Gospel Story Finder

The bright coloring of the surrounding mountains was inspiring. The yellow, brown, and gray of the stone in the nearby hills and the blue of the distant mountains was a scene that only nature could paint. An artist who tried would be accused of exaggeration.
I stood on the edge of a great precipice. The ground beneath my feet was white sandstone. It was strange how drab the ground at my feet appeared but how beautiful that same stone was when viewed from a distance. “Isn’t that the way life is?” I thought to myself.
I looked down. Far below, the Colorado River, like a puny gray ribbon, wound itself through the deep canyon gorge. It made me dizzy, and I backed off for fear of losing my balance. I looked up and saw the other side of the canyon 600 feet beyond. As I contemplated how remote we were from civilization, fear came into my heart. “What have we gotten ourselves into?” I asked myself.
We had signed a contract to fabricate and erect the steel for a bridge to span the Colorado River gorge. We were relying upon our engineer’s computations and designs to do something we had never done before. The last thing I would ever do under these circumstances would be to express aloud any doubt. I had to be positive. If the leader of the organization lacks courage or judgment when exploring new horizons, the operation will crumble. It was a critical point, a precipice for those of us who had worked so long and hard to build a professional reputation. There was no turning back now. I displaced my fears by thinking, “If men never ventured beyond their experience, the world would make no progress.”
How do you go about bridging such a chasm? First, we spanned the river with a cord. The cord was used to pull a light rope across, then a heavier rope, a light cable, and a heavier cable, until we had a three-inch steel cable spanning the gorge supported by high towers on each side. Together with other essential parts we had a high line system that would carry fabricated steel segments into their respective positions; some pieces weighed as much as 30 tons.
The segments of the arch were supported by backstrap towers and held 600 tons of steel high above the river until the arch could be closed. After the arch was closed, its weight was transferred down to the huge concrete foundations supported by the bedrock of the canyon walls, enabling the backstrap towers to be relieved and dismantled.
Every step taken had to be right. Every piece of steel had to fit with exactness. Every move was carefully planned. A complicated scheduling process was used to coordinate engineering, purchasing, steel preparation, steel fabrication, storing, transporting, unloading, and erecting so that the right piece of steel arrived at the site at the exact time it was needed. It’s that way in life, isn’t it? We must plan things to a standard of excellence if we want to succeed. The greater the challenge, the higher the standard must be, whether we are building bridges or building lives.
Today people never notice the precipice on which I stood on that particular day. As the motorist travels over what before was an impassable route, he now crosses from one side of the canyon to the other in approximately eight seconds. I seldom look back upon that precipice in my business life without realizing that man, with the help of the Lord, can pretty well do whatever he makes up his mind to do. What is a challenge for one might be quite commonplace for another, but what is now commonplace was once a great challenge.

When I was a small boy in the first grade, I experienced what I thought was a rather tough day at school. I came home, walked in the house, threw my book on the kitchen table, and let forth an expletive that included the name of the Lord.

My mother was shocked. She told me quietly, but firmly, how wrong I was. She told me that I could not have words of that kind coming out of my mouth. She led me by the hand into the bathroom, where she took from the shelf a clean washcloth, put it under the faucet, and then generously coated it with soap. She said, “We’ll have to wash out your mouth.” She told me to open it, and I did so reluctantly. Then she rubbed the soapy washcloth around my tongue and teeth. I sputtered and fumed and felt like swearing again, but I didn’t. I rinsed and rinsed my mouth, but it was a long while before the soapy taste was gone. In fact, whenever I think of that experience, I can still taste the soap. The lesson was worthwhile. I think I can say that I have tried to avoid using the name of the Lord in vain since that day. I am grateful for that lesson.

Let me tell you of one young woman who has demonstrated remarkable strength in the face of great tragedy. On April 17, 1999, a big van broadsided a car and severely injured 16-year-old Emily Jensen. Her skull was fractured, and she was in a coma for three months, and six months in the hospital. She has had to learn everything again as if from birth. It would have been easy to give up, but giving up is not in Emily’s vocabulary. She works so hard at recovery that she runs the equivalent of a 26-mile marathon every day. Her faith, courage, and perseverance have strengthened and motivated many other hospital patients.

