“By looking at a problem in a different way, it may be possible to reduce discouragement. I have been impressed with the pioneer story told about Zina Young. After experiencing the death of parents, crop failure, and sickness, she was encouraged with a spiritual experience that changed her attitude. While attempting to seek divine help, she heard her mother’s voice: ‘Zina, any sailor can steer on a smooth sea, when rocks appear, sail around them.’ A prayer came quickly: ‘O Father in heaven, help me to be a good sailor, that my heart shall not break on the rocks of grief.’ It is often difficult to change circumstances, but a positive attitude can help lift discouragement.” - Val R. Christensen, Second Quorum of the Seventy “Overcoming Discouragement,” October 1998 General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Angels in Everyday Life
We are not alone in this life. God sends angels to teach, protect, warn, and comfort each of us in our individual circumstances. With tender stories and profound insights, this book highlights the different types of angels, the roles they play in mortality, and how we can grow closer to our family members on the other side. Recognize the angels at work in your own life! Coming July 2016!
Wednesday, January 24, 2024
Sunday, November 5, 2023
If Not "Dead," Then What Do We Call Them? By Jacob Z. Hess
If Not “Dead,” Then What Do We Call Them?
To read more from Jacob, visit his blog: Publish Peace.
Cover image via Kyle Cleveland on Unsplash.
Tis the season for spooky things. Last year, I took, my boys to a scary ride at an amusement park. After the creepy, death-saturated, designed-to-terrify ride had ended, Sam told me “I didn’t like that, Dad. It teaches the opposite of what happens after death.”
He’s right, of course…from the mouth of babes. But amidst a cultural onslaught of ghoulish costumes, horror movies, spook alleys, and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, who can resist seeing death and dying as anything more than ominous, foreboding and dark?
We can. Believers in the One who triumphed over death – and all of the other nightmares that consume our hearts and minds today.
“Death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” – Paul to the Corinthians
For understandable reasons, the thought of death is something most of us studiously avoid.
Until we can’t anymore. Even if the day we’ll each be confronted with our own mortality seems far off, the loss of someone we love presses that point big time.I’ve been thinking a lot more about death and dying since my daughter’s passing.
For the many throughout this war-torn world barely holding onto life, they have to think about it every day. But in America, we’re privileged not to have to think too much about it. Indeed, too much focus on death can be seen almost automatically as morbid – better reserved for spooky, Halloween movies, and invoking mental health welfare concerns (“so, you say you’ve been thinking a lot more about death – are you doing okay?”)
But that’s not how I – and millions of believers the world over – feel about death at all.
- It’s a change, not an end.
- It’s a transition, not a termination.
- And rather than goodbye forever, it’s more of a temporary separation, with meaningful experiences and relationships continuing beyond (and across) the veil (which is the word we use for the blinders the rest of us carry on our day-to-day sight, mostly unable to see the reality of a spiritual world all around us where life and love continues on).
So, I perked up reading a 2015 comment from the lovely Wendy Watson Nelson that “those on the other side of the veil are very much alive, and not all that cheerful about being called ‘dead.’”
Language in temples of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has already shifted to reflect this inspired insight – still very much focused on serving those who have gone beyond, but no longer specifying that this person is “dead.” (By way of explanation, one inspired Bishop said, “the phrase ‘who is dead’ is gone because they are not gone.”)
So then, what should we call these dear ones?
When my brother Sam died in 2002, one text that most comforted me came from one of my heroes, Alma, an ancient American prophet (and former rebel without a cause):
Behold, it has been made known unto me by an angel, that the spirits of all men, as soon as they are departed from this mortal body, yea, the spirits of all men, whether they be good or evil, are taken home to that God who gave them life. And then shall it come to pass, that the spirits of those who are righteous are received into a state of happiness, which is called paradise, a state of rest, a state of peace, where they shall rest from all their troubles and from all care, and sorrow. (italics my own)
I believed this about Sam and my Mom too, who passed from cancer a decade after Sam died. And I believe it now about our dear baby girl. My friend Geno said in a tender note that Emma had been received “with the most loving and comforting embrace” and that she can “finally experience peace throughout her entire being and existence.”
