The Other Waco Prophet and Turn Around

The other Waco Prophet :

We headed over to Waco for P-day. Our first stop was the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame which could really be renamed "The gun museum." They have guns from the early years of the Texas Rangers up until now. They have guns were never even standard issue with the Texas Rangers. They have guns that aren't even on the market The most important guns by far though were the weapons Bonnie and Clyde had on them when they were killed. According to the museum a group of former Texas Rangers ambushed the couple as they were driving in their car. One of the first bullets got Clyde in the head killing him instantly and stopping the car and the next few took care of Bonnie. But just to make sure they were dead the group shot the car approximately 180 more times propelling the car 40 feet forward into a ditch. Bonnie and Clydes' rifles were awarded as trophies to the former rangers-- the museum took a lot of pride in that.

That has nothing to do with the story I'm about to tell. It was just an interesting part about my day. 

After walking around Baylor campus we went to Chik-fil-a for lunch as we got in line to order this guy in a long robe and a turban walked out of the bathroom. At first I didn't think anything of it but then I saw in both of his hands a staff and I realized who he was.

The Waco Prophet.

Now I know what you're thinking, "David Koresh is dead you moron, there's no way you saw him at a Chik-fil-a."  But I'm not talking about David Koresh. 

The Waco Prophet stands on the overpass by Baylor's campus and he waves his staffs around and "blesses" the traffic. Elder Stokes told me he's met him before and I really really really wanted to talk with this guy. Perhaps a little too excited Elder Rowley was less excited and told me we had to finish our food first I inhaled it and impatiently waited for Elder Rowley to finish. We saw him from the window doing his prayer dance thing and I was getting more and more excited like when you hold a treat over a puppy's head and it starts whimpering.

 We sprinted up onto the overpass and before we said anything he looked at us and said, "What's up Elders?" 

He stopped doing his dance completely and started talking about how as long as he remembers he's always talked with missionaries on the overpass. He basically just complimented us for a good 15 minutes about how we have "The look of peace and the feeling of Christ about us" and how cool it is that we go out and really try to help people build faith in Christ and how every other church especially Baptists are ashamed that they don't have full time missionaries. Eventually he told us he had to go so we said a quick prayer together right on the overpass. 

As we walked down with him he asked us a lot of questions about missionary work and that he doesn't really belong to a set church and so he just goes to whatever building he wants and since we talked with him he'd go to one of the Waco wards on Sunday.  

Super interesting experience. 

Turn around:

The other day our bike rack was temporarily out of commission so we were forced to walk around Groesbeck, a nearby town. As we were walking to a Less-Actives house when we heard this voice, "HELLO?!" It cried. We turned and looked  saw this guy in his garage. His shirt was off and the lower half of his body was hidden. We kind of picked up the pace because there was a very good chance this guy was naked and we really didn't want to talk with him if that was the case. 

Then I heard this voice in my head, turn around and go talk to him.

I stopped and said, "Elder we need to talk with that guy."

Elder Rowley said, "Yeah I think so too" and so he and I walked back.

The guy saw us threw on a shirt and ran up to us. He shook our hand and said, "Hi my name is B****** and I don't feel like I can be a Southern Baptist anymore. Whatever you have to say, I'm all ears."

We were shocked. "No one ever wants to talk with us," I said in a meek voice. He laughed and invited us to sit down on his porch. He gave us the abridged version of his life story and why he couldn't be a Baptist anymore (it's too private to share with everybody). We taught him for about an hour and told him we could come back on Tuesday. For the rest of the day we were still shook by the experience. 

The Lord really does put people on your path I mean, if we had been driving we wouldn't have seen him and if we had been biking we wouldn't have been able to talk to one another to turn around. Even if walking around for the rest of the day was awful, being able to talk with him for one hour was worth it. 

Miracles are real and The Church is true. 

Love y'all,

-- Elder Murdoch