Listening and Doing

This is a story about a good friend, Larry, who has since passed away. This story is a lesson to us in listening, being open to spiritual promptings, and doing what might be asked of us, even if we might be ridiculed for it.

Let me tell you a little bit about Larry before I get into the story I want to tell. I was his home teacher for several years, so I got to know him and his wife, Linda, very well. We became friends through my visits and he felt he could confide in me of his many adventures in the spirit. A lot of people in the ward kind of thought he was a bit kooky, so he learned to keep things to himself. I have always had the belief that anything is possible. So when he would tell me some of his stories, even though hard to believe, I always thought, “Why not?” After all, the scriptures are full of the miraculous, why couldn’t they happen today?

To give you an idea of the kind of things he experienced here is one of the stories he told me. It took place several years ago as he was driving to work one morning. His drive took him past a park that had a tower several stories high that the public had access to. As he was approaching the turn-off to the park, the spirit prompted him and told him to turn into the park and drive to the tower. He obeyed the prompting, turning into the park and driving over to the tower. He asked, “Why do you want me to come here?” The spirit told him, “Get out of the car and climb up to the top of the tower.” So he got out of the car and climbed to the top of the tower. When he got to the top, which was open to the sky, he saw a young woman sitting on the edge of the tower. It was evident to him that she was getting ready to jump. He talked to her for a while and was able to convince her that life was worth living and to let time heal the wounds. He talked her down from the ledge and spent some time with her, making sure she would be okay before leaving. He had saved her life by listening to the spirit and doing. This is just one example of the many adventures he has had with listening to the voice of the spirit.

Some of his stories involved angels, but I will save those for another time.

The story I wanted to really get into involves listening, doing, and a good amount of courage. We lived in New Jersey at the time and had just survived a hurricane that swept through New Jersey and New York causing significant damage. Our ward was involved in helping clean up some of the damage. A few weeks after this happened, Larry had been saying his daily prayers when the spirit came to him with a request.

“If the priesthood men in each of the wards and branches will gather together in a circle of prayer and pray together, using the priesthood, they will be able to command the elements and turn a hurricane heading towards them back out to sea. I want you to tell your stake that the Lord will do this for them.”

Larry accepted the task, knowing that others will have trouble believing him. Going to the Bishop and the Stake President with this message could get him into trouble. After all, according to the handbook, who is the one who is supposed to get this kind of inspiration for the stake? Certainly not a man with no significant calling in the ward or stake. Would the stake president resent it, or would he act upon what Larry would tell him? There were several people being tested here – Larry, the Bishop, the Stake President, and individual leaders of the wards and branches, if the message even gets to them.

Larry asked me to go with him to the Bishop to explain his story and ask if the Bishop would make an appointment with the stake president for him. I think He believed I could back him up and help give some credence to the message. I had just recently been released from the bishopric when a new bishop was called, so I suppose he thought I had some cred with the new bishop.

We met with the whole bishopric one night and Larry told his story. I could see that the all the members of the bishopric were pretty skeptical about the whole thing – remember Larry’s reputation. They all had their arms folded on their chest and you could tell pretty clearly they were having a hard time swallowing the story. The Bishop looked at me and asked, “What is your part in this?” I told him that I was Larry’s home teacher and he had asked me to come with him. I told the Bishop that I had not received any spiritual guidance, but I knew Larry and knew that he didn’t exaggerate and wouldn’t lie. Then I said to him, “Why not? Why wouldn’t the Lord inspire Larry to tell you this? You need to judge this on the merit of what he is telling you.”

The Bishop uncrossed his arms leaned forward toward us and said, “All right, I will set something up with the stake president.”

I wasn’t invited to the meeting with the stake president, but the Bishop went with Larry to the meeting a week later. Larry told his story to the stake president, and the way he described it to me, the president only told him that he would look into it. Apparently that was the extent of the response he got from our stake president. He never heard anything back from the president, but he soon started getting calls from several of the bishops and branch presidents whose boundaries were close to the coastline. They asked Larry to come to their PEC’s or Ward council’s and explain the process of asking the Lord to change the path of a Hurricane. So, it sounds like the stake president thought it okay to mention it to the bishops and let them decide what they wanted to do. My opinion of the stake president went up a few notches.

There haven’t been any serious hurricane threats to the New Jersey Coast since that time. But I have no doubt that the Lord was in this– I was later given a witness that this is a true principle. I think the story is instructive on several fronts. First, I have faith that a group of people can gather together in faith and with their hearts bonded together in a single righteous cause can influence the powers of heaven to change the weather or any other threat to them. Second, The Lord will come to the most humble of us, and if we judge a person’s ability to receive spiritual guidance by their standing in the group, we are going to miss a lot of what the Lord wants to tell us. Thirdly, all the people involved in this account passed a test of some sort.

I think I could write a book on the spiritual experiences that Larry told me over the years. I have been involved as an active participant in several of the experiences, which I count as a result of my belief in him. Some of those stories are rather peculiar and do take some faith and suspension of worldly logic to understand, especially the ones involving angels.

I asked Larry why he, of all the people I knew, had these experiences. He had never been in a leadership position in the Church. Why did the spirit come to him and charge him with these tasks? He said to me, “I asked the Lord that once and he told me, ‘Because I know you will do it.’ “