Gospel Story Finder

As a bishop or branch president, through motivating interviews you can bless the life of every young man in your ward as well as appropriate couples by encouraging them to prepare for full-time missions. Not only will you bless those potential missionaries but you may answer the prayers of parents who have a maturing son not yet committed to a mission despite their efforts to encourage that desire. For example, from childhood through maturing years, our daughter Mary Lee heard her parents speak of our treasured missionary experiences. We had explained how challenging missionary opportunities had enriched our lives and laid the foundation for all that we treasure in life. Yet we taught that it was her decision whether she would serve or not. Through her growing years, it was clear that she intended to be a missionary. However, as missionary age approached, her exciting experiences in the university began to present attractive alternatives. Once when she mentioned wrestling with that uncertainty, she was counseled to talk to her bishop. An appointment was arranged. As she sat down before a choice bishop, she asked, “What do you think of my serving a full-time mission?” The bishop jumped from his chair, clapped his hands on the desk, and said, “That is the greatest thing I could imagine for you.” That comment tipped the scales.

Mary Lee served a most effective mission in Spain that unveiled hidden capacities, matured her spiritual development, and caused to flower capabilities that have blessed her as a wife and mother. The bishop that had such a profound influence in my daughter’s life is J. Willard Marriott Jr., currently an Area Seventy. But we remember him most for what he did for our daughter Mary Lee. Now in her own family, with the strong examples of a returned missionary father and mother, a son and a daughter have fulfilled exemplary missions. The remaining son will clearly be a missionary, and the last daughter will in time make the proper choice. Another grandchild, following in the footsteps of his father, was recently called to serve in the Mexico Cuernavaca Mission.

Erica walked into her parents’ room and looked at the picture on the wall. It was a picture of Jesus Christ. She had seen it many times before, but this time she noticed something.
“Hey, Dad? Where did this picture come from? And why is the frame broken?”
Dad looked up from making the bed. “That picture was Oma’s.”
Oma was her grandma who lived in Holland. Erica liked to hear Dad tell stories about her life.
Dad sat on the bed next to Erica. “When Oma grew up and left home to be a nurse, her mother gave her this painting,” he said. “She hung it up in her room. One day it fell off the wall, and the corner broke. She wasn’t able to fix it, and it’s been broken ever since. Then when I grew up and moved away from home, Oma gave it to me.”
Erica asked, “Why haven’t you fixed it?”
“I could fix it,” Dad said. “But it’s a good reminder. It helps me remember that even though we might sometimes feel hurt or broken, Jesus Christ can help us. And it reminds me that He knows and loves our family.”
Erica felt warm inside as she looked up at the picture again. It felt good to know that the Lord cared for her family.

