question of God. That question was, which church he should join of all of the churches on the Earth. In answer to that prayer, God the father and Jesus Christ appeared to him

I said, they called him to be the prophet and to receive revelation to restore the church of Jesus Christ on the Earth as it had existed when Peter was the prophet. I said, our church is that same church.

He said, the Catholics teach that the bishops of Rome became the heads of the church. I said, these were good people but all of the people who had the authority of God to run the church were killed and only caretakers remained. They killed the prophets and that’s why the pope today says he’s not a prophet. It’s not part of his job description. I said, a prophet is something very different but very important in the church of Jesus Christ. I said, that’s why Joseph Smith was called to restore that church.

I asked him if he believed that God loved everyone and he said yes. I asked, everyone everywhere? He said yes. I asked, does God want us to be happy? He said, yes, of course he does.

I asked him, in the Bible, how did God protect the people and help them be happy? He thought and said, he told them what to do. I said, he did that through his prophets and they wrote those things down. That’s why we have the Bible . It is a collection of the revelations and workings of God with the people in Israel. He said, that sounds right.

I asked him if there were other people in the world that were not in Israel at the time. He said, of course, there were people all over the world. I asked him if they were God‘s children and if he loved them the same as the children of Israel. He said, absolutely, God loves everyone.

I asked him how God would have blessed them and made them happy? I said, if God is the same yesterday, today and forever, on every continent and in every country, how would he have blessed them and make them happy? Would he have done it the same way or would he have done it in a different way?

He said, I never thought of it that way but in the context of this conversation if he is the same, I suppose he would’ve done a similar thing to bless those people. He would’ve given them prophets. We just don’t know about them I guess.

I told him that here in America amongst his his father‘s ancestors there were prophets. I said, just like in Israel, they received revelation from God to teach the people how to be happy. I said, just like in the Bible they wrote down their revelations so these important things could be taught through the generations. I said, this is how God works.

I had the prompting that being happy was important to this young man and to that point he had struggled to find a way to be happy. He knew there was something missing but couldn’t identify it. I said, true happiness can only be found in obeying the words of God and unless we have them it is impossible to do this.

As I talked about this, it became very clear that the spirit was testifying to him. I could feel it and I knew he was feeling it too. This was kind of a rough and tumble kid who all of a sudden had tears in his eyes. I hadn’t said anything particularly emotional and I knew there wasn’t that much dust in the air. I knew he was feeling what I was feeling.

I said, the coolest thing is that God sends his spirit to testify of truth to us. When we feel his spirit, we know that we are hearing truth. This way we can know to follow the truth and those words and we can be happy. When we read the words of the prophet, we feel the spirit and know that we can be happy by doing these things. These things are confirmed by the spirit of God. This is why we have prophets.

I felt to get back to the Joseph Smith story and the Book of Mormon instead of pressing the identification of the spirit at that time. I thought that he was making the spirit connection all by himself and that I would talk about it again in a minute.

I talked about how his ancestors wrote those prophecies on plates, metal plates of gold. I told him that a prophet of God buried those plates in the ground to protect them and hundreds of years later, he showed Joseph Smith where they were. He gave them to him to be translated by the power of God. I told him that this is the Book of Mormon.

I told him that the Book of Mormon is the exact translation of what his ancestors on his dad side wrote, experienced, and how they were blessed by God. When they did the things they were supposed to do they were happy and blessed as much as anyone in the Bible.

I said, in the Bible, after Jesus was resurrected, he said that he had other sheep and he was going to go to them. I said, after he said that he ascended to heaven and then came to the people here in America. He did this because God loves all of his children not just the people in Jerusalem. God sent his son to everyone and not just one people.

I said that he descended from heaven in glory and the people touched the prints of the nails in his hands and cried saying, save us. They knew they had their God in front of them. Their prophets had testified that Jesus would come and now he was there in front of them.

As a direct response to their plea for salvation he called up 12 of them and gave them authority to baptize. He commanded everyone to be baptized with his baptism. These 12 later became apostles and prophets because the church of Jesus Christ always has apostles and prophets.

I told him that Jesus commanded these 12 to be baptized and commanded them to baptize everyone, even though they had previously been baptized in their churches. He taught them that it was important that they be baptized by his authority with his baptism and to make a covenant with him.