Emily is still working very hard to regain her speech. Even so, she fearlessly asks nurses, technicians, and therapists, “Are you a Mormon?” If they reply no, she tells them in her muddled sentences, “You should be. Read the Book of Mormon.”

Emily dictated to her mother what she wanted written in five copies of the Book of Mormon that she gave to a doctor, three therapists, and a technician before she left the hospital.

Emily dearly loved one technician who had become totally inactive in the Church. They prayed together in Emily’s hospital room. In language that was difficult to understand, but with a spirit that was strong and clear, Emily told her that she needed to go back to church. That technician later wrote Emily: “I want to thank you so much for the Book of Mormon you gave me. I cried when I read what you wrote. I know someday I will love this book as much as you do.”

Emily’s life was recently brightened at Skyline High School in Salt Lake City. The student body picked her as this year’s prom queen in recognition of her extraordinary courage. Her classmates stood and cheered as she struggled to the stage of the packed auditorium, supported on the arm of the student body president.

Though she continues to go each day for therapy, Emily’s life is still defined by her spiritual identity, her goodness, her kindness to others, and her strong testimony.

One Sunday after church, my mother, my brothers, and I were in the car ready to go home. But we could not find the car key. Our dad had put all our bags in the car and walked home with my younger sister in the stroller. We looked everywhere for the key, but we could not find it. In Primary and family home evening, I have learned that we should always pray when we need help. I told my mom that we should pray so Heavenly Father could help us. My mom was very happy, and we prayed together. Suddenly our grandmother drove up and brought us the key. Our dad had accidentally taken the key and sent it back with our grandmother. I know that Heavenly Father helped us by sending our grandmother. He will always help us, even through other people.

While there, I had the opportunity to perform ordinances on behalf of my uncle who had died of cancer. When I was being baptized for him, I thought about the blessings he would receive through this temple ordinance. I was so happy, and I recognized what the temple president told me when I had come to the temple for the first time and had been a little bit confused. He told me, “Brother, you may not understand all of what you are doing right now, but a day will come when you will feel you have done great things here.”
I got my answer. It has taken me four years to understand by visiting the temple for the second time.

That was a wise decision. Ed gained a seed in the World Cross-Country Championships in Paris and managed to finish third. He was unaware at the time that that race would later affect his mission.
He was called to serve in Barcelona, Spain, and ran off to the mission field without giving track a second thought—except when he used his knowledge and experience to interest members of Spanish track clubs in the gospel. It was under these circumstances that he once again met up with Jorge Garcia, the winner of the world cross-country meet in Paris. Jorge listened to several discussions, and though he wasn’t baptized, “he has a positive attitude about the Church,” Ed says.

Dear New Era Readers:
Driving home from Salt Lake City where we had left our daughter Susan at the Missionary Home, we wondered where we would find her little “love note” saying the things so hard to put into spoken words at the time of parting.
All during high school and her years away at college we had found these treasured bits, written in the quiet of night for last-minute pinning to her pillow, or to ours, or for slipping quietly under a dinner plate to be found after she’d gone. So we had come to expect and look forward to them and their blessing of comfort and the assurance that, indeed, all was well.
We were not disappointed. Hardly had I entered the house when, putting our soiled clothes into the laundry hamper, there it was, taped inside the lid. Removing it carefully, I thought, “How strange to put it here,” until I read the words, “You are the soap and water of my soul.”
Reading and rereading I stood shaken and tearful, until, hearing the door open quietly, I turned to face Susan’s dad. He was holding a note found taped to the steering wheel of the pick-up. We exchanged papers and I read, “Roads—red roads and brown roads, and wonderful roads you have brought me along …”
These were the beginning. Through almost two years we have continued to find them, as she had planned, each written to fit its chosen hiding place. We hope that by sharing them with you, you can come to feel a greater closeness to your families.
Sincerely,
Susan Savage’s Mother

