I dreamed that death came the other night
And heaven's gate swung wide.
With kindly grace an angel
Ushered me inside.

I saw a young man at McDonalds. He was eating a hamburger, and I, a Big Mac. His hair was short and he wore a white shirt and tie. I came within a gnat's eyelash of saying: "Hi, there. I was wondering if you are a Mormon missionary?"

When she looked ahead, Florence Chadwick saw nothing but a solid wall of fog. Her body was numb. She had been swimming for nearly sixteen hours.

This story begins in a small village in the south of France. It is in the early 1940's and the advancing German armies are threatening all who appear in its way.

A man named George Thomas was a pastor in a small New England town. He entered this church one Easter morning with a rusty, old, bent bird cage. He set the bird cage on the pulpit causing a few raised eyebrows.

'Twas battered and scarred, and the auctioneer
Thought it scarcely worth his while,
to waste his time on the old violin.
But he held it up with a smile,

I stood one spring on Mars Hill in Athens, Greece, and as I looked across a small valley to the Acropolis where the remains of the famous Parthenon stood, I remembered a story told about Socrates, the famous Greek philosopher.

The Vision Opens:

I see the rod of iron and feel the river of filthiness running alongside it. I am in the river, within arms' distance of the rod. The river does not seem filthy, only swift.

Statement by President David O. McKay given about 1965 in President McKay's Hotel Utah apartment to a group of brethren working in the physical facilities part of the Church.