Gospel Story Finder

I heard from a mother of five small children in South Carolina. She had injured her back and was totally bedfast. She wrote to me of the “little mercy squads” in her ward who had cared for her night and day: “They fed me, conquered my mending pile, cleared the tears from my eyes, and administered therapy in the night. All the time they assured me it was no bother; they just wanted to learn more charity and just needed someone to practice on.”

When I was baptized in 2018, I felt great joy; I had been looking for a church where I would feel calm and peaceful. I visited many churches, including some very good ones, but I never felt at home. Months after I was baptized, I finally understood that to feel at home is to feel the love of my Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the companionship of the Holy Ghost. That is my true peace amid the storms that plague day-to-day life.

There is the story about a young man who came to the gates of a distant city and asked an old man sitting there, “What kind of people live here?” And the man answered wisely, “The same kind of people who live from whence you came.” This is true with soldiers who leave home to fight battles.

The churches, castles, and inns of thirteenth-century England are the setting for this dramatic story of Robin. Robin’s father, a great lord, was off to the wars, and his mother, a lady, was called to help care for the Queen, as there was a plague raging in the city of London. Robin is to go to a castle in the north of the land to begin serving as a page in preparation for knighthood. The plague overcomes the household staff. Robin becomes ill and is left unattended. How Robin eventually gets to his castle and how he learns there are different ways in which to serve make for exciting reading.

As Helaman sets and works on his Duty to God goals, he appreciates the support he receives from his parents. “My parents encourage me, they remind me when I forget, and they ask me if I’ve set my goals,” he says.
His father, who is the bishop of their ward, spends time helping him. “He helps me understand things I don’t understand,” Helaman says. “My father and mother both support me a lot in that respect.”

Brett and Brandt Crowther were giving up high school in the United States to come to Ireland with their parents while their father served as a mission president. Brett would miss only his senior year, but Brandt would miss three years of high school. Then, by the time his dad’s mission was over, Brandt would be old enough to serve his own mission full-time. “Some of my friends did tease me about going on a five-year mission.”
Brandt remembers the time right before early-morning seminary started just a few months after he arrived in Ireland. “I prayed almost every night of my life, but one night about eight months ago, I prayed with sincerity and asked the Lord what He wanted me to do here. I needed to know in my heart that the Church was true. And I found out that God does live and He loves me. I gained an understanding of what He wanted me to do. And since then, I’ve been happy being here. I’ve loved it. I’m closer to the Savior now.”
Brandt explains some of the things the Lord told him he needed to do. “I needed to read the scriptures every day and to pray every night and keep the commandments. And be enthusiastic. I needed to get in gear. That night the Spirit was with me. I didn’t want to go to bed. I stayed up feeling that feeling. The best way I can explain it was like I wasn’t alone and I knew it.”

They recently moved from Eagar, Arizona, to nearby Show Low, where their family business includes a hotel and car wash. Devastating wildfires struck the area last summer. Elder Shumway recalls that for three nights in a row, a television announcer stated the fire would be in Show Low by the next morning. The fire never reached the town, and the announcer finally said that there was a power at work higher than he had ever seen—he could not explain it.
“Had the fire come through, I do not think I would be sitting here today,” says Elder Shumway. “It would have been devastating.”
His family and business were spared, and he is grateful for the new opportunity to serve. “I deem it a privilege to go preach the gospel of Jesus Christ,” he says.

Let me share a sweet story with you. A family was going through a difficult time. It was hard for them not to focus on their challenges. The mother wrote: “Our world had completely crumpled, so we turned to Heavenly Father for guidance. Almost immediately we realized that we were surrounded by goodness and were being cheered on from every side. We began as a family to express our gratitude to each other as well as to the Lord daily. A close friend pointed out to me that our family’s ‘blessing basket’ was overflowing. From that conversation came a sort of game, which my children and I grew to love. Before family prayer each night we would talk about how our day had gone and then share with each other all of the many blessings that had been added to our ‘blessing basket.’ The more we expressed gratitude, the more there was to be grateful for. We felt the love of the Lord in a significant way as opportunities for growth presented themselves.”

