Anne Osborn -- "I knew it was true."

I walked into priesthood meeting early one Sunday morning in (or around) 1970 and was startled to see a stunningly beautiful girl sitting on the stand as though she belonged there. There was also another woman and there were two men, none of whom were familiar. Bishop Donaldson of the Stanford 2nd Ward informed us that he had invited these four people to tell us about their recent conversion.

I don't remember anything any of them said except the girl. She informed us that her name was Anne Osborn, that she was a medical student at Stanford, and that she had been baptized just two days before. It was not lost on us that her first church meeting as a fully baptized Mormon was priesthood meeting.

Having been asked to tell us about her conversion, Anne complied in amazing detail with primary emphasis on the most recent three weeks. I'd never heard such an explicit description of the way the Holy Ghost works in a conversion, nor the way the adversary tries to nullify the process. She never actually mentioned "Holy Ghost" or "adversary" or any similar terms, but it was clear what had happened. I sat transfixed. It seemed as though every spiritual experience I'd ever had in my entire life was being described with words for the first time. So that's how it's expressed! How it sounds! And the whole thing accompanied a spiritual atmosphere so dense that one scarcely dared to breathe. It was an experience that I'll never forget.

Anne went on to become a popular fireside speaker. No wonder, I thought, with the story she has to tell. She wrote a number of Church books and she wrote articles in official and semi-official Church publications. She eventually married Ron Poelman, a widowed general authority. Vocationally, she became an internationally recognized neuroradiologist writing texts and publishing innumerable papers. One can Google her as "Anne G. Osborn" to get a flavor of her vocational acclaim or as "Anne Osborn Poelman" for the church flavor.

A few years after the priesthood meeing, I had an opportunity to attend one of her firesides. I looked forward to a reprise of her amazing account. She spent the better part of an entire hour telling about her conversion. She even mentioned the priesthood meeting, but she covered the main three week climax of her conversion in a single sentence: "I studied with the missionaries for three weeks and was baptized."

Yeah? That was it?! What a disappointment.

At the conclusion of the fireside, I told her that I was at that priesthood meeting and heard her amazing account and wanted to hear it again. She said, "Oh, I never talk about those things. They're too sacred."

OK, that I understood. As Dale Mouritsen points out, the word "mystery" as in "mysteries of the kingdom" come from a root that means "keep you're mouth shut." You're not supposed to talk about them. They're for you, only. If you try to talk about them, you'll likely lose them. But that doesn't apply to me, I thought. I can talk about Anne's experiences. I can record what she said -- and I remember a lot of it! I won't lose them because they're not mine to lose. And I fully intended to do this in a written journal form -- this form.

But as I sat down to compose the words I would use, I couldn't do it. Her expressions remain inexpressible! They're not only her experiences, they're my experiences too, and I cannot put them into words! And now I understand 3 Nephi 19:34.

One example I will record, however, because it illustrates the principle of testimony and of spiritual knowledge and because I fully intend to use it some day in a testimony meeting or in a talk. It is a rather mundane account of the climax of her story:

She described how she was interviewed by the zone leaders just before she was baptized. During such interviews, they determine the extent of a person's gospel understanding and the solidity of the person's testimony. It includes the understanding of the nature of the Godhead. She had had all the lessons, but she had considered these discussions symbolic. How can one understand the nature of God? During the interview, she became aware for the first time that she was supposed to view God as literally having a body and as existing in space and time. This was not possible! She was a medical student. How was she supposed to perceive God as having a body of flesh?! She argued with the zone leaders -- and failed the interview.

They told her to go into an adjacent room by herself and pray about it.

She collapsed in tears. The whole thing was a fraud. How could she have been so duped? Where had those amazing experiences and feelings come from? Her depression was the deepest it had been since the process had started and in the agony of her soul, she uttered a prayer to whomever and whatever she had been associated with for weeks. She immediately found herself lifted to the highest joy and euphoria that she had experienced since the process had started and she informed us, "I knew it was true!"

And we knew that she knew.