5 Angels and One Banana - More Latter-Day Saint Angelic Encounters
Angelic sighting or visitations are not an uncommon
occurrence in the Church. Remember how Joseph Smith used to accurately tell people when they would see the glorious white-garbed visitors? Angels have also been known to make
some eyes pop and jaws drop at temple dedications, and Tabernacle Christmas concerts.
This list has even more
angel encounters. Some of them I was already familiar with, but some I was not.
My favorite of the bunch is here first – it is both new to me and fascinating.
It happened to an 8-year-old boy, and the people telling his story really tried
to keep it in his words:
1) George A. Thomas
“When
I went into the dining room, Aunt Elvira told me it was too cold for me to
remain out of bed undressed, so she said I could go to the pantry to take a
banana and go back to bed until she got time to help me dress. Just as I was
about to go into bed in the front room I saw a personage coming slowly down
feet first through the ceiling beyond the foot of the bed. Looking at the place
I saw the most beautiful personage that I ever saw in my life looking down at
me very pleasantly. It was in the air more than a foot above the bed and about
half a foot from the wall. Although afraid to move in the bed, I peeled my
banana and ate it, all the time under the gaze of the personage, who I thought
had the appearance of a very beautiful young woman. It was dressed in a
beautiful robe of pure white, many, many times whiter than Aunt Elvira’s table
cloth. The robe reached to the ankles, but as it was spread wide around I could
see the legs about up to the knees. On the legs and top of the feet were
bandages of white cloth folded crosswise, and on the feet were sandals. The
feet were crossed.
“The
personage had long, wavy, pure white hair which reached down to the waist, and
over the hair there appeared to be a vail. The hair seemed to be slightly
sloped on each side of the head. One hand was open and in the other was a
shining, pointed sword with a crossed piece at the handle. The personage kept
floating to and fro in front of a picture of the Logan Temple which hangs upon
the wall; also near another picture, that of President Woodruff. Its beautiful
face and white robe shone brightly and beyond the light the whole was encircled
by a dark cloud. After I finished eating my banana, I got up out of bed to go
tell Aunt Elvira, for I wanted her to see it too. As I passed out of the room I
was so close to it that I could have touched it with my hand. When I crossed
out of the door and was on the step leading to Uncle martin’s room I turned
around to look at the personage again and just at that moment I saw it go
straight up and through the ceiling at the same place where it entered. I went
right right into the dining room and kneeling by Aunt Elvira I told her all
about it.”
I love that the kid sat there eating a breakfast-banana
while having a staring contest with a floating and flitting angel of light.
This next one is fascinating too – and happened within the past 10 years from
all I can tell. It has alcohol poisoning, a gentleman’s club and the beginnings
of a serious life change:
2) Brad
“Brad was about 25 when a good friend came home from
Iraq, and they decided to go to a strip club to celebrate. They drank and
smoked a lot beforehand to avoid the high prices at the bar. Brad was
“completely obliterated” before they got there, but he only continued to
consume at the club.
“Brad arrived home blacking out, throwing up, and sure
that he was going to die. “There are just instances in your life . . . where
you know this could be it. You messed up. You are going to be toast.”
“That night, hunched over between vomiting sessions
with a severe case of alcohol poisoning, Brad suddenly felt “dead sober.” He
hadn’t been sober like this in years.
““There was somebody sitting next to me in bed. I
don’t remember what they looked like or anything; I just remember white. And I
remember being told specifically, ‘Brad, God knows you and He loves you.’”
“At this point in Brad’s life, he’d decided that if
there was a God, “He probably hates my guts,” so this proclamation struck him
hard.
““This person told me that God loved me and that I can
have a better life, and I have a choice right now to either continue the path
that I was on, which would lead to my complete destruction and death, or I
could choose another path which would unfold itself. And that’s all I was
told,” Brad said.
“Immediately afterward, Brad was “dead drunk again,
and vomiting.”” (http://www.ldsliving.com/How-a-Visit-from-an-Angel-Led-This-Anti-Mormon-to-the-Gospel/s/87315?page=2#story-content)
That was not the kind of person we’d typically expect to get a
proverbial heavenly-high five. It’s a good thing there’s not a mortal
consulting committee to determine who gets the visits.
This next one has been featured before – in the list of ‘OtherWitnesses of the Gold Plates.’ It’s a pretty great angel visit, so it fits in
here nicely too!
