I love experiences that involve more than one person because they increase confidence and can be validated. This is a true story about my friend Patrick and I. We were serving missions for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, (many know the church by the name the Mormons).
I was raised in the church by a very active family and followed the teachings and plan outlined including temple marriage. My wife and I also made our Calling and Election sure, received the Second Comforter and a great many other blessings as members of this church and it provided us with our spiritual foundation that serves us today. But, please do not take this as an endorcement of the church or its teachings and I will refrain from expanding further on those points. Needless to say, at the age of 19, I desired to serve a full-time mission for the church and was called to serve in the Ireland Dublin mission. My senior companion, (Patrick) and I were both inquisitive and filled with the spirit. We worked hard, prayed sincerely, studied like crazy and were constantly having amazing revelations. Our time together was truly a highlight of both of our missions and we became life long friends.
One morning I woke up very sick. I thought it was an allergic reaction because I was rarely contagious and had experienced sever allergies to pollens and animals my entire youth. I had been sick quite often and only realized years later that I was experiencing allergic reactions to the food I was eating. By sick, I mean flu like symptoms, runny nose, watery eyes, etc.
On this particular day I was determined to go out and work. I was tired of wasting my service time studying, resting and not doing the work I was there for. My companion humored me knowing that I looked like I had the plague. With a pocket full of handkerchiefs and a prayer we headed out to knock doors.
I laugh at the thought of what I looked like from the other side of the door with my red running eyes, and stuffed up voice trying desperately to compose myself. Heaven help me, I tried, but I just couldn’t do it.
I finally gave up when while knocking doors, between houses I sneezed so hard into my handkerchief that the pressure from the sneeze caused mucus to shoot from my sinus cavity out my the corner of my eye. It felt and looked so wired. To this day it seems so weird that I had to look it up and found that everyone has a hole in the corner of their eyelid called a “puncta lacrimalia” which moves excess tears from the eye to the nasal cavity. This is what causes the runny nose when we cry. I had sneezed so hard that the pressure caused the mucus in my nose to go backward through this hole and out the corner of my eye, landing on the sidewalk about 3 feet away.
My companion saw it too. We stared at it for a moment in silence, shocked and grossed out, (as I am sure you are now, hehehe). I immediately decided that I was too sick to work, and we went back to our “flat” which was a small two story town house.
The layout of the house is important to the story later. The bottom floor included the front door which led through a small hall past a coat closet to the left, and continued to the main room. On the back left of the main room was the door to the bathroom and to the back right was a doorway (no door) to the small kitchen. On the left front of the main room was a staircase almost directly across from the bathroom. The stairs went up toward the front of the house, then curved around near the top where they connected to the second floor where there was a small room, above the coat closet and entry hallway. In this room there was a wardrobe and enough room for our suit cases. At the end of the small room was a door that led to the bedroom which had 2 twin sized beds and a window. It was a very small cramped flat.
When we got home I went to upstairs to my bed and slept soundly. Patrick stayed down stairs, fiddled around got some food and then studied for a while.
With that background we are now at a divergence in the story. Half of the story is what I experienced and the other half is what Patrick experienced.
Together we support and validate each others experience from our own point of view. While writing this I wanted to ensure as best as possible that I reporting to you everything correctly, so I called Patrick, who has remained my close friend these many years, and we discussed the experience together and verified what we remember with journal entries.
My Companion’s Experience/Viewpoint:
At some point during his study session he felt a very strong desire to learn more about the doctrine of making his calling and election sure. Not general information, but what HE specifically needed to do to receive this blessing for himself.
He knelt down in the center of the main room and began to pray. In response to his prayer he received a detailed and lengthy revelation with ten dot points specific to him. It was very powerful. He tried to write down the entire revelation as best he could but was unable to remember all the details and points.
Eventually, after recording what he could remember and giving up on the rest, he finished up and came up stairs for bed. After dressing for bed in the small room between the stairs and the bedroom, he quietly opened the door and walked in.
I, still laying down and physically unconscious, without moving anything except my mouth said to him, “That was the most beautiful thing I have ever heard!”
My companion asked, “What?”
I replied, still physically unconscious, “Someone’s prayer was just answered and it was the most beautiful thing I have ever heard!”
My companion thinking to himself, “I just had my prayer answered, and this is weird,” asked me, “What did you hear?”
