LDS Podcast "Latter-Day Lights" - Inspirational LDS Stories

How a Drowning NDE & the Book of Mormon Led to Conversion: Derek Tucker's Story - Latter-Day Lights

• Scott Brandley and Alisha Coakley

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When face to face with your greatest fear, will you listen to God’s “yes”?

From a life-altering near-death experience as a young boy, artist and leatherworker Derek Tucker shares how this profound moment planted the seeds of his faith, completely oblivious to the impact it would have on the rest of his life.

Though it would take years before he fully embraced the Gospel, Derek recounts teenhood and how his struggle to complete a simple task for school echoed the same feelings of helplessness from his near-death experience, ultimately pushing him to seek God’s voice. What began as uncertainty and hesitation turned into a moment of divine intervention, transforming his life and solidifying his devotion to the Church.

Through these pivotal experiences, Derek reflects on how his testimony was shaped, bringing him closer to understanding his true purpose in life. His journey is one of unwavering courage, spiritual obedience, and the incredible blessings that come from fully trusting in God’s “yes”.

*** Please SHARE Derek's story and help us spread hope and light to others. ***

To WATCH this episode, visit: https://youtu.be/PzyZYjlDsmc

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To FOLLOW Derek's art, visit: https://www.instagram.com/derektuckercreations/

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Also, if you have a faith-promoting or inspiring story, or know someone who does, please let us know by going to https://www.latterdaylights.com and reaching out to us.

Scott Brandley:

Hi everyone, I'm Scott Brandley.

Alisha Coakley:

And I'm Alisha Coakley. Every member of the church has a story to share, one that can instill faith, invite growth and inspire others.

Scott Brandley:

On today's episode we're going to hear how one artist's near-death experience, testimony of the Book of Mormon and conversion to the gospel taught him that following the Lord will lead to a life full of light. Welcome to Latter-day Lights. Hi everyone, welcome back to another episode of Latter-day Lights. We're so glad you're here with us today. We're really excited to introduce our special guest, derek Tucker. Derek, welcome to the show, thank you very much.

Alisha Coakley:

Yeah, we're so excited to have you on today and for reaching out, and this is not like your first go-round in having your story shared. You actually had your story shared in a pretty popular church publication. Do you want to tell everyone Not a whole bunch, but just a little sneak peek. Where was that? What was that in?

Derek Tucker:

In 1994, I entered the New Era's writing contest and got first place, so my article was published.

Alisha Coakley:

So cool. That's awesome. I heard that they have a word limit on that, like like it's pretty right, isn't it like five hundred or a thousand words or something?

Derek Tucker:

it's not much, I think there I think there was a range of words that we were I was supposed to write but, yeah, it's. It's been a while so I don't remember exactly.

Alisha Coakley:

I remember someone mentioned something about me writing in there and I was like I don't, I can't, I can't write that short. I need like a whole novel, I don't know. So that's awesome.

Derek Tucker:

Yeah, I had the opportunity to talk with the managing editor of the New Era. Later I got to interview him for a school university project once and I did ask him about future submissions. And I did ask them about future submissions and I got the impression that by that time that they already were getting so many submissions that that's probably a contributing factor to their word limits.

Alisha Coakley:

Wow, yeah, I can imagine Well, other than being published in the new era, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Derek Tucker:

So I like to draw and, uh, one of the pictures I drew is behind me. It's of the salt lake temple. Um, I served a missionary, thank you. I served as a missionary in the 90s. Some of you will recognize it the. The source I used for it was the missionary flip chart picture of the salt Lake Temple with the bottom inch or so cut off.

Alisha Coakley:

Very cool.

Derek Tucker:

So then another. I also do leather work, and this is a pouch that I made out of leather. I designed it, I dyed the leaves I started with like natural leather color, and I did the designs and the stitching.

Alisha Coakley:

That is so cool.

Scott Brandley:

Thank you. Is that a? Is that a scripture case or just?

Derek Tucker:

That's just a pouch to hold, like my cell phone, and and notepad and pens. Okay.

Alisha Coakley:

That's really cool.

Derek Tucker:

I was going. I was making an outfit that looked like it was something you could go wear in the forest and have some camouflage.

Alisha Coakley:

Okay, so like you sew too.

Derek Tucker:

My wife did the clothing and I did the leather work. There's several other things I made, but those are in my Instagram. Wow, it's cool. It can be seen on my Instagram account.

Alisha Coakley:

We'll have to make sure we share that link in the description so people can go check it out. What's your favorite kind of art to do?

Derek Tucker:

I like learning how to make things that I have no idea how to do, like that pouch. I had no idea how to do it when I started and so I had to do step one. And then, after I did step one, I was like now I think I can see how to figure out step two, now that I'm getting step two finished. It's kind of like trusting a hill.

Derek Tucker:

Oh, I can see the next building, so I didn't know how to do some. I couldn't figure out many of those things until I got further along into the project, so I could figure out how to measure things and things like that nice, so like a little engineering, architecture, creative design yeah, that's in a mysterious way that I don't fully understand. It's been a fun journey so you're married.

Scott Brandley:

You said you're married, right yes, I'm married.

Derek Tucker:

My wife Cindy and I have been married for 22 years. We have a beautiful six year old girl named Serenity and she started first grade last Friday. It's a strange day to start school, but that's what they day to start school, but that's what they did in the school district.

Alisha Coakley:

And where? Where did you say you guys are from?

Derek Tucker:

We live in Alabama. We relocated here from Utah about a year and a half ago.

Alisha Coakley:

Our whole married life was in the Salt Lake Valley before that, as far as our residence. How are you liking that change?

Derek Tucker:

I really miss friends and family a lot. But I like other than that. I like. I like it here. I like most everything here, except I'm so remote from friends and family now.

Alisha Coakley:

Yeah, that's hard. I grew up in Florida and the humidity is what killed me? I don't know where you're at in Georgia, if you have that or yeah, my wife really is affected by the humidity.

Derek Tucker:

It doesn't bother me as much as it bothers her, but she's bothered by it quite a bit.

Alisha Coakley:

Does she have curly hair?

Derek Tucker:

It's curlier here.

Alisha Coakley:

Yeah, that's the one thing in Floridaida. Here in texas there's no humidity where I'm at, and so my hair is very flat, but in florida it turns into mufasa, so there's like not a good in between until I go to utah.