The row of strawberry plants seemed to stretch into infinity. I picked another handful of the plump red berries and dropped them into my carrier. I would have to pick a lot of them to pay for the blue jeans I wanted for school next fall.
Mom works hard to take care of Joey and me. We have everything we need, but Joey and I know Mom can’t afford expensive things—like the blue jeans at Stovers. They cost thirty dollars a pair. I was sure all the girls at my new school would be wearing them, and I just had to have a pair.
I had tried to get a summer job, but no one wanted a fulltime baby-sitter, and I’m not old enough to work in the stores. There aren’t many jobs available when you’re only fourteen. Then I saw Mr. Baker’s ad in the paper: “Berry pickers wanted.”
Joey bounced up from the sofa, “Hey, Marcie! Can I come too?”
I shook my head. “The ad says you have to be twelve, and your birthday is still three weeks away.”
Joey pushed a lock of red hair out of his face and his blue eyes sparkled. “I can hardly wait to get a paper route,” he said.
Getting a paper route was all Joey had talked about since we moved here. Mom agreed to let him apply for one when he turned twelve.
When Mom came home from work, I showed her the ad.
“Berry picking is hard work, Marcie. You’ll have to get up very early every morning to catch the bus,” she warned.
“But it’s the only way I can earn money for the school clothes I want.”
Mom smiled. “You can try it. I know how much you want those blue jeans.”
“Thanks, Mom!” I shouted, throwing my arms around her.
In the morning the excitement I had felt began to evaporate. I didn’t know any of the kids waiting for the bus. By the time it came. I’d almost made up my mind to go home. Instead I found myself being pushed aboard the bus with the crowd.
When we reached the berry field, I wondered if Mr. Baker would hire me, but he smiled and handed me a punch card and a carrier. I followed the other kids into the field.
I was soon tired of bending over so I got down on my knees. A berry whizzed past my head and I looked up to see where it came from. Two boys were picking up berries from their carriers and firing them at each other.
The girl in the next row looked over and smiled. She had a bright red scarf over her dark hair, and her hazel eyes looked friendly. “Don’t pay any attention to those two,” she said. “They’re always doing that.”
“Have you worked here long?” I asked.
She nodded. “I started when the field first opened. Mr. Baker pays a bonus if you stay the season. My name is Alice. You’re new, aren’t you?”
“We moved here last month. My name is Marcie. This is the first time I’ve tried picking strawberries.”
Alice smiled. “It’s hard work at first, but you get used to it. I earn enough money for my school clothes. We’ll finish here in three weeks, then the raspberries will be ready.” Alice picked up her full carrier. “Want me to save you a seat on the bus this afternoon?”
“Thanks, I’d like that.”
“See you later,” Alice said and started for the berry shed.
It felt good to know I wasn’t the only one earning money for school clothes. I liked Alice and hoped we would become friends.
Before quitting time, my knees hurt too much to kneel down and my back ached from bending over. It took a long time to fill my carrier. Now I knew why Mr. Baker paid a bonus for staying the season.
“Quitting time!” the field supervisor called. Everyone hurried to the berry shed.
“Anyone want to cash in their cards?” Mr. Baker asked. Some of the kids turned theirs in and got paid. “How about you?” he asked. I hesitated for a moment, then shook my head. Mr. Baker smiled. “See you tomorrow then, unless it rains.”
I climbed aboard the bus and sat down next to Alice, but I was almost too tired to talk.
Joey met me at the door with a big grin on his face. “I’m going to get a paper route!” he shouted. “Mr. Rivers says there will be one open the day after my birthday! It’s the area between Williams and Miller streets. Now we can both help Mom by earning extra money!”
I remembered that the bus had gone past those two streets on the way home. Joey was so proud, I didn’t have the heart to tell him how far he would have to walk.
After the first couple of days, berry picking did get easier. By the following week, I could pick almost as fast as Alice. Maybe I can earn enough for two pairs of jeans! I thought.
The sky clouded over the next Monday, and on the way home it started to rain. “Do you think we’ll be able to pick tomorrow?” I asked.
Alice shook her head. “Not if this keeps up. Rain makes the berries soft, and the cannery won’t take them.”
It rained all the next day. I watched the sky anxiously and wondered if there would be any good berries left to pick. I could never earn enough for the jeans if it didn’t stop soon.
Joey came in soaking wet. “What are you doing out in the rain?” I asked.
Joey wiped his face, “I have to learn my paper route. The kid who has it now is teaching me.” Then he smiled and added, “I stopped at the secondhand shop to look at bikes too.”
Tuesday night the rain stopped and my hopes soared. There were still three days left to pick!
I worked as fast as I could. By Friday afternoon the field was finished. Everyone lined up to get paid. I had filled five punch cards and had two punches on the sixth. Mr. Baker smiled and counted out $43.40. “Come back next year,” he said. “You’re a good worker,”
On the way home, Alice said, “I start picking raspberries next week. Would you like to come with me?”
“Are they as hard to pick as strawberries?” I asked.
Alice smiled, “No, silly, you pick them standing up.”
“Good!” I laughed. “It will be fun working together.”
Mom was in the kitchen frosting a cake when I got home.
“I made $43.40!” I shouted, waving the bills in the air. “With what I’ve already saved, I have $51.20!”
Mom was decorating the cake when I came down the stairs. It’s Joey’s birthday! I’d been so busy I had forgotten it.
I rushed out of the house and stopped at the second-hand shop.
“May I help you?” the man asked.
I described Joey. “Do you know what bike he comes in here to look at?”
The man smiled and pointed to a red and white bike. “He’s almost worn it out just looking at it,” he said.
I thought about how far Joey had to walk to deliver papers, then I looked at the price tag and gasped.
“Hurry up, Marcie!” Joey exploded halfway through supper.
“Calm down, Joey,” Mom said. “Let your sister finish eating.”
“Go ahead and serve the cake, Mom,” I said.
Joey made a wish and blew out the candles. Mom handed him her gift. Joey ripped off the paper.
“Oh, boy!” he shouted. “A baseball mitt!”
Mom raised her eyebrows in surprise when I wheeled in my gift to Joey. “I start picking raspberries next week,” I said quickly.
I’m not sorry I spent the money, I decided. The look on Joey’s face when he saw the bike was worth the price of a dozen pairs of blue jeans!

