Gospel Story Finder

You might think that having a twin would mean you automatically get along all the time. But David and Diana Elsner, a priest and a Laurel from Wollongong, New South Wales, are living proof that, just like any other brother and sister, a good relationship takes hard work.
“Sometimes there’s some competition between us,” says David. “We do everything together. We have to always remember to be grateful for each other.”
Both David and Diana say that having a sense of humor, gentle teasing, and inside jokes contribute to their closeness. But it’s the gospel that really makes this bond strong.
“Going to seminary together helps,” says Diana. “We know there’s a lot more to our relationship than just little things that might make you angry. We don’t hold grudges.”
Watching their older brother, Mike, get ready for his mission (to the Australia Perth Mission) has also brought them closer together.
“We were sealed as a family just before Mike left on his mission. He received his endowments, Diana and I did baptisms, and then we were all sealed,” says David. “After that the feeling in our home was really good.”
Soon David will be following in his brother’s footsteps by going on a mission, leaving Diana at home. And although they’ll miss each other, Diana is looking forward to the time apart so they can grow and develop their relationship in other ways.
“I seem to discuss more spiritual topics in my letters to my brother Michael. I’m looking forward to writing the same kinds of letters to David.”

“Dad’s a tease and loves to tickle! When our family was in the mission field, Dad would tease the missionaries a lot.

“Speaking of the mission field, Dad used to tell the elders not to ‘tiptoe through the tulips,’ but to get the job done. At one zone conference during Christmastime, our whole family was on the program. Dad wore an orange hat and we sang and danced to ‘Tiptoe Through the Tulips.’”

I lie back
On my lawn chair
And watch the sky
As it turns gray
With orange edges.
The stars appear
Like open eyes
As darkness shuts its lid
On me.
A streak of light
Avoids my gaze
But the corner of my eye
Tells me it’s there—
A home run
In the cosmic
Baseball game

On March 11, 2011, I was standing on a platform in the Tokyo Shinagawa train station to visit the Japan Kobe Mission. At approximately 2:46 p.m., a 9.0-magnitude massive earthquake struck. I was not able to stand because of the intense shaking, and I held tightly to a stair rail. Lights on nearby ceilings began falling to the floor. All of Tokyo was in a panic.
Fortunately, I was not injured, and four hours later, I was relieved to learn that my entire family was safe.
On television there was a stream of terrifying, shocking footage. A massive tsunami surged into the Sendai mission area—sweeping away everything in its path: cars, houses, factories, and fields. I was stunned by the tragic images, and I wept. And I fervently prayed that our Heavenly Father’s protection and assistance would be upon all the people living in this region that I so dearly love.
Later, it was confirmed that all the missionaries and Church members were safe. However, many members were affected, losing their family members, homes, and household possessions. Nearly 20,000 people perished, communities were destroyed, and many people were forced to leave their homes as a result of a nuclear power plant accident.

Many years ago when I was practicing law, I was consulted by a woman who wanted a divorce from her husband on grounds that, in my opinion, seemed justified. After the divorce was concluded, I did not see her again for many years. In a chance meeting with her on the street, I noticed that the years of loneliness and discouragement were evident in her once-beautiful face.
After we passed a few pleasantries, she was quick to say that life had not been rich and rewarding for her and that she was tired of facing the struggle alone. Then she startled me by disclosing, “Bad as it was, if I had to do it over again and had known then what I do now, I would not have sought the divorce. This is worse.”

When Henry and Mary entered Salt Lake City on September 15, 1866, it had been more than four years since they had seen their mother. Henry walked proudly at the head of the train, his clothes in tatters, his hair sticking out in all directions. In honor of the occasion, he was wearing a pair of boots, many sizes too large, that he had discovered in a burned-out pony express station.
His mother was nowhere to be seen. When the company halted for the last time, Henry sat on a crate in a wagon, heartsick, watching the happy reunions between loved ones. At last he saw a woman in a red and white plaid shawl approaching. He went to her and said, “Hey, Mother.”
“Is that you, Henry?” she asked. “Where is Mary?” Mary was hiding inside a wagon, ashamed of her ragged clothing. The family was finally reunited. However, there was sad news. During her journey to Utah, Sister Roberts had watched her baby, Thomas, weaken and die. She had buried him in a donated breadbox coffin along the way.

