Stories in this episode: Armed with yeast and flour, Ben jumps in to make a difference for his community after his involvement in two tragedies; Lecia grapples with three-in-the-morning anxiety until one simple practice brings peace; Chris finds himself stuck in the mud and snow with no way home—except to follow the nudges he gets from the Spirit. NOTE: Ben's story has a brief mention of suicide. If you or someone you love is struggling with thoughts of suicide, please reach out to someone you trust. You can text 741741 from anywhere in the U.S. Or, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255 SHOW NOTES To see pictures and more from this episode, go to LDSLiving.com/thisisthegospel to view the shownotes. TRANSCRIPT KaRyn Lay 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. You know, there are a lot of things about the gospel of Jesus Christ that can feel pretty abstract sometimes. For example, have you ever wondered what it actually means to apply the Atonement to our lives? We throw that phrase around, like it's just a thing we come into the world knowing how to do. But if I'm being totally honest with you, I'm not exactly sure all the time what that looks like in practice. What about receiving forgiveness, or more importantly, giving forgiveness to someone else? And don't even get me started on the concept of receiving revelation or accessing and using the power of the Priesthood? There are so many, "But how?!"– moments in my life. I'll never forget in the October General Conference of 2019, when it felt like President Nelson was speaking directly to me and my questioning heart. He had just gotten done inviting the women of the Church to explore and integrate the covenant power of God in our lives through the priesthood when he said, quote, "Now, you might be saying to yourself, 'This sounds wonderful, but how do I do it? How do I draw the Savior's power into my life?'" end quote. And you know that scene in movies where the main character looks around to see if someone is in the room with them reading their diary? That was me in that moment. It's possible that I had even written that specific question down. "But how?" He continued, quote, "You won't find this process spelled out in any manual. The Holy Ghost will be your personal tutor as you seek to understand what the Lord would have you know, and do. This process is neither quick nor easy, but it is spiritually invigorating." End quote, and . . . mic drop. As someone who can sometimes get caught up in that desire to do everything right, the fact that there is no checklist for how to apply some of these gospel principles in my life? Well, I guess I needed a prophet of God to remind me that the work of discipleship is all about the process, and that the process is spiritually invigorating. So even though we are necessarily on our own personal journey to understand how to "do" the Atonement, and all those other wonderful parts of the gospel – the good news is that we can still learn from one another in our practice. And on today's episode, each one of our storytellers is going to share their experience of taking a principle of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, from theoretical to practical in their lives. Our first story comes from Chris who fine tuned his ability to follow and trust the promptings of the Spirit, long before he would need it. Here's Chris. Chris 2:47 I got a call from my mother one evening, and she said, "Chris, I heard dad's truck drive by my window, just making sure it's you, because your dad is in the TV room watching TV." And I said, "No, I wasn't me. It must have been somebody else." My mom and dad moved on my 20 acre property about 24 years ago. They live just about as close as, you know, hitting a golf ball to their home. I borrow his truck occasionally, but I usually ask. So she found that this was a little unusual that I didn't ask. Dad had a habit of leaving his keys in the ignition in his truck, because he often misplaces them. And he uses it for everything. Being on 20 acres, he uses it continually. So he just leaves the keys in the truck, and when he needs it, it's always there. So somebody had definitely stolen his truck. We called the police and the police kind of looked over the country a little bit, but they didn't find a thing. My mom and dad were devastated that the truck was gone. Simply because dad uses it all the time. And mom works and she uses the car, so dad is left without a truck. The next day, I was getting ready for work. I had a strong impression that I needed to go find the truck. And this feeling I had gave me the confidence that I could find it if I just go look for it. That feeling continued to be with me through the whole day, and so when I got home from work, I quickly put my jeans and T-shirt on climbed in the truck, said a prayer in my heart that I would be led to the missing truck. The area that I live in is out in the country. Our acreage is mostly desert, as well as all the property and countryside. Not a lot of trees. Just a lot of open space. I remember going to the end of the driveway, and I was faced with my first dilemma. Do I go left? Do I go straight? Or do I go right? I tried really hard to listen to the enticement of the Spirit. Basically giving up the steering wheel – so to speak – to the power greater than me. I've learned through my life that the Spirit talks to me through impressions. And basically speaking to my mind, not in an audible voice per se, but thoughts that are not normally mine or my way of thinking. I think about this experience where I really found this to be true. A few years previous, I decided to go hunting one Thanksgiving before the Thanksgiving feast that evening. So I took off to the hills with my gun, and very unprepared for anything. All I cared about is just having my gun and my truck and taking off. I went to the mountains and found a road that went for miles. The further I went, the deeper the snow became. And I knew that I could get into trouble. But I thought I was safe. Because my truck has four wheel drive. The snow was getting deeper and deeper. As I came around a corner, I slid off the side of the road. And I definitely got stuck. So I threw in four wheel drive. And it did not seem to help at all, the tires just spun. It got deeper in the snow and deeper in the mud, and before long I was high centered, there was no way I was getting out of the situation. My only option here was to start walking back to the road. I had been on this road for a long time, and walking it was going to take a long time. So, knowing this, and given that it was Thanksgiving Day, there weren't gonna probably be a lot of people out. And I didn't tell my wife where I was going because I didn't know exactly where I was going. So really, nobody knew where my location was. That was perhaps maybe one of the scariest feelings. Just knowing nobody knew I was there – to help me. I started my journey. And I noticed up on the side of the hill, there was some construction going on. Some removal of brush and some trees and things like that. I thought maybe if I go up there, there will be some tools like a shovel or some things that may just help me to get out. As I walked up the hill, I found really nothing that would help me. But to my right I noticed this huge machine, it was a huge earthmover. I thought man, if I could just drive that down the road and pull myself out, that would be great. It didn't take me long to think, yeah, I think maybe I could do this. I'm gonna go see if I can somehow get this down the road. So I jumped inside, look for the key, as I put my hand down to the side of the seat, I noticed a little pocket on the side and reached in there, and lo and behold, there was a key, and it actually fit the ignition. I tried turning it over. And it started right up – to my amazement. I figured out how to put it in gear, and I stepped on the accelerator. The engine revved a little bit, but it wouldn't move. And I couldn't figure out why I couldn't get this thing to move. I kept stepping on the accelerator and nothing. Time is starting to get short, I need to do something. Since I couldn't move the machine, I turned it off, put the key back and started walking down the road again. As I was walking, I had an impression in my mind that said turn around and go back and try again. I knew that this wasn't coming from me because I was so set in walking. I knew that that was my only choice. But as that impression came to my mind, I knew that maybe I had another choice, and I was going to give it a shot. So I hopped back in put the key in started it up, hit the accelerator, and still, nothing happened. So I gave up, turned it off, put the key back and started walking again. As I walked, I had that same impression come to my mind. I turned back around, got back in this machine and started it up again. This was the third time and I thought okay, third time, it's got to be the charm. I stepped on the accelerator. Still nothing happened. I was getting frustrated and just wondering what in the heck am I gonna do? And I sat there with the engine running, just contemplating what other choices do I have? I tried one last time – I stepped on the accelerator. And I thought I felt the machine move just a little bit. And that gave me some hope and some courage. The longer I let the machine sit there and run, the more this machine was starting to move. And it suddenly dawned on me that we're dealing with a machine that that works with hydraulics. Perhaps this thing just needs to get warmed up. So I let it warm up a little Bit more stepped on the accelerator, and before long I was moving down the road. And was able to get to my truck and pull it out. I've learned to trust my impressions si
