Gospel Story Finder

I am not a Mormon yet, but I sometimes read the New Era. I want to say thanks for the beautiful pictures in the August New Era, especially the ones by Kris Rasmussen, because I know her. She introduced me to the Church. The first time I saw Kris she was in complete traction (her arms, head, pelvis, and legs). I was on volunteer nurse’s aid duty, and I could hear her laughing clear down the hall. At first I thought her pain pills made her laugh, but the registered nurse said that Kris refused to take pain pills. She was singing Mormon songs with four too many people in her room. She said, “Hi, Becky.” (I had my name tag on, but I didn’t understand how she could read it clear across the room.) “Come in and join us. We need another alto.” (How did she know I sing alto?) That cracked me up, so I went in, and we sang pioneer songs.
That was my favorite wing at the hospital from then on. She was there for many weeks, and we all hated to see her go. She told everybody about Joseph Smith, and if she wasn’t talking, she was listening to the Book of Mormon on cassette tapes. She always asked if it was too loud, but you could tell she wanted everyone to be able to hear it. Sometimes she would get very excited about a part of it, and then she would turn off the tape recorder and tell us about it. She liked the part about the little submarines the Jaredites made and how God made lights for them with his finger. I liked it when she told me about Christ coming to America. She took time to listen to my problems and even introduced me to a cute Mormon guy. I wrote on her body cast too.
Kris believes that God wants her to go on a mission for the Church, and I know that she will in spite of everything. She never said how much it hurt her when she was in the hospital. You could tell it did, but she’d never cry in front of anybody.
Becky FreeportLarkspur, California

In many ways, Ricardo has already begun his missionary service. “He was an example to me because he always went to church,” says Ricardo’s grandmother, Mavila Ruiz Cárdenas. For several years she had listened to the missionaries who came to visit with the family. And all the while Ricardo was there: sitting in and listening to the discussions, faithfully attending church each Sunday, even teaching his grandmother the hymns.
When he was eight years old and attending church by himself, he had not felt prepared for baptism. But, says Ricardo, “when my grandmother said she was ready to be baptized, then I was sure I was ready also.” So when Ricardo was 10, he and his grandmother were baptized on the same day.

My brother helped me too. When I was 10 and he was 12, we made a promise to each other that we would never break the Word of Wisdom. I can say to this day that I’ve never tasted tobacco or alcohol. It’s important to make righteous decisions early on and stick with them rather than try to decide at the moment of temptation.

Following an impression once saved my life. It was dark, I was alone, and I was high in the mountains several miles from the nearest road. Though I had never been on this particular mountainside, I was not lost. I knew the general location, and I knew that all I had to do was keep walking down and eventually this would lead me to a familiar road. The problem was the pitch darkness of the moonless night.
I chose a gully and started to feel my way down through the brush and deadfall. It was slow going, so I was relieved when the gully flattened out to a sandy bottom beneath my feet. I picked up my pace for about 10 steps and suddenly had a strong impression to stop. I did. Reaching down, I took a rock and tossed it out into the darkness ahead of me. I heard no sound for a few seconds, and then there was a clatter on the rocks a long distance away. I knew immediately that I was standing on the lip of a sheer drop-off.
I retraced my steps and eventually got down the mountain by another gully. I phoned my worried family close to midnight, just before they called for a search party. The next day I revisited that spot in daylight and saw my tracks, which stopped just two or three feet from a drop-off of at least 50 feet. I was glad I had heard and heeded a warning. Where did that lead? It saved my life.

One very memorable day we were in the temple doing some work for the dead, and I was exhausted, because we had been there for the whole day. When I got up to leave, one of the temple workers asked me to do just one more, so I agreed and finally finished. When I got outside the most amazing thing happened, when I got to my husband, who was already outside waiting for me, fireworks started going off. We both stood there and watched with everyone else who said that they never had that happen. I took that as a sign to mean that our Heavenly Father and those waiting were very happy and pleased with the work we had just done.

