At the first general conference President Russell M. Nelson presided over as prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I was in the depths of a personal spiritual crisis. It was 2018, and for weeks in preparation for the conference, I had prayed with real intent, hoping for a faith-affirming experience.
I longed for that moment so many describe, when the words of living prophets feel as though they were written just for you. By the end of the last session, however, I felt nothing.
As President Nelson closed the conference with a brief message about temple worship, frustration and despair welled up inside me. Why had God ignored me in my time of need? Perhaps, I feared, the doubts that had been creeping in were right: perhaps there was no God at all.
And then something changed.
As President Nelson bore testimony of the Savior, I suddenly felt encircled in Christ’s love. The weight had been so heavy I collapsed on my kitchen floor and wept. My questions and concerns were not instantly resolved, but that unmistakable expression of heavenly love gave me enough strength to keep seeking, rather than abandon the faith that had started to feel more depressing than divine.
That moment became the first of many times throughout President Nelson’s ministry when I felt as if he had been called to lead the church just for me. Over the ensuing years, I have learned much about what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ from him.
President Nelson reshaped how I view my role as a woman in the church. Earlier in my life I yearned for the day when men and women “would be equal” by having the same formal callings and responsibilities. But through his teachings I came to see how, in pedestalizing priesthood ordinances as the ultimate goal, I had unintentionally diminished women’s equally sacred roles.
God had spoken to me that day, and I was committed to listening. Previously, I had failed to see the access I had to God without being ordained to a priesthood office, and began to realize that my perception of priesthood offices — which I mostly viewed as a privilege or accomplishment — was quite contrary to the picture of the priesthood Joseph Smith described in Doctrine and Covenants 121.
As President Nelson emphasized the access women had to priesthood power through our callings and our covenant, he gave me and so many other women a better framework that was so healing, with more precise language for understanding our relationship to the priesthood.
President Nelson’s teachings and leadership changed the way I viewed myself. I was once first and foremost an ardent feminist, but now I see myself first as a daughter of God, who loves me.
From that point on, I started to find more joy in gospel living. President Nelson was such a true model of joy in the gospel. Although famously disciplined, this prophet was never overly serious — always warm. The image that will remain in my mind is one from Sheri Dew’s biography “Insights from a Prophet’s Life”: President Nelson, 98 years old and six feet tall, swinging on a backyard rope swing with a giant grin on his face.
This sense of joy was not naive. He led the church through some of the most turbulent years of recent memory: the COVID-19 pandemic, racial and political unrest and a time when the very concept of truth was often contested in public life. Yet his leadership was both steady and compassionate.
In those dark days of 2020, fear and anger seemed to dominate every conversation. I had again, after a few years of rebuilding my faith, felt pulled back into the darkness that the world was peddling. Again I found myself questioning what was true and good.
But even as the world felt fractured, the prophet’s words turned my attention back to the gospel. I followed his invitation to flood social media with gratitude. I recognized how much more at peace I felt when I turned off the endless news reports and opened my scriptures. I could not solve political tension or a world-wide medical crisis no matter how much I doom scrolled.
“Through times of darkness,” he had once taught, “the joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives.” The focus of his life was Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of the world.
President Nelson defied my own expectations — and those of the world. He surprised me in every way imaginable.
While he oversaw important changes in church organization and curriculum, and the preservation of sacred historic sites, he also shook off cultural appendages and distractions. His insistence that the church use its revealed name was not a finicky obsession, but a reminder of who we are and why we are here.
In just seven years, he announced more than 200 new temples, extending the reach of sacred ordinances to God’s children all over the globe. He traveled to dozens of nations, meeting saints in their homelands, ministering one by one even at an age when most would have been long retired.
As extraordinary as those accomplishments are, I will remember this individual as the prophet who brought me back to my Savior. Even though I never met him personally, President Nelson ministered to me in my own home as I tried to regularly listen to or read his words.
They have impacted so much of the course of my life. He taught me that I am first and foremost a child of Almighty God, who loves me so profoundly and infinitely that he sent his Son to die for me and rise again. He taught me that I have a responsibility to gather Israel and to share in the glorious ordinances that bring us nearer to God. And, of course, he called on me to, like my Examplar, bring about peace.
I will always be profoundly grateful that the Lord used this humble individual to help alter my personal path. I suspect my spiritual connection with President Nelson was not unique. Like many others, I quietly hoped someday I would be able to meet him and thank him for his ministry. But I believe the Lord Jesus Christ — whom President Nelson loved most — has already passed along my gratitude.