Gospel Story Finder

Perhaps the Silvas are the kind of members Elder Thomas S. Monson of the Council of the Twelve envisioned when he dedicated Portugal for missionary work on 22 April 1975. At a windswept spot in the hills outside of Lisbon, surrounded by a handful of missionaries and newly baptized Portuguese, he prayed for blessings upon “those members who have assembled here this morning. In a very real sense each one is a pioneer, … showing others the way to follow. Grant, Heavenly Father, that our membership may increase.”
They stood that day not far from Cabo da Roca, westernmost point in Europe, where the blue-green Atlantic spills over deep black shoreline boulders, frothing into white patterns like delicate Portuguese lace. In his prayer of dedication, Elder Monson said:
“We recognize, Father, that from this land went navigators and seafaring men in days of yore and that the Portuguese people have had an adventurous spirit, as they trusted in thee, as they looked for lands unknown. Grant that they may trust in thee as they now search for those truths that will lead them to life eternal.”
The prayer offered by President Monson, now Second Counselor in the First Presidency, is being amply fulfilled as growth of the Church in Portugal accelerates.

I think that I’ll do lots of the same things that you’ve done. I want to go on a mission and be a good missionary like you. You said that I should memorize all the Articles of Faith. Last week I finished the last one! And so far I’ve saved more than $220 for my mission.
I’ve tried to learn other things for my mission too. Mom showed me how to mend, and I sewed a button back on my shirt and helped her sew the banner for your welcome-home party. She also showed me how to wash and iron my clothes and how to cook some things. I helped her and Kelly and Natalie make some of the food for your party. We had fun making Missionary’s Heavenly Trifle.* We used white cake and vanilla pudding and pears and bananas and coconut and marshmallows and white chocolate chips. Kelly says that everything in it is white because it’s “ready to harvest.” She says that that’s what missionaries do—they harvest people because “the field is white already to harvest” (D&C 4:4).

—Abe was born in St. Louis, Missouri. His parents joined the Church when he was eight. “When I was 15, my dad got transferred to Massachusetts. I went from a seminary class of 18 and a lot of Mormons in my high school to a town where the only Mormons in our high school were me and my brother. In seminary there were only four people.”
Abe came to BYU as a walk-on football player, then went on a mission to Houston, Texas. He returned to play defensive back for a couple more years, but eventually gave it up to pursue an acting career.

In addition to protecting scriptures, Emma helped with the translation of the Book of Mormon. She was Joseph’s first scribe—carefully writing down verses we use today. She sewed a pouch for a seer stone Joseph sometimes used to translate.

If we had two or three hours to talk about it, we might enumerate some of the tremendous advantages that we have in being members of the Church and in doing those things that the Lord has indicated would be for our benefit. We have a lot of other opportunities as well. I have discovered as I have gone along in life that you can be born again as many times as you would like to be born. Someone asked Phillips Brooks one time, “When were you born?” He said, “I’ll tell you about it. It was one Sunday afternoon about 3:30 when I was 25 years old, just after I had finished reading a great book.”

My baseball team was playing a very important game. My team was behind by one run in the last inning. There were two outs, and the bases were loaded. I was waiting for my turn to bat. Unfortunately, the batter ahead of me struck out, and we lost the game. Many of the other players on my team got angry. Some even threw their gear in the dugout. I felt sorry for the player who struck out. I knew he must have felt terrible. I put my arm around his shoulder and said, “It’s OK. You did the best you could.” He felt much better, and so did I.

This quality was expressed in a word that I recently saw printed on a young man’s worn T-shirt from a bygone youth conference. It read, “Yagottawanna.” I jokingly guessed it might be an ancient Indian word, but I asked him to explain it to me. He gave me that “you gotta be kiddin’” look but condescended to answer anyway. “Yagottawanna,” he said, “means that you have to want to do something before you will do it.” Of course I knew that all along, but it was good to hear him say it.

Thank you for the very helpful Mormonad by Dianne Dibb Forbis in the May New Era. Where I am at right now I feel weak and inadequate. In fact, sometimes I feel lost, lonely, and scared. I know I have a long way to go, but this message brought me strength.
Michael Holden

In our backyard there’s a climbing tree
With branches stretched out like arms for me
To scramble and climb and clutch and cling to
Until there is sky and a cloud to sing to.
A blue jay settles way out on a limb
And watches me as I watch him.
“My tree,” he chirps. “Mine too,” I say.
Then I straddle a branch and ride away.
I gallop to China, I speed to Spain,
And then I’m galloping home again—
For the back door slams; a voice hollers to me,
“Hey, you up there! Hey, boy in a tree,
How about sharing some cookies with me?”
So I do.
Wouldn’t you?