Many years ago I was introduced to an idea which at first seemed only an exercise in imagination, or perhaps a peg on which to hang a story. But I have thought of it occasionally since as I have traveled the earth, often separated from family and other loved ones.

Suppose that everyone in the world received simultaneously the word that the inconceivable was about to occur: civilization as we know it was about to end.

What would happen?

Well, for one thing, the streets would be a maelstrom of frantic people trying to get to a telephone to talk with someone. Every line would be jammed and every telephone booth besieged by people trying to reach someone to say “I love you.” There would be other messages also. “I’m so sorry,” would be one of them, or “How foolish I have been.”

The condition of the world about us assures us that the unthinkable could happen; but it is not of such a cataclysm that I am thinking, but of our daily walk and our everyday relationships.

I know of at least two people listening today who want that blessing with all their hearts. They will try earnestly to draw nearer to the Lord during this conference. They each wrote to me—their letters arriving at my office in the same week—pleading for the same kind of help.

Both of them are converts to the Church and have previously received clear testimonies of the love of God the Father and of His Son, Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world. They knew that the Prophet Joseph Smith organized the Church by direct revelation from God and that the keys of the holy priesthood were restored. Each felt a witness that keys are in place in the Church today. They bore to me their solemn testimony in writing.

Yet both lamented that feelings of love for the Lord and His love for them were lessening. They both wanted, with full heart, for me to help them regain the joy and the feeling of being loved that was theirs as they came into the kingdom of God. Both expressed a fear that if they could not regain in full those feelings of love for the Savior and His Church, the trials and tests they faced would finally overcome their faith.

The other day I spoke at the funeral of a 12-year-old boy. Jared had recently been ordained a deacon. He was a fine boy, and his friends came from everywhere to attend the funeral. More than half of them were nonmembers who went to school with him, played soccer with him, or worked in civic projects with him. Jared also had an older brother and a younger brother.
When death comes to an adolescent, it is usually unexpected. We may not be even remotely warned of it. Jared was suffocated in a freak sand cave-in at the oceanside in Coos Bay, Oregon. His cousins and other peers had frantically tried to dig him out. It was a horribly tragic experience for all of them, including his older brother, who had also been partially buried. You can imagine the shock and trauma their parents experienced.
As Jared’s family and close friends gathered beside the casket at the viewing, one particular young friend was having an extremely difficult time saying good-bye to his buddy. I discovered that Ryan and Jared had been soccer friends for about three years. Ryan was not a member of the Church, but he was from a fine Christian home. At 13, he had never before had to face the reality of death that comes when you lose a close friend or loved one.
Ryan cried audibly. He had lost a very close friend. He was comforted by his own father, who held him close and rubbed his shoulders. Jared’s father also offered some comfort to Ryan, all to no avail. The loss was simply more than he could bear.
As I stood at the pulpit in the stake center, the Spirit prompted me to tell Ryan that death is not the end of our associations and that our feelings of love and friendship will endure beyond the grave.
I thought Ryan sat up a little straighter on the bench. His eyes became a little drier, and I even thought I saw him nod his head, as if to agree. I thought my spiritual eyes saw Ryan touched by the Spirit.

We have an old scarecrow,
A guard in our yard;
He stands like a soldier
And stares very hard.
He never can holler
Or act bold and mean,
So our whole garden
Is one big bird-scene.
So I am the scarecrow
For part of the day.
I gallop and yell,
“Now you birds go away!”
They scatter and fly
As if they must know
That they help me pretend
I’m a mean old scarecrow.

My parents were baptized on 18 August 1978. I was 5 years old; my sister, Noelia, was just 5 months old; and my brother, Luis, was born 11 years later. We were sealed in the Guatemala City Guatemala Temple in June 1988. I can still remember the beautiful scene: we were dressed in white, uniting our family into eternity.

Made in England in the mid-1800s, this bell was sent as a gift to the Church from British converts. It was hung in the tower of the Nauvoo Temple. When the Saints left Nauvoo, they brought the bell to Salt Lake City. It was put in place on Temple Square in 1966, where it still strikes on the hour.

How pleasant it was to have a young man take one of my daughters on a date and tell me as they left where they were going and what time I could expect them home. This type of young man is going to impress many fathers and mothers and, of course, will impress the daughters, who are most important.

