I Know

On Monday evening, our family went to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, in Salt Lake City, Utah, to watch the movie, Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration.  The movie is produced by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  It is a movie that highlights several parts of the life of Joseph Smith the Prophet.
Becky and I had gone to see it the week before on a day date.  I want to share some feelings that I had during that production.
I must first tell you, that the testimony that I gained of the truthfulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ was received with the knowledge of Joseph Smith as a true prophet of God as told to me by the Holy Spirit.  I know that the things that he said he saw are true.  I feel like it is important to gain the full understanding of his own efforts as a young fourteen year-old boy searching for sincere answers from God.

 "So, in accordance with this, my determination to ask of God, I retired to the woods to make the attempt. It was on the morning of a beautiful, clear day, early in the spring of eighteen hundred and twenty. It was the first time in my life that I had made such an attempt, for amidst all my anxieties I had never as yet made the attempt to pray vocally.

After I had retired to the place where I had previously designed to go, having looked around me, and finding myself alone, I kneeled down and began to offer up the desires of my heart to God. I had scarcely done so, when immediately I was seized upon by some power which entirely overcame me, and had such an astonishing influence over me as to bind my tongue so that I could not speak. Thick darkness gathered around me, and it seemed to me for a time as if I were doomed to sudden destruction.

But, exerting all my powers to call upon God to deliver me out of the power of this enemy which had seized upon me, and at the very moment when I was ready to sink into despair and abandon myself to destruction—not to an imaginary ruin, but to the power of some actual being from the unseen world, who had such marvelous power as I had never before felt in any being—just at this moment of great alarm, I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me.

It no sooner appeared than I found myself delivered from the enemy which held me bound. When the light rested upon me I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other—This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!"

Joseph Smith received an answer to the desires of his heart.

We are children of our Heavenly Father.  He loves us and will give us answers to our prayers.

As our family watched the film, my heart was moved, once more, by the outpouring of the Holy Ghost.  I know that Joseph Smith is a chosen prophet of God.  I know that we are currently led by a prophet of God.  Thomas S. Monson is that prophet who does the will of our Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ.  The Book of Mormon is a book of God.  Each one of us can gain a witness of its truthfulness by prayer to our Father, in the name of Christ.  We will grow closer to God by studying from its pages. 

I thank heaven for the personal knowledge I have gained.  I challenge all who read this to do the same thing.

When I was in the missionfield, Elder L. Tom Perry, of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, challenged us missionaries to ask God for a confirmation of the truthfulness of the Gospel many times throughout our lives.  That confirmation keeps the converting knowledge fresh. 

I am thankful for divine knowledge.  It keeps me focused in my life.