In a previous experience “the sweetest smell of unfinished buisness” I referenced a man I baptized from an area in my mission. This whole story led me to additional understanding regarding what it means when we say that God is all knowing and all powerful. Every Mission President I’ve ever met has a big board with all of the missionary companionships on it. Whenever they do companionship changes, I imagine them praying and sitting there looking at the names and letting the Lord direct them as to where people should be placed and who people should be placed with. Through this experience, I gained a belief that God has a similar program. We are all on his board and he puts us where we need to be to bless us throughout our lives.
In my mission I had become very sick. I had been pulled out of my area and been stuck in the hospital for two weeks. After being realeased I rehabbed and after a pure miracle and blessing from God I was assigned to another area and allowed to finish my mission. Even though I recognize the miracle and was grateful for the blessing I received to finish my mission, I always felt horrible about leaving that area early and knew there was unfinished business there. For years I regretted the fact that I was not able to finish the job I felt was there for me. I didn’t see how I would ever make that right.
Fast forward a bunch of years.
There was a young Argentine lady in our ward from that area. She knew all of the people I knew and was baptized about two years previous to moving into our ward. She was dating a boy who was a returned missionary in our ward. He is a great guy.
This girl lived with a lady in our ward who rented rooms in her home. Imagine my shock when I found out that she was baptized in that ward in Argentina where I had served. I got to be really good friends and it was fun too have her around. It kind of gave me a mission feel.
After a few months, her brother moved here and moved into the same home where she had been living. I believe her parents had sent him down to make sure she didn’t get swallowed up by those Mormons.
He was an awesome guy and we got along famously from the start. I felt the impression that I was supposed to baptize this young man and that this would bless his family back in my old area. I was very excited! He was like every other Argentine I have ever met. He deeply felt and extensively contemplated the pain and injustice in the world. He was always trying to find a way to make it better.
I started teaching him about the gospel and he liked the things he was hearing. He was a big fan of the fast and fast offerings. He loved the atonement and the description of it being God’s plan to alleviate suffering.
He had never been taught about the infinite nature of the atonement. The thought that it was for more than just for sins was very appealing to him. He loved the fact that it could alleviate suffering and lift people, regardless of their spiritual or physical condition.
When I testified about the atonement, I always felt the power of the spirit in the room and I helped him identify that. I told him that this feeling is how he felt in the presence of God and that when he felt that he knew that God was revealing truth to him.
It was by no means a slam dunk though. Due to his past dealings with religion (the Catholic Church) he had a huge distrust of organized religion.
The way we addressed this was to teach him the importance of ordinances, the proper authority necessary and correct performance of this ordinance. He had no problem believing that the Catholic Church didn’t have valid authority from God because of the corruption that he saw in that church. Because of this, he hadn’t seen a need for organized religion at all.
We taught him that when Jesus visited America he invited everyone to take a step up in discipleship and make a new covenant through his baptism and by the authority he brought. We taught taught him that performing ordinances like baptism by the authority has power to bind us to heaven. It helps us make the changes in our lives we need to make to bless those around us with God’s light. He decided to pray about that. Finally he came over to my house. He knocked on the door and with tears in his eyes he said that he had received his witness that indeed the keys to perform these ordinances had been restored and he understood the need for the organization of the church to administer those necessary ordinances.
The spirit was really strong in our conversation and I asked him to describe what he was feeling. He said that when he prayed it was like everything was light around him and he felt like he was floating. He felt such a wonderful peace and he knew that it was true. He knew that this witness came from God. I told him that as we had discussed before, this was the spirit of God and that it touched him and revealed truth. He agreed.
After getting his testimony of the keys and ordinances of the church, he began to view the gospel in a different light. He saw it as the only answer to all of the pain and injustice in the world. He saw that obedience to God’s law was the only way humanity would come together and bless each other. He said, everyone in the world needs this. This is how we will make a difference.
He loved that we had a prophet. On conference weekend I helped him get the sessions in Spanish. He loved it and he loved the things he learned. He was very good at recognizing the spirit in a room, a meeting or when he was praying. He wanted to have the gift of the Holy Ghost and he wanted to be baptized.
When it was time for him to be baptized, he had a crazy little request. He wanted to be baptized in the Provo River.…In March! Brrrrrr. I told him that we had a baptismal font where the water would be warm. He said that he wanted to be baptized like Jesus was baptized and Jesus was baptized in the river. To do this we had to get permission from the Mission President at the time. He thought it was a great idea so into the freezing water we decided to go. We found a spot and finally the day came. It was a great ward turnout and we had a nice barbecue afterwards to celebrate.
He got a job with my neighbor and fit really well in the ward. His parent’s plan of wrecking his sister’s Mormon marriage and church membership had totally and completely failed. In fact, it had backfired spectacularly because he had testified with such power that some of the people at home in Argentina became members of the church. He loved going to the temple to do baptisms and did work for his grandparents who would have been there when I was on my mission. The thing is, I felt like I was possibly doing some of the work that was taken away from me years before in my mission.
He eventually moved back to Argentina but I knew that he had been brought here through that eternal transfer board so that he and his family could receive the gospel. It was very cool. Through this whole experience, I learned that God is merciful and that if there are people who we are supposed to touch and teach, God will see to it.
Maybe we will be brought to them or God can bring them to us. Either way, I t’s important that we know that the transfer board is in continual motion and if we’re ready, God will plug us in where he needs us to be so that we can do the things that he has for us to do.
