Testimonies of God’s saving grace
LaWrence Uglum
In the spring of 1930 Lawrence and Gladys Uglum moved to La Crosse after their new Crawford County farmhouse burned to the ground. In 1930 Samuel Hamilton and Archie Stewart were having tent meetings in Cataract, Wisconsin and John Snider invited them to go with him which they did.
The tent meetings at Cataract closed and after the Labor Day Conference in La Crosse, Mr. George Shivas and Mr. Hamilton started meetings. Lawrence liked "the little man with the big voice". On September 10, 1930 Gladys Uglum got saved going down the steps of the Gospel Hall.
Lawrence was under deep conviction of sin, but he couldn't understand it. He read the Bible, tracts, and he tried to figure it all out. His wife meanwhile had gone to bed and was sound asleep. In desperation Lawrence woke his wife and said, "Gladys, you've been hearing the truth just as I have and here I am so miserable. How can you just go to sleep and forget all about it?" Gladys' answer shocked Lawrence. "I got saved tonight after the meeting when we were going down the steps of the Hall."
He asked Gladys, "please tell me how you got saved". Gladys said, "God said it, I believe it, God is satisfied and if you don't believe it, you'll just have to die and go down to hell!" She turned over and went back to sleep.
The verse John 3:16, came to Lawrence's mind, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth...", he said, "God said if I believe it, I'm saved. I believe it, and I'm saved." That day was, as Lawrence so often put it, "The eleventh day of September, in the year 1930, around a quarter past midnight, lying in my bed at 1337 Kane St., my burden rolled away."
Lawrence & Lucille Larson
Lawrence was born in Hartington, Nebraska and moved to Danvers, Minnesota as a small child. He was brought up in the Lutheran denomination, but left the church the year before he got saved. Following the death of his father in 1931, and several others close to him about the same time, he became concerned and stirred up as to where he would be in the hereafter, when he died. He made up his mind that he was going to find out how a person could know for sure that they would be in heaven upon leaving this earth.
His brother and wife invited him to evangelistic revival meetings at the church they attended. One night the message was on John 3 and through this he knew he was a sinner on his way to hell. After being troubled, and seeking the way of salvation for several weeks, one night, about ten thirty, in the spring of 1932, he was thinking of Jesus talking with Nicodemus in John 3, where He said, "That whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life." He believed and was saved. Shortly thereafter, he came to work in Dakota, Minnesota and it was there he met his future wife, Lucile Blumentritt.
Lucile attended Sunday School and church in the Dakota Methodist Church, where she was confirmed at the age of 12. As a little girl, she and her mother had attended a few meetings in the home of Mrs. Clyde Bateman in Dakota, Minnesota, where Mr. Samuel Hamilton was preaching the gospel. There she was told she was a sinner on her way to hell and needed to be born again to go to heaven. From that time on she was afraid of dying and going to hell.
Mr. Hamilton and Mr. George Gould were having meetings in Nodine, MN in the spring of 1934. On May 20, while reading Isaiah 53:5&6, Lucile saw that Jesus was wounded for her and had shed His blood for her sins. She, with fifteen others, were baptized in the Mississippi river July 15, 1934.
Lawrence and Lucile were married in September 1937 and were received into fellowship in the La Crosse Gospel Hall in 1941.
Stephen Van Tol
Stephen was raised in a Christian home and attended Sunday School and all the gospel meetings. At the age of nine he remembers his grandmother Van Tol telling him he was old enough to be saved. This bothered him, as well as, when a younger cousin of his was saved.
The weekend of Manchester conference 1963, his family stayed at the hotel and after putting the children to bed, Mom and Dad went down to have a cup of coffee. His sister, Paula, who was 8 years old, got out of bed and went into her parents room, and when they weren't there, she got very upset and started screaming, :The Lord has come". Steve asked his brother, Rod, "what is she saying", and he told him she is saying, "The Lord has come". None of the children were saved at that time and Steve thought, "Oh, no, I've missed it now." Several other Christians were also sleeping on that floor and someone went to get their mother. The children were all relieved to find out the Lord had not come yet.
Mr. George McKinley started gospel meetings in La Crosse the following week. Steve was troubled about his sins and the fact that the Lord could come anytime. Wednesday night, of the first week of meetings, he didn't remember what was spoken in the meeting, but Mr. McKinley gave him a tract, "How The Jailer Got Caught". Standing at the bottom of the steps he was so engrossed in reading the tract, he was unaware people were passing him on both sides. In the part where the Philippian Jailer said, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved". He said to himself, "That's exactly what I want, Salvation." The next line read, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved". He turned to his father and exclaimed, "Dad, I believe that!" At that moment, he was saved. That was October 9, 1963, about 9pm. Steve was almost 13 years old.
Evelyn Mueller
As a little girl, whenever Evelyn used to visit her grandparents, she would see the scriptures on the wall. She was particularly impressed with a big one which said, "How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?" At the time she decided she would hide way back in the barn, so Jesus wouldn't find her. She knew from the time she was very young she needed to be saved, and was always bothered by it.
As the years went by she was married and had two children, but still thought about being saved. Evelyn, her sister and brother-in-law, Myrtle and John Wilkinson, were especially spoken to at their Aunt Agnes Jolivette's funeral, when Mr. George Gould, Sr. said, "If this was your body, where would your soul be?"
From that time on Evelyn was troubled about her soul and for a whole year searched the scriptures, reading the Bible through three times. She attended gospel meetings at the Hall whenever possible, and wondered where is that rest the Lord spoke of, when He said, "Come unto Me all ye that labor, and are heavy laden and I will give you rest." Romans chapter 6 was impressed on her mind and one day while shaking the rugs, she started thinking about each person bringing their sins in a bag to the cross where Jesus suffered for them. The Lord revealed to her, "He suffered for your bag of sins too." She was saved that day early in June 1934.