One day I was driving and it was almost time for dinner. I try to get home between five and six so that we can have dinner and spend a minute. It’s always interesting to see how long I can stay awake once I get home!
I was thinking about just driving home but I decided to keep the app on and see if I could pick up a ride. I was in Springville and when I had the thought about leaving it on, I thought how silly that was because you never get rides going north from Springville at rush-hour. It’s just kind of the flow of traffic.
People are headed south from Provo. I started to talk myself out of keeping it on and thought that I should just turn it off and go home. I again had the impression that I should leave it received a confirmation that this is what I needed to do. I left it on and started driving.
I got a ride to pick up a guy at the mall in East Bay. I thought this is great! Then I looked and saw that he was headed to Orem and I thought, this is better. I was going to get paid to drive the distance I would have driven for free. I considered it like getting bonus for listening to the spirit.
I swooped into the mall to pick up this young man. I had to wait quite some time and was thinking after a while that I would be canceling the ride. We have to wait seven minutes in total before we can cancel and by this time I had waited six minutes.
Just as I was about to plan my escape, he jumped in the car. He was a big dude. He was probably 6’2” with long hair. He was probably 25 to 30 years old. He was a very nice kid.
Off we went to Orem. He seemed like kind of a quiet kid. He had earphones on his head but I felt impressed to strike up a conversation with him anyway. I know that a lot of times at the end of the day people just want to be left alone but the spirit was telling me to talk to the kid.
We started talking about crazy kids in the mall and lack of responsibility. That led us to a discussion on politics, which then led to a discussion on trusting people and being a good person.
As we talked about that, I said, that’s what I like about my church! It gives me an opportunity to serve others, watch out for others and look at a picture that’s bigger than myself. I said, I’m a member of the church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints. The church gives me a great opportunity to become a well rounded person spiritually and physically in every aspect of my life.
He said, I’m not Mormon. He said, I don’t believe in the Mormon church. I said, well that’s OK. Your Heavenly Father loves you anyway and he’s probably just playing the long game with you. I laughed as I said this, but he didn’t laugh.
He was being very serious and did not give off nonmember vibes. The vibes he gave off were apostate or former member vibes. It was a little uncomfortable for a minute but only for a minute. We went back to talking about how important it is to be a good person.
I felt impressed to go back in and re-addressed the church. I asked him if he had friends that were members of the church and if he’d seen the kind of positive result in them that we were talking about. I said, being in the church should help your friends be better people.
He said, actually yes! There are a lot of things the church teaches that I really like, a lot of them. He said, I used to be a member, and I used to believe but not anymore.
He said that there are a lot of people in his age group will leave the church as they examine the lives of people who are in their families and members of the church or who were leaders in the church. He said that they discount everything they have done if they have flaws in their lives. He said, I don’t think that’s fair. I don’t think it’s fair to judge a man and all of his work by his worst moment. That’s what people in my generation seem to do.
He said, because of this, they reject everything they have been taught and turn away from traditions that would make them better citizens and better people in our society.
He said, I don’t believe in the church but I don’t have hard feelings. I love the things that it teaches.
The spirit prompted me that even though he said this, his problem had something to do with leadership or leadership decisions. I felt prompted to tell him the story about Nephi‘s bow.
When I was first called to serve in the MTC I was reading the story about Nephi‘s bow and the spirit taught me a different approach to this story. I felt prompted that share that story in this way over and over again as I served in the MTC and many times since.
The essence of the way I teach that story is that when Nephi broke the bow, he had to humble himself before God and then go back to his father who had murmured and sinned in his murmuring. He had to ask his father to go to God and find out where they should go to get food.
The point of looking at it this way is that we, in our lives, focus on our skills and our abilities and our talents to accomplish a task. What we really need is it to rely on the power of God and his ability, his knowledge and his strength so that we can overcome all things.
As I taught this to him, I felt very prompted to mention that, even though Lehi had murmured, he was still a prophet and that God worked through him because he was the prophet.
I told him that if God had to wait around for perfect mistake free people, nothing would ever get done. We all make mistakes, we all sin and we all need repentance and power from God. We need this so that we can accomplish the things that we need to do and the things that God has sent us to do. I said, without him there is no way.
I said, when people rip on leaders of the church, they don’t understand or they lose sight of the fact that God works through imperfect people to carry out his will. Not just in the scriptures but right now in our world today.
He said, I’ve had some problems with the church and I just don’t talk about them. I said, there’s something that someone did that has been hard for you to understand. Maybe here in the car today we can deal with it. I’m a stranger and it’s like talking to the wall. I told him that my wife tells me that every now and then! He laughed.
He said, I don’t believe that God would take money from poor people, hide it away and cheat on their taxes. I don’t believe God would do that and that’s why I left the church. I will not pay tithing.
