My Message from the Lord

In 1993, three days after I moved to Polokwane, in northern South Africa, I got a knock on my door. When I opened it, there stood two missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

I grew up deeply religious, and my family had always warned me to stay away from the missionaries. But they seemed nice and I enjoy talking about religion, so I invited them in.

After a wonderful visit, they said to me, “Could we give you a Book of Mormon?”

“Wait just wait a minute,” I responded. “I think I have one.”

When I showed my copy to them, they were astounded. I explained that in my home city of Cape Town a number of years before, missionaries had given me a Book of Mormon at an exhibition. I hung on to it, and every now and then I paged through it.

After our visit, I invited the missionaries back. I had been raised in a different church, however, where my stepfather was a minister. The thought of having to be baptized again became one of the stumbling blocks to my conversion. Nevertheless, I began attending the Church’s small branch. After about a year and a half, the branch president called me into his office.

“David, I want to give you a challenge,” the branch president said. “We really want you to get a testimony of the Book of Mormon. I feel you can do that if I call you to teach Gospel Doctrine. You already teach at a university, and you’re not scared of standing in front of people.”

Today, teachers must be members of the Church.¹ But back then, the branch president felt inspired to ask me to teach. I’m grateful for that.

“OK,” I said.

Every Saturday evening I would study the lesson in great detail so I could understand it, know it, and relate to the Book of Mormon’s stories and characters. For me, teaching the book really was a good way to find my testimony of it.

One Sunday, after I had taught for about a year, the mission president from Pretoria came for a conference and attended my Sunday School class.

“Thank you, Brother Baxter,” he said afterward. “That was a nice lesson. Where are you from?”

When I told him Cape Town, he asked what ward I had attended.

“I didn’t attend a ward.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“I am what you would refer to as a Gentile?” I said. “I’m not a member of the Church.”

He went white in the face and rushed off to the branch president.

“You have a nonmember teaching the scriptures?” the mission president asked him.

“Well, did he do it badly?”

“No.”

“Was he inspiring?”

“Yes.”

“Did he teach true doctrine?

“Yes.”

They allowed me to continue teaching. A few months later, I went to visit my family in Cape Town for the Christmas holidays. While I was there, my mother told me she was going to leave her church after my stepfather passed away. At that very moment, the Lord helped me feel free of any feelings of guilt I had because of loyalty to my mother and the church I grew up in.

When I returned home, I called the branch president.

“I’d like to be baptized tomorrow,” I told him.

“David, are you sure?”

“Absolutely,” I said. “I got a message from the Lord.”

Image

hands holding a book

“I Have Something to Give You”

When I told my biological father that I had become a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I could not understand why he was so calm.

“Let me tell you a bit of my history,” he said.

My father, who had never talked to me about religion, told me that as a young man, he had attended the Church’s Cumorah Ward in Cape Town. He had played on the ward basketball team. He had made several close friends who were Latter-day Saints. One of his best friends was a missionary who, after his mission, was killed in Vietnam.

Had my dad not lost that friend, I think he would have joined the Church. His life would have been a whole different story. Years later, he still had great respect for Latter-day Saints. He didn’t practice any religion himself, but he absolutely supported my decision to join the Church.

A few months after my stepfather passed away, I told my mother about my baptism. That did not go as well. Nevertheless, when I went to the Netherlands to visit Dutch family members on my mother’s side, I shared my conversion with them. That’s when I learned of another family connection to the Church.

During my visit, my uncle approached me. “I have something to give you,” he said. Then he handed me a first edition of the Book of Mormon in Dutch, published in 1890.

“It belonged to our family long ago,” he said. “I want you to have it.”

These two family connections to the Church were very comforting to me. Today, I treasure that Book of Mormon in Dutch. It reminds me of those first missionaries who visited me. It reminds me of how important teaching the Book of Mormon was to my conversion. It reminds me of my late father’s respect for the Church and that some of my ancestors had accepted the restored gospel.

It also reminds me that the Book of Mormon truly has the power to convince both “Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God, manifesting himself unto all nations.”²