“After a good dinner and family home evening,” said a son nostalgically, “Dad would often make fudge, pop some popcorn, and then, later, play the harmonica for us. This is all part of a very pleasant memory for me.”

I told the bishop he had the wrong person.
“I do not like other people’s children, I’ve never taught children, and I can’t sing,” I said.
“Sister Taylor,” he replied, “the Lord qualifies whomever He calls. You’ll be great.”
He asked me to think about the calling and let him know the next Sunday whether I would accept it.
“I’m trying to raise a six-year-old, a three-year-old, and a baby,” I said. “I can barely make it through the day with my own children, and now you want to put me with 40 more and have me teach them music?”
He responded, “Pray about it.”
That afternoon I tried to explain to my husband, Mark, why the calling was a bad idea. How could I work in Primary when I couldn’t even be the kind of mother to my own children I wanted to be? A fear had been plaguing me for months that I was failing as a mother.
The week went by in a blur, but my thoughts kept turning to the bishop’s parting words. Finally, Sunday morning in my bedroom, I fell to my knees in prayer. Tears started down my face, but a sweet peace filled my heart. Immediately I knew it was right to accept the calling. As I submitted to the Lord’s will, all the angst fled my heart.
When I entered the Primary room after sacrament meeting, the Primary president introduced me, and the children sang a welcome song. Looking into their hopeful eyes and seeing my six-year-old son beam, I resolved to be the best Primary chorister I could be.
From then on I spent a lot of time learning songs and preparing lessons. I played the Primary songs at home, in the car, and on walks. I researched different teaching methods and devoted hours each week to making posters and developing games.
As I prepared a lesson for singing time one afternoon at the kitchen table, I was humming the song “Scripture Power.” My six-year-old was sitting at the counter eating a sandwich, and my three-year-old was cutting pieces of paper next to me. As I hummed the chorus, suddenly both children burst out:
Scripture power keeps me safe from sin.
Scripture power is the power to win.
Scripture power! Ev’ry day I need
The power that I get each time I read.1
That’s when I knew that the calling was an answer to my prayers. I had been asking the Lord to show me how to be a better mother, and He gave me a calling that would teach me how as I taught music to my children.
I am so grateful for my bishop’s inspiration and his loving words: “Pray about it.”

“Another thing that I enjoyed as I was growing up was playing the piano. I studied it and played it in Church. In fact, my first calling was ward organist. I earned a music merit badge from Alvin A. Beesley, who ran a music store. He was the son of Ebeneezer Beesley, an early Church composer. Alvin Beesley was absolutely the most enthusiastic man that I have ever known. Before he signed my music merit badge, he said, ‘All right, George, I will pass you on the condition that you come and play in the Sunday School orchestra.’ I said that I would. Playing in that orchestra was a horrible experience because I didn’t know how to follow an orchestra leader. But Brother Beesley was so encouraging and so enthusiastic and so understanding with us that I suffered through it happily.”

I was never involved in any fights in high school. I’m glad I wasn’t. I’m not very big, and I don’t find great joy in cuts and bruises.
But one time I got into a fight walking home from school that lasted a few weeks. My opponent was only 28 centimeters tall, but this was one of the toughest battles I’d ever fought. This battle was with a magazine.
My high school was within view of our front porch, so I walked to and from class every day. One afternoon, as I stepped across the thin ribbon of green lawn that divided the school’s sidewalk from the road, I noticed an open magazine by the curb. I couldn’t tell what it was at first; then I realized it was pornographic. I quickly lifted my eyes from the gutter and kept walking toward home.
This is how the battle began. Every day as I went to school, and every day as I came home, I had to face the temptation that lay in the gutter.
As I think about it now, I wonder why I didn’t just pick up the magazine and throw it away. But I didn’t even want to touch it. What if someone saw me with it? Or what if my dad saw it in our garbage can? Or what if I picked it up and saw more than I wanted to see?
Each day my mind could come up with some pretty good rationalizations: “It might be good for you to know what’s in there, so you’ll know what’s going on in today’s world,” or “You don’t want to be a sheltered, naive little boy, do you? What’s it going to hurt, anyway? Just repent later. Who’s going to know?”
One day in seminary, our teacher pointed out that Jesus answered each of his temptations with a scripture. That sounded like a good idea.
Looking through my scriptures, I found a verse about battling temptation: “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and call on his holy name, and watch and pray continually, that ye may not be tempted above that which ye can bear” (Alma 13:28).
Another helpful verse came from the New Testament: “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it” (1 Cor. 10:13).
This was a formula I could use: humble myself, watch and pray continually, and trust that God would help me find a way to escape the temptation. I began to cross the street in a different place, and these two verses of scripture helped me as the days passed with the magazine still sitting there in the gutter.
One afternoon, as I stepped off the curb, I noticed that the magazine was gone. I could tell by the appearance of the gutters that a street cleaner had recently passed by. A street cleaner—how appropriate, I thought.
God did make a way for me to escape, and together we won the fight. Curiosity, rationalization, and laziness are no match against courage, self-control, and mental toughness.
Victory in physical battles requires strength, muscles, and skill; but the fight is never tougher and the victory is never sweeter than in the battles with temptation. No, I never got into any fights in high school; but with some help from the scriptures, I defeated a 28-centimeter magazine.

