As I testified about the First Vision a mighty thing happened.
I have a firm testimony in the spirit of the First Vision of Joseph Smith. I have never ever spoken or listened to the first vision without feeling the spirit, and this story is evidence of that. The first vision is:
I saw a pillar of light, exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me. When the light rested upon me, I saw to personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name, and said pointing to the other, this is my beloved son, hear Him. (If you would like to read the unedited version of this quote you can find it at: www.lds.org/topics/joseph-smith/testimony?lang=eng)
Sorry if a few of those words are off. I haven’t said it in English forever so I was translating it from Spanish so I hope I got it right. Anyways we found this guy a couple of days ago who owns a little bread shop that he sells out of a window in his humble house. He was extremely nice and graciously accepted to hear our message. He couldn’t stop working at the time of our first lesson so he continued making bread as we talked with him and his wife. (The bread is amazing by the way, not that that is important to the story though.) We talked with him about the message of the restoration which begins with explaining what a prophet is and how we can be blessed when we follow the prophet. We also explained the life of Jesus Christ and how he established his church on the earth. We finished our first lesson with the great apostasy and asked if we could come back another day when he was less busy to explain how the church was restored on the earth. He said he would love to talk more. (He was Catholic so we were very surprised). So we returned on Saturday night to talk with him. Here is the amazing part, when I finished reciting the first vision (not sure if you care but this is what it is in Spanish),
Vi una columna de luz, mas brillante que el sol. directamente arriba de me cabeza. y ésta luz, gradualmente descendió hasta descansar sobre mi. al reposar sobre mi la luz, vi en el airre arriba de mi a dos personajes, cuyo fulgor y gloria no admiten descripcion. uno de ellos, me habló, llamandome por mi nombre, y dijo señalando al otro, este es mi Hijo amado, Escuchalo!
When I finished that, he started crying. Preach my gospel always teaches that as missionaries, we shouldn’t be afraid of silence. I have come to absolutely love silence in lessons because it means that they are feeling the spirit, so I just sat there and waited. After a while he began to tell us why he was crying. He said that he has always had dreams. Not just any dream, dreams about his life. He said he had a dream about his cousin dying in an accident and a few months later his cousin died the exact way he saw it. So he prayed to ask God to take it away from him because he didn’t want to see the bad things like that. He never had another dream until a year ago, when he was living in a different town close by here in a different house. He told us he had a dream that he was in a completely different house, selling bread out of his window and that in his house were two men, he thought to be about 20 years old, in white shirts and ties. They were from a different country. Both of them and they were sharing a message of Christ. They wanted to share a message about how he can receive more blessings of peace and comfort in his life.
The house that was in his dream, is the same house he lives in now and we are the same two people from another country he saw in his dream. He told us the reason he didn’t tell us about this before was because he didn’t think we would believe him, but when he found out that we believe people like Joseph Smith had visions, he trusted that we wouldn’t make fun of him or anything and realized that because of this, the information we had to share was one hundred percent true.
So many things about this story touched my heart. First off, he is probably the most humble man I have ever met. Second, we obviously found him at the right time and in the right place, which is proof that God prepares his children to hear His word. I have been in this area for almost four months now and never talked with him before with my other companion but Elder Martinez is from Mexico so that wouldn't have been the right time. It’s amazing isn't it?
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