April 8, 2016 - Friday in Nauvoo

We woke up to a cold and windy morning here in Nauvoo. After our morning devotional and prayers, we bundled up and took our morning walk.  We even mixed it up a little by going a different way around our walk way path.  Going in a different direction along this familiar path gave us a little different perspective of the area, the trees and the traffic patterns!  The way we chose today minimized the traffic pattern and worked out very well!

Our site assignments were almost a half mile apart but we both had the early shift.  I worked at the Riser Boot shop and mom worked at the Heber C. Kimball home.  As I have mentioned a time or two, the Heber C. Kimball home is where the Nauvoo restoration all began back in the late 1950's with the purchase of the home.  As part of the sales agreement, the owner wanted to stay in the house until she died.  This she did and the restoration of Nauvoo began in the 1960's.  

After we got off of our shift at 2:45pm, we went home and got dressed for the 4:00pm temple session.  Then at 6:00pm we met some fellow missionaries for some temple sealings.  We had a neat experience with the temple sealer tonight.  He is a convert to the Church when he was at the age of 37 years.  He was raised in a non religious home growing up, where his father instructed the family to reply to any questions of religious affiliation as "pedestrians".

When he married, he and his wife made it clear that neither were interested in religion until they started having children.  When the children began coming and were getting older, they started looking for churches to "acquaint" the kids to religion and who Jesus was.  It was clear that the parents had no intention of getting involved.

At one point in their lives, they had moved to Louisiana and  eventually bought a home in a nice neighborhood.  They had a big U-haul in their new driveway when a family driving by in a station wagon stopped to see if they needed "help".  The Sealer said to them that they had enough help and then the guys asked if they could bring them dinner.  The Sealer responded that he had that covered, too, and then said, come on back for some pizza and beer tonight....  The family declined that offer, but said they lived just down the street and would be in touch.  

The two wives got together within a week or two and became friendly.  When the neighbor asked the Sealers wife which church they go to, she said they did not have a church, but that they had just "started looking"... (what a perfect response!).  Well, they had the Sealer and his family over for dessert and there just happened to be two young men in white shirts there having dessert as well.  

For several weeks they listened to the discussions but there was no interest.  Then, on the last scheduled meeting before the family would be dropped from the missionaries teaching pool, one companionship was involved in a transfer and this new Elder came to this last scheduled meeting.

And this new Elder was not shy!  He asked the future Sealer why he wasn't getting baptized.  The future Sealer told him that he didn't believe in Joseph Smith and/or the Book of Mormon and he wasn't interested anyways...  The Elder asked him, that if he ever got a testimony that what they were teaching was true would he get baptized?  And the reply, (that he thought was pretty safe) was, sure!  

Then the Elder said, "if you pray with real intent to find out if the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith was a Prophet", he would get that answer of either yes it is or no it is not.  The Elder asked him if he would take the challenge to pray, and the future Sealer said OK.  Then the Elder said; "OK get on your knees with me", and they prayed together and I think you know what happened!  The man was baptized the next day and then baptized his wife about a month later!

That was such a special story!  The fact that a representative was willing to ask the question, and that this man had the integrity to follow through, gives us the insight that there really are people who are ready!  The Gospel will bless every life that will have this kind of exposure, even if the outcome the first time is not a baptism!  That will come if we just make the invitation, and then let the Spirit do the work.