Derek Tucker:

Utah is perfect so allergies are also a lot worse here for us than they were. Yeah, interesting very true whatever is considered on the high end of the scale for allergens in Utah is on the low end of the scale here.

Alisha Coakley:

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I believe that there's a lot of vegetation here. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Wow, all right. Well, mr Derek, we're going to go ahead and turn the time over to you. Why don't you go ahead and get us started? Where does your story begin?

Derek Tucker:

I think it begins with being born as the eighth child in a family where my parents quit going to church about the time I was born. My parents grew up in church. My dad served a mission in the Western States. As an interesting trivia, missionaries today might send home for cookies or a new tie or something. My dad sent home for his parents to bring his car to him and they drove it to him and he used it for the rest of his mission.

Derek Tucker:

Really, yeah, it's weird 1950s, okay, weird 1950s, um, so, um, I'm not going to tell the whole story of what led to my parents deciding to stop going, but they, that's what they decided. And so when I was born, it was my dad's father who, um, gave me a name and a blessing, rather than my dad and um, but I grew up for the most part where church was like on the very vague periphery of my attention and I wasn't raised with going to church. I had an older sister, lark, that started going back to church when I was young and um, but the rest of my siblings pretty much haven't been active.

Derek Tucker:

When my parents quit going, the family quit going so fast forward. When I was six years old or five years old about that my dad had a company work party and it was at my dad's boss's house his dad's, his. The boss's name was bob bain, and bob had a swimming pool in his backyard and we were told that ahead of time, if we brought our swimming suits we could swim. I didn't know how to swim, but I had fun playing in pools and so I brought my swimming suit.

Derek Tucker:

Uh, the first year where we went, there was a lane marker dividing like a length, kind of like they have in the Olympics to divide the lane, but it was to divide the shallow end from the deep end. So I played in the shallow end, had a great time. And then the next year I was excited to bring my swimming suit again and I brought it. When I got there I noticed that the lane marker, the divider, wasn't in the pool and it was sitting several feet, feet away from this, sitting on the ground. And I asked about it and they said they weren't going to put it on this time. And since I was like five years old or six years old, I didn't know how to stand up for myself and say they really think you need it for me.

Derek Tucker:

So, um, I got in the pool, I started swimming and there are playing in the pool, um, there was another boy about my age and there was a bouncy ball that we started tossing back and forth to each other. And what my young self didn't realize was that if you're trying to grab a ball, you need to put your fingers at least 50, past the halfway point, so when you lift your fingers up, you can actually pull the ball towards you. And what I really did is I put lifted my hand up too soon and I kept pushing the ball away, pushing the ball away, and as I'm bouncing on my feet trying to get the ball again, trying to get the ball, next thing, I know, my feet went out from under me as I went over that edge and the water level just went up to about there and I didn't know how to swim, like I said, and so I thought I'm in trouble, I need to yell for help, because that's what you do when you're in trouble.

Derek Tucker:

So I tried yelling for help and I heard my voice kind of bubble I was like nobody heard that I need to try harder, and so I tried yelling louder and all I succeeded in doing was filling my lungs with water. And next thing I know, my attention was 15 feet above the pool. My spirit had left my body and I was looking down at myself drown. And I looked over to the left where there were a bunch of folding tables, where all the adults were, and they were sitting and visiting with each other. I saw someone, a gentleman, probably in his 20s, stand up. He was wearing a shirt and tie. He ran towards the pool and dove in and I saw him go for me and my attempt, my it's like I lost. I lost percent.

Derek Tucker:

I lost connection with observing what was happening until I came to in the bathroom inside the house where my dad was resuscitating me and, as a little trivial detail, I remember that he was wearing one of those um watches, that hand watches that aren't waterproof, and his watch got ruined because of it. But he he'd any day, any day he'd change a working watch for his son that lives, so he wasn't disappointed about the watch. We were all like I was. So I had this experience and it made me aware that spirit spirits are real. Um, I didn't see anyone else in spirit or like an angel or anyone else. I, I wasn't. I wasn't in that state for long enough for someone to, I guess, to come come to me. It resolved itself so quickly that it was just me, and then I was back alive again.

Alisha Coakley:

Did you, did you tell your dad or anyone about this when it happened? Or did you just, were you just so young, you just kind of accepted it Like, oh, that's just what happens.

Derek Tucker:

I really don't know now, but I know I have talked to my mom about it. My dad passed away about 22 years ago, right after I got married, so I think I talked to him about it when I was older, but I don't know if I mentioned it when it happened.

Derek Tucker:

You're younger oh yeah, it's younger oh yeah it's 40 by 44 years ago now. So I did have the opportunity years later to talk to the gentleman who rescued me and at that time I knew his name. My mom doesn't remember his name and I don't remember his name now. She thinks it's john, but she's not sure. But I got to talk to him on the phone and I asked him if he had some kind of spiritual nudge and he said he wasn't a religious person. I think he must've had a nudge.

Alisha Coakley:

Yeah.

Derek Tucker:

I think his attention turned and he didn't know what was causing his attention to turn. That's what I believe now.

Alisha Coakley:

That could be.

Derek Tucker:

So, um, I continued living like not my parents, you know, not going to church. And then the next moment I had in my life that made me think a little bit about things that were outside of day-to-day life is when I was about 10 or 11 years old. There was a Christmas day and I'd gotten lots of neat presents that I was excited about. I'd gotten lots of neat presents that I was excited about and I like, in the early afternoon I had some friends, I contacted them and we were running around doing something, playing in the front yard, and I had a moment of a very brief moment of introspection when I thought this is supposed to be the happiest day of the year. It's Christmas, why am I not happy? And that was confusing. And then the thought passed.

Derek Tucker:

Life went on and a bit later my mom and dad would accept people from the church who would come to visit as home teachers or visiting teachers, and I was in the habit of, whenever we had visitors, to sit in with them just because I liked visiting, you know, visiting with people. And Brother Swanson was the home teacher at the time and he became aware that I hadn't been baptized yet, and so he asked if my parents if I could get the missionary discussions and my parents turned to me and just let me decide. And I didn't really have strong feelings either way, but I didn't really have anything to say, reason to say no. So I accepted and I got taught and then when they asked me about being baptized, it seemed fine. I accepted. I wasn't strongly interested, but I wasn't really disinterested, it was just okay.

