Month: April 2025

Tender Mercies in the TKM: Ricky

~ barlowsintkm ~ Leave a comment

Ricky has always been religious and had wonderful influences in his life, his grandparents and his mom. He had been a big part of his church in El Salvador.

Ricky arrived in Chattanooga in August to start going to school. One day, he was sitting home and felt inspired to go outside. There he met the Elders who were teaching his friend Shawn. Ricky couldn’t understand English, but just decided to sit down and join the lesson. He was asked if he wanted to share how he felt about God and was super excited.

Shawn was two weeks away from his baptismal date and had already been taught a significant amount, so Ricky didn’t fully understand a lot of the principles as he joined Shawn’s lessons. The missionaries asked him if they could start teaching him from the beginning. As he was taught, Ricky started taking it more seriously and committed to come to church.

Ricky is super humble and was willing to keep every commitment. Two weeks after he started being taught, he came to the baptism of a family the missionaries had been teaching. After the baptism, Ricky approached the Elders and expressed that he wanted to become a missionary like them to help bring more souls to the fold. The missionaries asked him to share his feelings about baptism and he said he wanted to be baptized..

In the next lesson, Ricky shared he felt conflicted. Before coming to the United States, as he was trying to come closer to God, he had and made a promise to God to stay faithful in his church. He knew attending The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints made him feel different but he didn’t want to break his promise with God. The missionaries reviewed the principle of the restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ through the Prophet Joseph Smith. Ricky said he knew it all made so much sense, so they invited him to do the same as Joseph Smith and ask God. The missionaries promised that Heavenly Father would give him his own answer.

That Saturday night, the missionaries followed up with Ricky. He said he had prayed and he felt good about his decision to be baptized, but he wasn’t sure about the date and how soon this would occur. The missionaries taught him about the Sacrament and how one of the promised blessings of the sacrament is that we are able to receive revelation from God. So on January 5th, showing his faith and dedication, Ricky fasted with the members and prayed during sacrament. After the meeting, he told the missionaries, “God told me the date you gave me of January 18th is correct for me!”

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Ricky was baptized on January 18, 2025. He has learned that through the Gift of the Holy Ghost, studying truth helps him to receive personal revelation. Ricky is looking forward to progressing in the gospel and is preparing to serve his own mission after high school.

#TKMTenderMercies

Tender Mercies in the TKM: Kevin

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Kevin had many experiences with God before ever meeting with missionaries. He grew up going to church with his dad, who taught him to follow the Lord. Like many of us, Kevin would have to learn for himself if these things were true. 

Kevin would continue to have faith and do what was right, but had difficult experiences in church. He felt others in church would say one thing, and do the opposite. Kevin still continued to have faith in the Lord, and later in life, he met his wife, Heidi. 

Heidi is a lifelong member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. After getting married, Heidi’s father would come to know and love Kevin. They would have many conversations about Jesus Christ, church,… and baptism. Although his father-in-law was a kind and faithful man who set a good example, Kevin was weary of church because some of his past experiences.

Over the years, many missionaries would come to visit Kevin and Heidi. Every time missionaries visited, Kevin would get in his truck and leave and let them visit his wife. In his own words Kevin said:

“I ran away from missionaries for about 20 years. I knew I wanted to get back into church, but I just never connected with anyone there before. That was, until God sent me two of the right missionaries at the right time.”

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Elder Trey Driggs and Elder Asher Lewis met Kevin and Heidi and on that first visit they simply listened to Kevin’s concerns and experiences. For the first time in a long while, Kevin could feel the love of Christ from a member of a church and invited the missionaries back into his home. After sharing more of their personal stories, Kevin and Heidi had a personal testimony that missionaries were the Lord’s representatives on Earth, and were especially sent by Him to share the gospel. Both of them had a very spiritual experience when Elder Driggs shared his old ID photo, which resembled their son who had passed away. They had a witness that their son had sent the right missionaries at the right time to bring Kevin the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.

Kevin would make a lot of changes in his life the next few months, but was concerned about losing a missionary after transfers. Elder Kaden Wilson would come into Kevin’s life and they really connected. Kevin realized that he could trust more and more people from church and began to open up even more. 

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Kevin was baptized July 19th, 2023 by his father-in-law, the day of his son’s birthday. 

Kevin and his wife Heidi continue to walk in faith and prepare themselves to be sealed in the temple as husband and wife, for time and all eternity. Families can together forever!

#TKMTenderMercies

Tender Mercies in the TKM: Audrey

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In August 2024, Audrey started studying with a local church. She remembers studying about different levels of kingdoms in heaven and other gospel principles that caused her to have questions.

One day, she went to the library with her friend to do more studies together. Audrey was sitting outside of the library when two missionaries, Sister Massey and Sister Talbot, walked up to her right before the library closed. They briefly introduced her to the Book of Mormon. They couldn’t talk for long, so they gave her a Book of Mormon, exchanged numbers and set up a time to talk again.

At that time, a lot of outside influences started to tell Audrey not to study with the missionaries, so she canceled her meet with the sisters. She decided not to attend church with them that Sunday and kept studying with the church she was currently with. Later on, she decided to step away from that church and try something new, and she couldn’t help but remember the two sisters that walked up to her that day at the library. 

So, one late Saturday night she decided to text the phone number the missionaries had given her and ask if she could come to church with them. Sister Critchfield and Sister Dever dropped everything to find her a ride! After many phone calls, they found a couple in the ward who were able to pick her up. To this day, this couple have become some of Audrey’s best friends. Her experience at church that Sunday caused her to want to learn more as soon as possible!

Once Audrey started studying with the missionaries, all the questions she had that couldn’t be answered anywhere else were answered. She felt the Spirit telling her that this was the right church. She had been searching for a long time to find the truth.

Audrey had some challenges to overcome on her journey. One night the sisters invited her to pray for an answer to the specific direction she was seeking in her life. They came back a couple days later to follow up  and Audrey had received her answer. She didn’t understand why at the time, but the answer she clearly received was that Heavenly Father wanted her to be in the temple. After receiving that answer, she was determined to make that happen. From that day on, everything changed! The power of god was working in her life, her challenges became easier to overcome, and her burdens were easier to bear.

#TKMTenderMercies

This goal pushed her to do whatever it took to be baptized so she could make it to the temple. Audrey was baptized on February 23, 2025, and just one week later she was able to attend the temple for the first time. Audrey has been such an amazing strength and addition to the Lakeway Ward! She loves sharing the gospel, she loves family history, and she doesn’t leave a Sunday without greeting everyone she sees.