Stories in this episode: As a missionary in Chile, Brad Wilcox struggles to find the answers to his gospel questions until a transfer leads him to the light and hope he is looking for; Cody finds the spark of her testimony in a barren patch of desert after she prays for the impossible; An empty Primary room becomes sacred ground for Dave as he seeks to come back to the gospel he once knew. SHOW NOTES This episode is sponsored by the Deseret Book FIRST LIGHT Concert Event. To see pictures and links to this week's episode, click here. EPISODE TRANSCRIPT KaRyn 0:04 Welcome to This is the Gospel, an LDS Living podcast where we feature real stories from real people who are practicing and living their faith every day. I'm your host, KaRyn Lay. Okay, pop quiz time. When you hear today's theme -- sacred ground -- what are the first words that pop into your head? I'll give you just a minute to think about it. And... now I'll tell you that I conducted a highly scientific study, highly scientific study, around the LDS Living offices, and here are just a few of the words and phrases that came to mind for some of my friends: "trees, light, field, holy place, sacred grove, Joseph Smith, and temple grounds." Maybe some of those were the same things that you thought of and maybe you thought of something totally different. I for one thought of the words "Native American" because of the beautiful spiritual tradition that culture has around burial spaces. But it was interesting to me that so many of the words that my friends thought of were related to the first vision, "grove, trees, light, Joseph Smith." It is true that our whole team has been knee deep in participating in President Nelson's invitation to really celebrate the 200th anniversary of that miraculous event. But I kind of think that even if that weren't the truth, we'd still make all of those associations. As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, we have this unique privilege of having a modern origin story that includes a seminal, transformative, divine event happening in a decidedly ordinary place. I've been to the grove, and I come from Pennsylvania, the land of groves, it's trees, and grass, a little clearing, and now there's even a well worn footpath in and out of the forest. What makes it special is not the location in and of itself, but what happened there has transformed those trees and that grass into something special and dedicated, set apart, holy. The appearance of the Father and the Son to the Prophet Joseph Smith turned an absolutely ordinary grove of trees into a sacred grove. And we who believe, get to celebrate that event and honor that place. It's so cool. Well, in today's episode, we have three stories of holy experiences that could have happened anywhere, but they didn't. And how those places became sacred ground for the people who tread there are stories we're excited to share. Our first story comes from Brad, whose "sacred ground" moment came during a particularly difficult time as a missionary in Chile. Now listen, I know we normally start with just first names, but the voice of Brad Wilcox is so recognizable that it wouldn't be fair to you not to just tell you it's Brad Wilcox. Otherwise you'd spend the whole time wondering, "Is that Brad Wilcox?" We're not monsters. So, here's Brad Wilcox. Brad 3:06 In Chile, there's a beautiful city that's on the coast and it's called La Serena, which means the "serene." For me, it will always be a sacred grove. It will be a place where I came to know God. When I was a young man and I received my call to Chile, I was excited to go and share my testimony of the gospel, and it's not that I didn't have a testimony. I mean, I wasn't going on a mission without a testimony, but really quickly, I realized that my testimony was not as personal and not as deep as it needed to be. Oh, I'd grown up in the church, had a wonderful family, and I had wonderful church experiences and wonderful church leaders, but when I confronted the difficulties of a mission, when I realized that learning Spanish was not going to be a piece of cake, and when I got to Chile, and I found out that the culture was so different, I just realized that this was hard. I was sent to a little town up in the north of Chile called via na, and my companion and I were the only missionaries there, and it was hard. It was hot. Oh my gosh, you're out there working in the hot sun. I mean, this is in the north of Chile, which is desert. And I just thought while I was out there one day, and somebody had rejected us, and I just thought, "Why am I doing this? Why am I doing this?" When you grow up in the church and you have seminary teachers that tell you, "You must go share the gospel because there are people out there wanting this message." Oh, I got out there and found out that nobody wanted my message. And that was kind of a, I guess you kind of think that somewhere out there, there's somebody who's