For God’s Tool Box Part 1 – regarding panoramic visions, click here

For God’s Tool Box Part 2 – regarding losing something, praying about it and then seeing it’s location in a visionary experience, click here.





God's Tool Box Part 3 though – oh this part 3 is about hearing a voice. A voice that fills you with faith and sometimes even keeps you alive. I have never had this experience myself, but I know an awful lot of people who have. Below is a pretty big list of people who claim the experience. Some are from pioneer days and some are more recent. It’s something that, according to the glimpses below, isn’t specifically sought after. It does appear, though, to be freely given.





This first one is from just before the martyrdom. It’s interesting for a lot of reasons – the first is that it really does show JS Jr. really was thinking about the Rocky Mountains as the next place for saintly roots to be thrown down. The second is that God used the situation to help stack a testimony.





Samuel W. Richards 1)



“It was the purpose of the Prophet Joseph to come here and locate with his people. He organized this company and held weekly meetings with them for several weeks in Nauvoo, and when he had them sufficiently instructed, as he thought, to properly understand what was to be the character of their mission and fit-out, he went across the river and made a start to go toward the mountains. It was his intention to go to the mountains with us, as a company of pioneers. But he was followed by those who did not like the idea of his leaving, and while they were pleading with him to return, he told them, "If I go back, I go as a lamb to the slaughter." Nevertheless, they determined he should return, and he went back to Nauvoo. From there he went to Carthage, and we all know the history of what followed.



as I got up there was a voice came to me and I heard it distinctly as from one standing by my side, saying, "Stop; rest awhile." “Suffice it to say, I attended four meetings of this company and at one of them, which was in charge of Hyrum Smith, and three or four of the Twelve were also present, it was said that Joseph the Prophet had remarked that he wanted young men for that mission who could go upon the mountains and talk with God face to face, as Moses did upon Mount Sinai. When I heard that statement, I felt in my soul that I was not the one to go; and just before the meeting closed I got up out of my seat for the purpose of going to Brother Hyrum Smith and telling him I was not the one to go for I did not feel that I could meet these conditions, but



“I took my seat again, and instead of telling the Prophet Hyrum that I did not feel I could go, I went home, and before retiring I knelt by my bedside and prayed to my heavenly Father. If I ever prayed in earnest it was then, that I might know before morning whether I was a suitable one to go on that expedition, under the terms specified. The idea of going into the mountains and talking with God face to face, as Moses did on Mount Sinai, was more than I, as a boy, could think of encountering.



“No one perhaps need wonder that I should shrink from such a consideration. I retired to my bed and remained there about four hours, and during that four hours I got the answer to my prayer, and when I awoke I was prepared to go upon that journey and do just as the Prophet wanted me to do. During that four hours I saw all that I expect to see if I should live a thousand years. Someone came to me and told me where to go, and I performed that journey that night while I lay upon my bed.” ( https://books.google.com/books?id=orcUAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA105&lpg=PA105&dq=I+heard+a+voice+distinctly+say+to+me+%22stop;+rest+awhile%22&source=bl&ots=jlcUT6gmxH&sig=_TFJv7tZXXwkBD7SFCNDQbgHUVQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi1gd_wf_dAhUZHTQIHdfdAmoQ6AEwAHoECAQQAQ#v=onepage&q=I%20heard%20a%20voice%20distinctly%20say%20to%20me%20%22stop%3B%20rest%20awhile%22&f=false )





That first one was an event that happened towards the end of Joseph’s life. This one happened a little before he was born.

Lucy Mack Smith 2)

“While living in Randolph, Maine, after she had Alvin and Hyrum, Lucy became extremely ill. The doctors said she was going to die. She made a promise to God that she would serve Him the best she could if He would let her survive this illness. She heard a voice say to her that she would be healed because she faithfully asked God. She was healed in just a few moments. After this, she became consumed with the subject of religion and began her search for the truth. Eventually she realized that she felt there was not a true religion on earth at the time, so she relied on the teachings of the Bible.” ( https://www.fairmormon.org/blog/2018/08/27/book-review-1001-facts-about-the-prophet-joseph-smith )

This next one I’d never heard before. It shows two powerful testimony builders God gave to one hungry man, both literally and figuratively.

