What's One More Metro Stop

(Before I start, did all of you see Elder Clark and Elder Morris on the World Report????)

So General Conference was incredible and I could talk until the day's end about how many times I wrote in my notes to find this talk later and about how often I felt the Apostles talking right to me, especially President Uchtdorf! But this week I want to share an experience that really made me reflect.

So on Wednesday I had Zone Conference and if you combine that with General Conference this week, it was like God was standing behind me with a megaphone saying to read the Book of Mormon more. Not that I haven't been reading it for my studies and everything like that, but just to read it even more. And so I've been making that a goal to follow. 

But the really powerful experience this week came on Thursday night. We had an appointment with a referral off of North Avenue, which may be one of the roughest parts of the area. It was later in the evening so I was a little nervous about traveling there so close to nightfall. But I trusted the Lord and pressed forward and out to the referral. As what happens more than I'd like, The referral wasn't there... So Elder Haslam and I are standing under a streetlamp in one of the most dangerous parts of Baltimore, at about 8 pm, looking at each other because we aren't quite sure which way to go. There was one bus that would take us deeper into the city to the metro which would take longer but it was a much safer part of town. But there was another bus that I knew ran more frequently and would account to a lot less travel time but also take us practically into the heart of the rough side. It was also the direction we came from but it had been a lot lighter when we first went through. We thought about it for a couple of minutes then decided to take the shorter route. We were blessed because not even 30 seconds after stepping foot onto North Ave, a bus pulled up and we took that bus all the way to the Metro stop. I should also add, this was only my second time on North Ave and it was Elder Haslam's first. So we got off the bus and walked down to the escalators to the train. At the bottom of one of the escalators there was a man standing there. Most people when they say hi to us usually want one of two things, either to pick a fight, or they want money, usually money. But this guy actually said hi and addressed us as Elders, a rare occurrence. Then he started talking to us like normal people, he asked us where we were going, then how our day was. It was a really nice conversation. Then the three of us were standing on another escalator, there are three down to the tracks from the surface, and I could feel the spirit poking me to say something, anything. So I asked him if he had ever met with us, since he obviously knew who we are. He said that he had talked to us a lot but never met with us because he didn't want us at his house. Then he asked us if we had anything for him to read. So we gave him a Book of Mormon and a restoration pamphlet. 

We saw him about 15 minutes later on the train, talking with some of his buddies. I couldn't see the stuff we gave him at first but then I saw him pick up the stuff and read the restoration Pamphlet. I could see that he flipped to the prophets page and started reading. He read for a little bit then looked up and saw us and left his friends and came over and asked us when we had church. We explained when we had church and made sure that he had our number. Then the loudspeaker came on and said what stop was next. The guy looked up and said that he had missed his stop talking to us. I fully expected him to get mad and storm away but he just shrugged and said something really profound, "What's one metro stop when the Lord is involved? After everything he has done for me, I can give up missing my stop to talk about him." It really made me reflect on everything I could've had if I hadn't gone on a mission and how I could react to losing those things. Then I realized that after everything Christ has done to shape me and shape my life into who I am today, two years seemed like nothing to give to him. Honestly, it didn't feel like nearly enough. I love this city so much! There is so much to do here that I know I'll never be bored or wandering around, looking for something to do because there is something or someone around every corner. And you can never judge a book by it's cover, even the people who look the roughest, and that you know that they've killed people, they are all children of God and they all need our help. 

Elder Howell

Luke 1:37