I am gathering sources where LDS church leaders have shared Spiritual experiences. I would greatly appreciate it if you would provide a link or a copy of such material. This would include talks you’ve heard in local meetings, in general conference, as well as those you know about from other sources, those found in books, journals, diaries, magazines, and etc.
After reviewing those things gathered they will be made available on this blog for all to review and enjoy.
My email address is: diligentlyseek@gmail.com
If you prefer you can use the comment section below.
Thanks in advance for your help,
Jared
Hi Jared,
Your project idea is good. The potential scope seems a bit overwhelming. Perhaps it might be helpful to further define spiritual experiences. What is a spiritual experience to one might not be considered a spiritual experience to another. For example, I can read just about any recent talk from General Conference and pull out what I consider spiritual experiences because the speaker related something that was based on faith or testimony of the influence from those living in the spirit world. To me, that is a spiritual experience.
If you are looking for experiences that are clearly identified as such by the church leader saying, “I would like to tell you about a spiritual experience I had…,” you may not find very many, especially among modern church leaders. I think we all have our favorite collection of stories we like to relate in talks or lessons that we consider spiritual experiences. They are usually ones that can be found in the official curriculum. I shared one on my blog just the other day where Heber tells of his vision of the devils while on his mission in England.
I consider that a spiritual experience, but it is not one that is usually shared in a Primary lesson or a Sunday School class because it is not particularly uplifting. Yes, it is evidence or rather testimony of the unseen world, but does it fall into the category of spiritual experiences you are looking for? If that is the case, I would be happy to share other experiences from my collection that are similar in nature, all from church leaders. They are mostly from the Journal of Discourses.
I like your research project. Perhaps you could provide some more precise categories of experiences that you are seeking. Which types of experiences do you want first – the kind where individuals came from the spirit world to deliver a message, or the kind where an individual went to the spirit world and then reported on what they discovered there? The stories I have in mind are very sacred to the ones who related them, but can all be found in some sort of published form. They may not all have been first-hand accounts that happened to the church leader, but ones they were relating to illustrate a point in a discourse.
Assuming that you are going to have contributions from multiple sources, how will you determine the ones that you will include? Do you have a criteria for classifying or verifying the source? Must it be from something published in an official publication of the church or will you accept journal entries found in books or magazine articles over the years? Does the church leader have to be a General Authority or will you accept stories from Bishops and Stale Presidents? Will you accept stories that occurred before the church leader was a church leader?
The list of questions can go on and on. I intend this to be encouraging, not discouraging. I have many to contribute to your collection. Are you going to share them in a blog format? If so, how will you index them for easy reference? Perhaps they might be better organized in a website format with a master index on the front page that readers can use to find what they are looking for. Although I imagine your intent is to provide inspiration and encouragement that comes from reading and sharing these stories, ultimately, the collection will be most useful as a reference work. You might also want to include some statements from the Brethren on warnings about sharing stories- are they meant to uplift or to just be sensational?
That’s enough for now. I hope I haven’t overwhelmed or in any way discouraged you from your project. I offer again my help in getting it started. Although they are not mine, I have dozens of stories that I can think of right away that I can contribute to your collection. God bless you in your project.
Tim Malone
Latter-day Commentary
I have always wished for a way to edit blog comments after posting them. I’ll admit that I have worked with a few Stake Presidents that were a little stale and ready to be released, but that was not my intent in paragraph five of my comments above. Cheers!
Tim–thanks for your thoughtful, detailed comment. You gave me some excellent ideas. I appreciate that. I am going to prepare a post that will, at least in part, touch on some of the points you brought up.
A little off subject, but I’ve been thinking about a way to analogize or liken “spiritual experiences. The best way I have come up with so far is “currency”. Everyone understands money. Any thoughts you have on this would be welcome.
Anyhow, thanks for your input.
PS I’m with you regarding editing comments.
How about including all experiences published in LDS Church literature? – i.e., all experiences that improve testimony of sorts, sorted by specific doctrines and practices. For example, I recall reading many years ago of different Sabbaoth day testimonials. In one, someone’s tanning business didn’t work it’s leather on Sundays and the leather never stiffened from it but if failure to work the leather on another day occured, it would stiffen. Clearly a miracle.
In another account I read of someone who decided not to take their water turn when it came on Sundays. Sometimes another farmer would offer to switch days to accommodate plans to be away on a non-Sabbaoth day. On other occasion rain would fall. My memory isn’t specially clear on the next point but I think other times neither of these two happened but still there was no perceivable disadvantage to the farmer for choosing not to water his fields on Sundays.
And of course I would love to have such stories on line as a reference – as your other commenter suggested – so I could use them for my purposes. (I’d love to persuade people to believe in Jesus Christ and I believe the experiences of miraculous interventions on people’s behalf for following the commandments bears wonderful testimony of Someone working miracles and of the commandments being true and faithful – faithful sometimes because of the workings of that “Someone” (Jesus)and faithful at other times (I suppose “always”) because the effects of the commandments on our lives for good.)
Blessings to you in your efforts.
Nathan–great ideas. I need to revisit this plan and add more accounts of the Lord’s blessings to the faithful.