President Joseph F. Smith taught, “We have a mission in the world: each man, each woman, each child who has grown to understanding or to the years of accountability, ought . . . to be qualified to preach the truth, to bear testimony of the truth” (Gospel Doctrine, 13th ed. [1968], 251–52).
So how do we gain this all-important testimony of the Gospel, of the Restoration, the Plan of Salvation, the Book of Mormon, and of Jesus Christ?
Testimony Requires Action
President Boyd K. Packer provides a critical insight.“Oh, if I could teach you this one principle. A testimony is to be found in the bearing of it! Somewhere in your quest for spiritual knowledge, there is that ‘leap of faith,’ as the philosophers call it. It is the moment when you have gone to the edge of the light and stepped into the darkness to discover that the way is lighted ahead for just a footstep or two. ‘The spirit of man,’ as the scripture says, indeed ‘is the candle of the Lord’ (Proverbs 20:27 ).
“It is one thing to receive a witness from what you have read or what another has said; and that is a necessary beginning. It is quite another to have the Spirit confirm to you in your bosom that what you have testified is true. Can you not see that it will be supplied as you share it? As you give that which you have, there is a replacement, with increase!”
--“Seek Learning by Faith", Liahona, Sept. 2007, 16–24
Brigham Young gave the following instructions to James F. Wells in 1875 when the Prophet called Brother wells to organize the Young Men’s organization of the Church:
“Many may think they haven’t any testimony to bear, but get them to stand up and they will find the Lord will give them utterance to many truths they had not thought of before. More people have obtained a testimony while standing up trying to bear it than down on their knees praying for it.”
--"Seek Learning by Faith", Liahona, Sept. 2007, 16–24
In other words, a testimony comes through actions. “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself” (John 7:17, emphasis added). First we do, and then we know. This is learning by faith.
Action is the key word in gaining a testimony. The very expression “gaining a testimony” implies action. We do not sprout a testimony. We do not talk of a testimony simply springing up within us. Rather, we seek for a testimony, we work for it, and we obtain or acquire it.
Seeking With a Purpose
A second key to obtaining a testimony is our purpose in seeking the knowledge. If we want a testimony simply to satisfy an idle curiosity, it is not likely that we will find what we are looking for. As Elder Bednar has explained, “Joseph went to the grove to learn by faith. He was determined to act” (Ibid.).
The young Joseph Smith did not merely want to know which church was right. He wanted to know which church he should join. He was seeking direction for his actions. Likewise, investigators of the Church are most successful at receiving a witness of the truthfulness of the Gospel when they intend to act on the desired knowledge by repenting, receiving baptism, and joining the Church. If we say effectively in our hearts, “Dear God, I would like to know if this principle is true, but I don’t really intend to do anything about it or change my life because of it,” the Lord will let us to wallow in our ignorance. On the other hand, when we pray “with real intent” (Moroni 10:4), meaning with the intention of acting on the knowledge we seek, the Lord is quick to answer.
Crisis Compels Action
Shortly before I was to leave on my mission to Germany as a nineteen-year-old Elder, I realized that I did not have a true testimony of the Book of Mormon. I was in a crisis. I was about to leave home and my family and all of my friends and everything I enjoyed, for two years, and I was suddenly struck with the realization that I did not know of a surety that this Gospel I was about to preach was true. I believed the Church was true because I could not see a better alternative, but I did not know it was true.
In my crisis of faith and tumult of emotions, a teaching from my seminar class came firmly into my mind. I remembered my seminary teacher, Sister Nelson, saying many times that the Book of Mormon is the key to the Gospel. If we know that the Book of Mormon is true, then all else falls into place. If the Book of Mormon is true, then Joseph Smith was really a prophet. And if Joseph was a prophet, then the Church he established was truly the restored Church, and everything else followed.
In that thought, I came to the conclusion that what I needed more than anything was a testimony of the Book of Mormon. I needed the spiritual witness of the Holy Ghost that it was the word of God revealed through his prophet. I needed a sure knowledge that this book was more than the imaginative creation of a clever writer. I needed to know for myself, or I could not serve a mission.
I pondered that thought for a few days. I hesitated in fear. I desperately wanted to know, and yet I was afraid that I would not know. What if there really was no God and the Church was a hoax and the Book of Mormon was a ruse? What direction would my life take if I had been living a lie for the past four years? While I hesitated to follow the path that I knew I must take, the clock was ticking, and the day of my departure for the mission home in Salt Lake City was approaching. I became increasingly depressed, any my mind became obsessed with the idea that I either had to know now or I would walk away from my mission and the Church and never look back.
