At the first general conference President Russell M. Nelson presided over as prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I was in the depths of a personal spiritual crisis. It was 2018, and for weeks in preparation for the conference, I had prayed with real intent, hoping for a faith-affirming experience.

I longed for that moment so many describe, when the words of living prophets feel as though they were written just for you. By the end of the last session, however, I felt nothing.

As President Nelson closed the conference with a brief message about temple worship, frustration and despair welled up inside me. Why had God ignored me in my time of need? Perhaps, I feared, the doubts that had been creeping in were right: perhaps there was no God at all.

And then something

See Full Page