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Themes included "armoring up" via personal scripture study and prayer a la Ephesians 6:11-17, feeling and being guided by the spirit, mentors and mentoring, and getting along with difficult missionary companions. Most of the young men had significant spiritual experiences. Tears flowed freely. Testimony meeting the final night was a highlight. Days were peppered with literally dozens of thoughts and prayers. When an officer with
the Utah National Guard slammed a 4 foot sword against the chest of a young man wearing "battle rattle" body armor used in Afghanistan, every head was forward and every eye was focused.
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My extemporaneous presentation was an exegesis of 3 Nephi 18:20, Mormon 9:21, and Moroni 7:26 - whatever we ask the Father in the name of Jesus Christ will be granted as long as it is a righteous desire and we ask in faith. I illustrated this promise with four examples:
- Soon after I arrived in Lince (Lima) Peru as a 19-year-old missionary, I was overcome with homesickness. The sights were foreign, the smells nauseating. The food was strange and my stomach felt like an erupting volcano. The sounds were raucous and difficult to understand. I sweated profusely day and night. I did not think I could endure 22 months (In those days one spent the first 2 months of his 2 year mission in the LTM - Language Training Mission) of this disturbing exotica. So, as I said my evening prayers one night, I asked the Father in the name of Jesus Christ to calm my troubled soul. As I climbed into the top bunk, I was shown a vision that spoke peace and banished my anxieties in an instant. I saw my family gathered at the Salt Lake Airport, welcoming me home from my mission. Now knowing the end from the beginning, I embraced mission work with a passion and quickly learned to love Peru and Peruvians. Parenthetically, when I did return home at the end of my mission, the reunion in the Salt Lake Airport was precisely as I had seen it in vision almost 2 years before.
- Many years later, I went to the airport to head out on a business trip. Those were the days of paper airline tickets, and I carelessly left my tickets on the dashboard of the car driven by my oldest son. I soon discovered my missing tickets as I waited in line to check in. I didn't have the means to purchase new tickets, so I turned to my Heavenly Father in prayer. "Father, I ask thee in the name of Jesus Christ, to inspire my son to see my tickets on the dashboard, stop and turn the car around right now, return to the airport, and bring me my tickets." About 15 minutes later, when I was just seconds away from my turn at the check in counter, my son appeared and handed me my tickets. "You forgot these, Dad."
- The Young Men's President in my ward is an astronomer at BYU. A few years ago, he and his wife made a list of things they really wanted to accomplish. She wrote down that she wanted to spend one February on a tropical island. Later that year, my friend was offered a chance to run an evening astronomy program for the guests at a resort on Saipan in the Northern Marianas. The whole family spent the next February on a tropical island.
- On April 2, 2011, while my wife and I were watching the last session of General Conference, I got a distress call from a young wife and mother in my BYU ward. Her husband had just taken the car and stormed out of the house in an angry hail of threatening words. I got the impression that she needed to come to our home and spend some time with my wife, so I raced to Provo, gassed up the old pickup truck that was their second vehicle, and led her to our house in American Fork. I left her visiting with my wife while I attended the Priesthood Session. Upon my return, I called her husband on his cell phone. He said he was in Saint George headed for California, and every mile he got further away from Provo the better he felt. He had made up his mind to file for divorce. He said he would not contest anything - she could have the house, the car, the bank accounts, custody, etc. I told him as his Bishop to pull over to the side of the road right then and pray - I would be praying at the same time. My wife, the distraught young sister and I knelt beside our kitchen table and I offered a prayer. "Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus Christ I ask thee to send thy spirit to Saint George right now and soften the heart of this sister's husband so he will return to her and love her." Less than a minute after I said "Amen" her cell phone rang. It was her husband. My wife and I tended their baby for the next two hours while they talked. She finally went home to Provo when her cell phone battery died. By about 1:30 a.m. her husband returned, a changed man, and this story has a happy ending.