Cora was having a bad day. The dog jumped on her with muddy paws and got her favorite shirt dirty. She accidentally hit her head with a toy. Her sister wouldn’t play the game Cora wanted to play, and Cora got in trouble with Mom for arguing with her sister.
“I’m having a bad day!” Cora said as tears filled her eyes.
“You are choosing to have a bad day,” Mom said. “You can choose to have a good day instead.”
Cora felt mad. “No, I can’t!” she cried. “I’m having a bad day!”
Mom held Cora while she cried. “Have you tried praying?” she whispered into Cora’s ear. “Maybe you should ask Heavenly Father for help.”
“I don’t want to pray,” Cora said.
“Sometimes it’s hard to feel like praying, but that is when we need to pray most of all,” Mom said. “Let’s pray together. I’ll pray first, and then you can pray.” Mom folded her arms around Cora.
Cora did not want to listen to her mom’s prayer. Everything had gone wrong, and she wanted to be mad. She was mad at the dog, the toy, and her sister. She was even mad at Mom. But something inside Cora whispered, “It’s time to pray. You need to listen.”
Reluctantly, Cora bowed her head and closed her eyes. As Mom prayed, Cora felt her anger fading. In its place she began to feel peace and love.
But then she remembered what had happened to put her in such a bad mood. As she thought about her anger, the good feelings went away. Cora felt torn. She liked the sweet feeling of peace she had started to feel, but she was still mad and wanted to stay mad. Which should she choose?
Mom ended the prayer and said, “OK, now it’s your turn, Cora.”
Cora folded her arms and bowed her head. All the while, her anger fought to stay in her mind. She wondered about the good feelings she had felt during her mother’s prayer—were those from Heavenly Father? Could He really make her feel better? With those questions in her head, she began to pray. She told Heavenly Father that she was having a bad day and that she was mad. She told Him everything that had happened and asked if He would help her feel better.
At that moment, she knew what she needed to ask for. She told Heavenly Father that she did not want to be angry anymore and asked Him if He would take the angry feelings away.
As Cora prayed, she felt the peace and love return. This time she wanted those feelings to stay. She thought about the things that she had been angry about, and they didn’t seem to matter anymore. In fact, she couldn’t remember why she had gotten so angry in the first place. Cora finished her prayer and looked at Mom.
“Mommy, I feel better now! Heavenly Father answered my prayer!”
Cora’s mom hugged her tight. “Sweetie, I am so happy for you. And I know Heavenly Father is pleased with you for praying.”
“Heavenly Father must love us a lot if He wants to help us be happy,” Cora said.
“Yes, He does, Cora. He loves us very much.”
“Mommy, can I go now? I want to play with my sister again,” Cora said. She was ready to have a good day.

Youth in the Melrose Ward, Roseburg Oregon Stake, spent a day as “pioneers” to help polish their leadership skills. The youth were assigned to a family, as either parents or children, and given callings. All families also received a “baby” which was really a 10-pound sack of flour.

The night before the trek, “mothers” fixed dinner and the youth had a fireside about leadership and the possible challenges they might face on their journey. To make the trek more realistic, a few members of the group were assigned to have injuries or illnesses which would require help and support from the rest of the participants.

Although the trek was tiring and the youth were glad to rest when it was over, they all agreed that it was a good experience.

“All of the trials provided opportunities to serve others, to be a leader or learn from one, and gave us a real understanding of what the pioneers went through,” says Kristel Lander, who participated as a “mother” on the trek.

The importance of taking advantage of every hour of precious time allotted to each of us here was impressed forcibly upon me by an incident in my own family. A young mother came with her beautiful flaxen-haired six-year-old daughter to her grandparents. The mother asked if we would like to hear a beautiful new children’s song which the daughter had just learned in her Primary class. While the little mother accompanied her, she sang:
“I am a child of God,
And he has sent me here,
Has given me an earthly home
With parents kind and dear.
“I am a child of God,
And so my needs are great;
Help me to understand His words
Before it grows too late.
“I am a child of God,
Rich blessings are in store;
If I but learn to do His will
I’ll live with him once more.
(Chorus)
“Lead me, guide me, walk beside me,
Help me find the way.
Teach me all that I must do
To live with him some day.”
—Sing with Me, no. B-76
Her grandparents were in tears. Little did they know then, that hardly before that little girl would have had the full opportunity for her mother to teach her all that she should know in order to return to her heavenly home, that the little mother would be suddenly taken away in death, leaving to others the responsibility of finding the answer to the pleadings of that childhood prayer, to teach and train and to lead her through the uncertainties of life.

