SPOKANE, Washington — President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, acting president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and Elder Neil L. Andersen of the Quorum of the Twelve joined with other leaders in addressing Latter-day Saints affected by the Spokane wildfires during a special multi-stake meeting on Sunday, Aug. 23.
Members who had lost their homes were invited to sit near the pulpit.
Andrea “Ann” Abeyta, an Eastern Shoshone woman from the Wind River reservation in Wyoming and a member of the Seven Mile Ward in the Spokane Washington North Stake, was sitting on the end of the front row and received warm handshakes from both Apostles as they entered the chapel.
Abeyta had returned from a mission three years earlier to care for her father after he suffered a stroke. The home — in which she saw him accept the gospel and cared for him before his death in 2025 — was destroyed in the fire.
Attending Sunday’s meeting, Abeyta said, was a powerful reminder of God’s love, and the inspired messages of hope and faith in Jesus Christ gave her “energy.”
“We were together — we weren’t alone,” she said. “After losing my dad and now the home he cherished, I have witnessed so many miracles. Being there was one of the greatest miracles.”
Abeyta continued: “I felt their Christlike love and peace. I was uplifted and strengthened and honestly felt my dad and ancestors present.”
Abeyta was one of several Spokane-area Latter-day Saints who shared stories of homes lost, homes spared and neighbors serving one another.
Learning resilience
Abeyta was on her way to the Spokane Washington Temple when a friend called to say she better return home and pack some belongings — “It’s coming your way,” she said.
Abeyta only had 10 minutes to grab what she could. She reached for her Native American regalia, her documents — and a photograph of her father as a little boy that she had only discovered a week before he died.
The lessons that carried her through that moment came from the other side of the world. As a senior missionary in Vanuatu three years ago, Abeyta had helped members clean up after a devastating cyclone. She wept at the destruction. They did not.
“Sister Abeyta, don’t trouble your heart,” they told her. “Our kingdom is with Papa God.”
A week later, a second cyclone leveled what remained. Their response was the same: “Papa God knew that we needed to clean our island even better.”
After the wildfire evacuation, Abeyta spent the night in the stake meetinghouse. The next morning, she attended Sunday services. As she walked out, a young mother noticed her struggling.
“You look like you’re having a hard time,” the mother said. “Would you like to hold my baby?”
The baby wrapped his arms around Abeyta like a grown man — like her father. Abeyta said the baby looked like her father. He was even wearing a little Hawaiian palm tree shirt, just like one in a photograph of her father as a little boy that she had grabbed from the burning house.
“Did you know my dad?” she asked the baby. “Did my dad tell you, ‘Find my daughter when she needs me the most?’ That baby was kicking and smiling.”
Only Abeyta’s father’s tractor survived the fire unscathed.
“I’m certain my dad and Heavenly Father were sending me a message to get busy, clean up and move on, like my people in Vanuatu,” she said with a smile.
While still determining her next steps, Abeyta is applying the lessons and perspective she has gained to a doctoral dissertation on resilience at Montana State University.
‘Earthly angels and heavenly angels’
All 19 acres of the Rogers’ property burned — except the one acre where their house stood.
Todd and Debbie Rogers, members of the Colbert Ward in the Spokane North Stake, said flames were closing in from every direction on the night of Aug. 2. They went to bed not knowing whether their home would still be standing by morning.
What they didn’t know was that their daughter had prayed for angels to surround the house — or that three or four Golden Eagle Hotshot firefighters from California would park in their driveway and defend it through the night.
“When we realized it was those hotshots that saved our home, those were our angels,” Debbie Rogers said, also acknowledging Heavenly Father. “Earthly angels and heavenly angels.”
But the blessing has not come without complicated feelings. The Rogers’ daughter married into family of Peter and Ingrid Martin, fellow members who lost their home before an evacuation order was even issued.
The couple doesn’t know why their home was spared when others weren’t. But they are deeply grateful — and they see the Lord’s hand in it.
“If it were about righteousness, the other family would have had their home stand and we would have lost ours,” Debbie said before referencing 1 Nephi 11:17. “Like Nephi, I don’t know the meaning of all things, but I know that God loves His children.”
She continued: “We don’t know when or why miracles come. We’re just grateful when they do.”
The couple also expressed appreciation for the Church leaders’ visit.
“We feel so seen, so cared about,” Debbie Rogers said. “We’re very overwhelmed and grateful.”
