It had been an ordinary day. Walt and Sandy were giving their dog a bath when a couple from Indiana knocked at the door of their Utah home. This couple, Ken and Carol Petersen, were volunteers with Project Utah, a Baptist Mid-Missions-sponsored evangelism effort. The Petersens had met many that day who were not interested in their gospel presentation, but Walt and Sandy were ready.
The LDS (Mormon) teachings Walt and Sandy had grown up with had never seemed right to them. But they were searching for something to fill the void in their lives. “Maybe we’ll start trying out a few churches,” they thought. But they never got around to it.
In Walt and Sandy’s home, the Petersens shared with them about how Jesus Christ is the only bridge between God and man. They even used Walt and Sandy’s “Quad,” an LDS combination of the King James Bible and Mormon writings. When asked if Pastor Lloyd Larkin from a local Baptist church could come back and talk to them, Walt and Sandy said, “Definitely!”
For the next seven to eight months, Pastor Larkin (also a BMM missionary) met with Walt and Sandy, answering their spiritual questions. When Sandy told her co-workers that she was considering changing her religion, many tried to talk her out of it: “Don’t Baptists believe everyone’s a sinner and that the family can’t be a unit in heaven?” But Sandy and Walt continued to study the Bible.
One day it all made sense to Sandy, and she prayed to receive Christ as her Savior. Walt needed more time, but one evening, looking at the stars from his back porch, he fell his knees. Realizing only God could have made all that he saw in the sky, he accepted God’s gift of salvation.
Sandy says, “Now I know I can get through everything as long as I know God is there.” God helped them through the death of Walt’s father, and Pastor Larkin was a great comfort to the family at that time. Now Walt’s mother and sister are taking an interest in spiritual things.