Latter-day prophets witnessing firsthand knowledge of God
-in a book by sister Nelson “The Heavens are Open”, she speaks of her husband (President Russel M Nelson) signaling to her to exit the room, and the Lord appearing to him.
-“Visions do happen. Voices are heard from beyond the veil. I know this. But these experiences are exceptional… Most of the revelation that comes to leaders and members of the Church comes by the still, small voice or by a feeling rather than by a vision or a voice that speaks specific words we can hear.” (Elder Dallin H. Oaks, Ensign, Mar. 1997, p.14.)
-“I know, with a testimony more powerful than sight, that as the Lord declared, ‘The keys of the kingdom of God are committed unto man on the earth [from the Prophet Joseph Smith through his successors down to the present], and from thence shall the gospel roll forth unto the ends f the earth, as the stone which is cut out of the mountain without hands shall roll forth, until it has filled the whole earth.’” (President Harold B. Lee, Conference Report, Oct. 1972, p.20)
-“After all the years that I have lived and taught and served, after the millions of miles I have traveled around the world, with all that I have experienced, there is one great truth that I would share. That is my witness of the Savior Jesus Christ.
Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon recorded the following after a sacred experience:
“And now, after the many testimonies which have been given of him, this is the testimony, last of all, which we give of him: That he lives!
“For we saw him” (D&C 76:22–23).
Their words are my words.
I believe and I am sure that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that He lives. He is the Only Begotten of the Father, and “by him, and through him, and of him, the worlds are and were created, and the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and daughters unto God” (D&C 76:24).
I bear my witness that the Savior lives. I know the Lord. I am His witness. I know of His great sacrifice and eternal love for all of Heavenly Father’s children. I bear my special witness in all humility but with absolute certainty, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.” (President Boyd K. Packer, Conference Report, Apr. 2014. see https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2014/04/the-witness?lang=eng)
-“I want it absolutely clear when I stand before the judgment bar of God that I declared to the world … that the Book of Mormon is true…
As one of a thousand elements of my own testimony of the divinity of the Book of Mormon, I submit this as yet one more evidence of its truthfulness. In this their greatest—and last—hour of need, I ask you: would these men blaspheme before God by continuing to fix their lives, their honor, and their own search for eternal salvation on a book (and by implication a church and a ministry) they had fictitiously created out of whole cloth?
Never mind that their wives are about to be widows and their children fatherless. Never mind that their little band of followers will yet be “houseless, friendless and homeless” and that their children will leave footprints of blood across frozen rivers and an untamed prairie floor. 9 Never mind that legions will die and other legions live declaring in the four quarters of this earth that they know the Book of Mormon and the Church which espouses it to be true. Disregard all of that, and tell me whether in this hour of death these two men would enter the presence of their Eternal Judge quoting from and finding solace in a book which, if not the very word of God, would brand them as imposters and charlatans until the end of time? They would not do that! They were willing to die rather than deny the divine origin and the eternal truthfulness of the Book of Mormon.
For 179 years this book has been examined and attacked, denied and deconstructed, targeted and torn apart like perhaps no other book in modern religious history—perhaps like no other book in any religious history. And still it stands…
I testify that one cannot come to full faith in this latter-day work—and thereby find the fullest measure of peace and comfort in these, our times—until he or she embraces the divinity of the Book of Mormon and the Lord Jesus Christ, of whom it testifies.” (Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, “Safety for the Soul”, Conference Report Oct. 2009, see https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2009/10/safety-for-the-soul?lang=eng)
-“I know by personal revelation from the Holy Spirit to my soul that Jesus is the Lord; that he brought life and immortality to light through the gospel; and that he has restored in this day the fullness of his everlasting truth, so that we with the ancients can become inheritors of his presence in eternity.” (Elder Bruce R. McConkie, “The Testimony of Jesus”, Conference Report, Apr. 1972, see https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1972/04/the-testimony-of-jesus?lang=eng#watch=video)
-My stake President Brad Bylund at a conference said he was at a training with President Dallin Oaks where Oaks said I know Christ, I know his face, I have heard his voice.
–“I know He (Jesus Christ) lives. I know His voice.” (2015 April General Conference, Elder Quinton L Cook)