For a while when he was 14, Aleksey Kulikov was a man without a country.
Though his mother was from St. Petersburg, she had taken work in Nuremberg, Germany. While there, she and Aleksey met the missionaries, studied the gospel, were baptized, and became active Latter-day Saints.
Now they had to leave Germany. The government said noncitizens on work visas must return to their homelands. To make matters worse, Aleksey and his mother were told their papers were no longer valid in Russia.
“Officially,” Aleksey explains, “we had no citizenship anywhere.”
Things seemed pretty dark, but Aleksey and his mother knew about faith.
“I remembered what the missionaries taught me,” Aleksey says. “If you have problems, then pray about them. So we asked Heavenly Father to bless us.”
From then on, the trip became easier. “We found out we did have Russian citizenship. When officials found out we were carrying all we owned, they waived the luggage restriction. At the Lithuanian border, some kind soldiers took pity on us and kept us from being forced off the train. They even called ahead to the next border and asked them to let us pass. So we came without trouble to St. Petersburg.”
After six years, they were home. But what would the city be like, now that the Soviet Union was gone? What would the Church be like, compared with their wonderful friends in Nuremberg?
“We were delighted with what we found,” Aleksey remembers. “The city had a happier feeling. Some beautiful buildings were being renovated. But best of all, we found there is a new dawn of the Church in St. Petersburg. We knew the gospel had been restored, but now we know it’s been restored here too.”
Aleksey is now 17, a member of the Nevsky Branch. His greatest desire is to serve a full-time mission, “perhaps in Germany.” But it doesn’t matter where he’s called. “I know there’s gospel light to share wherever you go,” he says.

John R. Moyle lived in Alpine, Utah, about 22 miles as the crow flies to the Salt Lake Temple, where he was the chief superintendent of masonry during its construction. To make certain he was always at work by 8:00 A.M., Brother Moyle would start walking about 2:00 on Monday mornings. He would finish his work week at 5:00 P.M. on Friday and then start the walk home, arriving there shortly before midnight. Each week he would repeat that schedule for the entire time he served on the construction of the temple.
Once when he was home on the weekend, one of his cows bolted during milking and kicked Brother Moyle in the leg, shattering the bone just below the knee. With no better medical help than they had in such rural circumstances, his family and friends took a door off the hinges and strapped him onto that makeshift operating table. They then took the bucksaw they had been using to cut branches from a nearby tree and amputated his leg just a few inches below the knee.
When against all medical likelihood the leg finally started to heal, Brother Moyle took a piece of wood and carved an artificial leg. First he walked in the house. Then he walked around the yard. Finally he ventured out about his property. When he felt he could stand the pain, he strapped on his leg, walked the 22 miles to the Salt Lake Temple, climbed the scaffolding, and with a chisel in his hand hammered out the declaration “Holiness to the Lord.” (See “Two Traditions of John Rowe Moyle,” in Biographies and Reminiscences, ed. Gene A. Sessions, 1974, 202–3.)