On October 6, in the year 1536, a pitiful figure was led from a dungeon in Vilvorde Castle near Brussels, Belgium. For nearly a year and a half, the man had suffered isolation in a dark, damp cell. Now outside the castle wall, the prisoner was fastened to a post. He had time to utter aloud his final prayer, “Lord! open the king of England’s eyes,” and then he was strangled. Immediately, his body was burned at the stake. Who was this man, and what was the offense for which both political and ecclesiastical authorities had condemned him? His name was William Tyndale, and his crime was to have translated and published the Bible in English.
Tyndale, born in England about the time Columbus sailed to the New World, was educated at Oxford and Cambridge and then became a member of the Catholic clergy. He was fluent in eight languages, including Greek, Hebrew, and Latin. Tyndale was a devoted student of the Bible, and the pervasive ignorance of the scriptures that he observed in both priests and lay people troubled him deeply. In a heated exchange with a cleric who argued against putting scripture in the hands of the common man, Tyndale vowed, “If God spare my life ere many years, I will cause a boy that driveth the plough, shall know more of the Scripture than thou dost!”
He sought the approval of church authorities to prepare a translation of the Bible in English so that all could read and apply the word of God. It was denied—the prevailing view being that direct access to the scriptures by any but the clergy threatened the authority of the church and was tantamount to casting “pearls before swine” (Matthew 7:6).
Tyndale nevertheless undertook the challenging work of translation. In 1524 he traveled to Germany, under an assumed name, where he lived much of the time in hiding, under constant threat of arrest. With the help of committed friends, Tyndale was able to publish English translations of the New Testament and later the Old Testament. The Bibles were smuggled into England, where they were in great demand and much prized by those who could get them. They were shared widely but in secret. The authorities burned all the copies they could find. Nevertheless, within three years of Tyndale’s death, God did indeed open King Henry VIII’s eyes, and with publication of what was called the “Great Bible,” the scriptures in English began to be publicly available. Tyndale’s work became the foundation for almost all future English translations of the Bible, most notably the King James Version.

A young person who “just loves music” or is “simply wild about acting” can easily mistake a hunger for applause as the presence of talent. Recently a young man came to my office and said that he was going to organize a rock band, make a hit record, and acquire fame and fortune within the next year. I asked him what success he had already achieved in other people’s bands. “None.” How expert was he on an instrument? “I’m just learning the guitar.” I advised him not to risk the savings of friends or parents on a rock-band venture but to learn basic musical skills, join someone else’s band, and when he felt that he could surpass his mentor, then embark on a solo career. As he left, I suggested that he return in a year with his bank book, and we could compare notes, receivable and payable.

One Sunday in October, I was assigned to give an important part in a program at church. But in October everyone in my family had to work hard to harvest the rice in my father’s rice fields. That included working on the Sabbath day.
I prayed to Heavenly Father, and the Spirit planted a thought in my mind: I could try to finish the harvest before Sunday. I would get up early and work every morning before school. Then every afternoon I would work after school until dark.
But by Saturday night only half of the harvest was done. I went to bed discouraged that I had not accomplished my goal. Sunday morning I awoke early to go to the fields. My father came to my room and, with a gentle smile, asked why I wasn’t going to church. My heart was full of joy. I could go to church and keep the Sabbath day holy!