Derek Tucker:

I can do that, and it's interesting for me to look back at how differently the baptismal questions came across to me then than they would now.

Derek Tucker:

The questions of is Joseph Smith a prophet, and are the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve prophets, seers and revelators, felt like they were like an easy pop quiz, like, of course I remember that from one of those lessons yes, that's right, and it wasn't a matter of me knowing those truths through revelation.

Derek Tucker:

But, um, so I got baptized and then, um I I went to church on my own and, um, then we moved to new jersey a bit later and when I was in new jersey I didn't know where the church was. People would ask me if I was a member of the church because I heard I was from utah and I didn't know where the church was. People would ask me if I was a member of the church because they heard I was from Utah and I didn't know how to answer them. So sometimes I said no, but I should be. Or one time I said I'm a Jack Mormon, but I didn't know what Jack Mormon meant. And another time I actually said one time I think that I said I was an atheist, but to be honest, I don't think there was a moment in my life when I truly believed there was no God.

Derek Tucker:

Agnostic is closer to represent what I might have thought but what my real opinion about it was. I didn't have an opinion and I didn't feel connected with God. I kind of knew somehow inside me that God was there, but I didn't know what to do about it. I didn't know how to connect with him. I wasn't taught how, and so I would just live my life. I wasn't doing all kinds of horrible things, but I wasn't doing great things. I was just being a normal person, you know, doing stuff without religion.

Derek Tucker:

So for the second time in about a year we moved again, this time from New Jersey to Seattle Washington. These are both related to my parents' profession. They had job changes where they the first move was a promotion, the second move was a new company, because the first company wasn't being fair to my mom. But so we were in Seattle, and in Seattle it was just my parents and I, and no, none of the other family came and moved to be with us. It was just, and I started experiencing latchkey kid and loneliness. And how do I make friends when I'm 14? When I was in elementary school, I could say do you want to come over and play? But now that I'm 14, I don't know what to say.

Derek Tucker:

And that kind of comes across a little awkwardly, and so I struggled to find friends, and when I would come home from school I felt like I was waiting for my parents to come home from work so that I could live life, be alive again. I was like you know.

Derek Tucker:

So the loneliness would go away. And one moment that was particularly strange was I was at the school and I noticed that I was watching some of the people that were popular talking to each other as I was walking by and I was looking at them and one of the girls turns and says hi to me and it felt really weird. It was almost like somebody on the tv turning and looking at me and saying hi, derek, how are, how are you? It was so. It was such a strange, surreal thing. And then around that time I looked in the mirror one day and I saw that my eyes looked gray, not the color, but like lack of light like something inside me was fading away or diminishing and I was scared.

Derek Tucker:

Well, a few months after we moved to Seattle, my sister the one that had started going back to church, my oldest sister, lark she had a bad experience with her first marriage, but she had recently remarried a gentleman. That were both of them were really excited and enthusiastic about the church and they were trying to decide where they should live because they were both living away from family and they were in Arizona. His family was Indiana and my parents were now in Washington, so they were praying about where to go live. Should they move to Indiana or should they move to Washington? And after they arrived in Washington, us this told me this story, and they said and she said that God answered them and told them they should go to Seattle or to Washington.

Derek Tucker:

And that just intrigued me. It's like, what are you? I'm thinking to myself, what do you mean? God told you. You heard him. That's fascinating, you know like, and so that got my curiosity. I don't remember if I asked about it or if it just stuck with me as as intriguing. And they found an apartment that was about half an hour from where I lived and, like the second Sunday, they invited me to come with them to church and when I took stock of my life at that moment, I had nothing on my schedule for Sundays.

Derek Tucker:

I had no excuse to say no. I was like, okay, I'll go, because my big sister is asking and I sort of feel kind of obligated to say yes, since I don't have an excuse.

Derek Tucker:

And so the next interesting thing was when I got to the church, we went to the. It was three. That was when we had three meetings. The final meeting was Relief Society Priesthood and I knew to go to the Relief Society room after church to find my sister so that we could go home. So I get to the door and then somebody opened the door and it was a girl somewhere around my age. That was pretty and she turned to me and smiled a really nice smile, and this is a foreign experience to me. I was excited, I was like wow, and so when we got in the car I started talking about this girl and I was like I got to come back next Sunday. I got to see that smile again. The irony is she was a visitor too.

Alisha Coakley:

Oh.

Derek Tucker:

So I would go back to see her, and she wasn't there. After a little bit I noticed another girl that was pretty, that I had a crush on, and for me at age 14, a crush meant oh, I'm swooning over that person. But I don't talk to that person, I just look across the room and go, oh, I liked her so much in Greenland and very innocuous, but it was a motivation to me to come back. So, um, I appreciate both of those young women at the time who just were themselves and maybe smiled or, you know, just were good people. That and the fact that they were there, helped me want to be there.

Derek Tucker:

So I keep going to church and as I'm going to church, I hear lessons and teachers and speeches about different things and I think, well, it was interesting when they said things like I did this and then my life got better. Oh, heavenly Father, bless me for following these rules or doing this thing. I thought, well, I should stop swearing, because I grew up where swearing wasn't discouraged, and so I quit. That's one of the first things I did is I stopped swearing. I was going to church. Then it was like I was starting to do the things the church teaches a step at a time. Um, prayer was hard for me to learn because I didn't know how to talk to Heavenly Father, but because I was going to my sister's and her husband's house on Sundays, they would have me take my turn saying the prayer at dinner, or, uh, I would actually go over there on Saturday night to spend the night, and so before going to bed, we did this. Instead of having one person say a prayer, they had each person take turns praying, like a prayer circle kind of thing, and so that helped me to start praying. So after a bit I decided to start praying on my own. So I'm gradually starting to live more and more of what the church taught.

Derek Tucker:

Okay, and suddenly, if I were more trying to gain awareness of it, I was getting happier. So that was the last part of my ninth grade year of school where I started going to church with them. When school started in the fall, it was a new school, my fifth new school in two years, or two, just over two years and because of moving, I ended up switching schools a few times as great as going from one, finishing one school and moving on to the next school and things like that. So this is a new school and it's officially high school, and I had three goals in life at this point. Now that school's starting, I wanted to change my homework habits, to do them do homework right after school instead of right before going to bed, so that I could get good grades for college. That was one thing. Another goal I had was to make a lot more friends, and the third goal which is kind of a pipe dream at the time, but it was to get a girlfriend.