I forced myself to go to my church meetings on Sunday because I did not know how to explain to my parents that I simply did not want to go. Nevertheless, I sat sullen and defiant, seething with disgust for all of this religious nonsense. I refused to take the sacrament or sing the hymns. Rather than listen to the speakers, I dwelt on my own thoughts, which became darker and more confused by the hour. I silently dared the speakers and teachers to say anything that would have some relevance to me. Sure enough, no inspiration came. I left church that day convinced that I was not going on a mission or ever returning to church.
The Test
And yet in the back of my darkened mind was the nagging thought – You haven’t tested the Book of Mormon. You need to know if that book is true. In my jumble of thoughts and my deepening depression, I finally seized on that idea like a lifeline. I needed to know, once and for all, if I were ever going to find peace. I didn't care which direction it went, but once I knew, I could go on and stop worrying. I made up my mind that Monday morning I would begin.
I woke up at my usual time the next morning and got myself dressed and ready to go to school. I had a full load of classes at Long Beach City College. Normally I would do some homework in the morning before strapping my books on my bike and riding to campus. However, this morning I instead picked up my paperback missionary copy of the Book of Mormon. I sat down in the Strato-lounger in my room with the door closed, laid the book on my lap, and said a simple prayer. “God, if you are really there, and if this book is true, please let me know it. I need to know or I cannot go on my mission.”
I then opened the book to 1 Nephi Chapter 1. My plan was to read for thirty minutes and then go to school. I figured that I would follow that process every day for the next three weeks and see how far I could get into the book. By the end of three weeks, I would either get on the plane to Salt Lake City, or I would figure out some way to explain that I quit.
My eyes fell on the opening lines in Verse 1, and I read, “I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents…” In that instant, as those words echoed in my mind, I was overcome with the sensation that Nephi was a real person with real parents. It was as if I was hearing his actual voice speaking to me. I knew as well as I knew that I was living and breathing that Nephi had lived and breathed. He was not an imaginary character in a book of fiction. He was a man who had written about his life, and I was reading his words. Granted, I knew he had not written in English, but I was sure that he had written the equivalent Hebrew words in Reformed Egyptian on gold plates with a metal stylus. I knew in that moment, after reading just eight words, that the whole thing was true.
I continued reading for my planned thirty minutes, savoring the marvelous feeling of peace. I felt as though I were surrounded by light. However, when I finished reading and closed the book, the feeling left me. I questioned throughout the day if what I had experienced was real or just my wrought-up imagination. By the evening I was in total confusion again.
Persistence
I had promised myself that I would perform the experiment for three weeks before giving up. So the next morning I took my position in the Strato-lounger and prayed the same prayer: “God, if you are really there, and if this book is true, please let me know it. I need to know or I cannot go on my mission.”
I then open the book to the page where I had left off the previous day. Immediately the brilliant, calming assurance returned. I knew with absolute certainty that Nephi, Lehi, Laman, Lemuel, and Sam were all real people who were born, lived their lives, ate, slept, got cold at night and felt the heat of the same sun during the day that I could see coming through my window.
I read for thirty minutes and then headed for school. But this time the feeling did not leave me right away. It lingered for a while and faded gradually. I repeated my morning ritual for several more days, and each time, the certainty of knowledge flooded into my mind and my heart with remarkable clarity and peace. Each day, the feeling stayed with me longer, until I went to bed with it and woke up with it. By the end of the week I knew that this was not self hypnosis or a trick or a figment of my imagination. God was real. He heard my prayers. He had revealed to me in unmistakable terms that the Book of Mormon was a true book about real people translated by a living prophet. I had my answer.
I continued to read every day until I departed for my mission. I continued to read while I was in the mission home in Salt Lake and in the Language Training Mission in Provo. I never once picked up my Book of Mormon without having that confirming witness of the Spirit that it was true.
Knocking With Determination
I relate this story to illustrate that action is the key to learning the gospel. I had read the Book of Mormon at least twice while I was in high school, and I had prayed about it. But it was not until I prayed with real intent and with a determination to act that I received the knowledge I sought. I learned about the admonition to “knock, and it shall be opened unto you” (see Luke 11:9). A tentative, furtive tapping at the door, such as I had done in high school, was not enough. It was not until I pounded on the door with a resolution to not leave until it opened up to me that I got my answer.
I also learned that it did not take long to get an answer once I asked the right question with the right determination to follow through. I needed to repeat the process a few times to ensure myself that I was getting a consistent response, but the door opened instantly when I knocked the first time.
Elder Bednar has said, “Learning by faith cannot be transferred from an instructor to a student through a lecture, a demonstration, or an experiential exercise; rather, a student must exercise faith and act in order to obtain the knowledge for himself or herself” (Ibid.). Instructors had taught me for four years that the Book of Mormon was true. But it was not until I exercised faith with an intention to act that I obtained the knowledge for myself.
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