When was the last time you felt “peace throughout your entire being and existence” or rested from “all your troubles and from all care, and sorrow”?
Ummmm. Maybe never for me, at least not completely?
In the book, “After,” Dr. Bruce Greyson describes studying near death experiences for years from outside of any religious belief system – and finding over and over how those who have these experiences describe themselves as feeling more alive than they had ever been on Earth.
So, it strikes me as profoundly ironic that we – the very people who are enduring great agonies and relentless waves of emotional tension in a lone and dreary world bathed in death, disease, despair and discord – have labeled those who experience such profound love and joy as simply “dead.”
That’s our name for people who have entered this new state of otherworldly beauty and happiness – so much so that many report desperately not wanting to return to their bodies after experiencing even just a taste of that.
With that brute descriptive label, we are, of course, trying to capture that obvious physiological reality that is seemingly opposite of our own living, breathing aliveness. And on a certain biological level, it’s helpful to be so clear.
But on another level – in fact, on every other level – it’s simply not true. And not even all that helpful – since it leads our mind far from the reality of what’s actually taking place.
Christians the world over believe in a future aliveness that will come for everyone during the resurrection. But it’s way cooler than even that, since spirits of the departed live on right now….and not in some middling, cloudy limbo state either.
The prophet Joseph Smith and his nephew Joseph F. Smith both underscored how very aware and attentive are those who have “gone on” (one of my new favorites) – with the former noting that they are “not far from us and know and understand our thoughts and feelings and notions and are often pained” by what we’re going through. The latter also taught that these departed loved ones “are as deeply interested in our welfare today, if not with greater capacity, with far more interest….than they were in the flesh.”
Photo by Marek Studzinski on Unsplash
To further punctuate the point, John Taylor added that the departed “are more interested in us than we are in ourselves, ten thousand times, but we do not know it.”1
I believe this. It’s okay if you still wonder.
But just for a moment, consider the irony that arises from this vantage point: How is it that we – who can hardly drag ourselves out of the bed in the morning – call these people merely “dead”? In doing so, we insinuate strong distance between our own aliveness and theirs when in every sense but one their aliveness excels our own.
Mom was feeling sad. I knew it. I hadn’t seen or spoken with my dear mother in a very long time, and for obvious reasons.
She was also dead, and had been for a number of years….or shall we say “dead”?
But with a number of years since her passing, I couldn’t deny a palpable sense that she felt neglected by us her children – who, for various, understandable reasons, had put their attention elsewhere…far away from the dear mother of their childhoods.
On some level, it seemed to hurt her to be forgotten and not discussed. I felt it. I knew it that day.
So I’m taking this new moment of Emma’s departure (transition…transformation…. quickening?) as a chance to right the ship. I will no longer be speaking of my departed loved ones as if they are no longer “with us” – existing in a galaxy far far away, on the other side of some kind of a China wall beyond our own realm.
That is not the truth. Period. Exclamation point. Heart and rainbow emojis.
They are here. On the earth. With us. By us. Surrounding us.
“She Will Find What is Lost,” exquisite oil painting by Brian Kershisnik hanging in our home
“Do you suppose that there are any angels here today?” Heber Kimball once asked a group he was speaking with, confiding that he wouldn’t be surprised “if there were ten times more angels here than people.”
Even if we don’t see them, he added, “they are here watching us and anxious for our [well-being].” This may be especially true for those in greatest need. Kent Richards told the story of a 14-hour surgery for one young girl. For nearly an hour as she recovered, this girl described to her family many visitors who were coming into her room, “Aunt Cheryl is here … and … Grandpa Norman … and Grandma Brown … are here.” She later told her father, “Daddy, all of the children here in the intensive care unit have angels helping them.”
Rather than exceptional, I’ve started to wonder if this kind of angelic company is more normal than not.2
A pencil sketch by artist Ann Ivanouskay depicting my daughter Emma, her cousin Iris who passed years before and their grandmother Martha, my mother.