just, you know, reading the Bible and just praying for missionaries to show up. And then you find out that they're all just busy getting along with their lives, and they didn't want to take time to talk to a couple of North Americans who couldn't even speak Spanish very well. And I think I just missed home. I was missing my family. I was missing my friends. I was missing the involvement that my life had had before. Suddenly, I was focused on one little thing and it was hard because nobody cared about it. And I think that's when I said, "Wait, why am I here? Why am I doing this? Why don't I just go home?" But I knew the answer. God needed me. God wanted me. God called me. And I was there. But then I thought, Well, where's God? It's not that I had all these overwhelming doubts, but it's just that my testimony had not deepened to a point where I knew for myself. So when I was there, and it got difficult, I really said, "Where's God?" And that thought shook me. It really shook me. And so I think my companion noticed because when we went back to the apartment for lunch, he said, "What's the matter with you?" And I said, "I think I lost my testimony today." And he started to laugh. He's like, "Hahaha. Wilcox, you're so funny. You always just crack me up. Now go wash so we can eat." So I'm in the bathroom, washing my hands, and I'm thinking, "Man, this is not good," you know, "This is not good. I need an angel. That's all there is to it. I need to see an angel. Joseph Smith saw one and he was younger than me. So I need an angel." And so I got through the rest of the day, and then that night I got up on the top bunk, I always chose the top bunk. One, because it was a little closer to heaven, and two, it was a little farther from the fleas. But there I was, and I knelt down in my top bunk and with all the faith that I could muster, I said, "God, are you there?" And suddenly, my room was filled with light, and then the car passed. Joseph Smith gets a vision, Brad gets headlights. That's what I got. A car passing, and then I was really disappointed because you know I'd finally prayed with faith, really prayed sincerely, and that was the answer that I got? And I felt kind of ripped off because, you know, we've been teaching people that if you read, if you study, if you pray, then you can know the truth. Well, here I was asking, and I felt like my prayer wasn't being answered. But that was a wake up call for me. Because as I laid there, I thought, "Have I really read as much as I should have? And have I really pondered as much as I should have? Have I prayed beyond the "Thank thee for everything, please bless everybody prayers," that I had given my whole life. And so that was a turning point for me. And the next morning I woke up with such a desire to read. I read the Book of Mormon, I read the Doctrine and Covenants, I read the pearl of great price, I read the miracle of forgiveness, I read a marvelous work and a wonder. I mean, I just read, and suddenly, I just could not get enough as I read and as I pondered. Now, we had a zone conference. And our mission president came and he did interviews and I was a young missionary in the mission. You know, I hadn't been there all that long. And so I was still, you know, really worried about making a good impression on my mission president. So he did the interview and he said, "How are you elder?" I said, "Fine. President." He said, "How's your companion?" I said, "Fine. President." "How's your area? How are your investigators?" "Fine, president." He says, you know about seven questions and seven "fine, presidents" later. I stood up to leave and then he said something that he'd never said before. He said, "Elder Wilcox, do you have any questions?" Woah, questions. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I just had a million questions. I mean, let's start with, "Is there a god? Does he even exist?" I just looked at him and I said, "Me, questions? Oh, no president. You know, I've never even had a cavity. I don't have any questions." A little while after that I got transferred to another area. And I packed my books, I packed my clothes, I packed you know, everything, but I didn't have room for doubts. But inside I packed those also. I just hadn't felt like I had an answer as clearly as I wanted the answer. I realized that I wasn't doing what I needed to do to be able to deserve an answer that I was asking for. I think sometimes until you have a doubt or a question, you don't feel a motivation to learn. I think the questions, the doubts, the unanswered prayer, motivated me to dig deeper. For me, it was like, "Okay, it's time to buckle down. It's time to take this seriously. It's time to do what you know you're supposed to do to get what you want to get." So I dove in. In the new area where I was transferred, my companion and I worked harder than ever. I mean, we just loved that little branch. This was in the town of La Serena, t
