Last Thursday I finally located a good planer for sale in Hermiston, Oregon.  I’ve been looking for a good used one, and had been too slow on many a previous occasion, so I immediately set out to get it.

Coming back home through the Blue Mountains it was raining.  There was snow and slush alongside the road, and it was cold.  Ahead, through the mist, I saw a guy pushing his bicycle, loaded with a big pack, up the steep grade.  Every truck that zipped by sprayed him.

I make it a policy to never pick up hitchhikers unless the Spirit tells me to.  When the Spirit tells me to stop, I always have a spiritual experience.  In this case it was as if the pickup stopped itself.  No thought processes went through my head.  I simply stopped 20 feet in front of the guy, stepped out and said, “Throw your bike in the back.”  I then went around to the other side and moved the passenger seat as far forward as I could.  My planer was sitting on the seat, and that was the only place it could conveniently ride.  My passenger had to crawl in and sit on the jump seat behind it.

He introduced himself as Dave Miller.  He had left Portland five days earlier, and was returning to his home town of Ogden, Utah.

“Are you LDS?” I asked.

“Nope,” was the response.

I made the observation to Dave that it was going to be dark in one hour, and that he wouldn’t have made it to La Grande before nightfall.  He admitted that had been his goal because he needed to find a store where he could get something to eat.  I told him I’d take him clear to Haines.

After we’d ridden along for some time Dave commented, “At least I can feel my feet now.”  I felt badly that I hadn’t put the heat on full blast when he got in.

I told Dave a couple of my previous hitchhiker stories, and about how the individuals had prayed for help just before I’d stopped.  I told him I only stopped for hitchhikers when the Spirit prompted me to.  I was hoping to get Dave to say that he’d been praying, so that I could feel good about him.  All he said was, “I wasn’t hitchhiking.”

I would have liked to take Dave home with me for the night, but I still wasn’t sure that he wasn’t an ax murderer.  I, therefore, showed him two places where he could pitch his tent, dropped him off at the store in Haines, wished him well, and headed home.

As I retired to my warm bed that evening, I knelt and thanked Heavenly Father for the privilege of helping Dave that day, asked blessings to be upon him, and then prayed that I could forget about him now if that was all that I was supposed to do for him.

The next morning Dave was still on my mind.  As I prayed about him, in an instant I was told what to do and how to do it.  I was to go get him, invite him home to shower and spend the day and night with us, and arrange a transportation chain which would get him clear to southern Idaho.  In that instant I saw myself taking Dave to Ontario from whence Glenn Shelton would take him to Jim Hunt in Boise, from whence Jim would take Dave to Johnny Christensen in Mountain Home, and then Johnny would take him another hour down the road or put him into the hands of one of his own acquaintances to keep the chain going. It was all so clear and so instantaneous that I suddenly felt pushed and in a rush to get to Haines and find Dave before he packed up and left.  I dashed out the door without even telling my wife what I was doing.  She thought I was just going to feed the cows.

I found Dave in the city park.  He’d slept behind some picnic tables on the stage of the pavilion.  He’d at least had a roof over his head to shield him from the rain.  However, nothing shielded him from the whistles and noise of the trains that passed every 30 minutes on the railroad track that was just 20 feet away.

“I slept good,” he said.  “I knew that the only way I’d get my clothes dry, though, was to just crawl into my sleeping bag and sleep in them.”

I explained my proposal to Dave.  “I can’t take you to Idaho today, though.  I have too much to do.  I have to help a boy with a merit badge this morning, feed the cows, and go to a baptism this afternoon.  You’ll have to be my partner all day, and go to an LDS baptism with me.  We’ll feed you, you can shower and clean up, wash your clothes, and we’ll give you a warm bed to sleep in.  The only thing I’ll require is that you can’t smoke any cigarettes.  I can’t stand cigarette smoke.”

I told him my main worry was that I didn’t think there was any way that he could make the 80-mile trip from Haines to Ontario.  It was too far, too cold, too steep in some sections, and there were no stores between here and there.  “How much money is in your wallet?” I asked.

“Twenty dollars, and some food stamps.”

Dave readily agreed to my proposal.  Margie and Eli didn’t even look surprised or perturbed when I walked in with our new friend.  I showed Dave his room, the bathroom and shower, and 30 minutes later he reappeared looking like a different person.  He was clean, shaved and shiny.

Dave told us about a fall he’d taken in Colorado when he was free-hand rock climbing.  (See the story in my book, Odd and Interesting).  An unseen force had saved him from landing face first after a 65-foot fall.  I felt better about Dave then, because I knew the Lord was at work in his life.

I apologized for not inviting him home the night before, but explained that for all I knew about him, he might be an ax murderer.

He laughed, and said that he’d stopped and leaned his bike against a concrete barrier outside Portland when a policeman pulled up and asked if it would be all right to see his identification.  “I need to check and see if you’re an ax murderer,” he said.

Dave replied that he didn’t mind.  As he handed his identification to the officer he added, “And I can guarantee that I’ve never murdered an ax in my life.”

The officer threw back his head and laughed.  “I’ve never heard that one before,” he said.  “I’ll have to remember it.”

