Gospel Story Finder

“Saturday’s activity will be a daddy-daughter cooking class,” Sister Marshall announced.
A wave of excited murmurs rolled through our Primary group. I suppose every girl was imagining bubbling desserts, fun games, and two whole hours with her dad. Every girl but me, that is. I didn’t have a dad—not even a shared-visitation dad like the ones some girls at school talked about. Instead of excitement, an anxious knot twisted in my stomach. I felt my face flush hot with emotion, and I clenched my teeth, fighting to force back tears.
Sister Marshall must have noticed my reaction. Once the meeting was over, she gently placed her hand on my shoulder. “Feel free to bring your mom, Tess.” She meant well, but those simple words were enough to set my tears free. I dropped my head so she wouldn’t notice and turned away.
“It’s OK,” I told myself. “You don’t have to go to that silly activity anyway.” But I knew it was a lie. I would have given anything to be part of a family that didn’t need special instructions from Sister Marshall—a family like the others that I saw dotting the rows of the chapel every Sunday. But my dad had left my mom, sister, and me when I was just a baby. We hadn’t heard from him in years, and I knew there was no way he was going to magically reappear just in time for Saturday’s activity.
“Get over it!” I ordered myself for at least the hundredth time since our baptism three years before. Our family was so much stronger now that we had a testimony of Heavenly Father’s plan, and I was grateful for all the gospel had given us. Still, it hadn’t been easy stepping into a group of friends who had been together since they were little—sharing baptisms, Primary activities, ward socials. I was the new girl, and although the others really tried to make me feel included, I still felt that I was different. I sometimes felt like a puzzle with one center piece missing.
“How was class?” Mom asked cheerfully as we drove home. She was a different person since our baptism—happier and more confident.
“Great,” I fibbed. Probably better not to worry her about the cooking class. After all, there was nothing she could do about it.
The week passed quickly. Schoolwork, chores, and friends kept me busy and allowed me to forget about Saturday’s activity. That is, until the phone rang Friday night.
“It’s for you,” my sister said, holding out the receiver.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Tess. This is Brother Erickson.” Brother Erickson was our home teacher. He owned an ice-cream shop in town and sometimes brought containers of mint chip or cherry chocolate to our house. He often made me laugh with his twinkling eyes and quick smile. But I couldn’t imagine why he would be calling me.
His voice was cheerful and strong. “I was wondering if you’d let me join you at the cooking class tomorrow.”
I held my breath and peeked into the kitchen where my mom was washing the dinner dishes. I smiled at the mounds of bubbles clinging to her arms. “She couldn’t have told him,” I thought. “She didn’t even know.” I wondered if Sister Marshall had called him.
“I read about it in the bulletin last Sunday,” he continued. “It sounds like fun.”
“Oh yeah, the bulletin.”
“So? Think you can handle toting an old man like me around your party?”
“You don’t have to—” I started.
“I want to!” Then he was silent for a moment. “Please.”
“Well, OK.” To be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure it would be OK. I mean, I didn’t know him that well. But my new excitement for going to the activity outweighed any doubt.
Saturday came, and when Mom dropped me off at the church, Brother Erickson was waiting for me in a bright red apron. His smile eased my worries as we joined the other fathers and daughters. We had a blast learning how to make cherry cobbler and homemade whipping cream in our crowded meetinghouse kitchen. He never once made me feel like he was doing me a favor or just fulfilling his calling.
When Mom came to pick me up, Brother Erickson gave me a big high five. “Thanks for letting me come. I had a great time!” I knew that he really meant it.
Years passed, and Brother Erickson remained our home teacher. In addition to his visits, he invited my family over for many game nights at his house. He joined me at more father-daughter activities and gave me my first real job at his ice-cream store when I turned 16.
After college when I was getting married in the Los Angeles California Temple, I asked Brother Erickson to serve as a witness. When I walked into the sealing room, I saw him sitting in the chair typically reserved for the father of the bride. He smiled his silly smile at me, and I knew that he was exactly where he should be. After all, he was no ordinary home teacher. He had become my very close friend.

A wise first step is to guide each deacon to a spiritual awareness of the sacredness of his ordained calling. In one ward, this lesson was effectively taught pertaining to the collection of fast offerings.

On fast day the ward members were visited by deacons and teachers so that each family could make a contribution. The deacons were a bit disgruntled, having to arise earlier than usual to fulfill this assignment.

The inspiration came for the bishopric to take a busload of the deacons and teachers to Welfare Square here in Salt Lake City. Here they saw needy children receiving new shoes and other items of clothing. Here they witnessed empty baskets being filled with groceries. There was no money exchanged. One brief comment was made: “Young men, this is what the money you collect on fast day provides—even food, clothing, and shelter.” The Aaronic Priesthood young men smiled more, stepped higher, and served with a willing mind in the filling of their assignments.

