One afternoon I picked up a kid on the Orem Lindon border over in the industrial area. When he got in my car, he seemed very happy. I like happy people.
This kid was from Mexico and he had been here this summer trying to figure out if there was any way he could work it out to go to school at UVU. His parents had both gone to UVU and had met while they were there. He was clean cut and very respectful. He spoke very good English with only a hint of an accent.
I listened to him talk about wanting to go to UVU. He had attended a couple of years of school in his home country yet was trying to find a way that he could have a similar college experience to that of his parents.
He had been here for a few months trying to work it out. While he had been here, he got a job and that’s where I picked him up. I asked him how his school search was going and he said, “it’s not looking good. I’ll probably end up going to the University of Arizona instead”.
He said that they had a program that would allow him to transfer most of the work he had done previously and he could graduate in two years. He said at UVU it would take a full four years. They were going to accept literally none of the work this kid had previously done. He shook his head and talked about how much money that would cost.
He seemed a little sad in saying this and he had resigned himself to his fate. He really did want to go to school in the United States but wanted to have this experience here at UVU. He had grown up listening to his parents talk about how much they loved it.
At first, I thought that he might be a member of the church. Even though I got the prompting that he wasn’t a member of the church it sure seemed like he was someone who was living their life the way they should.
Despite that prompting, I received an additional prompting to ask him, why not consider BYU? I thought about it for a second and started down that road.
I asked him, why not BYU? He looked at me and said, because we don’t have very much money. That would be really expensive. He told me that if he went to UVU, he could stay here and work to make it more affordable. He said, I’m afraid BYU is just out of my budget.
I asked him if he’d been up around BYU at all and he said, oh yes! I love it up there. I asked him if he talked with somebody about how much it would cost and he said no. He said that he knew that it was a private school and the private schools cost a lot of money. I said, all schools cost a lot of money, but I think you would be surprised to find out how affordable BYU is.
I spent the next few minutes laying out the cost of attending BYU for him. I let him know that there are two tiers. One is for people who are members of the church and the other is for non-members. When I told him what the cost was, he was shocked. He said, are you sure? That’s less than UVU.
I said to him that even though BYU was a private school, the tithing being paid by members of the church subsidizes the education of the people who attend there. I told him that this makes it very affordable. He was blown away. He said, I wish I’d known about that.
He said that he had signed up for Arizona and was planning to quit his job in three weeks. I said, it’s probably not too late to consider BYU. He said, it would be amazing. The owner of my work and all of his family went to BYU. One of the guys I work with is my good friend and he went to BYU too.
He said, it seems like a great school with great people. He asked, don’t you need to be a member of the church? He said, I’m not a member of that church. My parents really like the Mormons but I was baptized Catholic and have never been to a Mormon church.
I said, tell me about your friends at work. Do they ever talk to you about the church? He said, not really. I don’t really know anything about the church and I’ve been afraid to ask questions because I don’t want to offend anyone. I’m so glad that I’m their friend and so I haven’t pushed it. I said, they probably would like it if you pushed it and I chuckled.
He said, my friend at work is a good guy and he invited me to go to an open building celebration or an open temple day to tour one of your chapels. He said, I felt so bad because I couldn’t go and he hasn’t mentioned the church since. I felt like maybe I insulted him by not going with him but I really couldn’t make it. We just kind of left it at that and now I’ll be leaving.
I said, well, we call that thing he invited you to, a temple open house. We open our temples after they are built and before they are dedicated so that the people who live in the area can come in and see what it’s like inside the building. In the temple they feel the spirit of God. I said, that building is the house of God and it’s very easy to feel his spirit when you’re there. That’s why he wanted you to go. That’s what he wanted you to feel. I guarantee you he’s not upset. He was probably more afraid of having offended you.
He thought about it for a second and said, it’s just really weird talking about religion and I don’t know what to say sometimes. I don’t understand the Mormon church and it’s so different from the Catholic church.
