The very, very most difficult time of my life lasted from September 1965 through October 1966.

I graduated from high school in May 1965, and went off to college at Oregon State University in September.  I was very homesick.  Then the rains set in.  Day after day the rains came down.  It was dark and gloomy.  I never, ever saw the sun.  Corvallis set a new record that year with 120 straight days of rain.

I endured.  Despite my gloom, I made good grades.  I made it through the year, and spent a miserable summer at home as I anticipated having to go back to Corvallis in the fall.  Fall arrived, and I dutifully returned to school.  I stayed one month.  A psychological situation set in wherein I couldn’t open a book.  Not once did I do so.  I intended to, but I just couldn’t.

I waited until the last day to drop classes without penalty, and did so.  I dropped them all, and called my parents to say that I was coming home.  Calling them was the most difficult thing I’ve ever done.  My life and emotions were at the very, rock bottom.

I loaded up my car, and set off for home.  My chosen route was to go up over the Cascade Mountains and through Central Oregon.  As I neared the summit, it began to snow.  Huge, thick snowflakes fell in the morning light against a backdrop of dark evergreen trees.  The scene was incredibly beautiful.  I was awestruck.  I pulled over to the side of the road and stopped to watch the falling snow.

That beautiful sight triggered something inside me.  I began to pray.  I’d never before talked directly to God.  Out loud I thanked Him for what I was seeing.  I then began telling Him all about my problems.  I held nothing back.  I told Him everything.  I needed help.  There was nowhere else to turn.  The words just came pouring out.

I started the car and continued my journey.  The prayer continued.  I crossed the summit and began descending the mountain.  The snowstorm changed to a gentle rain.  An incredibly brilliant rainbow appeared.  I thanked God for this second beautiful sight, and continued praying.

Seeing the rainbow brought back a memory.  I was a six-year-old boy on our farm.  My father told me that if I dug at the end of the rainbow, I’d find a pot of gold.  I believed him.  My parents were always worrying about finances.  Why didn’t they just dig at the end of the rainbow and get the gold?  Their worries would be over.  Since they weren’t doing it, I’d do it for them.

I placed a shovel on the steps by the back door so that I wouldn’t have to waste time looking for one the next time a rainbow appeared.  I knew enough about rainbows to know that they don’t last long.  I’d have to hurry, or I’d lose my chance.

I waited.  It was weeks before a rainbow finally appeared on our property.  The left end of the bow was in the field east of our house.  I was very excited.  I grabbed my shovel and ran.  My eyes were glued on the end of that rainbow.  Wouldn’t my parents be surprised when I came home lugging a pot of gold!  I ran as fast as I could.

My speed started to lag as a lesson about rainbows began to set in.  The rainbow seemed to be moving!  It seemed to stay just a certain distance ahead of me.  If I approached it slowly, it slowly moved away.  If I held still, it held still.  Eventually it moved across the fence into the neighbor’s field where I couldn’t trespass.  I had no idea where to dig.

I was a sad and disappointed boy as I walked back to the house with my shovel.  I was probably embarrassed, too, because I never told a soul what I’d done or what I’d learned.

I learned that you can’t catch rainbows.

Driving down the highway in the Cascade Mountains and across Central Oregon, I thought about that childhood experience.  The incredibly brilliant rainbow ahead of me would sometimes be on the right hand side of the road.  The road would make a big bend, and then the rainbow would be on my left.  The road turned again, and the bow would make a perfect arch over the highway.  It looked possible to drive right under the arch.  In typical rainbow fashion, though, it stayed a predetermined distance ahead of me.

And stay it did.  The rainbow never dimmed.  Not once.  It was always complete, from one end to the other.  The gentle rain continued.  Despite the clouds, I never left the sunshine, and the rainbow never left me.

My out-loud prayer continued.  I thanked God over and over for this beautiful sight.  I emptied my soul to Him.  I pleaded for help.

