Book of Mormon Questions (Introduction 3)

 

Chapter 5

Frau Richter and the Cure for Cognitive Dissonance?

Published in Bruder: The Perplexingly Spiritual Life and Not Entirely Unexpected Death of a Mormon Missionary (Salt Lake City: By Common Consent Press, 2018). This chapter is adapted from the essay I included in the last post, which was published 11 years earlier in Dialogue. I chose to use third person throughout this mission memoir so that I could comment on the experiences of Bruder Terry from my perspective 40 years later. That perspective is reflected in the changes I made to the account of my experience with Frau Rüster (here changed to Richter; all other names except mine have also been changed). BCC Press decided to eliminate the three footnotes that I included in the Dialogue essay. See the previous post for these references.

 

Terry’s first two weeks of “real” missionary work had been nothing if not discouraging. They had tracted for about six hours a day that first week. “Tract” is a purely Mormon verb, descended from earlier times when church elders would distribute “tracts,” pamphlets explaining various aspects of the faith. Missionaries still did this in 1975, especially in Germany, where other methods of finding people to teach were scarce and ineffective. Not that tracting was very effective either. Had it been more successful, they would have spent less time going door to door and more time teaching people.

Terry had heard stories about other missions, particularly those in Latin America, where missionaries taught and baptized so many people they hardly had time to tract. But he was not in Mexico or Brazil. He was in Germany, among people who were still close enough to the Third Reich to be suspicious of anyone offering a Utopian vision of Zion on earth or a thousand-year era of peace. They were also aloof, reasonably content with their materialistic lives, and certainly not searching for something new. Consequently, tracting could be a brutal experience. For Terry, the repeated rejections and slammed doors were softened only by the fact that he couldn’t understand most of what the people were saying to him. After a while, though, he learned several phrases very well.

When Bruder Terry arrived in Germany, the missionaries were using a door approach that went something like this. They would push the button next to the door, which was generally connected to a buzzer and not a bell. Sometimes no one would answer. If someone did answer the door, one of the two elders would say, “We’re representatives of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, often called Mormons. We have an important message we’d like to share with you.” Generally, before he could even get this much out, the person who answered the door would blurt out some excuse—“I’m not interested,” “I don’t have time,” “I already belong to a church”—and start closing the door. This happened a good 90 percent of the time. After a few hours of this, Terry understood all these excuses very well. It was when the person said something other than these canned excuses that Terry had trouble. When it was his turn and this happened, a blank look would cloud his eyes and he would turn to his companion. Hollington would then take over.

Every once in a blue moon, someone would actually invite them in for a Discussion. And sometimes they would make an appointment with a housewife for later in the week, usually on an evening when her husband would be home. Generally, about half of these appointments fell through. Hollington and Terry would show up punctually, push the buzzer, and wait on the doorstep outside a darkened house or apartment. These were discouraging experiences for Terry. For two reasons. First, because he enjoyed Discussions. Hollington was personable, knowledgeable, and a decent teacher, and Terry was pretty good at reciting his memorized lines. But that wasn’t really what made these experiences enjoyable. Most Germans were excellent hosts. They almost always fed their visitors crackers or chips and juice, or sometimes even a light supper. And Terry was always hungry. Hollington’s cooking repertoire was repetitious and not all that appetizing. They had mackerel sandwiches three times a week. They also ate Bockwurst (a cheap German imitation of the hotdog) three days a week. And on Sunday, Hollington boiled up some sort of meat-and-gravy-in-a-bag concoction and served it over noodles. This was the culinary high point of Terry’s week. Missionaries, like the German people, ate their main meal at midday. They would ride back to the apartment for lunch, then work the rest of the day until 9:30, ideally. But here I stray. The second reason no-shows discouraged Bruder Terry was that they usually translated directly into more tracting. Once in a while, when an appointment fell through, they would drop in unannounced on a member family, but they could do that only so many times before they wore out their welcome. And Hollington saved these visits almost exclusively for when the last appointment of the day was a no-show.

