Myldsmail and the Atheist

Wow, so myldsmail must hate me. I was doing my email 4 hours ago and it kicked me out and had some problems...after I had already written a good long email. It was less than ideal. So now I am back and it is working. We went to go and see an Elder off, who had to go home because a cement wall fell on him last month and broke his pelvis in 4 places. He was a good Elder. It was really sad seeing him. He was SO skinny and sickly looking. We sang him God Be With You and he was gone. And now I am back at the email thing.

So I wrote about how happy our hero was again this week. I think he is still living off of his birthday high. I still got some more birthday mail this week and a package from Ashley. For the second time in my mission she has tried sending me a recorder and for the second time it was robbed. It is indeed tragic. The recorder, as we will all remember from my MTC triumph with Elder Bodily, is an amazing instrument. Our "If You Could Hie To Kolob" Piano and Recorder duo was epic. But I have a feeling now that the birthday has come to an end and I am now just a regular 20 year old boy...man.

So I have a story that I fear will be a novel. We will see how it comes out. It is another Andy Shepherd experience.

This week I have been placing a huge emphasis on my faith and really going for an absolute "knowledge" of the existence of God. Don’t ask me why, I usually am not on that theme but this week I was. In my personal studies I was searching out scriptures on the theme, for example Alma 30 where Alma talks about how everything denotes there is a God. Etc... And I have daily been listening to a Jessie Clark Funk song called "Everything Speaks His Name". (Jessie Clark Funk is my guilty pleasure music in the mission. She is an EFY singer more or less and as such is approved. She has a style that reminds me of Carrie Underwood and so it is fun...I like it. Don’t make fun of me.) Anyway, and the song talks about that theme. I have had it stuck in my head. I have been praying every night for an experience that will strengthen my faith and understanding of why I am here. Not doubting, just asking for more faith. Still with me. Good. The point up 'til now is that I made a real emphasis in my studies and prayers on just the existence of God.

Elder Stevenson and I were in a ward blitz in another area in the city last Saturday morning. We were knocking, because that is what you do in blitzes because you don’t know anyone or anything. We came across a 25 year old man walking with a 1 year old baby, rather teaching his kid to walk on the sidewalk. I saw him and thought "FAMILY", which is a missionary target, and we went in. He told us he was atheist and that he didn’t really have interest in talking to us. I said "well, we just want to chat, we go around getting to know people and talking about what we do and believe, can we come by some other time?" And he said "just come by now." That was weird, so we followed him home down the street and went in and talked to him.

Before I continue, I have never had this kind of a connection before with ANY investigator or person in the Guay (Gwy as we say it). He told me about his life story and the reason he is atheist. He was born in the ghetto of ghettos here in Uruguay, was mixed up in drugs and gangs and stealing during his teenage years, and somehow overcame all that "without God" and now he has a house, a beautiful wife and a baby boy and steady work. He has it all. I was so impressed with him. He was SOO nice and very sincere, very open. He reminded me of me because he just opened up and started rambling on like I always do to other people. We were instantly friends. The difference being our philosophies on life.

He proceeded to tell me the very common atheist theme, "if God existed there wouldn’t be so much suffering in the world." Now here is where this story gets me, I had been studying and preparing myself all week for this visit without knowing it. I realize now that all that studying was for me, it wasn’t even for him. I didn’t share one scripture with him that I had read, or anything of that kind. But I felt a sympathy and an empathy that I normally wouldn’t have had for him. I related to him. It was interesting. Anyway, moving on. So he tells us his way of thinking and I told him mine. We talked for an hour. The spirit spoke to me in a way that is rare for me and I responded to my feelings. I told him a story that I don’t know if I have told many of you before, but the spirit prompted me to share a story about 10 year old Andy Shepherd. I originally thought "he wont care about a story from my childhood, he needs something more recent more substantial..." but I couldn’t deny how I felt. So I told him this.

When I was in the 4th or 5th grade I had decided, for a time, that God didn’t exist. I had learned about dinosaurs in school, and my logical mind had decided that they didn’t work well with the story of Genesis I learned in primary. I said to myself, even at that age (believe me or not but that is the kind of sweet cute boy I was), "God doesn’t exist. Science has proven that." I told myself I have to keep going to church because I don’t want to hurt my parents feelings, but when I grow up I will stop going to church. I really told myself this stuff!! I was a logical little boy. I then told him also about how I decided to start praying because there was a song called A Child's Prayer that made me cry and I didn’t know why. At that age I offered my first personal prayer that I can remember all by myself in my room on the bottom bunk. The prayer went something like this "God, if you exist then you hear me. If you don’t I am just talking to myself and so this doesn’t really mean anything." I prayed like this for a while. It became a daily thing praying. I don’t know at what moment I began taking out the phrase "if you exist" and I don’t know when I started believing. I only know that I began to feel and know that God existed.

Now, as I told that story it answered my prayers. I hadn’t thought of that story in a while, but it is one of the early foundations of my faith. We talked about the plan, and how we cant say that God doesn’t exist because of suffering. I said we need to understand our purpose for being here. Etc.. You all know all of this so we will move on. He responded to it a little bit. He even started coming to the conclusion that my beliefs were beautiful because I believed in an eternal life, and a just god. He was obsessed with the theme justice. He said if there was a God He would be just. As we explained the plan he saw that we believed in justice. And that in our beliefs those that suffer at least have something going for them, whereas in his beliefs they suffered, died, and that sucked. He saw how beautiful a hope and faith in God can be. And he invited us back. And promised me he would start praying the same way little boy Andy Shepherd prayed. And he wants us to play football with him. I really wish he was in my area. We had to turn him over to the other Elders. Anyway, I have never seen a receptive Atheist, especially one that has been through what he went through. The experience wasn’t only for him. I felt something completely new to me.

I knew that I needed to be there in that area on Saturday morning. As I looked my new friend in the eyes I felt that I knew him for some reason. I felt like I was exactly where I needed to be. A sensation I never felt before came over me. I am typically not a person to say the whole "there are no coincidences" phrase, because I usually think God lets things roll off our agency, but Saturday morning was not a coincidence. I cannot deny what I felt with that man. I had a connection with him that I have never felt before with any other human being. I was supposed to be here in Uruguay, in this ward, and on those divisions, to talk to him on Saturday morning. I cant describe it. Mock my feelings if you will, but I felt something miraculous that has strengthened my faith. My faith is strengthened, and an atheist is talking to God, even if he does feel "stupid doing it".

I know that God exists. I know that Jesus Christ lives. And I know that God is fair and loving and that we can all be with Him again someday. I love you all and I have to go. Take care of yourselves!!

Andy