THE SPIRIT WORLD IS CLOSE


The following was told me by a friend. I shall attempt to put it in my own words as far as I can recollect:


“I was born into a family where the Gospel was not present. We believed in God but certain unfortunate experiences with religion had made my Dad shun a specific church until he got older, when he finally realized its importance. As I grew to adulthood, I was largely confused about what my role should be in the Church.


I served a foreign mission and had great difficulty with the language. It seemed to me that my companions caught on to the language problems quicker than myself and I became discouraged. To add to my grief, an investigator asked my companion and I to bless a blind relative of his, that he might regain his sight. We went thru the form of the priesthood but lacked the faith and therefore failed in our attempt.


One night in prayer, I pleaded to Heavenly Father to help me see what I must do to be successful spiritually and whether or not I was even doing the right thing by serving the Lord for these two years. As I prayed, I felt a hand on my shoulder, but continued to pray until finally I looked to see whose hand it was and saw no hand, despite the fact that I could still feel it. This began a series of soul stirring events that made me realize that the spirit world is close and that God will bless us all as we learn and strive to be worthy.


Many spiritual experiences followed, a number of them too sacred to relate. Later, when I was Bishop of a ward, I was blessed with knowing when we were being visited by those from the spirit world. On one occasion, several of us were with our stake on a trek to Martin’s Cove. After a poignant description from our guide, concerning the privations of those who had gone west in the 1800s, I turned and saw a man and woman and child in pioneer clothing, who stared solemnly at us. I recognized them as part of the actual group that were part of the Martin Handcart Company.


Some of the Young Women in our group, while walking up a hill, saw in vision, their feet wrapped in rags, walking through snow, despite our trek being in summer and they suddenly were overwhelmed with reverberations of utter and extreme exhaustion. Others should have been bitten by rattlesnakes, but instead were pulled away by some unseen force and received no harm. At night strong winds and rain, tore down many of our tents, but a tornado that was heading right toward us was turned away at the last moment as an answer to our prayers. Pray for spiritual experiences and if you are faithful, they will come.”