If this is all true – and those who have gone on are deeply happy and peaceful, while remaining close by and often surrounding us….
Well, what do we call that?!
“Dead” is off the table – even if our heads weren’t full of creepy ghost imagery, seemingly the worst possible word given its connotation of impassable separation and wholesale absence of life (“dead as a doornail”).
In fact, the special failure of this specific word is evident in another sense of “dead” that we often use in conversation: uneventful, uninteresting, tedious, lackluster, tiresome, lifeless (far removed from the reality of those who have gone on, if we are to believe ancient and modern prophetic guidance).
“Departed” has the same kind of problems as “dead” – synonymous with “gone” and taken as the opposite of “living.”
Even worse are words such as “lost, perished, expired,” “gone” or “no more” – as if these people had not only left, but had ceased to exist (some evolutionary thinkers even use words like “extinct” as a synonym of dead – ugh!)
More generic words like “demised, deceased, perished, fallen” convey a sense of departure and leaving, but also in a more permanent sense – aka, the deceased has gone away, withdrawn, made off, made an exit, left and been removed from our lives.
What’s missing in some of these words is where they have gone next, and what they have gone to – which is the virtue of other words like “passed away” (to somewhere else) and “passed on” (to another realm) – clearly conveying that someone has transitioned and moved on to another state or place.3
Photo by Sean Pierce on Unsplash
Another requirement for the ideal new word would be conveying the life and aliveness the departed currently possess. When we say something like “lifeless, inanimate” we’re really trying to convey that their spirit is no longer animating their bodies.
Yet many of us are convicted that their spirits are still engaged, moving and animate – very much not “defunct,” “insentient” or “insensate.”4
So what do we call them??! I’m still not sure.
My relative Micaela Hess and Emma’s grandmother and namesake Anne both like the term “graduated.” My friend Diana Gourley prefers “passed” or “transitioned.” And my Dad likes the accuracy of “disembodied spirits” (which still feels just a bit spooky to me!)
I think my friend Shauna May may have found a winner in voting for “awakened” – aka, no longer asleep like the rest of us.
Would love to hear your thoughts too. I hope I’ve framed the conversation to help one of my friends or family members eventually figure out the best answer.
A final thought. But why does any of this really matter? Much of this, of course, could easily be dismissed as mere “semantics” – language games with little relevance to real life. But I wonder if that’s another thing far from the truth – given how much our day-to-day language ends up partially constituting our very existence, as Charles Taylor said.
Laney Allen wrote me about the personal impact of changing the way she speaks about those who have “graduated” and coming to think more about “angels surrounding me” – saying she has been “feeling more loved and seen and also more responsible with my daily actions.” Laney added, “I feel closer to them and more accountable to them. And I feel a kind of synergy I didn’t feel before.”
My friend Scott Hutchins also expressed a desire to “not forget” those who had departed, saying, “I believe our loved ones are only a thought away and by thinking about them we invite them to be near.”
How much of our grief and sorrow is conditioned and influenced by our views of where these departed loved ones are, what they are experiencing – and how close (or far) they are from us?
Joseph Smith, who with his beloved Emma lost 6 children in infancy, wrote in April 1843: “More painful to me are thoughts of annihilation than death; if I had no expectation of seeing my Father, Mother, Brothers, Sisters, and friends again, my heart would burst in a moment, and I should go down to my grave.”
If Joseph’s heart could and would have “burst in a moment” if he believed his loved ones had been annihilated, wouldn’t a belief that our departed loved ones had gone to some place inaccessible and far away likewise pack a painful punch?
By comparison, how about believing (really believing) just the opposite….that these dear ones are close, at peace, happy and still able to be involved in our life today?
Christian believers the world over gladly anticipate the future, as Joseph did, when comparing the experience of laying dear ones in the grave to their “taking a long journey, and on their return, we meet them with increased joy.”
But here’s the thing: there’s something even better than awaiting these grand reunions one day. That’s what I’ve been feeling the most these days – realizing that another kind of reunion is available right now….very much in our present, mortal condition as our eyes are opened to things as they really are.
