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Sadly though, one day all that changed for me. I suffered a heart attack. Actually I’ve had two heart attacks from ’07 to now, December of ’07 when I had a second one. I was removed from the field, which is to say no more firefighting or paramedic work which is very, very difficult for me. Gosh, I miss this! I miss being out there, working the paramedic work. I miss it a whole lot. It looks pretty crazy doing a job like that, but we love doing it.

We lost our home due to that difficulty and due to that loss of wages at that time. To see that go away was a tough deal. At this point, I changed my whole focus. I changed family life, I changed a lot of things. The job I have now is quite different. It involves working with the media and the public. Before, I was out there in the thick of things. And now, I’m behind the scenes. I’m heard but never seen.

I get to see everything that’s going on in the city, from stabbings to shootings to fires to car accidents, to deliveries of babies – I get to see them all! And that could be overwhelming sometimes, so it’s a different workload that you take home with you. So, on the drive home, I love listening to the Scriptures. That’s decompression for me and it puts me in the right frame of mind to think about spiritual things and that keeps my focus on the drive home so that, when I see my kids, I’m appreciative about not only what others have lost that day, be it that they lost their house to a fire – I can focus on those things and be happy that I have my family, my health and my happiness.

I’m a Los Angeles city firefighter paramedic.  My name is Devin Gales and I’m a Mormon.

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The only thing is, they never really told me one little small thing and that was that two young men in suits were coming to deliver that book in person. So, one day I get a knock on the door, here are these two young guys and they said that they’re representatives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and they had my copy of the Book of Mormon. They actually came back on several occasions and we talked about quite a few things – a lot of things that I found to be interesting and we talked.

I basically told them eventually that, even though I was interested in what they were teaching me and I appreciate their time and everything, I had decided to leave home and join the military. So I went into the military and one day, while on station in San Diego, I came across a book store and being a lover of books, I went inside to take a look around, not realizing it was a LDS bookstore. But that didn’t take too long to figure out.

And I bought some things there. One of the things I bought was a set of conference tapes. I bought another copy of the Book of Mormon and I also bought a book that was entitled “In the Lord’s due time”. What’s so interesting about that book is that, I did not realize that at the time, but it was that that book was actually written by a black brother of the church and he, the person who wrote the book was Joseph Freeman, who actually was the first black to receive the priesthood after the 1978 revelation.

In my mind I was going: first of all, what is the priesthood and what is the revelation? What does all that mean? I went back to my ship and I actually listened to the conference tapes, I read the Book of Mormon, read brother Freeman’s book but I decided once again, I’ll just tuck those neatly away and I’ll get back to those someday.

It wasn’t really until the Lord sent me, years later, down the line. He sent me to Kflavik, Iceland of all places in the world. And when I was there one day in my room, I was doing a search of the Mormon Church and I decided that I was going to ask for a subscription to the church news, just to see what was going on in the church at that time. Much to my surprize, I get an email back from one of the editors of the church news. He asked me, first of all: What are you doing in Iceland? And second: What is your interest in the Mormon Church?

And I told him that I just want to know what the church is doing at this time in Iceland because I’m stationed here with the United States Navy. He said “Well that sounds great! Now, don’t get upset with me, but I’ve contacted missionaries on your behalf”. And thinking to myself that since I’m on a secure naval base, that they would never find me. I agreed to allow him and go ahead and contact the missionaries and let them try to find me. Much to my surprize, I did get a phone call and that phone call was from the missionaries. And to make a long story short, I met with those missionaries for over a year before I finally made the decision of the baptizing.

One of my requirements, before I became baptized, I told the missionaries I would not be baptized until I had the Book of Mormon in its entirety. And anyway, I did that. I was inspired to develop a 40 day reading plan and so, for 40 straight days I read all 3 of those and then called the missionaries and invite them over. And on March the 10th, 1998 I was baptized and the rest is history.

I know that the Bible and the Book of Mormon are both the book of God. I know that God lives and that Jesus Christ is our saviour and that he loves each and every one of us. He loves each and every one of us so much that 2000 years ago he willingly gave his life and he became since the final sacrifice. He paid a debt that he did not owe and a debt that none of us could ever pay. He is my Lord, he is my saviour, he is my King and I bare that testimony in the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

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I remember asking how can God and Jesus be the same person? And I was told that was a mystery. I asked who participated in the war of heaven. I reasoned there would have had to be someone there besides Jesus if there was a war in Heaven. And I was told that was a mystery. I had other questions that I posed and again, the answers were not given. While I was grateful for the fundamentals that I’ve learned, I knew that the full truth was not contained in the walls of the church to which I’ve been going.

So I kind of drifted for a while, not really knowing about God and not really knowing what my purpose was. And at that point, I stopped attending church and I searched in the only ways I could search to know more. But, eventually, as the years went on, I began to despair that I would never know the purpose of my life. And I had a hard time moving forward because, without that, I had no real way of measuring who I was, how I was doing, what I should do. I was tired even of the routine things like fumbling for your house keys in the cold and studying theories in classes without having a way to evaluate them. I just didn’t seem to have that sense of ultimate purpose.

And yet, I found that as I read and I looked for truth, that my search was sped and there was a divine source leading me one, although I didn’t know that God and truth had anything to do with each other. I remember taking notes even as I read things in a little notebook that I carried with me for about 10 years, thinking “I’m just assembling this massive jigsaw puzzle and one day I’ll figure it out – I have a few corner pieces and a fire center pieces, but one day this will all come back together”.

So I kept looking and I think the questions about the purpose of life would continue to spring up whenever we’re given the least chance. Almost like a flower in springtime. And I would revisit those questions again and try to find out more and eventually, tuck them away for a season. And that continued to be the case until, I think finally the will to live ran bare. I just didn’t have that desire anymore after a certain point. I just began to despair about life and that I would never find the answers to these questions in my heart.