‘Thou art not yet as Job’
The night before the fire, Julia Larsen was on her bathroom floor, sick with a stomach bug that had swept through the family for days. Between bouts of nausea, she prayed.
“I can’t do this anymore,” she told Heavenly Father.
Tyler and Julia Larsen — both 31, married nine years, with four children ages 7, 5, 3 and 18 months — had already weathered a difficult stretch with Julia Larsen fighting thyroid cancer during her third pregnancy, along with other emotional challenges over several years. That night on the floor, she said, an impression came that stopped her: “Thou art not yet as Job” (Doctrine and Covenants 121:10).
“I was scared,” she told the Church News in a video call from Las Vegas, where they were visiting family. “What do you mean I’m not like Job yet? What does that mean? What else are you going to take away from me?”
The next day, Aug. 1, their north Spokane home burned to the ground.
Tyler Larsen was away on a birthday golf trip in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Julia Larsen, still recovering, loaded four young children, luggage and other items into the family van. When she manually cranked open the garage door — the power was already out — she could see flames consuming the neighborhood. She grabbed scrapbooks off the coffee table and left. She didn’t even have time to change one child’s stinky diaper.
Hours later, the family reunited and eventually made it to relatives in Great Falls, Montana.
When they learned the house was gone, Julia Larsen said she felt peace — not grief. She was ready for a fresh start. The Larsens, members of the Seven Mile Ward in the Spokane North Stake, plan to rebuild on the same lot.
“Once we had hit rock bottom, I wasn’t afraid of hitting rock bottom anymore,” she said. “Now being on the other side, I can see how much God has helped us. It will work out.”
Ministering with meals
Lindsey Coons, who serves as Primary secretary in the Country Homes Ward of the Spokane North stake, had planned a fun end-of-summer bash for her Activity Day girls. Then the wildfires came, and a party felt wrong.
“There’s got to be some way we can help,” she thought.
Coons called stake and ward Relief Society leaders and asked if any displaced families would like a home-cooked meal? Six said yes.
So one evening, Coons and a group of 9- and 10-year-old girls assembled six baked zitis with garlic bread, Caesar salad and brownies. The girls wrote cards for each family. The next day, Coons delivered the meals to people who had been living on takeout in hotel rooms and vacation rental homes.
The families were grateful, and Coons said it proved to be a wonderful ministering experience for the girls.
“I learned that sometimes we feel like if we can’t make a big impact, there’s no point,” she said. “But impacts are made up of tiny little acts. ... Six dinners — that’s it? But every little thing counts.”
Coons has since offered to cook more meals as families return to the area.
“Serving others, that’s why we’re all here,” she said, “to be God’s hands.”
‘Everything’s going to be OK’
The night their Spokane home burned, Brent Tolman, 78, lay awake asking himself what he would miss most from nearly 40 years under that roof.
Despite losing some valuable possessions, the answer surprised him — his missionary Bible. Inside its blank pages he had written a personal history of his 1969–70 Latter-day Saint mission to Southern California — with a record of the people he baptized, the companions he served with, areas where he served, the addresses where he lived and more. He titled it, “A People I Have Known and Loved.”
Then came a quiet impression: “It’s all written in the book of life.”
“I don’t need it written in my Bible to remind me,” he said. “Everything’s going to be OK.”
He shared that thought with his 12-year-old granddaughter in Virginia, who called to check on them. While still on the phone, she looked up the scripture — Revelation 20:12 — and read it back to him.
“She was making Grandpa feel better, and she was getting to feel better herself at the same time,” said Cherie Tolman, his wife.
As the family historian, Cherie mourned the loss of irreplaceable photos and documents — some dating to the 1800s. But she and her husband got out safely with their cats and their temple bags. Their neighbors also survived.
“Nothing important was lost,” Cherie Tolman said. “It’s just stuff.”
The Tolmans, members of the Seven Mile Ward in the Spokane North stake, said studying the book of Job in “Come, Follow Me” curriculum also gave them comfort — especially a familiar promise from Doctrine and Covenants 121:9 — “Thy friends do stand by thee.” That scripture, Brent said, became real as Church members, neighbors and others helped them in various ways.
The couple went home from the Aug. 23 meeting feeling “overwhelmed” — not by the fires, but by the love in the room.
“We belong to the best church in the world — the Savior’s Church,” Cherie Tolman said. “This most amazing Being is cognizant of us on a daily basis and offers daily tender mercies.”
Added Brent Tolman: “It was powerful to know that Church leaders are praying for us.”