The other experience helped her to strengthen her feeling that she had a mission as an artist and that she should place her art in the service of her faith. Minerva later recorded how Robert Henri, one of her renowned teachers, asked her, shortly before she left New York, whether any artist had ever told the “great Mormon story.” “Not to my liking,’ I answered. ‘Good Heavens, girl, what an opportunity. You do it. You’re the one. That’s your birthright. You’ll do it well.’
“I felt that I had been commissioned” (unpublished manuscript, 1947).

When I would attempt to walk half a block in my neighborhood, I often experienced shortness of breath, light-headedness, and joint pain. I had been a runner previous to contracting the virus, and now I could only walk slowly. Many times I would fall on my knees to pray that I could get up and feel up. The fatigue got worse every time I tried to get up and do too much. One day I got up and my back went out. I fell to the floor in tears and pain. I cried out to Heavenly Father, “I can’t take it anymore!” He knew I was down and helped me up once again. I would often tell myself, “Just hold on.” There was not much else I could do. By choosing to hold on to hope in Christ and continually calling upon the Lord, I was able to press on.

When my younger brother was being ordained an elder, he was told that priesthood power came through obedience to God’s commandments. As I heard those words, a realization struck me with enough force that I gasped and opened my eyes: That principle is true for me too, I thought. Even though I’m not ordained to an office of the priesthood, I can always live worthily to have the power of the priesthood in my life.

I’ve always loved reading. In fact, reading has always been an integral part of my personality and life! So, growing up in the Church and regularly reading the Book of Mormon, you would think that by the time I reached young adulthood, I knew this book backward and forward, right?
Wrong.
All my life I tried to crack open the Book of Mormon, and I did love the parts I could understand! I believed what our leaders said about it. Like President Russell M. Nelson’s promise that “few things build faith more than does regular immersion in the Book of Mormon. No other book testifies of Jesus Christ with such power and clarity.”
But when I entered young adulthood, I had yet to see these life-changing promises come to pass.
Nowadays, my older and somewhat wiser self wishes she could shake the old me and gush over this book! (10/10 recommend!)
After years of study and pleading with Heavenly Father to help me understand its significance, I can see now why the Book of Mormon is such an essential key to learning about the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The more I learn from the Book of Mormon, the more I see how significant its account of the Savior ministering to His “other sheep” is (John 10:16). It’s a miracle that we have this record available to us!
Reading about His loving interactions with His other sheep has been transformative for my faith and discipleship.
And what better resource do we have for learning about Him than the miracle of 3 Nephi and the entire Book of Mormon? I wish I had put my full heart into understanding the significance of its pages and truths sooner. But now that I have, I’ll never lose sight of the gem that this book is. It enriches my life with hope, faith, and a deeper relationship with my Savior.
I know studying its pages will do the same for you.

With growth came the imperative for a permanent meeting place, and on November 22, 1996, Larry B. Duke, president of the Ghana Accra Mission, dedicated land for the construction of a chapel. The construction was completed within a year, and members began worshiping in the new chapel on February 8, 1998. The chapel was officially dedicated on March 11, 1999, by President Larry Bodhaine. This marked a new chapter in the branch’s narrative, further amplifying missionary activities and community engagement. Full-time missionaries played a pivotal role in fostering the branch’s growth, baptizing numerous converts, and fortifying the faith of members.

The letters, diaries, and autobiographies of past Church leaders contain many descriptions of this baptism of the Spirit. One of these was written by Lorenzo Snow, later an apostle, and still later a president of the Church. Elder Snow wrote that immediately following his immersion in the waters of baptism at the age of twenty-two, he expected to receive the Holy Ghost, and to have the promise fulfilled that he would “know of the doctrine, whether it be of God.” (John 7:17.) But Elder Snow did not receive this assurance immediately. He began to worry whether he had done wrong—whether God was displeased with him. Several weeks later, while studying the scriptures, he felt depressed and disconsolate. He left the house and walked outside, tormented by uncertainty and enveloped by “an indescribable cloud of darkness.” He had been in the habit of going to a small grove every evening to have secret prayer. On this particular day he was so dejected that he “felt no inclination” to pray. “The heavens seemed like brass over my head,” he wrote. Nevertheless, he forced himself to pray, and soon he heard a sound “like the restling of silken robes” above his head:

“… immediately the Spirit of God descended upon me, completely enveloping my whole person, filling me from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet, and O the joy and happiness I felt! No language can describe the instantaneous transition from a dense cloud of mental and spiritual darkness into a refulgence of light and knowledge … I then received a perfect knowledge that God lives, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and of the restoration of the Holy Priesthood, and of the fulness of the gospel. It was a complete baptism—a tangible immersion in the heavenly principle or element, the Holy Ghost; and even more real and physical in its effects upon every part of my system than the immersion of water.”

