Bike-Rack Buddies

Mindy B., age 13, Utah, USA

Illustration by Yevhenia Haidamaka

It was a regular day. I was getting my bike from the bike rack after school when I saw a girl around my age at the other end of the rack. I said, “Hi, my name is Mindy. What’s yours?”

“Hi, Mindy. My name is Madison,” she said. Madison had straight brown hair and dark red glasses. She was sitting next to her bike. As I talked to her, she said a swear word, and I automatically said, “Please don’t say that.”

“OK, I’ll just say, ‘Oh my peanut butter,’ because me and my brother have an obsession with peanut butter,” Madison said.

“That seems OK,” I said.

Somehow our conversation got around to religion. She told me she wasn’t a member of the Church. Madison told me that she lived with her mom and her mom’s boyfriend. Eventually I said, “Would you like a copy of the Friend?”

“What’s the Friend?” she asked, and I told her what it was. The next day I brought her a copy. After she read it, she told me she liked it, and I gave her the New Era. Madison read that, and we continued to meet. She told me that she wants to get baptized.

Someday I’ll give her the Book of Mormon and the Ensign. I hope that Madison will get baptized and, when she’s old enough, go on a mission and get married in the temple.