I calculated later that this prayer, the gentle rain, the beam of sunlight that I drove in, and the brilliant rainbow lasted for approximately 200 miles and four hours.  The improbability of those things happening is incalculable.

As I entered my home county of Baker, somewhere in the vicinity of Unity reservoir, it suddenly began to rain very hard.  The sun still shone.  I rounded a curve, and something happened that had never before occurred in the history of mankind.

I caught the rainbow!

Had my window been open, I could have stuck my arm right out into the rainbow.  I was flabbergasted.  It was as if a voice had spoken to me.  The words were perfectly clear:

“Everything is going to be all right.”

I was shaking.  For the second time that trip I pulled over to the side of the road and stopped.  No sooner had I done so, however, than I realized that the rainbow was leaving me.  I started up again, but the rainbow was gone.  The message had been delivered.

In the next days I made a trip to Provo, Utah to see my girlfriend.  Margie was a student at Brigham Young University.  I attended church with her there.  The meeting was a fast and testimony meeting.  I was very impressed as student after student went forward and waited for a turn to bear their testimonies and express gratitude for their blessings.  They were all happy.  They were all clean-cut and shiny.

Margie had five roommates.  They were all there in the apartment after church, along with the returned-missionary boyfriend of one of them.  Seeing his opportunity, he gave me a first discussion right then and there.  It was very embarrassing to be taught and grilled in front of the six girls as they quietly listened and observed.

But a really, really wonderful thing came out of that discussion.  The young man turned to Margie and asked if she had a copy of the Book of Mormon that she could give me.  In my mind’s eye I can still see that moment as Margie ran into her bedroom and emerged with her own light-blue, paperback copy of the book.  I reverently took it; paged through it; discovered that it was her own, personal, underlined copy; protested that she needed it for her Book of Mormon class; and gratefully accepted it when she assured me that she could easily get another.

I went home with a treasure.  I’d wanted a Book of Mormon for a long time.  No one had ever offered me one, and I was afraid to ask.  I thought it might be a secret book that only the initiated could have.

I reverently set the book upright on the desk in my bedroom at home.  It stood there where I could see it—untouched—for two weeks.  I was savoring the moments.  I knew that when I opened the book, I was going to have an experience.

Finally, I took the book and began to read.  Something happened inside me.  As I read I could literally feel the darkness in my head being pushed aside.  Light was taking its place.  All I wanted to do was read.  It was hard to have to go to work.  I helped Dad feed the cattle, and couldn’t wait to get back home where I could shut myself in the bedroom and read.

My thoughts and soul just soared.  For the first time in what seemed like forever, I was happy.

It was January 9, 1967 that I knelt in the middle of my bedroom in the northwest corner of the house where I now live, and told Heavenly Father that I knew the book was true, and that I wanted to be baptized and become a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

I began a campaign to be worthy.  I set about putting everything in my life in order.  I finished the Book of Mormon, and began reading the Doctrine and Covenants.  I asked Margie’s father if he would baptize me, and what I needed to do to be ready.  He told me that I’d have to take the missionary discussions.

I hadn’t wanted to meet with the missionaries because I didn’t want to have someone who was smarter than me convincing me about something I didn’t want to be convinced about.  Now that I knew the Church was true, I was ready.

I found out where the missionaries lived, and knocked on their door one evening.  Both Elders Pace and Sullivan came to the door where I delivered my well-rehearsed speech:

“Hi, I’m James Kerns.  I’d like to hear your discussions so that I can be baptized.  You don’t need to worry about me.  I won’t give you any trouble.  I’ve already read the Book of Mormon and know that it’s true.”

I’d heard how missionaries were sometimes treated badly.  That’s why I told them I wouldn’t give them any trouble.

In later years I’ve wondered about the reaction the elders had after they’d closed their door.  They’d probably spent the day fruitlessly knocking on doors.  How many times during a person’s mission does someone come knocking on the missionaries’ door asking to be baptized?

By the time my scheduled baptism date arrived I had finished the missionary discussions, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, had repented of all my sins, and had put my life in order.