Derek Tucker:

But, these things were important to me. When the school year started, I went to my English class and my English teacher told us the first day at school, when she was telling us a little bit about herself, that one of her favorite things to do is go to the beach and she has this dog that she loved. Well, the second day she brought this red Frisbee that looked like it had been used as a dog dish, that had teeth marks and looked yucky and gross, and she explained that our first assignment to bring so this was like a Monday. Her first assignment was on Wednesday. We were supposed to bring a signature item to school and none of us understood what a signature item was. And she said a signature item is an object that represents who you are. And then she said that this chewed up, yucky, looking disgusting frisbee was her signature item. And we're confused why? Why does that represent you? And she explained that this is the frisbee that she would play catch with with her dog when she went to the beach and it tied together and made sense of yeah, this is the thing she loves the most and so this represents her.

Derek Tucker:

And so I got home from school Monday and I did my math and I did my science and I did, I did all my other homework and I got this English, and English was my last class today, so I ended up getting to it last on this day and I think, okay, wednesday, I need to bring a signature item to school. Now I need to figure out something that represents me. But the problem was I didn't know who I was. I didn't know what represented me. Because I didn't know who I was, I didn't know what represented me. I had become a fan of watching Major League Baseball at that time in my life, but I didn't play baseball, and so a baseball didn't really feel like it represented me. That's one of the examples I can remember now. But there were a few other things I thought of, but nothing was even close to feeling like it really meant me, like it was me, and I just ran out of ideas, and so I thought, well, I've given it my best effort and I do have one more day, so I'll come up with something tomorrow. So after school on Tuesday, I did all my homework and I got to this, and it was a lot faster that I ran out of ideas this time. I just was not thinking of anything.

Derek Tucker:

And so on Wednesday so this was a Tuesday and in the ward that my sister was going to, that was the night that their the young men and young women had their activities. And so what they would do is they would come to my house, pick me up, give me a ride back to their ward that was a half an hour away and I go to the youth activity and then they'd come pick me up afterwards and take me home. So as my sister picked me up this day, I told her that I have an assignment in English to bring a signature item to school. And she says what's a signature item? And I explained to her what it was and I know that she made two or possibly three suggestions and none of them were any better anything I could think of and still didn't feel like they were me. And so we go to when she drops me off at the activity.

Derek Tucker:

And this was the one time this was going to be a combined activity and this is the one combined activity I remember ever having where they didn't announce what the activity was before we got there. They wanted it to be suspenseful. So I get there and I go in the cultural hall and I noticed that on one side of the room they had a bunch of those long tables we see often at churches, set up with chairs, and before I actually saw what was there, I thought it was going to be place settings to eat, something like plates and eating utensils. But I looked closer and there weren't plates. There were books of Mormon in front of each spot and instead of an eating utensil there was a writing utensil and a little sheet of paper. And I thought that's weird. I wonder what's going on.

Derek Tucker:

And then they had us sit on another part of the cultural hall and when the activity started the two missionaries were there and I don't remember the order, but the two things they did with us before turning our attention to those tables and having us sit there was each of them bore their testimony of how they came to know the Book of Mormon was true. And then the other thing they did is they put in a video by a company called Living Scriptures about 3rd Nephi and it went through and it showed how the Nephites were becoming more wicked and it showed prophets that were sent among them and it showed how so many of them were angry at the prophets and even threw rocks at them, angry at the prophets, and even threw rocks at them. And then the time came when corresponding to when Jesus died on the cross in Jerusalem, in the Americas. It showed the upheaval and destruction and the storms that happened that are recorded in the Book of Mormon, and the people, the wicked, were being destroyed. And when the destruction finished, there was darkness and the people were moaning like where is my brother, where is my father? Trying to find each other in the darkness and out of the darkness. A light pierced the darkness from the sky and Jesus Christ walked down to the people from the sky and, as this is happening, a powerful feeling of peace filled my heart and I knew that he really had visited them. I knew it was true.

Derek Tucker:

After the story ended, they asked us to go sit by those books of Mormon and write our testimonies on the paper. I remember that I wrote about the peace that I felt and that I knew that it was true. I remember that I wrote about the peace that I felt and that I knew that it was true. I put the paper in the inside cover of the book and, before leaving, I tried to hand the book back to the missionary, and the missionary said no, give it to someone at school, and I didn't have experience with trying something like that before, so I received it as a. This is a teacher figure person giving me an assignment. Okay, I took the book.

Scott Brandley:

Right.

Derek Tucker:

No idea how easy it would be, and um. So I had a book. I had a book to take with me. This is not the one that I took, Um, but um, not the one that I took, but because I gave it away, but that's a spoiler.

Derek Tucker:

So when I was, when they so the activity ends, I go out to the car where my sister and her husband, who had gotten off work he was, he was driving and she was in the passenger seat, and I don't know if you know much about Seattle, but by eight o'clock at night it's dark, yeah, and about half the year before I moved there, the newspaper said that 50% of the days of the year it rained and half of what was left was partly cloudy. So of course, we're driving on the darkness and it's raining. It's like normal Seattle, greater Seattle weather. And when I got in the car, though, they said how was the activity? And my mind thinks about oh, I felt that great peace. I know the Book of Mormon is true, but did I say that? No, because I didn't know how to talk about that. I'd never talked about things like that before, because I didn't know how to talk about that.

Derek Tucker:

I'd never talked about things like that before. So I said, oh, it was fine, I sat down in the back seat. And then we start having a quiet drive and after we get on the freeway I start going through a checklist for homework in my mind. First period algebra did done that. Second period, pe no homework. Third period, whatever that was. And I get to my last class English Signature item. Uh-oh, because it's almost night, it's almost bedtime and my mind just goes blank.

Derek Tucker:

And then I heard a voice say the Book of Mormon. As soon as I heard the voice, I knew it was God speaking to me. I also knew that it was my spirit that heard the voice and not my physical ears, but it was very distinct and very clear and I recognized it like I knew, like I knew the voice. And I was shocked and I said, oh, cool, and we're driving down the road and not talking, and my sister starts looking to the side of the room what, what did he see? That was so cool. And she's like looking, and I said, and I said, and I kind of laughed a little internally because it made me realize they definitely didn't hear it here, god, but I clearly heard him. This is like added testimony to me that I heard God.