And the implications here on Brigham Young’s assuming the Church’s earthly reins – it would have been enough to make Sidney Rigdon trek west!

Samuel Taylor Orton 3)

he heard a voice say, “Sam, are you here?” He recorded in a journal entry, “I turned around and answered ‘yes’ but could see no one, which surprised me very much.” However, this small incident motivated the young pioneer to get up and keep walking. “It was July 1856 somewhere in Wyoming, and the Bunker handcart company was running low on food. Twenty-four- year-old Samuel Taylor Orton soon became too weak to pull his handcart, lagging behind the company and asking the Lord to let him die. All at once,” He recorded in a journal entry, “I turned around and answered ‘yes’ but could see no one, which surprised me very much.” However, this small incident motivated the young pioneer to get up and keep walking.

“He soon caught up with the company but began asking himself just what he expected to see when he reached Salt Lake City. Why was he out here pulling a handcart on this arduous journey to Zion After thinking it through, Brother Orton made up his mind that “if the Father and the Son did appear to the Prophet Joseph Smith and reveal the gospel unto him, and Brigham Young was his lawful successor, I wanted to see the halo of light around his head, like there was around the head of the Savior on nearly all of the pictures we see.” He then put the experience from his mind and pulled his handcart the rest of the way to Salt Lake City.

“The Sabbath after he arrived in the valley, Brother Orton was sitting in the old bowery waiting for church services to begin. Looking around to see if there was anyone in attendance that he knew, he saw President Brigham Young walk in. As Brother Orton looked toward the stand, he instantly and distinctly “saw President Young with the rays of light around his head.” At that moment, the same voice that had spoken to him on the plains said, “Now, Sam, if ever you apostatize, here is your condemnation.” Brother Orton recorded, “I looked around me to see if the people heard it, but, I thought they did not.”” ( http://bouldertrek.com/samuel-taylor-orton/ )

Here’s a more modern prophet making the list. It’s from when he was a kid, and it leaves me with a burning question: What was over there? WHAT WAS OVER THERE?!

Harold B. Lee: 4)

“As a young boy I was out on a farm ... playing about ... when I saw over the fence in the neighbor’s yard some broken-down buildings with the sheds caving in. ... I imagined ... that might be a castle I should explore, so I went over to the fence and started to climb through. Then I heard a voice as distinctly as you are hearing mine: ‘Harold, don’t go over there.’ I looked in every direction to see where the speaker was. I wondered if it was my father, but he couldn’t see me; he was way up at the other end of the Field. There was no one in sight. I realized that someone was warning me of an unseen danger—whether there was a nest of rattlesnakes, or whether the rotting timbers would fall on me and crush me, I don’t know. But from that time on, I accepted without question ... that there are processes not known to man by which we can hear voices from the unseen world, by which we can have brought to us visions of eternity”. ( https://www.lds.org/new-era/1973/03/stories-from-the-general-authorities-president-harold-b-lee?lang=eng )





This next one is a transcription. I added the punctuation and eliminated some ‘ums’ and ‘ahs’. It’s also one of the more recent experiences on the list – withing the last 30 years or so. Bradley, if you didn’t know, is a fascinating Church history researcher. I highly recommend the whole video. In it he talks about his faith, the total loss of it and its return – all nestled in what he was finding in Church history. I’ll link the whole thing below.





Don Bradley 5)





( https://www.fairmormon.org/blog/2012/11/28/keeping-the-faith-5a-don-bradley-seeing-with-an-eye-of-faith-pt-1 at minute 22:40) “One day I was returning from the church archives, I was gonna catch a bus up to where we lived at the top of the Avenues. I was about to step off the curb onto a cross walk. It was a crosswalk that had no light. You just step out and the cars are supposed to stop, and they always had before. I had a thought or voice tell me “Don’t go out in front of that car” There was a particular car that had just rounded the intersection onto the street. I listened to the voice but I didn’t make a whole lot of it. I walked out into the edge of the first lane and then waited and when the car passed in front of me I saw that both the driver and the passenger were looking, or scrambling to get something off the floor or something. They were looking anywhere but at the road. The driver looked up at the road just after he would have hit me…. It’s probably the most analyzed experience of my life.”