After high school graduation, I worked with a young man who was a recently returned missionary. One day we began talking about religion, and I was amazed by how much he knew about the Savior. “Where did you learn all that?” I asked. A few days later, he presented me with a copy of Jesus the Christ by Elder James E. Talmage of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Not long after that, he changed jobs and I didn’t see him again.
I was almost finished reading the book when I heard that an LDS friend of mine was going on a mission. I called him and told him what I was reading. He was the one who had invited me to church on that Sunday when I showed up in a T-shirt.
So, there I was at the meeting, feeling out of place in my casual clothing. As I looked around, I noticed families sitting together. I had not seen many children in other churches. I also noticed that everyone, not just the choir, sang the hymns. Young men passed the sacrament. Regular members spoke instead of a pastor. I liked what I saw.
I began to feel a greater desire than ever to learn about Jesus. I enjoyed my friend’s talk and his excitement about serving as a missionary. Later I told my friend how jealous I was of him because he was going to be a missionary like Paul in the New Testament. I told him how much I would like to do something like that.
He said, “I have a book that will help you prepare, and I want you to have my copy.” It was a book by another Apostle in the Church called A Marvelous Work and a Wonder.
I studied that book along with the Bible. Through this study, I got answers to many questions, as well as a desire to pray. Based on what I’d read about Joseph Smith (see Joseph Smith—History 1:5–19), I felt sure that God would also answer my prayer.
I knelt by my bedside and called out to God with all my heart and soul. I told Him that I was seeking the truth, and then I waited for my heavenly messenger. Nothing happened. I tried again. Still nothing. Finally, I simply asked God if the things I was reading and studying were true.
After my prayer, I began thinking of all I had learned. While reading the two books my LDS friends had given me, I had discovered answers. That felt good. Ever since I went to Israel, I’d wanted to know more about Jesus. Now I did. That felt good, too. Suddenly I realized God was answering my prayer. He loved me enough to send friends and books to tell me about the Restoration of the gospel, and I felt good. How would I feel if the Lord had literally told me the same thing? I would feel the same way. That was my answer.
Full of excitement, I wanted to call my friend, but he was on his mission, so I called his mom instead. I awkwardly explained that I had read the book her son had given me and that I would like to find out how I could join their Church. She was silent for a long time, and then she started to cry. Through her joyful tears she told me how to contact the missionaries.
A few weeks later I called my friend’s mom again. This time it was to invite her and her family to my baptism. Along with the other books I’d read, I had now read the Book of Mormon and gained a testimony of its truthfulness. I invited my own family to attend my baptism as well. My twin brother came into town the night before. He didn’t understand why I wanted to get baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He asked a lot of questions, especially about the Book of Mormon. The only things he’d ever read about the book were false and negative. I stayed up most the night attempting to answer his questions.
The baptism was beautiful. This time I didn’t show up in a T-shirt and cargo pants. This time I was in a white shirt and tie, and I felt totally comfortable and at home. Four months later my twin was still asking questions. I told him that I was happy to talk to him about it but that ultimately he would have to ask God for himself. A few weeks later he came to me and said: “I asked, and now I know the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet. How do I get in touch with the missionaries?”
Imagine my joy a month later when I had the opportunity of baptizing my twin brother. We both served missions; I was called to Chile and my brother to Mexico. Like Paul of old, we are trying to give back a little of what we received.

I was a priest in the Aaronic Priesthood when World War II exploded upon the world. I was ordained an elder when we were all marched away to war.
I had dreams of following an older brother, Leon, who at that time was flying B-24 bombers in the Battle of Britain. I volunteered for air force pilot training.
I failed the written test by one point. Then the sergeant remembered that there were several two-point questions, and if I got half right on two of them, I could pass.
Part of the test was multiple choice. One question was “What is ethylene glycol used for?” If I had not worked in my dad’s service station, I would not have known that it is used for automobile antifreeze. And so I passed, barely.
I prayed about the physical. It turned out to be fairly routine.
You young men should not complain about schooling. Do not immerse yourself so much in the technical that you fail to learn things that are practical. Everything you can learn that is practical—in the house, in the kitchen cooking, in the yard—will be of benefit to you. Never complain about schooling. Study well, and attend always.
“The glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth.”
“Whatever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life, it will rise with us in the resurrection.”
We are to learn about “things that are above, and things that are beneath, things that are in the earth, and upon the earth, and in heaven.”
You can learn about fixing things and painting things and even sewing things and whatever else is practical. That is worth doing. If it is not of particular benefit to you, it will help you when you are serving other people.
I ended up in the Orient, flying the same kind of bombers that my brother flew in England. My mission, as it turned out, was in teaching the gospel in Japan as a serviceman.
Perhaps the hardest challenge of war is living with uncertainties, not knowing how it will end or if we can go ahead with our lives.
I was issued a small serviceman’s Book of Mormon that would fit into my pocket. I carried it everywhere; I read it; and it became part of me. Things that had been a question became certain to me.
The certainties of the gospel, the truth, once you understand it, will see you through these difficult times.
It was four years before we could return to our lives. But I had learned and had a sure testimony that God is our Father, that we are His children, and that the restored gospel of Jesus Christ is true.

