Hank Smith: 00:03 Hello, everyone. Welcome to followHIM Favorites. This is where John and I share a single story to go with each week’s lesson. John, we’re in 3 Nephi, 1 through 7. I was reading about the Gadianton robbers and how some of them converted and came back to live among the people, and I thought of a story I’ve heard you tell many times about a man who converted to the gospel.

John Bytheway: 00:23 I was leaving a mall downtown Salt Lake City, and there was somebody standing by a table at Deseret Book at a book signing, so I went and bought his book. This guy’s first name was Mario. He’s part of organized crime, Hank. When he gets home, his wife says, “Hey, I let a couple of young men in suits in the house,” and he’s like, “What?” “Yeah, a couple of young men in suits. They’re missionaries.” He’s like, “They’re not missionaries, they’re federal agents. I told you never open the door for anybody,” and they have this big fight. She’s like, “No, no, they were too young. I don’t think they’re federal agents.”

  00:54 Long story short, he’s watching for them the next day. And he says they round the corner, one of them looked like he was about 12 and the other was maybe 18. I thought, okay, here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to open the door and see if they’ll walk past me because a cop will never let you get behind him. And I didn’t know that. He learned that in organized crime school. He opens the door and these two elders walk right past him. Okay, they’re either really highly trained or they’re missionaries. They sit down to start to talk. Mario eventually becomes convinced, okay, these guys are really missionaries. And he starts firing every tough question he’s got at them until it gets so late, one of the missionaries starts looking at his watch. Finally, Mario’s like, “What’s the matter?” And the missionary says, “Well, we have these rules. We’re supposed to be in at 9:30, and it’s 9:30 right now.” Mario says, “If you guys leave now, you’re never coming back.” The missionary is like, “Can we call our mission president?” “Yeah, there’s the phone.”

  01:55 So he picks up the phone, and Hank, this is not a doot, doot doot, this is… This is an old phone. And he calls the mission president. “Hey, President, we’ve got this investigator.” That’s what we used to call them. “He has all these questions and he wants us to stay, but it’s 9:30. What should we do?” And the mission president says, “Well, okay, I’ll tell you what. You can stay till 10:30. Let me talk to your investigator.” The mission president says, “Sir, would you follow these young men home tonight and make sure they get home safely? Because you know, there’s some shady characters out there.” Mario’s like, “Yeah, I’ll take care of them.”

  02:34 Mario keeps taking the lessons. Eventually, he joins the Church and the bishop says, “Mario, you’re in and we love you, but you need to be all the way in.” And Mario’s like, “Oh, they know. They know I’m still doing illegal stuff.” And he has this horrible decision to make: do I leave the Church or do I leave organized crime?

Hank Smith: 02:56 Wow.

John Bytheway: 02:57 How do you normally leave organized crime, Hank? In a box.

Hank Smith: 03:00 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 03:01 You don’t.

Hank Smith: 03:01 Yeah. Cement over shoes in the East River.

John Bytheway: 03:04 No, they kill you.

Hank Smith: 03:05 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 03:05 What happens if you leave the Church? They send home teachers. And so he’s like, which one of these is worse? He plans, he schemes, he hid in a cabin even his wife didn’t know that he had. And this is how determined he was. I have got to stay in this Church, I found something wonderful. He calls the boss and says, “I want to meet. I want out. I’ve joined this church.” He just screamed at him on the phone. Finally set up a meeting and he says, “I walk into this abandoned warehouse.” Hank-

Hank Smith: 03:39 My word.

John Bytheway: 03:39 If anybody sets up a meeting with you in an abandoned warehouse, what does this tell you?

