When Jane Moe shattered her ankle after her foot slipped into an exposed manhole in 2006, doctors told her she might never walk normally again. Jane and her long-term boyfriend Richard prayed for a miracle, hoping she could be healed. When Jane went into an intensive surgery where doctors attempted to reconstruct her ankle, she never expected that not only would her prayers be answered but that she would glimpse heaven.

A Vision of the Dead

After Jane drifted into an anesthetized unconsciousness as doctors worked to repair her leg, she remembers looking down at her body and thinking, “How can I be up here and down there, too?” Jane wondered how she could experience the feelings and sensations of being both places at once, when suddenly she realized she had a body and a spirit—two distinct pieces of herself that looked the same.

“All of a sudden, I felt this unbelievable rush of love that went through me and in me and around me and surrounded me,” Jane says. Along with the overwhelming love, Jane was embraced by vivid colors, mostly white and gold. “Not the white and gold like you and I see white and gold,” she clarifies. “When I’m describing what I saw, I don’t have earthly words. . . . And I saw this man walking out of the gold.”

At that moment, Jane wondered if she had died on the operating table. “Are you God?” She asked the man approaching her. “No,” he replied. “But I can understand why you might feel that way. Heavenly Father sent me to talk to you and tell you, don’t be afraid. It’s not your time.”

The man then told Jane she was there to receive a message, that she would have the opportunity to share all she had seen with the world. “I don’t remember my reaction other than I felt home. I knew where I was. I knew this man, yet I didn’t know this man,” Jane says.

That’s when the man asked Jane if she wanted to see something truly special. “I remember thinking, ‘This is not special?’ It was amazing, the amount of love. I can never find enough words, but it was like [the love] was a part of each cell,” Jane says.

The man cracked open a white and gold door behind him, and Jane felt a renewed and more intense burst “of love and joy and music and colors.” The door was only opened an inch, and the man said, “I cannot open it more. You are not ready to see what heaven has and what it offers, but you can see our Savior.”

“I saw the Lord sitting in a chair and He was surrounded by families . . . loving each other,” Jane says. And while it is hard to describe with words all she saw, felt, and experienced, Jane knows our Savior loved and spoke with each person that surrounded Him as though they were a child, taking them all onto His lap one at a time.

The man told Jane he was Richard’s father, adding, “I know my son will never believe what you’ve seen. Heavenly Father is going to give you the gift of remembering this, and I’m going to give you the gift of making my son understand that you really saw me.” That’s when Richard’s father told Jane a list of specific and obscure details about himself, such as his address growing up and that he never tied his shoes, to help Richard believe.

Dreams of the Afterlife

When Jane awoke after her surgery, she looked at Richard and emphatically stated, “I saw your dad.”

“He leaned over me and said, ‘You couldn’t have seen my dad. My dad has been dead since I was 15,’” Jane remembers. She knew from past experiences that it was difficult for Richard to speak of his father. But Jane also knew what she had seen.

“I did see your father,” she responded. “I saw him in heaven. He told me that you wouldn’t believe me, so here are the details that he wanted me to share with you.” As Jane listed off the details about the man she had seen, Richard began to cry. Jane also told him of the vision she had seen…..to be continued tomorrow.