Before joining Church News in April 2023, I worked in several other newsrooms throughout Utah, where I reported on a variety of topics. In particular, crime reporting was often a large part of my previous jobs. I spent countless hours sifting through legal documents, taking notes in courtrooms and writing articles detailing any number of horrific ways that human beings can wrong one another.
So it was with some level of déjà vu that I recently found myself at the Utah State Correctional Facility, attending commencement services for the first-ever class of graduates from the Ensign College Prison Education Program. I say “some level” of déjà vu because the prison fatigues, the tight security and the strict protocols were familiar. The absolute joy in the room was not.
In my experience, court proceedings can be intensely and even suffocatingly emotional. Sentencings are especially gutting — listening to victims recount how their worlds have been utterly and irreparably shattered, witnessing the devastating wounds they’ll carry for the rest of their lives, is like inhaling second-hand smoke. No amount of prison time can bring back a loved one, restore innocence or otherwise undo what’s been done.
The newly convicted often seem to know that, too; their body language radiates despair, their eyes empty with hopelessness. They’re led away in chains, heads down, darkness an almost tangible cloud around them.
How poignant, then, to hear prisoners sing, “I believe in Christ; he ransoms me / From Satan’s grasp he sets me free” (“Hymns,” No. 134, “I Believe in Christ”). How richly meaningful, to listen as inmates shared that “the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). And how stunningly sweet, to so palpably experience the reality that Christ’s Atonement is a living, active and powerful force. Undeniably there was something holy in the Utah State Correctional Facility that day, between corrections officers and the barbed-wire fences visible through the windows. Perhaps Matthew 18:20 puts it best: “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”
And where Christ is, so is change — of the kind incomprehensible to imperfect mortal efforts. Speaking during April 2022 general conference, Elder Patrick Kearon of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, then a General Authority Seventy, said: “Jesus specializes in the seemingly impossible. He came here to make the impossible possible, the irredeemable redeemable, to heal the unhealable, to right the unrightable, to promise the unpromisable. And He’s really good at it. In fact, He’s perfect at it.”
Those promises, miraculous and real, mean healing for the harmed and deliverance for the captive. Speaking during October 2025 general conference, Elder Kearon said: “Everything [Christ] said and did provided a new beginning for each of those He healed, blessed, taught and relieved of sin. He didn’t withdraw from them, and He certainly won’t withdraw from you. …
“The glorious news is He offers the same new beginning to you and to me. All of us can have a new beginning through, and because of, Jesus Christ. Even you. New beginnings are at the heart of the Father’s plan for His children. This is the church of new beginnings. This is the church of fresh starts.”
Elder Kearon continued: “So, have you been away too long from your covenants to receive a new beginning? No. Have you done this or that too many times to be given another chance? No. Have you gone too far from Christ for Him to help you write a new story from here on out? No. The adversary is the only one who benefits from the idea that you’re sunk. You are not. …
“To those who are struggling with the same sin or the same setback over and over again, you keep going. He hasn’t put a roadblock in front of you. He hasn’t set a limit on your second chances. You press on. You keep striving. You seek help from those around you. And you trust in the new beginning that is there for you every time you turn back to your Father in sincerity of heart. Leave deliberate sinning, casual repeats and prideful rebellion behind you, where they belong. You don’t have to be who you’ve been before. Embrace your fresh start, your second or third or fourth — or hundredth — chance, offered to you through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ.”
— Kaitlyn Bancroft is a reporter for the Church News.
