“The Challenge,” New Era, Sept. 2013, 42
The Challenge
Rachael Lauritzen lives in Utah, USA.
My heart ached because I wasn’t getting an answer, but I kept trying.
Illustration by Dilleen Marsh
“Will you accept this challenge?” the missionaries asked.
The missionaries were focusing on me. After dinner with our family, they left us with a spiritual message and the challenge to read the Book of Mormon and pray to know if it was true. I accepted the challenge without thinking much of it.
I’m an ordinary girl, with an ordinary life, and I pray every night. But I had never actually prayed to find out for myself if the Church is true. I believed it with all my heart, but I had never known that what I believed was true. I thought about this for a while and then committed myself to take the missionaries’ challenge seriously.
On Monday night I read and I prayed, and I didn’t get any kind of confirmation. I began to think, “Be patient, Rachael, the Lord will reveal His answers when it is pleasing to Him.”
This went on for a week. Every night I would end my day by my bedside, where I read and prayed for an answer. By Saturday, I was worn out and could hardly keep my eyes open to read. I was trying so hard to live the gospel and to be an example, yet I was getting no answer.
These feelings began to weigh me down, so I did what I had always been taught. I knelt down and prayed. Nothing happened. So I continued praying, and I poured out my soul to my Heavenly Father. My heart began to ache because I wanted to know if all my efforts were worth it.
With tears streaming down my worried face, I opened up my Book of Mormon to the third chapter of Mosiah and began to read. As I read, the verses quickly caught my weary eyes. I put my name into the scriptures and read aloud, “My [Rachael], I would call your attention, for I have somewhat more to speak unto you. … And he said unto me: Awake, and hear the words which I shall tell thee.” By now my eyes were as big as apples. I was being told to awake and listen to the scriptures. I kept reading as my heart was filled with the Spirit. “For behold, I am come to declare unto you the glad tidings of great joy.
“For the Lord hath heard thy prayers, and hath judged of thy righteousness, and hath sent me to declare unto thee that thou mayest rejoice” (see Mosiah 3:1–4). The Spirit filled my entire room. I knew. I knew without a doubt that this Church was true, for the Lord had heard my prayers.
Some may call it coincidence, and others may call it luck, but I know my Heavenly Father was listening to His daughter here on earth. I know He knows my heart and what I feel. He wants all of us to return to Him. I know this Church is true. The missionaries’ challenge blessed my life.