May we all come to see for ourselves the true state and relationship of our “departed” family members who have “passed on” to a better place – without ever really leaving us behind.
Notes:
For resurrected beings, even more so. Compared to those who are disembodied and eagerly awaiting the reunion with their body, those angels who have received a glorified body experience far more than simply heightened awareness. Other inspired statements suggest that our departed’s capacity to do anything and everything has also been heightened:
- Parley Pratt taught that angels “eat, drink, sing and converse like other(s). … They pass from one world to another with more ease and in less time than we pass from one city to another. They have not a single attribute which man has not. But their attributes are more matured, or more developed.”
- B.H. Roberts taught that angels “possess a material body of flesh and bones, can eat, drink, walk, converse, reason, love, fight, wrestle, sing, or play on musical instruments. They can go or come on foreign missions, in heaven, earth, or hell; and they can travel space, and visit the different worlds, with all the ease and alacrity with which God and Christ do the same, being possessed of similar organizations, powers, and attributes in a degree.”
Some degree of diminished capacity might suggest why Latter-day Saint scripture teaches that the departed most often have “looked upon the long absence of their spirits from their bodies as a bondage.”
Brigham Young taught exactly this, “There is much in my presence besides those who sit here, if we had eyes to see the heavenly beings that are in our presence.” Jeffrey Holland similarly said, “There are angels everywhere at work” on the earth.
It’s still unsurprising that we don’t appreciate this, since we cannot see these beautiful beings tangibly or easily with our own eyes. That’s why reminders can be so helpful, such as one hymn attesting, “Oh, know you not that angels are near you.”
We are “not alone,” John Widtsoe affirmed, teaching that men and women walk “in the midst of such heavenly company, from whom we may expect help if we seek it.” Elder Orson Pratt added, “There is no doubt … that heavenly messengers hover around the congregation of the Saints here assembled … to bluff off the powers of darkness, that seek to darken the minds of the people, and to close their hearts against understanding.”
After Sam’s funeral talk, Laurie Preece wrote to me that it seemed Sam can feel Emma “because she lives and is having experiences that people who love her (and are listening) can share in a unique way.” She added her sense that this is “a form of spiritual revelation that is designed to build our faith and comfort.”
From everything I’ve read, these interactions don’t have to be infrequent. About another early believer, it is written, “so great was his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ that angels did minister unto him daily.”
The Prophet Joseph added, “If you live up to your privileges, the angels cannot be restrained from being your associates.”
Once again, while these people may have departed our conscious awareness and visible presence, they have not departed from our existence…not at all. So a new word would need to convey that better – and avoid the connotations of being gone.
Believers sometimes describe the deceased as simply “with God,” while colloquially we also say they are “at peace,” “laid to rest” or “asleep” (the phrase “bought the farm” carries similar connotations of finally having a chance to live peaceably after earthly wartime).
Of course, we also have words that center more tangibly on the state of the body (“inert,” “not breathing,” “having breathed one’s last” and “stiff”) or its location: “in the grave,” “buried” “pushing up daisies,” and “six feet under.”
And there are a host of words centering on the event and action precipitating death – Especially when that has involved some violence (“slain, slaughtered, killed, murdered”).
Instead, they are alive in another way – and with sensory capacities more acute in a spiritual sense than most of us can even comprehend (albeit apparently missing the sensory capacity their bodies had once provided – even considering it a “bondage” – while anticipating that resurrection reunion with great excitement).
Sunday, March 26, 2023
A powerful Witnesses of the Reality of the Spirit World By Ted Gibbons
Lessons from the Restoration: A Powerful Witness of the Reality
of the Spirit World
By Ted Gibbons · March 20, 2023
The
following historical gem offers a powerful witness of the importance of and the
reality of work in the Spirit World.
