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Monday, April 9, 2012

Cultural Immersion and Testimony

When my colleague, Heidi, and I were in Hawaii, we had the privilege to visit the Polynesian Cultural Center next to BYU-Hawaii.

The day was hot and filled with tropical cultural immersion. But, that was not the only cultural immersion.

At dinner that evening, we were seated next to Kyle. I was not interested in talking to Kyle. At. All. And for those of you who know me well, that is out of the ordinary.

Kyle was odd. The I'm-staying-in-a-tent-on-the-beach-for-two-weeks-work-a-minimum-wage-job-to-travel-nomad kind of person. But, Kyle was friendly. And, soon enough my wall and annoyance wore off, and we were into conversation.

I don't even know how we started talking about religion, but it happened quickly, and while Heidi had been away from the table...

Come to find out when Kyle was 19 years old, he felt called to preach Christianity. He traveled all over the world as a preacher. I thought that was pretty neat.

The neat part was that during the conversation I felt prompted as to what to say. How blessed to have the Holy Ghost prompt you and bring specific ideas to your mind.

We talked about the Book of Mormon--come to find out he'd heard bad things about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and about the Book of Mormon. It's pretty infrequent that you're given such a perfect opportunity to testify to the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. To discuss the history, the decision Lehi made to take his family from Jerusalem. To testify with the power of the Holy Ghost that the Book of Mormon is the word of God that the it testifies of the divinity of the Redeemer and Savior, Jesus Christ.

While I don't know if Kyle felt anything and the conversation did turn a little odd nearing the end and we tried to avoid him after that... it was neat that I was able to clarify some misconceptions and to bear my testimony. I miss those opportunities.


Oh, and what are the odds that that same Kyle would be within the same 50 feet of beach as us the next day on the complete opposite side of Oahu. And that we would try and avoid him completely.

Let's just say the odds weren't in our favor.

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