Most of the missionaries’ time was consumed with tracting, punctuated with spells of street contacting in the Stadtmitte. But one day was a break from the routine. They had an Austausch, which, Hollington explained, meant “switch out.” On this particular Austausch, the district leader, Bruder McCowen came to Rendsburg to work with Terry, while Hollington took the train to Flensburg to work with Hirsch. Because Hollington didn’t trust McCowen with his investigators, he made sure he didn’t schedule any appointments. So Terry and McCowen tracted and did a little street contacting for most of the day. McCowen was rather unorthodox, and it turned into one of the more unusual days of Terry’s mission. Needless to say, he was glad to have Hollington back the next morning, even if it meant long hours of tracting and street contacting, interrupted with tasteless lunches and an occasional Discussion. So passed the first month and a half of Terry’s sojourn in das Vaterland.

6

When Bruder Hollington and Bruder Terry leaned their bikes against the fence at Hermann-Löns-Straße 9 on the afternoon of October 2 and walked to the door, Terry had no idea that what was about to transpire would shape and anchor his soul for the rest of his mission and anchor my soul for the next few decades. When they left the house and descended the steps less than an hour later, Terry had no context for gauging the magnitude of the experience they had just shared. Now, four decades later, I’m still acquiring that context. And it is something of a moving target from this distance.

Six slow weeks had passed since Terry had arrived in Germany, and they had been some of the most difficult weeks of his life. He didn’t quite feel like an infant anymore, but even though he could understand a lot more of what was said, he still couldn’t express himself much at all, and the Work was discouraging. None of their investigators were progressing, except perhaps Frau Richter, but her progress came in fits and starts and was almost always canceled out immediately by her doubts. Herr Richter wasn’t on the same teeter-totter. He tolerated their visits and was cordial, but his search for religious truth was more hypothetical than it was either pragmatic or urgent. Frau Richter, on the other hand, wanted to know. Oh how she wanted to know. She was reading the Book of Mormon and praying about it. And her Reformed Lutheran pastor, Herr Kemnor, was so intrigued by her new quest that he decided to lend a hand. He generously transformed his weekly Bible study hour into anti-Mormon hour. These new lessons probably required far more preparation than his conventional treks through the New Testament. Such sacrifice on his part. Frau Richter, of course, was thoroughly confused. On one side she was hearing the missionary lessons and reading the Book of Mormon; on the other she was being exposed to every bit of dirt, credible or concocted, that good Pastor Kemnor could unearth.

Forty years have passed since Bruder Terry last saw Frau Richter, but hardly a week goes by that I don’t think about her—partly because the Richter family photo Bruder Terry took all those years ago has been digitized and now cycles through my screensaver at work every so often. When it pops up, I am reminded that Mormonism is a complex religion. Because of its truth claims, it also has many detractors, and its history offers additional fodder for its critics. On top of this, the LDS Church’s bureaucratic, hierarchical, corporate-style organizational structure is an unlikely receptacle for a religion that claims to be the latter-day re-establishment of Christ’s New Testament church. For almost a decade now I have worked as an editor in the field of Mormon studies, so I read a great deal and am fully aware of the controversies and sticking points for Mormons and non-Mormons alike. I have learned that, spiritually speaking, several of these difficult issues have blown some Mormons adrift and have blown others apart. I sense that the official Church is struggling more than a bit in this age of the Internet, when it can no longer control its own narrative. I have also learned that many intellectuals and individualists and iconoclasts feel enormous frustration and possess microscopic patience with the perceived inflexibility and irrationality of Church bureaucracy. I generally shake my head and roll my eyes at this last group. They have obviously never worked at Church Magazines, as I have. What do they know?

