Reaching Through the Veil shows how angels are a part of our everyday lives. This blog is designed to share your experiences, stories that you find, quotes from General Authorities, and scriptures that show that angels are a part of our lives.

Wednesday, May 18, 2016

Returned Missionary Miraculously Survives Vicious Knife Attack: "There Were Angels There Helping"


by | Oct. 01, 2015

Editor’s Note: The following story contains mature subject matter and descriptions of violence. Reader discretion is advised.
The night of Tuesday, September 22, was like any other.
It was half past 11:00 in Salt Lake City, where Breann (“Bre”) Lasley had recently moved into a duplex with her younger sister, Kayli. Bre and Kayli stayed up talking for a while (Kayli had just returned from a date), then retired to their rooms. After brushing her teeth, Bre played some calming music on her computer to end the day. But exactly 38 seconds into Paul Cardall’s arrangement of “Joseph Smith’s First Prayer,” she slammed her laptop shut. The music stopped.
A man was at her window.
What Bre didn’t know at the time was that eight days prior, Robert Richard Berger had been released from the Utah State Prison after 14 years of incarceration. She was also unaware that he’d just been chased away from her neighbor’s house after an unsuccessful break-in attempt.
What she did know was that he was on his way into her bedroom, and that he was too strong for her to keep out.
As Berger forced his way in, Bre wasn’t sure if the whole thing was a joke. After all, she and her sister had just moved in a few days earlier, and they didn’t know many people in the neighborhood. Maybe this was somebody’s sick idea of a prank.
But the violence with which Berger handled Bre quickly dispelled any possibility of a joke. She began to scream.
Before long, Kayli ran upstairs to her sister’s room, where she began striking Berger in an attempt to loosen his grip on her sister. The two girls, fueled by rage and adrenaline, defended one another against his increasingly violent attack.
The struggle made its way to the top of the stairs, where Berger viciously kicked Kayli. She flew to the bottom of the staircase without touching a single step on the way down, and her head went through the wall. Doctors would later tell her she was lucky to be alive.
Berger attempted to push Bre down the stairs as well, but she maintained a grip on him, so they went down together. At the bottom of the stairwell, Bre frantically called the police, but Berger hung up her phone. As he and Bre fought, Kayli called the police. Both sisters frantically shouted their address until Berger began choking Kayli.
Bre tackled Berger into the laundry room, but he got on top of her and began beating her even more intensely than before. That’s when Kayli’s attention was drawn to a metal rack hanging on the wall. She ripped it down and struck Berger several times in the back with it.
That’s when Bre saw the knife.
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A few years prior to this night, Bre had serious medical problems. Blood clots had severely damaged her liver, gallbladder, and several other internal organs. Her doctor prescribed a blood thinner to stop the clotting, which worked—but a couple of months ago, he decided to take her off it unexpectedly.
If Bre had still been taking the blood thinner, this night would have been her last.
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Upon seeing the knife, Bre convinced Kayli to run outside and get help. As she sprinted up the stairs, one thought consumed her older sister’s mind:
“This is the last time I’ll ever see her.”
Berger stabbed Bre in the lower abdomen. He stabbed her again in the right thigh. Again, in the upper abdomen. He began violently and repeatedly jabbing and slashing haphazardly. Doctors would later be mystified at Bre’s close shave with death. None of the stab wounds cut through any organs or major arteries, although many came within a few centimeters.
Meanwhile, Kayli frantically ran the sidewalks, screaming for help. Luckily, a police officer was only a couple doors down, investigating Berger’s earlier break-in. She told the officer that her sister was fighting a man inside their house, and that her assailant had a knife.
As the officer ran toward the duplex, Berger was threatening to go upstairs and kill Kayli. A wounded and exhausted Bre tried to bargain for her sister’s life, offering Berger her car, computer, phone, and cash. In a fit of rage, Berger forced her back to the ground, pinned down her arms and said, “I’m going to kill you.”
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In 2009 and 2010, Bre served an LDS mission in Florianopolis, Brazil. As missionaries, she and her companion would often go door-to-door and ask people what they would say to the Savior if He were there. One woman had not been able to walk in four years, and together, she and the sister missionaries prayed for the desires of her heart. The next time Sister Lasley and her companion visited this woman, she could walk again.
Sitting there on the couch with her companion, Sister Lasley had the most powerful spiritual experience of her life. In that moment, she felt as though the Savior himself was sitting beside her. The memory of this stayed with her for years, but that feeling would not repeat itself until she needed it most.
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Berger raised the knife.
Bre braced for impact, but none came. Berger’s blow had missed. He tried again but somehow could not stab her. After six or seven failed attempts, he became increasingly angry and confused. “Why isn’t this working?!” he screamed. “Why the [expletive] isn’t this working?!”
Bre watched as the knife came inches from her stomach, her chest, her head. Horror quickly turned to peace as she once again felt the protecting presence of her Savior, just as she had years before on her mission.
She would later say it was as if a shield covered her entire body.
"I know, without a question, that we were totally protected, that there were angels there helping us," Bre said in a Deseret News interview.
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Since this night, Bre has pored over the words of Elder L. Whitney Clayton. His most recent conference address, “Choose to Believe,” has inspired her.
Elder Clayton’s talk tells the story of a young girl who miraculously walked away from a plane crash that killed her entire family. After the crash, the scared, injured, and freezing girl faced a choice—did she stay at the wreckage, where she was perhaps more assured and comfortable, or go off in search of help?
She abandoned the crash and found light. “What I just went through was traumatic, frightening, and difficult,” said Bre. “But with the Savior’s help, I know I can leave the wreck.”
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Berger’s attempts on Bre’s life momentarily ceased when a heavy pair of boots walked down the stairs. The police officer introduced himself and ordered Berger to drop his weapon.
Instead, Berger put the knife to Bre’s throat. In that moment, she couldn’t help but feel sorry for this man who was making a terrible choice. The officer issued another warning, but Berger didn’t relent. After the third and final warning, he moved to cut her throat. The officer discharged one bullet into Berger’s head, which was inches away from Bre’s. She gasped in relief and exhaustion as her attacker fell to the floor.
On Bre’s way to the emergency room, she was filled with an overwhelming desire to pray.
Now, Bre and Kayli are out of the hospital and living with their parents. After their harrowing experience, they are uncertain as to whether they want to return to their apartment. But for the time being, the two sisters are doing well recovering physically and relying on the love and strength of their family and their Savior to overcome the emotional scars from that dark night.