Take, for example, Joseph F. Smith, the father of our past prophet Joseph Fielding Smith, and the president of the Church during the early years of this century. Joseph F.’s father was Hyrum Smith who had been killed in Carthage Jail with the Prophet Joseph. Even so, though a cost-benefit ethic might have dictated he stay to look after his sister, Joseph F. volunteered for a mission. He was called to Hawaii, or the Sandwich Islands as they were then called. When he arrived there, he learned that the missionaries before him had almost completely given up on trying to teach the gospel. They were unsuccessful with the haole, the whites, and as far as the kanakas, the natives, they could neither learn their difficult language, nor did they perceive the natives as good Church members. Joseph, however, was young enough to learn the language of the natives and to see behind the unfamiliar customs of the Hawaiians the sweet spirits they possessed. He writes how he “felt resolved to stay there, master the language, and warn the people of these islands, if I have to do it alone.”2
Joseph did learn the language and did preach to the Hawaiians, and in the process he received a spiritual renewal. Within a few months of his arrival in Hawaii, he wrote back to a relative in Salt Lake City:
“I know that the work in which I am engaged is the work of the living and true God, and I am ready to bear my testimony of the same at any time, or at any place, or in whatsoever circumstances I may be placed.”3
When he wrote that, he could not have known the strange “circumstance” in which he would find himself. The warehouse in which he and others of the missionaries stored their clothes caught fire. All their clothing except what they were wearing was destroyed. For a time Joseph and his companion had only one respectable suit between them, so one of them had to stay in bed while the other put on the suit and went to meeting!4

A decade passed before the president of the Samoan Mission, Thomas A. Court, sailed to the Vava'u Group on March 19, 1907 to determine if it was suitable for missionaries but also to buy horses for the mission farm.

According to the book Unto the Islands of the Sea - A History of the Latter-day Saints in the Pacific by R. Lanier Britsch, "When President Court returned to Samoa, he reported that the prospects were ‘very bright’ and he intended to send elders there soon. ... President Court told ... missionaries that friends he made in Vava'u had asked the Church to send elders to open a school and preach the gospel. According to Ermel J. Morton's account of the Tongan Mission, the man who asked President Court to send missionaries to Vava'u was Iki Tupou Fulivai, harbor master" (434-435).

Here’s my great-grandfather Iki Tupou Fulivai, harbor master of Neiafu, Vava'u, which was one of the busiest and most beautiful harbors in the Pacific. Until recently, this was the only portrait of him that existed, probably taken in the late 1800s in Sydney, Australia because he was educated there. Iki was well traveled, working on ships that took him to China, Europe, and even to America - rare among Tongan men at that time. He especially loved the Orient, and as a little boy, I remember playing on his estate Esia, which I didn't realize until I was an adult is the Tongan transliteration for "Asia." Tonga was so remote that it was also rare for Tongans to wear Western clothing, but Iki is sporting exactly what was fashionable at the time in London, New York, and Philadelphia right down to the handlebar mustache. As the son of a nobleman, Iki and three of his peers were sent to Australia to study because the Tongan government hadn't yet established public schools. The other three boys grew homesick and returned to Tonga, but Iki stayed and learned to speak English, although he didn't complete his education - he simply dropped out to travel. Because he was fluent in English, the governor of Vava'u later appointed him harbor master, piloting the tow boat that brought large ships into Vava’u’s scenic Port-of-Refuge harbor.

Presumably, that's how Iki met President Court, whom he invited to stay in his home when he learned he was a minister looking to buy horses. The next morning, Iki took the mission president to a neighboring village and introduced him to a family friend who owned horses. President Court selected two plow horses for purchase. Iki later recalled that President Court produced a handkerchief in which he saw gold coins that he offered for the horses. But true to the Tongan custom of the day, the friend refused the money. President Court was so indebted that he asked Iki how his kindness could be repaid. Iki responded by asking President Court if he could send teachers to educate his children. According to family lore, President Court famously replied, "I will send you two teachers."

Two months after President Court returned to Samoa with his horses, he sent Elders William O. Facer and Heber J. McKay to Vava’u on June 13, 1907. They lived with Iki’s family, teaching all of his children to read and the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. The youngest of Iki’s 14 children is my grandmother Toa'ila, who wouldn’t be born for another 13 years and is alive today at age 94.

As a nobleman, Iki was pressured by the Tongan monarchy, who were mostly members of the Free Wesleyan Church, to remove the missionaries who lived in his home and to cease teaching his family and neighbors the restored gospel. He refused at great personal cost. Until the 1930s, when public schools were established in Tonga, Iki charged the Church $1 per year for the school property on his estate where missionaries taught in order to satisfy a Tongan law, making it affordable for the Church. Generations of Tongans learned to read and write and were baptized because of Iki Tupou Fulivai.

