Encounter with a priest

On Saturday evening, July 12, 1969, my missionary companion, Elder Monte Stewart, and I had our first direct confrontation with a priest. We had entered an apartment building somewhere in our assigned area of Rio de Janeiro to ask the síndico [the building manager] for per­mission to speak with the residents of the building. After giving us permission, he agreed to respond to five questions, a pesquisa, that we often used in a door approach.

Do you believe that God lives? Yes, he replied.

Do you believe that God spoke with prophets anciently? Another yes.

Do you feel that God has the power to speak with men today? I suppose so.

Do you feel a need for a prophet in these days? Yes, he said again.

At this point a priest who was a dinner guest in the home came to the door. We continued with our last question: If you knew that Jesus Christ had returned in these latter days and restored His Church, would you like to know more about it? The man squirm­ed, looking kind of silly at the priest, and ventured a timid yes.

"Oh, so you are the Mormons," broke in the priest. Since the man originally at the door indicated interest, Elder Stewart began bearing his testimony.

"Wait a minute," interrupted the priest, "you cannot go around telling people you know that this is true. You should say I have the im­pression that this may be true, but you cannot go around forcing your­self on people. This man has free agency. You may invite him out to a meeting if he wants to come, but you cannot stand here in his own doorway and force yourselves upon him by saying you know your message is true."

That was too much. I stuck my finger up in front of the priest's face to make him stop talking and replied: "We speak what we must. We know the message of the Restoration to be true and are therefore under responsibility to say that we know it is true."

The priest retorted: "You cannot know. That is subjective."

Elder Stewart indicated that we knew by the power of the Holy Ghost and then continued explaining briefly about the apostasy and Restoration. All the time the priest was bothering us, interrupting, spouting off childish and foolish little remarks.

"Are you afraid of our message?" asked Elder Stewart. He said no, but still would not let us continue.

He started ranting that Christ's church had been here 20 centu­ries. Why should we be going around saying it had just been restored a hundred years ago? As the Jews did to Christ, he was trying to pro­voke us to argue. We would not argue. The Spirit moved me to bear testimony. But the message fell on deafened ears. Seeing they do not see, hearing they do not hear.

"By what authority do you say these things?" he demanded, echo­ing the same interrogative thrown against the Savior by the Pharisees.

"We bear this testimony by the power of the priesthood of the Almighty God and in the name of Jesus Christ," explained my com­panion. Again the priest began his ranting and raving. At this point we once more invited the other man to accept of our message and thanked him for permission to tract the building. Then we left.

Naturally we discussed the incident the rest of the evening. The interview was what we had always pictured such an encounter might involve. We noted in his haughty manner, in his uncivil demeanor, in the very framing of his questions and taunts, how much it was like the opponents of Christ when He was here on the earth.