He Decided to Come

By James Teichert

James Teichert lives in Wyoming, USA

Photo illustration by Dave Peterson

After the creation of the Come, Follow Me curriculum, I noticed in priests quorum, Sunday School, and seminary that our teachers began to give us more challenges to do things. They especially encouraged us to do missionary work among our nonmember and less-active friends. One week our priests quorum adviser challenged us to pray and ask God how we could reach out to our friends. We all accepted the challenge.

There was a boy at school named Gavin, who wasn’t a member of the Church. We all decided to start being more friendly to him. We started with small things—saying hi to him in the halls and inviting him to hang out. He even came to some Mutual activities with us. I know the Spirit guided us to him because we had prayed.

Most of my friends are on the wrestling team with me, and Gavin decided to join the team. Our team always prays before matches and studies the scriptures together when we travel for tournaments. Gavin started listening in and got really curious. Seeing us do these things together and being able to do them with us made him want to learn more. He started meeting with the missionaries and decided to be baptized.

After he was confirmed, he bore his testimony in sacrament meeting and thanked the boys in the quorum and on the wrestling team. His grandmother had passed away shortly before we started to befriend him, and he said the Spirit he felt when he came to Church activities helped him cope with the loss. We knew of his grandmother’s passing, but we didn’t think much about it until he bore his testimony that day. As I listened to Gavin’s testimony, I realized that God led us to do simple acts of kindness that didn’t take much work for us but that meant the world to him.