I have not been naïve for many years now, but all the reading I have done has opened my mind to the struggles of individuals as they come to see inconsistencies in the Church, its history, its founder, its scriptures, its theology, and its bureaucracy—as they shed their innocence and replace it with something that is far less comfortable for them and far less comforting. Most of the distress for thoughtful Mormons seems to revolve around Joseph Smith in one way or another. Rightly so. Historian Richard Bushman stuck it in the title of his famous biographical treatment of the Prophet where no one could ignore it, but Joseph really was a rough stone. His life was surrounded by controversy because he was controversial—audacious and imperfect and unconventional and incomparable. And neither his fellow Saints nor his enemies could go to the Church’s Legacy Theater inside the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in Salt Lake City to see his life portrayed cinematically with careful editing and majestic overtones. No, they saw him up close and personal, both the grandeur and the blemishes. Still, he himself had it so very right when he said to his followers shortly before his murder, “You don’t know me.” They didn’t, and we certainly don’t. Many of those early Saints were so bothered by what they did know that they left Joseph’s flock. Some turned against him. Others remained loyal to both his person and his vision. He elicits pretty much the same array of reactions today.

Some of the questions that perplex both Mormons and investigators of Mormonism concern the intersection of knowledge and belief. Is it really possible to know anything for certain in the field of religion? I’ve read essays by faithful intellectuals, rational arguments they have constructed to support their belief in the LDS Church and their dedication to its teachings. Others try to deflect the question. “The goal of religious development,” a social scientist once asserted, “might not be the serenity of certainty, an absolute acceptance on faith, but the capacity to sustain the tension of not knowing.” In other words, we should not seek to know with certainty but should embrace our uncertainty. A scientist reasoned, “It’s not too hard for me to translate ‘I know the Church is true’ to ‘I know I have had a burning in my bosom which confirms the goodness of the Church and the truth of the principles which it teaches.’” His argument, apparently, is that this warm feeling inside doesn’t really constitute knowledge. It’s just a warm feeling. Bruder Terry probably would have agreed with him. He didn’t want a warm feeling. He wanted to know. But the bigger question is, what can one know?

Frau Richter was certainly asking this question. And she was an enigma. She wanted so badly to learn the truth. She would read and pray and ponder and struggle. Never had Terry seen such desire. Even his own desires for that spiritual witness he lacked did not measure up to Frau Richter’s. Perhaps in a dark corner of his mind lurked a sincere doubt that God loved him enough to give him a witness. He had never doubted God’s love in general, only God’s love for him in particular. He never felt he was worthy of God’s love. But he had no doubt that God loved Frau Richter. How could he not love her? She fought and struggled so. And yet where Bruder Terry was, by nature, a believer in the simple (perhaps even superficial) doctrines of the Restoration, Frau Richter was a doubter. Persistent seeds of doubt sprang to life in her heart like weeds in a garden, and Pastor Kemnor watered and fertilized them. Repeatedly, she let them strangle her growing faith. She needed topsoil, for the earth of her spirit was baked and hard and coated with the alkaline of both misinformation and distasteful truth. Bruder Terry was yet another story. His heart had always been free of weeds, a believing heart, perhaps because he had never bothered to plant anything. Oh, he had soil enough. He lacked only seed. Perhaps the Supreme Planter knew the season was not yet ripe.

As mid-September wore on, Bruder Terry was gradually adjusting to his new environment. The long hours tracting, the periodic visits with members of the little branch, the frequent disappointments when some interested Frau would tell them her husband didn’t want them to come by anymore, the repeated first Discussions that never spilled over into second Discussions, the golden days and fragrant evenings, the trains rattling above and behind the Wohnung [apartment] in the dead of night—all these things became the signs and symbols of routine, and he drew his bearings and charted his days by their incessant flow. These formed a constant, dependable background that helped define the moving, shifting, never-repeating procession of lives and experiences that marched through his mission.

Unfortunately, Mandy [my girlfriend back home] was not a part of that background. She was one of the nonconstants of his existence, and this caused him grief. Her letters were sparse and superficial, and he began to wonder if her letters were but a reflection of her life. This suspicion was a crucible to him, because he somehow sensed the futility of placing his dreams where no future existed. And dreams—as all dreamers know—are property of the future. They have no being in the present.