Scott Brandley:

Wow, heard him.

Derek Tucker:

This is like added testimony to me that I heard god, wow. And I said the holy ghost just told I mean, I don't know if it's holy ghost, heavenly father. One of them spoke to me and I said but I said the holy ghost just told me that the Book of Mormon should be my signature item. And because I had talked to her before, she knew what signature item meant, unlike the rest of the world who still don't know what it means. And so she realized what I said and she got this really amazed. Look on her face and she goes wow, that sounds good, but it will be hard. That sounds good, but it will be hard. So joseph smith experienced something before he had the first vision, before he prayed, something tried to stop him he was a great darkness, tried to trying to ruin his effort at having the first vision.

Derek Tucker:

Well, as my sister said, it will be hard. This is when the adversary decided he wanted to try to stop me from doing this, and my enthusiasm almost immediately changed to perceived despair, almost immediately changed to perceived despair. I imagined the students in the class getting maybe angry, mocking me, rejecting me.

Scott Brandley:

Wow.

Derek Tucker:

And that was like an instant feeling that I had, like this is what will happen if you do this kind of thing. And she noticed, I think my enthusiasm changed to discouragement and she said well, why don't you pray about it before you go to bed? And there could not have been a more logical thing to say to me at that time, because I just heard God and I knew well, if I go pray, god will talk to me again. I was just I don't know that, I knew, but I was, I was confident that it would happen and um, so they dropped me off at home and it was.

Derek Tucker:

I think it was something like nine, 30 and I was a bit of a night owl growing up. I had so many older siblings that didn't have a bedtime that I just got used to not considering bed until 1030 or later, and so it's 930. And I'm like I'm going to go to bed because I want to pray. I want to say my prayer before I go to bed, so I'm going straight there. I went to my room. I took the Book of Mormon that I had with me and I set it on some kind of dresser or table or something I had in the room and I didn't put it in my school bag, but I set it near it and I knelt down and in my attempts to pray thus far, in my attempts to pray thus far, I had gotten okay at using prayer language of thee, thy, thou, thou art, we thank thee and things like that.

Derek Tucker:

I totally forgot about that for this prayer. I was so focused on what I needed to talk about that I just slipped into normal communication. On what I needed to talk about that, I just slipped into normal communication and I said dear heavenly father, are you sure this is what you want me to do? I heard his voice again and say yes, and I felt a fiery warmth of loving peace Fill me. Then I said will you help me? And I heard the same yes, with the same warmth, and to this day I don't know if I said okay in the name of Jesus Christ amen, or if I just said okay in the name of Jesus Christ amen, or if I just said okay and you know, and ended the prayer Because I was so startled and I took the Book of Mormon from the table and I put it in my school bag so that I'd have it with me at school the next day.

Derek Tucker:

So the adversary hasn't given up yet in stopping me. The next day I get to school and I don't remember what, exactly when, but I would open my bag sometime during the day and then I'd see the Book of Mormon sitting there and the adversary would start to give me those doubts again sitting there and the adversary would start to give me those doubts again.

Derek Tucker:

And when this happened, my faith was simple. I wasn't very original. I said the same prayer, dear heavenly father, are you sure this is what you want me to do? And he said yes Again will you help me?

Derek Tucker:

Yes, okay, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. Then, an hour or two later, I'd open my bag. I'd see it sitting there between classes and I'd start to get discouraged and I prayed again. I asked the same two questions and received the same two answers. This was like four or five times during the day, wow. So I get to this class, the teacher stands up and she says okay, this is what I want you to do when it's your turn. I want you to walk up to the front of the room with your signature item. I want you to look at the class, say what your name is, say what your signature item is called and then explain why it is your signature item. It was around this time that I realized I had not prepared anything to say.

Derek Tucker:

And I wasn't concerned about that so much, yet I was still freaked out about doing this at all.

Scott Brandley:

Yeah.

Derek Tucker:

So, um, she asked for volunteers and, um, there was a person sitting in the front right corner of the room. Her name is Heidi I'm not going to say her last name, or just Heidi. Um, she volunteered, she stood, Heidi, she volunteered, she stood up, she shared her second item and then she sat down. Then the teacher asked for volunteers. Nobody volunteered, and then the teacher said I will start calling names randomly from the roll. Well, the person sitting next to Heidi her name was Denise said oh, I'll go.

Derek Tucker:

So Denise went up and there were two junior highs that fit into this high school. So I didn't know any of those people yet. They were from the other school, but they knew each other. So Denise's pick item was a picture of her and her boyfriend, because she had been dating him for however long that everybody who knew her knew that that was her boyfriend. So that was her signature item. And then she sat down. The teacher called for volunteers. Nobody volunteered. She made the same threat about I'll start calling names randomly from the role, and the class noticed there was a pattern forming because it was person in front row, seat one. Then it was person front row, seat two. Well, they, well, the ones that knew those knew the third person. It was this shy little Vietnamese girl named Quinn, and the people that knew her said Quinn, and she just buckled under peer pressure, stood up and took her turn.

Derek Tucker:

And then the pattern was set. No one had to. Everybody knew when they were going now. So it just, like an S curve, just wound its way to the back of the class Somewhere along that time I realized I would be the last one to speak, be the last one to speak.

Derek Tucker:

So this is also when the adversary tried the hardest to discourage me and about somewhere around halfway through I started thinking of what was going to happen to me. I thought I'm going to be persecuted and mocked throughout high school. I'm not going to make any friends. I'm definitely not getting a girlfriend. My life is going to be miserable. I didn't get a girlfriend anyway, but that doesn't matter. I have a wonderful wife now. What this? What's going to happen to me? But then I start thinking.

Derek Tucker:

I had a very rudimentary knowledge of judgment day, and it hasn't grown much since then, because there's not a lot of specifics in the scriptures about Judgment Day, but my very rudimentary knowledge of Judgment Day. It would go something like this I would be before God and God would remind me, derek, that day. When you were in high school, I told you to bring the Book of Mormon as your second strident and you did not do it? Why didn't you do it? At that moment, my desire not to disappoint Heavenly Father was greater than my desire not to be persecuted and not suffer whatever consequences would happen. I said, okay, I don't care what happens, I have to do this.