Friday, March 4, 2016

How Angels Can Help Us More


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How Angels Can Help Us More in Our Lives

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!
Lead image: "Angels Among Us" by Annie Henrie. Available at Deseret Book stores and deseretbook.com.
https://www.ldsliving.com/How-Angels-Can-Help-Us-More-in-Our-Lives/s/81465/?utm_source=ldsliving&utm_medium=sidebar&utm_campaign=related

Friday, February 19, 2016

George Q. Cannon Quote

Now, this is the truth. We humble people; we who feel ourselves sometimes so worthless, so good‑for‑nothing; we are not so worthless as we think. There is not one of us but what God’s love has been expended upon. There is not one of us that He has not cared for and caressed. There is not one of us that He has not desired to save, and that He has not devised means to save. There is not one of us that He has not given His angels charge concerning. We may be insignificant and contemptible in our own eyes, and in the eyes of others, but the truth remains that we are the children of God, and that He has actually given His angels‑‑invisible beings of power and might‑‑charge concerning us, and they watch over us and have us in their keeping…Those who otherwise might be thought to be contemptible and unworthy of notice, Jesus says be careful about offending them, for “their angels do always behold the face of my Father” (Matt. 18:10). We are in their charge. They watch over us, and are, to a certain extent, doubtless, responsible for the watch care that they exercise over us, just as we are responsible for any duty that is assigned us (Collected Discourses, Vol.2, George Q. Cannon, November, 1890).