Fortunately for Bruder Terry, the present was consumed by concern for the Richters. All thoughts, all prayers, all meaning seemed to revolve around this little family. Hollington and Olsen had found them and taught them for some time. They had made progress, albeit slowly, and they felt some pressure, particularly Herr Richter, who was beginning to rebel against the decision that stood before him and his wife. In mid-September, to relieve that pressure, Hollington and Terry tried a new approach. They took a game instead of their scriptures, and instead of conducting a religious discussion, they spent an hour playing together, the elders, Herr and Frau Richter, and their twin daughters. This seemed to help tremendously. The little family discovered that the two young men in serious-looking suits and ties could be fun-loving, normal human beings, something they had never supposed.

This seemed to appease Herr Richter, who had wanted a reprieve from the intense religious discussions, but for Frau Richter it was merely a momentary diversion from her burning desire to know the truth. So, partly to quench her thirst and partly to give Herr Richter some distance, Hollington and Terry began dropping in frequently in the daytime to answer her questions and respond to her doubts.

September gradually made way for October—the days were still sunny and bright and the nights cool and touched with a hint of autumn—and Frau Richter seemed to be making no progress. On October 1, the two elders traveled to Kiel on the Baltic Sea for a zone conference, a gathering of all the missionaries in Schleswig-Holstein at a chapel near the harbor. President Scharneman was there, as well as his two assistants and the zone leaders. These five instructed the missionaries in doctrine and new methods for achieving that ever-elusive success in the Work. During the classes, the president called missionaries out for interviews. When Bruder Terry’s turn came, he spent maybe five minutes with the president, didn’t really get to know him at all, and then it was the next elder’s turn. Just making sure there were no serious problems, Terry assumed. A nice byproduct of the conference was that he got to see some of the elders who had arrived with him in August and a friend or two from Weber High. It was a good day.

The next day at noon, Hollington and Terry made their way from their tracting area in Büdelsdorf to the house where the Beckers lived. They had been invited over by this sweet missionary couple for lunch. It was a fine meal and a nice visit, and when they finished they decided they would drop in to see Frau Richter, who lived only a few streets east of Beckers. Of course Frau Richter had a new question.

Where Pastor Kemnor got his anti-Mormon ammunition Bruders Terry and Hollington didn’t know, but as their Reformed Lutheran nemesis would sow the seeds of doubt, the missionaries would try to dig them up before they grew roots and sprouted. At least Bruder Hollington did. Terry was still struggling just to follow most conversations. He couldn’t have added his two cents’ worth at that point even if he’d had the correct change. But he wanted to know the truth almost as desperately as Frau Richter did. Almost.

As recounted earlier, I grew up in a traditional Latter-day Saint home, but I had been more interested in sports and girls than in deep religious questions, or even shallow ones. I knew all the Sunday School answers, but I had never asked any questions, particularly the one I should have asked. And so, when I made the decision to forsake my former life and become Bruder Terry, I passed on to him a distinct spiritual handicap. When Bruder Terry walked through the front door of the Mission Home in Salt Lake City, he became quite suddenly a stranger in a strange land. The spiritual atmosphere in the Mission Home and then the LTM was entirely foreign to him. He struggled. He prayed incessantly for a testimony, but no testimony came.

He arrived in Rendsburg without a testimony, and still he prayed, but the first six weeks passed slowly without any revelations from heaven. By the time Terry and Hollington leaned their bikes against Richters’ fence and approached the door, it was October and Terry’s hope was running low. Interesting thing was, he was praying for Frau Richter to get a testimony with more real intent than he was praying for himself at that point. He loved the Richter family because Bruder Hollington loved them. They prayed for the Richters morning, noon, and night, and he pled for them in his personal prayers. Terry wasn’t sure what sorts of information or misinformation Pastor Kemnor was feeding Frau Richter, but I can certainly imagine, and I know that the questions he raised lay at the heart of her struggle. But she wasn’t about to give in to either side so easily. She wanted to know the truth about Mormonism. She wasn’t about to get baptized into this “sect” unless she got an answer. Logic and persuasion were not going to work on Frau Richter. The Toblers may have been fellowshipping her and her husband, but that wasn’t going to make a bit of difference either. Only the answer to one particular question would do, thank you. And for some reason God wasn’t in any hurry to give that answer.

