THE OLD BRICK BUILDING

The following story was told to me by a friend:

While serving as an LDS Missionary in South America, we were teaching a family that had a young female child that was acting in a strange, unusual way, as if she were possessed by an evil spirit. We asked the child’s parents about her contorted behavior and they told us that a “witch woman” had cast a wicked spell on her. My companion and I gave the child a blessing and cast the evil spirit from her and she became her normal self again.

We had heard many bad reports about this “witch woman” from others in the town and decided to interview her and find out if the rumors were true. Rather than just my companion and I going to visit her, we decided to take two more elders with us, so that four of us went to the old brick building where she lived. The foul odor emanating from that building was enough to make one sick.

We knocked on her door and a man’s voice said, “Who is it?” We identified ourselves and asked if we could visit with her for a while. She opened the door and we expected to see her and a man within, but when she told us to come in, we realized the man’s voice was coming from her. We thought at first that it was some sort of disguise, perhaps a man in a woman’s outfit but soon discovered that it was indeed a woman, with a male voice. The room was dark and unkempt and it seemed as if bathing was not practiced often. I can still see in my mind's eye where she dwelt and the remembered sight of it brings chills to my soul.

Not long after we arrived she pointed to me and said,”I know you. We knew each other in the life before this. You were one of the valiant ones. I am going to see to it that your mission in this country is destroyed and your work, unsuccessful.”

Despite her threat, nothing ever came of it. We thought about casting the evil spirit from her, but the Spirit of God told me that the two of them had dwelt in the same body so long together, that it would be better if we just walked away and so we did. Nothing before or since has given me more assurance that we struggled mightily with evil forces before we physically came to earth than this experience on that day.

LIFE DURING WORLD WAR II

When mother died, my Dad remarried a wonderful woman, from a fine family, whose former husband said:

"...Sept 1, 1939, the German Army marched into Poland. The next evening I met with Ursela. To give you an idea how the German people were poisoned by the Nazi regime, I include the following: It is not meant to be funny.

I told Ursela that I was called back to Holland because Holland had mobilized and I was now a Dutch soldier again. Ursela was a nurse and wanted to go back with me to Holland. There was an opportunity to do that. I still do not know why I stated the following question, being young myself, brought up in Christian surroundings, but not very serious: 'You said you love me but tell me who is greater to you, Hitler or god?' She started crying and told me I do not want to lie to you, but Hitler is greater. He is my god. We departed as friends but I will never forget that moment."

This second story is told by my kind step mom who was in kindergarten in Holland in about 1936: "(The doctor said that) my tonsils and adenoids were too big. He would make arrangements with the big University hospital in Leiden. A few weeks later an excited little girl (me) was taking a trip with the the train and spending about five days in the hospital. Of course, no one told me that they were going to take these things out without anesthesia and just hold me in place...I thought they were going to kill me. No fair."

In 1945, she was 14 years old and wrote: "When we heard on the radio that the Allies were planning the final invasion, we could hardly sleep. We heard the drone of planes flying high over our country to drop their bombs on German towns. I had a hard time being glad about that, thinking of all the innocent people and children being killed so that we could be free. My father and brother were glued to the radio until finally they heard, 'Germany has surrendered! THE WAR IS OVER!!!!