Our uncle passed away a couple of years ago. On his birthday right before he died, he asked us to help the homeless instead of giving him a present. So now every year on his birthday, we do things for the homeless. This year we made kits to give them. We can show Jesus love by helping others.
Ben and Paisley C., ages 8 and 3, Utah, USA

When the missionary discussions were completed, Brother Kim was not only ready to join the Church, but he wanted to be baptized at the same site as were Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery. On 29 July 1951, in the Susquehanna River near the marker commemorating the first baptisms in the restored Church, Seneca Branch President Joseph A. Dye baptized the first Korean Latter-day Saint. As he arose from the water, Brother Kim said he heard a voice saying, “Feed my sheep, feed my sheep.” He later recorded the event at the front of his scriptures, writing below the date of his baptism: “Words given—Feed my sheep.”

At preschool a new girl got pushed, and she cried. I invited her to play with me and my friend. We had fun together. I felt good inside because I made a new friend and helped her feel welcome.
Ellie A., age 4

Erin K., from North Carolina, USA, and her family (left) have always had one goal in mind: to become an eternal family. However, Erin’s father was not a member of the Church.
“Of course my mom and siblings wanted my dad to share in the blessings of the gospel. The gospel of Jesus Christ made us happy, and we wanted Dad to share in that happiness. We also all desperately wanted to be sealed together as a family,” Erin says.
Determined to become a forever family, Erin and her siblings and mother did all they could to keep the commandments and develop strong faith, and they prayed together for their father’s heart to be touched by the gospel.
Though it took several years, Erin’s father was finally baptized and confirmed. Ten days after his baptism, he was able to baptize Erin’s younger brother and sister. Soon their family will reach their goal of being sealed in the temple.

The screen door slammed its familiar afternoon bang. “Mom! I’m home!” Marcus called out.
“I’m in the kitchen,” Mom called back.
Marcus pulled his shoes off by the front door, then made his way to the kitchen. His nose told him hot cinnamon rolls were waiting. He smiled.
“Would you like one?” Mom asked, pouring him some milk. “How was school?”
“It was OK.” Marcus sank his teeth into the warm roll. “There’s a new girl in my class.”
“Oh?”
“Her name is Karen, and I feel really sorry for her,” Marcus said, staring quietly out the window.
“How come?”
“Well, she has only one arm. And you could tell she was scared to come to a new class. She looked at her shoes all day and didn’t talk to anyone.”
Marcus’s family had moved recently, and he knew how difficult it was to be the new kid at school. He couldn’t imagine how hard it would be if you looked different, too.
“I hope that you were kind to her,” Mom hinted.
“I smiled and said hi, but I don’t think she noticed. Most of the kids stared at her missing arm all day. Some even whispered and pointed, and you knew they were talking about her.”
Mom frowned. “I don’t imagine that that made her feel very welcome.”
“No, probably not.” He didn’t mention that one of the boys who had joked and pointed the most was his new friend, Tim. Marcus had been embarrassed each time Tim did it, but he hadn’t known what to do about it.
That night, Marcus’s father gave the lesson for family home evening. He talked about President Hinckley’s great love for all people and his counsel that each of us should be a little kinder to those around us. Dad asked each member of the family to think of someone to whom they could show a little more kindness.
Marcus thought hard while his little sisters took their turns. When Dad called on him, he replied, “I can show more kindness to Karen, a new girl in my class. She doesn’t have any friends yet.” Mother gave Marcus a smile of encouragement and a quick wink.
After he and Mom told whom they would be kinder to, Dad said, “OK then, I’ll expect to hear a report from everyone tomorrow night at dinner.” He closed the lesson by bearing his testimony about how important it is to follow the prophet’s counsel.
That night, Marcus fell asleep wondering how he was going to make friends with a girl who stared at the floor all day. And he worried about what Tim and the other guys in his class would think when he tried to be nice to her.
When Marcus walked into his classroom the next morning, he half-hoped that Karen would be absent. But she was sitting at her desk, looking straight down at a book and seemingly unaware of anyone else. That’s when Marcus had an idea. He went and spoke quietly to his teacher, Mrs. Meyers.
Every Tuesday was “book buddy” day in Marcus’s class. After lunch, Mrs. Meyers announced that they would divide into pairs to read out loud to each other. As she called out the book-buddy assignments, she paired Marcus with Karen. Tim grinned as he leaned over and whispered, “Tough luck! Guess you’ll have to hold the book and turn the pages, since she has only one arm.”
Marcus looked at Tim and smiled, “That’s OK. I don’t mind.” Tim’s grin disappeared as he watched Marcus cross the room to Karen’s desk.
A warm feeling filled Marcus’s heart as he smiled into Karen’s hesitant eyes. “Hi! I’m Marcus. What do you want to read?”
Karen looked up at him blankly, then ducked her head without saying anything.
“Do you like the Magic Time Machine series?” Marcus continued. “I just finished the one where they go to ancient Rome. It was great!”
“Really? That’s the one I’m reading right now!” She looked him right in the eyes and grinned happily.
“No way!” Marcus grinned back. “You’re going to really like the ending.” Marcus made himself comfortable in the chair next to her. He thought about his father’s challenge, and he was grateful for President Hinckley’s counsel. Not only had he found a way to be kinder, but he’d made a new friend, too!