In the years since Bruder Terry’s mission, I have become well acquainted with all the questions surrounding Mormonism and its truth claims. At the end of this book, I’ll have more to say about that particular kettle of fish. But for now let me just say that the validity of the LDS Church is not to be determined with certainty by putting all the pieces of a theological puzzle together. It isn’t to be proved or disproved by establishing whether or not Joseph Smith was involved in folk magic, by showing scientifically that Native Americans are or are not descended from a band of wandering Israelites, or by exploring whether or not the politics and economics laid out in the Book of Mormon reflect Joseph’s concerns about nineteenth-century America. I think I understand the questions and reservations thoughtful people have about Mormonism—doctrinal, historical, ecclesiastical, cultural, and organizational. I have a host of my own—more, in fact, than any critic of Mormonism has yet come up with—but whenever they start to get under my skin, I always come back to what happened to Bruder Terry and Bruder Hollington and Frau Richter on October 2, 1975, in the living room of the house on Hermann-Löns-Straße, and wonder what happened exactly and what it means.

Frau Richter was home alone that day—her husband was at work, her twin nine-year-old daughters at school—but she invited the missionaries in. The predictable Pastor Kemnor had stopped by recently with a new piece of anti-Mormon propaganda, and she was perplexed. Terry didn’t quite understand Frau Richter’s particular question that day—it seemed she had an endless supply—but he would never forget Bruder Hollington’s answer. Maybe Hollington had it all planned out. Maybe the Spirit whispered something to him. Or maybe he was just at wit’s end over this exasperating woman and all her doubts. Whatever the reason, he pulled from his pocket a brochure in which Joseph Smith recounts his own story and simply read a couple of paragraphs to Frau Richter. Hollington of course read it in German, but the English original goes like this:

It was nevertheless a fact that I had beheld a vision. I have thought since, that I felt much like Paul, when he made his defense before King Agrippa, and related the account of the vision he had when he saw a light, and heard a voice; but still there were but few who believed him; some said he was dishonest, others said he was mad; and he was ridiculed and reviled. But all this did not destroy the reality of his vision. He had seen a vision, he knew he had, and all the persecution under heaven could not make it otherwise; and though they should persecute him unto death, yet he knew, and would know to his latest breath, that he had both seen a light and heard a voice speaking unto him, and all the world could not make him think or believe otherwise.

So it was with me. I had actually seen a light, and in the midst of that light I saw two Personages, and they did in reality speak to me; and though I was persecuted for saying that I had seen a vision, yet it was true; and while they were persecuting me, reviling me, and speaking all manner of evil against me falsely for so saying, I was led to say in my heart: Why persecute me for telling the truth? I have actually seen a vision; and who am I that I can withstand God, or why does the world think to make me deny what I have actually seen? For I had seen a vision; I knew it, and I knew that God knew it, and I could not deny it, neither dared I do it; at least I knew that by so doing I would offend God, and come under condemnation.

While Bruder Hollington was reading, a marvelous presence entered the room. How can I describe it? To Bruder Terry, it was like pure electricity. It was as if an almost suffocating cloud of power and light filled the room. Terry felt this power at other times during his mission, but never like this, never with this intensity or immediacy or purpose. It was perfectly overpowering, and it was the most pure and holy influence he had ever encountered. Hollington stopped reading, and none of them could speak for quite some time. Terry couldn’t tell how long they sat there in the throbbing silence. It could have been an eternity. One of Joseph Smith’s teachings about the Holy Ghost was demonstrated vividly by the presence that visited that day. It bypassed the body completely and communicated pure intelligence to the spirit. Imprinted on Bruder Terry’s soul during that encounter, at least as he remembered it, was a very specific and unmistakable message: “It is true! It is true!” To this day I can honestly say I know only two things with absolute certainty—that I exist and the truth of what the Spirit revealed to Bruder Terry that day. In my entire life, I have never felt a presence more real than the one that came into Frau Richter’s home that day. Mere flesh and blood pale in comparison.

