Excerpt from an address by Dallin H. Oaks at a Multi Stake Youth Fireside in Bellevue, WA – January 23, 2016: ¹

Question (Female youth: 30:17): “My question is what should we pray for to receive this same testimony, if not, conversion that Alma the Younger experienced, for our friends who aren’t of this [church]?”

Answer (Dallin H. Oaks): “[We] missed the words Alma the Younger, without which I couldn’t understand that very fine question. What should you pray for to have the kind of experience that Alma the younger had? I don’t think your likely to have that kind of experience that Alma the younger had. Remember he had a miraculous experience of an angel, [and] really got hit over the head spiritually. Most of us don’t have that kind of experience. But I interpret your question Heather as being how can we get get the kind of testimony he received. I don’t think we’ll get it like Paul did on the road to, where an angel appeared to him, where Alma the Younger had a startling experience.

The Lord used a few of those kinds of experiences, and they’re recorded in the scriptures to catch our attention and teach us the answer. But I’ve never had an experience like that and I don’t know anyone among the 1st Presidency or Quorum of the 12 who’ve had that kind of experience. Yet everyone of us knows of a certainty the things that Alma knew. But it’s just that unless the Lord chooses to do it another way, as he sometimes does; for millions and millions of His children the testimony settles upon us gradually. Like so much dust on the windowsill or so much dew on the grass. One day you didn’t have it and another day you did and you don’t know which day it happened. That’s the way I got my testimony. And then I knew it was true when it continued to grow.”