This is why I think I am here: My Gift to You Rex
I have been blessed with a great deal of success in my life. “All my grandest dreams have come true.” I have FAME as a local and regional celebrity and the highest recognition from my peers. I am invited to all the best parties and get the best seats everywhere. I am on a first name basis with mayors, governors and local and national celebrities.
I have a great education, an A.A., B.A. and Master’s Degree from colleges and Universities. My master’s degree is a two year program equivalent to a Doctors Degree in most universities. I also have had “exclusive apprenticeships” for 8 years with the top professionals in the world in my profession equivalent to three doctor’s degrees. I have had many professional peers say they would love to have what I have. My peers say they would love to be at the top of their profession like me.
Even with all this success I was not happy and content. Something was missing! I didn’t know what the problem was. I have a wonderful close family who I love and they love me. We have wonderful warm family relationships. What was missing?
I had been reading one book a week for “twenty years” over 1000 books on how to take control of my life. That is the reason for all of my success. I tried the things the books taught and they worked and my life was transformed to a heaven on earth. But I still felt “empty and bored” like I was wasting my life away.
I looked around me and I figured that the trees and animals had been created by some one bigger and far smarter than me. It was logical but why had this person not made himself known to me. This apparent disinterest on his part was very puzzling. I studied the bible, communications, education and music for “six years” in two prestigious private universities and a 200 year old graduate school. I worked as a minister, a director of Christian education, a choir director and a youth director for various churches. But even though I prayed and did all these very religious things. I still felt a million miles away from this elusive heavenly being.
So I began passionately praying under the stars with no one else around “every night for two years” begging this all knowing intellect to make me closer to him. After TWO YEARS of sincere fervent prayer every night I heard a knocking at my door. I had just got out of the shower and I threw on some clothes. I opened the door and no one was there. I went around the corner and I saw two young men dressed in black pants and white shirts walking away. I called to them saying, “May I help you?” They were two boys about 19 years old. They were missionaries.
Well it has always been my policy to listen to all missionaries who came to my door for two reasons. One, it was fun asking them questions they could not answer and watching them run out of my home in frustration because of my piercing questions. Second, who knows maybe they could bring me something new and worthwhile. My strongest character trait has always been an open mind. I would listen critically to anything anyone had to say. I love listening and growing.
When they came in I noticed how clean, warm, and friendly they were. The cleanest, warmest, friendliest missionaries I had ever seen. It was uncanny… I had never felt this with other missionaries…
At one point they suggested that they could enable me to be together forever with my wife, Dee Dee and our children. What an idea! I love my family so much and to think that when I died I would be separated permanently from them seemed too much to bear. Death made a mockery of all our love, learning, and growing together. What a grand idea! Of course it’s just an idea not necessarily true. I have been involved with many people who sincerely believed weird ideas. I have found that “sincerity is not a function of reality”. Sincerity does not make a thing true.
When I looked into those young elders eyes I saw something there I had never seen before. I saw something more than their own personal belief. After talking with them a while they suggested that I set up a meeting with the entire family. I called my wife. There probably isn’t anything to this but just in case I’ll see if she has an interest in it. I always talk with my wife about everything because she has a point of view that is very reality oriented. Dee Dee helps me make level headed decisions. She is very skeptical about everything. She questions everything. I really doubted that she would want to hear these boys. My wife had the point of view that she never wanted to discuss religion with anyone ever. So for her to say yes to a meeting with these young men would border on the realm of a miraculous manifestation. I figured my call was useless. My highest commitment above all else is to my family unity. I would do nothing to jeopardize our family. A church or a missionary belief system would never come between me and my family.
As I dialed I felt it was hopeless. I told Dee Dee what they had said and I asked if she would be interested in hearing what they had to say. There was a long period of silence on the other end of the phone… then came the shock… my wife said yes she would listen to their lessons. I was so happy. I hung up quickly before she changed her mind. Two weeks went by and I heard nothing. I had no way to contact these boys and I was afraid that they had forgotten about us. Finally they called us back and set up an appointment to meet with our entire family. That was different, always before the missionaries talked just with me.
