The talk Isaac gave in sacrament meeting on July 8, 2018.
This past April in General Conference, Elder Larry Y. Wilson of the Seventy talked about what an incomparable gift comes to those who put their faith in Jesus Christ. That gift is the Holy Ghost. I want to share a story from Elder Wilson’s talk, it says.
During the Korean War, Ensign Frank Blair served on a troop transport ship stationed in Japan. The ship wasn’t large enough to have a formal chaplain, so the captain asked Brother Blair to be the ship’s informal chaplain, having observed that the young man was a person of faith and principle, highly respected by the whole crew.
Ensign Blair wrote: “Our ship was caught in a huge typhoon. The waves were about 45 feet [14 m] high. I was on watch … during which time one of our three engines stopped working and a crack in the centerline of the ship was reported. We had two remaining engines, one of which was only functioning at half power. We were in serious trouble.”
Ensign Blair finished his watch and was getting into bed when the captain knocked on his door. He asked, “Would you please pray for this ship?” Of course, Ensign Blair agreed to do so.
At that point, Ensign Blair could have simply prayed, “Heavenly Father, please bless our ship and keep us safe,” and then gone to bed. Instead, he prayed to know if there was something he could do to help ensure the safety of the ship. In response to Brother Blair’s prayer, the Holy Ghost prompted him to go to the bridge, speak with the captain, and learn more. He found that the captain was trying to determine how fast to run the ship’s remaining engines. Ensign Blair returned to his cabin to pray again.
He prayed, “What can I do to help address the problem with the engines?”
In response, the Holy Ghost whispered that he needed to walk around the ship and observe to gather more information. He again returned to the captain and asked for permission to walk around the deck. Then, with a lifeline tied around his waist, he went out into the storm.
Standing on the stern, he observed the giant propellers as they came out of the water when the ship crested a wave. Only one was working fully, and it was spinning very fast. After these observations, Ensign Blair once again prayed. The clear answer he received was that the remaining good engine was under too much strain and needed to be slowed down. So he returned to the captain and made that recommendation. The captain was surprised, telling him that the ship’s engineer had just suggested the opposite—that they increase the speed of the good engine in order to outrun the storm. Nevertheless, the captain chose to follow Ensign Blair’s suggestion and slowed the engine down. By dawn the ship was safely in calm waters.
Only two hours later, the good engine stopped working altogether. With half power in the remaining engine, the ship was able to limp into port.
The captain said to Ensign Blair, “If we had not slowed that engine when we did, we would have lost it in the middle of the storm.”
Without that engine, there would have been no way to steer. The ship would have overturned and been sunk. The captain thanked the young LDS officer and said he believed that following Ensign Blair’s spiritual impressions had saved the ship and its crew.
I have a story of my own that I would like to share
Last year, when I was on trek, we were doing a hike by Dan Jones Cove. While we were walking, I decided to go to the back where my dad was, and two other youth and one of the missionaries were. I was walking with them for a while when one of the youth had to go to the bathroom. Me, my dad, the missionary and the two other youth stopped and waited for one of the youth to go to the bathroom off in the bushes. When he got done we started walking again to catch up with the rest of the group, we didn’t make it that far when the youth that needed to go to the bathroom realized he didn’t have his wallet. We turned around went back to where we stopped before and started looking.
My dad and I decided to walk back farther to see if he had dropped his wallet farther back. While we were walking my dad had the idea that we should pray. So we prayed and asked Heavenly Father to help us find the wallet. When we finished the prayer we kept walking, we finally arrived back at Dan Jones Cove. I told my dad that I remembered seeing the person that lost his wallet sitting near a rock wall. My dad started looking around and then pulled himself up to a ledge where someone could sit, and he looked at the ledge, and there was a big crack in the rock. My dad looked down inside of the crack and saw the youth’s wallet sitting at the bottom. We got the wallet out and said a prayer to thank Heavenly Father for helping us find the wallet. We walked back to where the rest of the group was and met up with the two youth and missionary on our way there and returned the wallet.
In both of these stories, God helped by sending the Holy Ghost to guide us to fix the problem.
To receive revelation from the Holy Ghost, we have to be worthy. Elder Wilson said that we must be making an effort to align our lives with God’s commandments to be directed by Him.
In the first story Ensign Blair didn’t ask God to fix the problem, but instead, he asked God to know what to do to be part of the solution. So instead of asking God to fix all of our problems we should ask how we can fix the problem with his help.
In the second story when we prayed, we asked what God to help us find the wallet instead of asking to have the wallet turn up. We had to keep looking, and when we got back to the cove, the Holy Ghost helped me remember where the youth was sitting so we could find it.
In First Nephi chapter 15 verse 24 it says, "And I said unto them that it was the word of God; and whoso would hearken unto the word of God and would hold fast unto it, they would never perish; neither could the temptations and the fiery darts of the adversary overpower them unto blindness, to lead them away to destruction."