I never thought to ask

“Hey Doug, do you want to go up Emigration Canyon to the house of a translated being and get a blessing?” my friend asked me.

It was the summer of 1999 and our daughter Denise was getting ready to do the coma thing a few months later. My friend had been up to this man’s home and declared he was legit, he was a translated being and gave great blessings. Since I had determined to be “open to other things” I told him I’d love to go to this man’s home.

I was amazed that this man drove old cars, not classics, just old. Upon meeting him I was told he was an attorney and knew all the Brethren. He left the room and I picked up a book where others that had come for blessings had signed their names. Much to my surprise I recognized more than a few of the names in the book.

Wow, I thought, if they came here this must be legit, or why else would they come? Maybe this guy really was what my friend claimed. As I think about it now, was I using those that I was familiar with as validation for my own desires and curiosities? Or had I just joined the herd and was now part of “group think” or the herd mentality? Should I have started “mooing” like a cow? Though I must admit that after seeing those familiar names I was a little excited to have this “translated being” lay his hands on my head.

He came in and talked to us for long while. He mentioned all the right names and his back ground. He was a little strange, just as I assumed a translated would be. I got my treasured blessing and went home happy. We all talked about the size of his hands, they were huge for such a small man. Surely another evidence of his translated state for sure.

I kept in contact with this man. A few months later Denise went into the coma. Later that evening I called and called his home to ask him to come to Primary Children’s Hospital to give Denise a blessing. The neurologists had pronounced that she wouldn’t last 24 hours and I thought a translated being could help. Wouldn’t you? I had already forgotten the blessing given on the way to the hospital by a man with true Priesthood.

After much effort I made contact with him and he immediately came up to PCMC. I took him into the NICU to where Denise was. I watched as the nurses parted like the Red Sea when he walked in. Some obviously knew him. I was highly impressed, just as I was when I was a young man and read how the crowd parted at the airport for President Kimball. Wow. He pulled the curtain around her bed and asked me stand outside while he did the blessing. I complied. He came out all red faced. Nevertheless I was very pleased to have had a translated being voice a blessing on our daughter.

Denise didn’t die, she woke up on day four as a ten-year-old baby and learned everything again – crawling, walking, eating, and talking, reading and such. Everything. I don’t remember crediting the translated being and his blessing on our daughter for her recovery, though maybe I did. You just don’t talk about these things to “church people”, do you?

We ended up interacting with this man on several more occasions and it became quite weird in my mind and with his actions. Finally I realized he was a fraud, was not a translated being, and had done much evil.

Upon realizing this I went to our daughter and told her he was an evil man and we were going to stay away from him from now on. What was her response?

“Boy Dad, it’s about time you understood that. I got tired of dealing with him waiting for you to get it. Did you know that blessing he gave me in the hospital was to kill me?”

You see, you can read our books and know firsthand all the dumb things I did as I became educated on how to live in a world where your daughter has no veil and all the strangeness that comes with that, all that is good so willing to help when allowed and even the evil that is assigned to help you depart mortality. I have always been grateful to the Savior that we hardly ever had to mention this man, who since has passed away. Praise God.

I have been grateful that I didn’t have to show how I looked to others for validation or how I responded to events and people, how I was so quick to join the herd. I remember my church saying to “stay in the middle, where it is safe.” Did they mean the middle of the herd? Is it “safe” there? If you stay there will you ever really learn?

Do you know the one person that I NEVER consulted with about this man and what or who he was? I know, you’ve already guessed. I never asked my Father or His Son about it. And because of that I brought in a man that tried to give a blessing to destroy my daughter.

So now when I see people go from one gifted person to the next and then next, I feel for them. I don’t say anything because it is their experience, like our daughter never said a word about my idiocy until I figured it out, even though she wanted to. How many of us have become infatuated with the gifted person that our close friend told us about or we heard about from Mary’s sister’s cousin’s son-in-law while riding down the elevator and how she/he did this and that and it was simply incredible. Incredible for whom? Why do we turn to mortals and not God? Because He is harder to talk to, to hear or communicate with? Or because there are so many gifted that are very willing to tell you all about it and what to do?

Many have told me about a modality they have heard about and how great it is. Some have learned healing modalities. I sit back and wonder if they went to the Savior about it and if not how long their “experience” will last or if they will ever figure it out?

What does your Father in Heaven have to say about it? What does the Savior say about it? Are we enamored with the new person because of the hype of others, their gifts, or the herd mentality? Or because it is so much easier to go to an “oracle” to learn what God wants or to be healed? I watched this for nearly a decade with our daughter. Do you know how many people told us they’d give us a home or they’d give us money if she would just confirm that their “ship was going to come in soon.” Or, “Denise, should I divorce my husband?” kind of questions. Things you should take to God and maybe never ask another mortal let alone a ten or eleven-year-old young woman. I always wanted to tell them to go elsewhere to screw up their lives, rather than come to our home to see the “oracle” and do it.

What if we went to our Father first, in humble prayer, while fasting and begging for an answer to our questions. How might life turn out? Might it be according to His will and not some psycho, oh I’m sorry, I mean psychic oracle, like some guy that had been declared to be a translated being.

Now you might understand why when people call for help I am so slow to answer. Not because I don’t want to help, but because I need to first get my Savior’s permission and then see what He wants done. That can take time. Might it be important to get His permission before we even make a call for help? And then you won’t have to declare, “I never thought to ask.”

Don’t worry, I have plenty of other mistakes you haven’t heard about. Yet. I’ve worked hard at making all I can so you won’t have to so much.