Brother, Are You Saved?

 

  I studied in various schools for 16 years, but got my real education in the Navy, I was thrown together with people from all over the country and learned that even crazy people can get the job done when put under military discipline. During my enlistment I lived in a poor foreign country for a year and learned it doesn’t take much money to be happy.

  Every so often a fellow sailor, always someone I didn’t know, would sidle up and ask if I knew the Lord. I’m a Catholic, was my answer. Your question is redundant and embarrassing. I didn’t say that. I just mumbled something that made him feel his mission was accomplished and he would sidle away.

  Since I got out of the service decades ago no one has asked me about my knowledge of the Lord, until last Monday outside the Super One grocery store. As I walked toward my car I could see a woman loading bags into the back of her car while a tall skinny kid, her son I thought, talked to her. But when she was done, she drove off and he turned to me.

  At first I thought he was going to ask for money. Instead he asked if he could tell me about Jesus. Let 'er rip, was my thought. First he asked what I knew about Jesus. Does this guy have all week? I wondered. He didn't realize my ability to blather on about subjects I really know little about.

  It was a beautiful day and I figured I could spare this poor soul a few minutes. He didn't really want to talk about Jesus though. He read me a few lines from a book. "What do you think about that?" He asked. I said it sounded like one of the epistles of St Paul. He said it was from the Book of Mormon. He reread a line about believers receiving the power of God. What did that mean to me? he asked

  He had lost me now. I was recollecting my trip to the San Antonio World's Fair in 1968 where I had first heard of Mormonism. There was a little theater there and my friend Jim Graham and I were invited in to watch a short video about the Church of the Latter Day Saints of Jesus Christ. I told the guy about this event. He asked what I thought about it. I said it was alien to me. 

  But this fellow was uninterested in a my ramblings. He asked if I'd like to join his group to discuss the Book of Mormon. I declined. I told him I was already in a group in my church. He asked what church and what time. I almost expected him to show up. He would have been welcome. 

  I thanked him for giving me a chance to make up for remaining silent those many years ago when I was put on the spot by itinerant preachers. Now Jesus would have to acknowledge me up yonder because I had acknowledged him. I asked my new acquaintance's first name as we parted. "Dominic," he said. Ah, a good Catholic name. But I kept quiet about that.

Heading to the Great Salt Lake on the Mormon Trail