.God has a plan for each of us and it doesn’t involve quitting. God’s hand moves in his time. In one of my wards as a ward language missionary, there was a man named Ruben. Ruben was a great guy. He worked long hours at Target but was very generous with his time to everyone. His wife had been a member of the church for over nine years. It was her greatest desire to have him be baptized into the church but it didn’t seem likely.
He had known over 28 sets of missionaries! Each of those missionaries had taught him the discussions and he had failed to accept the gospel. To make matters worse he attended church every week and had been doing so since before his wife was baptized. He paid tithing with his wife and held a calling in the ward library. He had also given talks twice in Sacrament meeting. If there ever was a dry Mormon it was my friend Ruben.
Everyone wanted him to get baptized! Whenever anyone said hey, why don’t you get baptized, he would say I have already been baptized and the baptism my parents did for me is good enough for me. When I got got involved I felt an urgency for him to be baptized as well. I knew that no amount of preaching and testifying would touch him until his heart was open and his spirit ready to be touched.
The spirit started to give me ideas on how this needed to happen. This was a very unique case. The spirit took us right out of the box.
I became good friends with this wonderful man. He was from Argentina where I served my mission so naturally I enjoyed talking about Argentina with him. I would always sit with him and we would talk about Mendoza and how amazing that part of Argentina really is. We would talk about his family and the things he liked to do. We would go for rides up the canyon and watch soccer late into the night. We would talk about everything under the sun including specific prayerfully predesigned topics regarding the church.
Whenever we did talk about the gospel, the spirit was always present. I always testified and helped him recognize the spirit in those moments
This relationship and these rides were a little bit by my design because I felt that the missionaries and members had all just been trying to baptize him. They did it as a calling or they had to be in by 10 pm and couldn’t watch soccer. They found it hard to go to where he was, accept who he was and love him. This needed to happen first. He didn’t want to be baptized by people who weren’t in it for him. I needed to be a friend and love him rather than just make him feel like a friend and feel like he was loved. The real thing always wins.
It seemed to me that he had become so accustomed to having the spirit around him that it felt normal. Feeling the spirit as it testified was a challenge. We prayed together and spoke about feeling the spirit often. We started to make headway but I thought it was slow progress. I was willing to put in the work but didn’t know how long it would take.
Finally, one Sunday morning he called me and asked me if I would meet him in the library at the church. I zoomed right over there. He said that he appreciated my friendship and how he knew it was genuine. He then said that he was hopeful that I would be willing to prepare him for his baptism because he felt the time had come. I have never in my life seen anyone quite as happy as his wife when she came in the room and he told her. I thought she was going to cry all day long!
Even though he had been through the discussions 28 times and had attended church every week for nine years, we still gave him the discussions. It’s a little strange to give the discussions to someone who knows them as well as you do, ha ha!!!
He finally had worked on and earned a relationship with his father in heaven that moved him to his decision. Once he understood what he was feeling there was no looking back.
Finally his baptismal date arrived. He had been attending church in Orem since there had been just one Spanish branch. Now there were 12 Spanish wards full of people who knew and loved him. His baptismal service was packed and there was a tremendous outpouring of the Spirit. If the Spanish wards in Orem ever had a celebrity it was him on that day.
Shortly after the baptism my friend and his family moved back to Argentina. Before he left we talked about the importance of the gospel and understanding how the spirit works in a person who is seeking the truth. He wanted to help others figure this out. The following year they were sealed in the temple
He is currently a teacher at the Institute in Mendoza. One time when I was in a branch presidency in the MTC, we had a sister missionary from Mendoza. I was curious to know if she knew him. I showed her this picture and she got really excited. She said that he had been her institute teacher. She said he helped her learn how to feel the spirit and gain a testimony and that he and his wife were loved. Of course they were! How cool is that?
Sometimes God sends you a lift 