“Well,” Dave said, “if you had asked me if I was a serial killer, I’d have had to admit that I’m guilty.  There’s Captain Crunch and cheerios and the like.  I’ve done a lot of them in.”

The officer laughed harder, handed Dave’s ID back, and went on his way.

Dave spent the day with us.  He took frequent walks in the rain “to keep himself limbered up,” (and to smoke), and went to the baptism with us.  Margie was to play piano at the baptism, and I was to conduct the service.  The baptism was for a 97-year-old spry and alert man that I had helped teach.  The 97-year-old, Frank Cunningham, had invited his 93-year-old dance partner to the baptism.  I’d never met her before, but she called to ask for a ride.  Margie and I took her and Dave to the baptism.

Frank had invited several others of his senior-citizen friends to the baptism.  There was a Catholic fellow there, and an old school teacher who still remembered my daughter when she was in his class 25 years ago.  He responded positively when I introduced him to the missionaries and asked if they could come see him.

The Relief Society room was full of people who had come to Frank’s baptism.  Dave was impressed with the whole thing.  I noted with satisfaction that he was there with a wad of chew in his mouth.  Elder LeGrand Richards once upbraided a ward by telling them they weren’t doing their job.  He’d attended all of their meetings, and he hadn’t once gotten a whiff of cigarette smell.  I think he’d have been pleased to see Dave at Frank’s baptism.

I gave a Book of Mormon to Dave, along with a two-page note that included my phone number.  In the evening I read selected spiritual stories to Dave, Margie and Eli from Elder F. Enzio Busche’s book that I’d just finished.  Dave asked if that book would be in the public library, because he’d like to read it.  I told him he could have our copy, but he declined because it would add unwanted weight to his trip.

The next day we loaded his things in the pickup and headed for Ontario.  I’d called all three of my friends.  They each readily agreed to help.  I was to meet Glenn Shelton, my former shift supervisor from the temple, at the rest area just across the river in Idaho at 10:00 a.m.  He and a friend pulled up in a pickup and got out.  Glenn gave me a big hug, introduced me to his friend, David Hyde, and I introduced Dave Miller.

David Hyde then fixed his eyes upon me and said slowly and questioningly, “Brother Kerns…”   His voice trailed off.  I looked hard at him and thought, “Oh, no, I’m supposed to know this guy.  Who is he?”

Suddenly it hit me, and I started talking.

“I know who you are!” I said.  “I was officiating in initiatory at the temple and was working with a Brother Hyde.  I finally couldn’t stand to hold my question in any longer, and I said, ‘Who is S. H. Hyde?’  You jerked your head around, looked up at me and exclaimed, ‘That’s my daddy!’

“‘I thought so.  He was the finest man I ever knew!’  That was all I said on that occasion, but when I became acquainted with him shortly after my baptism, I remember thinking that if I ever got sick I’d have S. H. Hyde and Glen May administer to me because they were the most Christ-like men I knew.

“And let me tell you about this guy’s mother,” I said to Glenn and to Dave.  “She was the most saintly woman you could ever imagine.  She bore her testimony once and told a story that put a picture in my mind that I’ve never forgotten.  This guy,” I said, pointing at David, “started attending Mutual with his LDS friends.”

“That was my brother,” David interjected.

“Well,” I continued, “May decided that she needed to find out what her son was getting into, so she said, ‘I got a Book of Mormon, I got a bottle of beer, I got my pack of cigarettes, and laid down on the couch and started reading.’

“The picture of that beautiful, white-haired, saintly woman with a bottle of beer and a pack of cigarettes has never left me.  May Hyde!  It’s totally incongruous, but shows the power that’s in that book.”

We visited awhile longer, and I learned that Glenn and David had been friends for 40 years.  They’d both moved to Vale, Oregon 40 years ago, had taught school together for most of that time, were both now retired, and I learned that David’s wife had suddenly passed away just last October.  “She got sick on Friday,” David said, “threw up on Saturday, was worse on Sunday, and died Monday.  I spent all these years following her around, and now I’m all alone.”

Dave Miller got into the back seat of Glenn’s pickup, opened the window, and asked for my e-mail address.  I told him that I never check my e-mail, but that he had my phone number at the bottom of the note in the Book of Mormon.

Glenn and David delivered our friend to Margie’s cousin, Jim Hunt, in Boise.  I learned later that Johnny Christensen called Jim to say that he’d just lost a crown, that his tooth was hurting really badly, and that he’d have to back out of our transportation chain.  At that point Jim made the decision to take Dave all the way to Ogden—a four-hour trip.

Along the way, as the two of them visited, Dave volunteered several bits of information.  When Jim offered Dave a Book of Mormon, Dave said, “James already gave me one.  I’m going to read it…”

“I have an LDS friend who’s always telling me about the service network your church has.  Boy, do you have a network!...”

“I think I’ll ask my friend to take me to church with him.  He’s always offering…”

“My mother is after me to get off tobacco.  This is my last pack.  I’m going to be off tobacco by my 50^th birthday in April…”

“I was pushing my bike up the hill in the rain and I prayed to God for help.  It wasn’t two minutes before James stopped and offered me a ride.”