I told him that this was the same baptism that he had when he was eight. That baptism was done by that same authority. I told him that this baptism was the one that God recognized.

He noted the irony that his dad was Catholic but that the baptism that his ancestors had received from Jesus was the one that his mother led him to when he was eight. He said, I wonder why she didn’t stick with the church when I was young?

I told him that a lot of times people get lost in their lives. This is why we get the gift of the Holy Ghost. God knows that life is hard and Satan will pull on us. He will pull us away from happiness if he can. God gives us the gift of the Holy Ghost so that he can walk with us through those hard times.

I said, once the people in the Book of Mormon had been baptized, Jesus gave these apostles the authority to confer the gift of the Holy Ghost. I said, you received the gift of the Holy Ghost after your baptism. I said, men who held that same priesthood that Jesus gave to those apostles put their hands on your head and gave you the gift of the Holy Ghost and a blessing.

He said, oh!, That’s what that was. I said, yes, they gave you the ability to have God walk with you, help you with decisions and be a guide in this life when things get rough. I said, sometimes people in tough situations forget to look to God and they forget to walk with his spirit.

I said, it doesn’t make them bad people, it just means that they have forgotten to use their most potent weapon in the battle. I said, the fact that your mother took you to be baptized shows how important it is and was to her. It just seems to me that clearly she was in a battle. He said, you don’t know the half of it. Those were some dicey times. I said, she appears to be winning now.

I told him that God had put him in my car today to feel that spirit and reawaken it in him. This is when I was prompted to identify the spirit to him. I asked him what he was feeling right then. He said, it’s like my brain is exploding and my heart is swelling. It’s like being covered with a warm blanket but still having shivers. I thought that was very descriptive and I liked it.

I said, that is the spirit of God. That is the Holy Ghost. God sent you the Holy Ghost today to testify to you that the things I am saying are true. I asked, do you believe the things that I have said are true? He said, yes! I know they are true and I feel it at a very deep level.

I said, the thing about when the Holy Ghost testifies to us is we feel it deeply in our souls and in our hearts. He said, that’s exactly how it is. I said, did you notice that I never trashed your father‘s church? He said, yes, I appreciate that.

I said, they have some truth but they don’t have a prophet and they don’t have the authority of God that a prophet holds and passes down throughout the church so that the people can be blessed. They teach some good things but they don’t have it all. This is why your mom went on her mission. She went to take this knowledge of a prophet to those people.

The spirit was bouncing off the doors and he said, I like this. He said, your brother-in-law lived over in my neighborhood, right? I said, yes. He said, so I suppose that there is a church over there too. Right? I said yes. He said, maybe I should go. I said, I think that’s why Heavenly Father put you in this car today. I said, his spirit is here and the things you’re thinking right now are the things that he would have you do. That’s why we have the Holy Ghost, it guides us.

We quickly looked up his ward address and church times on the Internet. He said, oh that’s really close! The meetings started at 11 and he was grateful that it didn’t start earlier. He said, I think I’m going to go to church this week.

By this time we had been sitting at his work for a minute. I asked him if he was late and he said no, he still had another five minutes. I asked him again what it meant for him to have this feeling. He said, it’s opened my eyes. I want to do this.

I said, remember this feeling that you’re having right now and seek it out. If you always try to have this feeling with you, you will make good choices.

I said, today, God reached out to you to help you come home. It all comes back to the fact that he is your father and he loves you. He sent his spirit so that you could know this. My rider said, I like that.

I said, when we first started to talk you said you didn’t know which church was the right one, has that changed? Do you know which church is true? He said, that has all been cleared up for me now. I know which way I want to go. I know the church is true and I can’t wait to start reading the Book of Mormon.

He started to get out of the car. and I said, one last thing, go to your mom and tell her all about this ride and ask her to do this with you. If you tell her about this ride, she will feel the spirit and it will bless her life. He smiled and said, she’s had kind of a hard go in life so far and blessing her life is what I want to do more than anything.

He thanked me and said, I will do that, I will tell my mom and maybe she can go to church with me on Sunday at 11 too. He got out of the car and went into work.