One night I was driving in Provo and I got a ride to pick up a guy and take him to Springville. I picked him up just off the south east side of BYU campus. As I pulled up, I saw this huge man. He was about 24 years old, at least 6’2” and probably 450 pounds or more. I wondered if he would fit in my car. I push my seat all the way to the front so there is plenty of room. After a small struggle he got in. He had long scraggly hair and smelled like cigarette smoke.
This is always a challenge when someone smells like cigarette smoke because you know you’re going to have to air your car out afterwards. It kind of makes you mad. I guess what I’m trying to say is that looking at this guy and seeing his whole presentation he might not be the perfect person to take in your car. As I had these thoughts, the spirit came into my heart and said this guy needs you. This guy does not know who he is and you need to tell him.
We started to go and chat. He had been there at a gaming place where he played interactive games with people around the world. This kind of followed the stereotype that I had in my mind for this guy. He seemed shy and from the things he said I could tell he didn’t have friends. I could feel the loneliness in his life.
When I felt that loneliness, my heart changed from being judgmental to trying to relate and lift him. As a former football coach, I’m very used to talking to great big dudes. So I asked him, did you ever play football? He said no. He said that he was more of a car guy and he would just go out in the backyard and work on cars by himself. He said, I just have really never had any friends.
It was clear to me that his social isolation had not been a recent occurrence and my heart broke. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to go through life without friends.
I asked him about his parents and he said that they were divorced and he ended up living out in the middle of nowhere with his grandma until she passed away. Neither of his parents wanted anything to do with him. The spirit prompted me that there was a lot more pain to this story and my heart went out to him. All of this painted a full picture. Here was a kid with no friends, no family and few social skills, he didn’t feel loved and had very low self-esteem.
As we were driving down the road, I felt impressed to talk to him about our father in heaven. I said, life is rough but it’s good to know that God is always there and that he loves us. He said, I’ve never felt that. I’ve always felt like I was alone.
I taught him that we all lived with God and that we developed a relationship with him. A relationship with love and trust. I said, we spend the rest of our life, trying to fill the need to have that love in our lives. I said, the problem is, the world doesn’t teach us how to find that.
I turned and looked at him and said, I want you to know that your Heavenly Father loves you, his heart breaks for you and he wants you to have loved ones and friends in your life. He wants you to have a family and he wants you to be happy. I said, you’re not happy right now and that’s not part of his plan. Your happiness is part of his plan.
He said, why don’t I have friends then? Why didn’t my mom and dad stick around? Why didn’t anybody at school want to be my friend and why do I live alone now in a horrible little apartment?
I said, well, Let’s look at this and see what we can figure out. I said, first off, there’s nothing wrong with you. You’re awesome! I said, I think maybe you withdraw yourself from social situations because you don’t believe you belong in them. You don’t believe in who you can be. I said, I want you to start with you are a son of your father in heaven and he loves you very much.
I said, the God that created this world and everything that we love knows who you are and cares deeply about you. As I said this, the spirit came into the car and it was unmistakable. I asked him if he could feel the spirit, and he said yes. He said, I’ve never really felt anything like this.
I told him that what he was feeling was the spirit of God. I said that his spirit had a very unique reaction to the presence of the spirit of God and that’s what he was feeling right then. He said, I feel warm and engaged in this conversation. Most of the time when people talk to me I just blow it off. I love what you are saying.
I told him that he could feel this whenever he wanted. I told him that if he would read the scriptures, pray and live his life like God wanted him to, he could have that spirit and feeling with him often. He said, that would be awesome.
I asked him why he did gaming up there by BYU. He said, there are lots of people there and I just get a good vibe from them. I asked him if they were BYU students and he said yes.
I told him that those BYU students were members of the church and they understood what I was saying right then. I told him that they carried God‘s spirit with them and that’s why he liked to be around them, even though he didn’t talk to them or interact with them. He thought about it for a second and said, that’s interesting.
I asked him if he was a member of the church. I already knew the answer to this from the spirit but I felt prompted that I needed to hear him answer the question.
He said, no, I’m not. I don’t think they would want me. I asked him what made him say that and he said that from a young age, the people that went to the church, treated him very cruelly, especially the girls. He said, I just decided I would back away.
I said, I want you to know that your Heavenly Father wants you in his kingdom. He wants you to be a member of the church. I told him that it’s terrible what had happened to him in that people hadn’t treated him well. I said, sometimes people can be horrible animals and the reason we go to church is to be better. We don’t go to church because we are perfect, we go to church to get better. I said, I’m glad they went to church and I hope they get better. He laughed. I said, someday they’ll have to ask your forgiveness. It might not be in this lifetime but they will need to ask for your forgiveness. Your job is to get to know your father in heaven and feel his love to the point that you can forgive them and feel comfortable in their presence.
He said, that’s kind of a cool way to look at it. That way everyone changes and grows. I said, if those young women that were mean to you do the things they should, eventually they will see you like I see you here today. As a son of God and someone of great value.
