Elder David Shand's answered prayer for preaching
Published October 13, 2026 at 6:43 PM
Contributed by
Millennial Star Research
In 1887, while serving as a missionary in the Cherokee Nation, Elder David Shand was instructed by his companion, Elder Ammon Green, to preach his first sermon. Fearing the task, he prepared notes but accidentally destroyed them while trimming them to fit his Bible. He felt this was a rebuke for relying on notes rather than the Lord, so he went into the woods to pray for help. Returning to the meeting, he felt inspired to speak for an hour on the first principles of the gospel, filling his mouth with words of truth.
In Their Own Words
“Then the thought came to me that I had been putting more confidence in my notes than in the Lord; depending more on my own wisdom than on the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. So I crushed the paper in my hands and went out into the woods to pray. 0, how earnestly I besought the Lord to come to my assistance and to give me words to speak to the people. That was one of the times, in my life when I felt my utter dependence upon a power greater than that of man. I was brought into the very depths of humility. The Lord strengthened and encouraged me and I returned to the place of meeting. I stood up and addressed the people for almost an hour on the first principles of the gospel. I opened my mouth for the Lord and He filled it with words of truth. — Millennial Star 70:10”
Sources & References
The Latter-day Saints' Millennial Star (Manchester, later Liverpool, England, May 1840–1970), Vol. 70, No. 10 (1908). https://archive.org/details/millennialstar7010eng (account extracted verbatim from the issue's Internet Archive OCR text; research confidence: high)
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