Eventually, not knowing what else to do, Bruder Hollington handed the Joseph Smith brochure to Frau Richter, asked her to read it and pray about it, and the missionaries excused themselves. She didn’t say a word or even see them to the door. When they stepped outside into the thin air and walked to the gate, Hollington exclaimed, “Wow, did you feel the Spirit there?” Terry said, “Yes, it was thicker than fog.”

He had his witness. He knew. So, apparently, did Frau Richter. When they visited a couple of days later, she asked to be baptized. She said she had her answer. No more questions. Bruder Hollington told her no. He said they wanted her husband to be baptized with her. They wanted him to receive the same witness. They wanted a whole family to join the Church together. Missionaries tend to be idealists. Herr Richter was a bit shaken up by this new development, but he agreed to more seriously investigate the Church. He promised to read the Book of Mormon and pray. He never did. And this is the greatest regret Bruder Terry had on his mission, that they insisted Frau Richter delay her baptism. The doubts returned, and so, of course, did Pastor Kemnor. She eventually lost the very thing she had prayed for and had received in such spectacular fashion. Hollington and Terry were devastated.

A transfer took Bruder Hollington away soon after this experience. Terry and his new companion tried to teach Herr Richter. He was indifferent. Frau Richter faded. One day she told them that a famous Lutheran pastor was coming to town to preach. She invited them to come listen to him, insisting that they would feel the Spirit when he spoke, just as they had in her living room on that warm October afternoon. They went with her and her husband. The missionaries didn’t feel a thing. Terry didn’t think Herr Richter did either. Frau Richter, on the other hand, claimed she felt the Spirit there. Terry was not convinced, and by that time he was growing more conversant in German, so he asked her if it was the same spirit she had felt that October day in her living room. “No,” she confessed, “that spirit was calling me to repentance.” Terry had no response to this, but to my mind this was a fascinating comment. It appears that even though they had shared a very powerful experience, the message she had received was not the same message Bruder Terry had understood. What, I now wonder, was the Spirit telling her to repent of? Her doubts? Her questions? Hidden sins? Whatever the case, the Spirit didn’t tell her to get baptized, and she eventually decided to stick with her Reformed Lutheran congregation.

You must remember that to Mormon missionaries, Frau Richter’s decision was worse than death, and Terry mourned it appropriately in his heart. He and Hollington honestly believed that by rejecting their message and the opportunity to be baptized into the LDS Church, Frau Richter was sealing her eternal fate. Sure, she might make it to the terrestrial kingdom in the hereafter (the middle of the three Mormon heavens), but as wonderful as that might be, it was still a form of damnation. She and her recalcitrant husband could never be gods. In fact, they would not even be married in the hereafter, according to Mormon dogma. So, considering how much passion and effort the missionaries had invested in teaching the Richters, it is understandable how dejected they were over how the whole thing panned out.

I’ve often reflected on the experience Terry and Hollington and Frau Richter shared that distant October day. And I’ve come to two conclusions. First, I’m very grateful for Frau Richter and her sincere desire to know the truth of the missionaries’ message, even if she couldn’t be sure about what the manifestation meant. I’ve wondered whose prayer was really being answered that day. I don’t know. But I am fairly sure of one thing: Without her faith and persistence, I doubt that Bruder Terry would have received an answer to his plea. His faith was at low tide by that time. Like many people, because he had prayed long and hard and had received no answer, he was at the point of giving up. He was ready to just concede that he didn’t have the faith to get an answer to his prayer. If I am honest, I must confess that it was probably Frau Richter’s faith combined with Bruder Hollington’s love and prayers for her that unleashed the powers of heaven that day. And without that experience, I have no idea how the rest of Bruder Terry’s mission would have gone or how long. Could he have spent a whole two years teaching people things he didn’t feel sure of? He needed that experience to keep him going, and it did motivate him through all the ups and downs of mission life. But what exactly did that witness mean? In his enthusiasm and naivete, he interpreted it very broadly, assuming it verified the truth of everything in Mormonism. As time has passed, however, and as I’ve become intimately acquainted with the warts and blemishes and inconsistencies of this complex religion and its history, I tend to interpret Bruder Terry’s experience much more narrowly. In fact, I have to conclude that the spiritual witness that came that day could not have covered even the entirety of Joseph Smith’s account as recorded in the pamphlet Bruder Hollington was reading from, the 1838 narrative that is now canonized in the LDS Pearl of Great Price. For instance, the account of Martin Harris taking some characters Joseph copied from the gold plates, as well as Joseph’s translation of those characters, to a New York scholar named Charles Anthon, is inaccurate on several fronts. And Joseph told several versions of this story that changed and expanded over time as his theology did. So I have come to view Bruder Terry’s experience in a much more restricted fashion than he ever would have. But he needed that broad interpretation to keep him on firm footing as a missionary.