A nine-year-old boy wandered, lost and stumbling in the dark. Around him in the freezing night, the trees and mountains made black shapes against the dark sky. Then the boy heard voices—real voices—calling his name. Frightened, he kept silent.
Nearby, Tad Jessop led his rescue team in the search pattern they had practiced so often. Tad had been called out of a Sunday evening fireside by one of his officers in the Arapahoe Rescue Patrol. Now, he and his team moved through the rough terrain in an organized search, guided by their flashlights and by each other’s voices.
As the search dragged on into the next morning, fatigue and cold began to numb the team members. Still, no young voice answered their shouts. Not until several hours later did the radio announce the news that the lost boy had found a road, where he was spotted by a ranger. While Tad and his team wearily made their way back home, the boy was joyfully reunited with his parents, then taken to the hospital for a checkup.

This is the world Mike Lee stepped into at age 16, when his father sent him out to learn about work.
Now, before you start picturing Mike’s father as some sort of hardhearted Captain Bligh, let’s set the record straight. His father’s act may have seemed at the time almost cruel, but in truth it was an act of love.
It was 1979. “I’d been having a lot of trouble in school, a lot of trouble in everything,” Mike explained. “I wasn’t a bad kid. I just didn’t know what I wanted to do.”
Mike’s father, W. Boyd Lee, was serving at the time as president of the Norfolk Virginia Stake. He loved his son and worried about him a lot. “Mike’s mother and I prayed constantly. I kept feeling that Mike should work on Spencers’ boat.”
Ira Spencer, Jr., a good friend of Brother Lee, was the branch president of the Manteo (North Carolina) Branch. Ira owned a fishing trawler that his son Duke piloted out of Wanchese, a little town near Kitty Hawk, where the Wright brothers first flew a plane. Ira and his wife Shirley also ran a seafood restaurant in Nags Head, and maybe Mike could help out in the kitchen when the ship was in port. Ira and Duke enjoyed having LDS crew members, because they had proven to be honest and dependable, and they didn’t use foul language or smoke on the ship.
“Still, he was only 16, and I didn’t want to impose on the Spencers,” Brother Lee explained. He talked the idea over with Ira.
“Mike seemed like a good boy,” Ira said. “Sometimes you’ve just got to give a boy incentive, and on his own he’ll move from where he is to where he should be.”
So Mike became a fisherman on the War Cry, a boat named after a line in the hymn “Hope of Israel”: “Sound the war cry, ‘Watch and pray!’” (Hymns, no. 64).
“It’s the hardest work I’ve ever done,” Mike said. “It’s not only skill that’s involved, but also a strong stomach and a desire to keep going. A lot of people can work hard for eight hours, but when you’re working almost twenty-four hours a day over a long period of time, you learn about endurance.”
At first Mike was in charge of small but important details. He had to make sure tools were always returned to the right place. He helped push trash fish overboard when the sorting was done. When the boat went after scallops, he learned how to cut the shells open and slice out the edible muscle.
“He was kind of timid at first, but pretty quick he showed us all what a good worker he was,” Duke said. “It got to where we’d trust him to run anything. He knew the gear and could do anything the rest of us could do.”
The basic crew included three returned missionaries, two others just getting ready to leave, a recent convert, captain Duke (who served a mission in Brazil), and an inactive prospective elder. “Working together, we developed quite a camaraderie,” Mike said. By the end of the summer the inactive member wasn’t inactive anymore, and Mike was ready for school again.
“Working on the boat gave me a chance to sort out my life,” Mike explained. “Even though you’re working, you’ve got plenty of time to think, and I thought a lot about the future. I thought about college, about a mission, about my family.”
He also said that being out at sea “made me love the ocean, made me respect its power. It helped me appreciate what God has created, the same way that getting out in nature helps you. It’s just a different kind of nature. The sea makes you appreciate the world that you’re a part of.”

I recall as a young boy going with my father to visit an elderly widow living in humble circumstances. We shared a couple of boxes of food with her. When we were leaving, her remarks touched my heart. She said, “Thank you, Bishop, and please come back again, even if it’s just to say hello.”
This was probably the first time I realized that the food items were appreciated but the words of encouragement and the personal visit were of greater value.