Much of what I know came from my family. When I was about eight years old, my wise mother asked my brother and me to pull weeds with her in our family’s backyard garden. Now, that seems a simple task, but we lived in New Jersey. It rained often. The soil was heavy clay. The weeds grew faster than the vegetables.
I remember my frustration when the weeds broke off in my hands, their roots stuck firmly in the heavy mud. My mother and my brother were soon far ahead in their rows. The harder I tried, the more I fell behind.
“This is too hard!” I cried out.
Instead of giving sympathy, my mother smiled and said, “Oh, Hal, of course it’s hard. It’s supposed to be. Life is a test.”
In that moment, I knew her words were true and would continue to be true in my future.

When I was six, our family went hiking in the mountains. On the way back, my older brother, Barrie, and I ran ahead. We were excited!
We loved seeing the rocks, flowers, birds, and small creatures. But soon we realized we were alone, and the trail was gone.
We didn’t know how to get back. Trees were all around us. I imagined lions hiding behind each one! Barrie said we should shout for help. We shouted for a long time, but no one heard us.
Finally, Barrie turned to me and said, “I think we should pray.”
I thought that was a great idea. As he prayed, I kept one eye open to watch out for lions. After we prayed, we felt calm.
Just then, we heard rustling in the trees. I was sure it was a lion! But before I got too scared, I saw who it was. It was Dad! We were grateful our prayer had been answered.
As we walked back to the trail, we told Dad about our prayer. He stopped and said, “We need to pray again to thank Heavenly Father for His help.”
With happy hearts, we bowed our heads, and I thanked Him for answering our prayer. This time, I made sure both eyes were closed!
Illustration by Kelly Kennedy

Priscila Vital, a member of the Rio Negro stake in Manaus, Brazil, had to make a difficult choice about how to celebrate her 15th birthday. Priscila’s birthday would come while her mother, Francilene, was in the middle of a 17-day stake caravan trip to the São Paulo Brazil Temple. Francilene had saved money for three years to go to the temple for the first time, and she had enough money to either take Priscila with her or throw a traditional 15th birthday party upon her return. Priscila’s decision was further complicated because most of the relatives in her tight-knit family were members of other churches and had been eagerly anticipating her birthday for several years. They did not understand the importance of going to the temple.
“All of my aunts and uncles wanted me to stay and have the birthday party, especially because I’m the only girl in my family,” says Priscila. “When I decided to go to the temple, it was a good opportunity for me to show them just how important this was to me.”
For Priscila, giving up her 15th birthday celebration was no sacrifice. “When it was time to come home, I didn’t want to leave,” Priscila remarks. “All I want to do is save money so I can go back to the temple as quickly as possible.”

May I share with you a letter I received some months ago which provides such an example? The letter begins:
“We live on the edge of a small town, and our neighbor uses our pasture for his cattle and as payment provides us with all the beef we want. Each time we get new meat, we have some of the present supply left over; and since we live in a student ward, we take meat to some students we feel might have use for some good beef.
“During the time my wife was serving in a Relief Society presidency, her secretary was a student’s wife—the mother of eight children. Her husband, Jack, had recently been called as ward clerk.
“My wife had always prayed to know which students might need our help with our excess meat. When she told me she felt we should give some meat to Jack and his family, I was very concerned that we might offend them. So was she. We both were worried because they were a very independent family.
“A few days later, my wife said she still felt we should take the meat to them, and I reluctantly agreed to go along. When we delivered the meat, my wife’s hands were actually shaking, and I was very nervous. The children opened the door, and when they heard why we were there, they began dancing around. The parents were reserved but pleasant. When we drove away, my wife and I both were so relieved and happy that they had accepted our gift.
“A few months later our friend Jack got up in testimony meeting and related the following. He said that all his life he had had a hard time paying tithing. With such a large family, they used all the money he made just to get by. When he became ward clerk, he saw all the other people paying tithing and felt he needed to also. He did so for a couple of months, and all was well. Then one month he had a problem. In his job, he completed work and was paid a few months later. He could see that the family was going to be far short of money. He and his wife decided to share the problem with their children. If they paid their tithing, they would run out of food on about the 20th of the month. If they didn’t pay their tithing, they could buy enough food to last until the next paycheck. Jack said he wanted to buy [the] food, but the children said they wanted to pay tithing—so Jack paid the tithing, and they all prayed.
“A few days after paying their tithing, we had shown up with our package of meat for them. With the meat, added to what they had, there was no problem having enough food until the next paycheck.
“There are so many lessons here for me—for instance, always listen to my wife—but for me the most important is that the prayers of people are almost always answered by the actions of others.”

