Stories Gallery

Once my roommates and I were having a hard time with each other. I didn’t think anything malicious was intended; we were just all at very different points in our lives and had very different life styles, so there was definitely some friction. At the peak of it all, I remember going into my room and weeping. It had been months of non-stop anxiety, depression, anger, frustration, and feeling hopeless. I didn’t know what to do or how to fix what was going on. I knew my roommates were not bad people. I cared very deeply for them, but things just weren’t working out. I prayed in that language, and got a feeling of what to do…and it was going to be very, very hard. I wept some more because of the difficulty of the task, and then I got this very clear feeling from God that I was not alone, but that my family who had gone before me, my ancestors, were there with me. I felt this overwhelming sense of family strength; like I was surrounded by those who loved me and who were going to be with me every step of this journey and every journey afterwards. It changed everything for me and I can hardly explain how beautiful it felt. What happened in the following months was definitely very hard, but I followed through on the direction given and everything worked out. God and my family were there through it all. I remember once being told that if we have guardian angels, who better than our family who already love us. I firmly believe that now.

When I was a sophomore in high school, the girl I really liked started hanging around this other dude and they were getting close. It wasn’t bad or anything. In fact, the guy was really cool! It just kind of hurt and put me in a sad place I guess. It almost sounds silly typing it up now, but at the time it was rough. I remember one day during recess feeling really down. An impression then came to open the scriptures and read. I randomly opened them up to Alma 38:5, which was the prophet Alma telling one of his sons that whoever trusts in God, they will be delivered from all their troubles. For some reason, when I read it, my mind switched the son’s name to my name. It suddenly felt like God was talking directly to me and I felt so happy all of a sudden. I knew He was telling me to keep trusting Him and we’d be able to get through this together. To this day it’s my favorite scripture.

Because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, I always felt that there was life after death. The reality of this was reinforced in a powerful way to me several years ago. I was in the process of installing a dryer out in our shop. The circumstances of why I was doing this were such that my heart and mind were not in the work. The task required the installation of a new 220-volt receptacle. I had installed the receptacle and had only to connect the two 110 volt wires to the two circuit breakers. The load center was energized, so I made sure that the two circuit breakers were in the “off” position. In the process of trying to fit the first wire into the breaker, however, I somehow managed to bump the switch which energized the breaker. I was at that moment trying to fit a #10 copper wire into a live breaker with a pair of non-insulated steel needle-nose pliers. Just as I was about to stick the wire into the breaker, I hear my father’s voice telling me, “Son…turn your head”. I did as I was told, and saw that I was just a fraction of an inch away from possibly killing myself. I stopped and had to sit down. I said a quick prayer thanking my dad, who had passed away some fifteen years before. Dad was an engineer and had taught me how to use tools correctly and safely. While I may have forgotten for a short moment some important safety tips Dad had taught me, I have never forgotten the love that he shared with me throughout his mortal life. I am forever grateful that Jesus Christ provided a way for my father to continue to be a part of my life.

I remember when our family was preparing for a special event. It was for our youngest son and all his siblings were there. We were excited. This even was of a sacred nature and we wanted to be organized and certainly on time. I remember going to sleep that night and setting the alarm on my cell phone. In the middle of the night, a question came clearly to my mind and woke me up. It was, “Did you set your alarm?” I remembered I did, and so I smiled and turned on my side to go back to sleep. Then came the second question to my mind, “PM or AM” ? My eyes popped open and I took my phone and checked. Sure enough, it was set for PM. I set it to the right time and then was so amazed at the communication I just had, I could not go back to sleep. However, we were on time and it was a wonderful time. We are told that the Savior is in the details, and that night was a testimony to me. He certainly was.

Sometimes friends come and go. And sometimes it’s even whole friend “groups”. That happened to me in college. I had a group of friends who I was really close to, but after a while we all kind of drifted. I was feeling really lonely during this time. I prayed for friends, and one day something amazing happened. I was walking across campus and bumped into someone I had randomly been room mates with earlier that year. We weren’t really close then, but they were cool and always nice. We said hi for a few minutes and then went our separate ways, but when we did that this very clear thought came that simply said, “you should be friends with that person.” I was a little taken back, since this person and I weren’t really close, but it was such a clear thought that I recognized it as something from God. I was a bit anxious about it honestly, but I figured I should at least message them and see if they wanted to do something. Later that week, I did, and what started as a simple hangout turned into one of the greatest friendships I have. It even led me to other great friendships that have changed my life. I will forever be grateful for that message from God. I know the Lord can guide us to people who can become incredible friends!

During the end of high school, I volunteered to film and edit a class video that was going to be our last “hurrah” before we graduated. All the lessons and things we learned were to be portrayed in a “parody” of sorts. Filming day came and everything honestly went well. No issues with any of the equipment we brought or anything. The only bummer aspect was that we filmed on the weekend and I needed to have it ready by Monday, so there was a lot of crunch editing ahead. That night, when I sat down to capture the footage and audio, my camera and computer kept freezing up and dropping frames which made the captured film choppy and unusable. I began to seriously panic. I tried again and again — Every time it came out the same. This was literally the last thing the entire class did together, needed to be ready the next day, and everything being captured was garbage. I paced around frantically for what seemed like hours before I decided to say a prayer. I told God that I just needed the footage to be captured. It didn’t even have to be perfect. A few frames dropped was better than hundreds. I didn’t want to let my friends down. I plugged the camera in again slowly, and started the process on more time and it began to work. There were some dropped frames, but it was working! I was speechless and overwhelmed with gratitude, but I felt to keep praying. I kept praying through all the hours of capturing that footage. When it was done, I knew I had seen a miracle. While the editing took forever, the short film remains one of my happiest memories with those friends and classmates.