Sigifredo Verano probably didn’t seem like a very good contact when the missionaries first met him in California. He wore long hair and a beard, in the style of some of the rebels of the early 1970s. He worked full-time supporting his family, then studied for several more hours each day trying to educate himself for better employment. That left little time to listen to missionaries.
Most of his friends at work were atheists or agnostics, and Sigifredo himself hadn’t attended any church regularly for nearly twenty years.
When the missionaries first met his wife, Ana Lucia, she told them that they were welcome to come talk with him—if they could find him with time available. After several brief visits, he finally said, “Yes, go ahead and teach me. Let’s get it over with!”
It is a tribute to the love and dedication of several missionaries, and to the faith of the Verano children, that Sig and Ana Verano finally came into the Church. But it is their own diligent obedience that has helped build their strong testimonies.
Sig Verano had emigrated from his native Colombia, South America, to California, in 1963. Ana, the girl he was growing to love, was temporarily left behind while he began preparing to support himself, and possibly a family, in his new country.
He had received only three years of formal schooling in Colombia and spoke little English. In Los Angeles, California, his first job was making hats at the minimum legal wage, so he studied newspaper advertisements looking for something that would pay more. He spotted a training course for a “machinist.” The pay looked good, and in South America, a maquinista—train engineer—had regular employment, so he enrolled.
Sig did well in the course, but inquired after some time when they were going to get to the “big machines.” Be patient, he was told—that would come after the training. Toward the end of the training, he still had not seen a train engine. One day, he asked a co-worker how much they would travel in their future jobs. “What does travel have to do with this work?” the co-worker replied. After some confusing discussion, Sig finally asked, exasperated, “Will you please tell me exactly what we are learning?”
But Sig’s new job as a machinist was enough to provide the support he and Ana would need. They had continued their courtship by mail and were married by proxy in 1964. She emigrated to the United States in 1965. Edison, the first of their children, was born in 1966, followed by Julie in 1968 and Marbell in 1972.
Sigifredo was constantly studying to better himself educationally and economically. “He would finish one course and start another,” Ana says. He became a skilled automotive mechanic who was much in demand.
Though Sig had never denied the existence of God or committed grave sins, religion was not a significant part of his life. But he couldn’t accept the philosophies of his atheistic and agnostic friends. Once, Sig had pressed one of the agnostics with the question, “If you were to join any church, which one would it be?” The man answered, “I would become a Mormon,” and cited the goodness of the Latter-day Saints as his reason.
In fact, it was the good example of the only Latter-day Saint he had ever known—“an example of a good man”—that persuaded Sig Verano to listen to the Latter-day Saint missionaries for the first time. What they taught sounded like the truth to him. The Word of Wisdom made enough of an impression that the young mechanic gave up his cigarettes and liquor and began to pray on his own. Nevertheless, it wasn’t easy for him to go to church because he had long since broken the habit of attendance. Soon, he stopped listening to the missionary lessons.
But the Verano children enjoyed Primary, which then was held one afternoon a week. Sig or Ana would drive them to the chapel for the meeting. One afternoon, the car wouldn’t start. “Well, it isn’t my fault,” Sig told them. “I guess you won’t be able to go.”
Back in the house, six-year-old Edison wouldn’t give up. “Let’s pray,” he pleaded. So they knelt in prayer, then went back out to the car. To Sig Verano’s surprise, it started immediately.
After this experience, the Veranos attended Church meetings for a time, but quit after a few weeks. During this period there were several “coincidences” that helped to keep the Church in their thoughts. Sig’s mother-in-law, visiting from Colombia, spoke favorably of the clean-cut young American missionaries whose meetinghouse was near her home. An old friend from Colombia, now a sailor in the merchant marine, came for a visit. At dinnertime, he asked if he could say a blessing on the food—and Sig Verano recognized from his prayer that he was a Latter-day Saint. The friend, a convert who studied the scriptures ardently during his long voyages, bore his testimony to the Veranos, not knowing they had been investigating the Church.
Earlier, Sig Verano had told one pair of missionaries that they could come to visit as friends, but not as teachers. Before one of them went home at the end of his mission, he and his companion stopped by to visit and to invite the Veranos to meet his parents at a small farewell gathering hosted by friends. The Veranos were so impressed with the loving Latter-day Saints they met that they began taking the missionary lessons again.
But Ana Verano, faithful to the traditions of her forefathers’ church, became stubborn when she realized her husband was serious about joining The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She felt she didn’t need to be baptized again. So they reached an agreement: since the children liked the Church, he would take them there after his baptism. She would continue to go to her church.
But repeatedly during the week preceding Sig’s baptism, Ana dreamed of the Savior’s baptism by John in the River Jordan. She concluded that it was an indication, meant just for her, of the right thing to do.
Sigifredo and Ana were baptized in January of 1974. Their son Edison was baptized later that year, after his eighth birthday.
The Veranos’ struggles with faithfulness were not yet over, however, and neither was the loving work of others in fellowshipping them.
A fine home teacher, George Baker, helped keep them active in the Church, Brother Verano recalls. Unused to attending church meetings three times a day, beginning with priesthood at seven A.M., Brother Verano was ready to quit. The early meetings were difficult because he was working from midnight to six A.M. But Brother Baker, who could not go himself, arranged for someone to drive the Veranos to ward meetings, and kept them coming.
The Veranos’ spirituality grew as they faithfully attended meetings and obeyed gospel principles.
He was called as president of his stake’s Spanish-speaking branch, created in 1978, and was made bishop when, after five years, it became a ward.
The creation of that branch was a blessing also for Ana Verano. What little English she knew had made it difficult for her to participate in an English-speaking ward. In the Spanish-speaking branch, she could hold callings and grow in service as her husband had.
“My real testimony has come through working in the Church,” Brother Verano says. “Constant service is one of the things that strengthens one’s testimony.”
The first Spanish-speaking ward in their stake was divided shortly after its creation, and Sig was called to the high council. He now serves as stake executive secretary for the three Spanish-speaking wards in the Los Angeles California North Hollywood Stake. Ana serves in the stake’s English-language name extraction program.
Among the vocational courses Sig Verano completed in his wide-ranging studies was one in real estate sales. It led to a profitable new career—and to further strengthening of his testimony.
His sales career didn’t begin well. He was fired after only one week when the owner of the real estate agency learned the new salesman’s religion following Brother Verano’s refusal to work on Sunday.
“The gospel is so important in our lives that Sunday is empty if we can’t go to Church meetings,” he explains. But the owner of the real estate company said that the Mormons put too much time into Church service to be successful. Go work for a small agency where the owner will not care so much about sales success, he told Sig Verano.
Brother Verano took the dismissal as a challenge. He found a job with a larger agency, and, working only part-time in 1979, was its top salesman. He has consistently refused to work on Sundays; as branch president and bishop, he also devoted part of his Saturdays to Church service. Yet for several years he has been among the company’s top five salespeople.
In Church service, Brother Verano says humbly, he has gained knowledge that the Lord lives, that through him we can be redeemed, and that he has placed prophets on earth to help guide us. Those who only tentatively believe that the gospel is true can come to know of its truth with certainty as he has—by testing it in obedience and in service to others.
“When I was baptized into the Church,” he reflects, “I believed. But now I know.”