I remember the occasion more than 70 years ago when, as a missionary, I was speaking in an open-air meeting in Hyde Park, London. As I was presenting my message, a heckler interrupted to say, “Why don’t you stay with the doctrine of the Bible which says in John, ‘God is a Spirit’?”

I opened my Bible to the verse he had quoted and read to him the entire verse:

“God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24).

I said, “Of course God is a spirit, and so are you in the combination of spirit and body that makes of you a living being, and so am I.”

“Margo, who do you want to baptize you?” Mom asked as we drove home from church.
Dad! I thought. I want Dad to baptize me.
But I knew that wasn’t an option. So I just shrugged. “I dunno,” I said.
Dad isn’t a member of the Church. He reads the scriptures and prays with us, and he believes in Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, but he’s never been baptized. He doesn’t have the priesthood, so he can’t baptize me.
“You should decide soon,” Mom said. “Your baptism is only a few weeks away.”
“I’m still thinking about it,” I said.
But what I was really thinking about was how sad I was that Dad couldn’t baptize me.
When we got home from church, I saw my cousin Collin in the living room with Dad. Collin was going to college nearby and liked to come for dinner on Sundays.
Dad got up to help Mom in the kitchen, and I plopped down on the couch next to Collin.
“Hey, Margo!” Collin said. “I can’t wait to come to your baptism. Are you excited?”
I looked down at my feet and shrugged.
Collin frowned. “What’s up?”
“I don’t know if I want to get baptized!” I blurted out.
“Why not?”
“Because Dad can’t baptize me,” I said. “All of my friends’ dads baptized them, but mine can’t, so it won’t be as special.”
Collin nodded slowly. “That would be hard,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean your baptism won’t be special.”
I just shrugged again.
“Let me ask you something,” Collin said. “Do you know why we get baptized and confirmed?”
“Yeah,” I said. “We talked about that today. We make promises with God and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.”
“That’s what God promises us,” Collin said. “But we make promises too. Do you know what you promise God at baptism?”
I counted off on my fingers. “To take the name of Jesus Christ upon me, to keep His commandments, and to remember Him.”
“Right,” Collin said. “So when you get baptized, you make a special promise with Heavenly Father. That’s all that matters. Your baptism is between you and Heavenly Father, so it will be really special, no matter who baptizes you.”
I guess that did sound pretty special.
“You know, by getting baptized, you’re also setting a good example for your dad,” Collin said.
I perked up at that. “Really?”
“I know your dad is proud of your faith and your decision to be baptized. Maybe seeing how important baptism is to you will help him start thinking about getting baptized too.”
Collin reached in his pocket and pulled out a small box. He opened it and pulled out a necklace with a pretty gold charm.
“Here,” he said, handing it to me. “An early birthday present.”
“Wow!” I said. “Thanks!”
That night, as Mom and I did the dishes, she asked if I had decided who would baptize me.
I touched the gold charm around my neck. “I think I know.”
A few weeks later, I stood in a white jumpsuit and looked down into the font. There was Collin, reaching out his hand for me.
A New Video
Jesus was baptized by His cousin too! Watch a new video about His baptism at friend.lds.org during June.
I looked at the people in the room and saw Dad. He was smiling at me. I walked into the water to be baptized, and I thought about my Heavenly Father. I was excited to make this first covenant with Him. I bet He was smiling too.

When we lived in New England, our home was located in a beautiful little community surrounded by a garden of trees and narrow winding country roads lined with rock walls. When we first moved there, a small flagpole stood in the center of the lovely town green, or park. One summer day during a severe rainstorm, lightning struck the flagpole and it came crashing down.
That night a committee was formed to secure a replacement for the pole. Because the people who lived there were proud of their flag and wanted to see it flying even above the trees, a beautiful white pole was erected as a witness to all who saw it that we loved our country and our flag. It was breathtaking to see the red, white, and blue of the flag waving high in the sky.