A Conversion Story

By Joseph Compton

Published April 20, 2025

      
At Dale’s party one night
I noticed with strife
That one man did not laugh. At the slightly rude joke I told.
I later noticed. With some disbelief
He was not swearing. Nor drinking the beer
Which seemed awfully queer
So later I asked him. Why he did not jeer
At that drift, who said “The end is near.”
He replied with a sigh
“Well, I’ll start with the start.
God is a Spirit, But has a body,
He lives in a place called heaven.
He has all power and He loves us with all of His might.
He loves us so much, in which he made
The earth, the sun, and the heavens above
So that we could feel all of His love.”
Now when he said this,
I think I felt some of God’s love.
I wanted to feel this again
So I asked if he could tell me all.
But all that he said was meet me at
1800 Spring Creek Falls.
Then I went home and went to bed
Feeling great in my head.
That very next day, I stepped up with a thud
That creaky old house that man had said.
He opened the door and looked at me flat
He replied with a smile, “Oh, yes. That.”
He invited me in. Said his name was Jim.
Then we both sat down.
He pulled out a book ,Black cover, gold letters,
That seems as if was fastened with tethers.
Jim called it the Bible; said it was great.
And it told of love, truth, and hate.
Then he sat down with a smile
Said, “Let’s read it a while.”
We stayed there for hours reading and reading.
It told of the nothingness and the beginning.
It told of Abram, of Isaac, of Israel.
Then it told of great King David
And then it told poems of joy and of hate.
But then it told about someone greater than great.
He died all deaths in Gethsemane
For every one of us, for you and for me.
His name is Jesus, Jesus the Christ.
Then we read about Him and all of His deeds.
Then Jim pulled from his shelf a book, just the same.
I read the title, The Book of Mormon.
I took it home and read it through
Until the next morning.
Then I went to Jim’s place. And knocked on the door.
Then he opened that door. With a suit and a tie.
I asked, “To where are you going?”
He replied with a grin,
“We call it church. Want to come?”
“Why, yes,” I replied, with a smile inside.
Then when we arrived
A man walked up to the pulpit
And said some words which I cannot remember.
The next thing we did was simply eating bread and water.
Then he talked about Jesus being baptized with water.
Then I thought about this
That I wanted to be baptized, one for another.
Then that very next week. I came to that church,
Then I found the room where it was to happen.
When I entered dressed in white,
Everybody stopped yapping. Twas a strange thing to happen.
I got in the water, another man too.
He stuck his arm up, and dunked me down under.
Then pulled me back out again.
Then later he mentioned that today is the day
That the Savior is RISEN AGAIN. Amen.