My Testimony

A personal testimony from Derek Briscoe

The book on my desk

I did not grow up thinking of myself as especially religious. I believed there was a God, but I did not really understand Him, nor did I understand what my relationship with Him could be. For many years I lived with a kind of distant respect for spiritual things, but without the conviction that would make me change the direction of my life.

That began to change through a young man whose persistence I did not understand at the time. He did not push me into a sermon. He simply placed before me a question I could not easily avoid: would I be willing to read the Book of Mormon and give him my honest opinion?

The next morning there it was, sitting on my desk. I had agreed to look at it, and so I took it home. I expected, perhaps, to read a few verses and form a quick opinion. Instead, I found myself drawn into the witness statements and then into First Nephi. I read after work. I read late into the night. I read when I should probably have been eating or sleeping. Something in that book had reached me.

A prayer that changed everything

When I reached Moroni’s promise, I knew I could not treat the book as merely interesting. I had to know whether it was true. I finished the Book of Mormon in less than two weeks and then knelt to pray. I do not know exactly what I expected. Perhaps part of me imagined that an angelic answer would come, or that something unmistakable would happen in the room.

Instead, I prayed for hours with tears on my face, asking God with everything I had to know whether what I had read was true. When I finally slept and woke again, I knew something had happened. It had not arrived in the way I had imagined, but the witness was there. I believed the Book of Mormon was true. I believed Joseph Smith had seen what he said he had seen. I believed the Holy Spirit had answered me in a way my heart could recognise even when my mind was still learning how to name it.

That morning I went to work and told the young man who had given me the book that I had read it, prayed about it, and wanted to be baptised. His surprise still makes me smile. I was new, urgent, and probably far too impatient for the usual pace of things, but when a soul has found light it does not always want to wait politely at the door.

Entering the water

The missionaries taught me, patiently and thoroughly. I asked question after question, and for the first time I felt that the answers did not close the world down; they opened it. Church felt unfamiliar, but not empty. The people were kind. The doctrine felt alive. The scriptures seemed to have found a place in me that had been waiting longer than I knew.

When the day of my baptism came, I remember the anticipation, the stillness, and the strange happiness of standing in white clothing knowing that I had finally arrived at a point of decision. As I went beneath the water, everything seemed quiet. When I came up, I remember taking in air almost like a first breath. I felt clean, joyful, and wonderfully disoriented, as if the world had not changed around me so much as the way I saw it had changed within me.

I spoke at my baptism because I wanted to testify. It was the first talk I had ever given, and I remember feeling no fear. I wanted others to know that the Holy Ghost is real, that faith still matters, and that miracles have not ceased where there is belief enough to seek them.

What remains

Many years have passed since that first witness, and life has not been simple. Faith does not remove every sorrow, nor does baptism make a person immune from weakness, trial, loss, confusion, or the long work of becoming better. But the witness I received through the Book of Mormon has remained one of the fixed points of my life.

I know that Jesus Christ lives. I know that the Book of Mormon is a true witness of Him. I know that our Father in Heaven knows His children and wants us to return to Him. I know that the Holy Ghost can speak to ordinary people in ordinary rooms, through scripture, through prayer, through quiet impressions, and sometimes through the small courage of another person who simply places a book on a desk.

That is part of why these songs exist. I wanted to leave something that might help children, youth, families, and weary listeners feel the scriptures a little closer. I wanted the stories of the Book of Mormon to be remembered not only as ancient record, but as living witness — something that can still reach a person late at night, alone with a question, hoping that God will answer.

There are many great things in our lives if we learn where to look. My hope is that these pages, songs, and reflections help someone look again: toward Christ, toward scripture, toward prayer, and toward the quiet gifts of the Spirit that God gives for the good of His children.