This happened shortly before I left on my mission, about about 3 weeks before, and I believe it was done on purpose to help me understand promptings of the spirit and obedience. This legit happened...

So this was September of 1993. I woke up this one morning and I don't know how to put this, I don't want to call it a voice but I did keep hearing it over and over and over again in my head. But instantly when I woke up I'm gonna say I kept hearing this voice say "Do not go up in the Mountains" This prompting or voice seriously was on rapid replay over and over and over again the entire day. It was annoying and I had troubles focusing on anything else because of it. I remember sitting down to play video games and I kept losing at the game I was playing because I couldn't concentrate on the game at all.

Now it wasn't uncommon for my friends and I to go up into the mountains... this happened in Brigham City where I was born and raised and there just isn't a heck of a lot to do in Brigham City Utah accept go up in the mountains.

On this particular day, I had no plans at all for that day. But that wasn't totally uncommon either where 1 second I wouldn't have plans and then a moment later my friends would show up at my door and we were off doing whatever... mostly stuff that could get us in trouble (statute of limitations have passed so I think I'm good now).

So again, this voice... over and over and over and over again all dang day, "Do not go up in the Mountains". So my friends show up at my house, my friend just got a new truck and he wanted to go out and drive it around. So we head over to Ogden to El Matador Restaurant got something to eat... it was a weekday night, so there wasn't much to really do. I don't know if it's a thing anymore, but we'd drag state street in SLC or Washington blvd in Ogden. Basically would drive up and down the street... hope to find a car full of girls... pull over, talk to them hook up later for a date or whatever. So we did that for an hour and decided to head back to Brigham City. We get back to Brigham City at around 11:00pm, we are sitting at the gas station and my friend says, "Hey, let's go up in the mountains and see how far we can get in the truck". Right then and there, the voice in my head stopped. literally stopped. This apparently was my moment to shine and obey the promptings I had been experiencing all dang day, over and over and over again... do not go up in the mountains. I remember I was leaning against his tailgate as he was filling up and when he suggested to go up in the mountains I remember I wanted to say, "Nah, let's go play video games or something" But the idiot in me was like... cool truck, lets do this. So I didn't say anything.

I sat in the back of the truck... we pulled out of the gas station and this feeling of dread just poured over me... like I legitimately started to get scared, but still didn't say a word. So we head up 1100 so, which takes up up along the side of the mountain in Brigham City, up through Sardine Canyon and up to Mantua. We were heading up to Dock Flat and from there we would figure out what we were going to do.

It's about 11:30pm and we are sitting at Dock Flat, mind you I LOVED going up there... it's pitch black dark but the night sky is always so amazing from there because you didn't get to the City lights to drown it out. On this particular night I don't think it was a full moon, but it was close... the moon was very bright. There were a couple of people camping up there at the time. I figured that this was as far as we were going to go, but my friend really wanted to try to get to Willards Peak... looking at a map right now it's called Willards Basin Overlook. So in the past, we had tried to get to this location several times and several times due to road conditions and the vehicle we were using, we just could never make it.

My friend starts to head towards Willards Peak... at this point the feeling of dread was really strong. And it was at this point that I actually kind of put up my friend objection to going... but it was more of a, "Yeah, I don't know guys". So we are driving and I'm looking out the back window... and I swear on a stack of bibles and everything that is near and dear to me... I start to see what looked like large human shadows moving across the road rapidly. They were very haunting shadows and I could see them moving with the light of the moon and the tail lights of the truck. They were darting side to side about 10 feet behind the truck. I swear every turn we made, I would see another one.

At this point now I'm really objecting to going further... I'm telling my friends, "Guys, this is a bad idea I don't feel good about this at all, we need to turn around" So my friend stops near this information board and he says, "What do you mean you don't feel good about it"? And I said, "I don't know, I just feel we shouldn't be up here like something bad is about to happen". So we sat there for a couple of minutes, and this whole time my eyes are fixated behind the truck and I'm waiting to see if there is someone that will walk up on us or something... So my friend says, "We'll only stay there for a couple of minutes, we can finally make it to the top" So he continues to drive up, and as he pulls away from the area we were stopped at... again these dark human like shadows are just moving rapidly going from one side of the road to the next.

Now I'm legit freaking out... full blown panic has set in. I'm really trying to talk my friends out from wanting to continue and they keep telling me, "5 more minutes and we are there" "2 more minutes and we are there". like 15 minutes later we finally reach the top, at this point it's about 12:30am, literally the very top. He parked his truck in this spot where it was like a prefect 1 vehicle parking spot, but in order to leave you had to back out of it. After he parked, we all get out of the trucks and we could see the valley for miles, you could see all of SLC, all of Ogden. It was seriously amazing. The feeling of dread I had and panic started to subside because the view was seriously so amazing. We sat down for a bit, I actually remember the thought running through my head that this was so cool to see before I left on my mission.

We sat up there for maybe 30 minutes and decided to leave. We all get into the truck, truck starts, my friend puts the truck into reverse and the truck makes this loud bang noise, it seriously sounded like someone rear ended us. We all thought that something hit us from behind. On the way up we had seen Moose and porcupine... and while standing there we didn't see any animals but we were all kind of thinking that maybe a moose had just charged the back of the vehicle and hit us. So we are looking around, don't see anything, we get out of the truck and see if we find any damage to the truck and nothing. We get back into the truck, he puts it back in reverse and again... same loud bang noise. So he decides to back out, he backs out maybe a foot and suddenly his back wheels lock up. I'm starting to think at this point we are going to roll off the dang mountain the way we were positioned. So I get out of the truck and my other friend gets out of the truck, we tell our friend to put it back in reverse again and we'll see what is causing the noise and the wheels to lock up.

So he puts the truck in reverse and as he is going back, we start to see the back wheels separating from the truck. We start to scream at him to stop... we show him what is happening. The rear axle snapped in half and rod that meets the drive shaft was sliding out... I'm not a mechanic that's just how I remember it.

So here we are, 1am... middle of September, we had no flash lights at all... literally none of us are dressed right for a hike lets alone a 15 mile trek down a mountain in the middle of the night. I absolutely had to get down the mountain because I had court the next day that I had to be to, because I had been involved in a car accident a month earlier. We had to go.... all we had to help us was the light of the moon. The walk/hike down was terrifying. Several times we thought we saw a large animal on the road, we'd stop and wait to see if move and the shadow of what we thought was an animal would go away. We'd hear sticks snapping or movement in the trees... it was terrifying. It took us 5 hours to get down... we did speak to a guy who was camping in a van, he wouldn't drive us into town. We walked to this gas station in Mantua, I called my mom to come pick us up.

Fast forward to my mission. My dad had sent me these Pioneer stories tapes that I would listen to at lunch. One of the stories spoke about the Logan Temple and Satan's visit to it. I've liked the story below...apparently Satan told the Temple President that he would scatter his followers throughout the valley and mountains and make sure people never make it to the Temple. I remember listening to that and wondering if the shadows I saw that night were the bad spirits that Satan cast on the valley. Anyhow, that's my "scary" story and also a story that if you get prompted to not go up in the mountains... just listen to it... don't be dumb like I was. Probably one of the best spiritual lessons I ever had.