My Brother Taylor - Book of Mormon Miracle

This story has been updated with more details: https://thesmallplatesoftom.blogspot.com/2018/07/my-brother-taylor-pass-asteroids-please.html

 

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My older brother Taylor Hartley described an incident in his life that can be summed up as a Book of Mormon miracle. In 1993 when he was nearly 15 years old, he had a bike accident and suffered a serious head injury. One of the negative effects of the injury was that he lost the ability to read. Below are my brother's own words about the experience and how the Book of Mormon played a key role:

BOOK OF MORMON MIRACLE

My sister Angela and brother Taylor
July 28, 1993

"When I was almost 15 years old on July 27, 1993, I was riding my bicycle to the store to find a present for my little brother Brent’s birthday.  I had to ride on a sidewalk next to a highway.  It had a steep part where you could catch a lot of speed. 

Well, my memory stops at the top of the hill.  Apparently, I had been going really fast when at the bottom of the hill, I suddenly planted my face into the concrete, requiring 42 stitches on my chin and over my eye by an emergency room plastic surgeon.  The worst part of the accident was the concussion I suffered.  It dropped my mental age to that of about a six year old, making me mildly retarded.  I suffered amnesia for a time.  The abilities to speak, access words, and process information, among other things, were noticeably impaired. 

It took me two and a half years before I felt I was totally recovered.  One of the most interesting consequences of the mental injury was my inability to read.  I discovered I could no longer read when my mom brought me children’s books.  She did this to keep me occupied while I rested at home to recover from the accident.

I could see the words, but my mind was incapable of processing them.  It was like looking at Chinese characters—you can see them, but it’s impossible to understand them.  So, my comprehension of written words was absolutely zero.  The brain damage was severe.

On one of the nights, my dad approached me and said that some of the Church leaders, called area authorities, had challenged the members to read all of The Book of Mormon before their large meetings, called Stake Conferences.  Dad asked me if I’d do it.  In my child-like mental innocence, I told him I’d try.  My mom was mad at him for asking me because he knew as well as she did that I had lost the ability to read. 

I went to my room, kneeled down and prayed.  I can’t remember what I prayed for, but I know it was very simple.  I do remember, however, thinking to myself, “If this is the Word of God, then I’ll be able to read it.  If it’s not, then it’ll be like the other books my mom gave me.”  When I opened to the beginning, I looked down and read: “I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents….”  I was reading!  There was no delay in my comprehension of the words either.  Part of me was astonished while the other part of me wasn’t. 

When I woke up the next day, I was so excited about my recovery that I picked up the books my mom had given me, looked at their words, and then looked some more.  I still couldn’t understand them.  So, for a time, the only book I could read was The Book of Mormon.  I ended up reading all 531 pages in a month’s time, faster than I had ever read it or any other book before.  As a result of this miracle and from what I read in The Book of Mormon, I know with absolute knowledge that its words are the words of God.  They are the words of Christ.

Even though this miracle speaks for itself, I want to give you some independent witnesses that help verify its reality.  A year before the accident happened, I was given a Patriarchal Blessing by a patriarch in our area (a patriarch’s calling is to give inspired blessings from the Lord to individuals, which are written down and serve to help them through their life).  In that prophetic blessing, he told me, “Follow the counsel and direction of those who are placed in leadership positions over you in the Church. I bless you that your mind and intellect will be quickened so that you will comprehend and understand those things that you read and study. That your testimony and knowledge of the Gospel will be greatly strengthened.” 

Those consecutive lines outline chronologically and precisely what happened: the area authority Church leaders had given “counsel and direction” for all of us to read The Book of Mormon.  When I tried it with the brain damage I had, my mind and intellect were literally “quickened” so that I could “comprehend and understand” those things that I “read.”  As a result of this quickening, my testimony and knowledge of Christ’s “Gospel” had truly been “greatly strengthened.” 

The last prophetic words I want to quote from as an independent witness to the reality of the miracle that happened to me are in Isaiah 29:18.  After prophesying about the coming forth of The Book of Mormon in our days, the prophet said, “And in that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity, and out of darkness.”  Because of the brain damage I suffered, my eyes were blind because of mental obscurity and the written words’ meanings were nothing but darkness to me.  For all intents and purposes, I was blind to reading.  But, when I read the Book of Mormon, my eyes actually did “see out of obscurity,” just as Isaiah prophesied would occur because of the Book."

<End of Taylor's words>

I want to share my witness that what my brother wrote above is true. I was nine years old at the time of this accident, and I remember reading children's books to him in our backyard while Taylor did not have the ability to read. Taylor has since had a full recovery for many years, and if  you were to meet him today you would never have guessed he had brain damage in his youth. The Book of Mormon truly is a marvelous work and a wonder.

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My Own Personal Witness regarding the divinity of the Book of Mormon:

http://thesmallplatesoftom.blogspot.com/2014/12/letter-to-my-mission-president-book-of.html

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You can access Taylor Hartley's Mormon.org profile at the following link:

http://www.mormon.org/me/DHCS/TaylorCHartley

Taylor's Book of Mormon miracle experience is also published in the February 1999 issue of the New Era magazine, but does not have as much detail. Regardless, it is still a powerful article of the experience. Here is the link to the magazine article:

https://www.lds.org/new-era/1999/02/my-crash-course-in-reading?lang=eng

* Additional point of clarification: Taylor's words above indicated his "mental age" dropped to 6, but the New Era magazine article stated Taylor's mental age dropped to 12. Both accounts are accurate because the time element is different. For example, essentially right after Taylor hit his head, our Mom indicated Taylor spoke and acted like a 6 year old. However, about a week later, a speech pathologist tested Taylor and the results were his "mental age" had improved to approximately 12 years old (he was nearly 15 at the time). Regardless, Taylor still did not have the ability to read even after the achieving a "mental age" of 12 years. This is noted in the New Era magazine article.