Chickened out while riding with friend. Fri, Jul 14, 2006.

07/14/2006. Late PM. I don't recall having this situation before, and I reacted incorrectly. I took some foreign language material with me, "just in case," while riding with a friend in his car to a Single Adult game night in a nearby city. I took my small Chinese case with 4 Chinese and 2 English Books of Mormon, and a few foreign language issues of the Liahona, and a couple DVDs. We had no intention of eating at a restaurant, but you never know what will happen.

There was a single guy at the activity from Peru (South America, not Peru Indiana) who has been in the country two years, and is a recent convert. I ended up giving him a To This End Was I Born DVD that has a Spanish sound track, and a Spanish Liahona.

After leaving the activity we drove past a certain gas station, and I had a classic "tug" moment. It started before we got there, and had I reacted immediately and said something, my friend would have had time to pull over into the left-turn lane and go there with no problem.

But I hestitated, and we missed the turn-off because I didn't say anything. From that point until we got onto the Interstate I debated with myself. It was late, he was driving, I didn't want to delay him getting home, I didn't want to appear stupid by asking him to turn around, bla bla bla.

But the guilty feeling afterward let me know that I should have said something. I later had to remind myself where those little promptings come from and recognize He is the ultimate authority and just do it.

A clerk or a fellow customer at that gas station may have been someone who spoke Chinese or one of the other languages in which I had the Liahonas with me. It could even have been someone who spoke only English who needed to have a Book of Mormon.