Scarlett Johansson

One of the hardest parts of being at BYU was finding religion classes that I could tolerate. There were a ridiculous number of religion credits required for graduation--Book of Mormon I, and II, Old and New Testament, Doctrine and Covenants I and II, and a number of other miscellaneous credits to top it off. While this might sound like torture, some of these turned out to be great classes taught by good, honest and thoughtful professors. A few of these professors even became people I could confide in, and speak openly with about my lack of faith.

But not all religion classes were taught by open minded experts. Professors from other fields besides religious studies rotate to teach classes like Book of Mormon because of high demand. When this was the case, the class often felt more like a Mormon Sunday school class than a college course. You'd have the Racketball 101 instructor preparing the night before class to teach about Jesus visiting the Native Americans.

In one such class, the Professor liked to open the class up for testimony and missionary experience sharing time. One afternoon a young male student raised his hand and told about how the week before he had been hired to pick up celebrities at the Salt Lake airport and to take them to Sundance for the annual Sundance Film Festival. It just so happens that his celebrity was Scarlett Johansson. So, as they were driving around Ms. Johansson began asking about the Mormons. This young student saw her questions not as a general curiosity, but rather as genuine interest in the gospel and its saving principles.

He answered her questions, but didn't really have the balls to fully testify to her. He spent the next few days praying about how to talk to Ms. Johansson about the church. He ended up writing his testimony on the inside cover of a copy of the Book of Mormon. He went to pick up Scarlett at the end of the festival, and before dropping her off at the airport he gave her the book, and told her to read it and pray about whether it was true.

He finished off his story by sharing his testimony with the class, and telling us all how thankful he was that Ms. Johansson was receptive to the gospel message.

Personally I think my classmate might have been misreading the situation a little bit. Mormons are prone to do this. As missionaries we would practically high five when a busy house wife would rattle off "Come back later, I'm busy!" before slamming the door in our faces. We were immune to the door slam, all we heard was the "Come back later." Much to the shagrin of said house wife we would in fact come back, several times a week if we had to, because damn it, she wanted us to!