I didn’t have much chance to play while I was in the MTC until the night before I left. Those from my branch who were leaving had a meeting together with the branch president for some final words of advice. There were many tears and tender feelings. And I was asked to play the closing hymn, “God Be with You Till We Meet Again” (Hymns, no. 152). This stirred up more emotions and made the Spirit even stronger.
After the closing prayer, which built upon the Spirit we already felt, I played some quiet postlude music as people talked and began to filter out. I played “The Spirit of God” (Hymns, no. 2) very softly on the upper keys. It’s hard to explain, but sometimes just believing in the words of the song you’re playing, and having the Spirit with you, causes you to play so that the people listening feel what you’re feeling. You can actually express your emotions through the way you play the song. It doesn’t always happen (at least not to me), but it happened this time. I really felt what I was playing, and I really wanted to convey a message by the way I played it.
As I played, I noticed that someone was behind me watching and listening. I finished the hymn and quickly glanced to see who it was. It was Elder Smith, someone I didn’t know very well. He was standing there, crying.
He had already felt the Spirit during the meeting, like the rest of us, and now the music was helping to intensify it. So I kept playing.
That’s when it struck me. For perhaps the first time, I was playing the piano, not for my own enjoyment and not to receive praise, but to help someone feel the Spirit. I actually, truly wanted to be an instrument in the Lord’s hands and serve him. In this case, the best way I could serve him was to help convey the Spirit to one of his children through music.

Another entry was Friday, March 2, 1900, “Little Loi Roberts was given up to die by Dr. Stuttaford at the sanatorium [in Apia]. The patient little sufferer was administered to daily, and each time he would get relief. … His parents [Elder and Sister E. T. Roberts] were untiring in their efforts to allay pain and sufferings.”
Saturday, March 3, “Little Loi died at the sanatorium in Apia in the morning, making another sad day in the history of the mission.” Small wonder that the tombstone contained the words, “Rest sweet Loi, rest.” He was one and a half years old.

I was dealing with some personal issues. One day I wasn’t feeling well, and I didn’t really want to go to seminary. But I thought, “It’s my last year, and I’ve got to take advantage of it.”
So I went, and we talked about how Jesus Christ knows each of us by name. We read Doctrine and Covenants 18:10: “Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God.” I started to get emotional as I highlighted the verse. When I get emotional, I cry a lot, so I didn’t want to read it again in class.
Later the teacher asked, “What interested you the most, and why?” I didn’t want to talk, but a friend of mine mentioned that scripture. She bore her testimony that God isn’t going to leave us alone, that sometimes we’ll forget, but He knows us and He’ll be there for us.
When I heard that, it felt like it was Heavenly Father speaking to me through my friend. It was like He was saying, “Don’t turn from me—I’m here.”
Afterward I went to dry off my face, and my friend came over to me. She said, “I wasn’t going to share, but I felt I needed to because it would help someone. I didn’t know that someone was you.” That confirmed to me even more that Heavenly Father is mindful of me.
After seminary, I went home and prayed. Normally, I give thanks and ask for things. But that prayer—I think it was the most grateful prayer I’ve ever said. I felt the Spirit in my room, and I felt that Heavenly Father was there with me.

Phyllis Peterson of Lindon, Utah, once mentioned to a friend that her children seemed to quarrel all day while they were with her. “Maybe the problem is me,” she said—and her words hit like lightning.
As she thought about areas she could improve in her life, Sister Peterson recalled a statement by President Marion G. Romney, who served as a counselor in the First Presidency. He said that if parents would read from the Book of Mormon prayerfully and regularly, the spirit of contention would depart from their homes. (See Ensign, May 1980, p. 67.) Although the Petersons had been reading the scriptures as a family, Sister Peterson had let her personal study slide. “I determined then to change,” she says. “And within a week, the children started getting along better. Why? I found that I was calm and could better reason with them.”

My family and I were not members of the Church. One day while I was in medical school, I checked out a book from the library called A Marvelous Work and a Wonder. It was written by an Apostle named Elder LeGrand Richards. The book was all about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I read the book over and over. I studied and prayed about it. The book prepared me to join the Church a few months later.

“A few weeks after my family tried out for the pageant, we each got letters telling us that we all made it. My dad was assigned to be Joseph in the scene of 12-year-old Jesus in the temple, my mom got to be Mary, and I played Jesus. When I looked at our letters again, I couldn’t believe it! I know Jesus lives and the Church is true, and I’m glad I got to be a missionary by being in the Easter pageant.”–Tyler Starr, 12

