“Check the Gate,” Liahona, Mar. 2025.
Latter-day Saint Voices
Check the Gate
While serving on a ranch, I learned a valuable lesson about always following promptings from the Holy Ghost.
Photograph of author on ranch by Shaun Sutton
Near the end of my time as a young service missionary, I followed a prompting to serve two days a week at a dude ranch in Utah for military and survivor families. I had absolutely zero experience with anything even related to ranching, but I was excited.
Early in my time there, I was asked to clean the horse stalls. My good friend and companion with whom I went teaching in the evenings, Elder Saltern, was assigned to show me what to do.
Reaching the last stall to clean one day, I followed Elder Saltern in. In my mind I received a gentle impression to ask about closing the gate behind us. I brushed off the thought and got to work cleaning.
The horse in the stall, Shrek, was one of the biggest horses at the ranch. He started shifting nervously as we cleaned. Suddenly, Shrek darted out of the stall through the open gate and raced past the other horses outside in the corrals.
Thankfully, one of the experienced folks at the ranch grabbed a bucket of oats and quickly lured the horse back. As she put Shrek back in his stall, she looked at me and asked amusedly, “What did we learn?”
The obvious lesson was to always close the gate. I was reminded of a scripture I had read that very morning that taught me to yield “to the enticings of the Holy Spirit” (Mosiah 3:19).
When Elder Saltern and I entered Shrek’s stall, I had ignored a prompting from the Holy Ghost to close the gate. I had pigeonholed the Spirit into advising me only on what I thought were “spiritual” things related to the scriptures or the commandments. This experience humbled me. I realized that the Spirit’s knowledge was greater than I had realized—even when it comes to ranching!
President Thomas S. Monson (1927–2018) taught, “Remember that this work is not yours and mine alone. … When we are on the Lord’s errand, we are entitled to the Lord’s help.”
I might not have been teaching the gospel on the ranch, as I would do that evening with Elder Saltern, but I was entitled to divine help and direction—even while cleaning horse stalls.