Bob Pearson a returned Mormon missionary, newly graduated from BYU law school, was taking a relaxed tour on his new Honda Gold Wing motorcycle – destination Asheville NC – to start his new career. About an hour’s ride from Asheville, NC, he encountered Ann, a young, Cherokee girl, standing beside her broken bicycle. He honored her plea for a ride to Asheville. A voice kept telling him that she was to be his wife and they fell in love, Ann, who had been instructed by missionaries had wanted to join the LDS (Mormon) Church but had been prohibited by her parents. Now she was able to join the Church and Bob found her a job as a legal secretary. They bought her engagement ring from an old Cherokee woman who claimed to be a Shaman (medicine woman and fortune teller). This Shaman, just before she died, wrote Ann a letter in the Cherokee language which consisted of warnings about her future. This raised the question of what is considered revelation.
Bob, was initially an unbeliever. When Ann died of cancer as predicted, however, he became convinced that the Shaman’s warnings were more than coincidental. He insisted on knowing the complete contents of that letter. The Shaman’s letter forecast better days, a new love and success in his profession. He came to realize that the Spirit of the Lord can come from anywhere and everywhere but it is our faith that brings things to pass. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1) This is a story of how a returned missionary can momentarily lose his faith but regain it and strengthen it through the influence of a person he had brought into the Church.