Derek Tucker:

When my turn came, time seemed to slow down. As I stood up, I had the Book of Mormon discreetly hidden by my side and I walked to the front of the room. I turned around and I held up the book and I said my name is Derek Tucker and here is my signature item the front of the room. I turned around and I held up the book and I said my name is Derek Tucker and here is my signature item, the Book of Mormon. So and then I started talking, but I want to describe what I felt I've mentioned. I'm not the best swimmer, so I'll use a swimming analogy because it's funny. When you jump into a pool and you feel the way that the molecules just surround you and you're just, you feel the water supporting you, holding you, you feel all around. When I started talking, it was like the spirit surrounded me, like the water surrounded me like the water does when you jump in a pool.

Derek Tucker:

And Heavenly Father gave me the words to say and I think I was talking about how this became my second stride and the experience I had had the night before but, to be honest, I was listening not very effectively, more than I was thinking of the words, because the words were not mine and I didn't mention this before because it's not that important of a detail. But we actually had a teacher and a student teacher. The teacher was sitting in the middle of the room and the student teacher was sitting at the front teacher's desk to my right. Back sometime around fourth or fifth grade, when I had to give a report in elementary school, I had been told when you finish your report, ask the class if you have any questions. So I didn't know how to end my talk. So I stopped and said are there any questions? And I looked at the class for the first time because my eyes were, you know, glazed over, looking over everybody's head the whole time I was talking. And now I see the class and I was. You know, some kids were kind of fidgeting, some had tears in their eyes, but my teacher's eyes were just full of tears and she said and I choked up voice "'That's a strong testament.

Derek Tucker:

I did not feel that I deserved that compliment, because it was not me that she had felt, it was God. I also was pretty sure that God was not going to say thank you in a way that she could hear, so I felt like I'm saying thank you, but it's on his behalf. I said thank you. I'm saying thank you, but it's on his behalf. I said thank you, and then I turned to the right and saw the student teacher and imagine a new teacher, not sure what the rules were about talking about religion in school. She was probably pretty nervous that I brought this stuff up and so she said nope, that about sums it up, and that actually broke the tension for me and helped me feel relieved, because everything was so different from what I thought it was going to be.

Derek Tucker:

I thought that nobody raised their hand, nobody chewed me out, nobody mocked me, and I was never mocked by any of those students in that class Wow, those students in that class. I did not. Since that time, I've always been blessed with friends. I've never gone without friends like I did before, and while I didn't like I said before, while I didn't have a girlfriend. I didn't really need one when I was a sophomore in high school, but I have a great wife now. So slightly a follow-up to the story. One of those students came to me in the library the next day and asked me for a Book of Mormon, and I gave him the book that I brought from the missionaries oh, wow.

Derek Tucker:

I had many conversations with him over the next few years of high school like over his house or while we're out walking and he was converted from atheist to agnostic but not all the way to the church over those times. But what I didn't know is that when I was at his house, his younger brother was listening from the other room and his younger brother's on the church.

Derek Tucker:

Really after I graduated high school, oh my goodness so I want to say a few things about testimony from this experience. I knew that jesus visited the americas. I knew the Book of Mormon was true. I knew that God loved me and this was vitally. Perhaps the most important thing for me to learn is that God loved me and cared about me. I knew that he answered prayers. I knew he was there and one of the big. So this blessed experience I had gave me a foundation of those things and also, by logical extension.

Derek Tucker:

Initially, if the Book of Mormon is true, joseph Smith, the prophet, and the church is true. Later my testimony would grow in those areas. But at the time we build from where we are to where we can become with Heavenly Father's help, and so. So I knew Jesus Christ visited the Americas, but it was later that I learned that Jesus Christ is our Savior.

Derek Tucker:

Because when I would first read, when I tried to study the scriptures how do I be like Christ? I would look at the scriptures and I would try to relate and I knew that my heart was not, wasn't there yet. And when Jesus says in the New Testament, what's the greatest? Two commandments Love the Lord, thy God, with all thy might, mind and strength. And the second is like unto it love thy neighbor as thyself. I was aware that my capacity to love was very, very small and since these are the two most important commandments, this is a problem. But I don't know how to change my heart. How do I just love God more? How do I love other people more? I discovered when I was a later teen that Moroni shares one of the secrets to gaining this blessing of love or charity for others. He says in Moroni 7, pray unto the Father with all the energy of your heart, all the energy of your heart, that you may be filled with this love of your heart that you may be filled with this love.

Derek Tucker:

So when I was a junior in high school, I remember going to the cafeteria in Washington at that school. I went to Juanita High School and they had a special teaching group so that they could accommodate those with special needs, that like were seriously disabled in wheelchairs and things like that. And this one particular day when I was a junior, that group came into the cafeteria and I remember looking over at them and this is a. This is a distant memory now, but at that time I felt a little bit of revulsion or something and I knew immediately that is not Christlike, that is not right, that I should be responding like that. I shouldn't have that feeling in my heart.

Derek Tucker:

Well, it was several months later, like maybe half a year later, that that scripture about Moroni and praying with all the energy of your heart was taught to me at church and I thought, well, I need charity, I need my heart to change and this is something that's beyond my capacity. So what I did is I went to after I got home, from wherever I was, I decided I needed to go on a walk. I mean a little bit like Enos. So I knew it was going to be outside for a while. So I put on multiple layers of clothes and a coat and I went to a park and I knelt down on the grass and I prayed and I prayed and I dug deeper and I wrestled with myself, trying to desire more and more please bless me with charity. And I prayed until I had nothing in me to pray with anymore, until I had spent all my spiritual, like all my desire, until I just couldn't say anything anymore and did I feel that that prayer was answered?

Derek Tucker:

At that moment I had no idea, I just couldn't, I was just done, I couldn't, I had no more to pray with. Well, so I went back home and then I kind of let that. I just continued trying to grow in the church and study the scriptures and so forth, and I didn't focus so much on that prayer I had done so. What's interesting is my parents moved again, so we had moved from that school in Washington and that time I prayed was in the Chicago area where I lived there for half a year. But we moved back to Washington and I went back to the same high school and I found myself in that cafeteria later when the wheelchairs were wheeled in again and I looked over and I felt love and not revulsion. I don't know when Heavenly Father changed my heart, but I know that he did, and I'm so grateful for that.