That first evening I brought with me the idea that all the churches were the same. The missionaries came over and I felt that same clean, warm kindness, and unusual closeness to them. I thought to myself, “They can’t teach me anything I am a biblical scholar and I have forgotten more than they will probably ever know!” But then again there is something different about them… an attraction, wholesomeness; I can’t quite put my finger on it…
So I listened very critically. Then I began a series of extremely difficult questions that made all the other missionaries run in complete frustration out of our home. These guys answered my questions from their hearts as if they knew what they were talking about. They spoke with authority, I suppose like the authority Jesus spoke with when he was 12 years old in the temple. They had a humble sincerity in their demeanor and their language was disarmingly genuine and they were gentle like doves. As I watched and listened I found them to be both astounding and funny. They had every indication of being poorly trained and incapable but at the same time they had a humble sincerity that was totally sweet and enchanting. They had an ease with which they handled my sincere but painfully penetrating questions that was like nothing I had seen before.
But the thing that bothered me the most was not their answers but their affect on me. I was very quickly beginning to think of them as family and they had only been there for one hour. Why did I feel so close to these strangers? My feelings were irrational and very puzzling to me. What they said was very rational but very much the same thing I had preached from pulpits for years. They had some new ideas like being together forever but I thought to myself… “If I was the creator of this universe this is the way I would design it.” It all seemed fair, organized, logical and lovingly simple as if designed by a heavenly father who cared and loved me beyond my understanding.
What’s happening to me? Why can’t I shake their beliefs? Why can’t I get to them? Why don’t they run scared out of my house like all the other missionaries??? I remember watching all the other missionaries avoiding my house after one run in with me. These gentlemen seem to genuinely care about me a stranger. They have no fear! They are full of love and genuine affection for me and my family. This is too good to be true. I am determined to find a flaw in their reasoning. I will break them yet… As I listened elder Sergeant suggested, “That we might want to follow our heart and go with the flow of good “feelings” we were having.” At lasts a flaw in their reasoning! Now I’ll get them!
“There was a church movement, “Pietism”, back in the 18 hundreds that proposed people should follow their emotions and it was totally invalid. Back then people were manipulated by their own feelings (just like my wife and I and been manipulated by a business venture that had cost us 100,000 dollars in today’s money. We believed the con artists who had manipulated our emotions by assuring us that they would do nothing to hurt us… Ha!) I looked at all my children and wife and told them to not be manipulated by their feelings. I looked at elder Sergeant and said, “What do you think about that?” The young man calmly looked up at the ceiling and then looked deep into my eyes. With out any indication of being shaken he began to speak.
At that same moment something invisibly reached out from him and gently touched the inner most part of my mind, brain and heart. I heard no words. I had no special “feelings”. At that exact instant I was given the undeniable knowledge that everything they were saying was completely true. This simple incontestable fact was permanently and purposely placed in my mind with absolutely “No Feelings” attached to it. I have never experienced anything like that before in my whole life.

After that I began listening more intently. I gave up trying to intellectually assault them and began to listen. I heard the same story that I had heard and personally preached my whole life of how Jesus died for my sins and that he was God’s son and that he and his father loved me so much.
After all six of the lessons my wife, four sons, and I chose to be baptized into the church. The elders had mentioned during the sessions casually that after baptism we would receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
It has always been my observation from the many different churches I have attended that the Holy Spirit idea was just that an idea that has no connection with physical reality. So I prepared myself emotionally so I would not be too disappointed when the elders past on the gift of the holy spirit to me and nothing happened. I decided in advance that I would feel nothing. This is a nice church with real neat ideas like being together forever with those you love but this Holy Spirit thing cannot be true. So when the elders placed their hands on my head and said that in the name of Jesus and by the power and authority of the Holy Melchizedek Priesthood they conferred on me the gift of the Holy Spirit, I had thoroughly convinced myself that absolutely nothing would happen. I felt nothing… well maybe a ‘slight tingling’ in the crown of my head… I HAVE A VERY STRONG MIND.
As I shook the hands of all the men in the circle around me I noticed they had smiles on their faces. My four sons and my wife went before me and the boys seemed a little different and my wife was crying but there was no apparent affect on me. So see I was right! Nice church but no special powers from God just like all the other churches. I knew it! I knew it! Ha! Ha! So I guess the glow of warm, clean, kind radiance I saw around my wife and sons was just my imagination. I guess my wife was crying because she was caught up in the emotions of the moment. The only strange thing was that she used to never cry even at very emotional sad movies.
They had a reception afterwards for my family, very simple some cookies and water. Friends my wife knew at work who were members of this church brought us gifts and cards to help us remember the occasion. At one point my wife’s boss came up and presented me with a heavy beautifully wrapped package. As I pulled back the final tissue paper around it I saw a leather bound family bible with our family name inscribed in gold on it. I took it from the box and was admiring it and “I became distracted from the thoughts I had been carefully holding in my mind” about how there was no such thing as the Holy Spirit.