When Ashlee Broadbent and Carolyn Betz found out that two of their special-needs friends, Claudia and Liz, would be attending the school’s spring prom, they wanted to help. They helped Claudia and Liz design their own prom dresses, which were custom-made by a friend. Then they organized a group of 20 friends and rented a bus to travel to the dance together. The night of the prom, Carolyn’s sister gave Claudia and Liz a full-blown makeover, doing their hair, nails, and make-up. Ashlee took photos and waved good-bye as Carolyn, Claudia, and Liz left for dinner and the dance with the rest of the group. At age 15, Ashlee wasn’t yet old enough to date.
“We wanted to give them an extra special time. It started out as a simple project,” Carolyn says. “We came away with two new friends.”

A couple of years ago a young brother came up to me after a concert and asked if I’d ever seen the kid in the back of the room watching the man up front play his guitar, wanting with all his might to just open up like that and let his feelings out. And then he told me that he was the kid, that it was destructive to his spirit and hurtful to his head to feel the constant pressure of those dammed-up feelings and emotions and ideas. I didn’t doubt his sincerity, but I thought it might be just one more case of never having really tried. I asked him what he was doing to develop his talent. “Well, I’m studying voice right now, and I’ve been playing classical guitar for five years.” Obviously the problem had to be something else.
I invited him to come out to my house in Alpine (a small town in Utah County) when he could, and we’d talk about it. (Incidentally, his desire to share his light so touched me that I wrote a song about him that night before I went to bed—a song that a lot of my artist friends relate to really well, because they, too, frequently feel those “dammed-up” pressures.)
Not long after, we spent the day together in Alpine. The main element in his problem turned out to be a fairly simple misunderstanding. He somehow had the idea that those phrases and images that roll so easily off the singer’s tongue roll just as easily from the writer’s mind. He had begun hundreds of verses on hundreds of days, but whenever a word or picture got stuck in the pen, he felt that he had failed and quit. I have a song about swimming in a river. I sang him the lines:
You can see the fishes dancin’
Dancin’ silver rings around you and me.
Then I told him how I spent an hour a day for about three days writing those two lines, singing the song over and over, getting to that empty place and trying to hear those two lines, filling that place with a dozen different images, finally finding that image and saying it a dozen different ways, then singing it again and again, testing it on my tongue, my ear, my sense of balance.
He asked what the green book on the piano was—a rhyming dictionary. The blue one—a Thesaurus. And the cassette recorder—a recorder to tape four or five notes at a time, playing them back, seeing if the structure sounded fresh and yet inevitable. What was written in the pile of music notebooks? Melodies that didn’t work. The other notebooks? Lyrics that didn’t work. The filing cabinet? Ideas for songs. He wrote me a letter recently from the mission field in South America. The letter was in rhyme—not a hit song lyric, but real feelings breathing on the page.

