Doug and I were traveling home from visiting my family in California. We passed Wells, Nevada and were now in between Wells and Jackpot, NV. At about 11pm, we were in the middle of a small canyon (calling this place a canyon is a huge overstatement). There were hills on each side of us, blocking our cell phone reception. And at this time- right as we’re driving through, literally, the middle of nowhere- our car dies. It doesn’t just go silently, slowly puttering out of gas. Our car had an electrical seizure. All the lights starting wiggin’ out. The speedometer was going CRAZY and we quickly jerked to a stop.
Of course, we didn’t have any service on our phones because of where we were and to make matters worse: my phone- which if there’s going to be any service at all, my phone is the one to pick up the signal- only had one bar of battery left in it!
So we got out of the car and started walking around hoping for even a small amount of service. It took us a while, but we finally found a couple sweet spots. We called USAA, our insurance company, who is always extremely helpful. They called up an auto repair place in Twin Falls, ID (it was the only place nearby that had 24/7 towing service) and they sent help our way.
We sat around for probably 2 hours. Finally we saw the tow truck heading towards us. We were saved! We watched Carter-the tow truck driver- load our car onto the flatbed and then we all climbed into the tow truck to ride the 1 hour long drive to Twin Falls, ID. The conversation started off very pleasant. Carter told us about his life: how he met and proposed to his wife, how he grew up a military brat, how he ended up in Germany building trucks with secret compartments made for smuggling bibles into communist countries. He had lived a pretty filled life.
Pretty soon, though, the conversation started turning more religious. Carter started quoting a good chunk of the New Testament. I didn’t mind the conversation too much. I rather enjoyed hearing the recited verses, because by now it was Sunday morning and what’s more appropriate than discussing the gospel on the Sabbath? We quickly learned that Carter was Baptist, of course Doug and I have no contention with other religions and we welcome the insight that comes from getting to know people of other faiths, but the conversation got a little tense when Carter started attacking some of our core beliefs. Doug did a great job at responding to some of Carter’s “allegations” but the guy kept going. He was well versed in many LDS publications. He had read Talmage and Mckonkie and had even read parts of the Book of Mormon. What started out as relief from being stuck in the middle of nowhere, turned into the longest car ride everrr!
When we got into Twin Falls, finally, Carter invited us to his church in the morning. Maybe some people would say no, but we were without a car, without sleep, and it was Sunday, after all, some kind of church is better than no church at all, right? Plus, Carter really is a nice guy, he wasn’t out to hurt us or offend us, he just loved God and wanted to share his beliefs with us. How can you hate someone for that?
We spent the night at a motel (the motel is a whole other story!) and in the morning Carter came and picked us up. We ended up going to Sunday school as well as their combined meeting (which could be compared to our Sacrament meeting, though they don’t have any type of Sacrament.).
And wouldn’t you know? It was our lucky day! They had a guest speaker for both meetings: an ex-Mormon Bishop. This Baptist convert claimed he was “called into the ministry of ‘Reaching Mormons for Christ.’” The first 20 minutes of his lesson was like an infomercial for all the books he and his wife would be selling out in the hall after church. The rest of the meeting he just bashed Mormons and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He taught some crazy things. There were several times while he was speaking that Doug and kept shaking our heads, because what he was saying about LDS people just wasn’t true.
One of the very first things he started out discussing were the interviews each LDS member has before being baptized into the church. He told the congregation that the ONLY questions asked in the interview are “Do you believe the Church and gospel of Jesus Christ have been restored through the Prophet Joseph Smith? Do you believe that current Church President is a prophet of God? And do you feel that you have repented of your past transgressions?” He went on to ask “Did you guys hear anything about Jesus Christ or the atonement?” To which the congregation all said “No!”
The problem, of course, was that this guy failed to mention about 10 other questions that are asked in that interview- the very first two questions are: “Do you believe that God is our Eternal Father? Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Savior and Redeemer of the world?” This guy said he used to be a Bishop in the LDS church. He should know there are more than three questions! He would have conducted dozens if not hundreds of baptism interviews if he had served as Bishop for as long as he said he did. We knew right away that we wouldn’t be able to validate much of anything that this guy had to say.
For about 2 and half hours (he was the Sunday school teacher and the speaker in their combined meeting as well) we listened to this guy bash Latter-day Saint beliefs. The last maybe 10 minutes of each of his talk he actually talked about some of the beliefs of Baptists. Doug and I gathered that they really only have 2 strong beliefs:”Christ atoned for the sins of mankind and that whosoever shall believe in Him will be saved” and “Salvation is ‘by grace, through faith’ plus nothing and minus nothing.” Really, when they only talk about a couple of their beliefs what else can you expect them to fill their time with but bashing other religions? Makes sense to me. At the very end of meeting the pastor got up and said a prayer that those seeking the truth would find it and that those who were lost would come to Christ. Doug and I could feel the pastors eyes burrowing into the top of our bowed heads, but we thought to ourselves, “Check…check…we’ve got all that covered.”
Overall though, even with all the Mormon bashing, we actually enjoyed ourselves and had a good experience attending another faith’s service. Several people came up and introduced themselves to us and asked us about ourselves. We told them our story and that we were LDS. The youth pastor’s wife even came up to us and when we told her we were students in Rexburg, she kind of giggled and asked “you’re not Mormon are you?” (As though it would be a funny joke if we were) when we told her we were, she got a little quiet and said “oh.” But she stayed near us and answered a few questions that we had. After church the other pastor’s wife came up to us and kind of apologized about the sermon we heard. She said “I know that must have been an uncomfortable meeting for you to sit through, but we’re so glad you came. We hope you find the truth. We’re praying for you.” (I don’t mind having an entire congregation pray for my well-being, even from a different faith! The more blessings, the better. )
In the end, we actually enjoyed this experience, there are several more little details I could include, but I think this is long enough already. Our testimonies of the true gospel were strengthened and we re-learned that you can find differing amounts of truth in any religion and God loves all his children.
