Thanks Mel

Last Sunday after I came home from choir practice feeling a little better, I had the feeling I needed to call my brother, Mel.  I had texted and e-mailed them that week, but I hadn't wanted to bother them and wasn't sure if they were getting bombarded wtih hundreds of phone calls, e-mails, and texts, etc.  Anyway, I was so glad I called.  The crazy thing is that I was the one crying, and Mel was the one who strengthened me.  He reminded me about how this experience had strengthened his testimony of the priesthood when his fear and shaking subsided at the funeral home before he saw Wayne for the first time as soon as Dad laid his hands on his head to give him a priesthood blessing. 

Then he told me about a Brigham Young quote that he had heard in the past that he had not believed.  Here it is:

"God never bestows upon his people, or upon an individual, superior blessings without a severe trial to prove them."


“You that have not passed through the trials, and persecutions, and drivings, with this people, from the beginning, but have only read of them, or heard some of them related, may think how awful they were to endure, and wonder that the Saints survived them at all. The thought of it makes your hearts sink within you, your brains reel, and your bodies tremble, and you are ready to exclaim, ‘I could not have endured it.’

“I have been in the heat of it, and I never felt better in all my life; I never felt the peace and power of the Almighty more copiously poured upon me than in the keenest part of our trials. They appeared (as) nothing to me.” - Brigham Young
 
Mel told me that truly his family had received an increased outpouring of the Spirit in their lives in many ways including through different dreams and spiritual experiences of friends and family.  It all served to strengthen my testimony of prayer and was truly an answer to prayer for me, because it still to me seems incomprehensible and so hard to deal with and some days I feel like there is nothing I can do to help.  Again, I just want to thank Mel for helping me when originally I was calling him to try to lend some support to him!  I love that big brother of mine.  I also talked to Raeghn yesterday, and I am so glad she is my sister.  They are both such great examples to me.