As he said that, it came down like a sledgehammer. There was a lot of weight in his soul behind it and I doubt he’d ever told anybody like he told me. I felt the assurance of the spirit say to me that his lack of trust here was the reason that I was prompted to tell the story about Nephi’s bow
I said, so you kind of are making it about the leaders. He said, I guess I am. I asked him if I could pose some questions to him and he said yes.
I asked him how much money there was that the church had. He gave me the number that was reported in the news.
I asked him if he thought that the prophet and the Quorum of the 12 made the tax decisions on how to claim that money? He talked for a minute and said, I suppose not. They probably have tax attorneys to do that.
I said, so do you think that when they reported it or didn’t report it, they were following the advice of these attorneys that they had hired? He said, I suppose so. I hadn’t thought of it like that. I said, that’s what I believe. The church didn’t argue and they paid the fine that the government gave them immediately. He said, that’s true.
I asked him if the church wanted people to have food storage and he said yes. I asked him how much food and money people were supposed to save. He said, I believe it’s two years. That’s the goal I think. I said, that’s exactly right . The goal is two years.
I asked him how big the church was and he said it was huge, all over the world. I asked him how many church buildings there are including church houses and temples around the world. He said, there’s a bunch, like thousands, but I wouldn’t know what to tell you as far as an exact number. I said, let’s just assume that there are a lot. He said, OK.
I asked, how much money would it cost the church to maintain all of those buildings, pay all of their employees and continue to grow the church for two years? He thought for a second and said a lot of money.
I said, should a church that encourages their members to have two years of resources stored do the same thing as an organization that they’ve asked their members to do? He said, wow, yes, I guess they should.
I said, look, I don’t know what they are using the money for, but that explanation makes sense to me. I said, it’s just like we talked about, people find one thing and they like to tear the church down over that one thing. They never give full context or the benefit of the doubt. They’re never forgiving or understanding. It’s an iron hand when it comes to judgment. I said, don’t you think we owe them the same kind of understanding and fair judgment that we would like to have in return? He said yes
I said, you’ve let this burn inside of you for so long that it has shut you off from the spirit. I said, Satan‘s in your ear, whispering these things to you. Telling you that the church is not true, that the leaders are flawed and that you don’t belong. I said, Satan is a liar and you need to realize that when you hear that in your head, he’s lying to you.
I told him that as far as I was concerned, I didn’t care if they took the money out back and burned it. I was commanded by God to pay it and he blesses me for doing it. I told him that first and foremost the law of tithing was there to bless me.
I said, Heavenly Father put you in my car today because he loves you. He loves you so much and it’s time for you to quit listening to Satan and come back. I said, everything we do has to do with the love we feel from our father in heaven. When we feel his love we know when we are in his presence.
As I said this, I could feel the spirit in the car and I could see him closing his eyes to fight back tears, I could feel a struggle inside of him. I knew that Satan didn’t want to let him go. I asked him if he could feel that. He said yes, he could feel it. I asked him what he felt like and he said it felt like he was off balance and floating.
I told him that this is the spirit of God and the power of God was stronger than the whisperings of Satan that he was hearing. I told him to grab on to God and quit fighting. I told him that he needed to get to church.
I told him that taking the sacrament is very important. I said, taking the sacrament fills our tank. It makes it so that we have power to fight off Satan. It gives us both physical and spiritual power to tell good from evil and it gives us the courage and the strength to follow God.
By this time we were in front of his house, but he didn’t want to go and neither did I. I asked him if he had ever considered that God would send someone for him. He said, I was really starting to wonder if God even existed. I asked, and now? He said, this feeling tells me otherwise. He said, if this is the spirit of God, I wish someone had told me that this is what it feels like before. I never knew this, but this is something I can work with.
I had the impression that he felt weak and kind of empty inside. I identified this to him. I said, you feel like you’re weak and you have no direction in your life. This is your answer. This is what God would have you do.
I told him that when you’re weak like this, you’re susceptible to Satan’s whispers. You’re more easily guided off the path God would have you walk. I said, going to church, taking the sacrament, reading the scriptures and praying is how we stay on that path. If we do these things, we won’t feel weak and we won’t be led to chase after the designs of evil people. He said, that kind of freaked me out that you said that because right then I was thinking that very thing.
I took this opportunity to bear my testimony and told him that I knew that God loved him and that if he would look to God and the atonement, he could feel full of the spirit all of the time just like he was right now.
He said, that’s what I want. I asked him if he got along with his parents and he said yes. He said, they’ll be very interested and happy to hear about this conversation. I asked if he would go to church with them and he said yes.
He had to go, but he shook my hand and said, I think I need to do what you said. I need to go to church and I could use the power you described from the sacrament. I’m going to do that.
Sometimes God sends you a lift 