3) Harrison Burgess
“On the third Sabbath in May while
speaking to a congregation I declared that I knew the Book of Mormon was true,
the work of God. The next day while I was laboring something seemed to whisper
to me "Do you know the Book of Mormon is true?" My mind became perplexed
and darkened, and I was so tormented in spirit that I left my work and retired
into the woods in misery and distress and therein cannot be described. The tempter all the while
seemed to say, ‘Do you really know the Book of Mormon is true?’
“I remained in this situation about
two hours. Finally I resolved to know, by exercising faith, whether I had
proclaimed the truth or not, and commenced praying to the God of heaven for a
testimony of these things. Suddenly a glorious personage, clothed in white,
stood before me, and exhibited to my view the plates from which the Book of
Mormon were taken.””
Mary Elizabeth Lightner may well be my favorite pioneer. If you
haven’t read her autobiography you should. Everybody should – it’s linked at
the end of this section. The following is but one of her angelic experiences –
perhaps the most shocking one:
4) Mary Elizabeth Lightner
“…
I had been dreaming for a number of years I was [Joseph Smith’s] wife. I
thought I was a great sinner. I prayed to God to take it from me for I felt it
was a sin; but when Joseph sent for me he told me [about polygamy]. “Well,”
said I, “don’t you think it was an angel of the devil that told you these
things?” Said he, “No, it was an angel of God. God Almighty showed me the
difference between an angel of light and Satan’s angels. The angel came to me
three times between the years of 1834 and 1842 and said I was to obey that
principle or he would slay me. “But,” said he, “they called me a false and
fallen prophet but I am more in favor with my God this day than I ever was in
all my life before. I know that I shall be saved in the Kingdom of God. I have
the oath of God upon it and God cannot lie; all that he gives me I shall take
with me for I have that authority and that power conferred upon me.”
“Well,
I talked with him for a long time and finally I told him I would never be
sealed to him until I had a witness. Said he, “You shall have a witness.” Said
I, “If God told you that, why does he not tell me?” He asked me if I was going
to be a traitor. “I have never told a mortal and shall never tell a mortal I
had such a talk from a married man,” said I. “Well,” said he, “pray earnestly
for the angel said to me you should have a witness.” Well, Brigham Young was
with me. He said if I had a witness he wanted to know it. “Why should I tell
you?” said I. “Well,” said he, “I want to know for myself.” Said he, “Do you
know what Joseph said? Since we left the office the angel appeared to him and
told him he was well pleased with him and that you should have a witness.”
“I
made it a subject of prayer and I worried about it because I did not dare to
speak to a living being except Brigham Young. I went out and got between three
haystacks where no one could see me. As I knelt down I thought, why not pray as
Moses did? He prayed with his hands raised. When his hands were raised, Israel
was victorious, but when they were not raised, the Philistines were victorious.
I lifted my hands and I have heard Joseph say the angels covered their faces. I
knelt down and if ever a poor mortal prayed, I did.
“A
few nights after that an angel of the
Lord came to me and if ever a thrill went through a mortal, it went through
me. I gazed upon the clothes and figure but the eyes were like lightning. They
pierced me from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet. I was frightened
almost to death for a moment. I tried to waken my aunt, but I could not. The
angel leaned over me and the light was very great, although it was night. When
my aunt woke up she said she had seen a figure in white robes pass from our bed
to my mother’s bed and pass out of the window.
Joseph
came up the next Sabbath. He said, “Have you had a witness yet?” “No.” “Well,”
said he, “the angel expressly told me you should have.”” (https://josephsmithfoundation.org/autobiography-of-mary-e-lightner-1818-1913/)
This last one is
more of a ‘ministering spirit’ type of angel. It features a girl’s family
losing faith and falling away into… less. And this Elizabeth, all alone, learned the Church was exactly what
Joseph Smith claimed it was:
5) Elizabeth Brotherton Pratt
“After my
father and our family apostatized and went away, I felt very sorrowful.
One evening when going to bed I was feeling cast down, and my sister who
had been dead for a number of years, came to me, called me by name and said “Be
comforted, you are all right; you have a work to do for me.”
“I wished to inquire what she meant, but she was
gone. In two days after this the Prophet preached on the baptism for the
dead.
“As soon as the font was ready, I officiated for my
sister as she had requested.” (https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/04/i-wished-to-inquire-what-she-meant-but-she-was-gone.html)
Have you ever
seen an angel? Has anyone you know claimed to see one? Are you comfortable
enough to share?
If so, please do!
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