Derek Tucker:

If I may say something about Joseph Smith, because I've noticed that there's a lot of negativity about Joseph Smith on the Internet, yeah, and some people are questioning like what about this, what about that? And I want to point out a couple of things. One is the thing I said about the two great commandments are to love God and to love our fellow man, and in doctrine and covenants one the Lord says whether it be my, my own voice or the voice of my servants, it is the same. So God has made known to me that Joseph Smith was a true prophet when he was called and he died a true prophet. The only thing I'm aware of where there's any problem and where his calling became in question was with Martin Harris and the loss of the 116-page manuscript to which Joseph speedily and earnestly repented.

Derek Tucker:

I choose to find no fault with Joseph Smith for anything, and I think that is the charity that we should have towards him. If it weren't for Joseph Smith, I would not know Jesus Christ. As I do. I look forward to embracing Joseph Smith after I die and thanking him for the great and wonderful things he did in his life, despite how difficult they were. I also look forward to thanking Jesus for the atonement in person.

Derek Tucker:

I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior. He's not just someone that visited the Americas because Heavenly Father has blessed me in gaining this testimony of him. I know that Russell M Nelson is the Lord's prophet today. Every time I hear him speak I can feel the love he has for the Lord and for us. As I look back on how much my life has changed. My life has changed. I told my stories, trying to remember what I felt and thought at that time. They're not how I feel and think now. I feel so much more love for Heavenly Father. I know he's there. There's nothing ambivalent about my feelings toward him. I'm not sure if I could probably go on for quite a while longer.

Scott Brandley:

We want to give you the space to say what you want to say.

Alisha Coakley:

I have to say so, um, yeah, I, I have to say and um, and I know you've done, you know you've you've shared a bunch of stories and stuff like that today, I think, on this show, oftentimes, um, and maybe not even just the show, but just in general, right, Hearing conference talks or certain testimonies or something like that, Like, but just in general, right, Hearing conference talks or certain testimonies or something like that Like, we tend to um get really caught up in the things that are really entertaining, the really big stories and the really big, you know, the things that are just so loud and so grand and so miraculous that it's like like a live action film or something like that live action film or something like that.

Alisha Coakley:

And we tend to dismiss the quieter, the you know, the ones that maybe appear smaller, the ones that appear less grandiose, Right, but I I don't think that I have heard anyone um share their testimony of the Book of Mormon the way that you did today.

Alisha Coakley:

And I think a lot of times we get away from the most beautiful simple things in the gospel because we keep looking for the big things that are going to entertain us and the big things that are going to wow us in these grand ways and I am just so grateful for you coming on here today and sharing that and like to know that you did that when you were a young boy, just like Joseph Smith.

Alisha Coakley:

Right, Like Joseph Smith was so young. You were so young and you don't have to be older and mature and and you don't have to have these humongous experiences to be this beautiful light to others and to be this amazing change for the better in the world. And so I just like the whole time, I could just feel the spirit throughout, throughout your story today and I just want to thank you for that, because that was like such a good reminder to me, just to like slow down and just think about how beautiful and how simple the gospel is, because it really is just like that. It's just so simple. We make it complicated, right but so I'm.

Derek Tucker:

I'm currently a primary teacher with my wife and as I look at the lessons from week to week in the Come Follow Me, I'm struck by how many times we're saying Jesus Christ is our Savior. Repentance brings us closer to him, again and again, and again. And I realize that that's what the Book of Mormon does.

Scott Brandley:

It teaches it again and again, and again, and that needs to be something that we think about as frequently as the book of Mormon repeats it yeah, um, something I liked about your story is the the perspective of you having that experience when you were in the pool and then having that perspective, so young and not even really understanding maybe what it was at the time, but then, as you got older, to be able to combine that with this experience that you had at school and then now looking back on your life and just seeing how God kind of intervened at different moments to give you kind of a unique perspective on life.

Scott Brandley:

Not many people have an experience like that when they're so young, where they know that there's something beyond this life, Like your spirit was above your body and you had that knowledge when you were five or six years old. You know, I mean as adults, I mean I would, I don't know, I don't want to die to get that experience, but like man, Well, I will say I didn't really feel pain.

Derek Tucker:

Isn't that weird Like I was drowning and I didn't really feel pain? Isn't that weird Like I was drowning and I didn't really feel pain? Next thing I'm out. Yeah, Sorry to interrupt you, but no that's.

Scott Brandley:

That's interesting. But I just like I'm just looking at your story kind of like in retrospect and just like wondering how that affects your, how that affected your life and your testimony up to this point in your life. You definitely have a very unique perspective on the gospel and I, I think god's you know got a, you know got a special plan for you to, for you to be able to have those, those things happen to you.

Derek Tucker:

I do want to thank you very much for this opportunity, because I feel like I need to be sharing my testimony with others more, and I'm very grateful for the platform that you've developed through your hard work and that you invited me to be able to share here so that I can fulfill part of what I'm supposed to do in my life a little bit better.

Alisha Coakley:

Well, thank you.

Scott Brandley:

That's all.

Alisha Coakley:

Scott, no, it's not, I'm just here to drive through that. Well, I just loved your story today, derek. I loved your spirit, that we could feel just the sincerity of everything that you said, and I don't know it's. It's one of those things like as a mom of teenagers, sometimes I really worry. I'm like are my kids getting it? You know? Like, can they even get it? Can they hear, can they? You know? And it's, it's just a great reminder that you know, heavenly father knows where we are and he knows exactly how to get to our hearts and how to, how to implement these little things that will build into these strong testimonies one day. So I really appreciate you reaching out to us and and coming on the show. That was, that was one of my favorites so far. I know I say that so many times, but like it just, I just feel so good right now.

Scott Brandley:

So thank you.

Alisha Coakley:

Thank you.

Scott Brandley:

I just love that you're being you're willing to share your story because, you know, one of the cool things about doing this show is we get to hear stories that nobody would ever get to hear. Right, and it's just really cool to be able to not only hear it that's kind of selfish, because I want to hear it. I'm glad I get to hear it but also be able to share it and just having that opportunity it's a huge blessing. I feel blessed to hear your story and I also feel blessed to be able to share it, and I'm glad that you have the courage to do it. So thank you, thank you.

