[MUSIC PLAYING]
When I was 17, about ready to graduate, we were called to
the high school auditorium.
On the stage, there's a chair with a small radio.
The principal switched on the radio.
--"a date which will live in infamy."
We then heard the voice of President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt, as he announced that Pearl
Harbor had been bombed.
The United States was at war with Japan.
All at once, our future was uncertain.
We did not know what was ahead.
Would we live to get married and have a family?
By the time we graduated from high school, many of our
classmates had marched away to war, some of
them never to return.
Against the certainty that I would be drafted, I
joined the Air Force.
Soon, I was in Santa Ana, California,
for preflight training.
I had heard about patriarchal blessings but had
not received one.
J. Roland Sandstrom was the ordained patriarch living in
the Santa Ana stake.
He knew nothing about me and had never seen me before, but
he gave me a blessing.
You shall be guided through the whisperings of the Holy
Spirit, and you shall be warned of dangers.
On the flight to Guam, we became lost due to a typhoon
in the Central Pacific.
Something's wrong.
We're off course.
Let's turn.
I remembered the words of my patriarchal blessing.
They told me if I would heed the warnings from the Holy
Spirit, Heavenly Father will bless me, so that I might
again be united with my loved ones.
I would be blessed to return from the war if I kept the
commandments and if I heeded the promptings of the Holy
Ghost. At that moment, I received a prompting to hold
our present course.
Hold it just a minute.
By following that prompting, our crew landed safely at a US-
occupied air base.
[SIRENS]
With all that is going on in the world with the maligning
of the moral standard, you young people are being raised
in enemy territory.
But I promise you that you'll be protected and shielded from
the attacks of the adversary if you will heed the
promptings that come from the Holy Ghost.
The gift of the Holy Ghost, if you consent, will guide and
protect you and even correct your actions.
It is a spiritual voice that comes into your mind as a
thought or feeling.
Take hold of your life, and order yourself to be valiant.
You will be watched over and protected, and you yourself
will know, by the promptings of the Holy Ghost,
which way to go.
I promise you that it will be so.
[MUSIC PLAYING]