Through various interactions I became friends with a really cool guy. He owned a brand new home and lived in it with his three cousins. He was divorced and had a child from his marriage but pretty much it was just him and these three guys being total bachelors. They were all members of the church but they were extremely less active.
They were very hard workers and I admired that in them. They worked in various construction jobs and they were very good at it.
They were joking and laughing about how fast they sent the Elders quorum president and a bishopric member away when they came over to introduce themselves . That said, they were really nice and friendly to me. They loved sports and they worked hard. They were big BYU fans and that’s always a plus.
One thing I have found over the years is that a lot of people who become less active maintain their only contact with the church through BYU athletics. Even though they become very less active, BYU athletics many times is a hook that remains set. I also found that many times, the only prayer they have participated in for years is the one at the start of the football games and the ones they say in the fourth quarter when the games are close. This was the case with these guys. It’s almost like they would stick their head in the window of the church just for a minute when they were cheering for BYU. I also think that it’s their way of trying to keep 1 foot in the gospel door just in case they decide to come back.
My friend was never a very enthusiastic member of the church. He didn’t serve a mission and only occasionally attended church. I think if you asked him at the time he would have identified as being a member, however inactive he was.
He had left the church because he had done some work for a general contractor who was a member of his high council. This man decided not to pay him for work that he had done on some houses he was building. Even though my friend had done the work this man refused to pay him and he couldn’t get over it. He wondered how someone who was in a high council could steal $50,000. It was certainly a big hurdle. It was a hurdle very capable of breaking the back of someone who hadn’t reinforced his life with regularly taking the sacrament, prayer and scripture study.
After quite a while, there were changes a foot. My friend met a girl and she moved in with him along with her three children. When she moved in, the cousins moved out. I think there was a little friction at first with the cousins but when you’re stuck in a rut, a shake up is a good thing. I wanted to find out if she was a member of the church but I didn’t want to ask straight up. It didn’t feel right, so I asked her what ward she attended. She thought about it for a second and said, the Salt Lake City ward. Over the years we’ve laughed about that many times. It turns out, as you may expect that she wasn’t a member of the church but she seemed very open to discussing it. Since she was open to it my friend also developed a new aperture on the situation.
Heather and I became friends with both of them. We would take them to games, go out to dinner and do fun things together. We always tried to guide the conversation to a spiritual topic and having some really good discussion. The spirit was there and I would identify the spirit.
We introduced them to the missionaries in a kind of roundabout way. We found out who their missionaries were and told them about the family. We asked the missionaries if it would be OK if we asked them to feed them. Being normal Elders they were 100% OK with that. They would feed them at least once a week. My friend would buy pizza on the way home from work and the missionaries would be there. They would eat and they would talk. It didn’t take long to start making progress.
By the way, this is a true principle of the behavior of people who are less active. Regardless of why they left the church they will always feed the missionaries. If there’s somebody that’s less active or a part member family, have them feed the missionaries. So often we get the Elders Quorum president and the Relief Society president, along with the bishop and the rest of ward council to feed the missionaries. There is power in asking people being taught to serve by feeding the missionaries.
Whenever the elders would leave, we would go to their house and discuss what they learned. This gave me the opportunity to testify and challenge.
In some ways they were making progress. They were accepting what they were being taught but they were struggling to find the level of commitment necessary to do something crazy like go to church. It always seems like that was a bridge further than they wanted to go. There was no desire for that level of commitment.
I was praying about my friend and I felt a tremendous prompting that I had to dig deeper into why he left the church. I had to get the answer because I felt like that issue was still the stumbling block.
I felt like I needed to get him away from everything so we could talk. I got in the car with him and we drove to Heber to get milkshakes. I think I’ve mentioned this before but I think it’s a great thing to do because it’s a long ways away. You are traveling over 60 miles an hour all the way and because of this, they can’t runoff or dive out of the car. They have to talk.
Using the milkshakes as an enticement, away we went. As we drove up the canyon I prayed that the Lord would give me the words to say. We talked about him growing up and how he went to church. Finally the spirit said, ask him now! I said, to me it’s clear that you were taught to go to church, why did you ever stop?
