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If you served a mission, was there anything that happened that made you think, this is why I came on my mission? I remember having a talk with one of my missionary friends during lunch at a zone conference when I was a missionary in France. He was telling me about an amazing experience he had by finding a family, teaching them the gospel, and seeing them get baptized.  He said, “This is the reason I came to France.” The miracles that you see as a missionary are incredible as people grasp onto the gospel of Jesus Christ, change their lives for the better, and commit to keep the commandments.  But I wasn’t sure that I had ever thought, “This is why I came to France.” In my last area, in the city of Pau, I really had seen some miracles and the missionaries were seeing some success.  One of the assistants to the mission president (AP) came to our town and we went on exchanges together. (We called them splits.) We went to a building that my companion and I were previously tracting out and continued where we had left off.  We knocked on a door and a nice lady answered and said that her husband would be back tomorrow. We left a Book of Mormon with her and said we’d stop by the next day. The next day my companion and I stopped by to see if we could speak to them about the Book of Mormon that we had dropped off. To our surprise, we were greeted with a smile as the husband welcomed us in. His name was Etienne Kapinga Mwamba.  We learned that he and his family were refugees seeking political asylum in France from Zaire (Congo.) He had been a high-ranking officer in the army, and then there was a coup, and all of a sudden he was on a hit list. He said that if he was forced to return, he would be killed.  He had managed to escape with his wife and two young daughters.  He had left behind two older boys whom he hoped could join them later. They lived in pretty humble circumstances with very little to their name. We asked him if he had a chance to look at the scriptures we had suggested to read. To our surprise, he had read them all and had actually started reading the Book of Mormon from the beginning.  He shared with us that he had been praying to know how to find eternal life for him and his family. He said, funny enough, when they moved into the apartment, it was completely empty, except for a Book of Mormon that someone had left behind. He said that he couldn’t believe that he had this book on the shelf and had never opened it up to see what treasures were inside. We were eager to explain just what this precious book was that he was holding. We set up a time to come back and teach him. Initially, he didn’t want to have his wife and children in the discussion. I think he wanted to see what we were all about first.  I could respect that. After everything that he had gone through, he was being cautious. The first discussion went really well. He had a strong Christian background and had read and studied the Bible. He had been educated in the USA and had enjoyed a successful life in Zaire. He embraced it all and really loved the Book of Mormon. He was reading through it quickly. When I was a missionary, the second discussion (meeting) was generally when you challenged the person investigating the LDS religion to baptism. We went by the book and asked him if he’d be baptized. He said that he would fast (go without food or drink) and pray about it before making a decision. Tune in to hear the rest! #zaire #congo #lds #france #thechurchofjesuschrist — This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app — Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rocky-mountain-sunshine/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/rocky-mountain-sunshine/support