The first time I went duck hunting, I was ten years old. My dad wanted to spend some time with his boys because his Church job and his job as a lawyer had taken so much of his time. He suggested that we go duck hunting at a lake an hour outside of St. George, Utah. My older brother, Michael, was excited about the trip. I didn’t know what to expect, but I felt happy to sit alongside my brother and my dad in the pickup truck.
When we got there, we crawled on our hands and knees to the edge of the lake. The frozen ground felt hard underneath my hands. I peered over the water, looking for some ducks. My fourteen-year-old brother stood up and shot at the few birds on the lake as they were taking off. When the birds cleared away from the lake, I could see one dark bird left floating on the water. My dad realized that we didn’t have a dog to fetch the dead duck out of the water, so he said that he would get it.
The water was freezing at that time of year, and my brother and I were thankful that he had volunteered. Dad took off his shoes and his jacket and waded into the lake. He swam until he reached some reeds, where he stopped to grab onto them to catch his breath. Unfortunately the reeds were not strong enough to hold him up, so he treaded water for a while.
When he finally made it to the bird, he held it up and called to us, “It’s a mud hen.”
A mud hen is different from a duck because it is not good to eat. My brother groaned and shook his head at the effort Dad had made for an uneatable mud hen.
Dad started to swim back. Suddenly he yelled that he was in trouble. He could not get enough air, and he couldn’t swim anymore. I can still remember seeing him sink in the water. He came up again and thrashed around in an effort to stay afloat.
“We have to go get him!” Michael cried. He had earned swimming and life-saving merit badges and had the presence of mind to realize this was an emergency.
Fear flashed through my body. I began to take off my shoes and jacket because I thought that I shouldn’t try to swim with all my clothes on. Meanwhile, Michael could see that there was no time to take off anything. So with all of his clothes on, he dove into the water and swam out just before Dad went under for the second time. He grabbed Dad and used the Boy Scout lifesaving technique to bring him back to the shore.
When they finally reached the shore, they were both breathing heavily. Dad had inhaled a lot of freezing water and felt so tired that he could barely walk. My brother and I wrapped him in blankets to keep him warm during the drive home. I knew that Dad had come very close to drowning. My heart thumped inside my chest the entire ride home because I felt so scared.
My older brother saved Dad’s life. As I watched Michael swim out to save Dad, I felt very thankful that my brother had learned what to do in Scouts. At age ten, I knew that I could not have saved my dad. I was not strong enough, I was scared, and I didn’t know what to do even if I had gone out there. Michael did. Later, the Boy Scouts of America awarded him its highest honor—a gold medal for saving a life.

Merania from New South Wales, Australia, befriended a woman who was learning about the Church in her ward. “She has become one of my dear friends now,” Merania says. “I love sitting with her in sacrament meeting every week, and I always ask how she’s doing and if there is anything I can do to help her.” After a while, Merania’s friend was baptized. The efforts of ward members, as well as the welcoming atmosphere in sacrament meeting, played a huge part in her decision.

I’m grateful for the bishop’s encouragement and belief in my daughter’s ability to be able to settle down in a sacrament meeting. He didn’t judge me for not being able to get my daughter to be reverent all the time. I will never forget the day he assigned me to give a talk on the responsibility of a mother. I felt it was a role I had fallen very short on, but my bishop didn’t. On Mother’s Day, the bishop, knowing that I often had to leave church early, ran after me to ensure that he personally handed me my Mother’s Day card and gift. That deeply touched my heart.