The river is spread with wisps of morning mist, and a girl with golden hair lies in her sleeping bag, her head propped in her hands. She looks for a long time as the tide flows out. Dragonflies dart in and out of the mist and a light breeze mumbles in the tules across the river. The smell of rich earth, wet reeds, and slow water hangs over her like a summer incense. Above the drowsy hum of insects, a fish now and then makes an indolent plop somewhere, and the water is brown and silver in the morning.
After a while the girl lays her head down and dozes with the others.
With no alarm clocks to make the sun an enemy, the girls slept late that morning on the Sacramento River Delta, and when they awoke, they still felt like the inhabitants of a dream.
The dream began in Danville, California, where the Mia Maids and Laurels of the Danville Ward, along with their adult leaders, met one morning under cloudy skies to load suitcases, sleeping bags, water skis, and supplies into their cars. Later, as they rolled through the lion-colored hills of a California summer, the sun seared away the clouds and burned its seal of approval onto their horizon.
There was magic in that solar endorsement because from that moment the world’s rotation appeared to slow. The three-day adventure seemed to last weeks, and contrary to all previous experience, the more fun the girls had, the longer the days lasted. It was as if time were being poured from a cruse of sunshine that could never run dry.
When they arrived at Bethel Island, the girls poured out of the cars to inspect the small summerhouse that was to be their vacation home. Behind the house was a high levee, and they poured over that also to discover a stream whiskered with docks, the warm, brown tide flowing out. They were happy to learn that this stream was just part of an 1,100 mile spiderweb of interconnecting tidal waterways that they proceeded to christen collectively “The River.” During the next three days the river became the setting for a thousand watery adventures.
The most prevalent adventure was waterskiing. Some girls performed as if they were born on skis, others as if they were likely to die on them. Some cut graceful furrows with slalom skis. Others gouged furrows with their faces; but they kept trying, and eventually everyone got up. They skied and skied under the opulent sun till everyone was bright pink and then bright red. And even then they kept on skiing.
One day they took a trip to the Meadows, a gentle backwater slough where tall, shady trees line a sandy beach. The sky there was blue enough to swim in, and the trees stood out against the sun like negatives of themselves. They nosed the boat into shore alongside tall houseboats and jumped out for a lunch of submarine sandwiches. Afterwards they lazed and floated under the sun and went exploring in the boats through green corridors of smooth water.
They glided under a high railroad bridge where unknown urchins in cut-offs clung like spiders, leaping off now and then as if on filaments of silk.
They nosed up to tangled blackberry thickets that hung over the water, picking and eating the huge berries by the handfuls.
They played king of the hill atop a giant inner tube, splashing like dying stunt men into the white cushion of reflected clouds.
They frolicked like otters among patches of water lilies.
They stood rooted in air, earth, and water, groping with their toes for freshwater clams in the luxurious mud, water to their chests. They skittered frisbees along the shallows, swam with slow, lazy strokes in the deep, and napped on the cool sand of the shore, and when they had done everything once, they started all over again. After all, they had forever. They were Californians, and the sun was their birthright. It stood still for them as if they were so many Joshuas, as if the day, the summer, and their youth would never end.
Once, in the quiet shade of the bank, Bishop Alan P. Johnson could be seen in earnest conversation with a new girl in the ward, as intent as if she were the whole Church.
Late that afternoon they returned home, towing skiers all the way. It was a fitting exit, but by no means to be compared with their entrance that morning, when they had walked on the water—thanks to a sandbar right smack in the middle of the broad Sacramento River the girls had splashed along apparently on the surface of the waves.
They spent another day on a small sandy island in the middle of a channel, boating and sunning. Some of the beginners tried their hand at skiing and hit the water like naval artillery, kicking up fountains of water and flying skis.
“I know what you did wrong,” a helpful friend on the bank called to a casualty. “You forgot to close your eyes!”
She watched as her friend tried again, this time performing a beautiful belly flop and skipping on the water like a lopsided stone. “That was better!” the coach on the shore said. “She remembered to close her eyes that time.”
Another sadistic onlooker chimed in with a word of shouted advice: “Whatever happens, don’t let go!”
When they weren’t skiing or boating, some of the girls became artists, creating lofty-towered sand castles on the beach and then watching the tide lay seige to and finally overwhelm their ramparts.
On the way home that day the girls jumped out of the boat several hundred yards from their home dock and let the tide carry them in.
One day on the river the girls visited the town of Locke, constructed originally by the Chinese laborers who built the levees and now occupied by their descendants. Here the girls explored the streets of two-story, tic-tac-toe wooden houses and mysterious passageways that were neither streets nor alleys.
