Additional Footnote

Additional footnote- expansive insight: about defining moments, like interweaving yarn or heavy thread...

From a prophet (Smith) to an apostle (Maxwell) then to another apostle (Anderson)...like tying thoughts together, perhaps lacing your new converse or Nikes- ready and fit.

#5

“We sometimes speak of defining moments. Long ago in May 1945 there was such a moment for me on the island of Okinawa at age eighteen. There was certainly no heroism on my part but rather a blessing for me and others during the shelling of our position by Japanese artillery. After repeated shellings which overshot our position, the enemy artillery finally zeroed in. They should have then fired for effect, but there was a divine response to at least one frightened, selfish prayer. The shelling halted. The prayer was accompanied by my pledge of a lifetime of service—a pledge which, though imperfectly, I’ve tried to keep. With this blessing and pledge, I was nudged toward discipleship without realizing what service would be required.

“ I had been blessed, and I knew that God knew that I knew. “”

Neil A. Maxwell

“These experiences may come at pivotal times in our lives or in what may at first seem as uneventful happenings, but they are always accompanied by an exceptionally strong spiritual confirmation of the love of God.

Remembering these spiritually defining experiences takes us to our knees, declaring as did the Prophet Joseph:...“What I received was from heaven. I know it, and I know that God knows that I know it.””

Message delivered, Neil Anderson 

“Mar 27, 1994 · Each of us has been called to serve in God's kingdom. ... I knew I had been blessed, and I knew that God knew that I knew. “

Neal A. Maxwell

“I remembered the pledge after the war when my overseas savings gladly went to finance a mission. This mission, of course, was yet another step in the direction of discipleship.

Many subsequent and subtle moments have been at least as important to me as that defining moment in Okinawa. Unlike the roar and crash of artillery followed by a delivering silence, these smaller moments involve the Lord’s periodic whisperings to my mind. Over the years, these whisperings have guided me and reassured me. They give me, from time to time, in the words of the Prophet Joseph, sudden strokes of ideas and occasionally the pure flow of intelligence (see Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 151). These moments are as real for me as what happened on Okinawa. These are inward things, often taking the form of a directing phrase. I have found that the Lord gives more instructions than explanations.”

Neal A. Maxwell