What happens when an MBA graduate feels prompted to NOT get a job? Russell Banz told his wife he wasn't supposed to look for work after finishing his degree. The in-laws weren't thrilled. But following that prompting led him to discover the internet at a trade show, start his own company, and eventually build KSL.com and KSL Classifieds, the only major market in America that beat Craigslist.

In this episode of Why We Believe, host Nathan Gwilliam sits down with his former colleague to hear how God prepared Russell for decades before his biggest assignment. As a teenager, he felt prompted to read the entire classified section every Sunday. Years later, he knew exactly how to organize KSL Classifieds without opening a newspaper. Russell shares how a mission baptism of a Hell's Angels biker taught him about the Atonement, how golf became a gospel platform for his four kids, and why he refuses to take credit for any of it. "If I were to say this was my idea, I would be stealing from the Lord."

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In this episode of Why We Believe, host Nathan Gwilliam explores Dr. Peck's journey, including a defining lesson from Elder Kikuchi, and what it means to be a striving but imperfect disciple who clings to the Atonement. His story is a powerful reminder that the healing and enabling power of Christ is not reserved for extraordinary moments but is available every single day.

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What happens when doctors spend 27 years running tests and still can't explain why your body is in constant pain? Crystal Gwilliam has lived that reality since she was 16 years old. Bedridden for months at a time, wheelchair-bound, and facing brain surgery that cost her 70% of her field of vision, she still raised three daughters on a foundation of faith and consistency. In this episode of Why We Believe, host Nathan Gwilliam sits down with his wife of 27 years to hear her story of finding Christ on the top bunk of her childhood bedroom, learning to savor moments as the molecules of eternity, and the day she flew to Portland, went into a doctor's office in a wheelchair, and walked out healed. Her family was so confident in the miracle that they left the wheelchair behind. Crystal shares how chronic illness taught her to focus on what matters most and why she still chooses to believe despite decades of unexplained suffering.

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What happens when a violinist catches a searing hot curling iron with her bare hand hours before a music video shoot? Jenny Oaks Baker, Grammy-nominated Billboard #1 artist and daughter of President Dallin H. Oaks, watched her bright red, shiny hand heal completely within 20 minutes after praying for a miracle. In this episode of Why We Believe with host Nathan Gwilliam, Jenny shares the email her father sent from the BYU Jerusalem Center that taught her the difference between faith in outcomes and faith in Jesus Christ when her mother was dying of cancer. She reveals how walking the Grammys red carpet taught her that the world erases your name the moment you pass, but God keeps ours written on His hands forever. Jenny also opens up about the moment she realized God had solved her impossible dream of being a concert violinist AND a present mother, 46 years before she even knew the answer. Her story reveals that when we follow the Spirit without knowing the destination, God creates paths we never could have imagined.

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Two years ago multiple myeloma threatened to end his life's work before completion. Sculpting to music, a song came on with the lyrics have a little faith. The Lord said you're not done yet. After one month of treatment, his cancer markers dropped from one in a thousand to one in one. He's been in remission for over eight hundred days, racing to finish sixty Book of Mormon sculptures by 2028. In this episode of the Why We Believe show with host Nathan Gwilliam, Dr. Steven Neal shares how a temple vision thirty years ago changed everything for him. Alone in the Portland Temple, he saw a bird's eye view of a sculpted park with an eighteen-foot Christ at the center. The Spirit told him this explained his patriarchal blessing he never understood. You shall hold a light where it may be seen from afar. That light is the Savior, not him.

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A depressed Palestinian teenager who thought God had abandoned her people found peace after following a prompting to attend BYU instead of accepting a $56,000 scholarship elsewhere. In this episode of Why We Believe with host Nathan Gwilliam, Sahar Qumsiyeh shares how she spent 12 years climbing 10-foot walls, hiding from soldiers, and paying watchmen to spot military shifts just to attend the Latter-day Saints church in Jerusalem. One day soldiers spotted her on a hill and started shooting. A stranger said he would distract them so she could escape. She made it to church that day because he took the risk for her. Sahar grew up five minutes from Bethlehem but had to travel to Utah to find Christ. After her bishop told her not to join the church because it would be hard, she ignored him and contacted missionaries herself. Walking toward Golgotha years later she heard divine words that transformed her identity. Sahar is author of Peace for a Palestinian and faculty at BYU Idaho.

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In this episode of Why We Believe,with host Nathan Gwilliam, award-winning songwriter Melanie Hoffman shares the canyon drive when words for Gethsemane hit her like a thunderbolt after months of fearing how to explain Christ's suffering to children. She sat at her kitchen table and words poured out as she wept through writing the bridge about the hardest thing ever done and the greatest pain ever known. Every child who received the album wanted to sing that one song.

Years later, a Tabernacle Choir member told Nathan this would go down in history as their greatest recording. After videos by an Oregon couple, Jenny Phillips, and three-year-old Claire Crosby built momentum, the church included it in Children's Friend and selected it for the new hymnbook. Steve Schenk called the night before release to tell her personally. Melanie reveals how 47 years of self-employment walking by faith fulfilled her patriarchal blessing promise that she would never want.

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In this episode of Why We Believe, speaker and author Leta Greene shares the moment her husband died in her arms at a hospital and a voice whispered about covenants before silvery light reanimated him. After moderate severe heart damage left him with less than five years to live, fifteen doctors witnessed a provable miracle when all dead heart tissue completely healed with no medical explanation.

Leta reveals how childhood molestation from age two taught her to differentiate between God's voice and shame, why being named "Lead Them On" became her freshman spirit queen breakthrough, and how nine-year-old prayer in dangerous woods established her testimony when a boy ran past saying "I can't see her." Her journey proves that temple covenants provide supernatural peace during impossible trials, and simple gospel practices create miracles modern medicine cannot explain.

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Loved this episode? Hit Follow and share it with someone who needs to hear Jason Hewlett's story! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Your support helps us bring more inspiring conversations like this to listeners everywhere!

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In this episode of Why We Believe with host Nathan Gwilliam, discover the miraculous true stories behind gospel musician Garth Smith's sacred compositions. Each hymn arrangement carries personal testimony of divine intervention, from childhood prayers that brought angels to a bizarre 7-Eleven spiritual experience predicting adoption miracles twenty years before they happened. His music ministry emerged from choosing sacred service over Nashville fame.

Garth reveals how early morning seminary teaching sparked nationwide Christ-centered firesides blessing thousands, why infertility heartbreak prepared his family for adoption blessings beyond imagination, and how temple service as an ordinance worker expanded his testimony. His journey demonstrates that music becomes most meaningful when it points listeners toward Christ rather than applauding the performer, transforming personal struggles into ministry opportunities.

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