It was a new week, and I looked at the family calendar with trepidation. How could we possibly fulfill all of the obligations we had scheduled?
I plunged in, trying my best to volunteer at the schools, get the children to their various sports and clubs, feed everyone around ever-tightening schedules, and get my early-morning seminary lesson prepared each day. My husband rushed around to get to work and to Church meetings, to visit ward members, and to coach soccer. We were trying to be anxiously engaged in good causes and to be active in the Church, but something was missing. Although many families can handle numerous activities, it wasn’t working for us: the frenetic schedule was taking a toll on our family.
As I pondered this problem, I started to notice how often we had to tell our children no about things they wanted and needed from us. This bothered me, and I started to think about what could be done.
I turned to the scriptures. As I read the Book of Mormon, I came upon the sermon of King Benjamin in which he said, “And see that all these things are done in wisdom and order; for it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength. And again, it is expedient that he should be diligent, that thereby he might win the prize; therefore, all things must be done in order” (Mosiah 4:27).
The prize we wanted was a happier, more unified family. We wanted less stress and more joy, but it seemed that we clearly were not on a path that led to these prizes.
We were diligent, but we were spinning our wheels. We were preparing everything as opposed to every needful thing. I prayed about our situation, but initially no answer came.
Life went on as usual. Callings needed attention, I felt the dishes had to be washed, and everyone required rides to their activities. As I prepared to teach seminary each day, I started to find the answers I sought from the wisdom of our modern prophets and leaders. I came upon an address by President Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985) encouraging the Saints to hold family home evening. He said: “In our time the Lord has offered his ageless program in new dress and it gives promise to return the world to sane living, to true family life, family interdependence. It is to return the father to his rightful place at the head of the family, to bring mother home from social life and employment, the children away from unlimited fun and frolic.”1
I realized that one of the first casualties of our busy lifestyle was regular scheduling of family home evening. Not long after, our bishop read a letter in sacrament meeting from the First Presidency reminding us to choose our activities wisely and not let the good things we do get in the way of home evening.
As my husband and I discussed this counsel, we realized that a lot of our activities were fun but not needful and that we could benefit from trimming the excess. We made lists of our activities and put them in categories like “needful,” “not needful,” and “needs improvement.”
As we studied our lists, we were concerned about the feelings of our children. Most of the activities we considered cutting were things they were involved in, like sports and clubs. We decided to hold a family home evening and talk this over with the children. When we discussed the problem with the children, we were astonished to find out that they would much rather spend time with us than have us coach their teams or chair their clubs.
From this realization our “Family Club” was born.
Once we fulfilled our obligations to existing activities, we did not sign up for anything new. On nights when we have no Church responsibilities, my husband will come home from work and announce, “Tonight is Family Club!” and the children will hurry to get their homework and chores done so we can spend time together.
Our children like to engage in special projects, especially with their dad. One night they built a computer out of scrap parts. Sometimes everyone will put on tool belts and fix something around the house. The point is that we have the time, energy, and desire to be together.
I also have more time to spend with the children and prepare more nutritious meals for the family. Family Club requires no running around, splitting our family among activities, or eating out. No one seems to miss our life of rushing around and fast food. We enjoy the time we spend together so much that the children no longer want to be so involved in extracurricular activities.
We have reinstated family home evening and daily family prayer. We also tidy up, do personal scripture study, and have family recreational activities. We understand that as the children get older, they will naturally have more activities. We will add them when it becomes needful, but until then, we are enjoying every minute of Family Club.

