“It’s True, It’s True,” New Era, March 2019, 39.
“It’s True, It’s True”
The author lives in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
When I prayed for a testimony of the Book of Mormon, nothing happened—until I started reading the Bible.
When I was about 12, I wanted to know for myself that the Book of Mormon was true. In a talk, I could testify that the Book of Mormon is the word of God because my Primary teacher had said it. But inside myself, I didn’t understand what that meant.
I knew the promise of Moroni that said that if I read, pondered, and prayed, I could know also (see Moroni 10:3–4). I read for weeks and felt at peace, but it didn’t produce anything spectacular—no light, no angels, no voice. In the end, I quit reading the Book of Mormon.
One day while studying Exodus, I read that when the Israelites lacked food, God sent manna to them. Each person was to take a certain amount each day. He sent them food, but they had to figure out how to gather it.
Nephi’s words came to me: “The Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them” (1 Nephi 3:7). From this I understood that God had commanded the Israelites to leave Egypt and planned to provide for their hunger. This Book of Mormon scripture enlightened my understanding of the Bible, and I concluded that the Book of Mormon was the word of God.
As Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles explained, personal revelation resembles more the gradual rising of the sun than the light that is suddenly produced when we flip a switch.1 I began to see the Book of Mormon in a different way.
During the months that followed, I knew more surely than ever that the Book of Mormon was the word of God. The impression I felt numerous times through the voice of the Spirit was “It’s true, it’s true, it’s true.”
I still read the Book of Mormon almost every day, and every time, I hear these words: “It’s true.”