How the Holy Ghost Matched These 7 Couples
Amidst the flurry of internet dating sites and social media networks promising 21st century romances, there remains a constant, sure, true guide, the Holy Ghost. Since God declared that His work and glory is man’s “immortality and eternal life” (Moses 1:39), our efforts to find an eternal companion are certainly augmented by His direction and guidance.
The companionship of the Holy Ghost is one of Heavenly Father’s greatest gifts to us. Knowing how the Holy Ghost speaks to us and living worthy of His promptings is one of our great obligations. And, so worth every effort.
Elder David A. Bednar discussed ways we prepare for and receive the Holy Ghost’s revelations.
Revelations are conveyed in a variety of ways, including, for example, dreams, visions, conversations with heavenly messengers, and inspiration.
As you appropriately seek for and apply unto the spirit of revelation, I promise you will “walk in the light of the Lord” (Isaiah 2:5). Sometimes the spirit of revelation will operate immediately and intensely, other times subtly and gradually, and often so delicately you may not even consciously recognize it.
But regardless of the pattern whereby this blessing is received, the light it provides will illuminate and enlarge your soul, enlighten your understanding, and direct and protect you.
We invite the Holy Ghost into our lives through meaningful personal and family prayer, feasting upon the words of Christ, diligent and exacting obedience, faithfulness and honoring of covenants, and through virtue, humility, and service.
As we journey through life, especially during critical junctures, as we seek the Holy Ghost’s guidance, we will receive it.
Lindsey & Tanis – Promptings and Priesthood Blessings
“As you appropriately seek for and apply unto the spirit of revelation, you will ‘walk in the light of the Lord.'”
After breaking off an engagement two years ago, I was pretty sure I was going to be graduating single, since I was in my second to last semester of college. I decided I wanted to have a “next step” planned in my life, and I started working on mission papers.
Every time I pulled them out to work on them, I would get this sickening feeling. It was exceptionally frustrating! I knew a mission was a good desire, and I couldn’t understand why it was making me feel so bad!
After about 4 months of trying to work on my papers, I was studying with one of my friends, and she invited me to go bowling. I accepted, and it turned out to be a big group!
There, I met Tanis. There was nothing terribly exciting that happened that night, but we started talking and found out that we both play tennis. He got my number and we decided to play that next week! Shortly after that, we started officially dating. When I was with Tanis, I felt so wonderful. I felt happy, and things felt right.
We had only been dating about a month, and he was going to meet my family. I kind of freaked out, and I was going to break up with Tanis, but I felt I should get a priesthood blessing. I don’t remember much about the blessing, except that it said, “You know what you know, you know what you should do.”
I knew that Tanis was too good to pass up. From that point on, I decided to move forward with confidence, and I had the spirit affirming it the entire way.
I had never gotten such positive feelings when praying about a decision. I just knew that we were supposed to be together. We got married exactly 6 months after the day we met!
I know that had I not listened to the Holy Ghost, I probably would have gone on a mission, or if not, then I would have broken up with Tanis when I freaked out. (Or I could have even married my previous fiancé.) I am so grateful for the Holy Ghost guiding me in such an eternal decision.
Jere’ & Shayne – Promptings and Visions
“Revelations are conveyed in a variety of ways, including visions.”
Shayne has a great story of how we came to be.
One day his Latter-day Saint friend, Tom Kimball, walked up to him in the TA office at Texas Tech, and said “Shayne, I just had a vision. You are going to become a member of the Church and you are going to marry Jere’ Hill.” Then Tom walked off. That was it.
At this point, Shayne and I hadn’t said more than a few friendly exchanges, much less been on a date! Six weeks later we had our first date. The next month, he was baptized. And four months later, we were married!
Christine & Alva – Prompting to Wait for a Missionary
“We invite the Holy Ghost’s impressions into our lives through meaningful personal prayer.”
My hubby and I met in Hawaii while I was there on vacation. After I returned home, we wrote for a time. When he received his mission call, he wrote to let me know.
That’s when the Holy Ghost entered the picture. “Something” kept telling me I should wait for him. But I kept saying, “Nah.”
Then something my uncle said struck a nerve. I don’t remember his exact words. I guess I was telling him I’m too old to wait for a missionary — I was about 25 then! He basically said, “Why not?”