Feramorz
L. Young [a son of Brigham Young] . . . went on a mission to Mexico, where he
died and was buried in the Gulf of Mexico. It always seemed to me a strange
thing that a boy with all the education he had, who had made a wonderful
success should be taken from us. . . . I thought that with his faith and
knowledge, and with all the information he had gained, it was too bad he had to
lay down his life while in the Lord’s service
One of
my nearest and dearest friends in boyhood was Horace G. Whitney. Horace had a
dream after Fera died in which the two had a conversation. Horace asked him
what he was doing, and received this reply:
“I am
here working, Horace, with the wayward boys and girls of the Church, who are
drifting away from it, and I am trying to turn their hearts back to the truth.
That is my calling, and it is of far greater importance than it would have been
for me to remain upon the earth. I have a great influence with them.”
. . . .
I do not think that Fera Young in his life ever listened to an unclean story.
If anyone started to tell such a story he would excuse himself and walk away. I
never heard an unchaste word uttered by him. If there ever was a clean, sweet,
absolutely pure young man upon the earth, he was that young man.
When he
died his mother said she could not remember a word or thought or act of his
life that would bring her the least sorrow or uneasiness. . . .
What in
the providence of the Lord is the result? . . . A woman came to Sister Young,
his mother, with photographs of one of this lady’s near and dear friends, a
very beautiful women, and said:
“Now,
Mrs. Young, I do not believe a thing of what I’m going to tell you. This girl
friend of mine was one of the noblest, finest, choicest kind of girls and young
women that ever lived. She has come to me in this city of Salt Lake on three
separate occasions at night in dreams, and has given me this information: the
date of her birth, the date of her death, and all this is necessary, she says,
for a record in the temple: and she has told me that your son, Feramorz L.
Young, has converted her, and that in addition to converting her he has
proposed marriage to her. ‘I want you to go to Mrs. Young and give
her this information and vouch for my honesty, virtue, integrity and upright
life, and have the work done for me and have me married for eternity to her
son, Feramorz L. Young.’”
This
women who visited Mrs. Young said: “I do not believe a word of it, but the last
time this friend of mine came–which was the third time–she said, ‘There is
nobody in Salt Lake City who knows me and can vouch for me except you. You are
the only individual that I know in Salt Lake City.’” She said further to Mrs.
Young: “I can furnish you any references you may wish regarding my character,
from the place where I formerly lived. The last time this young woman came to
me she said, ‘You might just as well go to Mrs. Young and give her this
information, because I am going to come, and come, and come, until you do it.’”
And the woman continued, “I just cannot bear to have her come again; it is so
uncanny, and I do not believe a thing of it.
This
beautiful girl was sealed to Brother Young, and I am convinced that my dear
friend lost nothing by dying in his youth. (“Comforting Manifestations:”
Excerpts from Funeral Sermon delivered by President Heber J. Grant, reported in
the Improvement Era, February 1931)
Monday, January 9, 2023
Elder Quentin L Cook Ensign Mary 2016
Often in the temple, and as
we engage in family history research, we feel promptings and have impressions
from the Holy Ghost. Occasionally in the temple the veil between us and those
on the other side becomes very thin. We get additional assistance in our
efforts to be saviors on Mount Zion.
Several years ago in a temple in Central
America, the wife of one of our now-emeritus General Authorities assisted a
father, a mother, and their children in receiving eternal covenants in the
sealing room, where the temple mirrors are located. As they concluded and faced
those mirrors, she noticed there was a face in the mirror that was not in the
room. She inquired of the mother and learned that a daughter had passed away and
accordingly was not physically present. The deceased daughter was then included
by proxy in the sacred ordinance. Never underestimate the assistance provided
in temples from the other side of the veil. Quentin L. cook Ensign May 2016
Friday, January 6, 2023
How Angels Can Help Us More in Our Lives By Wendy Nelson
Sister Wendy Nelson: How angels can help us more in
our lives
By LDS
Living Staff February 02, 2019 05:00 PM MST
Angels Among Us by
Annie Henrie.
Deseret Book
One of our hymns teaches us that “angels above us are silent
notes taking” of each one of our actions. I’m sure that is true. And when we
keep our covenants, they are doing so much more.
The
Prophet Joseph Smith declared that if we “live up to [our] privilege,”
the angels will not be able to be restrained from being our associates.
Our
“privilege” includes our covenants.
