 Hey there, friend. My name is Gary Miller and I'm a Latter-day Saint. So on paper, I shouldn't even be here. If you'd told me five years ago that I would be looking at you sharing this story over social media and the internet about how my family discovered the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I would have told you that you were certifiably crazy. I said there's no way that that would be us. But isn't it interesting how God takes everyone's journey and can work it into something really amazing? I just want to encourage you today if you felt like your spiritual journey, wherever you are on the grid, has kind of felt a little all over the place. Sometimes it feels like really great, other times not so much, and maybe you visited a ton of different churches and maybe you've been a part of a few different things, but you could never kind of figure out where home was. If that's you, I just want to applaud you for exploring and searching. You know, my journey with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints started about two years ago. I was in a parking lot of a Kroger. I'd gone in to get a snack because I work in sales and marketing, and so I had a long drive to the other side of town to meet with a sales prospect. Now, let me tell you, there's no nice way to drive across Houston during rush hour traffic. You want to test your grace and figure out how spiritual you are, try that. It'll wear your nerves then if you're not careful. So when I'm driving, I wanted to make sure I had a snack, but I needed something to listen to. Now, if you're like me, I love podcasts. Go figure. Now I host a podcast where I share my story and share things about the Church and the Bible and Scripture, life and faith. It's downloaded and listened to all over the world. It's so funny that my journey started by listening to a podcast, and now I do the same thing for many others in my podcast. But so I pull out my iPhone, and if those of you who are familiar with how the iPhone interface works with podcasts, well, they gave me some recommended shows based on what I had already listened to. But for whatever reason, and I have no idea, even though I would tell you it was providential, that an audio for the Book of Mormon shows up on my phone. Now, friend, a guy like me was not supposed to be listening to the Book of Mormon. Now, in case you missed it earlier, I was an independent fundamental hellfire preaching Baptist. All right, we're about a million miles from the Book of Mormon. But it came up and for whatever reason, I hit play. And so I'm driving down the West Park Tollway, listening to people talking about plates, and I'm hearing about Nephi, and I'm hearing about these people that I had never heard of, because I had been a student of the Bible for a long, long time. And so I'm going, wait, what is this about? But as I kept listening, I kept hearing about Jesus. I thought, wait a minute, what's like, how is this possible? So, I'm driving on my sales calls, and I'm listening to this audio of the Book of Mormon. It wasn't just that day, I kept doing it every day. And finally, I'd heard enough that I thought, you know what, as a good scripture student, and I was, I did my undergraduate work at Weyland Baptist University, went to seminary at Liberty Theological Seminary. So for me, like the key was, I needed pages, I needed to have my high letters out, I needed to be able to mark this thing up. I got to figure out what's going on. So where do I go? I go to eBay. And I go out on eBay and I look up Book of Mormon, because I wanted to get a copy of the Book of Mormon that I could really touch and handle and kind of pick apart. And so I ordered this copy, really nice, leather-bound copy that was somebody else's. And it arrives on my doorstep a few days later, and I start reading it, highlighter and pen out, Bible on one side, Book of Mormon on the other, and I start going through it, chapter after chapter, book after book. I'd get all the way through it, I'd start over again, and all the way through it, and start over again. And I just kept doing this. And as I was doing it, I kept listening to these podcasts about the church and about the Book of Mormon. And so I was studying it, and I was listening to it, and I was doing what it says in the very beginning of the Book of Mormon. It's really a challenge to the reader that if we go to Heavenly Father in the name of Jesus, and we ask in the midst of our study, is this true, we're gonna find out if it is real? Well, I was doing that every day. I was just following what it told me to do on the front page of the book. So I reach out, and I start going online to try to find out, what am I missing here? Because this Book of Mormon thing is incredible, and it's totally aligned with my Bible. Because I'm gonna tell you, friend, the hand that gave one is the hand that gave the other. And so as I was doing that, I decided that I was going to reach out to the missionaries online. And at the time, you could have an online chat with missionaries, because I wasn't ready to have them over at the house and actually talk to somebody, but I thought I could be kind of secretive and reach out to them online. So I reach out, and we start talking, and I tell them a little bit of my story. And there were two sister missionaries, and they could not have been sweeter, and they did such a good job of handling the fundamental Baptist preacher, which was not an easy thing to do, because I had some really hard questions. And they just dealt with it like it was no problem at all. And so finally, that moved into a phone call, and we started talking, and we had meetings with myself and my lovely wife, Crystal, and the sister missionaries on the phone. We had them on speaker, and we're going through, and we're doing lessons with them on the phone. And then finally, they introduced us. We said, well, are there missionaries local in our area? And they introduced us to two amazing missionaries, who I am firmly convinced were directly assigned to us. They were our two angels. I'll never forget them. Elder Olson and Elder Johnson. And so we had talked to the sister missionaries, and