When I think back, the Lord was dealing with me in my heart. I always felt that if I were to die that I wouldn't make it. I didn't know why, I just felt that my life wouldn't measure up to what it took to go to heaven. My next door neighbor, Kent, was like a brother to me. We grew up together. He had received the holy Ghost about a year before this. He would talk to me about the Lord all the time, about how I needed to turn my life toward God. I felt that I would serve the Lord someday, after I got married, had a few children, and I settled down, but I found out something that year, it's time to serve the Lord when He says so, not me.

I was still living at home. I would cut the grass, and keep up the yard work. When nothing was going on, or when all of my friends were at work, I would sit outside, under the carport and drink. Well, it got to where I was drinking more than doing yard work.

One day, I was cutting grass, and I saw Tammy driving down the street. She was the sister of my best friend, and I got her to pull over so I could talk to her. She said that her brother was in town. He was in the Navy. I asked her if she wanted to go out later. She said that she would ask her brother if he and his wife wanted to go out with us, but I meant that I wanted just us to go out, and, it worked out just the two of us went.

I knew Tammy about eight years before this and I wanted to know if she was still serving the Lord. We were at dinner and I asked her what she had been doing and she let me have it. She started telling me about the Lord. She talked about the Lord all night. Her eyes lit up when she was talking, like she really meant it. She gave me a few tracts that night and asked me to go with her to the prayer meeting that she attended that next Friday night. I said that I would think about it.

Well, Friday rolled around, and she called me to see if I was going. I said that I didn't think so. Then, I asked her if she would go out with me anymore. She said no, I don't think so. Then we hung up, and I started thinking that it wouldn't hurt me to go see what the prayer meeting was like. So, I got dressed and went to the meeting. It started at 7:30 p.m. on Friday's back then. When I pulled up, she was sitting on the front porch. When we went in, she sat me in the front row. The first thing I noticed, besides how little the place was, was that when someone said hello, and asked me how I was, they really wanted to know how I was. Everyone I was used to being around, said how you doing, and kept walking. Never really caring to hear your answer.

I don't think I heard a thing being preached that night. But I could feel something was different about this place. I had been to a few meetings with Kent before, but this was even different from that experience.

After the meeting, I left and met a few friends at a little nightclub where we usually went on Fridays. I told them where I had been and that the people really were into it there-kind of joking about it. During the next few weeks the Lord really started dealing with me. I hadn't heard from Tammy, but in that time, I stopped drinking, started reading my Bible, and I stopped dating. I couldn't wait to see her again; I wanted her to ask me back to the meeting again. Finally, she came down the road and asked me what I had been doing. She didn't know that the Lord had been dealing with me the past two weeks. She asked if I would want to come back to the meeting that Friday, and I said, “yes”.

It took me a while to receive the holy Ghost. I was kind of confused about the truth as to which doctrine was real. Kent was telling me one thing and Tammy and the people at the meeting were telling me something else. I would pray on my way to work in the mornings and in the evenings on my way home for God to show me which one was the truth.

I went to a Sunday service with Kent that week. And at the end of the week, I went to the Friday meeting with Tammy. I felt real good that Friday night, and when the prayer line started, I went up and got prayed for. As the saints started praying for me, I started speaking in tongues. All the people at the meeting started shouting! I knew then which doctrine was real. My whole body felt the love of God. It was better than anything I had ever felt, and it still is!

The next year, Tammy and I got married. God has blessed our lives ever since. I know I can live a life that doesn't want to cheat anyone or want to get angry and hurt someone. God has changed my whole life. He has saved my life. I wish everyone that reads this testimony could see what a miracle this is because it could be in your life also, if you put God first, and be led by his spirit.

Jimmy Pizarro

    Parents stress to the children
    the importance of making their lives
    valuable to others.