My Own Miracle of Forgiveness

 I taught Elder's Quorum Sunday, Oct. 8, 2023, in our Webb City Ward. The subject was Elder  Yoon Hwan Choi's talk on "Do You Want To Be Happy?" A part of it was on getting back on the Covenant Path, in which he talked about a returned missionary who was having some real problems and find his way back to the Covenant Path.

I saw the similarity between that missionary and myself. I shared with the quorum about my own wanderings. Here's that part of the lesson:

Many of you may have heard my Big-C story and the blessing I received from Elder Delbert E. Stapley after I had my leg amputated back in 1970. Because of that blessing and the assurances I received from my own prayers, I optimistically headed to BYU just a few months after the Big-C surgery. Though I loved almost everything about BYU, I was a failure at the elite dating game there. 

I felt I was handicapped in that battle partly because I was still suffering emotionally from getting dumped by my high school sweetheart during the latter part of my mission when she married some guy named John. 

But the real dating obstacle, in my mind, was that I was this short, penniless, jobless weirdo with a tenuous lease on life.  I just wasn’t exactly great marriage material. 

On one side, I was sailing through my college courses, while at the same time feeling emotionally discouraged and feeling alone in the crowd. I was spiraling down. Slowly, I retreated from full activity in the church, to marginal activity and then by the time I had rushed through college in less than 4 years, l was on my own in my own apartment and beginning my journalism career. 

Life at the Deseret News should have been a good time, but there were influences even there that enticed me away from the covenant path – a concept that I really didn’t understand back then. The sins and isolation grew to the point that there was no way I could repent and be forgiven. 

Several months after starting at the News as an Obit writer, my grandmother passed away, and I bought her nearly new one-bedroom mobile home in my old ward. 

That’s when I started going to young adults. But I was living a dual life. I loved the feelings that I felt when I was attending young adults, but I was still in the grasp of my sins. I battled between doing the right thing and the carnal man. 

But there were a series of critical turning points: I was finally associating with good people in young adults, including attending young adult Sunday meetings. I even found a friend and fellow young adult returned missionary who was happy to pay me a few bucks to be a roommate in my trailer. I wasn’t alone, which helped me get away from a lot of temptations. 

Also, I was again reading the scriptures and was realizing the truth that my “Wickedness was never going to bring me true Happiness.” It was Alma who counseled his son about his bad example as they worked as missionaries. Alma taught him that one can repent and use the memories of those sins to help stir him (and me) away from further temptation. 

Another key “tender mercy” during that struggle in my soul was the reading Pres. Kimball’s book “Miracle of Forgiveness.” Pres. Kimball was a no-nonsense counselor on repentance and the path to forgiveness. 

It was at this point that I really started to feel in my heart that there was still a chance to return to the path and regain the light. This grasping at hope was very much because I had met a young woman who made me want to repent and be that better version of myself. 

Things started to turn around! But the struggle was real. This included confession and the other challenging steps of repentance – but eventually I was allowed back into the fold and regained my place on the covenant path.

President Kimball said: And I quote: “The essence of the miracle of forgiveness is that it brings peace to the previously anxious, restless, frustrated, perhaps tormented soul. In a world of turmoil and contention this is indeed a priceless gift.”