Robert Williams: The Stuttering Priest Who Baptized Without a Stammer

Robert Williams, a priest in the ward over which young Thomas S. Monson served as bishop, stuttered and stammered so severely that his speech impediment was devastating to him. Self-conscious, shy, and fearful of himself and everyone else, he never fulfilled an assignment and always gazed at the floor. Then, through a set of unusual circumstances, Robert accepted an assignment to perform the baptism of a girl in his ward. As bishop, Monson sat beside him in the baptistry and asked how he felt; Robert, dressed in immaculate white, could only stammer almost incoherently that he felt terrible. The two prayed fervently that Robert would be made equal to his task. When the clerk read the words "Nancy Ann McArthur will now be baptized by Robert Williams, a priest," Robert stepped into the font, took Nancy by the hand, gazed as though toward heaven, and with his right arm to the square repeated the baptismal prayer — without stammering, stuttering, or faltering a single time. In the dressing room afterward, the stammer returned as Monson congratulated him. Monson, who recounted the experience in "Preparing the Way" (Ensign, May 1980), testified that when Robert acted in the authority of the Aaronic Priesthood, he spoke with power, with conviction, and with heavenly help — a modern miracle at the baptismal font.