It’s early Saturday morning. You have lots to do—hang out with friends, maybe catch up on your homework. Then the phone rings and you remember that this Saturday is your ward’s youth serve-a-thon. You groan and think about getting in one more hour of sleep, right?
Of course not. Getting up is easy if you’re in the Richmond Ward, Richmond Virginia Stake, and today much of your service will be for those who aren’t members of the Church. Today you get to join with the missionaries and meet a lot of new people.
This Saturday morning, youth from the Richmond Ward are spread out in five different locations around the city. The first stop is a small house in the middle of Richmond. Fourteen-year-old Zack Harton and his friend Will Jones are stationed here, raking leaves, pulling weeds, and having fun.
Zack doesn’t personally know the family his group is helping, but he does know that this family is investigating the Church. Therefore, he knows that he’s also setting an example. “It makes me feel good because I’m helping someone in need—just as I would help my own brother and sister if they needed help,” Zack says.
His friend Will is also investigating the Church and is glad that Zack invited him to come along today. Will has already caught on to the wonderful feeling that comes from service. “I feel that I have an obligation toward other people,” Will says. “I started coming with Zack to Scouts and never knew it was going to get into this. But I just think it’s wonderful that somebody would care enough to do this. While we were working in the yard, everyone would help one another. You didn’t even have to ask. I could feel God around me.”
Will’s enthusiasm for service touches Cary Fleming as she, too, helps clean up at this stop. “The house looked pretty bad when we got there,” Cary says. “I wondered how we were going to clean all this. But then Will started singing nonstop, and I kept on pulling weeds, and we had a blast.”
Cary found out that what her mom said last night was right. “I did not want to go, but she told me it would strengthen my testimony if I really prayed about going and asked to have a good time. So I knelt down and prayed, and I’ve had the best time.”
A couple of kilometers away, Charity Holderness is cleaning bedrooms and bathrooms for a part-member family in the Richmond Ward. For Charity, this is a little out of the ordinary. “When I clean my own room, my mom thinks I’m sick,” she says.
Today she’s feeling something different. “I can’t even explain this feeling. I know that I haven’t done even a fraction of the work some people do. But I feel so much better knowing that I can keep doing small things. Maybe I’ll sweep the kitchen floor when I get home.”
Thirteen-year-old Caity Ingles is also here. She is not a member of the Church but came when her friend April Lacy invited her. April asked Caity to come because, she says, “I want her to know that I like to serve and help other people.”
The two missionaries at this stop like April’s idea about setting an example. Elder Jeffrey Mortensen, from Visalia, California, says: “We’re just the missionaries serving in this area for a short time. But when a ward member can make a connection with a nonmember, that is awesome.”
Building relationships—as well as cutting down some unwanted trees—is in full swing where a third group of youth are stationed. Todd Swenson, age 17, is here, and he’s a little tired from pulling up roots and clearing leaves. But his attitude is not the least bit tiresome. “This is my first time doing anything like this, but I want to do it again. I think it makes the people we are helping feel that they have friends, that someone is looking out for them,” Todd says.
Ben Mullins, age 14, agrees. “I hope it makes them feel that Church members like to help other people. It also gives me a better attitude about serving.”
Besides, according to Heather Swenson, there’s not much better to do on a Saturday. “I can spare one Saturday. I’ve got a lot of time left in my life to help other people. I need to use that time well.”
Across town at a less-active ward member’s home, Chris Odell knows all about using his time well. “I know this is the best thing I could do today,” Chris says. “When I serve, I feel close to heaven.”
Lindsay Lansing, age 14, nods in agreement and says, “Service shows that you love and respect others.” She is helping the sister missionaries gather leaves and stuff them into a garbage bag. This is not the first time she has joined them to provide service for her neighbors and less-active ward members. “I do this whenever I get the chance.”
Lindsay, Chris, and the rest of the group here finish quickly, but they don’t want to quit yet. So each of them jumps into a leader’s van to find another group that may need some extra hands.
By lunchtime, the last group of Richmond Ward youth are putting finishing touches on a wall at Svetlana Iskiyayev’s Village Shoe Shop. They have spent the morning tidying and painting the back room of the shop.
Svetlana and her husband left careers as a doctor and a lawyer when they came to Virginia from Russia several years ago. Now they are building their dreams here. And Helen Capehart, age 16, is happy she can help them. She has invited two nonmember friends to help her today and hopes that they, as well as the Iskiyayevs, will see the light of the gospel through her service.
After all, examples of service are what drew Helen herself to the gospel just a short time ago. She says: “I’m so grateful that the Lord led me to this Church and for the awesome examples my friends here have been to me. My biggest example now is Jesus Christ, and I find so much joy in serving him. I hope I always have this feeling in me.”
Most likely, that feeling will stay with Helen because she has found an important key to sharing the gospel—service.
As youth from the Richmond Ward close their day of service with a testimony meeting, Helen once again captures the essence of this activity. “I don’t think I ever feel the Spirit as strong in my life as when I am serving the Lord,” Helen says. “Look at all the magazines with beautiful people on the covers. The world says that’s beauty. But when I was working today, I got paint and dirt all over me. And I think that is the Lord’s true definition of beauty.”
She is probably right. What could be more beautiful than a child of God who has found happiness in following the example of the Savior?

Looking for yet more opportunities to learn and grow, he talked with his mother.
He reported that his mother told him—referring to 24 July, the anniversary of when Latter-day Saint pioneers entered the Salt Lake Valley in 1847—“this is the week to honour the pioneers.”
Kuhio said, “I chose as another project to make photo frames, with other friends, to honour our matahiapo (elderly) in the ward.”
His mother said, “He enthusiastically participated in this activity, along with two other families from the ward. He also baked and offered a yoghurt cake to all the matahiapo he visited.”