Alisha Coakley:

Yeah, for sure. Well, before we end, are there any final words that you'd like to leave with listeners, or thoughts that you have words?

Derek Tucker:

that you'd like to leave with listeners or thoughts that you have. After I was converted, I got the opportunity to go to a youth conference where they had a two to three-day camping experience and as part of that conference the leaders had prepared a special one. Of their special things they prepared was they made it like a talk show. Some people remember in the 1980s there was a gentleman named Phil Donahue that was one of the early talk show host people.

Derek Tucker:

They called the show the Dil Fonahue Show and his experts that he had were stake leaders that were each assigned topics from the existing For Strength of the Youth pamphlet. So they invited the youth to ask questions about the different segments of youth pamphlet. So they invited the youth to ask questions about the different segments of that pamphlet and it started off that people were asking what felt like genuine questions. But it started to turn to things like I am on my school softball team or whatever sport. There's a game on Sunday. Is it okay if I don't? If I go ahead and play the game on Sunday and another person like asking I know there's this rule about not dating until we're 16, but because of the special circumstances I have, is it okay if I date sooner? And the tone was just shifting from let's seek what God wants to let's see if it's okay if I do something different. And I was not an experienced speaker, I didn't know a lot about what to say, but I just felt an une, not an anxiety, an uneasiness with that, the tone that was happening. And I raised my hand and I said, and I stood up and I said if we really wanted to know what Heavenly Father wants for us, we should be willing to ask him and we should be willing to accept his will and his answer. And I think where some people and I think where some people and oh, and what happened with that show is the leaders just realized that that's the crux of it and they ended the meeting and um so?

Derek Tucker:

But what I think about with some frequency in the church is some people start to have challenges with their, with certain key issues in the church, and I think that the talent, the core reason that that envelops most of those issues, even if they are different issues from each other, is that people are not asking what does God really want?

Derek Tucker:

What is like asking Heavenly Father, what is your truth? Because that is the truth, instead of trying to say my opinion matters or my understanding of what I've been taught about the gospel all these years suddenly means that this thing is different from what God teaches, and we need to remember to seek Heavenly Father first and to seek to honor and love Him, rather than to hold fast to our interpretations or desires. If I had not put Heavenly Father and what he wanted first, I would have not been blessed with that conversion experience, and that is one of the blessings that experience is for me also is that it reminds me to do that, to say whatever this new teaching is, the new program in the church or whatever teaching is on a certain social issue, what does God want? That's what the truth is, not what my preconceived notion or what my feelings could say. Otherwise, I should try to bring my wants and desires and thoughts and subjection to God instead of having trying to change as well.

Alisha Coakley:

Yeah, I love that and I love when you had mentioned how you know your thought was a judgment day, like when he asks why didn't you do what I asked you to do?

Alisha Coakley:

How are you going to feel, you know, and and knowing that you only got to see a little tiny bit of the trickle down effect from you sharing the book of Mormon in that in class that day?

Alisha Coakley:

But I think that when, when we pass on to this next life, when we are there at judgment day, I think we're going to get to see the trickle down effect of all of it, what we did and what we didn't do, you know, like where we follow the spirit, where we didn't follow spirit, and we are going to be able to see that, yes, heavenly father, no, like he has a plan, he has backup plans, backup plans If we don't follow through on our end. But also like how much good could we have done if we had just stayed, you know, on that path with him and how much faster could that could have been done, right Cause, maybe we, maybe we ended up getting it done eventually, but how much faster could it have been done, how much heartache could have been saved from it and how many struggles could have, you know could have had extra strength to go through had we just done our part, you know, to stay in line with what it is that God wants.

Derek Tucker:

So how would my family have been different if my parents hadn't quit going?

Alisha Coakley:

Yeah, yeah, you never know. Wow. Well, those are some beautiful insights. We we really appreciate you coming on today for that.

Derek Tucker:

Yeah, so my dad wanted to start coming back to church near the end of his life and tried to, but he was in a rest home and so he would try to participate in that way, so I'm very grateful for that, my mom, a few Sundays in Alabama she did come to church with us, but her hearing is so bad that she can't hear anyone. So she said, well, I'll read the scriptures while you're at church. And so she's been reading the scriptures.

Alisha Coakley:

Do they not have the hearing device that she can use?

Derek Tucker:

She's tried three or four different ones and can't understand enough to make them work for her. That's sad Because she's 90 and her cognitive ability is not what it was. She was brilliant before, but she's not diagnosed with any condition. But who knows if she has some condition to some extent or another? That's not diagnosed.

Alisha Coakley:

Yeah, well, I hope that she can definitely find ways to feel the spirit and to have her testimony grow. And you know what? We can put closed captions on this so she can watch and listen and read at the same time.

Derek Tucker:

Yeah, I think she'd be fine, just turning the volume up really loud. Yeah, there you go really loud.

Scott Brandley:

Yeah, there you go. Yeah, well, cool man. Thank you so much for being on the show and for your insight and your stories. That's man.

Alisha Coakley:

We really appreciate it it was a good it was my pleasure yeah, yeah, and thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in today. Um, you know, as as usual, scott and I are going to ask that you guys make sure that you um, you know, comment on this show. Let Derek know what it is that kind of stood out to you, um, how his testimony and his story helped lighten your life. And, um, be sure that you do your five second missionary work. You know, hit that share button, get it out to somebody and and let others be able to hear this testimony and see how it can, it can, grow their own. So we, uh, we really appreciate you and I.

Derek Tucker:

I do have an instagram account that's not tied specifically to it's tied to my art, but the cover page of it has this shield that I made. My Instagram account is at Derek Tucker Creations.

Alisha Coakley:

Yeah, definitely you guys head over there and check out some more artwork and stuff.

Scott Brandley:

Cool.

Alisha Coakley:

And I'm just going to say, if anyone needs a fireside speaker in your area, they can message you on Instagram too and just kind of see if you're available.

Scott Brandley:

So that would be fun, very cool, awesome. Well, thanks again, derek, and thanks everyone for tuning in to another episode of latter day lights and we will talk again next week. Tell them, take care.

Alisha Coakley:

All right, have a good one.

People on this episode

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Scott Brandley

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Alisha Coakley

Co-host