Marilyn Walker and the Angels 1958

I became very ill on a Monday after Thanksgiving in 1958. I went to the doctor the next day and he told me that I had pneumonia and I was to go home and go to bed. I had had the car all day so at four o'clock, I went in to pick up Ted from work and I was so weary.


I can't remember getting home or going to bed. About seven o'clock that same evening, my husband, Ted, and his ward teaching partner were going out ward teaching and I had them administer to me. They left at that time because I assured them that I would be fine for the hour that they would be gone.

Some time shortly after they left, my breathing became very labored and I was very tired. All at once I felt my very soul beginning to slip from my body. It was so sweet and easy flowing and the thought came to me that I must do something or I would surely die. My grandmother, Grace Walker, had always impressed upon me with the fact that I must pray on my knees so I slipped out of bed and began praying.

I poured out my soul's anguish and hopes to the Lord and lost all track of time because I was so lifted up by the Spirit that I felt. Two strong arms lifted me off of my knees onto the bed and a voice said to me, "You are too ill to be on the cold floor." I could not get up by myself because I was so weak and ill and I had been on my knees so long that they were stiff and unbending.

I knew for a surety now that I might die. The beings who helped me kept addressing as "dear little one" and I felt such love and kindness.

I asked, "If I go and leave my three children will it be held against me?"

The answer was no that it would not.

"Will I regret it if I leave now?"

The answer was infinity and I could, at this moment, look into forever and ever. "You will feel as if you left a job undone."

Again I asked a question, "If I leave will my children be given a mother?" This time I was told, no, but that they would have their opportunity to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

I then asked if my life would be better from now on and I was told that it would not, but that I would have the courage to face the problems that would come into my life.

Now the two beings told me that they must go and leave me alone because being in their presence was so beautiful and sweet that it might influence me too much and I must make up my mind by myself if I was going to go or not.

At this moment, I was full and surrounded by the most beautiful light, warmth and love, such as I have never known and beyond my understanding as I write this today. I felt that these beings were very close to me, who loved me dearly, and they promised to come back and would go with me so I wouldn't have to go alone. I couldn't bear the thought of my little girls 3, 5, 8, being left without a mother and did not feel that my husband had yet gained a strong enough testimony and I had been promised the courage to go on and I decided I wanted to live. I remembered the scripture in James that tells us to call the elders and I remembered that I had been administered to and I said half aloud, "In the Name of Jesus Christ."

I immediately started to breathe normally and my head was craned back and my neck stiff as if I had been looking up into the heavens.

Many times during the next months and years I was to call upon the promise of courage. I spent 6 months flat on my back unable to do anything, even holding a book was an exertion. It was three more months before I could care for the children during the day by myself.

Now, in May 1962, I am still under the weather a lot of the time and I cannot carry on the duties of a housewife but all the family pitch in and help and we have learned to overlook a little dust here and there and the ironing piled in the corner.

We put first things first and attend our Sunday meetings and Primary and Relief Society. We can always have our family prayers.

I do not BELIEVE, but in fact, I KNOW, we cannot go back into our Father's presence without family prayer.

Realizing that the Gospel was indeed the important thing for my children to have, and that life was meant to have problems, and that God blesses us so we can face them, and gives us solutions to work out ourselves rather than take away the problems has greatly changed my life. It gives me the courage to ask all my friends and acquaintances the golden questions: "What do you know about the Mormon church? Would you like to know more?"

written by Marilyn Walker Whisler
in May 1962 in Medford, Oregon

retyped by Charlotte Whisler Carper January 2010