So, I remember sitting on the edge of my studio bed, despondently one day, looking over my circumstances and thinking “Why go on?” Why go on without this key to the universe? And I was caught then by surprise, actually by a gentle but profound string of impressions that I now recognize came from my Heavenly Father, through the Spirit. And those impressions – it was in the form of a voice coming to my mind and the thoughts that came to me were “Well, you have to have the courage to live on. Every moment of love and discovery in your life has not been wasted. You’ll find the purpose of life.”

And while I could not understand fully how those impressions came and appeared on the screen in my soul, so to speak, I accepted them confidently and totally. And so, I spent a few months really contemplating my life and searching further, again in the only ways I knew how to search for the answers to those questions. I prepared myself for the knowledge that was promised me and then, I had a remarkable experience one evening.

I remember I was out in a beautiful summer night. I was jogging in the neighborhood, under the light of this exquisite full moon and this is difficult to explain – and I’m not sure I have exactly the words to portray what happened. But somehow, as I reflected over my life, it sort of summed itself up in a way that it never had before and I caught a swift panorama of my entire life in just a split second. And then, at that moment, I was infused with complete un-doubtable witness that God lived.

And I knew for myself for the first time in my life that he lived independent of any other person and it was a knowledge that I can’t deny. I remember that I sat down the curve and started to cry tears of joy – I was so excited. I felt I belonged, I felt I was loved and I felt a deeper sense of connection with everyone around me, immediately. But my questions then were, well – what about Christ, what about the things I’ve been taught, what does he expect of me, what’s my responsibility towards him? What exactly is this relationship supposed to be and what do I do now?

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So after I had that experience with him, when I was talking to him and we had this conversation about the only way that he could really know is by reading and asking God. When I went home that night I opened up the Book of Mormon and I started reading it. And I just had this warm feeling come over me and I knew it was from God, confirming that the Book of Mormon really is true and that it really is his work. And because of that, I know that the LDS Church or the Mormon Church is the true church of God, it’s his work on this earth.

I’ve had so many other experiences in my life that really made me happy and really brought me closer to God and I’m so thankful that I have had those experiences in my life. And anyone who wants to find those things out for themselves, they can ask God and God will confirm it to them as he has to me that these things are true.

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And I sat down and I looked at problem number one. And I had absolutely no idea how to do problem number one. Sometimes you have stress when you go to take a test. Just be calm, skip a problem, so I looked at problem number two. No clue – had no idea how to do problem number two. Okay, I’m still okay, skip that, go to problem number three. The first 7 questions I just didn’t know how to do, at all. Finally, I got to question number 8 and I thought “Okay, I can do this one”. And I started doing question number 8 and I worked through the rest of the problems of the test and they were hard, but I was able to figure them out.

And I thought, now I’ll go back to the beginning and I’ll redo those. I’ll probably remember now how to do the original ones. And from those original 7, I went back, and about 4 of them I knew from doing the rest of the test. And so, that leaves 3 more. So I started working backwards because I had answers and I just kind of had to work backwards and see which one was the correct one for this problem. And I ended with about 2 more done and it left me with 1 more problem. And I still had no clue how to do this problem.

But I sat down and thought: Okay, I don’t know how to do this problem – but what do I know? And so, I thought about the principles in algebra and math and I did know all the different theorems and stuff that I can remember cause it’s been about 5 years. But by doing that, by doing the things I know, writing down the things I did know and working up from that, I was able to get the answers. And not to brag or anything, but I 100% on my final. And I related that to, later I had an experience that was very difficult in dealing with something that happened in the church. And I had a little bit of resentment, I wondered about some things, I wondered what was right.

I didn’t understand what was happening to me, fit in the Gospel and the church and how could it be true, I don’t understand. And I thought about that algebra test and I said “Okay, I don’t know this, but what do I know?” And I was able to think back to an experience I had reading the Book of Mormon, just a regular night of reading the Book of Mormon where I came upon something I questioned a bit about and prayed about. And I had a really, wonderful experience. And from that, I know that God lives and he is really there.

I know that he knows me and he cares about me. And I know for sure that the book of Mormon is true because my prayer was answered in such a way that it was not in my mind, it was not in anything directly to do with what was in the Book of Mormon. But it was answered so completely that I knew that the Book of Mormon was true. And that meant that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that we are led by prophets today. And so, as I was struggling with this thing in my life, I could go back to my algebra test and go back to this experience I had reading the Book of Mormon. I knew those things were true. If those things were true, there was an answer. There was a way this would all fit together. And the comfort that came from that helped me work through the difficulties that I had. And so, even though this was a really difficult circumstance, some things about it I still don’t understand, why they worked the way they did. But it really strengthens my testimony because I know that it will all fit together and that these things will strengthen my testimony of the things I did know. And I’m so grateful that I had the opportunity of having those experiences of questioning, so that I could gain a stronger testimony of that.

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And I know that they have my best interest at heart like my parents at home. And they have done so many things for me and my life to help me make good choices. And I’ve learned in Church how to make choices and listen to the spirit of the Heavenly Father so I know what he would have me do. And when I pray, when I read the scripture, when I listen to our living prophet Gordon B. Hinckley – I know that they are telling me things form God to help me make choices. And when I make choices based on answers to prayer, to revelations, to a modern prophet, I am able to be happy with those choices. I find myself in so much better situations than if I had not made those choices.

So many times I don’t understand why God would have me do certain things but after I do them and after I’ve passed the test of doing God’s will, I am able to find immense happiness in my choices and see, looking back, how has God blessed my life so immensely.

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