Talk given by Marjorie Kerns at Marji's baptism, 1 February 2020

Marji, in a few minutes your dad and other holders of the Priesthood will sit you down in a chair and give you the gift of the Holy Ghost.

The Holy Ghost teaches, protects, warns, comforts, brings peace, testifies of truth, and gives answers to your prayers, problems, and predicaments.

I want to tell you about four different instances when the Holy Ghost influenced me in four different ways.

1. My father worked for a wholesale grocery company in Baker that supplied grocery stores throughout the four counties in Eastern Oregon, from John Day to Enterprise.  Salesmen often called on him, and gave him free samples of new products that they wanted him to take home and try.  Their hope was that he would place orders, and stock the new product for sale at the grocery stores that he supplied.

One day he came home with a pack of cigarettes that a salesman had given him.  He had never smoked a cigarette in his life, but his neighbor was a smoker.  His intention was to give that pack of cigarettes to our neighbor.  I remember that pack of cigarettes lying on the drainboard of our kitchen sink for several days.

Perhaps four years went by.  I turned 12, and went into Young Women.  A dance was coming up.  It would be the first dance that I could go to.  We were to dress in Western attire, and were to invite a friend.  I was excited.  I invited my non-member friend, Jo Ann.  I got my Western outfit gathered, but Jo Ann didn't have anything for hers.  My mother thought that there was a pair of cowboy boots in a trunk upstairs that she might use.  So we went upstairs and went through the trunk.  It mostly contained my older sisters' old formals.  Jo Ann and I had a wonderful time trying on all of the clothes that we found in the trunk.

But at the bottom of the trunk, I found that pack of cigarettes!  We don't know how it got there.  I tossed it into Jo Ann's lap, and facetiously said, "This is our lucky day.  We can have a smoke."  I immediately felt stupid for saying that because I was setting Jo Ann up to be embarrassed.  I looked over at her, and she was holding those cigarettes like she had a treasure.

"Should we?" she asked., "I've always wanted to just try one."

I was horrified.  My heart was beating.  Because I had exaggerated my comment,  I was surprised that she hadn't known that I was being facetious.  I didn't know what to do.  At that moment a voice clearly said, "Put a stop to this right now!"  I blurted out that I was only joking.  Jo Ann was embarrassed, but that was the end of the episode.  I've never forgotten that clear voice that I heard.  That was the Holy Ghost.

2. Later, Jo Ann and I were in high school, and we were both invited to a party at our girl friend's house.  We had a fun and noisy time dancing together.  Our friend's parents decided that they wanted to go somewhere quiet, and get something to eat.  They left.

Next door was a party being held by boys from the Catholic academy.  We didn't know them, but they invited us to come join them.  It was decided that we would go over if all the girls agreed.  I got a panicky feeling.  I told myself that it would be OK since we were all together, but I couldn't fight down my panic.  I went into a bedroom, called my father, and asked him to come get me.  I told Jo Ann that I was leaving, and that she could come with me if she wanted to.  I didn't tell anyone else that I was leaving.  I just disappeared.  Jo Ann decided to stay.

The next day Jo Ann said, "Tell me how you knew!  I want to know how you knew that was going to be a bad situation."  The girls went over there, the boys were drinking, some boys and girls paired off, and some girls were upset because no one paired off with them.  "I want to know how you knew," Jo Ann said.

The pity of the whole thing is that I wasn't able to tell her.  I hadn't had enough experience with the Spirit to be able to tell her that the Holy Ghost had warned me.  Those uneasy feelings were from the Holy Ghost.

3. In the next story I was a young mother.  Katie was a new baby, and Nathan was two years old.  He always helped me wash the dishes.  As I washed, he stood on a chair at the sink, played with the cups, and poured water back and forth.  I heard Katie stir in the back bedroom, so I wiped my hands, told Nathan to be careful and not fall off the chair, and walked through the living room to get Katie.  On the way through the living room, a picture came into my mind of Nathan falling off the chair, and of a knife going into his eye.  I turned right around and went back into the kitchen.  Nathan was leaning over into the next sink, and had grabbed a knife.

We didn't know it at the time, but Nathan only had one good eye.  In the picture that came into my mind, the knife was going into his good eye.  I am so grateful that the Holy Ghost showed me what was going to happen, and that I was able to appropriately respond.

4. Later, when Nathan was a young boy, we had neighbors just down the hill who had a boy his same age.  They often played together at one another's houses.  On one occasion Nathan was down at the neighbor's house when I became very agitated.  I was agitated about Nathan.  I didn't know why.  I told myself that the boy's mother was there, and that everything was fine; but I became so agitated that I could think of nothing else but Nathan.  James came home just then, and I told him about my agitation.  He said, "Maybe that's the Holy Ghost speaking to you."  He went right down and got Nathan.  We never knew what bad thing we saved him from.  That's probably the way most warnings from the Holy Ghost work out when we respond.

As we get better at understanding the messages that come to us from the Holy Ghost, and as we get better at responding, the Holy Ghost knows that He can trust us, and speaks to us more often.  The messages come to us in different ways.

Someday you're going to be a mother, Marji.  You need to learn how to hear and use this gift that you're going to be given.  A mother can not be without the gift of the Holy Ghost.

Parenthetically, I believe that the Holy Ghost is whispering to me to add yet another story here that Marjorie chose to not tell in this setting.  There are many other similar stories that she could tell for the benefit of our posterity.  Truly a mother can not be without the gift of the Holy Ghost.  Pity the children whose mothers are not in tune with the Spirit.

One morning Marjorie became very upset and agitated about one of her daughters.  All of the children had gone off to school as usual.  There was no reason to think that anything was other than normal, but she was so upset that she insisted that I go to the school and bring the girl home.  I went to the school office, and was informed that she was not there!  She was absent!  She had never arrived at the school.  Just try to imagine what that announcement did to this father!

I did some fast thinking, and asked where the home was of the young man in whom my daughter thought she might be interested.  I went to the home, and knocked on the door.  No one answered.  Not knowing where else to look, I walked around the side of the house to the back yard, and was relieved to see my daughter and the young man sitting and talking to one another.  They were surprised to see me walk into the yard, but my daughter was calm and unembarrassed.  She readily came with me, and we returned home.  She explained that she was only doing what her mother had once done.  Marjorie and the girl that she did everything with had decided one day in their senior year to skip school.  They drove Marjorie's green jeep up into the hills, and spent a fun and carefree day.  That was what my daughter thought that she was going to do, too; but based upon the messages that the Holy Ghost was sending to Marjorie, that is not at all the way the day was going to play out.

A mother can not be without the gift of the Holy Ghost.  Pity the children (and their parents) whose mothers are not in tune with the Spirit.