A big thanks to Lisa for providing her lesson notes!
Elder Snow had a drowning experience while on a mission to the Hawaiian Islands in 1864. Through the ministration of his companions and heeding the promptings of the Spirit, Elder Snow’s life was preserved.
“Finally we were impressed to place our mouth over his and make an effort to inflate his lungs, alternately blowing in and drawing out the air, imitating, as far as possible, the natural process of breathing. This we persevered in until we succeeded in inflating his lungs. After a little, we perceived very faint indications of returning life…”
Looking back on this experience, Elder William Cluff knew why he and Elder Alma L. Smith were able to save Elder Snow’s life. “We did not only what was customary in such cases,” he said, “but also what the Spirit seemed to whisper to us (p. 73)
☼ Have there been times in your life when you were blessed by someone else responding to the promptings of the Spirit?
Have there been times the Sprit has directed to help another?
We have not received this knowledge through flesh and blood, we have not received this testimony from man, we have not received it through the reading of the Bible … or Book of Mormon, but we have received it through the operations of the Holy Ghost, that teaches of the things of God, things past, present and to come, and that takes of the things of God, making them clearly manifest unto us. You cannot take this knowledge from us by imprisonment or any kind of persecution. We will stand by it unto death (p.75)
We should try to learn the nature of this Spirit, that we may understand its suggestions, and then we will always be able to do right. This is the grand privilege of every Latter-day Saint. We know that it is our right to have the manifestations of the Spirit every day of our lives (p. 76)
“The Holy Ghost speaks with a voice that you feel more than you hear. It is described as a ‘still small voice.’ And while we speak of ‘listening’ to the whisperings of the Spirit, most often one describes a spiritual prompting by saying, ‘I had a feeling…Revelation comes as words we feel more than hear. Nephi told his wayward brothers, who were visited by an angel, ‘Ye were past feeling, that ye could not feel his words’” (President Boyd K. Packer, Conference Report, Oct. 1994, 77; or Ensign, Nov. 1994, 60).
From the time we receive the Gospel, go down into the waters of baptism and have hands laid upon us afterwards for the gift of the Holy Ghost, we have a friend, if we do not drive it from us by doing wrong. That friend is the Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost, which partakes of the things of God and shows them unto us. This is a grand means that the Lord has provided for us, that we may know the light, and not be groveling continually in the dark (p.76)
We should endeavor, as far as possible, to forget all worldly matters which grieve and vex us, and fix our minds upon the Lord, having a sufficiency of His Holy Spirit that we may be enabled to receive such knowledge and suggestions as will help us in our onward path (p. 80).
From Boyd K. Packer’s 2011 Conference address, Guided by the Holy Spirit, sometimes we may be directed to “leave it alone” when something isn’t good for us.
We are liable to do that which will lead us into trouble and darkness, and those things which will not tend to our good, but with the assistance of that comforter which the Lord has promised his Saints, if we are careful to listen to its whisperings, and understand the nature of its language, we may avoid much trouble and serious difficulty (p. 77).
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