One day I was driving back from Salt Lake. I had just dropped my friend Blaine and his wife off at the airport and I was working my way back home. I had just taken a ride that brought me over to Herriman, which took a few minutes shy of forever to accomplish. I was thinking about turning off the app and just going home for dinner. It was 5:30 already and I just didn’t know if I had another ride in me.
I felt strongly impressed that I should leave it on anyway. I had the directional parameter setting on so I knew I was going to be heading in the direction I needed to go. Finally, I got a ride. It had me dipping a little bit into Salt Lake before coming along the Pony Express Road at Point of the Mountain where I was supposed to pick up my guy.
I could see his GPS showing that he was down at the bottom of this gravel road by the river. He worked down there at his smasher that created sand out of gravel. It was a dirty business. I decided to drive down to get him instead of waiting for him to move up to me. I could see that he was moving and when I got down to him, I saw that he was riding on a scooter. Can you imagine driving up a pretty steep hill on gravel with a scooter? That doesn’t sound like a great plan to me.
I pulled up and he put his scooter in my trunk and got in my car. He was filthy, dirty and dusty but he was going to Orem and that was perfect! I couldn’t have asked for a better ride to finish off my pre dinner driving session.
As we started to drive, I got the impression that he was going to an addiction recovery meeting of some sort. I had the feeling that he was an addict but that he had been clean for a while and he was battling it hard.
I tried to get him to talk about it a little bit because I knew that it was part of what we needed to talk about. I asked him what kind of a meeting it was that he was going to and he just kind of deflected. We talked about where we were from and all that small talk. This was my way of trying to break down the wall.
Finally, I just came out and asked it. I asked, are you going to an addiction recovery meeting? He said, how do you know? Yes I am.
He told me the story about how he had lost his CDL because he become addicted to drugs. He had become addicted to painkillers after a medical procedure and then it took over his life. He had been arrested twice for driving under the influence of these drugs but the judge was working with him. That’s why he was going to this meeting.
I felt very strongly that I needed to tell him that his father in heaven loved him. I talked about being with our father in heaven in the preexistence and how that bond transcends the years and the space between us and our father in heaven. I said, that feeling and relationship you have developed with him is the most central feeling in your existence and you are hardwired in your soul to crave that.
I told him that the problem is that Satan counterfeits that feeling with drugs and riotous living. He tries to stuff his counterfeit in that part of your soul that craves the spirit of our father in heaven. I said, it’s like eating cotton candy, there’s nothing there and you just have to eat more and more and more. That’s how you end up in a bad way. I said, you end up chasing a high. That craving and chase ensnares you and you find it very difficult to get out.
I told him that the way out is filling that hole with the very thing that was divinely intended to be there, the spirit of God. I said, if you do that, it will help you fight the cravings and give you heavenly help in your endeavor.
He said, I’m glad you brought up the God thing. That has become very important to me. He said, I was baptized in the Mormon church one time when I was young but I was never someone who attended church much. I haven’t believed in that church for a long time.
He said, what I do know is that it keeps coming up. He said, one night, not too long ago. I was sitting there contemplating my horrific situation. I looked up and I saw a man next to me dressed in white. I’m not sure if it was an angel or Jesus Christ, but I thought it was Jesus. I was told that my only way out of this was in the Mormon church. I decided to start going.
A couple of days later I was camping instead of going to church. I had drugs with me and planned to indulge. That same person appeared in my tent next to me and said, “you’re kidding me right? You know what you need to do. You need to quit this and go to the Mormon church”.
My passenger said, I started going to the Mormon church, I liked it ok and all, the people were friendly but it wasn’t quite doing it for me. I was confused and starting to wonder what was going on.
It just seemed to me that I grew up loving the Bible and at church they never talked about the Bible. All they ever talked about was the Book of Mormon. They never talked about the apostles and Jesus, just the Book of Mormon. He said, I guess that’s not totally fair. They mentioned the Bible, but they talked about the Book of Mormon more than anything.
I assumed that this was some point last year when we were doing the Book of Mormon for Sunday School. I also know that sometimes when people haven’t got a basic understanding of the Book of Mormon, the conversations we as members have about it can be misconstrued.
He looked at me and said “I feel like I’m supposed to ask you, Bruce, can you help me understand? What am I missing here or was I being misled all along?”
It was a pretty incredible experience. The spirit had been in the car since I very first started talking about Heavenly Father and his love. It had been in the car when he talked about his vision and it was in the car as he asked these very sincere questions. He wasn’t questioning me. He was begging for information, confirmation and help.
I said, first off you need to know that those are very good questions and that I have very good answers to those questions. I said, the Bible and the Book of Mormon are one. In Ezekiel, it says that you write on one stick for Judah and the other stick for Joseph and they will be one in your hand. I said, anciently they wrote on sticks or scrolls that were kept on sticks so in this scripture they are talking about scriptures.
I asked him what he thought the stick of Judah would be referring to. He very quickly said, it’s the Bible. I said, you’re right. The Bible was written by the prophets in Israel. That is the stick of Judah.
I asked him, what is this other stick ? He thought for a minute and said he didn’t know. I said, that other stick is the Book of Mormon. It was written by the prophets who were here in America and they were descendants of Joseph who was another of the sons of Israel.
I said, this scripture says that there would be a stick of Judah, which is the Bible and a stick from Joseph, which is the Book of Mormon and that you would bring them together in one hand. It means that they would testify together that Jesus is the Christ.
The Book of Mormon was prophesied of in the Bible. I said, God had prophets in America because he loves everyone not just the people in Jerusalem.
