I want to show you how the Lord
prepares those who will hear his Spirit and open their hearts. In the
scriptures he calls them his own or the ones that the Father has given him.
When they hear the truth, they recognize it because it is the way that they
have been thinking for some time. This because of the experiences that the Lord
has given them in their lives. I should also point out that the Lord is no
respecter of people and loves us all equally and gives us all experiences to
draw us unto Him, but these are the ones that hear his voice, the voice of the
Shepherd calling.
Sara has a beautiful spirit. Soft and
tenderhearted, she often cries. It is nothing for her to spend hours helping a
friend in need. And though she is a very busy person, providing for two
daughters who are going to school, she always has time to talk to even
strangers and to make them feel that they are important. For this reason, she was
willing to talk to Elder Ortiz when he stopped to chat with her one day. What
he had to say immediately touched her. Chrise and I were with Elder Ortiz and
Elder Long when they gave the first discussion. The contrast between Sara and
others in her family was especially apparent when the elders asked everyone to
pray about what they had heard and to read the Book of Mormon. She committed
immediately. The others would not. The next day the elders were changed to
another location, leaving us with Sara.
One of the experiences that the Lord
gave Sara was a very hard one over fourteen years ago. She lost a baby. What
made this even worse was that this baby was not able to be baptized in Sara’s
religion before it died. For someone as sensitive and tenderhearted and
spiritual as Sara, the pain went very deep and lingered continually for
fourteen years. She could not accept what was supposed to have happened to this
child. She worked very hard, literally trying to lose herself in her service of
her family and her job as a food provider for the community, but the pain
remained, always just below the surface.
Last night it was just Chrise and I
and Sara. Her daughters were not there and though her husband started the
discussion with us, he was called away. The sister missionaries were not there
either. It was a chance to really talk. My first question to her was, “How do
you feel about the things that we have talked about and what you have read in
the Book of Mormon.” She said that we and the Book of Mormon spoke to things
that she has always felt. “I know they are true.” I then asked her what she
thought of the baptism last week that we had attended together. She referenced
the fact that the clothing was not like the gowns that were used to baptize
babies in her church. Chrise understood part of this and it stirred a memory of
something Sara had said briefly about the loss of a child weeks before. Chrise
looked up Moroni 8 and as I was about to go into something else, she pushed the
scripture toward me. I looked at it, realized what it was saying and asked Sara
to read a few verses in which Mormon said that little children have no need to
be baptized. Sara asked if she could continue reading and read several more
verses and then burst into tears. It took probably ten minutes before she could
talk again. She said, “I had feelings as to the truth of what you taught before
this, but nothing like what I have just felt. You have answered a prayer and question
that I have carried with me for fourteen years.” I told her that we believed
that little children were all saved in Christ’s atonement and that her baby
daughter was waiting for her. She burst into tears again.
Driving home from the discussion, Chrise
and I marveled at what we had just felt and witnessed. The Lord had just used
us as instruments in His hands to answer a woman’s prayers.