much like the Bible says, you know, the New Testament tells us that we should compel people to come. Well, these sister missionaries had compelled me, hey, Gary Miller, it's time to go to a church league. I said, all right, you know, I told my wife and said, I think we can go visit for a service. But we need to meet with the missionaries, so we know somebody there, so we don't feel like we're total strangers in a strange land. And so I remember talking to the missionaries briefly on the phone, and then we met them in person. Now, friends, when I was walking up into the parking lot, going in for that first meeting, I mean, you would have thought my blood pressure was off the chart. I was so nervous. I was like, am I doing the right thing? Am I in the right place? And then I walk in and I encounter, in person for the first time, the Church of Jesus Christ, Letters Day Saints. I've been reading about it in the Book of Mormon over and over and over again for months. I had been listening to it for months. I had been studying with the missionaries for months, and I finally found myself in the room encountering one-on-one directly meeting other members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And I can't tell you the amount of warmth and reception and welcome and comfort that it was for me and my family. Now, listen, going to Church Cross is like, that's like a no kidding. Like, you got to have a battle plan. I got three daughters. They're young. You got to get everybody out the door and get everybody in. I mean, it's not easy getting this army of the mellors out the door on time, in the church, sitting down, knowing what we're supposed to do. And everyone could not have been sweeter, could not have been nicer. And it started our journey, and we went back every week, and we just kept going and kept going. And finally, one night, when we were having a lesson with our missionaries, I asked the question. I said, well, what do we got to do to be baptized and officially become members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? And just a number of weeks later, I don't even remember how many it was. Right before the pandemic started in February of last year, we found ourselves in the waters of baptism and officially members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. If I even tried to make a list of all the blessings that have come as a result of our decision to join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I wouldn't be able to remember them all because there's so many and I'd be writing for a long time. And you know what? I'd love to sit here and tell you it's all these super spiritual blessings that have come. There have been a lot of great spiritual blessings. There's been a lot of practical ones as well, incredible friendships and relationships and connection to others that has helped us be better parents. It's helped me be a better father and a better husband and a better business owner. And you know, there's amazing transformative power when you get around the gospel of Jesus Christ. So I've got a challenge for you today. Here's what I want you to do. You know you couldn't get off this video with me not giving you something to do, right? So here's what I want you to do. Number one, wherever you're watching it right now, I want you to know that there are missionaries that are ready and excited to answer your questions. And by the way, all those questions, you might think they're out in left field questions. They're happy to answer them. You might think they're hard questions. I had a bunch of those. They're happy to answer them. Friend, if you're a little nervous about that, let me just look right at you and tell you don't be. The missionaries whole role is to be there to help answer your questions and encourage you wherever you are in your journey. So I want you to hit that DM button, the private message button, the chat button, wherever you're watching it. And I want you to reach out to them. I want you to say hello to them. Just say hello missionaries. It's the first thing. And step two, I want you to ask them for something because they're ready to give it to you. I want you to ask them for a copy of the Book of Mormon. And they're going to get that copy to you for free because I want you to take the same challenge that I did. Let me read something to you from the introduction of this precious, precious book. It says this, we invite all men everywhere to read the Book of Mormon. To ponder in their hearts the message it contains and then ask God the eternal Father in the name of Christ if the book is true. Those who pursue this course and ask in faith will gain a testimony of its truth and divinity by the power of the Holy Ghost. Come on, that'll preach. So watch, that's the challenge I want to give to you. Take the same challenge I did. You say, Gary, I'm part of another church. Perfect. Take the challenge. Gary, I'm about a million miles away from God. Perfect. Take the challenge. God, Gary, I'm not even sure. I believe that there's God. Perfect. Take the challenge. Starting this journey in this way. And who knows where it's going to go? I have no idea where it's going to go for you. But I know that if you will take this challenge, you are going to come square on in contact with somebody that's going to change your life. If you will take this challenge, you're going to meet Jesus. You're going to meet Jesus in these pages in a very unique way. And you know what, friend? There is not a hurt. There is not a pain. There is not a trouble. There is not a sorrow. That Jesus cannot heal, restore, and make better. And friend, you're going to find him in here. So I challenge you. I dare you to take me up on this because I know your life is going to be changed. And I can't wait to hear your testimony of how it changes your life. If I can leave you with anything else, I'll leave you with this. I have a firm testimony, friends, that the Book of Mormon is true. That the 66 books in the King James Bible are true. That Jesus loves you and he knows your name. And if you will open up these pages and start this challenge, you're going to meet him in a most unique way.