I asked him, does God love everyone in the world or just some of the people in the world? He said, God loves everyone and he’s perfect. I said, why would he only take care of the ones that live in Jerusalem if he loves them all? Does that make sense? He said, no, I never thought of it that way.
I told him that in the Bible in Amos, it says that God would do nothing save he revealed his secrets to his servants the prophets. I asked him if God was doing things in the world these days. He said, yes! Absolutely! I said, well, according to the Bible, what do we need to have on the Earth to receive those secrets? He said, I guess prophets.
I told him that God gave commandments to the prophets who lived in ancient America. They wrote them down just like the prophets in the Bible had done and they prophesied that Jesus Christ would come to them and visit them.
I said, in the Bible Jesus said that he had other sheep that he was going to go visit so that they could hear his voice and be counted among his fold. I asked him where he thought those other sheep were and he said that he supposed that they were in America given the way I was asking the question.
I told him that he was very astute. I told him that after Jesus was resurrected, he descended from heaven in America. I told him that the people came up and touched the prints of the nails in his hands and in his feet. They knew this was their God, they cried and bathed his feet with their tears. They were overwhelmed by being in his presence.
My passenger was tearing up. I said, I can tell you are feeling and remembering what you have seen and relating it to these ancient people in America. I said, they asked to be saved, and he gave them baptism so that they could be clean and the Holy Ghost so that they could remain clean. He taught them that they could be cleansed through repentance throughout the rest of their lives. He gave them the gift of the Holy Ghost so that they could walk with God when he returned to heaven.
My rider said, “that Holy Ghost part is important. I never thought of it like that”. I said, it’s one of the most important tools God gives us to fight evil.
I said, the Book of Mormon is really important because it’s another testament of Jesus Christ. We have the Old Testament and the New Testament plus the Book of Mormon another Testament of Jesus Christ. It testifies of his divinity, it testifies of the Bible, and it brings us closer to Jesus Christ and our father in heaven.
I told him that the Book of Mormon was the collection of writings of the prophets who lived in America and it was translated by the prophet Joseph Smith. He was the first modern prophet. He saw God the Father and Jesus Christ. I told him that they called him to be the prophet to restore the church with all of the authority needed to bring us home. I said, we have a prophet on earth today and he has all of that authority.
He said, see I have a little problem with this prophet on the Earth today thing. I just don’t see how that would work. I told him that in Ephesians, it says that the church of Jesus Christ would have apostles and prophets until there’s a unity of the faith. I asked him what it meant to have a unity of the faith. He said, that everybody is together and agrees. I asked him if that’s the case in the Christian world today. He thought for a second and said, no way.
I said, then, if the Bible is true, there have to be apostles and prophets on the Earth today, right? He thought for a second and said, I never considered that and you make a very good point. I used this opportunity to bear my testimony of Joseph Smith and the restoration of the gospel. I testified of the Book of Mormon and the spirit it brings to our hearts when we read it. I also testified that we have a prophet on the Earth today and that God continues to be God. He continues to show us his love through revelation to his chosen prophets for us.
I could tell he accepted that and believed in the words that I was saying.
I said, one thing you need to remember is that Satan is a liar. He tells you the Book of Mormon isn’t true, it’s a lie. He tells you that the church isn’t true, it’s a lie. He tells you that you can’t win against your addiction, it’s a lie. He tells you they don’t want you at church, it’s a lie. He tells you that you can’t be clean, it’s a lie and he tells you that people are judging you and don’t want you around them, it’s a lie. I said, Satan is a liar. I said, Satan has had his hooks in you and God is making a tremendous effort to rescue you.
I said, Satan knows who we are and he knows our weaknesses. It’s a full court press. God also knows who we are, he loves us, and he is relentless in his efforts to save us. I said, God is more powerful than Satan so he will always win, but the decision is up to us
My passenger said, I don’t know if you can feel it right now, but I can see that God is with you. He is working through you to help me. I can feel the spirit of God here with me and I know the things that you’re saying are true. I can’t believe I let those doubts get to me. I can’t believe that I just accepted the lie without asking questions and getting answers. He said, I need to start reading the Book of Mormon. I need to have faith and I need to do what I’ve been told to do.
He asked, did you know that God put me in your car today? I said, yes I do. I told him that God puts people in my car and that when he got in the car I had a very distinct prompting about him, his life and the things we were supposed to talk about. He said, you knew things you weren’t supposed to know but here’s something you don’t know. When I ordered the car, I heard in my ear somebody say Bruce. Then I looked down and it was assigning me a driver. Once it finally settled on a driver it was you. That was God telling me that he sent you. Then you started right in on the church and talking about God. God and you brought that message to me. He said, this has been the most incredible 20 minutes of my life.
We were just then pulling up to the building and he got out and went in. The funny thing about it is for some reason we got extra car time. The exit that we needed to get off on was blocked to my vision and I couldn’t see it. We went up to the next exit and drove around the long way to get there. That is the reason we had just enough time to talk about all the things that we needed to talk about. God had a message. It was all about rescuing this son on this day.
I’m not going to pretend that I have a tremendous amount of knowledge regarding gifts of the spirit. Certainly there are many of my friends who have a better understanding than I do regarding this thing. What I do know is that I saw a man that was tremendously spiritually gifted. Even though he had been away from the church for almost his entire life he accessed the spirit. He was seeing the things that I was feeling. He was also incredibly sensitive and receptive to the truth that I taught because of the witness of the spirit that was present. His father in heaven was using those gifts to save him and bring him home. I believe he will succeed.
Sometimes God sends you a lift 