Chester Owen

I thank God first of all that I am a Christian and for the wonderful way He worked things out so that I became a Christian.

I was just a boy in the hills of Okanogan, Washington. We had a little 28-acre ranch there with cows and horses to look after, and we worked all summer and all winter. Thank God that one winter Dad said, “I can’t afford to stay home. I’ve got to go to the coast to see if I can get some work.” He went to Port Angeles and there found work for the winter. He stayed with some of the Port Angeles saints: the Browns.

Dad attended the Gospel meetings there but he didn’t get saved. When he came home in the spring, he said, “We are going to move to where there is a church.” Well, that was a good start. We began to sell the property we had—the cows and horses, the hay that was left over from the winter, and whatever else, and began to pay our bills. We came out just about even—no money left and no property left, but Dad had a couple of horses and one wagon and I had my saddle horse. He said, “We are not stopped yet—we will go.”

I was just a little runt but I knew I had sins in my heart.

Dad hitched up the team and I got on my saddle horse and we started out. At night we would stay along a creek somewhere. We would sleep in the grass and the next day we would go on. It took us sixteen days to go from the hills of Okanogan over to Port Angeles.

I thank God that is not the best part of the story. The best part is that when we got to the Port Angeles church the saints there said, “If you will pray and repent of your sins, God will save you and you will know it.” That sounded too good to be true. I was just a little runt but I knew I had sins in my heart.

I got a job in the saw mill with a couple of the brothers from the church. I worked there for two months and watched their lives. I saw those people had reality.

In the summer, we traveled to Portland, Oregon, for camp meeting. There in the tabernacle, at those altars, I finally heeded the advice of the saints, and God saved my soul—and it has been wonderful! I have heard of the “good old days,” but I have never wanted them. I had the good old days before I was fourteen years old, and I don’t want any more of them. I thank God for the Gospel and the way He has taken care of me, and the blessings He has bestowed upon me down through these many years. I cannot tell it all, but I thank God for this old-time religion.