Gospel Story Finder

Think you can’t live without television? Youth in the Penasquitos First Ward in San Diego, California, went on a television “fast” for a month. Here’s what three of the young women said about the experience:
“This was a hard thing for me to do, but I feel that not watching TV has helped me be nicer to other people.”—Tiffany Clark, 13

On the evening before he was martyred in Carthage, the Prophet Joseph Smith bore testimony to his guards. He testified of the divine authenticity of the Book of Mormon. He bore witness of the administration of angels and that the kingdom of God was again established upon the earth.
I wonder if any of those guards prayed that night. The Holy Ghost was ready to tell them that the remarkable message was true. With a testimony of the Spirit they would have known that they should ask for baptism. And then they could have received the priceless gift of the Holy Ghost. With that gift, they could know the truth of all things. I wonder if any of them sensed that night how close they were to starting down the only path which would lead them to the Savior in the world to come, to see His face with pleasure and hear the words, “Come unto me, ye blessed, there is a place prepared for you in the mansions of my Father.”

When dawn breaks at Carlene C.’s house in Benjamin, Utah, everyone hurries out to the chicken coop to help gather eggs. Sometimes nine-year-old Carlene beats her four brothers to the henhouse. She has raised a few chickens herself. Last year at the county fair, her chickens and their eggs won two blue ribbons.

Phineas Nyambita and his wife, Caroline, are both BYU–Pathway students. Phineas is a returned missionary and serves as branch president of his branch in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Phineas, studying towards a Bachelor of Applied Technology degree, said, “I enjoy the programme because I am working full time and attending to my classes. Being a husband and father, a church leader, and adding another responsibility as a student may be overwhelming. Still, I have seen that it can be done with great success.” Turning to young adults in Chang’ombe Branch and elsewhere, Phineas offers this advice: “I know that the Lord wants us to be successful in this life.
“However, being successful may not come if we do not act in faith. We may have a lot to deal with as fathers, mothers, leaders, and young adults. We can be successful with faith and the desire to learn how to prioritize. BYU–Pathway will assist all those who want to further their education in order to build the foundation of becoming successful through opportunities that will come in the future.”

President Ezra Taft Benson is one who exemplifies a true love for these little ones. To see the tiny tots gather at his side, extend a small hand to be held in his or to kiss his cheek, is to see the love adults should have for these children. No one in the presence of President Benson refers to a child as a “kid.” His correction for such a remark is sure and to the point. A visiting ambassador from another nation errantly made this slip. He was corrected with love.

May I share a personal experience of my wife. While on a stake conference assignment with me, she accompanied a Relief Society president on such a visit. As shepherds and servants of the Lord, they had tremendous success.

Then, about a year later while I was teaching some priesthood brethren how to make such visits, a 35-year-old man told me of my wife’s visit a year ago and said: “May I tell you a secret? My entire family had decided the day before your wife came to visit that we were leaving the Church, offended, never to return. I bear witness to you that we felt the Lord speak through her as she stirred us up in remembrance of God and our ordinances. I’m a member of a bishopric now. I would not be here today if it were not for her.”

He then smiled and said, “How I wish now that I had more carefully watched her invite the Spirit upon me and my family, as it now falls upon me to go out tonight and do my very first home visit.”

Yes, brethren, the sisters can assist in this work also.

Heber J. Grant was also baptized (June 2, 1864) in City Creek, but in a wagon box. This was the wooden body of a wagon taken off its wheelbed and placed in the stream to create a baptismal font.

President N. Eldon Tanner gave us some wise counsel:
“With all this evil present in the world today, it is most important that those who are responsible conduct proper interviews.
“Let us always remember that our main purpose, assignment, and responsibility is to save souls.
“It is important that those we interview realize that they are spirit children of God and that we love them, and let them know that we love them and are interested in their welfare and in helping them succeed in life.
“It is a great responsibility for a bishop or stake president to conduct a worthiness interview. There is equal responsibility, however, upon the member who is interviewed. Careful, searching interviews need to be conducted always individually and privately. …
“Let [the member] know that if there is something amiss in his life, there are ways to straighten it out. There is a great cleansing power of repentance. …
“You bishops and stake presidents might approach an interview for a temple recommend something like this:
“‘You have come to me for a recommend to enter the temple. I have the responsibility of representing the Lord in interviewing you. At the conclusion of the interview there is provision for me to sign your recommend; but mine is not the only important signature on your recommend. Before the recommend is valid, you must sign it yourself.’ …
“And so it is. The Lord gives the privilege to members of the Church to respond to those questions in such interviews. Then if there is something amiss, the member can get his life in order so that he may qualify for the priesthood advancement, for a mission, or for a temple recommend.” (In Conference Report, Oct. 1978, pp. 59–60; or Ensign, Nov. 1978, pp. 41–42.)

When I was a young Relief Society sister, we had a mother-education class once a month. Though I had a wonderful and skilled mother, I still learned from my teachers in Relief Society how to be a better mother and how to improve my home. We learned homemaking principles and skills, we learned how to be better parents, and we learned how to strengthen our marriages.

In August 2005, when the Church received a request from Catholic Relief Services (CRS) to partner with them to send aid to Niger, an African nation facing major food shortages because of crop-devastating locust attacks and severe drought, the Church responded immediately with its largest ever air shipment of Atmit. The Church provided 80,000 pounds (36 tonnes) of the specialized porridge made for those suffering from severe malnourishment. Since then, subsequent shipments have been made and will continue according to need.

