"Received a Promise"

I had always felt the gentle guidance to stay close to my family. I care about them a lot, and want good things for them. I served a church mission and was told that it would bless my family. When I returned home, I felt like that wasn’t the case at the time. Not many of them were consistently attending church or wanted to attend. Illness and addictions had plagued my family. I felt they were worse off with me gone.

I was off at college and sitting in church one day. I felt the need to think about them. A friend invited me to sit outside the temple as we both had similar problems we were going through with work and needed to figure out what to do. We arrived and I sat down and he asked me to watch after his scriptures. I immediately felt like I needed to use them. So I asked if I could use them, and he said I could while he walked away. I picked them up and expected to find some simple small answer and instead received a promise about my family. The scripture the book opened up to was D&C 31 and my eyes immediately started reading verse 2: “Behold, you have had many afflictions because of your family; nevertheless, I will bless you and your family, yea, your little ones; and the day cometh that they will believe and know the truth and be one with you in my church.“ I felt the Spirit confirm this promise to me.

This experience has brought a lot of peace in my life over the years. I anxiously await for the day for Christ’s promised words to me to be fulfilled.