“Talk All You Want,” New Era, Aug. 2003, 25
Talk All You Want
My parents were pleased to invite the missionaries into our home just to talk. That’s when the miraculous changes in our family started.
During April 1993 my father was buying groceries at a local store in the little town of Realicó, Argentina. Two young men approached him and asked if they could visit his family. My father agreed, and they soon came to our home.
I can still hear my little brother, Sebastián, running to my bedroom and whispering excitedly, “Come look! The missionaries are here!” We had seen them on the streets before, and I must confess we had made fun of them.
That day they shared the Book of Mormon with my parents. They stopped by two days later, and to their amazement my mother had read the whole book and had a list of questions. The missionaries were very excited, but my parents were not looking for a change of religion as much as they were interested in developing a friendship with the elders. “Talk all you want, but you will not get a convert out of this family” was my parents’ first reaction to the discussions. Still the missionaries continued to teach us with a lot of faith and patience.
On a cold night we offered to take the elders home after a discussion. On the way back to our house I asked my mother if she was really thinking of being baptized into this new religion. Her reply stunned me: “If I find it to be the truth, then I will get baptized.” I realized I should also know for myself if it was true.
When the commitment to obey the Word of Wisdom came up in the discussions, I thought it was the end. My mother had tried to stop smoking for 16 years without positive results, and my father sometimes drank alcohol at social events. I didn’t think we needed to change our lifestyle to please some strange religion. Still the missionaries asked us to pray to find out if the gospel had been restored and if Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. A miracle occurred because my mother was able to stop smoking. She knew God was trying to let her know the Church was true, and she was baptized.
I kept reading and praying, and once I had a testimony of the Book of Mormon, I entered the waters of baptism. A few weeks later my father made the same decision, and two years later so did my brother. Although I was only 13 years old when I joined the Church, I knew I had found the greatest treasure ever.
We were sealed as an eternal family in the Buenos Aires Argentina Temple, and we have discovered the joy the gospel brings to our lives. As I look back, I can see the Spirit of God working in our hearts and helping us come out of the darkness into the light.
I love my family. I love the gospel. I love being a missionary. And now when I knock on a door and people say, “Talk all you want, but you will not get a convert out of this family,” I smile and pray that the Spirit will touch them the way it touched my family 10 years ago.
Illustration by Doug Fakkel