The July morning was already hot when Jennie walked to the barn to feed Skipper. When she opened the barn door, he whinnied noisily and stamped his hooves impatiently. Jennie put his grain into a pail and took it into his stall, then filled his manger with sweet-smelling hay. She took his water bucket outside to clean and fill it and noticed that the warm summer air was very still. There wasn’t even a hint of a cooling breeze.
It’s going to be too hot again to go riding, she thought. The past several weeks had been much warmer than usual, and not a drop of rain had fallen. The fields were so dry that they made crunching sounds underfoot.
After giving Skipper his fresh water, Jennie walked up through the meadow and the old apple orchard to the edge of the woods where Grumpy, the fat woodchuck, had made his burrow. Sometimes he would come out and nibble at the clover while she watched, and occasionally he came close enough to snatch a carrot from her hand. If she moved too quickly, he would sit up and chatter as though he were scolding her for interrupting his meal. But this morning he was nowhere in sight. Except for a squeaking chipmunk dashing along the old stone wall, everything was quiet. Not even the birds were twittering in the woods. It almost seemed that all the wild creatures that usually scurried around the farm had gone away.
Jennie walked back to the barn and opened the door to Skipper’s stall. He nudged her with his soft nose, then cantered out of the barn with a clatter of hooves and headed for the far end of the field, where he could graze in the shade of the old apple trees.
Seeing her mother headed for the vegetable garden, Jennie ran to join her. The peas and beans were ready for picking, and some of the tomatoes were turning red.
“Are you going to ride over to Marie’s today?” Mother asked.
“No, it’s still too hot. I let Skipper out in the meadow, it’s cooler for him there.”
For half an hour they worked at filling a basket with plump green peas. Now and then Jennie would open a pod and eat the sweet sun-warmed peas. When the basket was brimming, they started back to the house. Suddenly her mother said, “What’s the matter with Skipper?”
At the far end of the meadow, Skipper was galloping back and forth, sometimes pausing to gaze into the woods. He gave a loud, shrill whinny, then raced toward the barn. When he saw Jennie and her mother approaching the fence, he ran to them, snorted, then dashed frantically back across the meadow, stopping at the stone wall to paw the ground.
“He acts as though something is frightening him,” Jennie’s mother said. “Do you suppose there’s a bobcat up there?”
As she spoke, Skipper galloped back to where they stood at the fence. He nickered and nudged Jennie’s shoulder in the direction of the woods. He seemed to be asking her to go with him. Then he was gone again to the end of the field, where he pranced and reared near the edge of the woods. Normally Skipper was quiet and gentle, but now he was acting like a wild horse.
Jennie’s big brother, Tim, joined them at the fence. “Something sure is upsetting Skipper,” he said. “Better stay here, Jen, until I find out what’s the matter.” As Tim climbed over the fence and headed into the field, he thought that he detected a wisp of smoke.
Skipper saw Tim and raced toward him, whinnying loudly. He skidded to a stop, nudged Tim, then galloped back to the edge of the woods where he stood shaking his head and tossing his mane. Jennie and her mother waited and watched.
Tim reached the horse, climbed over the stone wall, and disappeared into the woods. A moment later he came pelting back, shouting, “Call the fire department! There’s a big brushfire just beyond the edge of the woods, and it’s burning this way! It could destroy everything! That’s what Skipper has been trying to tell us.”
Soon two fire trucks came roaring up the road, their sirens wailing. Close behind them were two forest-service trucks with large water tanks.
All the long day Jennie stayed close to the house, wondering what was happening in the woods. Twice the forest-service trucks returned to fill their big tanks at the water hole near the house.
In the late afternoon Tim returned to the house—dirty, hot, and covered with soot.
“Is the fire out?” asked Jennie as she handed him a sandwich and a glass of cold milk.
“Not quite,” replied Tim, “but they have it under control, and they’re digging trenches so that it won’t spread anymore.”
It was nearly dark when the fire trucks rolled out of the woods and turned into the driveway. Jennie and her mother carried platters of sandwiches and jugs of cold water and milk to the tired, soot-begrimed men. The fire chief came over to Jennie and smiled as he said, “Your brother told us that it was your horse that discovered the fire. If it hadn’t been for him, the whole woods might have gone up in flames.”
The next day when Jennie went to pick up the mail, on top of the mailbox was a big bag of carrots with a note that read: “To Skipper, our honorary fireman, from everyone in the fire department.”

