July 1, 2009
Re: 7th Article of Faith
From: Dad, Grandpa etc. Richard M. Pratt
We believe in the gift of tongues, prophecy, revelation, visions, healing, interpretation of tongues, etc.
We could add to that the casting out of evil spirits. They are very real but the Priesthood may remove them. I had an experience in my current ward house back when I was Bishop in 1963-1970.
One Sunday morning the Bishopric had finished their early Sunday morning preparations for the day and were just ready to leave the office to start sacrament meeting.
Suddenly the office door was violently flung open and a very agitated brother appeared, panting for breath, he gasped, “Come quickly!” and darted out the door. We followed of course. Must have made a queer sight, four old men running as fast as they could North on 5th East for about a block. All huffing and puffing like steam engines.
He reached his home’s door, wide open, we following thru the house into the bedroom. Here his twenty two year old son-in-law, a slight built man, not more than 135 pounds was laying on the bed; this wasn’t so strange except his 200 pound mother-in-law was sitting on top of his middle trying to keep him on the bed. This wasn’t too strange except only his head and heals were touching the bed and his body was arched upwards with his mother-in-law trying to push him back down.
He was administered to through the power of the Priesthood, and at the amen he instantly relaxed and became conscious of those around him. The mother-in-law removed herself, he sat up in bed and very excitedly said, pointing at the wall, “There he goes, there he goes! There he just went thru the wall!” we had to take his word for it as we saw nothing which is not unusual in such cases.
I could fill the rest of these four pages with like tales but there are too many other more exciting things to write about.
In my long life and extensive church service I have witnessed just about every type of miracle mentioned except, “raising of the dead.” but in as much as only a handful of such has been recorded not many have had this privilege.
Remember that miracles follow after conversion, a reward, so to speak, for obeying and living the gospel.
Sign seekers are usually not converted by some miracle no matter how great it might be, or if converted, they soon fall back into their old sinful life.
My life has been one of miracles. My family are not noted for longevity yet my Patriarchal blessing and another blessing promised that my life would be prolonged upon the earth. At 96 this has surely been fulfilled. I hesitate to tell about these for fear that it might sound like boasting. Yet I feel that I should briefly mention some of them that the glory and praise may reflect upon the power of God. For it is nothing that I did for I am as weak and mortal as a man could be. Here are some excerpts from the first few pages of my auto-biography Vol. II
“Thy life will be prolonged upon the earth and whether in the spirit body or mortal body. I know not but thou shalt go out to meet the Savior at his coming and shall see the wicked as they are burned as stubble. Thy heart shall cry out in lamentations over them.” Patriarchal blessing 1928. The Patriarch was a total stranger and I was fifteen years old.
In being set apart for a mission, the Stake President prophesied, “You will be strong and the youthful vigor which you now manifest (68 years old) will be renewed and renewed, and renewed, for the Lord has need of you, and he will use you all the days of your life until that sweet death which shall come to you shall actually be at your beck and call and you shall desire to enter the kingdom and it shall be granted you. Until that time you are to be engaged in the work of the ministry.” still quoting from my journal, “Now twenty years later, November 16, 2002, all has been fulfilled except, sweet death to come at my call. But I still have a work to do to get every member of our large and expanding family sealed into the family and obeying the law that will keep us together eternally.”
No these promises of long life are especially remarkable when I review my past and the many close calls I have had with death. Looking back 96 years I can come up with more than a life saving miracle per year. Many more.
This baby is dead pronounced the doctor as he handed my blue, lifeless body to the mid-wife and my grandmother. While he turned back to try and staunch the bleeding that was rapidly taking my mother away.
But grandma wasn’t about to let her first born grandchild perish and using mid-wife magic she finally got me breathing.
I spent the early years of my life far removed from doctors on an isolated ranch in central Washington. We knew nothing of sanitation. Our drinking water was dipped from the creek which ran thru everyone’s corral. We lived “fur” down the stream. Our water was potent in deed.
When we got sick or hurt, we lived or died. My 9 year old sister died of appendicitis. I was then 13.
Cuts that would take many stitches were wrapped up tight and the victim went back to work. I can show several scars. To take a bath was a struggle and happened infrequently. Although in our own home it was a Saturday night ritual, most Saturdays. But when the temperature ranged 20-30 degrees below zero with a strong North wind, taking a bath was not very high on the list,
Water in our semi-arid grazing land was always a sought after luxury. One would ride miles out of ones way to drink at a spring of water only to find it dried up until there would only be a seep which filled the two inch deep cow tracks and that cupful of water was swarming with marine life. One flopped down on one’s belly, closed his teeth tight and sucked up every drop, usually taking two or three cow-tracks full to satisfy one’s thirst.
One hot afternoon riding up a small creek, so terribly thirsty, I was finally forced to drink from the creek which resembled a bog, thick as mush. A few hundred feet upstream I came upon a herd of wild hogs rooting and wallowing in the water.
Flies, flies, flies, we had a super abundance of flies.
With no refrigeration food poisoning was a constant threat.
Bed bugs and ticks were a blight. How did we survive, I don’t know! Except the God of us all was watching over us. We didn’t seem to get sick much and soon recovered when we did, except for my sister.
Well I survived those days only to have my life repeatedly threatened with violence from man, beasts, nature and machines. I will mention only a few that my 96 year old memory can recall. But no details, except for two, however some are detailed in my autobiography Vol. I
I’ve heard the gifts of tongues several times and it is so natural that you are not even aware that it’s going on. Several times in the Gilbert Islands, I experienced it. I would forget to stop for the translator until suddenly I would remember and turn to him to give the translation to the people. His answer would be, “I don’t need to translate, they understand perfectly.”