He asked, do you really see that? I said, yes I do. He said, you’re the only one. I said, no, I’m not. As people change and repent they can also learn to see people the way their Heavenly Father sees them. I said, that also requires that you change and repent.
I said, when was the last time you prayed. He said, I don’t think I ever have. I told him that prayer is how we talk to our father in heaven and that you should pray anytime your heart hurts or you feel alone. He asked me how you pray. I taught him the four steps of prayer like we did in our mission. I told him that then he could just open his heart and pour it out to his father by doing that.
He asked if I would pray for him right then in the car. We pulled over there between Provo and Springville and had a prayer. The spirit was intense. After we finished the prayer, we got on our way. I asked him if he had the scriptures and he said no. I reached into my glove box and grabbed one of the Books of Mormon prepared by the Secrists and gave it to him.
I said, this is the Book of Mormon, along with the Bible it teaches us about Jesus. He said, I’ve heard of the Book of Mormon but I don’t know much about it.
I said, God had prophets in Jerusalem and in America. He gave them revelations and they prophesied and taught the people. That’s how we have the Bible and the writings of these prophets in America were translated and that’s how we have the Book of Mormon. It is the word of God just like the Bible.
He said, well, I don’t have a Bible, but I heard the stories from the Bible when I was a child. My grandmother would tell them to me. I think it would be fun to read the Book of Mormon. I love reading.
I asked him what he wanted in life and he said that he would like to find someone who could love him. He said he’d love to get married someday if he could find someone who would have him. He said that he never felt love except from his grandma. He said, that’s what I want in my life but I just don’t see it happening.
I asked him where he went to hang out with girls. He said, what do you mean? I said, well if you wanna find a girl, you gotta go to where they are. Where do you go to find the kind of girl that you want?
He asked, where do you find the good girls? I said, in church. You need to go to church. He said, will they let me in, look at me! I said, absolutely they’ll let you in. They’ll be excited to have you there. I told him, I promise if you will start doing the things we are talking about like praying, reading the scriptures and going to church, you will find friends. I said, as we obey the commandments, the light from God‘s spirit shines from our face. We become more attractive than we are. I said, I really mean that.
I said, when that spirit shines from your countenance people will be drawn to you that in a worldly scenario would not. I said, if you do these things, get baptized and have the Holy Ghost with you, you will see doors open up that you never imagined could open. I said, you will be happy.
By this time we were sitting in the parking lot by his dumpy apartment. It looked like the kind of place where the leftovers and refuse of society would live. I asked him if he would commit to going to church, reading the scriptures and praying. He said yes.
We looked up the address of his church and meeting times. His church was on the same block behind his apartment so this was easy to remember. He laughed and said, wow, with it being that close I guess I have to go. He said, things changed for me during this ride. He got out of the car and walked into his apartment.
The spirit whispered to me, you’re not done with him.
The next week, I picked him up at the same place again. This time no cigarette smoke and he was happy to see me. He said that he had been praying and reading but that he didn’t go to church because he overslept. He said that he had to get off the computer earlier on Saturday night. We laughed because it’s always something.
He talked about how much better he felt and I could see it in his eyes. Some of the pain was gone but he still needed to follow through.
Just then I had problems with my tires. The indicator light was on and he noticed it. He said, let’s pull over, I can help. He said he worked three years in a tire store before he got his training in tech. He said, I know all about this. He helped me out and told me what to do. He said, after how you helped me, I’ve got to help you! He told me that I needed to go to the tire store and he told me what to tell them.
I said, I’ll do that first thing tomorrow. I said, you also have an assignment. This week you need to go to church. He laughed and said, I fix your tire and you fix me. We chuckled and then I dropped him off at his house.
The next week I picked him up at his apartment. I was taking him to a laundromat to clean his cloths. He told me that he had been to church and that he really liked it. He told me that the people had treated him well. I asked, did they introduce you to the missionaries? He said yes.
I asked him why he was cleaning his clothes and he said because they were dirty. I asked, would you walk around with dirty clothes? He said, no, well, not too dirty anyway. I told him that this was a metaphor. The missionaries wanted to help him be baptized as we had previously discussed. I said, when your baptized it cleanses you of your sins so that you can be pure before God. It’s like God taking you to the laundry. He laughed and said I like that.
The next week, I got him again but he wanted to go to a nicer laundry this time. He was smiling and had a little bit of a shine about him. He had a pretty fresh and substantial haircut. I couldn’t help but compare and contrast the feeling around him and the look in his eyes with the one I saw the very first day. It was an incredible difference. Just the exposure that he was having to the love of his father in heaven was turning him into a different person.
I asked him if he had talked to the missionaries about a baptism day yet. He said that he was moving apartments this week and that they were going to set a date once he got in his new apartment. He said, I will still attend church in the same building.
I let him out at this new laundromat and haven’t seen him since. It is very rare that I get the same person twice. It’s even more rare that you get them three times but you never get them four times. I got to see his progression. Heavenly Father picked him up in the lowest of lows and decided that he was going to touch this young man. I believe that one day soon he will have all the things he wanted in his life.
Sometimes God sends you a lift 