Our scriptural duty to witness of the Savior and to testify of His divine Sonship has been affirmed by the prophets in our own day. We are told that the commandments are given and the gospel is proclaimed that every person “might speak in the name of God the Lord, even the Savior of the world’ (D&C 1:20).
Dallin H. Oaks, “Witnesses of Christ,” Ensign, November 1990
One evening, as I walked to the first meeting of the new Ward Primary Presidency to which I had just been called as second counselor, the Holy Spirit blessed me with an astonishing impression. Suddenly I became aware that I was walking in the space between two worlds: the pre-mortal spirit world, and the post-mortal world of eternal life.
At that moment I fully comprehended the temporal and temporary nature of this earthly existence. The sidewalk beneath my feet became the strait and narrow path I followed to return to my Heavenly Father’s celestial home. Joy filled my heart and determination quickened my steps even as I wished to prolong the experience.
The vividness of the impression faded, but I’ll never forget that feeling and the understanding I gained of the eternal life and eternal glory that awaits us if we endure in faith to the end. The path is laid before us. Our task is to stay on it no matter how hard the world and the adversary try to pull us off or, if we do step off, to step back on as soon as we can. In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we call this the covenant path.
That afternoon walk took place nearly a year after I returned to the Church. Thirty-five years prior, twenty years after I fell away, I was granted a different kind of vision. At that time I was praying to “the power for good in the universe” to grant me knowledge, light, and truth. I didn’t believe in a personal God, but I believed love and intelligence created and permeated all things. It was a deeper knowledge of this truth I sought.
My dream vision occurred during the twilight time between sleep and waking, when the veil between worlds can grow thin. In the vision I was standing with my back to the block-long street in the Southern California suburb where my family lived when my father died. In front of me rose the skyline of Manhattan as seen across the East River from Brooklyn, New York, where I lived at the time.
As I watched, a brilliant red-orange sun rose from behind the skyscrapers until it came to a halt high in the sky. I was staring up at it when two more identical suns, and then two more, came from behind the first one, moving apart until five suns formed a circle far above me. After a moment they melded into a ring and then burst into a billion, billion sparkling shards of light. A second later, the Manhattan skyline and the street behind me burst into identical particles of light. My body exploded painlessly into the same sparkling shards, joining the trillions of others in an ecstatic dance of lights against a velvet-black expanse.
My body as I had known it no longer existed, and yet I was still conscious of myself as a separate entity as I danced among the sparkling lights. I was surrounded and lifted up by infinite, incomprehensible love, which I knew was God. My past and present had been swallowed up in an eternal dance of joy such as I had never felt before or even imagined existed, joy not of this world. I had joined with supreme intelligence and love. I had joined with All That Is. I had joined with God.
It’s taken me thirty-five years to discover the most significant meaning of that dream vision, the meaning beyond this trial of mortal life. Not long after I returned to the Church, during General Conference on April 3, 2022, Dallin H. Oaks, first counselor to President Russell M. Nelson, our beloved prophet, spoke about the highest kingdom of heaven as possessing the “glory of the sun.” I wrote his words in my spiritual journal. Months later, as I reviewed my notes on that talk, I was struck by the parallel between that description and my dream vision. Here’s what I wrote in my journal on August 22, 2022:
Q: Father, does this relate to the five exploding suns in my dream vision?
A: “Yes. The joy and love you felt is the joy and love of the celestial kingdom, the joy and love of coming into My presence. Well done, Daughter.”
I now realize I was granted my dream vision of oneness with God to inspire me to never stop seeking to regain that astonishing love and joy.
The purpose of this book is two-fold: to help strengthen members whose faith may be wavering, and to give hope that loved ones who have been enticed away by the world might return one day, even after half a century.
Heavenly Father used the fifty-five years I was away from His Church to teach me many things. I used the agency He gave me to turn my back on Him, but He never turned His back on me. He waited patiently and lovingly, and whenever I allowed a crack to open in my heart, He poured His love and the love of His Son into that crack, giving me experiences and insights that, through many trials and troubles, eventually drew me back to Them.
We all come into this mortal world with the Light of Christ in our souls (see Moroni 7:15-19). That light can’t be extinguished entirely, but its flame can be dampened. It can be turned down to such a faint flicker by the static of the world that we don’t know it’s there until something causes it to flare into new life. Then we might say, as in the “Star Wars” saga, “The Force is strong in that one.”
There have been times in my life when the Force has been weak in me, when the adversary fought hard to capture my immortal soul. He used the trials I faced to confuse and confound me, and he succeeded for a while. My flame flickered and almost went out, but the light and knowledge my Father fed me bit by bit stayed alive until He reclaimed me for His own.
When I was a little girl, my earthly father would mow the grass in twisting, turning paths for my older sister and me to follow. That’s an apt metaphor for my life until my Heavenly Father led me out of the maze and set my feet back on the path to eternal life and exaltation. I was His prodigal daughter, but He welcomed me home after more than half a century out in the world. So I want to tell you this, because I know of a surety that it’s true: No matter how long you’ve been gone, no matter how much you’re troubled by doubts, it’s never too late to turn and see Him waiting there with open arms.
I don’t reveal the sacred things I share in this book — the “things of my soul” — to impress you. I urge you to seek your own personal revelations in all things that matter to you. My personal revelations are for me, but Heavenly Father has instructed me to share some of these precious things with you. From time to time, when I’ve doubted the wisdom of baring my soul to the whole Church and the wider world, Father reassures me, as He did on February 3, 2023, when the first draft of “Memoirs of a Prodigal Daughter” was nearly finished. Here’s my journal entry from that morning:
Q: Father, I feel unsure of myself this morning, unsure that the book is as it should be. I fear I’m revealing too much that is thought by others “too sacred to share.” Am I doing as Thou asks of me, Father? Am I really meant to bare my soul in this book?
A: “Yes, my daughter, you are doing as I ask. Only the baring of your soul in your words will reach the souls of those they are meant to reach. Do not worry over the criticisms of others. You are pleasing me.”
—Thank you, Father! Thank you, thank you, thank you! Give me strength!
A: “I will increase your strength and your understanding of your calling. Bold measures are needed in these last days. Be strong in me. Have faith in my purposes. I will lead you along, day by day, step by step. The book will reach far and wide and save many whose faith is wavering.
“Go to. Finish it. I am with thee always, to the ends of the earth. Let your voice be heard loudly and clearly.”
So this is me, His prodigal daughter, striving to be bold and strong in Him, letting my voice be heard loudly and clearly. I pray that you will be among those it reaches, and I pray that you will be inspired to seek your own personal revelations to guide your daily life.
These Words
These words are weak vessels They cannot hold the Fulness of my heart They spill and crack They overflow and flood The plains of my prayers O Father Strengthen my words To match my love for Thee! Thicken their sinews Embolden their blood And the marrow Of their bones Let me write Thee In my heart And the hearts Of Thy people! Let my words partake Of Thy power Let them live! Let them move And have their being In Thee Father, I am Thine Let my words also be Thine! Part I: Journey Into a Far Country
Memoirs of a Prodigal Daughter 