Meanwhile, back at the house, there was both work and resting to do in between the playing. Three times a day the girls cooked delicious meals and then handled the cleanup efficiently. One night when a Mia Maid was called to help with the dishes, she said quietly to a friend, “Actually, it’s not my turn, but I’ve got to get over the habit of complaining,” and she went to wash the dishes. When she was gone her friend sat in silence for a moment. Then she sighed and said, “I haven’t helped wash the dishes yet. I guess I should go help even though they didn’t assign me,” and she went. Soon an assembly-line sudsfest was underway, accompanied by a spirited medley of folk songs and so much all-purpose hilarity that several more unassigned girls joined in just for the fun of it.
One evening the group dined on mouth-watering fried catfish donated by a neighbor lady. Later that night they visited the good woman and sang her a song of appreciation. Not content to leave it at that, the girls used their talented toes the next day to find her a sackful of clams for fishbait.
At night the girls filled the bedrooms, the sun room, the sun deck, the combination kitchen-dining-living room, and spilled out over the levee onto the dock, where they slept with the gentle rocking of the waves and the murmur of the moving water. A few girls even slept in the boats that were moored to the dock. These outdoor dwellers were treated to a huge moon that rode above the tules and made the river into a highway of gold, not to mention the sun that rose each morning on a tide of cricket and bird songs to burn away the mist.
“Wow! Did you see that sunrise?” one ecstatic girl asked her sleepy companion after the sleeping bags had been put away.
“Yeah,” her more prosaic friend replied. “I woke up and took a look and said, ‘Well what do you know, there’s the sunrise,’ and then I went back to sleep.”
As with any group of Mormons totaling more than one, there were some meetings too. Their first night on the river the girls enjoyed a talent night that included readings, songs, and even some magic. The second night there was a family home evening in which the girls shared ideas on the importance of being a child of God. They expressed their love for the Savior and nodded quietly, as one young lady said, “Whenever you build a wall between yourself and another human being, you build a wall between yourself and Jesus Christ.”
There was plenty to do in spare moments: sleeping, fishing off the dock, writing letters, writing in journals, scripture study, gab sessions, sailing a little two-girl boat with a sail like another white cloud under the sky, and a lot more, including first aid treatments for sunburns. And sometimes they just dived off the dock or sat watching the tide flow in or out, ceaselessly, day and night.
At least as warming as the sun was the love these young women showed toward one another. Whenever a girl was seen standing shyly apart, a kindly arm would appear around her shoulders to draw her in, When there was disagreement, it was settled by discussion rather than argument. There were no cliques, no in-groups or out-groups, no social outcasts, no cruel jests or biting sarcasm. When it was mentioned to one of the girls that they seemed surprisingly free from backbiting, she said, “How can there be backbiting? We know that there shouldn’t be.”
Another girl explained, “I’m trying to learn how to love other people. I’m learning to do things for them, to stop thinking ‘want’ and start thinking ‘give’.”
Two of the girls in the very thick of the action on the three-day adventure were nonmembers, and they appeared to be loving every minute of it. That’s not surprising considering the missionary record of the Danville young people. Half the Laurel class consists of converts introduced to the gospel by the young people of the ward. The previous year there had been ten baptisms attributed to the efforts of the young men and women, and the work was going on. They talk openly to their friends about the Church, knowing what an important gift they have to offer.
“A lot of kids at school say they don’t know who they are,” one girl said. “Well, we know who we are!”
The last evening of their stay on the river, the girls had a testimony meeting. One of the girls brought a roll of tissue and set it in the center of the group in easy reach of anyone with leaky eyes. More than one needed it as they bore testimony of the gospel and their love for the Lord and one another. A nonmember girl stood with tears in her eyes to tell of her love for the Mormon girls and their leaders although she hadn’t yet gained a testimony of the gospel. A girl who had been in the ward only a week and in the Church only a few months told how she had come on the trip homesick for her old ward and fearing loneliness and rejection. But in three days she had come to feel she had known these girls all her life.
The next morning, as four girls debated the best way to get four suitcases, four sleeping bags, four pillows and four overnight bags into the trunk of one Volkswagen, the group took their leave of the river. They said good-bye to each other as if they were not to meet again for a long while, although they were merely taking a short drive back to the same city. But they were saying good-bye not so much to one another as to a wonderful experience that would soon pass from the full color of the present to the black and white of memory.
But the color hasn’t all faded yet. There is still a girl skiing at sundown, golden in the silver wake, flinging curtains of glittering spray as she leans into each turn. There are the girls in bright bathing suits singing Mormon Tabernacle Choir songs as passing boaters look at them and wonder. There are the bright orange life preservers as the girls float with the pull of the tide.
There is the duotone image of a young girl sitting on the sun-deck in a quiet moment, reading the Book of Mormon and thinking.
And above the images, the color, the splashing and laughter and sunshine and delicious river smells is the reality that is the foundation of all the joy these young people find in life. As one young lady said, “In my last interview the bishop asked me what I had learned this year. I think what I’ve learned this year is that without the gospel nothing else in this whole world really matters.”