Our covenants are
a privilege.
Therefore,
as we live up to our covenants, the angels will not be able to be restrained
from being our associates. We could also say it this way: As we keep our
covenants, we can ask for angels to help us. Literally!
It
was during Elder Jeffrey R. Holland’s April 2010 general conference address
that I first learned this truth. Elder Holland was giving counsel on how to
guard against temptation. The one question I most needed to have answered at
that time in my life, and which I took to that general conference, was not related
to that subject, but part of Elder Holland’s prescription for success was exactly what
I needed to hear.
He
said, “Ask for angels to help you.”
He
said it with such clarity, and yet he said it in a manner that implied this was
something we all knew! But for me, it was an entirely new principle.
I
wanted to call out, “Wait! Wait! What? You mean I could have been asking for
angels to help me all this time?”
Without
intending to sound too dramatic, I can say with all candor that Elder Holland’s
six words changed my life: “Ask for angels to help you.”
That
counsel changed my prayers. It changed my understanding of the very real help
from heaven that is always available to us as we keep our covenants.
I started to ask for assistance from those on the other side of the veil from
that moment on!
Now,
I’m not talking about praying to fantasy angels with wings to magically
fairy-dust our problems away. I’m not talking about praying to angels.
I’m talking about praying to our Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus Christ,
for those on the other side to be “dispatched” (Elder Holland’s word) to assist
us. Perhaps a departed loved one could be sent to help you with whatever you
need.
Can
you imagine the effort it took those angels who pushed from the rear of handcarts
as they helped pioneers over the steep, snowy, windy, freezing, jagged terrain
of Rocky Ridge? If angels can manage that, they can certainly
help you and me over our present-day Rocky Ridges!
One
faithful covenant-keeping woman learned how real angels are and how ready they
are to help when we are in despair. Her life had been turned upside down and
her heart broken. She had recently learned that her husband had for many years
chosen to betray her and break his covenants with God and with her. One night
all alone with her thoughts, she sank into deep despair. She was without hope
and could see no way to move ahead with her life. Darkness and dead ends were
all she could see. Thoughts of ending her life seized hold of her mind.
After
several hours of seriously contemplating her death, she suddenly felt prompted
to walk to her basement. As she passed a bookshelf, her eyes were drawn to
something she hadn’t seen in decades, something that had been missing for
years: her favorite photograph of herself as a young mother with her children.
Seeing their trusting, loving faces looking up to her for guidance brought her
to her sense. She knew in that instant that she could never take her own life.
She could never leave her children—who were now grown up with children of their
own—in that manner. She marveled at how the Lord knew exactly the photograph
that would help her in an instant to choose to live. She was
amazed at the precise timing when the Lord sent His angels to find the framed,
formerly lost photograph and place it exactly where she would
see it. Exactly when she needed to see it.
We
know the Lord gets His work done with the help of His angels! And who are His
angels?
President
Joseph F. Smith declared: “When messengers are sent to minister to the
inhabitants of this earth, they are not strangers, but from the ranks of our
kindred [and] friends . . . . In like manner, our fathers and mothers,
brothers, sisters, and friends who have passed away from this earth, having
been faithful, and worthy to enjoy these rights and privileges, may have a
mission given them to visit their relatives and friends upon the earth again,
bringing from the divine Presence messages of love, of warning, of reproof and
instruction to those whom they had learned to love in the flesh.”
So,
could you use a little more help in your life? If so, keep your covenants with
more exactness than you ever have before! And then ask for angels (a.k.a. your
ancestors and other loved ones) to help you with whatever you
need. Or ask for them to be dispatched to help those you love!
https://www.ldsliving.com/sister-wendy-nelson-how-angels-can-help-us-more-in-our-lives/s/81465?utm_source=ldsliving&utm_medium=email
Missionary Angels By Anne Hinton Pratt
Missionary Angels
By Anne Hinton Pratt · January 5, 2023
Cover image: “Heralding Angels” by Annie Henrie Nader,
Courtesy of altusfineart.com@2022. Used with permission.