At that very moment of distraction the strangest thing happened…
Starting at the top of my head I felt a warm fantastically intense vibration of loving warm affection sweep down through every fiber of my being. It continued vibrating and pulsating through every atom of my body with a special strong concentration in my solar plexus area. It is the most wonderful feeling I have ever had in my whole life. The whole world around began to literally glow with a fantastic beauty I had never seen before.

All of a sudden all those strangers who were standing around us had been transformed into our closest friends. It was like returning home to see your Mother, Father or wife and children when you had been gone for a long time. I loved these strangers deeply with all my heart for no apparent reason. What was more striking was that I could feel the same intense love flowing gently but powerfully from them into my inner most being. In a moment I realized this had to be the gift of the Holy Spirit the young elders had casually mentioned during our lessons. It was the comforter Jesus had talked about that came to the three thousand on the Day of Pentecost A.D. 33.
Then I began to think about the total meaning of this reality. I thought their must be some other explanation for these powerful feelings. I just could not accept all the meanings of this reality that had been given so lovingly and with genuine sincerity to me. I thought what is happening to me! I’ve got it! It must be drugs! They put something in my water or cookies! These intense feelings were so strong I found it hard to believe any drugs could be so powerful but I held the drug idea tightly in my mind. When we got home I told no one of my drug idea. I did ask my wife if she was still experiencing the exact same feelings as me. We discussed it thoroughly and completely and we agreed that all the physical symptoms and feelings we were experiencing were identical and mutual. I thought to myself, “the drugs will wear off over night and this will all be gone when we wake up in the morning.” These same warm feelings of all encompassing love and tender affection we had felt at the church poured over us and pulsated through us hour after hour. After many hours of pillow talk with my wife we fell off into sleep.
The next morning I awoke and of course I knew the drugs would have worn off and everything would be back to normal. To my amazement the exact same extremely intense emotions were pulsating through every atom of my being. I found it very difficult to concentrate on anything because of the fantastic feelings. Before my wife went to work I asked her if she was still having these same exact feelings. She said yes. (So I wasn’t crazy it wasn’t just me) about 11:00 A.M. I got an extraordinary feeling that I should call my wife and eat lunch with her. She said yes I want to see you. As I drove the car the whole world was glowing around me and I had to really concentrate on my driving to keep my car on the road. I made it to my wife’s office safely with no accidents. I entered the door to her office as I had for years not expecting anything special to happen.
The receptionist looked changed, downright bizarre. She looked very small and far away. It was like looking through binoculars the wrong way. As I past many other co-workers I have known for years they all looked the same distorted way, small and far away. Their distance was not only physical but also there was a great emotional distance between me and them. An emotional separation I never felt before. When I came to my wife’s desk she looked unusually large and I felt her love flowing into me. I had that warm close feeling I had felt the night before, like when you hold and see your newborn child the first time. When her boss and a couple other church member co-workers came around the corner we both felt that same feeling of warm affection come flooding our souls pulsating throughout our entire bodies. When my wife and I went out to eat we discussed this. We were both experiencing exactly the same things. In fact all the church member employees looked close and large and we had an irresistible affection for them. We both also had 24 hours a day covered from head to toe a profound feeling of peace, love, warmth and affection. We both found it hard to sleep at night. So we contacted the Elders who had taught us the missionary lessons and we asked them what on earth was going on. They said they had never experienced such an intense and prolonged occurrence with the Holy Spirit before with new converts.
After two weeks of 24 hours per day of this inexplicable super stimulation. I sat down and began pondering. I thought this is definitely not drugs. No drugs would last this long. So I thought, what else could be causing this fantastic experience to both me and my wife at the exact same time. It must be mass hypnosis I thought to myself. A post hypnotic suggestion induced at church each Sunday by knowledgeable members.
After two more weeks of these continued amazing feelings. My wife and I both began having even stranger experiences. During the week with no apparent connection to the church members or church services as we were driving down the street this feeling inside us would start getting very powerful for no apparent reason. Then we would look down a side street and we would see a church building. As we moved away from the building the feeling would lessen. This kept happening over and over again.
One evening we were standing in line at the grocery store and the same warm fantastic feelings that had been with us 24 hours a day for the past month began getting stronger and stronger for no apparent reason. I looked over to my wife and said, “Do you feel that?” She said, “Yes! We both were experiencing intense feelings that made us feel like we were going to float up from the floor. The very next moment we saw two elders come in the grocery store door. As they got closer the feelings inside us welled up and began boiling over. The pulsating feelings lessened as they moved away from us.