That question bounced around my head enough that that night I got down on my knees and prayed about it, sort of. What I asked was, “Heavenly Father, you don’t want me to wait for him do you?”
The answer that came to me by way of the Holy Ghost, was “Yes!” So I did.
I know I wouldn’t have officially waited if it had not been for the answer I received to my prayer. My feeling was that If I was still around and single when he came home, Then I would marry him.
But Heavenly Father did not see it the same way. Those two years was actually a memorable time in my life. He and I shared some wonderful letters. I did splits with the sister missionaries, taught Young Women, and joined a Church Young Adult performing group.
From that time of my life, I learned that Heavenly Father has His own timetable for us. The challenge, of course, is gaining the needed patience.
Tricia & Jason – Prompting to Introduce Herself
“We invite the Holy Ghost into our lives through faithfulness and service.”
I was playing the organ as prelude for Sacrament Meeting, when a man with a boy walked in. It hit me that I needed to meet him. We became the best of friends and were married 4 months later.
We will be celebrating our 22nd anniversary in January. I was not looking for a relationship at the time and neither was my husband.
I would have never pursued my husband had the Holy Ghost not hit me with the knowledge that I needed to meet him.
Gale & Bud – Prompting about Future Husband
“The light the Holy Ghost provides will enlighten your understanding and direct you.”
I joined the Church at age 16, the only member in our family. I liked a boy in the ward where I was baptized, and although my parents were against letting me be baptized, they relented, because they thought it would be a temporary thing. When I found a new boyfriend, I’d find a new church…and so on.
When it came time for me to go to college, they were wary, because they knew a lot of young people meet the person they will marry in school. I wanted to attend BYU, but my parents wouldn’t allow it. I applied to Stanford and UCSB, but wasn’t accepted to Stanford. UCSB was a huge party school, and I had these new, Mormon, standards. But my parents said if I didn’t like it, I could transfer after a year.
I went up to school early for freshman orientation. School hadn’t even started yet, and I was already very concerned about the huge challenge to my faith and behavior. At UCSB guys would just ask you out at first sight, so I had a date to the first dance, a welcome dance, before classes even started. I expressed my frustrations to my date. “Do you know any Mormons? I need to meet some Mormons.”
“I do know a Mormon,” he said. “I roomed with one. He’s a really good guy, but he knows his way around. In fact, he’s here at the dance. I can introduce you.”
He guided me across the dance floor, and as we went, I had the strangest spiritual experience. I knew I was about to meet my future husband. I was having this mental conversation with God, and when I saw Bud, I said to Heavenly Father, “But Father, he can’t dance!”
Bud was very popular, and he liked another girl, and was not immediately impressed with me. A devoted surfer, he was about to leave on a 30-month mission at the age of 23. When he was about to leave, since he wasn’t giving me much encouragement, I prayed about “waiting” for him. The Holy Ghost gave me a very specific answer: “He’s going to be the father of your children.”
I received very little mail or encouragement from him — the Lord wanted him to focus fully on his mission. But as soon as he got home, the Holy Ghost grabbed him, and he obviously saw me with new, enlightened eyes. He got home in September. I went up to BYU, while he worked in California. I went home at Halloween, and he proposed. We were married in the Los Angeles Temple in January.
Cassie & Jacob – Prompting to Apply to School
“We invite the Holy Ghost into our lives through diligent and exacting obedience.”
I went to BYU 100% sure that I would major in nursing. I pursued that dream single mindedly. And yet despite good grades and lots of extracurricular activities, I was denied entrance into nursing school. I was rejected 4 different times by BYU and 2 different times by schools around the nation — EXCEPT for Texas Tech.
When I got my acceptance letter, I was thrilled. I was finally going to stop stagnating and pursue my dream. I had to pay $100 as an acceptance which I promptly did. At that time, I waitressed summers for money and worked random jobs while in school. $100 was a LOT of money. In fact, it was half of my rent at the time.
Yet about 1 month before nursing school was supposed to begin, I knew that I couldn’t go to Tech. I knew that I needed to go ahead and stay at BYU.
Meanwhile in Midland, Texas, my future husband had finished an Associate’s Degree at Midland Community College and was headed to Texas Tech to pursue a degree in Petroleum Engineering.
