I am honored and privileged to hold the holy Melchizedek Priesthood.  I can hardly believe it.  Me, of all people!  This is the same power and authority used by our Savior to create worlds and to heal the sick.  He trusts me to hold and to use His power.

And what a power it is!  I am aghast as I think what the Priesthood has done in my experience and for my family.

Just last week Marjorie endured a week of coughing.  I became worried about her.  Years ago she had a similar episode which turned into pleurisy, an inflammation of the lining of the heart.  Were we going to have to seek medical help?  Was she in need of an antibiotic?

The Tuesday morning before Thanksgiving she arose coughing.  It was continuous.  She couldn't quit.  Ivy was to arrive that afternoon with her family for a four-day visit.  Marjorie suggested that I call her and tell her not to come.  She didn't want to pass the disease to them.

Rather than call Ivy, I went in my bedroom and put on my suit.  I gave Marjorie a priesthood blessing.  By actual count, I thereafter heard just two half-hearted, unnecessary coughs.  She was done.  It was just that dramatic.

Last summer, while fasting, Aaron and I laid our hands on the head of his crippled and headache-afflicted daughter, Ellen, and rebuked the illness that had incapacitated her for eight months.  She was told that her headaches would dissipate, and that she would walk and run.  Following dinner she discovered that she could walk.  She was surprised.  She exclaimed, “It doesn't hurt!”  She is now back in school and playing soccer.  It was a miracle.

Marjorie and I came home three months early from our mission to Vanuatu.  We thought that we had a medical emergency developing because of a swelling above her left breast.  Our bishop and the stake president's counselor, our doctor friends, both advised us to “come home ASAP” when they saw the pictures that I sent them.  The swelling turned out to be benign, and nothing to worry about.

However, I came to realize that our coming home when we did had another purpose.  In His foresight the Lord knew that we were needed at home.  Our arrival was divinely inspired and orchestrated.  It put us where we would hear the emergency vehicles come screaming up the road and turn into Adam's driveway two weeks later.  I jumped in my car and was right behind them.  The Emergency Medical Technician and I joined Ori who was kneeling on the lawn over Thomas' purple and lifeless body.  As they did CPR I placed my hands on his head and commanded him to live.  He took a gasping breath.  And then another.  And suddenly there was a helicopter there, and he and Ori were on their way to Boise.

I quote now from Adam's journal:

“When Thomas was a little toddler he fell into the pond next to our house.  Nobody knows how long he was there when the kids discovered him.  He was unconscious and not breathing.

“I have no doubt that the priesthood blessing his grandpa gave is the reason Thomas is still here with us.  The experience is traumatic and sacred, and to this day we rarely discuss it.  Only once did Ori and I sit down and talk through the whole ordeal, and that was several years after it happened.

“For the sake of my posterity I will say Thomas was dead, and by the power of God was brought back to us without any lasting ill effects.”

Nearly every week I have the privilege of using my Priesthood to give patriarchal blessings.  I tell the recipients that what they're about to receive will become sacred, personal scripture.  These blessings come from my mouth, but they're not from me.  I am amazed that the Lord trusts me to do this.

The real miracle of the Priesthood which I hold is that it is what enabled my family.  Because of my Priesthood I was able to take Marjorie to the temple and have her sealed to me for time and for all eternity.  That opened the floodgates so that 10 amazing children could be sent to us.  Each of them has now been sealed to their companions, and they have given us 56 sealed grandchildren.  They are all faithful in the gospel, and we are all on the path to eternal life and togetherness.

This is the true miracle of the Priesthood.  I am deeply grateful for it.  I work every day to be worthy to carry it, to hold it, and to use it.