Later in the afternoon, after classes, Melanie, Jackie, and Petra go downtown to meet Sister Howells. They wander by the Spinrädl (the Spinning Wheel Inn), a Gasthaus that is one of Kaiserslautern’s oldest buildings. They look at the original city walls, the Stiftskirche (the biggest church downtown), the cars, and the people. Jackie stops at the Bundespost office and mails a letter.
This is another kind of learning—after-school learning, cultural assimilation. “There are so many things to see. I get excited just walking and looking,” Jackie says. “There is history everywhere you turn.” Melanie adds, “I want to remember the people, the way they dress and walk, the way they sell things, the open-air markets, the way they drive their cars and honk their horns, the posters plastered on every wall. When I go away to college in two years, I want to take part of Germany with me, at least in my mind.”
Sister Howells pulls up just as rain is starting to pour. Everyone’s a little bit wet and glad to be warm and drying out together inside the car. At home they change clothes, dry their hair, have dinner and family prayers, and talk over the day’s activities. Grandmother joins the group—in fact, she fixed the meal. Petra is invited to stay. On the front door and one of the walls Brother Howells had taped inspirational thoughts and reminders about home evening assignments. Some of the children read them as they respond to the call to eat. One of them notices a letter from John, 18, a sophomore at BYU, and brings it to the table to read to the family. They listen, even though they’ve already read it themselves. Somehow, they don’t mind the repetition.
This is another kind of learning—learning about family love and closeness, about the importance of building eternal ties.

Elder and Sister Rakotovao are a delightful and dedicated couple who are natives of Madagascar and who cannot stop smiling while serving the Lord as senior missionaries in the city of Ansirabe, Madagascar. When they joined the Church 17 years ago, they were already married and too old to serve as young missionaries. But they are now showing the Lord their gratitude by serving their third mission as a senior couple. In 2010 they sold their land and everything in their house so they could serve as senior missionaries in the Johannesburg South Africa Temple. Of this experience they recently said, “Serving in the temple is serving others. While serving others we felt like we were serving our Lord God. It is this strong feeling in us that drives us to serve a mission again.” And so, after serving faithfully in the temple for two years, they returned home and began preparing for yet another mission. Earlier this year they once again left their home in Antananarivo to serve where needed under the direction of the mission president. They are grateful to be missionaries in the Lord’s Church and are an inspiration to all Latter-day Saints as they serve their third senior couple mission with great devotion and personal sacrifice.

Night Tree by Eve Bunting On Christmas Eve, the family piles into the car and drives to their tree, a small pine in the forest. They decorate it with popcorn chains, tangerines, apples, and bread crumbs so that on Christmas Day, all the forest animals can enjoy a Christmas dinner of their own.

By the time I turned 21, I had a strong desire to testify of the truthfulness of the gospel and share with others how resolving to live the commandments had changed my life, so I became a missionary. It felt wonderful to share with people what had happened to my life from the time I decided to put the gospel first.

Not long ago I listened to a noted speaker discuss modern trends with regard to youth. He called attention to the fact that young people today are following divergent courses to those traveled by their parents. The speaker pointed out the concern of parents for their children, whom they believe are being misdirected by the modern-day innovations of society.
Considerable time was spent by the speaker discussing the “generation gap” in the modern home between those of the new generation and their parents. He then took a position on the side of youth, claiming that there must be this generation gap if the world is to make real progress because parents are from the past generation, and we need new thinking, new ideas, and a change from the old. His contention was that if children follow the same course as parents, there would never be progress; therefore, we must accept the new even though it is forced by an uprising of the modern generation against the established ways of the past. He asked this question: “Who can say that the old is better than the new until it is tried and tested?”
In continuing his argument, he stated that the breach or the differences between parents and youth need not be permanent, but for the temporary purpose of providing new thought and progress preliminary to a more mature relationship in which parents would better understand the ideals and endeavors of their children, and children would better understand their parents. The relationship between the two would become stronger because of this adjustment, which would weld together the old and the young as their differences were resolved through intellectual compromise.
Then followed an unusual citation of scripture in support of this proposition. The closing two verses of the last book of the Old Testament were read:
“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord:
“And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.” (Mal. 4:5–6.)