VIDEO: The Coolest Moroni 8 Story Ever (Elder Holland Audio Excerpt from Latter-day Divers)

The Coolest Moroni 8 Story Ever (Elder Holland Audio Excerpt) – powered by Happy Scribe

Told the wonderful little story, I’ll give you a 30 second synopsis of a longer story of Wallace Toronto proselyte in in the in Czechoslovakia.

I was going to say the Czech Republic. It was Czechoslovakia, then proselyte and Czechoslovakia between the two wars after World War One and before the rise of Hitler in World War Two.

And these two missionaries knocked on a door. It opened about that far and a woman looked outside who they were and slammed the door.

Somebody deaf to the foot and deft of heart at least, didn’t quite get their toe in the door. But they refused to leave. And by the way, be a little persistent now. Be courteous, be thoughtful, don’t be insensitive. But Sister Hollonds got an Avon lady that’s more persistent than you are. She’s there every week and she’s just selling mascara. OK, be a little persistent. Don’t take no for an answer, at least not.

How many times did the Savior have to come to the Nephites? How many times does he come to the temple in Bountiful to announce who he is and the advent that he’s going to make and appear before them?

He has to tell them three times. You may have to go back to a door. You may have to go back to an investigator. You may have to find another way to get back into that heart. Don’t give up so easy. Well, OK. These elders weren’t going to give up easy. And so they knocked on the door, knocked on the door again and again. Finally she opened again and said in her check and their check wasn’t very good, but she told them to leave and they said, what have we done?

We’re we’re we’re young men were innocent. We’re just we’re just visitors here. What have we done? We came to give a message. We came to express goodwill. What did we do? And she said, your ministers, aren’t you?

And they said, yes, we are ministers.

And she said, that’s enough. That’s enough for me, that’s all. And and starts to slam the door again. This time they did not open the door. Why? What’s wrong with ministers? What’s wrong with us? Why? Tell us. Tell us what? Tell us why. Well, something touched your heart, I’m sure. The spirit of the Lord. I’m sure the persistence of these missionaries a little bit.

And she started to tell of a longer story, the quick version of which is that she’d had a daughter, lost a daughter. I don’t know where the father was. I guess there was a father. But if he was killed in the war, I don’t know. But there’s no father in the home. And she has a baby girl, little girl, and at about age three, lost the baby and in total grief and in total distress. And and again, if it’s in the context of the war or what, I don’t know.

But she went to her local minister and asked for help and asked for consolation and asked for counsel.

Asked for what you ask a minister for when you’ve had a moment of bereavement and grief and tragedy in your life. And the minister said, now, this is the report that the missionaries got. And I I’m leaving it to you as to the accuracy of it, it seems a little harsh, but that’s the way they reported it and the way they said it to her, that she said it to them, that he turned on her and said, I don’t have anything to do with you.

I don’t have anything to say to you.

That little girl’s in hell. And so are you. Eventually, because you didn’t have her baptized and you haven’t darkened the door of this church and you come staggering down here at your moment of loss and expect something and, well, you’re not going to get it and turned her away.

I can’t quite imagine that. But that’s the report. And it was severe enough and honest enough or at least accurate enough that she left saying two things.

I will never, ever, ever darken the door of this church again. And number two, I will never speak to a minister again in time of need or in time of delight, in a time of joy or in time of sorrow. I will never speak to a minister again. So that’s why she said, are you minister? And they said, yes, and she slams the door, Well, what would you do?

Elders, sisters, what would you do if your elder Holland and you’ve got six memorized discussions and you know them in order and you have to give one before you give to and you have to give two before you give three and and you have to have your companion ready to do his part because you only know your part when you’re first.

What you’re a new missionary and on and on and on and all the drama.

What would you do? Well, I’ll tell you what Wallace Toronto did in 1928, long time before my missionary plan or yours, he said in his broken check. Would you like us to tell you where your daughter is? And later on, this woman said, For the first time in my life, I felt the spirit of the Lord. And she opened the door, didn’t let them in. This is still a doorstep conversation, persistent missionaries, this is still a doorstep exchange.

She opens a little wider and says, I’d give anything to know where my daughter is.

And Wallace Toronto, halting, feeble, broken Czech student that he was 21 years old or so, opens the Book of Mormon and on the doorstep reads to her in the best check he can muster from the eighth chapter of Moroni. Mormon’s great letter to his son about the curse of infant baptism and why children are saved by the grace of God and the atonement of Christ in their innocence and swept into the kingdom of heaven on the mercy and majesty of the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I don’t know who that sister is, I don’t even know her name. I don’t know how. I don’t know how much of that legend is legend. And I don’t know how how it will be seen on into the next 40 or 50 or 60 years.

But I know those stories are repeated all over this world on the strength of a missionary who had the sense to know what was in Moroni eight.

Now, that’s why it’s got to be in the hearts of the missionaries.