Mormon Musings

If you live up to your privilege, the angels cannot be restrained from being your associates. Joseph Smith

I wish that every man would live so that he could have communion with angels—so that Jesus would come to visit him. I wish I could see this people in such a position; but there is yet too much sin in our midst: our traditions cling to us so strongly, that we cannot yet break through into that liberty; but we will see the day, if faithful, in which we can converse with angels. There are persons in this congregation that will converse with angels just as freely as we converse with each other. Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses  5:258

One of the things that will become more important in our lives the longer we live is the reality of angels, their work and their ministry.  I refer here not alone to the angel Moroni but also to those more personal ministering angels who are with us and around us, empowered to help us and who do exactly that (see 3 Ne. 7:18; Moro. 7:29-32, 37; D&C 107:20)...  I believe we need to speak of and believe in and bear testimony to the ministry of angels more than we sometimes do.  They constitute one of God’s great methods of witnessing through the veil, and no document in all this world teaches that principle so clearly and so powerfully as does the Book of Mormon.  Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, "For a Wise Purpose,” Ensign , January, 1996, 16-17

We are instructed in the Scriptures to contend for that faith which was once delivered to the Saints, and which inspired them with dreams and visions, tongues and the interpretation thereof. Pray, tell me who is capable of interpreting an unknown tongue without inspiration? It cannot be done, except the person be dictated by the Holy Ghost. How can I discern that a man is wrong, or that he is corrupt, except I have the Spirit of revelation? I cannot do it. How can President Young discern that there is is an evil designed against him, unless he has the Spirit of revelation? He cannot know it beforehand, except it is revealed to him.  Now, I assuredly know it to be true that angels are ministering spirits to minister to men who are heirs of salvation. Now, God says, in another part of his word, that he will reason with us. But how will he do this, unless we are submissive like clay in the hands of the potter? He says he will do it before the world, the philosophers, the kings, an...

You may have the administration of angels, you may see many miracles; . . . but I claim that the gift of the Holy Ghost is the greatest gift that can be bestowed upon man.  (   The Discourses of Wilford Woodruff,  sel. G. Homer Durham [1946], 5. ) 

“We humble people, we who sometimes feel ourselves so worthless, so good-for-nothing, we are not so worthless as we think. There is not one of us but what God’s love has been expended upon. There is not one of us that He has not cared for and caressed. There is not one of us that He has not desired to save and that He has not devised means to save. There is not one of us that He has not given His angels charge concerning. We may be insignificant and contemptible in our own eyes and in the eyes of others but the truth remains that we are the children of God and that He has actually given his angels—invisible beings of power and might—charge concerning us, and they watch over us and have us in their keeping”  ( Gospel Truth: Discourses and Writings of President George Q. Cannon,  sel. Jerreld L. Newquist, 2 vols. [1974], 1:2). "And he answered, Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.  And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, o...