One month of constant miraculous feelings had gone by and it was obvious that these experiences were going to be a continuous part of our lives. I accepted this fact and gave up trying to hold in my mind the idea that these obviously purposely directed miraculous experiences were caused by hypnosis.
At that moment I had to come to terms with the reality that these fantastic feelings were coming somewhere rather than from the church members. They were changing in direct relationship to the church but not related to happenings on Sunday. So where did they come from? The only logical response is from Heavenly Father. He was trying desperately to get through to me that He loved me. He was also trying to let me know that this church is his newest manifestation of religion on this earth. This has to be the Holy Spirit talked about in the New Testament. Uh! Oh! That means this really is God’s restored church with His miraculous power. This means the guy I prayed to for two years really did answer my prayer. You see I feel so close to him. He is reaching down through His Holy Spirit infusing me with His love and affection for me flowing through every atom of my body. It is just like He is at my side at all times helping me. That means Jesus really is Heavenly Father’s son and He died to wash away my sins!
Now I know why I am here and where I am going! My life has meaning and purpose! I am so full of joy and happiness! I don’t feel empty and useless anymore! I love life! I have an inner peace and contentment that no one can touch or understand! This is what had been missing all those years. What I had searched for in school, books and churches. This is what I have always been searching for!!! This is the greatest gift I have ever received! How can I ever repay Heavenly Father and those missionaries?
Just think of Heavenly father’s patience with me. He waited a month on me to accept His 24 hr. per day miracles. I am sure the reason it took Him so long to answer my prayer was that he had to prepare my wife to be willing to listen to the missionaries.
I studied the Bible from the original Greek text. In fact my professors used to stop every time they saw me and bow their heads saying “Hello Scholar Young” in sincere honor of my scholarship. I was a minister for about six years and had decided from my church experiences that all churches were nothing but glorified social clubs. From my personal experience I deduced that most of the people in churches are a bunch of hypocrites using the church for tax write-offs.
Considering my background you can understand why heavenly father had to work hard for weeks to convince me that this church is His restored church. I had been lied to so many times by church liars who did not even know they were lying (some knew they were lying). I am too well informed to be taken in by a bunch of words spoken by suspect strangers. I have now been a member of the Church since 1988 and I still know this is God’s latest restored church on this earth. The people in this church continue to love me and my family. Our lives are filled with little loving kind actions from the members.
After one year my wife, my sons, and I were sealed for time and all eternity so we will now be together forever. Now everything we do has meaning and now death is not a mockery of our love for each other. After going to the temple and being sealed one of the members took pictures of us outside the temple and gave them to us as a gift. Meals were brought in to our family while my wife was in the hospital. There are hundreds of constant words of encouragement and love that we never got when we were in other churches.
One of the most powerful things that I experience is the real power of God flowing through my being every time I am asked to give a blessing. When I place my hands on the person’s head I feel the power of God going through my entire body into their body. I could go on and on about all the many kind little things members of the church do for us every day. The most miraculous thing is the love that flows out of their hearts and eyes each time we see each other. The greatest blessing of all is that I have been granted my wish from my two years of prayer in that ever day Heavenly Father through his Holy Spirit guides me and touches me with his love. He guides me in all my work and in all my play. He is with me at my side as close as he can be caring and comforting me.
I would give up everything I possess, everything I hold dear to get this gift from Heavenly Father knowing what I know now. In fact I would get down on my knees and beg the elders to come share this good news with me. My pride almost robed me of this great gift. I was so smart. I knew so much. I was so superior to those young men. I am so glad I chose to listen and I am so happy I humbly accepted their message and was baptized. I guess that’s what makes this church so valuable! I almost lost it because I thought I was so spiritually advanced.
From the foregoing understated real personal experiences I conclude the following.
I know this church is Heavenly Father’s latest manifestation here on earth. I know Heavenly Father lives and loves us with all his heart. I know the prophet of our church is God’s living prophet on this earth. I know that Joseph Smith walked and talked with Peter, James, John and Jesus God’s son. I know the book of Mormon is God’s Holy Scripture. You say how on earth do you know this is really true?
Because Heavenly Father reaches down through his Holy Spirit and reminds me personally every day that these things are true.
Sincerely
Bill Young
P.S. The foregoing is not an idle tale but a very accurate description of my personal experience that can be substantiated by my wife and four boys. It is what we members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints call our testimony. It is the greatest gift I can share with you.