Yet a disquieting feeling persisted. This was a “one-man church,” entirely centered on the leader’s doctrines and directives. I was sent out to start congregations, but something inside me resisted. I could not move forward unless I knew, without doubt, that God Himself was directing me, not just a man. I stayed in my role, waiting for a clarity that never came in that place.
A professional crossroads coincided with this spiritual searching. My security company, impressed with my skills, was placing me at a new contract with Sankofa Spices, with a promise of a permanent, high-paying position as a security coordinator. I was ready to accept. Then, my friend, the operations manager, mentioned a temporary opening at the “Latter-day Saints” mission office. The pay was less than half of what Sankofa offered, so I wasn’t interested. But when the Sankofa start date was delayed, I agreed to fill in for two weeks. It was a decision that would alter the course of my life.

Elder Stanley Gareld Ellis knew that no one could prove the existence of God through scientific means, but at Harvard University he learned that he could prove God by testing His promises. Halfway through his freshman year, he ran out of money and secured a job to help pay his expenses. Although he doubted that he could pay tithing and still cover all of his costs, he decided to “prove” the Lord (see Malachi 3:10).
“I paid my tithing first, and a miracle happened,” said Elder Ellis, recently called from the Second Quorum of the Seventy to the First Quorum. “I made it to the next paycheck. And that happened every two weeks for the entire semester. By proving the Lord, I solidified my testimony that He is real and that He keeps His promises.”

After hearing many wonderful lessons about ways to keep the Sabbath day holy, we concluded as a family that one of our family rules would be to keep the Sabbath day.
Keeping the Lord’s commandments comes with an invitation to “prove me now herewith” (Malachi 3:10). Of course, we were put to the test, and we wanted to prove to the Lord that we believe. One Sunday after church, our daughter who was attending the graduating class at elementary school, was called by her teacher who asked her to come to the school.
The teacher was at the classroom with other students preparing for an island-wide competition on Monday morning. My daughter explained to the teacher that one of our family rules is not to do schoolwork on Sundays. The teacher wanted to speak to my wife, who made the same statement. Then the teacher wanted to speak with me. Of course, I shared the same comment. She was very disappointed. She told us that she believes in keeping the Sabbath day holy, but this was a very important competition where preparation was key to winning. I told her I understood how important the competition was but keeping the Sabbath day holy is more important to us. She hung up on me leaving me speechless.
On Monday morning, our daughter was afraid to go to school where she would have to face the teacher. My wife drove her to school but found the teacher had left our daughter behind. My wife took her to the competition venue where my daughter joined her classmates. Our daughter did not win the competition that day, but she was the only student from her school who won a prize.

Susa Young Gates, one of Brigham Young’s daughters, also understood that family history was important. She had been ill and very near death. But a priesthood blessing had miraculously cured her, and she was given this promise: "There has been a council in heaven, and it has been decided you shall live to perform temple work, and you shall do a greater work than you have ever done before."* Once she recovered, she devoted much of her time to helping people find their ancestors. She started genealogy classes, encouraged Saints throughout Utah and Canada to do research, and compiled a book on genealogy.

