I shared with you the
experience of meeting with a person studying with the Jehovah’s Witnesses. I
had called him on the phone and he expressed interest in meeting with Sister
Anderson and I without the Jehovah’s Witnesses. He was working long hours up in
the City and that was making it difficult to schedule a time to meet with him. I
called him on the phone and said something to him about meeting on Sunday. He
said something like, “Well, I don’t need to be working on Sunday.” I thought to
myself, am I actually talking to someone that believes in keeping the Sabbath
Day Holy? We scheduled to meet with him on a Sunday, but I also invited him to
Church and he said he would come. I was a little worried because while I’d had
a number of phone conversations with him, the only time we had actually met him
was with the Jehovah’s Witnesses. So the Saturday before he was to come to
Church, we stopped by his house and caught him at home. I reaffirmed that we
were meeting at four and asked if he was still planning on coming to Church Sunday
Morning. He said that he was planning on it. I was a little worried since we
had done nothing to prepare him for what to expect. I thought that he might show up dressed in
casual clothes and feel out of place so I said, “The men typically wear a white
shirt and tie.” I don’t know what was going through his head, but he then said
well let’s just meet at 4:00 P.M. tomorrow, meaning he would not be attending
Church. I said that would be okay.
The next day on Sunday he
texted me saying that he had decided to attend Church with his Son in a
neighboring City about 40 miles away and that his son had invited him to stay
for dinner and so he would not make it for our 4:00 o’clock appointment. After that I tried
to contact him several times and he left a message on my phone saying for now
he was just going to attend Church with his son, but was still very polite in
the message. Well we believe in agency, but felt we really had not had an opportunity
to share our wonderful message. Sister Anderson and I decided to personalize a
Book of Mormon for him and drop it off with several pamphlets. Then if he
decided he would like to hear more later, we would be available. Saturday we
didn’t catch him home and so went back again on Sunday. But this time we pulled
off to the side of the road and said a prayer that we would find him home and
that we would be guided by the spirit as to what we should do and say. We arrive
at his house. He was home and invited us in and we presented the Book of Mormon
to him. I asked him if my telling him we wear white shirts scared him off. He
said no, but that he just wasn’t going to do that. I asked him how it was going
attending church with his son. He said they play a lot of loud music and that it
is so loud, it almost hurts your ears and wasn’t sure he liked that. He thought
maybe they were trying to be like these large mega churches with their rock
bands. We visited with him some and towards the end of the conversation, he
invited us to his work site to teach him and his two employees. He remodels
houses but said the house he would be working in the next month would be
heated. So we will try to do that. This is the Lord’s work and we must remember
to always ask for Him to go before us and prepare the way. Then we need to do
all we can to insure we have the spirit with us.
