Ali Essig walked into the emergency room and found her husband slumped in a wheelchair, mid-stroke at 37, staring back at the very promise she could not shake. His patriarchal blessing said he would be blessed with health as he lived the Word of Wisdom, and now that promise sat across the room in a hospital gown. Ali had spent years working on Capitol Hill as communications director for Congressman Jason Chaffetz, then building a career teaching Pilates and coaching nutrition. None of it had prepared her for this moment, or for the answer waiting for her in the temple.

In this episode of Why We Believe, Ali, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, shares how a single, clear impression in the temple sent her back to the Word of Wisdom to read it in full for the first time, verse by verse, and how living it completely transformed her husband's health and her family's home. She talks about the childhood prayers that first taught her God answers, the dream that called her to a mission she never expected, and why she has come to believe that faith, like health, is simply more fun to live than to doubt. Ali is the founder of PlantWhys, a plant-based coaching program, and shares her witness that God keeps every promise He makes, even when it arrives wrapped in a trial.

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Jonathan Tavernari grew up a Catholic altar boy in São Paulo, coached by his own mother, one of the most decorated youth basketball coaches in Brazilian history. At 16 he boarded a one-way flight to America with his mother's gold cross around his neck, and he left BYU as the program's winningest player and its all-time leader in three-pointers made. But the turning point of his life was not a championship. It was a lost necklace, a finished Book of Mormon, and a 17-year-old kneeling to ask God if it was all true. The vision that answered him led to his baptism into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

In this episode of Why We Believe, Jonathan shares the miracle behind the title: his wife stranded at a snowy Italian train station and the two missionaries who felt prompted to return to a locked chapel at exactly the right moment. He also shares the tithing test that met an impossible tax bill, the surgeon on a mission an hour away who answered a prayer by email, the priesthood blessing that preceded a halted spinal tap on his ten-day-old son, and the prayer he has carried for three years without an answer. Through it all, Jonathan testifies that he has seen the hand of God without ever seeing His hand, and that Jesus Christ, for him, is hope.

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For twenty-one years, Ross Nielson felt like God had passed him by. His parents divorced when he was seven, and the promise he kept hearing in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, that families are forever, felt like it belonged to everyone but him. Painful experiences with someone he trusted only deepened the walls he put up. He believed there was a God, yet he could not remember ever feeling the Spirit or feeling like he belonged. On the outside, his life looked like drive and results. He grew into an entrepreneur who helped build the sales and marketing team at Grand Canyon University, took a garage organizing concept across North America, and became a leader in biological agriculture reaching forty countries. Inside, he still wondered if the promise was ever meant for him.

In this episode of Why We Believe, host Nathan Gwilliam sits down with Ross to trace how that changed. Ross shares the Thanksgiving in 1998 when he stepped into a stranger's home in Gilbert, Arizona, and the Spirit hit him like a ton of bricks. Sitting with that family, he thought, this is what I want, and a voice answered that he could have it if he wanted it. He tells how they loved him through three months of Sunday dinners before they ever invited him to church. He describes the patriarchal blessing that told him things he says only God could know, proof that he had not been forgotten. And he explains how restoring depleted soil for a living became a picture of what the Savior did for his own heart. Ross Nielson says he has been drawing closer to Christ ever since.

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Bronco Mendenhall picked his college for one reason. BYU was on the schedule, and he wanted to beat them. He got his win in Provo and lay spread-eagle on the Y. Years later, sitting at a stoplight while the radio named the coaches BYU wanted instead, a still, small prompting told him he would lead the program himself. Days later, the self-described last resort was named head coach of the only football program owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and he spent 11 seasons measuring the job by something other than the scoreboard.

In this episode of Why We Believe, Bronco tells host Nathan Gwilliam how faith kept outranking football. He recalls the interview where an Apostle asked him a single question, the firesides his team held inside a prison where an inmate choir met them with hymns, and the morning LaVell Edwards knocked on his office door before sunrise. He shares the letter signed Jeff that now guides his work at Utah State, his father's farewell haka on the front lawn, and the counsel from his dad that made sense only decades later. Through it all, Bronco witnesses that borrowed light became his own testimony of Jesus Christ as he shared it, and that the reassurance of the Spirit has come each time he has asked with a broken heart and a contrite spirit.