Participants were encouraged to preserve their ethnic identity and develop their leadership ability. Whitecloud, a full-blooded Lamanite, is proud of his heritage. “My grandfather didn’t talk English. He was chief. His braids hung down to his hips. He wore earrings. He wore paint. He wore blanket and he said, ‘Grandson, my father’s, father’s, father’s father was chief, and our homeland was in the north, and our homeland was God’s land, and in God’s land the tree of life grows. We live here now, but one day we are going back North.’ Our homeland was Nebraska and Missouri. When the elder came preaching to me, he said, ‘One day your people shall go North and in the North, in God’s land, Jackson County, Missouri, the tree of life shall grow.’

“I know what it is to be an Indian. I do not give up our ways, and I admonish you: You may talk English. You may get an education, but do not forget what your grandfather tells you because we are children of God. One day when death comes to me and I lay on my bed, I can tell my children’s, children’s children that when I was young our people in Zion, they sing, our people in Zion, they pray, our people in Zion, they follow.”

Robyn, however, had a difficult time. “I was new and the only one my age that was in Relief Society,” she wrote. “At first I felt I didn’t belong.” But Robyn kept going with her mom. “Slowly I got to know the women and grew to love Relief Society and visiting teaching.”

My mom told me about when she was in school. She wasn’t a member of the Church and didn’t know a lot about Heavenly Father’s commandments. She used His name in vain sometimes without thinking much about it. One day a girl told her that it really upset her when she heard Mom use His name that way, and she asked Mom to stop it. Mom thought about it and made a promise to herself to never use God’s name in vain again. She said she has always been grateful to that girl for standing up for the right.

I’m Dallin. I love singing, acting, playing instruments, and doing basically anything outdoors. My teacher asked me to join her choir. I told her I would but I would not perform on Sunday. She said she had other Mormons in her choir, so she never had performances on Sunday. I was so happy that there were others before me who stood up for their standards. I know Heavenly Father will provide a way for you to be happy and keep your standards.
Dallin P., Arizona, USA

For years, it was felt that no man could run 1.6 kilometers in less than four minutes. Again and again, athletes worked hard in the attempt to run it in less than four minutes, until Roger Bannister, an English medical student, amazed the world by clocking a 3.59.4 (1.6 kilometers) at Oxford on May 6, 1954. Since then dozens have shattered the old belief of man’s limited capacity. Among them was a young high school boy, Jim Ryun, who ran the race in 3:59, yet finished eighth in a field of more experienced competitors. Ryun himself has now run 1.6 kilometers in less than 4 minutes almost 20 times, and the new world record, held by Steve Ovett of Great Britain, is an unbelievable 3:48.8!
After all is said and done, nothing is successful unless we work! Roger Bannister, after breaking the four-minute record, defined desire as “the ability to take more out of yourself than you’ve got.” During the race in which he broke the record, he told himself, “Roger, you’re going to run if you have to run on your knees.” Bob Zuppke, a successful coach at Illinois University, believes there is always a little more to give. “If you ran as far and as fast and as long as you could in utter exhaustion, and you looked up and saw a big lion standing there, you could run some more, couldn’t you?” he asked.

The 1992 Russia St. Petersburg Mission youth conference was held in a St. Petersburg University dormitory. Seventy-five young people attended. They were excited to be together and talk about their Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ. The theme of the conference was “Choose the Right.” The conference included dances, games, singing, and workshops. But everyone’s favorite moments came during the testimony meeting where, as the author reported, “my heart was filled with love and my eyes with tears.”