One of
the things angels do is to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with people of the
world and point them to ordinances they need to live again with God.
Angels may come in different forms or circumstances to achieve their
objectives, but as the veil continues to thin, they become a crucial part of
the gathering…
Departed Child Reveals Himself to Elder
Elder
Manfre from the Brasilia mission was aware that he had angelic
help as he led a discussion with a family one evening. The
parents of this family had a young son who had recently died from a terrible
accident. He writes:
“We
began to teach them and the Spirit with us was very strong. At times I
was incredulous at the words that were coming from our mouths as we spoke by
the Spirit. Then my companion began to speak about eternal
families. The intensity of the Spirit became stronger and stronger, and I
began to feel something different—a feeling of great peace. Next, I saw
and felt the presence of a small child. In that room I perceived
a very strong light and I could discern the appearance of this small
child. My words became stronger with respect to how this man
could reunite with his child after this life. With tears in his eyes,
this man told us that the hope that one day he could see his child again gave
him the desire and strength of will to cope with the death of that child.
“I don’t know how to describe with words the feelings that I had
but I know that for a moment, the veil was opened, and I saw and felt that
child that was not with us in physical matter but in spirit.
Shortly thereafter the father of this child handed to me an album with some
photos of his child. I almost cried, because… it was the same
child that I had just finished seeing and feeling.
“Experiences
like these motivate me and strengthen my testimony that the world of spirits is
often not far from us.” [i]
This
child was allowed to manifest himself to Elder Manfre in a special way as a
witness to his family of his desire that they become a forever family. The
child was his family’s “missionary angel,” helping earthly
missionaries in bringing his family to the gospel.
Alma
understood this phenomenon of missionary angels helping to further the work.
He
wrote,
“And
behold, many did declare unto the people that they had seen angels and had
conversed with them; and thus, they had told them things of God, and of his
righteousness. And…many did believe in their words; and as many as did believe
were baptized; and they became a righteous people…”[ii]
Astonishing Display of Angelic Support
Eric
Lee told me of an extraordinary experience he had in 1990 of seeing many
“missionary” angels. He wrote,
“Some
friends and I attended a fireside at the Logan Tabernacle. I don’t remember a
lot of the details of the speakers but remember that the final speaker was a
beautiful non-member woman. In her talk she shared how she had made a deal with
God, as she was in a national beauty pageant, that if He would help her do her
best, she would dedicate her life to finding Him.
“While
she was speaking, I had an intense impression to share my testimony with her.
Now, I was only 18 at the time, and my testimony was fledgling at best. I kind
of dismissed the notion, but it wouldn’t leave me alone. I looked in my
scripture bag that I’d brought with me to see if I even had anything I could write
it on. All I found was a quarter of a page of paper that had been handed out in
seminary, and a red scripture marking pencil to write with. I thought again
that this was ridiculous and tried to push the impression aside. It did not
leave me and continued to increase. So, I caved in and wrote my simple
testimony on the paper scrap with my red pencil. It was almost embarrassing…no,
it was totally embarrassing how simple it was.
“Anyhow,
it was done, and the real challenge was still ahead of me. I had to hand it to
her. I remember there was a line of people that wanted to speak with her after
the meeting ended, many of them getting autographs. I kind of just hung back
and waited for the crowd to diminish. I certainly didn’t want to give this
embarrassing piece of myself to her with an audience!
“Eventually,
her driver came and said it was time to go. Most of the crowd was gone at this
point, and I was sitting near the entrance trying to see if I would actually
have the courage to step forward. As she approached, I jumped up and handed her
the paper. She went to write an autograph on it, and I clumsily said that it
was for her. She looked at me oddly and left the building. That was the last I
saw of her.
“When
I turned back to look in the tabernacle, I suddenly saw the entire top level
(the Logan tabernacle has a second level balcony for seating) was filled with
angels. They were all dressed in white (no wings), and the feeling of peace and
love was overwhelming!
“I
instinctively knew two things at that moment (this knowledge came immediately
with the vision):
1) The
angels were all her family, and they were there to support her in her quest to
find God, and
2) I
was being blessed with this experience because of my simple courage to share my
little testimony with her.”
