Missionary Moment: Rylie McBride

Hey ladies! I have been SLACKING on the blog lately, hence the three posts today! This post is the first of (hopefully) many missionary moments to come. This particular missionary experience comes from the McBride family who, sadly, just moved out of our ward! They will be greatly missed but we are excited for them to start this new adventure in Cleveland! Enjoy this fabulous missionary experience from Rylie!

Recently my husband and I traveled to Cleveland Ohio to look for housing, and prior to our trip Aaron arranged for us to stay with a young family attending the same medical school my husband will go to in the fall.  Because Aaron had set up things like this in the past, I figured that the family we would be staying with for the week would be members of the church, but that was not the case.  When we arrived in Cleveland and began speaking with the couple, we discovered they were Catholic and that they had never really had any interaction or experiences with “Mormons.”  The wife mentioned to us that she knew so little about the LDS faith that she actually got on the Internet and googled the word Mormon to “see what they had gotten themselves into.”  That made me laugh.

Not long after, they began asking questions about our faith.  My husband being the enthusiastic returned-missionary that he is was thrilled by all their questions.  We had about a two-and-a-half hour long conversation about the church with topics including priesthood, eternal families and sealings, temples, plan of salvation, baptisms and work for the dead etc.  It felt like we toured them through a majority of the mission discussions, and they took very well to the principles.  When we spoke of eternal families, the wife turned to her husband and said, “Honey, we need to be Mormons!” She was so excited by the idea of eternal families because she admitted that one of the main things she disagreed with in the Catholic church was the idea of “til death do us part.”  It was such a neat experience to watch the joy and excitement in her face as the spirit touched her, even though I knew that there was a good chance she would not be converted immediately. 

As the first night with the couple went on, more gospel conversations ensued.  The couple requested a printed copy of the Family Proclamation, downloaded the gospel library and Mormon Channel, loaded manuals about how to have a happy family and raise children, and agreed to watch conference with us (since it conveniently was happening that weekend).  They watched the Saturday afternoon session of conference with us and I think they really enjoyed it.  It was such a great experience to share the gospel with people who had never had an experience with it before.

Fast forward three weeks.  My husband flew back out to Cleveland to continue our house hunt and again he stayed with the family.  When he got there, the first thing he recognized was a Book of Mormon on their dining room table (mind you that we did not give this to them).  Curious about it, Aaron asked the couple how they got a copy.  The wife explained that she had told her mom about the gospel conversations we had had with them weeks prior, and her mom ended up staying in a Marriott hotel (where there are Books of Mormon in every room) and she asked the hotel if she could take the book home for her daughter.  The couple had not begun to read the Book of Mormon, but they are interested in it. 

In addition to this experience, Aaron continued to expound on the conversations we had had last time we stayed with them.  The wife was especially interested in temples and asked Aaron if there were any of our temples close to Cleveland.  The closest temple is the Columbus, Ohio temple, and the wife was excited to learn about this because her whole family is from Columbus.  She told Aaron that even though she knows she cannot go inside, she would love to go with us and explore the temple grounds.  In addition, the couple watched some Mormon messages and bible videos.  It is so exciting to see how the gospel can influence lives, and I know that the Heavenly Father is greatly involved in this process.  I cannot wait to see what happens from here.