I said, well, here we are in my car, I don’t know you and you don’t know me. Why don’t you ask me any questions that you have? He said, would that be OK with you? I said, yes! He said, are you sure you won’t be offended? I said, it’s pretty hard to offend me so let’s go.
He said, the Mormon church seems to be pretty strange in a lot of different ways and it all seems very disjointed to me. It doesn’t come together for me like the Bible does. Do you guys believe in the Bible? I said, yes we do! The Bible is the word of God and it is a compilation of the revelations from God and the writings of God’s prophets in Israel. It includes the account of the life of Jesus Christ on earth and it is one of the watts we get to know God. We believe that the only way you can return and live with your father in heaven is through his son Jesus Christ. Through his atonement and because of his resurrection, we will all live again.
He said, that sounds just like Catholics. Are you guys just like Catholics? I said, no, we have the teachings the Catholics have but we also have other teachings and other prophecies that help bring our discipleship of Jesus Christ into focus for us.
I told him that we believe God loves everyone and that we all lived with him in the preexistence. We knew him for thousands of years before we came to earth. I said, we loved him and it was the most essential feeling in our lives. I said, when we feel the spirit, we know what it’s like to be in the presence of God. I said, our souls crave this feeling by design. The spirit of God feeds our souls and makes us whole.
I told him that this goes for every person that ever lived, or who will ever live on the face of the Earth, no matter where they live. I told him that we are in this life to learn how to do the things we need to do to walk in the presence of God.
He said, that’s beautiful. He said, I feel that! That’s exactly right. I asked him if God loved everyone in the world or just the people in Jerusalem. He said that God loves everyone. I asked him how God shows his love to his children. He said, he helps us. I said, that’s right! He helps us by giving us his word through his prophets.
I told him that God reveals his commandments and his word to the prophets then they teach us what he would have us know and what he would have us do. I said, that’s why prophets are important. I said, in the Bible, they wrote their prophecies down and that’s why we have the Bible.
I asked him if God loved the people who lived in ancient America, his ancestors. He said, absolutely! We love Jesus. I asked him when the first time was that his ancestors heard about Jesus. He thought for a bit and said that it must have been when the Spanish came.
I asked him if everyone needed to be baptized to go to heaven and be with God. He said, yes, everyone needs to be baptized or they can’t go back to heaven. I asked him if because of this his ancestors that lived in America before the Spanish came were condemned because they could not be baptized according to this knowledge.
He thought for a minute and said, that’s not right, that’s not fair! I never thought of it that way. It wouldn’t be fair. I agreed with him. I said, you’re right! That wouldn’t be fair. That’s why we have the restored Church of Jesus Christ on the Earth today. It has all those answers and teaches us how God is not only fair but he’s loving and just. Every one of his children will have a chance to come home.
He said, how does that work? I said, first did you know that God had prophets in America? He said, no, I’ve never heard anything like that. I said, God had prophets in America who received revelation and taught the people. They wrote their revelations and walked with God. They prophesied to them that Jesus would visit them here in America one day and he did.
I told him about how Jesus said he had other sheep in the Bible. He agreed because he remembered that scripture. I asked him where those sheep were and he thought about it. After a minute, he said, I guess they were everywhere. I said, that’s exactly right, including America.
I said, Jesus said this to them after his resurrection and before he ascended to heaven. I said, then he descended from heaven in America to visit your ancestors. He appeared in the heavens announced by his father and clothed in glory. I said, he descended until he stood on the steps of the temple. He invited the people to touch the prints of the nails in his hands and in his feet.
I said, once the people had touched his hands and feet they knew that the man standing before them was their God. They knelt and they begged him for their salvation. As a direct answer to that plea, he called up 12, gave them authority to baptize and commanded them to baptize these people, every one of them, even though they had previously been baptized by the prophets.
He commanded each of them to be baptized, he invited them to take a step up to a new level of discipleship. He invited them to a new level of understanding and covenants that would bring greater blessings to their lives. I said, they were all baptized and they all accepted this challenge.
I said, he gave them the Holy Ghost so that they could walk with God and be guided in their lives. He held their children, each one of them and blessed them and loved them. I said, he not only blessed them, but he blessed their posterity and I believe that your spirit recognizes that blessing and that legacy.