In 1978, I stood on a football field in a stadium packed with 65,000 fans. In front of me were several very large opponents who looked like they wanted to take my head off. It was my first game as a starting quarterback in the National Football League, and we were playing the reigning Super Bowl champions. To be honest, I questioned whether I was good enough to be on the field. I dropped back to throw my first pass, and as I released the ball, I was hit harder than I’d ever been hit before. At that moment, lying under a pile of those massive athletes, I wondered what I was doing there. I had a decision to make. Would I let my doubts overtake me, or would I find courage and strength to get up and to carry on?
I didn’t realize at the time how this experience would prepare me for future opportunities. I needed to learn that I could be strong and courageous in the face of difficult situations.

When Primary general president Cheryl C. Lant was sent to visit with children in South Africa in 2005, she worried about whether she could emotionally handle the living conditions of some of the children. When she actually met with them, though, her reaction surprised her.
“I did see children in terrible conditions, and I knew I could do nothing to change it,” Sister Lant told students during a February 2006 devotional at Brigham Young University. “But I also felt an overwhelming love for them and a sense of God’s love for them.”

This very Tabernacle was the scene for such a faith-inspired miracle. It occurred several years ago at general conference time. During the session when I was assigned to speak, my attention was drawn constantly to a little blond-haired girl seated on the first row in the balcony. The more I looked at her, the less I felt inclined to present the formal message I had prepared. I yielded to the inspiration 1 felt and spoke rather about the faith of a girl in far away Louisiana, Christian Methvin. I directed my remarks to my young friend in the balcony.

Upon returning to my office, I found waiting for me this same young lady and also her grandmother. The young girl’s name, Misti White. Her home, California. Here is her story. She began: “I have had a problem, Brother Monson, but not any longer. A person very dear to me told me to wait until I was 18 to be baptized. My grandmother said I should be baptized now. I prayed for an answer and said to grandmother, ‘Take me with you to conference. There Jesus will help me.’”

To conference they came, and so did divine help. Eagerly Misti took my hand and exclaimed, “You helped Him answer my prayer. Thank you.”

Upon returning to California, Misti sent me a treasured letter, with this beautiful ending: “Brother Monson, I was baptized on November 29th. I am now very happy. Love, Misti.” Faith does precede the miracle.

During my years in the military, I took many classes about how to be a good leader. But the most important lessons I ever learned about leadership were from my mother, who taught me how to treat people. As she washed dishes and I dried them, we talked. She taught me to always treat people kindly and to treat them all equally. This is what it means to be a good leader—treating others kindly and honestly.

I was busy shopping one day some years ago when two young women asked if they could speak with me. “Certainly,” I replied.
“If you died today,” they asked, “would you go to heaven?”
They must have noticed my surprise, because they immediately opened their copies of the Bible and quoted a verse from the New Testament. “All you need to do to go to heaven,” they declared, “is to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.”
What followed is still a painful memory. I was amazed at their doctrine, and I tried to remember what I had learned at Sunday School, seminary and college religion classes I had taken on the New Testament; but I could give only one scripture to indicate that there was more to entering the kingdom of heaven than simply a profession of faith.
The two women quickly quoted other scriptures similar to the first. I could share some of my beliefs as a Latter-day Saint, but I could not quote the principles from the scriptures. Unconvinced by my feeble arguments, they soon left me. I watched them walking hurriedly up to the next shopper.
“It is a common thing,” President Spencer W. Kimball said, “to have a few passages of scripture at our disposal, floating in our minds, as it were, and thus to have the illusion that we know a great deal about the gospel.”
Such an illusion was mine!
“Each of us,” he continued, “at some time in our lives, must discover the scriptures for ourselves—and not just discover them once, but rediscover them again and again.” (Tambuli, September, 1976.)
The experience discouraged me, and I determined to never again be unprepared. I set aside some regular study time, and began to discover the gospel again.