Week 21: A Witness from God

June 8, 1988

We had a teaching appointment scheduled with Trudy for Thursday morning, but when we arrived she wasn't there.  Her daughter informed us that Trudy had had a stroke and was in the hospital up in Salinas.  We got some directions and the room number and then left.

We went tracting, got in one door and met this really nice lady. She is a Jehovah’s Witness and as we were teaching she basically took over. But unlike the J-dubs I have met before, she didn’t bash, she was just so happy that she could not contain it. Also unlike other J-dubs, she used love and sincerity as she taught us. Her message sounded good, too. I was tempted a few times to bash, but fought the urge.  This experience was so unlike the one with those J-dubs in Menlo Park and it has filled me with some doubts. While things are starting off better here in Seaside, I am still awfully discouraged. If I am blessed to have the truth, how can I be so miserable while this J-dub lady is so happy?

After lunch we drove up to Salinas to visit Trudy in the hospital. I do not know the details, but apparently she has been under a lot of stress and this led to her having a stroke on Tuesday. We gave her a priesthood blessing, in which I did the anointing; then we went to the gift shop and bought her some gum and Life Savers.

On the way home we stopped at the Baker’s, a member family, and talked with them for awhile. After that we came back to the flat to check and see if we had team-ups, which we did not. The Baker’s had a son playing in a baseball game this evening and we went and watched. After the game we went to the Baker’s home to chat some more. Eventually it was time to come home and go to bed.

That night I was feeling a bit disillusioned.  For two years I have been operating on the belief that I knew the Church was true. I recall praying one night to ask if it was true and I am not sure that I really felt anything. I thought that I felt good and took that as an answer. Who knows, but maybe my faith and sincerity were not sufficient. At the same time, however, I did feel that my faith had been increasing as I was reading the Book of Mormon for the first time. In any case I was left that night with a desire to know, to really know if the Church is true.

Before going to bad, I re-read Moroni's Promise, then I turned out the light and got down on my knees. I started with just a normal prayer, but then I stopped and tried to say what was in my heart. I found it difficult at first, but at length the words did come. I talked about my confusion and told my Heavenly Father of my desire to know if the Church is true. Then I asked if the Church was true, and I felt nothing. I cannot say that I really felt anything at all. I again explained my desire and the reasons behind it before asking a second time. “Father, I ask thee in the name of Jesus Christ is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth?” Again, I felt nothing.

Now I began to plead. “Father please,” I said, “I need to know.” Then I said that I perhaps needed an answer a bit more clear than others might. I asked a third time, and again I felt nothing. The tears welled in my eyes as I thought the answer to be no. Oh, how much I prayed that the Church was true. I wanted it to be so very much and I told my Heavenly Father so. The tears began to flow and for several minutes, or so it seemed, I could only cry. Then thoughts began to flood my mind that I had wasted four and a half months here in California; that I had wasted the last 19 years. Not knowing what to do I closed my prayer asking for knowledge and then crawled into bed.

The tears continued to flow and I wondered what it is that I shall do, for I thought that I was serving a false church. How could I continue to do so for another eighteen months or so until it was time to go home? I cried and I cried. “Why couldn’t it be true?” But there was something in me that fought back saying, “No Elder Cox, the Church is true, you know it is!” I guess that it was the desire of wanting the Church to be true. It must have been my love of the gospel and its message. The tears continued to flow. “Oh, why couldn’t it be true?”

Then something whispered to me, “Elder Cox, ask again.” My desire that the Church be true won out. I looked to heaven and my heart cried out, “Is the Church true Father, it is true?” Then it happened, my feelings of pain and sorrow fled and a new feeling of peace entered my heart. It was a warm feeling, and it was as if someone had lit a match in a darkened room. The feeling comforted my aching heart; all tears and sorrow melted away. That small feeling brought such great joy to me and all my burdens disappeared. My heart cried, “It is true, it is true! Thank you Father, thank you for answering my prayer.”

I think that maybe the Lord wanted to test my sincerity and faith. The Lord did answer my prayers, but it was not an immediate answer. I asked Him four times if the Church was true, and it was only after the fourth time that I received my answer, and only, I think, because I expressed such a sincere desire that the Church be true. I think that sometimes we expect answers to be immediate, and they do not always come so quickly. Sometimes it takes a while, as well as great sincerity and faith.

I know that the Church is true; that The Book of Mormon is the word of God; that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God; and that President Ezra Taft Benson is the Lord’s prophet today. This does not eliminate the need for faith, for I do not have a perfect knowledge of all things. But these things I know, because I received a witness by the power of the Holy Ghost in answer to my prayer.

So, that was Thursday, June 2, 1988.  On Friday, June 3, we had a breakfast appointment with the Bakers.  After that we came back to the flat so I could do some laundry.  In the laundry room I met a lady who expressed some interest in the church.  She said that she wanted to attend our church this Sunday, so I gave her a pamphlet with the address and meeting times, along with a copy of the Book of Mormon.

In the afternoon, I went with Elder Tango up to Marina -- on the other side of Fort Ord -- to visit a few contacts and members.  In the evening, Elders Spandau and Victor left saying they were going to get some fast food.  Instead, they went to the grocery story, where they ran into a member who invited them home for dinner.  They were gone for three hours.

We didn't get much work done on Saturday or Monday.  On Saturday we attended a youth baptism and then went to the member's home in Marina for dinner.  On Monday we drove out to Carmel Valley to visit an outlet store for Robert Talbot silk ties, only to find, ironically, that the store is closed on Mondays.

I spent Tuesday in Salinas with Elder Juliett, whose comp went with Elder Tango to the monthly leadership meeting up in San Jose, so I got to spend the day with a friend from the MTC.  We went tracting in the morning, got in one door and had an hour long teach with an old lady who is too set in her ways. By chance, we had a referral on the same street – okay, maybe it wasn’t a coincidence. Anyway, we checked on the referral and they asked us to come back at 5:00 p.m. After a few more doors we went to see a contact to teach a first discussion, but we got dogged. We tried to cheer ourselves up by eating pizza for lunch. After eating we taught a third discussion an investigator, with whom we almost got to set a baptismal date.

After the teaching appointment we went back and finished the street we had started this morning. Once we finished the street we went to teach the first discussion to the referral we had contacted earlier. As it turns out, they have a grandson going on a mission soon and just wanted to know what he would be doing. From there we were off to another teaching appointment; unfortunately it turned out to be a bad time for the investigator.  It was a good day.

Today we had a Zone activity up near Santa Cruz at Sea Cliff State Beach.  At the beach is this old ship sunk at the end of a pier.  As it happens, the ship was built during World War I out of concrete.

It was naivety on my part in wondering how this lady we had tracted into could be so happy if she did not have the truth, and how I could be so miserable if I did have the truth. I have since come to learn that God accepts all sincere expressions of faith. While other churches might not have all truth, they do have some truth, and if that is enough to make people happy, who am I to argue. As a missionary, I only sought to add to the truths that others had.