D. Kelly Ogden from his book “8 Mighty Changes God Wants for You Before You Get to Heaven,” under the above chapter title shared:
Gary, one of my high school friends, grew up to be a police officer. He was tall and funny. One day Gary said to me, very seriously, “People never change.” And he repeated it: “People never change . . . unless they’re touched by the Holy Ghost.”
For people to make mighty changes in their life, something has to happen inside. I saw it regularly while working with the missionaries. They would write to me that their investigators “felt something.” Here are some direct quotes from missionaries weekly reports (I have added the emphasis):
“My companion and I bore testimony, testifying of the importance of baptism, and they recognized the Spirit; one of them started to cry and said: ‘I’ve never felt in any church what I feel now; it’s something incredible and I can’t describe it—a feeling so beautiful; it makes me want to cry, I’m going to be baptized!”
“I know without a doubt . . . because I can feel it—something in my heart is burning.”
“We gave him a Book of Mormon and invited him to read and pray. When we came back to follow up he told us that while he was reading he felt something—he is ‘more at peace.'”
“A couple decided to be baptized. They have been members of four different churches. She said they felt something different in our testimony meeting she just couldn’t explain.”
Brigham Young, after receiving a copy of the Book of Mormon, studied it and investigated the Church for a year and a half. He was not impressed with the physical appearance or the intellectual ability of the missionaries of the Church, but he could not deny the truths he taught and the Spirit that accompanied their testimonies. He said, “The brethren who came to preach the Gospel to me, I could easily out-talk them, though I had never preached; but their testimonies was like fire in my bones.”l
That is exactly what Jeremiah experienced in Jerusalem. For years he was out on the streets of Jerusalem calling on the people to repent, and it was not pleasant work. Some of the people became violent and abusive in their language and treatment of the prophet. “I am in derision daily, every one mocketh me,” he exclaimed. Then he said, “I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name”—he was not going to declare the word of the Lord to the people any more; he felt like quitting his mission. “But,” he continued, “his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay” (Jeremiah 20:7,9;emphasis added). He could not quit because of the fire of the Spirit inside him.
Ether was the last of the prophets to the Jaredite civilization. He made a comment similar to Brigham Young’s and Jeremiah’s. Moroni recounted Ether’s efforts in crying faith and repentance from sunrise to sunset, saying, “for he could not be restrained because of the Spirit of the Lord which was in him.” (Ether 12:2). ~D. Kelly Ogden, Before You Get to Heaven (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2004), 84-86 (continued)