Next, we have a twofer. One story compromising two different men hearing a voice at different times. This story stems from a man who, at one point in his life, was also stone-cold inactive:

6) Jesse Knight & Joseph Keeler

Jesse “heard a voice distinctly say to him, ‘This country is here for the Mormons.’” Urged on by this prompting, Jesse located what he considered a promising site… “Jesse became a mining prospector in the Tintic Mountains near his home in Payson. One day in 1896 while he was prospecting,Urged on by this prompting, Jesse located what he considered a promising site…

“After two months of hard-rock digging on their primitive tunnel, they found a rich enough deposit of silver and gold that they sold the ore in two shipments for about $20,000. That same year, President Wilford Woodruff confided in the local bishops that the Church was in financial difficulty and needed to find members who could make loans available. While on his way home one Sunday afternoon, Jesse Knight’s bishop Joseph Keeler said he heard “a voice as audible as that of a person” say “Jesse Knight will lend the Church $10,000.” Bishop Keeler went directly to Jesse’s home. Jesse said he would have a check for $10,000 ready the next morning, which Bishop Keeler then hand carried to the First Presidency. That was only the beginning of Jesse’s generosity to the Church.” ( http://www.ldsliving.com/A-Miraculous-Story-That-Illustrates-How-the-Temple-Sealing-Power-Can-Bring-Back-Loved-Ones-Who-Wander/s/89013 )

When Harold B. Lee was warned up there, he never knew the specifics about the danger he was avoiding. My uneducated guess is land-sharks.

In this case – we do get to see what was lurking:

Sara Jane 7)

“Sara Jane was a pioneer girl who walked across the wilderness in America long ago to find a new home. After she arrived in Utah, she lived with her aunt in an unfinished house. Stretched across the top of the walls was a canvas roof held in place by a large rock at each corner.

“Sara Jane was at home sewing one day when she heard a voice say, “Move away quickly.” There was no other person around, but Sara Jane moved to the other side of the room. Just after she moved, one of the rocks holding down the roof fell into the room. If Sara Jane had not moved, the rock would have hit her.” ( https://www.lds.org/manual/primary-2/lesson-13?lang=eng )





Here’s a good one. I screen-shot my source on this and can’t find the original for the life of me. My source, too, was just a scan of a page. Regardless, this is a pretty great story with a heavenly voice excited enough that multiple people heard it.





William West Woodland 8)





“William tells of one experience that they had with the Indians. William and the other men had been in the saddle most of the time for about three days and nights without rest. About midnight they were ordered to make up camp and to try to get some sleep. The horses were unsaddled and unpacked and blankets were spread out on the ground. A guard was put over the horses and soon all were asleep. Just as the day began to break, a voice distinct and firm called, “William”. Weariness caused no immediate reply. In an instant the voice came again with greater emphasis… a third time with the sharpness of a command it came. William sprang to his feet. Capt. Burton said, “William, who called you?” He replied, “I don’t know but I am on the way.” He soon saw the reason. The Indians were in the distance. He possessed a horse that was trained to do many tricks and would come at a call. The guard had fallen asleep and the horses were as close to the enemy as they were to them. He gave the call, the horse came and William soon had the horses to camp. Capt. Burton had also been awakened by the voice of the unseen watchman and by the time the horses were in the camp, the bedding was ready to be placed on the animals, and within a few minutes the little company had moved into the nearby ravine. They watched the Indians pass directly over the spot where they had been sleeping a few moments before.”





Next is the most recent story on the list. It occurred during the Haitian earthquake. Some of the details are pretty horrible if you follow the link. They may keep you up at night. It’s a horrible story with a glimmer of hope and an unraveling master plan…

9) Williamson Sintyl

“A voice came to me, telling me to stop screaming because I would use up all my energy screaming and I would die if I didn’t stop. I actually heard that voice telling me to be calm…

“All the time I was buried alive, there was someone there with me, keeping me calm. I was close to dying; I was so tired and hungry. I kept hearing that voice that gave me hope. I didn’t know much about God, and I had never said a personal prayer to Him. I used all the faith in me and offered up my first sincere prayer. I asked God to save my life. I promised Him that if He saved my life, I would serve Him for as long as I lived.” ( https://www.lds.org/blog/finding-god-while-buried-in-rubble?lang=eng )