The Feeling He Couldn't Explain

Hunter was not searching for faith. He was just trying to figure out his life after high school. College, work, a move to Rexburg, a buddy who invited him to BYUI. None of it felt spiritual. It was just the next step.

But the feeling had started years before any of that. The night his best friend died by suicide, he prayed almost by instinct and felt something he had no words for. A strange, quiet peace. He set it aside. He did not know what it was.

In this episode of Choosing Jesus Christ, Sister Hawker sits down with Hunter, a BYU-Idaho student and recent convert, to trace the quiet thread that ran from that night all the way to a Saturday baptism with his dad walking through the door.

A Feeling He Could Not Name

Hunter grew up around the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints without ever really being part of it. His dad attended sometimes. His friends and their families were members. He knew the general shape of it. But it was background noise.

The night his best friend died, something shifted. He sat with his girlfriend on the phone and prayed, which surprised even him. He rarely prayed. And instead of the grief he expected to feel, he felt peace. It was so out of place that it confused him. He set it aside for the better part of a year and a half.

After graduation, the feeling started coming back. He was attending church occasionally with his girlfriend, reading scriptures with her on the phone at night, asking questions that her mom helped answer. Every time the feeling came, he still did not know what it was. He would not know until after he was baptized.

The Lesson That Changed Everything

Hunter did not plan to meet the missionaries. He needed a bishop's endorsement to attend BYUI and had no idea which bishop was his. He texted his girlfriend's uncle, got a number, made an appointment. The missionaries happened to be in the bishop's office that day and stayed to shake his hand.

He was shy. Meeting new people made him uncomfortable. But sitting in that office he felt at ease in a way he could not explain.

They started meeting at Arctic Circle over shakes, working around his work schedule. The first lesson covered things Hunter already knew from being around members his whole life. He felt nothing new. Then came the second lesson. The Plan of Salvation.

He mentioned offhandedly that his best friend had died a couple years earlier. The missionaries told him he would see his friend again. That one thing broke everything open. The feeling came back, stronger than ever. Everything around him went quiet. He started crying. He rarely cried.

That was when he knew he needed to keep meeting with them.

Hold to What You Know

Hunter kept putting off baptism. The missionaries asked four or five times. He kept saying he needed to think about it. His parents did not like the Church. His dad especially. And Hunter wanted his dad at his baptism more than anything else.

During a long meeting at a little Mexican restaurant in St. Anthony, the missionaries sat with him for two or three hours. The place was closing down around them. Elder Kitchen finally told him: think for yourself, not with your parents. Your dad is going to love you no matter what.

Hunter still sat there for another hour. Then he thought of a scripture Elder Kitchen had shown him weeks earlier, somewhere in Alma, about holding to what you know because the adversary comes for what you believe. He had read that verse dozens of times since. Hold to what you know.

He looked at Elder Kitchen and said two words. We ball.

He told his parents on Wednesday. His dad said he did not know if he would come. Saturday arrived. The baptismal font was filling. Hunter got dressed slowly, sat and prayed, made sure everything was straight. His friends and their families filed in. His stepmom and stepdad drove two and a half hours.

Then his dad walked through the door.

The Gap Is Filled

Hunter went home after the baptism and prayed one more time. He sat in his little apartment alone and asked: was this really what you wanted for me? He felt the feeling again. This time he stood up. He was so happy he was pacing around the apartment.

He connects deeply with Elder Kitchen's story. Elder Kitchen's mom went inactive before his mission and told him not to go. Hunter's dad told him not to get baptized. Both of them felt the same pain. Both of them knew it was true anyway. Hunter got baptized before a trip he had planned. Elder Kitchen submitted mission papers before going to college. Their stories lined up in ways neither of them engineered.

Hunter says the gospel filled a gap. He did not know what was missing. He did not know what the feeling was. But it was always the same thing, from the night his friend died to the moment he said we ball in a parking lot over street corn. He believes it is true. Completely. And nothing anyone says is going to change that.

Key Takeaways

1. Heavenly Father can reach someone through grief before they even know He is there. The feeling Hunter got the night his friend died was real, even though he did not understand it for years.

2. The Plan of Salvation is not just theology. For someone carrying loss, learning they will see their loved one again is one of the most personal things the gospel offers.

3. God puts the right people in front of us at the right time. Elder Kitchen's story mirrored Hunter's closely enough that Hunter could not dismiss it as coincidence.

4. Faith is personal. Hunter chose baptism because he believed it was true, not because of his girlfriend, not because of his friends. That distinction mattered to him and it matters to Heavenly Father.

5. The Holy Ghost fills what nothing else can. Hunter could not name what was missing until after he was baptized. Then it was obvious.

This is Hunter's story. Hear it in his own words on the Choosing Jesus Christ Podcast. And if you have ever felt something you could not explain, visit ChoosingJesusChrist.org. Our missionaries would love to help you figure out what it is.