“This
was SO powerful! I had to leave the building and walk around the grounds for
nearly 10-15 minutes to get my tears under control before I could go back to
look for my friends.”
“For
years, I treasured this experience and rarely shared it with anybody. I felt
like it was one of those “pearls before swine” things. However, as I’ve gotten
older, I feel strongly that these experiences should be shared more. I
know that if I were her, I would so love to know how my family on the other
side of the veil had shown up en masse to support me in finding God.
(“As a
follow up, some months later I was in the MTC. We’d been stuck there for over 3
months on visa delay, and they’d run out of stuff to teach us, so when new
Elders arrived, we were cleared to go out and see them. I recognized a parent
dropping off a son. I realized that he was one of the other speakers that had
spoken that day. I asked him if he remembered the lady, and he said
he did. He said that she had since gotten baptized and was planning on getting
sealed in the temple with her husband).”[iii]
What a
validation for Eric… So many “missionary angels” who were
supporting a single woman…
Moroni
declared, “Wherefore, by the ministering of angels, and by every word which
proceeded forth out of the mouth of God, men began to exercise faith in Christ;
and thus it was until the coming of Christ.[iv]
“Do My Work A.S.A.P!”
Arlene
Butler wrote,
“When
we lived in Southern California we were close friends for many years with a
wonderful family who was not LDS. They told us plainly they were not
interested in the church, and we respected that. Although we moved over
25 years ago, we are still good friends. A little over a year ago the
husband Bill died. My son Jared recently went on a business trip to
California and decided to do a session in the L.A. temple while
there. During the session Bill came and told Jared that he wanted
his temple work done – that he had a lot of family members he wanted to start
working with.
“We
called Bill’s wife with some trepidation to get her permission for his work to
be done. We were pleasantly surprised that she happily gave it! She
also told us of a cousin who had “gotten into” doing genealogy and we
discovered the cousin had loaded their names into family Search, so everything
was ready to go.
“We
believe this family on the other side was ready and waiting for their work to
be done. We are the only LDS people they know so that is why Bill asked
Jared to do the work.”
After
receiving permission, a few weeks went by, and the work just wasn’t getting
done because of the busy lives of her sons. Arlene continues,
“When
I woke up last week, I realized that Bill was in the room
– he told me he needed his work done A.S.A.P. I
texted Bill’s urgent message to my two sons and the next day my younger son, Aaron
went to do the baptism & confirmation. While at the temple he
thought – ‘I’ll let a teen do the baptism and I’ll witness’ . . . but Bill let
him know HE was to get in the water!
“After
the baptism & confirmation when Aaron left the temple, he felt Bill was
upset because he wasn’t finishing all the work right then. He had some
errands to do but went right back because of urgency he was feeling from Bill,
and completed his work that day.
“We all felt Bill’s happiness several times throughout the day.
We teased that we’re glad the work was done so we would not be
“haunted” further. We don’t know why it was so urgent except what Bill
had originally told my older son –‘that he had family members to work with.’
It must be hard for the dead who want to progress to wait for us to do
their work on this side of the veil.” [v]
Bill
was a “missionary angel.” He had definite preferences about who he wanted
to do his work, but knew that once it was done, he would be free to help others
“gather” Israel from that side of the veil.
We’re Not Alone
Isn’t
it marvelous that we’re not alone in our quest to gather Israel? The world of
spirits is not far from us, and Angels are coming to visit the earth in
ever-greater numbers to work in tandem with us to do this amazing eternal work!
You Can CONTACT me with your comments or stories at annehpratt@hotmail.com
[i] David Frederick Babbel, Mine Angels
Round About You, p. 122.
[ii] Alma 19:34-35
[iii] Eric Lee, personal correspondence.
Used with permission.
[iv] Moroni 7:25
[v] Arlene Butler, personal
correspondence. Used with permission.
https://latterdaysaintmag.com/missionary-angels/?utm_source=iContact&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=scot-maurine-proctor&utm_content=Friday%2C+January+6%2C+2022