Have you wondered if your prayers are heard? Do you struggle to know what is actually true? Do you hope for light in a personal world of darkness?

I have wondered, struggled, and hoped in each of these areas.

In my quest to find answers, I have sought for them. And the answers have come. Not all of them, not yet. But some answers have come and with those answers, I have found truth and I have found light.

Two hundred years ago there was another person who also struggled to find the truth, understand God, and hoped for light to save him from the impending doom of darkness.

A young boy of 14 in the year 1820, Joseph Smith sought answers for those perplexing questions of life. In his quest, he immersed himself in reading and searching the Bible. Joseph recorded in his history a passage in the New Testament Book of James seemed to “enter with great force into every feeling of my heart” causing him to deeply reflect on it

Eventually, his pondering led Joseph to take his questions to God directly through prayer. On a beautiful spring morning, Joseph went to a grove of trees not far from his home to act upon his desire to pray. As he opened his mouth to pray, darkness surrounded him causing him to feel as he was “doomed to sudden destruction.”

Exerting all his effort pleading to God for deliverance, Joseph’s prayer was answered as a pillar of light pierced the darkness and filled his soul with hope. And in the light came an answer to his prayers as God the Father and the Son Jesus Christ appeared to him personally.

What came from Joseph Smith’s first prayer and that First Vision has become an answer to my prayers for the truth and light I have sought for my life.

This is a truth that will forever hold true for Elisa and I.

Have a beautiful Sunday.

We love you!

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