Before the move, he decided to head to Arlington with a friend to see a concert. During that trip, they decided to bag going to Tech and go to UT Arlington together instead. My husband changed his major to mechanical engineering (since UTA does not have petroleum engineering program) and headed to Arlington.
Back in Provo, I saw an advisor who informed me that I would be able to graduate with a degree in Sociology in 2 semesters if I petitioned to change my major and take a staggering 20 credits my first semester and 18 my second.
I changed my major and halfway through my 1st semester, I found out about a bachelor’s nursing program at TCU that would take a bachelor’s degree and in 16 months give you a second bachelor’s degree in nursing.
This was a VERY new program, but I went ahead and applied. One month before I graduated, I found out I was one of 20 students that had been accepted. I graduated from BYU in April and began nursing school in May at TCU.
TCU is located in Ft Worth, Texas, and at that time the singles ward I attended also included students from UTA.
The first time I met my husband I thought “I could marry him,” but he had a girlfriend. Thankfully that relationship ended shortly thereafter-— not because of me — and our relationship progressed quickly. We were married the following year in May.
With the benefit of hindsight, I can see how both of our lives were being directed. But at the time, there were lots of heart-breaking moments that I spent on my knees wondering why my righteous desires were being withheld from me.
I also know that I listened to many of the promptings that were given, even when they didn’t seem to be the logical or even the “best” choice. And because of that, the Holy Ghost helped me to find my eternal companion and get the education I desperately wanted. How blessed I feel that the Lord is in the details of our lives!
Patty Sampson’s Three Family Stories – Following Promptings
“Sometimes the spiritual impressions will operate immediately and intensely.”
Story One – Naomia and Cleo
My family has a story they tell about my grandmother. She had divorced my grandpa (who deserved it by marrying another woman in secret). And she was raising 3 kids alone.
The story goes that she was sitting in Sacrament Meeting one Sunday, and a gentleman got up to bear his testimony. The Holy Ghost whispered to her that here was the man who would be her Eternal Companion. She was delighted!
After the meeting she went up and introduced herself. And was greatly disappointed that he didn’t propose on the spot. They did get married, and he was the man who helped raise my Dad, and gave our family a legacy of fatherly support that still blesses us.
But Grandma had to wait a normal amount of time for that proposal.
Story Two – Aunt and Uncle
My Aunt was living in Arkansas after a divorce, and raising her children, when a kind missionary started helping her family. The Spirit whispered to her that he would take her to the temple one day.
So she kept in touch and they got married when he wasn’t a missionary any more. Their marriage didn’t last, but that was far from the Holy Ghost’s fault. He tried.
Story Three – Patty and Eric
My own love story was highly guided by the Holy Ghost. In my Patriarchal Blessing there are a lot of details about how I should live my life to meet my husband, and it describes the kind of man he would be.
When I was deciding on colleges I was living in Pennsylvania, and felt impressed that I should go to BYU-I. After getting my Associate’s, I was sitting in my counselor’s office discussing the next steps. And he handed me a brochure for SUU.
The spirit was SO strong that I HAD to attend there that I kind of panicked. I never wanted to live in Utah. To me, it was a land of lukewarm testimonies and cold people. But there was no denying that very firm impression. So I went!
I was delighted to find my ideas about Utah were way off base, and once I graduated, I decided I wanted to stay. I moved in with my cousin and started attending the local ward.
I had prayed about where to go, since I had a choice of 3 wards, but the Lord told me to “bloom where I was planted.” After attending my ward I got to know my husband —who lived a mile from my apartment!
The circumstances under which we met were exactly as outlined in my Patriarchal Blessing. And our home life and relationship have evolved just as that same blessing told me it would.
If I hadn’t followed the promptings to come to Utah, and attend that very ward, I would not have seen my Patriarchal Blessing promises realized.
It’s important to remember that every one has the opportunity to choose how and if he will respond to the Holy Ghost’s promptings. Even if a couple are inspired to marry each other, the marriage is just the journey’s beginning not a guaranteed outcome. But the Holy Ghost can continue to guide, prompt, and warn each couple along the journey.
God designed us to choose joyful, fulfilled lives. Meaningful, eternal relationships help accomplish His designs for us. How fortunate we are that we can access the Holy Ghost’s matchmaking inspiration warnings as we navigate through mortality.