Hank Smith: 03:44 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 03:45 Don’t go. He said, “My uncle was standing outside with a bat. My uncle,” hitting this bat into his hand. And I don’t think it was, hey, when we’re done, let’s play baseball, right? He’s hitting this bat into his hand. And he pointed at this table like, sit down. He goes in there, he sits down, he says that the crime boss stands up and screamed at him for half an hour. He’s finally like, is it my turn? He’s like, “Look, I joined this church and I’ve become” what we used to, remember this is an old story, “I’ve become a Mormon.” And the boss sits back in his chair and he goes, “Mormons. I know these people.”

  04:26 Mario’s first thought was, the Mormons are connected? Oh, wow, what a scam. I should have seen this coming. This is brilliant. He’s like, “No, that’s not it.” He says, “I know these people.” Apparently what happened, they had a newly elected governor in this state and he was a member of the church. This crime boss brought him a briefcase with a million dollars in it and said, “Hey, you do your thing, let us do our thing, look the other way. Here’s a million dollars tax-free,” and this governor, Latter-day Saint governor, said, “Take your money. Get out of here. I’m going to take you down.” And this crime boss was like, “You’re going to be one of them. If you do everything these people ask, I got nothing to worry about.” And he walked out of the abandoned warehouse.

Hank Smith: 05:16 Wow.

John Bytheway: 05:16 And Mario said, “I think I’m going to take a bullet in the back,” and he never did.

  05:21 Now, you’re the bishop. What calling do you give this guy Mario?

Hank Smith: 05:27 I don’t know.

John Bytheway: 05:30 Primary. Right.

Hank Smith: 05:31 Yeah, of course.

John Bytheway: 05:32 He was called to teach the 10-year-olds. He said, “When the bishop called me,” and oh my goodness, Hank, I’ve been in this position before. “The bishop called me. I said, ‘Bishop, I got to tell you something. I can’t read.'” And I could just imagine the Bishop. Bishop’s, “You’ll be fine.”

Hank Smith: 05:53 You’ll be okay.

John Bytheway: 05:54 Here’s the manual. You’re holding it upside down. Here. He doesn’t know. Imagine how humbling. Mario walks into this room. He says there’s three 10-year-old boys there, and he had to tell them, grown man, “Boys, I’m supposed to be your primary teacher but, boys, I can’t read.” I love the definition of the pure love of Christ. Love for Christ, love from Christ, love like Christ. Three 10-year-old boys said, “Sit down. We’ll help you.” They’re reading the manual and they’re sliding it back and forth and passing it back and forth, and Mario says, “Those boys taught me the gospel.” And it wasn’t what they read, it was how they treated him.

  06:39 If you get this book, the dedication says, “To my 10-year-old primary class.” I was speaking about this at a big event in Cincinnati once. Somebody raised their hand. I mean, we we’re in a room with 2500 women, and I just thought, take the comment. And I did and this woman says, “I’m sitting next to the person who wrote that book.” She was the ghostwriter for the book.

Hank Smith: 07:01 Oh, wow.

John Bytheway: 07:01 And I talked to her afterwards and she said, “Yeah, he passed away last year as a temple worker.” I’m looking at 3 Nephi 5. They did forsake all their sins and their abominations and their whoredoms, did serve God with all diligence day and night. And it talks about the Gadianton robbers, and Mario didn’t do anything as bad as these guys. As many as repented of their sins and enter into a covenant were set at liberty. It’s such a cool story. So when I read this, I think there’s hope for everybody.

Hank Smith: 07:33 Wow. Set at liberty, and that’s not just a physical freedom, that’s a spiritual.

John Bytheway: 07:38 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 07:39 A spiritual freedom that he found.

John Bytheway: 07:41 Oh, absolutely. Changed his whole life, and passed away firm in the faith as a temple worker. How cool is that?

Hank Smith: 07:48 That’s great. From crime to Christ. I love it.

  07:53 We hope you’ll join us on our full podcast. It’s called followHIM. You can get it wherever you get your podcasts. We’re with Dr. Craig Manning this week. He’s awesome. Come and see what he does with these chapters, and then come join us next week. We’ll do another followHIM favorites.