The spirit was very strong in the car and I asked, what do you feel right now? He said, it’s like a buzz is going on in my head and I feel like I’m in a fuzzy warm blanket. I said, that’s the spirit of God confirming to you that the things I am saying are true. I said, I testify to you that if these things were not true, you would not feel that.
He said, I know it’s true. Each thing you have said has been like opening a door in my mind and truth has come flowing in. I know what you’re saying is true.
I said, these prophets in ancient America engraved these teachings on metal plates.
These plates were given to Joseph Smith in the 1820’s and he translated them so that we have these teachings today. They are the word of God, another testament of Jesus Christ.
I said, Joseph Smith was looking for the truth and he couldn’t find it, a lot like you. He was seeing things as scattered and disjointed. He couldn’t figure out which church was God‘s church. He knelt and prayed. God the father and Jesus Christ descended from heaven to stand in front of him. They called him to be the prophet to restore the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ on the Earth with all of the blessings, including the same baptism that your ancestors had here in America.
He said, wow, that’s powerful. He said, before I thought I felt the spirit but now it’s crazy. I love this, I’d like to feel this all the time. I said, that’s what your ancestors said and that’s why Jesus Christ gave them the gift of the Holy Ghost so that they could walk with God. The Holy Ghost testifies of truth and it guides us in our life.
I said, Joseph Smith was called to be the prophet to restore the church and since that day, we have always had a prophet on the Earth. I said, we have a prophet today, his name is President Nelson. I testify to you that he also is a prophet of God. I testify to you that he speaks with God for us and guides us the way God would have us live.
He said, in this world today, of course we need this. This is great. I know that this is true too.
We had arrived at his house and he needed to go. I felt the time crunch coming. He was going to have to move in three weeks. I said, you said you felt bad about not being able to go to the temple with your friend for the open house. He said, yes, my friend was quite disappointed.
I asked, do you want to make it up to him? He said, yes! I asked, when will you see him next? He said, tomorrow at work. I said, what you should do is ask your friend if you could attend church meetings with him this Sunday. He asked, do you think he would like that? I said, yes, that’s what he was trying to do when he invited you to the temple. He was trying to introduce you to the things we have talked about here in the car today. Go up to him tomorrow and ask him if you can go to church with him on Sunday. He said, that’s exactly what I’ll do.
I asked him if the things I had said helped him clear up his understanding of the church and he said, yes, now it all fits. I asked him what he thought about Jesus coming to America and he said that it was one of the most incredible things he had ever heard . He said, I believe that’s true.
I asked him if Jesus invited his ancestors to be baptized and he said, yes. I told him that Jesus was also extending that same invitation to him. I told him that Jesus was inviting him to be baptized with that same baptism and that same authority. I said that his friend had this authority and his friend could preform his baptism. He said, that would be awesome! That’s what I want.
I said, here’s what you do. Text your friend right now and tell him you want to go to church on Sunday. Tomorrow at work, you make arrangements with him to have him pick you up. You have him talk to the missionaries and let them know that you want to be baptized and then it can happen.
He said, that’s amazing and that’s what I will do. He said, I only have four Sundays between now and when I have to leave. Do you think that I can be baptized before I go? I said, I think you can and the missionaries will be able to make that happen. As soon as I said this, he texted his friend and told him that he wanted to go to church on Sunday and that he wanted to be baptized. His phone blew up with 1 million responses. We laughed.
I asked him if he had a Book of Mormon and he said, no. I asked him if he wanted one and I pulled one of the Book of Mormons prepared by the Secrists out of my glove box and gave it to him. He grabbed it and held it to his chest and said, this feels right. He said, tomorrow’s going to be a fun day at work.
He said, in a 20 minute ride I have gone from feeling uncomfortable about your church to having an understanding that it is true and wanting to be baptized. He said, that’s quick work.
What a great ride and a great kid. I’m excited for his friend.
Sometimes God sends you a lift 