One evening my missionary companion and I knocked on the door of a young man who was an international student studying at one of London’s many universities. He invited us in, and we explained that we were missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He seemed eager to learn more about the Restoration of the gospel, so we testified of the Prophet Joseph Smith and told him about a sacred book from our Heavenly Father called the Book of Mormon. We emphasized that it was sacred because it testifies of Jesus Christ.
We explained that he could know for himself of its truthfulness and offered to give him a copy. As I handed the Book of Mormon to him, he got up from his chair and left the room without saying a word. I held the Book of Mormon in my hand momentarily, and my companion and I looked at each other in puzzled silence, wondering what to do. I put the book down on the table.
We could see our young friend in the kitchen washing his hands and drying them on a fresh towel. He came back into the room and picked up the Book of Mormon from the table and simply said, “My people always wash their hands before they touch something sacred.” Tears came to my eyes as I watched this young man open the Book of Mormon for the first time and turn its sacred pages with his clean hands.
I was sent on a mission to teach the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, yet I was the one being taught by this young man with his clean hands. In many cultures—including my own—it isn’t necessary to wash our hands before reading the scriptures, but his simple gesture of respect was a reverent and powerful reminder of the sacredness of the Book of Mormon.

I am acquainted with a family which came to America from Germany. The English language was difficult for them. They had but little by way of means, but each was blessed with the will to work and with a love of God.
Their third child was born, lived but two months, and then died. Father was a cabinetmaker and fashioned a beautiful casket for the body of his precious child. The day of the funeral was gloomy, thus reflecting the sadness they felt in their loss. As the family walked to the chapel, with Father carrying the tiny casket, a small number of friends had gathered. However, the chapel door was locked. The busy bishop had forgotten the funeral. Attempts to reach him were futile. Not knowing what to do, the father placed the casket under his arm and, with his family beside him, carried it home, walking in a drenching rain.
If the family were of a lesser character, they could have blamed the bishop and harbored ill feelings. When the bishop discovered the tragedy, he visited the family and apologized. With the hurt still evident in his expression, but with tears in his eyes, the father accepted the apology, and the two embraced in a spirit of understanding. No hidden wedge was left to cause further feelings of anger. Love and acceptance prevailed.

My family and I joined the Church when I was 12. At the time, I had no idea of the magnitude of that gift. I didn’t even know if the Church was true, but my father and mother were impressed with the message the missionaries carried. I liked the missionaries too but didn’t fully understand what they were saying. Eventually they invited us to be baptized, and my family decided we would join as a family or not at all. I agreed and was baptized without ever being converted.
I attended church and seminary, but my family later fell away. I had friends at church and went to seminary and Mutual to be with them. I didn’t care about the gospel or the teachings and thought church was generally boring. My life grew troubled as I began to engage in activities such as shoplifting and vandalism. My father became abusive, and I thought about suicide.
However, suicide was never an option. I couldn’t do that to my mother, whom I loved deeply. So I was left to find an answer. I looked around and saw my friends from church. The one thing they had that I didn’t was a testimony. So at the age of 16, four years after my baptism, I sat down to read the Book of Mormon for the first time.
It was difficult, and it took me nearly two years. As I read in 3 Nephi about the Savior’s visit to the Nephites after His Resurrection, where He blesses their children and angels descend from heaven and encircle them, it was as though I stood among the Nephites and saw with my own eyes that miraculous event. The Holy Ghost bore witness of that great moment.
I could not read any more, as my eyes blurred with tears. When I regained my composure, I continued reading. A few more weeks passed, and I finished the book, knelt, and prayed to know if it was true. But I got no answer.
Days passed with me kneeling regularly and pleading to know if the book was true, if the Church was true, but still I got no answer. Despairing, weeks after I’d finished reading, I knelt one more time and asked, “Heavenly Father, is the Book of Mormon true?” The answer that came was not what I expected: “I have already told you. You know it is.”
I had gained my testimony weeks before, when I read about Christ blessing the children. I knew that this Church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is the kingdom of God on earth, restored by a prophet and led by a prophet, as in days of old.
It is no exaggeration to say that the Book of Mormon saved my life, but it would be more accurate to say the restored gospel saved me and continues to renew me and nourish me each day. It is my most precious possession.

Wishing to join the Saints in Nauvoo, Jane and eight members of her family joined other converts and traveled from Connecticut to Buffalo, New York, in October 1843. There the others in their group boarded a boat to continue the journey, but the Manning family were denied passage because of their race. Jane and her family began walking the eight hundred miles to Nauvoo.

In her journal, she wrote, “We walked until our shoes were worn out and our feet became sore and cracked open.”

When the Manning family reached Peoria, Illinois, the sheriff threatened to put them in jail because they did not have papers to prove that they were free. Finally Jane convinced him that they had never been slaves.

Frightened by the experience, they moved on. They came to a river and crossed it by walking into the stream until the icy water swirled around their necks. As they continued their trek, they were often cold, hungry, and frightened. Sometimes they found shelter, but often they had to sleep in the open, even when snow fell. They relied on their faith and each other, and when conditions became unbearable, singing hymns and praying kept them going.