But a choice experience happened right here in our home. A 30 year old lady, just arrived from her home land spoke no English was brought to our house. She was from Vietnam , she knew nothing of the gospel and had not even heard of Jesus Christ. I gave the first lesson thru a translator when she came back for the second lesson she had no need for a translator and the only time he was used was when I needed to know what she was saying. It wasn’t long until she spoke excellent English, married and had three sons and was a Relief Society President in Ogden, UT.
The story I’m going to tell now is so unbelievable that I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t lived it.
The “creek” was having a picnic on the banks of the mighty Columbia River, only three other rivers in the world are larger. At our picnic site where the Colockum Creek entered the river it was at least half mile wide of roaring tumbling water.
A sudden treacherous undertow drew me out into the main stream. My Dad and Uncle Lawrence Folsom hastened to my rescue. Neither were strong swimmers and no one had ever been known to swim across the river at that point.
Soon they were in trouble as they alternated trying to hold my now unconscious body up. On a small sandbar at the creeks mouth four men sat on a log and watched. My diminutive Aunt Daisy, about 125 pounds, begged the men to do something.
Their answer, “sorry lady their “goners” we’re not going to join them.” then she spotted a large tree complete with roots and branches partly buried in the sand probably washed down from Canada.
She ran to the men and begged them to launch the tree into the stream with the hopes somehow it would reach us. They laughed at her and pointed out there was no way that tree was going to find us out in that raging torrent.
MIRACLE #1. She launched it herself. MIRACLE #2. Like an arrow shot from a bow it came straight to us. The exhausted men were able to secure me between some of the limbs and clinging to the same for support the three bounced on down the river.
While on that tiny beach where there had been no sigh of a boat, MIRACLE #3. Suddenly there was a small two man rowboat with one set of oars. Again the men were appealed to, please just one of you get in that boat and go get them, more derisive laughter.
Just then two boys walked up, 15 year old Beryl Goodwin and a stranger about the same age. They immediately launched the boat and with little or no experience pointed it our way. MIRACLE # 4, again as tho self propelled it darted across the waves right to us now about half mile downstream and the sound of the Wanapum rapids a mile below which would have drowned us all.
I was soon transferred to the boat and Dad and Uncle Lawrence clung to the sides as inexperienced Beryl headed for shore. Where I was revived and after a bit we were able to walk back the mile or so to the picnic which ended for sure and everyone went home.
Another time, a mad bull charged me, his head low, nose tucked down, horns straight out about belt buckle level and he’s roaring like a lion.
As he passed my horse he just made a sideswipe with one horn, ripped the whole side of the horse open and his insides fell outside onto the ground.
Making me very angry, I charged the charging bull with a pitchfork held like a bayonet.
We met at the fence of woven wire between us. The tines of the fork smacked him right between
the eyes. A mighty roar and shake of his massive head ripped out the fence and it and the pitch fork went sailing out into the wild blue yonder.
His horns were right at my belly. Only I wasn’t there. Some unseen power, that I call the Spirit of the Lord, picked me up and carried me about a hundred feet away and deposited me on top of a 15 foot high stack of hay. I had no sensation of being moved. I faced disembowelment and a split second later I’m out of harms way. Only the POWER OF GOD could have done it.
The bull was frantically running around trying to figure where I had gone. It was as if he was saying, “Where did he go? I had him dead center, what happened?”
Then I was changed back to reality hearing my five and three year old daughters playing on the other side of the haystack.
Something had to be done quick, the bull looked the other way, I slid off the stack, opened a corral gate and bellowed at him. He charged me again, I side stepped and slammed the gate. Took the girls to the house, got my rifle, led that poor horse about half mile away, dragging his insides and put him out of his misery. Came back to the corral and the bull was dead.
Another time, It was at this same site that I was “feeding” the hay thru a chopper, a series of belts, wheels, and sharp knives. I don’t know what happened, it happened so fast. But the machinery grabbed the front of my clothes and in a flash snatched them off my body, splitting my heavy coat, shirt and underwear right down the back. And left me shivering with only pants on.
At the age of twenty and again at twenty five I was the victim in an attempted murder, because I was a Mormon. Miraculously I survived, tho some blood was shed, not all of it was mine. Logs have rolled over me. A large bob-sled load of hay tipped over with me beneath. At least five times I have escaped from the fangs of rattlesnakes. Scorpions have stung me more than once, a four inch long centipede stung me and made me very sick for two weeks, stung over fifty times on the head and face by black mud wasps. It should have killed me. Stung many times by honey bees and wasps, escaped from a rabid rabbit, a mad dog leaped for my throat. At least five times I’ve been saved from the horns of wild bulls.
As a carpenter and commercial fruit picker I have fallen from a height of ten feet or more innumerable times. Fifty percent of falls from that height are fatal and the rest have broken bones, I’ve never had a broken bone.
Revelations, healings, visions, I haven’t even mentioned, but have had many experiences with them also.
The point is, the gifts spoken of in the 7th article of faith are real. We have a loving Heavenly Father whom we can put our trust in and we can be blessed by the gifts mentioned.
All my love,
Dad, Grandpa, etc. Richard Pratt
Next month, look forward to article of faith #8 We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly. We also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.