I began to tell him what I heard including the ten dot points, which he immediately recognized as being the revelation he had just received. My companion was astonished and began to naturally ask clarifying questions. We reviewed the revelation in some detail for about 5 minutes while my companion wrote in his journal those things which he had forgotten. He found that I had heard the entire revelation. I then began to slur in response to his questions and went back to sleep.
I slept for around 15 minutes. When I woke up, I was wide awake and full of energy. With bright eyes and cheerful disposition I bounced, sitting up in bed asked, “what’s up?” He was sitting in his bed with his journal open still writing about the experience.
He looked up from his journal and asked, “You don’t remember do you?”
I paused for a moment wondering what he was talking about and as I considered his question, I immediately remembered everything, (except for the detailed points of the revelation which were specific to him). It surprised even me. I realized immediately that if he had not said anything I wouldn’t have even tried to remember and it would have simply and naturally faded in my mind as if it had never happened. I also wondered how many times I had experienced similar things and had not noticed or forgotten. (I came to understand later in life that people have great experiences like this often and often forget or they are hidden from our conscious minds.)
My Experience/View Point:
While I was lying in bed physically asleep, I was spiritually awake, kind of like being hypnotized or in deep meditation. In this state, with my eyes closed, I was aware of and could somehow see not only the room I was in, but also the entire house. I could see through the floors and walls as if they were transparent, although I was aware that they were there. This felt very natural and normal to me as if it were no big deal. I watched Patrick through the floor below me as he fiddled around, went to the kitchen, studied and eventually knelt down in the center of the main room down stairs and began praying. I was aware of his physical location in relation to me, (which I interprited as down and forward from me as I slept).
While he prayed, a glorious bright white pillar or conduit of light radiated diagonally down past me to encompass him. I looked and saw the source of the light which was a glorious being whom I assumed was an angel whose detailed features were hidden by the incredible white light radiating from him. He appeared behind my head and above me, outside the front walls of the house floating in the air, (roughly 3 stories above the ground).
The angel/being began to talk with my companion in response to his prayer. He communicated without speaking words using the bright conduit of light that proceeded from the angel, through the walls and floor past me to my companion. The light surrounded and filled both the angel and Patrick.
The revelation was carried from the angel, past me to my companion through this conduit of pure light. I heard the entire conversation and it was beautiful. I could no longer remember the details of the revelation which were very specific and personal, and I think Patrick was glad of that.
After the prayer had been answered, the light conduit dissipated and I could no longer see the angel/being. I could still see my companion, and watched as he wrote in his journal for a while then tidied up, turned out the lights and came up the stairs. I saw him getting ready for bed and finally quietly opening the door to the bedroom. When he opened the door, I was keenly aware of the door knob and his hand but from his point of view rather than my own. It was like I was watching from his eyes as his hand slowly grasped the door knob and turned it careful to not wake or disturbe me. I watched him as he entered the room, though my eyes were still closed and I was laying on my back in a trance of sorts.
I was so overcome by the beautiful revelation and experience that I had to express it. So, as soon as he walked through the door, I spoke to him as if I were wide awake thinking nothing odd was occurring, “That was the most beautiful thing I have ever heard!”
He asked, “What?”
I replied, somehow not making the obvious connection that it was his prayer that had been answered I said, “Someone’s prayer was just answered and it was the most beautiful thing I have ever heard!” This led to the discussion previously mentioned in which he verified that I had indeed heard the answer to his prayer.
The next thing I knew was that I was wide awake and had just been talking with my companion about something but wasn’t sure where we left off or even what we were talking about. I felt like I had missed something so, I asked, “What’s up?” to which my companion responded, “You don’t remember do you?”
The Rest of the Story
After I remembered, we began to discuss what happened and realized that we both experienced it and could validate each other’s experience.
Not long into the discussion my companion asked me how I felt. I hadn’t even given it any thought, but after a brief self assessment I reported that I felt better than I have in a very long time. He then told me that he had also asked in his prayer that I be healed and was promised that I would be. And it was miraculously fulfilled.
We finished asking each other questions and writing in our journals regarding the experience before finally going to bed.
This experience was very powerful not only because of the spiritual nature of the experience, but because of the validation we had as a natural result of the mutual experience.