Prior to joining Church News in April 2023, I worked in several other newsrooms across Utah, reporting on a variety of topics. In particular, crime reporting was often a big part of my previous work. I spent countless hours poring over legal documents, taking notes in courtrooms, and writing articles detailing all the horrific ways humans can wrong each other.
So, I had a certain amount of deja vu recently being at the Utah State Correctional Facility, attending the graduation ceremony for the first graduating class of the Ensign University Prison Education Program. I say there was a “certain amount” of déjà vu because I was familiar with the fatigue, tight security, and strict procedures of prison. There was no absolute joy in the room.
In my experience, court proceedings can be intense, breathtakingly emotional. Sentencing is particularly distressing. Hearing victims describe how their worlds were completely and irrevocably destroyed and witnessing the devastating scars they will carry with them for the rest of their lives is like breathing in second-hand smoke. No amount of prison time can bring back a loved one, restore innocence, or otherwise undo what has been done.
Newly convicted people often seem to know this, too. Their body language radiates desperation and their eyes are blank with despair. They are led away in chains, with their heads bowed, and darkness falls around them in an almost visible cloud.
So how moving it is to hear the prisoners sing, “I believe in Christ, who will ransom me/deliver me from the clutches of Satan” (Hymns, no. 134, “I Believe in Christ”). How meaningful it is to hear prisoners share the words, “The truth will make you free” (John 8:32). And how amazing it is to experience so clearly the reality that Christ’s Atonement is a living, active, and powerful force! There was no doubt that there was something sacred that day at the Utah Correctional Facility between the correctional officers and the barbed wire fence visible from their windows. Perhaps Matthew 18:20 says it best. “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am among them.”
And where Christ is, so too are the kinds of changes that are incomprehensible to our imperfect mortal endeavors. In April 2022 general conference, Elder Patrick Chiaron 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, to make the unsalvageable possible, to heal the unhealable, to right the unjust, to promise the unpromisable. And Jesus is really good at that. In fact, Jesus is perfect at this.” that. ”
Those promises are miraculous and real, and they mean healing to the hurt and liberation to the captives. In October 2025 General Conference, Elder Kearon said, “Everything that[Christ]said and did provided a new beginning for each of those He healed, blessed, taught, and set free from sin. He has not withdrawn from them, and He will never withdraw from you.”
“The glorious news is that God has given you and me the same new beginning. We can all have a new beginning through and because of Jesus Christ, including you. New beginnings are central to the Father’s plan for His children. This is the Church of New Beginnings. This is the Church of New Beginnings.”
“So have you strayed too far from your coven to have a new beginning? No. Have you gone through this and that over and over again to be given another chance? No. Have you strayed too far from Christ to help you write a new story from now on? No. Only your adversaries benefit from the idea that you are sinking. You are not…
“To those of you who struggle with the same sins and the same setbacks over and over again, keep going. God has not put any obstacles in front of you. He has not put any limits on second chances. You keep going. You keep trying. You ask those around you for help. And you keep turning to the Father with all your heart. Trust in the new beginnings that are there. Leave willful sin, casual repetition, and prideful rebellion behind you. You don’t have to be who you used to be. Embrace the new beginning, the second, third, fourth, or 100th chance given to you by the atoning blood of Jesus Christ.”
— Caitlin Bancroft is a reporter for Church News.
