The witness of the Spirit is more powerful and indelible than seeing a messenger from heaven, a truth poignantly illustrated by President Wilford Woodruff:
“One of the Apostles said to me years ago, ‘Brother Woodruff, I have prayed for a long time for the Lord to send me the administration of an angel. I have had a great desire for this, but I have never had my prayers answered.’ I said to him that if he were to pray a thousand years to the God of Israel for that gift, it would not be granted, unless the Lord had a motive in sending an angel to him. I told him that the Lord never did nor never will send an angel to anybody merely to gratify the desire of the individual to see an angel. If the Lord sends an angel to anyone, He sends him to perform a work that can be performed only by the administration of an angel.
“Now, I have always said, and I want to say it to you, that the Holy Ghost is what every Saint of God needs. It is far more important that a man should have that gift than he should have the ministration of an angel.” 8
Angels Are Coming to Visit the Earth
The Hebrew word for angels is malachim, meaning “messengers.” The role of angels is to call men to repentance, to help fulfill the covenants of the Father, and to prepare the way for the Savior by declaring his words to his chosen vessels so they can bear sure testimony of him (Moroni 7:31). Angels sometimes have to speak with the “voice of thunder” (when people are spiritually hard of hearing; see 1 Nephi 17:45; Mosiah 27:11; Alma 36:7). Other times they speak not with a “voice of thunder” or a voice of “great tumultuous noise” but with a “pleasant voice,” a “still voice of perfect mildness, as if it had been a whisper … [to] pierce even to the very soul” (Helaman 5:46, 30).
During Jesus’ mortal life there was frequent contact between him and his heavenly home. Angels announced his birth (Luke 1:26–38; 2:8–15) and his forerunner’s birth (Luke 1:11–20); they were present at the Transfiguration (in the form of translated beings; Matthew 17:3; Luke 9:30–31); at least one angel ministered to him in Gethsemane (Luke 22:43); angels attended his sepulcher and bore witness of his glorious resurrection (JST, Matthew 28:2–4; Luke 24:4–7; John 20:11–13); and they appeared at his ascension into heaven (Acts 1:10–11).
Angelic messengers were also involved in the work of God in the Western Hemisphere during Book of Mormon times. Following are examples:
• 1 Nephi 3:29–30. An angel appears to Lehi’s sons.
• 1 Nephi 11–14. An angel guides Nephi through a vision of the future.
• 2 Nephi 10:3; Jacob 7:5. Angels teach Jacob.
• Mosiah 3:2–27; 4:1. An angel teaches King Benjamin and testifies of Christ (possibly Abinadi; see commentary at Mosiah 15:1).
• Mosiah 27:11–18. An angel appears to Alma and the four sons of Mosiah.
• Alma 8:14–18. The same angel appears to Alma again.
• Alma 8:20; 10:7. An angel appears to Amulek.
• Alma 13:24–26; 19:34; 39:19. Angels appear and teach many in the land.
• Moroni 7:17. The devil and his angels also appear to some (see also Sherem in Jacob 7:17 and Korihor in Alma 30:53).
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland testified of the role of angels: “I believe we need to speak of and believe in and bear testimony of the ministry of angels more than we sometimes do. They constitute one of God’s great methods of witnessing through the veil, and no document in all this world teaches that principle so clearly and so powerfully as does the Book of Mormon.” 9
President Joseph F. Smith taught: “We are told by the Prophet Joseph Smith, that ‘there are no angels who minister to this earth but those who do belong or have belonged to it.’ Hence, when messengers are sent to minister to the inhabitants of this earth, they are not strangers, but from the ranks of our kindred, friends, and fellow-beings and fellow-servants. The ancient prophets who died were those who came to visit their fellow creatures upon the earth… . In like manner our fathers and mothers, brothers, sisters and friends who have passed away from this earth, having been faithful, and worthy to enjoy these rights and privileges, may have a mission given them to visit their relatives and friends upon the earth again, bringing from the divine Presence messages of love, of warning, or reproof and instruction, to those whom they had learned to love in the flesh.” 10