Illustration by Brooke Smart
When I was about halfway through seventh grade, my mom told my siblings and me that she had felt prompted to remove us from public school and teach us at home. I didn’t think much would change.
I gained new friends in the homeschool group and strengthened friendships I had at church, but I still thought that my old school friends were my “best friends.” Toward the end of eighth grade, I started to contact my old friends more and more, and as I did, I realized just how much we had all changed. Whenever I spoke to them or texted them, the feeling I got was not a positive one, and I constantly felt the pull of the adversary tempting me to ignore Church standards. I started trying to impress my old school friends so that I could be accepted back in their group.
Eventually, I realized that trying to impress others was not making me happy and that spending time with those who shared my standards did make me happy. I stopped trying to impress my old friends. Though I soon lost touch with them, I no longer felt the adversary’s pull on me. I felt free and happy that I had released myself from the spiritual prison I had created.
I believe in the importance of surrounding yourself with people who support you in living righteously. Now I am blessed with good friends who help me live the standards in the For the Strength of Youth and who encourage me to build my testimony.

Starting high school was scary. I felt lost in a massive student body, the big campus, and new classes. I tried to keep somewhat invisible so that I wouldn’t embarrass myself.
Slowly I adjusted to my new situation. I got involved in the theater department and made some great friends. By October, I was invited to a birthday party for one of the older, popular boys in our theater group.
I was ecstatic! It was a costume party, and I spent hours putting together an Egyptian dress. The night of the party, my heart was pounding as I walked into the house and saw all my new theater friends in fantastic costumes. Many of them were juniors and seniors, and I still couldn’t believe that they had invited me.
About an hour into the party, our host pulled out a movie and excitedly called all of us to go into the other room to watch it. My stomach clenched when I saw the movie’s case. It was not a movie I wanted to see. Ever!
We all herded into the next room. I tucked myself into a corner of a couch and felt sick. My mind raced over what I should do. Everyone in the room seemed so excited to watch the film. They were my theater group. They were my new friends. I didn’t want to ostracize myself so soon after finally feeling included.
As the title of the movie flickered onto the screen, I knew what I had to do. Without saying a word, I stood up from the couch and walked quietly to the kitchen and stood there in the dark for a minute. Then I turned on the light and considered my options.
I knew the movie would go on for about two hours. Should I call my mom to come get me? Should I wait around in the kitchen for two hours? I had no idea, but the sick feeling in my stomach had lessened, and I was surprised that I no longer felt afraid.
As I stood there in the kitchen trying to figure out what to do, the door from the other room opened and a pretty, popular junior girl walked through. She smiled sheepishly at me and then confessed, “I really didn’t want to see that movie, but I didn’t want to be the only one who left. When I saw you leave and you didn’t come back, I wondered if you felt the same way.”
I nodded, and we both laughed. We hadn’t said more than two sentences before the door opened and another girl came through.
“Did you want to see that movie?” she whispered timidly.
“No,” we both admitted to her.
Over the course of the next five minutes, people kept walking through the door, confessing that they didn’t actually want to see that movie. When at last our host came through the door, he announced, “I’ve turned off the movie. Does anyone want to play a game?”
Later that night, I thought about what had happened. Would we all have sat there watching that awful movie if no one had moved? How would I have felt now if I had stayed? I was struck by the thought that no one had really wanted to see the movie, but everyone had been too afraid to leave. I was surprised that I wasn’t alone in wanting to do the right thing.
That thought gave me a new courage that later helped me make many other decisions before high school was over. Sometimes my decisions left me standing alone. But far more often, my decisions created a chain reaction of good choices by people around me, just like it did at that birthday party.

A woman who is now a mother of 11 children, dreamed in college of the lights of the stage, while taking classes in philosophy, economics, and political science and majoring in theater. Now she’s on her own stage performing magnificently well. She has chosen to enrich, protect, and guard the home. This past summer she and another Mormon woman ran a campaign from their homes and were elected as two of four delegates to help choose a new leader for a political party. These same women later organized a rally in the city park on an issue they felt strongly would negatively affect life in their province in Canada.
I asked this sister how she manages to be so influential. “You have to know parliamentary procedure in public meetings,” she replied. “If you do, you can safeguard democracy and your home by using the rules effectively.”
“When and where does one learn these rules?” I asked.
She laughed and said, “Last night at supper, it went like this.”
Sarah: “Honorable chairman, the soup is good.”
Chairman: “Can I have a motion to that effect?”
Sharon: “I move that we go on record stating the soup is good.”
Chairman: “Could I have a second?” Seconded. “Any discussion?”
Amy: “It’s too spicy.”
Chairman: “We will proceed to vote.”
The results of the dinner: The soup passed. The jam passed unanimously. And the motion in favor of the water was tabled for another time pending further investigation.