God had conferred upon him, he concluded, “that which is of greater value than all the wealth and honors worlds can bestow.”1

The idea really excited me. Earlier, a speaker had related to us a story about President David O. McKay receiving his patriarchal blessing. Thirteen-year-old David was, at the time, a champion marble player. After the blessing, the patriarch told David that he had more important things to do than play marbles. I felt that now, too, was the time for me to “put away my marbles” and decide what to do with my life. A big part of that decision depended on knowing if the Church was true. I decided to ask our Heavenly Father.

Several years ago President Gordon B. Hinckley announced the construction of a large number of new temples, essentially doubling the number of operating temples of the Church from about 50 to about 100 in just a few years. Having additional temples has always been the direction to go, but until the prophet of the Lord signaled this as a major initiative, no one could have properly urged such a sudden and dramatic increase for the Church and its people. Only the Lord’s prophet could signal the Church to double its operating temples in just a few years.

When at night I go to bed,
The moon is rising overhead.
It swings above the highest tree,
Peeps in my window, looks at me.
But when it’s gone the sun smiles down
On every ocean, farm, and town.
It says, “Good morning, children mine.
It’s time you too should rise and shine.”

I have met some people who have been interested and puzzled why a young man would do what I do. I spend most of my time cleaning the headstones, so that I can read them and take photos, or hacking my way through overgrown grass and weeds. One time I found a small headstone beside a big tree near a footpath, that had been lost in the undergrowth, and completely hidden from view. I cleaned it up and removed the holly bush, other weeds and grass that were hiding it. It was a grave of a five-week-old baby boy, Tony Hamilton, lost from view and forgotten. Now, since I cleared it, someone has mowed around the tree and the grave, so hopefully he will not be lost again.

Elder F. Enzio Busche of the Quorum of the Seventy learned about peace when he was a boy. He says, “During World War II in my home country of Germany, I lived with my mother and four sisters far away from home in southern Germany in two very small, humble rooms. We had fled from our home because of the many air attacks that had destroyed our city and threatened our lives. My father was separated from us because he had been drafted into the army. And I was too young to understand the dramatic events happening around me during that terrible war.
“Lying in bed one night in the room I shared with two of my sisters, I remember an intense feeling of loneliness. …
“I was awake until early in the morning, and I was so overcome with despair that I began to cry. I wept and wept.
“Suddenly something changed. A comforting power enveloped me, and a small voice said to my soul, ‘You are My child. Have trust in Me.’
“Immediately joy and happiness filled my heart. All my fear, loneliness, and despair were changed into feelings of warmth and comfort. That night I learned for the first time that there is some unseen but loving Person who is concerned about me” (Blazer A manual, page 126–127).
Elder Busche experienced the peace that comes from the Lord.

Thanks be to God for our noble prophet, President Gordon B. Hinckley, who, with the foresight of a seer, recognized the need for this magnificent facility and, with the help of many others, “went to work.” The result is before us today and will be dedicated this morning.

As much as these young men like sports, they may only play basketball a couple of times a year for a Mutual activity. Instead, they do a variety of other things that help fulfill requirements for their Duty to God award, including service activities.
Do they enjoy clearing the limbs and debris from a drainage ditch so that water won’t flood over a low-lying road? Is this a trick question? No, but they will sweat to do it in the heat of a San Antonio summer morning because their service is needed.

Part of the tragedy you must avoid is to discover too late that you missed an opportunity to prepare for a future only God could see for you. The chance to learn another language is for me a painful example. My father was born in Mexico. He grew up speaking Spanish as his first language. I lived in his home for more than 20 years. Sadly, I never asked him to teach me a word of Spanish. But my Church assignments have caused me to have contacts in Mexico, Central America, Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador. It was no accident that I was born into a home with a Spanish-speaking father.