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Read this week's story. Keep the lesson for good:

How Prison Firesides Taught Bronco Mendenhall Where the Spirit Reaches
https://whywebelieve.com/blog/how-prison-firesides-taught-bronco-mendenhall-where-the-spirit-reaches-1

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What does a behavioral economist studying retirement savings have in common with a wizard battling darkness? More than you might think. Bridget Madrian spent 25 years at Harvard Kennedy School researching how people make financial decisions. Her work shaped pension law across America and influenced hundreds of millions of people worldwide.

But at the peak of her career, she made an unexpected choice: leave Harvard and come home to BYU as the first woman dean of the Marriott School of Business. When she asked God what He wanted instead of climbing higher, everything changed. The gospel truths she discovered woven through Harry Potter spoke to her faith in ways that transformed how she sees both leadership and discipleship.

In this episode of Why We Believe, Bridget shares why she asked "What does God want?" instead of accepting advancement at Harvard. She reveals how the temple deepened her gospel understanding exponentially. And she shows how a single scene in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban became a profound meditation on vision, faith, and becoming who God sees us to be.

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Read this week's story. Keep the lesson for good:The Choice at the Peak: Why a Harvard Business School Dean Left for BYU and Found Her Greatest Blessing

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https://whywebelieve.com/blog/choice-at-peak-harvard-dean-byu

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Vince Biegel had every reason to believe football would define him. Named after Vince Lombardi and raised on a hundred-year-old family cranberry marsh in Wisconsin, he earned two-time All Big Ten honors and six NFL seasons with the Green Bay Packers, the New Orleans Saints, and the Miami Dolphins.

Then the injuries came. Seven surgeries. A roster cut by the team he grew up loving. An Achilles tear that ended his career. Somewhere in those valleys, Vince discovered that the game was never what held him together. His faith in Jesus Christ was.

Vince is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In this episode of Why We Believe, he sits down with host Nathan Gwilliam to trace how his inherited faith became his own.

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Read this week's story. Keep the lesson for good:

How Seven Surgeries Taught This Former NFL Linebacker That the Savior Is Real

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Chris Crowe got a book as a breakup gift. The girl he loved wanted a temple marriage he could not give her, so she said goodbye and handed him a black paperback on her way out. He tossed it in his locker and forgot it. Months later, alone in his bedroom in Tempe, Arizona, he opened it and read Joseph Smith's account of the First Vision. There was no vision and no jolt, just a quiet certainty that it was true. That certainty led him into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and has anchored his testimony for more than fifty years.

In this episode of Why We Believe, Chris tells host Nathan Gwilliam about the 36-hour fast that gave him an answer he did not want, the night he told his Catholic father he was getting baptized, and the lessons in Christlike leadership he learned playing for Coach LaVell Edwards. He also shares how his wife Elizabeth taught him to pray for confirmation instead of answers, a pattern that carried their family to Japan, Hawaii, and finally Provo. The retired BYU professor and award-winning author still knows Joseph Smith saw God the Father and Jesus Christ.

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https://whywebelieve.com/blog/a-breakup-a-black-paperback-and-the-first-vision-that-anchored-a-lifetime-of-faith-1

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Most comedy earns its laughs by tearing something down. Jenna Kim Jones built her career doing the opposite. She left Utah for New York University, landed on the staff of The Daily Show, and learned to make a room laugh without tearing people down. Her jokes stay clean because her hope is real, and that hope reaches back to her faith in Jesus Christ.

In this episode of Why We Believe, host Nathan Gwilliam sits down with Jenna as she recalls the dorm where strangers put her testimony on trial, the answer of no that turned into a blessing, and the quiet fast that led a friend to baptism. She talks about motherhood, cynicism, and why she trusts that the Savior knows her by name.

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