Wednesday, February 17, 2016

The Logging Miracle of Marriner Wood Merrill

A Logging Miracle – Autobiography of Marriner Wood Merrill

Edited by Melvin Clarence Merrill 1937, p 44-46 During the winter of 1855 and '56 I worked in North Mill Creek Canyon as I had done the previous winter. And in this connection I will here relate a circumstance that occurred with me that winter while working in the canyon. During the month of January, 1856, the weather was very cold, the temperature ranging 20 to 30 degrees below zero at times. On one occasion I found myself in the canyon alone, as it was so cold no one else cared to risk going out in the canyon that day. I was at that time hauling house logs, usually five to a load. After getting my logs cut and dragged down to the loading place I commenced loading them on my bob sled, one end on the sled and the small end to drag on the snow. I had the five logs lying side by side. The loading place being very slippery, I was as I thought very careful. But after getting the first one loaded on the sled I turned around to load another one. The one I had on the sled slipped off like it was shot out of a gun and struck me in the hollow of the legs and threw me forward on my face across the four logs lying on the ground, or ice. In falling, my hand spike, which I had used in loading the first log, slipped out of my hand and out of my reach. And thus I found myself with my body lying face downwards across the four logs and the fifth log lying across my legs, and I was pinned to the ground with a heavy red pine log 10 inches through at the large end and 22 feet long lying across my legs. And there I was with no visible means to extricate myself and there was no aid at hand, as no one but myself was in the canyon that day. I made up my mind that I must freeze and die all alone in the mountains of Utah. Many serious thoughts passed through my mind, as you may imagine. In falling on the logs my breast and stomach were hurt and it was difficult for me to breathe. I did not conceive what to do under the trying ordeal, but concluded to ask the Lord to help me, which I did in earnest prayer. After calling upon the Lord for some time I began to make an effort to extricate myself but all in vain, as I could not move the log that was lying on me. I, however, continued my efforts until I was exhausted and lost all recollection of my situation. And the first I remembered afterward I was one mile down the canyon sitting on my load of logs and the oxen going gently along. My overcoat by the side of me, and feeling very cold, I spoke to my oxen and stopped them and looked around in wonder and astonishment. Then I remembered being under the log at the loading place some time previous. But how long I was there I could not determine, but supposed about two hours, as I was two hours later getting home than usual. I looked at the load and found I had the five logs on the sled, three on the bottom and two on the top, nicely bound, my ax sticking in the top log, my whip lying on the load by my side, my sheepskin (with the wool on, which I used to sit on) also on the load and I sitting on it. I made an effort to get off the load and put on my overcoat but found I could not do it, as I was so sore in my legs and breast that it was with great difficulty that I could move at all. I put my overcoat on in a sitting position as I was, and wrapped it around my legs the best I could and started on down the canyon. My oxen being gentle and tractable and the road smooth and all down hill, I arrived home without difficulty. On arriving there I found my wife was anxiously waiting for me and quite uneasy about me, as I was so much later than usual. She lifted me from the load and helped me into the house, placed me by the fireside (as we had no stoves in those days), and made me as comfortable as possible and took care of my team, etc. I was confined to the house for some days before I could get around again. Who it was that extricated me from under the log, loaded my sled, hitched my oxen to it, and placed me on it, I cannot say, as I do not now, or even then at the time, remember seeing anyone, and I know for a surety no one was in the canyon that day but myself. Hence I must give the Lord, or my Guardian Angel, credit for saving my life in extricating me from so perilous a situation.

https://familysearch.org/photos/stories/478294

Monday, February 15, 2016

Police officer Tyler Beddoes heard angels when rescuing baby from car

Fox News today had Tyler Beddoes on the air.  He has written a book titled, Proof of Angels.  In this video he explains the situation that brought him to realize there are angels.

http://video.foxnews.com/v/4756466732001/fox-flash-proof-of-angels/?#sp=show-clips

Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Elder Robert D. Hales

Robert D. Hales
"On a few occasions, I told the Lord that I had surely learned the lessons to be taught and that it wouldn't be necessary for me to endure any more suffering.  such entreaties seemed to be of no avail, for it was made clear to me that this purifying process of testing was to be endured in the Lord's time and in the Lord's own way.  It is one thing to teach, "Thy will be done" (Matt. 26:42).  It is another to live it.  I also learned that I would not be left alone to meet these trials and tribulations but that guardian angels would attend me.  There were some that were near angels in the form of doctors, nurses, and most of all my sweet companion, Mary.  And on occasion, when the Lord so desired, I was to be comforted with visitations of heavenly hosts that brought comfort and eternal reassurances in my time of need." Ensign, Nov. 2000, "The Covenant of Baptism: To Be in the Kingdom and of the Kingdom."