Vernon Jones was a heavy smoker.  He began smoking at the age of 10 when he and a young friend stole cigarettes from the store of his friend’s grandfather.  On one occasion they stole a pack of Chesterfields and took them to the outhouse where they intended to smoke the entire pack.  The grandfather saw smoke coming from the outhouse, caught them in the act, and put a stop to their pilfering.  This didn’t put a stop to their smoking, however.  Vernon smoked anything he could find or concoct.  “I smoked cedar bark wrapped in tissue paper.  I also smoked grape vines.  They were hollow.  I had to be careful not to burn my tongue.”

Smoking had been an integral part of Vernon’s life for as long as he could remember, since his father smoked, too.

In 1970, at the age of 39, Vernon bought a nuts and bolts business in New Mexico.  He was a good man, but had little interest in religion.  Over a period of time he was approached by the Baptists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Seventh-Day Adventists.  He declined to talk to them, “because they didn’t have anything to offer me.”  But he submitted to listen to a discussion from two sister missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  “I knew from that first discussion that they were teaching the truth, and that I had found the true Church,” he said.  The missionaries could tell that he was interested, and that he was understanding what he was being taught.  They insisted that he give them his cigarettes so that they could take them away and help him quit smoking.  Vernon balked at that.  No one was going to take his cigarettes away.  He had no more discussions.

A pair of LDS elders next tried to convert him, but again Vernon chose cigarettes over changing his life.  A second set of elders broke through his resolve.  They loved him, taught him, and finally announced that they were going to fast and pray until he was able to give up his habit and qualify himself for baptism.  This touched him.  Vernon had half a pack of Camel cigarettes left.  The elders didn’t ask to take them.  They left them with Vernon who determined that he was going to smoke those last cigarettes, and then never smoke again.

Quitting was extremely difficult.  It was all Vernon could do.  He loved Camel cigarettes; but he fought his cravings, and refrained from smoking.  A salesman came into his office, offered him a Camel cigarette from a new pack, smoked one himself, and left the almost full pack sitting on the desk when he left.

When Vernon went to test drive a new car, he found a brand new Camel cigarette sitting on the seat.  “It was all I could do to throw that cigarette out the window,” he said.

A store named “El Paso Hardware” was going out of business.  Vernon bought most of the store’s stock “for a price,” that he said, “was less than it cost me to have it shipped to my store.”  Much of the stock had been at El Paso Hardware for many years, and was put in the back room of Vernon’s store where it continued to sit for some time.

One day Vernon received an inquiry about some special bolts.   He thought that he had some among the stock he’d acquired from El Paso Hardware.  He rummaged through the stock, and found an old box labeled “Sheffield Bolts.”  Sheffield Bolts was a defunct company that had long ago gone out of business.  He’d never heard of it.  The box was covered with dust, and was still sealed with tape that was frayed with age.  Vernon cut open the box.  The bolts that he sought were in the box, black, and covered with dust.  Also in the box, however, was a brand new, unsoiled Camel cigarette.  “It was like there was a spotlight on it,” he recalls.  “I picked it up and smelled it.  The tobacco still smelled fresh.  Tobacco goes stale if it sits around, but this cigarette smelled fresh.”

“Satan isn’t very smart,” Vernon says.  “This was when I still madly wanted to smoke.  If Satan was smart, he’d have put a match there, too.  There wasn’t a match anywhere in that office or I’d have smoked that cigarette.  I know if I’d smoked that cigarette I wouldn’t be where I am today.  I’d be dead.”

Vernon subsequently served in an elders’ quorum presidency, a bishopric, and on a high council.  It took four years after his conversion in 1973 before he was completely over his craving for cigarettes.  He lost that craving on a plane trip.  He was flying standby, and was the last passenger admitted on the plane.  His seat was in the very rear.  After takeoff, the “No Smoking” light in the cabin went off.  Everyone around him lit up.  “The air around me was full of smoke,” Vernon said, “and it made me sicker than a dog.  I never desired another cigarette after that.”