If You Could Choose

Natalee T., Oklahoma, USA

I live in Oklahoma, where there are many missionary opportunities. One such experience happened recently with my friend and my English teacher. Our English teacher assigns different journal topics every Monday, and we can choose to read them aloud on Friday.

One week, my teacher chose the topic “If you could have someone famous or well-known raise you, who would it be?” My friend chose Brigham Young, and I chose Thomas S. Monson. We are the only Mormons in our grade, so nobody else knew who we were talking about. My friend read hers aloud, but I had no intention of reading mine. Then, I felt the Spirit prompt me that I needed to read mine.

After we both read our journal entries, our teacher started asking us questions about our Church. We talked about our beliefs for about 20 minutes. Normally I would have been nervous, but I felt the Spirit so strongly. My teacher seemed interested.

The next week, I gave my teacher a copy of the Book of Mormon. I put a copy of the Articles of Faith inside, along with a brief summary of the Book of Mormon. She said that she felt ignorant because most kids can say what they believe, but they only know because their parents told them. “But you know what you believe,” she said, “and you know why.”

I felt the Spirit confirm that because I had listened to the promptings of the Holy Ghost, I had had a missionary experience that I would not have had otherwise.