The second conclusion I have reached is that regardless of why the manifestation came or what exactly it meant, I’m grateful it arrived in the presence of two other witnesses and that it came in the manner it did. I’m grateful Bruder Terry didn’t have a warm feeling about the Book of Mormon some lonely night in the quiet confines of an empty LTM classroom. If this had happened, I could have easily passed it off in later years as some subtle change in brain chemistry caused by the intensity of Bruder Terry’s fervent pleadings. Let me be specific about this. What Bruder Terry experienced in Frau Richter’s living room was not a simple burning sensation in his heart. It was not just a warm feeling that their message was right. What he experienced was an outside presence that entered the room and filled it to overflowing. That it filled all three of them too was inevitable. But because two other people were present and felt the intense power that Bruder Terry felt, he was never able to talk himself out of the fact that it had happened—and neither am I—regardless of what the unspoken message actually meant. I have never been able to convince myself that it was all just in Bruder Terry’s head, that he imagined it. No, Frau Richter and Bruder Hollington have prevented that. Hollington’s exclamation as he and Bruder Terry walked to their bikes has been very significant to me. And so was Frau Richter’s request to be baptized, even though she was never quite sure what the manifestation meant. Those reactions convince me that Bruder Terry’s sometimes vivid imagination wasn’t very vivid that day. This was the most real thing he ever experienced.

I’ve often wondered why Bruder Terry was favored to have such an experience when others who pray faithfully for a sure witness find the heavens firmly closed. I don’t know. Maybe most of us need a Frau Richter. Bruder Terry certainly did. In fact, I’m reasonably sure, given what I know about myself and my particular bag of experiences and weaknesses, that without this overwhelming witness I would probably not be an active Mormon today, perhaps not even a member. I certainly wouldn’t be as perplexed as I am today.

Testimonies, I’m told, come in many ways, shapes, and sizes. Most often they probably come as a quiet feeling of confirmation and grow over time. More often than most Mormons would dare admit, for some reason they seem not to come at all. But now and then they come suddenly and with overwhelming force. This I know. And when I say I know, I don’t mean that I know Bruder Terry had a burning feeling within. What I know is that Bruder Terry knew with perfect certainty the truth about something central to Mormonism. In even its most narrow interpretation, this experience let Bruder Terry know that Joseph Smith actually did see a vision on that spring day in 1820. Now, what that means exactly regarding all that came after Joseph’s encounter with the divine is another matter, and I’ll have plenty to say about that as this narrative unfolds. But on this particular point, that Joseph (like many individuals in his time and region who reported similar manifestations) wasn’t lying about seeing a vision, Bruder Terry couldn’t ever deny what he learned for himself that October day on Hermann-Löns-Straße. And I can’t either. Now, what exactly Joseph saw, what he was told, and what it all meant—those are questions that may reach beyond Bruder Terry’s encounter with a spiritual power and his interpretation of its message. I’ve learned that spiritual experiences are often devilishly hard to decipher. All I know at this point is that a holy power overwhelmed the three of them that October day, and Bruder Terry’s mission would not be the same afterward. He had what he considered a sure witness of the truth of Mormonism.