I was driving home from town one day, when our van started to ‘sound’ funny, and then it ‘felt’ funny and I knew I needed to pull over and stop. We were on a country highway, about 3 miles from home, and I had my 2 youngest sons with me. The boys were about 10 and 8 years old. I knew we could walk home, but I wasn’t terribly excited about doing that. I was tired and frustrated that I had some decisions to make and wasn’t sure what to do. My older son, feeling my frustration, said, “We can say a prayer.” I wasn’t feeling very humble, but of course knew that would be right to do. I let him say it and then went back to being frustrated. Shortly after, a truck drove up behind us. I was scared and rolled up the windows of the van. My son was so happy and said, “Someone’s coming!” With some trepidation, I said, “Wait, we’ll see.” As this gentlemen started to walk to our car, I recognized him as a good brother from Church. My fears disappeared. He said he was driving home in the opposite direction on the highway, saw us, and though he didn’t recognize who we were, he turned around and came to see if we needed help. A 10 year old’s sincere prayer was answered.

When my children were younger, I had an experience that I will never forget. My oldest daughter was in a youth group and there were conflicts going on and feelings were being hurt. My heart sunk. One of the leaders was the mother of one of the girls in the group. It was hard as she showed, from my perspective, favoritism towards her daughter and some other girls. It wasn’t right, and I felt to take it to the Lord. I remember kneeling in a quiet room of our home, pleading with the Lord to make some changes because what I saw just didn’t feel right. I poured my heart out to Him. After that sincere prayer, I got up and went to the couch and fell asleep. It was a good rest and when I woke up, I heard and ‘felt’ this loving counsel, “You be sure that YOU are doing the right thing”. I never forgot that. I was reminded of Uzzah when he tried to steady the ark in the Old Testament (2 Samuel 6:6). I was firmly reminded that the Lord was in charge and He was aware of the situation. It was up to me to be sure I was choosing the right way and following Him. I will never forget that experience. It was pivotal for me and my learning.

Once at work, we were gearing up for an online event that was going to be the first of its kind that we had ever done. A lot of the big hurdles had been taken care of, but the day before we went live we decided that a portion of the event should be dedicated to a new service and website we were launching. Basically something just showing all the new features and possibilities. Unfortunately, this meant scripting, narrating, recording, animating, and editing all needed to be done by the next day. I was the only one in a position to do it, so I volunteered. Even though I knew the monumental nature of the task, I felt this calm come over me. Usually I get stressed out very, very easily, so this was unexpected. I had been praying in the days leading up to the event that things would go well, and I felt this assurance that this calm was an answer to that. A clarity of mind came on exactly how to make this happen, so I went home and began to work, and honestly things just kept falling into place. Amazingly, I was able to finish everything by the next morning, previewed the video to our execs, and got the thumbs up. To this day I can’t deny that the Lord helped make that all happen.

Driving home with my wife from a wedding, we were half way through a 3 hour drive home. Knowing I had a bit of a drive home, I did not partake in any alcoholic beverages at the event. The section of the road we were on was dark; very few landmarks or places to stop. My wife was dozing next to me and my eyes started to get very heavy. Lights began flashing in my rear view mirror, the red and blue of a police cruiser. The officer asked for my ID and told me that I was swerving a bit and he was concerned for our safety. I explained the situation and he suggested that we might want to pull off somewhere safe and take a rest or check into a hotel for the night. I thanked him for his genuine concern and assured him we would be fine. As I put the car into drive, I looked into the rear view mirror to wait for the officer to pull out ahead of me and there was nothing there. No lights, no car, no nothing. An angel had been sent.

I once took a leave of absence from my job so my wife and I could travel around the county. We purchased a used camper van and just to ensure we had no serious mechanical problems, I rebuilt the engine. I was very comfortable working on engines and had rebuilt several. The van ran great for over 1,800 miles through Southern California, Nevada, and Utah. Along the barren plains of southern Wyoming, however, the engine seemed to lose power. We pulled into a campground so I could see what might be the problem. For reasons I couldn’t understand, the engine I had just rebuilt and which had run well through a third of the country, had lost compression on all six cylinders. My wife, who had grown up in a religious home, suggested that we say a prayer. Shortly after that a total stranger walks by our van, sees the engine hood up, and asks me if there is a problem. After explaining everything to him, he says, “Sounds like you may have just glazed your cylinder walls. Try adding some STP and see what happens.” He then walked away. At that point, I became a modern-day Naaman from the Old Testament. It was just too simple. My wife finally convinced me that we had nothing to lose, so I found a parts store in the next town and poured in a can of STP. After an hour or so the engine started running better and we were able to continue our cross-country adventure. That trip, with all that we experienced, was a pivotal moment in our marriage and has shaped our lives to this day. The Savior said in John 14:13, “whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do”.

One day I was in the middle of needing to make a bunch of decisions that would affect, I thought, my standing with some friends. There was a lot going on in my life and I was so worried that I was going to hurt or offend people by not being able to do certain things. This fear of hurting friends made me think I might lose them entirely, which was totally anxiety, but I still couldn’t bear that thought. With all the anxiety running through me, I knelt down to pray and asked God for peace and direction. Honestly, I just wanted Him to fix the issues — to make all the complexities of the decisions simple or even just to make the decisions for me so I wouldn’t have to bear that weight. The answer I felt was very different than what I was expecting. It was simply to decide what I genuinely wanted to do, unswayed by peer pressure, and then God would come take care of everything else, even perform miracles on my behalf. I honestly was shocked to have such a clear feeling that He would “perform miracles”. Later that day I had a phone call with a friend and it went so well and with such love and understanding I felt lighter than I had all week. I really felt God’s love through my friend and that He was performing miracles.