When they reached Nauvoo, Orson Spencer directed them to the home of the Prophet. Joseph and Emma Smith welcomed them, inviting the Mannings to stay at the Mansion House until they found homes. Eventually all the members of the Manning family found jobs except Jane. The Prophet and his wife urged her to stay with them.

Jane did stay for several months. When the Prophet was martyred, Jane grieved for him, saying, he was “the finest man I ever saw on earth.”

Following Joseph’s death, Jane lived with President Brigham Young’s family until the Saints fled Nauvoo. During that time, she met and married Isaac James, another free Black, who was also a member of the Church.

After the Saints left Nauvoo in 1846, Jane gave birth to a son, Silas, at Winter Quarters. When the first pioneers left Winter Quarters in 1847, the James family were in the lead company of the main encampment.

Jane’s family struggled during their first years in the Salt Lake Valley, and though they lacked even the most basic necessities, Jane shared what little she did have with her neighbors. When Brother Lyman, a neighbor, received a call to serve a mission in California, he left his family with few provisions. His wife, Eliza Partridge Lyman, wrote, “Jane James let me have two pounds of flour, it being half of what she had.”

Jane worked hard to provide for her family, spinning and weaving cloth, making her own soap, and raising a large garden. She also worked as a laundress to earn much needed cash. Just as it seemed the family was starting to prosper, Jane’s husband left them. Twenty years later, he returned and made his peace with Jane and the Church. Jane held his funeral in her home when he died in 1891.

Despite her meager earnings, Jane James donated to the building funds of the Logan, St. George, and Manti temples, as well as to the Lamanite Mission. When asked how she managed to care for her family and still contribute to the building of the kingdom, she replied, “I pay my tithes and offerings, keep the Word of Wisdom, go to bed early, and rise early. I try in my feeble way to set a good example to all.”

Jane died in 1908. President Joseph F. Smith and other General Authorities spoke at her funeral, praising her unwavering faith and commitment to the gospel.

Another example of President Kimball’s discipleship occurred one Christmas Eve several years ago. He called and asked if I were busy. I quickly responded, “Not at all. What can I do for you, President Kimball?” He told me he needed a companion to go with him to the Primary Children’s Hospital to give a few blessings. It turned out that he had heard of several children from South America, as well as some American Indian children, who were in the hospital. We went from floor to floor giving blessings to all the Latins and Lamanites and many others too. I was deeply affected by the love of President Kimball and his tender friendship with each child. He was a friend to the sick—a friend to those far from home. He exemplified the tender, loving friendship that the Savior would give. It was easy to see how he could say, “The Savior is my best friend.”

I had a similar experience in Idaho some years later. I was attending a stake conference. After the Sunday morning session one of the bishops brought his aged mother up to see me. I had been referring to the Book of Mormon during my sermon and was still holding it in my hand.
She took the book from me, opened it, read a paragraph at random, and then returned the book. I wondered why. Then she said that at the previous stake conference the visitor had been Elder Thomas E. McKay, one of the Assistants to the Council of the Twelve.
She asked me if I knew Elder McKay, and of course, I responded that I did. Then she said, “Will you please tell him that I read a paragraph in your book? When he was here at our last conference, my son brought him to my home and had him administer to me. I was blind. Please tell him that I read from your book.”

I started sharing my testimony on social media when I was a teenager. But it was easier back then to stand up for my beliefs. At the time, most of my friends were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and shared similar values to mine. Social media was different too. People were less inclined to tear others down. If they didn’t agree with you, they would simply scroll away.
That all changed as I entered young adulthood. Suddenly people had issues with my beliefs, and many of my friends were choosing paths contrary to the teachings of the gospel. And when one of the Apostles was being torn down all over social media, I was shocked that I couldn’t see anyone defending him.
So I did.
Over the next week, I received threats and hateful messages from strangers and friends alike about my post. I cried every day. I wondered if I had done the right thing. I even felt a bit like I’d been abandoned by God. After all, I’d tried to stand up for His Apostle, and I’d received nothing but hate.
But I held on. I didn’t take down the post.
Slowly, the narrative changed. Yes, I was still on the receiving end of those hurtful messages, but to my surprise, others started to stand with me. I watched as members from around the world supportively shared my post. My gratitude for not being alone soon turned to humility as I realized that finally, the good messages outweighed the bad. God had not abandoned me. Instead, He’d sent more disciples to stand beside me.

I once met a British dancer while traveling on a train in Finland. We were both happy to be speaking English, and as we chatted we asked each other questions: What are you doing in Finland? What do you believe? Learning of my beliefs, she asked, “You don’t smoke or drink? You don’t believe in premarital sex?” And throughout our conversation, she kept coming back to this subject, intrigued. “I suppose if you dated men who felt the same way, it would work out,” she said. And then later: “Are there any men who feel the same way?” She started off disdainful and ended up wistful. She was hungry for something she heard in our doctrine.