2002
Healing a Soldier
October 2002


“Healing a Soldier,” Friend, Oct. 2002, 42–43

Healing a Soldier

See Best-Loved Stories of the LDS People, Volume 2, pages 122–123.

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Healing a Soldier, left page
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Healing a Soldier, right page

Illustrated by Mike Eagle

Harold B. Lee once visited Tokyo, Japan, to speak at a conference for soldiers. After the meeting, a man came up to shake his hand.

Soldier: I am not a member of the Church, but I understand that you are going to be in the Philippines in a few weeks. I’ll be there with the U.S. Seventh Fleet, and I hope to be able to tell you then that I have been baptized.

Harold: I hope so, too!

Weeks went by, and Elder Lee traveled to the Philippines to give another fireside. He noticed that the man he had met in Tokyo was sitting on the front row.

Harold: I remember you! Have you been baptized?

Soldier: Yes. I can’t wait to go home and tell my wife that I will live righteously from now on. You see, when we met in Japan, my arm was hurting me terribly. After I shook your hand, the throbbing stopped. I took my arm out of the sling. When I went back to the ship, I didn’t need any treatment. The infection was gone. I know that you had the Lord’s power to heal me.

Years later, Elder Lee traveled to Virginia to organize a new stake. The man he had healed sat on the front row with his beautiful wife. That day the man was sustained to serve in his elders quorum presidency.

In a speech to Ricks College students, President Lee told this story and taught that God can heal us, both by taking away illness and by allowing us to repent.

President Lee: There is a power beyond the sight of man that heals not only sick bodies but sick souls. The greatest miracle we see is the healing of sick souls.