At my request Margie came home from college to play the piano at my baptism.  As a special musical number I asked her to play “Clair de Lune.”  My future father-in-law, Dave Hunt, baptized me.  The date was 4 March 1967.  It was a perfect evening.  I visualized all my sins going down the drain with the baptismal water.  I was totally clean!

I went home with Margie to her house.  We sat on the couch in her living room where I cried.  I felt so good.  I was clean!

Thirteen days later found me in Navy boot camp in San Diego, California.  I had signed up for the Navy four months earlier.  My friend, Terry Fisher, had called to say that there were two openings in Boise for enlisting in the Navy, and asked if we should take them.  I was no longer a student; was, therefore, eligible for the draft; would be drafted into the Army; and would be sent to Vietnam where I’d be killed.  So I responded, “Why not?”

Boot camp should have been a horrible experience—worse than college—but it wasn’t.  While everyone else was griping about the “hole” they were in, I was marching around “the grinder” feeling a sense of euphoria.  I was having prayers answered on a daily basis.  It was a whole, new world.  I was a whole, new person.

I selected the top bunk at the end of the row, in the corner of our barracks.  Our bunks had to be neatly and perfectly made each morning before we left the barracks.  It was against the rules to lie on our bunks during any free time we might have during the day.

So while the other 59 men in my company sat at the long tables in the center of the barracks griping and complaining, I stood at my bunk in the corner and read the New Testament.  I had tried to read it many times before, but I just couldn’t understand it.  Having first read the Book of Mormon, and now possessing the gift of the Holy Ghost, the New Testament became perfectly understandable.  I read the entire New Testament in boot camp while standing beside my bunk.

The first Sunday in boot camp they offered us the choice of going to either Catholic or Protestant services.  I went with the Protestant boys; but the services were foreign, and I was uncomfortable.

That week I found out that there were LDS services available, too.  I requested permission from my company commander to go.  I was the only Latter-day Saint in my company, so he was reluctant, but ultimately had to let me go.  Any recruit going somewhere alone was required to “double time.”  Therefore, I ran to church.  It was nice to be able to meet with other Latter-day Saints.  At the services I learned that there were three Latter-day Saints in the company next door to mine, so on all future Sundays I was able to meet up with them so that we could march together to church.

I was an oddity to my fellow sailors: (“A Mormon?—You’re the people who wear black aren’t you?”)  I preferred to stand in the corner and read my Bible rather than engage in sailor talk, went to church alone, and was always happy.  I was probably the subject of many conversations.  In the end they voted me the company’s outstanding recruit.  That necessitated my appearing before a board of three officers who interviewed each outstanding recruit from every company.  The board focused in on the facts that I was a farm boy, and that I’d joined the LDS Church all on my own.  Nearly every question they asked went toward those two areas of my life.  I was chosen as the outstanding recruit from the 25 companies and 1500 men who graduated with me.

On the last Sunday in camp, the men were given the choice of attending a church service or of doing some unpleasant duty.  Most of them decided they wanted to go to church with me.  That Sunday I marched 27 men to LDS church services.

I spent the next two years on an Army base in Monterey, California, an Air Force base in San Angelo, Texas, and a Naval base in Yokosuka, Japan.  At each of these stations I was new, lost, and nervous until the first Sunday arrived.  I’d then attend church where I’d meet people and receive invitations to dinner and to their homes.  At those homes I always gravitated to the family library, and ended up asking to borrow a book.  I had an unquenchable thirst for gospel knowledge.  I read dozens of church books on every topic.

Two and a half years after my baptism Margie and I were married in the Salt Lake Temple.  We’ve lived happily ever after.  The happiest part of our ever-aftering is our 10 children, their spouses, and our numerous grandchildren.

I caught the rainbow.  Not only that, but I found the pot of gold at the end.  The pot of gold was the Book of Mormon, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the incredibly wonderful, eternal family that the Church has given me.