This Hymn Story, submitted by Lisa Lockhart, is from an experience her son, Scott Lockhart had during his mission in Nicaragua, 2008.
"While serving my mission
in Nicaragua, my companion and I were teaching a girl named Mariela.
She had been reading from the Book of Mormon, but was only willing to
meet with us for short periods of time and had not consented to
attend church yet. One evening after dinner my companion and I were
discussing our appointment that we were going to have with Mariela.
We had come to the general conclusion that there was little more that
we could do to help her progress if she were to continue to be
unwilling to attend church to learn more about our faith. At that
moment an idea came to attempt something that I knew I should have
already done previously. I carried around with me on a daily basis a
ukulele. Before each lesson my companion and I and the investigators
would sing a hymn while I played the ukulele. This would usually
spark interest and attentiveness in the investigators, as well as
invite the Spirit to the lesson. However, we had never once sung a
hymn with Mariela. This was mainly because of the fact that she
always gave us so little time to share our lessons that we felt it
unimportant and irrelevant to her progression. I told my companion
that we should sing a hymn to her before this lesson.
Upon arriving at
Mariela’s house that evening, before she could tell us about what
she had read since the last lesson and then grill us with her
difficult questions, we took out the ukulele and a few hymn books and
told her that before answering questions or getting into the
doctrine, we’d like to start with a hymn. With a look of
indifference she said she supposed that would be alright. We gave her
a hymn book to follow along and then began to sing, “I believe in
Christ”. By the end of the song there was a tear rolling down her
cheek. She said quietly, “Elders, I will go to church with you on
Sunday”.
Mariela went to church
with us that Sunday, and has continued to go every Sunday since. She
progressed more and more and eventually committed to baptism. She was
baptized and confirmed a member of the church and almost immediately
declared her desire to prepare to serve a full time mission. This
desire was set aside however, as she began to date Manuel, a returned
missionary from the branch she attended. Not too long after my
mission I received an invitation to be a witness in the sealing of
Mariela and Manuel in the Guatemala City temple. I accepted and was
thankfully able to attend and am happy to know that he now serves as
a branch president and that she serves the branch faithfully with
him. She also played a key role in the conversion of her sister, as
well as one of her cousins. She has brought her parents to church and
activities as well, and they continue to learn more and more about
the gospel.
We can’t expect everyone
to understand and accept everything right away about the gospel, and
even quite frankly, the important things like the Book of Mormon or
the prophet Joseph Smith. By small and simple events, testimonies are
born and truth is found. Mariela was able to come to the gospel
through music. We are advised by Moroni to ask to know if gospel
principles are true. We are also taught that the, “song of the
righteous is a prayer unto me”. Song through hymn is a perfect way
to come to the knowledge of the truthfulness of the gospel. Mariela
later wrote a letter to me telling me about how when she was
baptized, she didn’t have a true testimony of the Book of Mormon.
She told me that she received testimony of the book as she was
serving her first calling after baptism as gospel doctrine teacher.
The material for that year was based out of the Book of Mormon.
Through her weekly study and preparation for the lessons she taught,
she was able to come to know that the book was true. There are
different ways in which people come to the gospel; it’s our duty to
find those ways."
