A Personal Testimony

As a young missionary serving in France, I wanted to know for myself that the Book of Mormon was true. I believed it was true. I hoped it was true. I had even gone on a mission with faith that it was true. However, as I worked day after day as a missionary and told people the best I could in my limited French that I had a testimony of the book, I still did not actually know for myself.

Our little apartment in southern France was cold and damp throughout that first winter. Every morning and evening, before and after the work of the day, I would huddle with a blanket and an overcoat to read and study my Book of Mormon. I knew of the promise of Moroni, that if I were to read, ponder, and pray, I too could know. For days and weeks I read, but nothing happened. No light, no angel, no voice—nothing except a feeling of peace as I read.

I continued to read and underline meaningful passages and pray to know that the Book of Mormon was true. The miracle eventually came. As Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles has described, it was more like the rising of the sun than the sudden turning on of a light switch. A light began to illuminate my mind and my heart. I began to see the Book of Mormon in a different way. Passages that I had read before began to mean something new. The best way I can describe the experience was that my mind began to be enlightened.

Over a period of weeks and months, I can say that I came to know more surely than anything I had ever known that the Book of Mormon was the word of God. I came to know that it was written and preserved for our day and was brought forth as a powerful witness of Jesus Christ and His Church. The impression that came to me again and again through the voice of the Spirit was, “It’s true, it’s true, it’s all true.”

Forty years later, that same witness continues with me. I have now read the Book of Mormon many times, and each time—every time—I again hear the words “It’s true.” This has given me the assurance that Jesus Christ is my Savior and that this is His great work of salvation.

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