He gave me an excuse that wasn’t a reason. He told me that he just had to work and that he couldn’t find the time. The spirit indicated to me that this wasn’t true and I let him know that. I said, that’s not the reason. I want you to tell me the real reason.
He got emotional and told me the story about working on these homes and then getting stiffed for the $50,000. He said that this high council member laughed at him and told him that no one would ever believe my friends word over his. He said, that was pretty much it.
I was lost for words. Losing $50,000 is a big hit to anyone, especially someone who’s trying to get a business off the ground. I had the prompting to talk to him about tithing. When I had that prompting, I thought, are you sure that this is the right time for that discussion? The spirit indicated that it was and. So we did.
I asked him how long it had been since he paid tithing. He said he hadn’t paid since he was 12 and given what happened to him he didn’t think he could ever pay it again especially the way things were going right then. I asked him what was up with things in his company. He said, not great. He said he had a hard time making ends meet and that he was having a hard time staying busy. With his new girlfriend and her kids in the house, it was becoming harder and harder financially.
I taught him about tithing and told him that in our mission, we would always teach tithing to people that were very poor. I said, many times they didn’t have enough money to make ends meet and you wondered how it was going to work out. When you would teach tithing, the spirit would come in the room and they would know it was true. I said, these people would pay their tithing and then share the strongest testimonies I have ever heard about tithing. It didn’t make mathematical sense but it always made sense in the economy of the Lord. He always provided for those people.
I told him about when I first got to my mission. We didn’t have enough money to get by based on what our parents had sent us. I told him that our Mission President promised us that if we would pay our fast offering, we would always have enough money. I told him that we started doing that and never had a problem afterwords. I bore my testimony of the principle of tithing. The spirit was really strong in the car and I asked him what he was feeling. Since we had discussed it before he knew it was the spirit and said,that’s the spirit.
I asked him what the spirit does and he said, testifies of the truth. I asked, what does that mean with regards to tithing? He said, I guess we’re supposed to pay it. I said, to get the blessing you just can’t pay your tithing. You also have to go to church and try to do the things the Lord would have you do. I asked him if he was willing to do those things. He said yes.
When I got home, I called the missionaries and told them about our conversation. They said that he had rejected tithing when they taught it and they didn’t know where to go from there. They were really excited. By this time my they had accepted all of the commandments and my friend’s girl friend and her kids were excited to get ready to be baptized.
There was only one thing holding them back, they weren’t married. The missionaries said that they had received a lukewarm reception when they talked about marriage. A couple of days later I was over at their house and was moved by the spirit to have that conversation. I asked them if they loved each other and they said yes. I asked them why they were hesitant to get married. They talked about having been in abusive bad relationships previously and that they just thought they could live together.
I asked them if we should pray and ask Heavenly Father if it was OK for them to live in sin. I asked them if they thought that he would make an exemption just for them. They laughed and said no. I asked them what they were going to do about that. I said, you need to obey the Lord or he can’t bless you. The power of the spirit confirmed for you in that moment that this was the thing you were supposed to do. My friend‘s girl friend had tears in her eyes which wasn’t a normal thing for her. It wasn’t an emotional moment, it was a moment that truth came to her heart with power.
I asked them if they recognized the spirit in the room and they said yes. I asked them again, what does that mean? They said that it means that they should get right and be married.
They decided to get married as soon as possible and then baptized very quickly afterwards. You’ve got to love baptizing a family of four. We knew that this would be a great day.
I took my friends down to the county building and we got their marriage license. He kept saying that he couldn’t believe that he was doing this again but that he knew it was the right thing to do. They were married on New Year’s Eve.
Two Saturday’s later they were baptized. On that following Sunday they were confirmed members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. A couple of years later my friend was called to be an assistant secretary in the elders quorum presidency.
About a year and a half later she was able to go through the temple. I admire them for overcoming the obstacles of the bad examples set by others and relying on the atonement of Christ and the promises God makes to us. These blessings enabled my friend to put that all behind him. They are an amazing family and they still like to feed the missionaries.