In school I had to think of something good to say about someone I had bad feelings toward. This person had ripped off my flag in Capture the Flag, and I felt defeated. After I thought about it, I was able to write that she was good at Capture the Flag. Then I felt better. And, hey—she was good at Capture the Flag!
Trent L., age 10, Utah, USA

Because of the stake’s close proximity to Hollywood, the Thousand Oaks stake has members like Jack and Kit Regas with real entertainment expertise. Before his retirement, Jack was a renowned television producer and choreographer of big-name variety shows. And Kit—his wife, partner, and fellow director—can turn out a great script. Together they have the know-how to put together a high-quality show.
First, Jack and Kit took a six-hour car trip to visit their children in San Francisco so they could have uninterrupted time to plan the show. Once the script was roughed out, the show committee needed to assemble the talent. Anyone and everyone over the age of 10 in the stake was welcome to participate. Most of the potential cast members didn’t really know what they could do or if they would be able to learn the songs and dances. But they were willing to try.
“It’s just amazing how much we can accomplish when we get it together,” said Jeff Klein, 16, Thousand Oaks Second Ward. “Look at this. We’ve got people with tons of talent and then others who are just learning enough to get the job done. Really, simply amazing.”
From the start, cast members had to learn to act like professionals. They had to overcome that old stereotype of always being late.” The most important thing I learned was to be on time,” said Brittny Anderson, 13, of the Thousand Oaks Fourth Ward. “We had to be early so that no one showed up late and stalled the entire show.”
Then, the cast members had to learn what it meant to be committed. Practices were a priority. And there was no excuse for missing a dress rehearsal. “I thought it sounded like a blast,” said Russell Harrington, 16, Thousand Oaks Third Ward. “But it was scary to get the talk about being committed. I knew that it was going to be kind of tough, but I thought I’m just going to have to do this.”
In many ways, participating in the show was training on being reliable. And for most of the cast members, learning how to be prompt and dedicated is a valuable lesson for life.

Latter-day Saints also have a presence at West Point, the U.S. Army’s academy in upstate New York, and at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Consider this story about Midshipman Blake G. Jacobson:
One night while he was on watch, his upperclassman asked why the ring he wore bore the initials CTR instead of BGJ. Jacobson explained that the ring is often worn by members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and that CTR stands for Choose the Right. The upperclassman already knew Jacobson doesn’t smoke, drink, or swear.
A few days later, during a company inspection, the upperclassman suddenly yelled out, “Mr. Jacobson, what does it say on that ring you’re wearing?”
Jacobson was surprised, but barked out, “CTR, sir!”
“And what do those letters stand for, Mr. Jacobson?”
“Choose the Right, sir!”
“Correct. Men, from now on those letters are our company motto!”
From then on, the company chanted, “Choose the Right, left, Choose the Right, left,” as they marched around academy grounds. (Story submitted by Joe and Glo Jensen.)

Don Dewey was a nonmember and one of Ken’s friends stationed aboard a sister minesweeper. He wanted to discover the loopholes in Church doctrine so he could point out to Ken the error of his decision to be baptized. So when the three men returned from sea, Don decided to join Willis and Ken at sacrament meeting in Charleston.

But Don never did find the loopholes. Instead, after months of intensive study, he also chose to become a member of the Church.

Daggi Ramirez de Vargas has been blind for 15 years, but in many ways she sees quite clearly. “Physical vision is very entertaining,” says the 70-year-old. “But it can get in the way of our spiritual vision.”
Sister Daggi, as she is known, lost her eyesight when her retinas detached following cataract surgeries on both eyes.
“At first I wondered how I was going to do everything,” she says. “But I can get around just fine. I iron, I sew, I cook. No one comes in while I’m cooking,” she laughs. “I use some big knives.”
As worried as Sister Daggi was about maintaining her physical independence, she was just as determined to remain spiritually self-reliant, living by the light of her own personal testimony of Christ rather than depending on another for a knowledge of the truth.

Of all the New Eras I’ve read, I was never so happy to see one as I was last week. Here we were, sitting in our flat, my companion sick with German measles, both of us feeling like “dead fish” missionaries, when we received our first New Eras since the 19-week-old mail strike here in the Emerald Isle. And boy did they cheer us up! Especially the article “Your Life Has a Purpose.” We really felt guilty about complaining. Cheerio!
Elders Egan and ElliottIreland Dublin Mission

“You know,” Mom said, “there was a girl on my basketball team in high school—Sarah—who had the worst attitude. She was always yelling at everybody and making us feel terrible when we made mistakes.”
“She must be related to Andrew.”
Mom laughed. “Well, I got pretty fed up with Sarah’s bullying. So one day I decided to show her what real team spirit was all about. Every time somebody made a mistake, I jumped in before Sarah had a chance and said, ‘Good job, Karen,’ or ‘Nice try, Susan.’ And if somebody did something really great, I jumped up and down and yelled and screamed and really whooped it up.”
“So did Sarah stop being so mean?” Brian asked hopefully.
“No.”
Brian looked out the window again. “I didn’t think so.”
“But everyone else was too busy watching my spirited pep shows to notice her anymore,” Mom said with a smile. Brian smiled, too, in spite of himself.

“Dinner will be ready in a half hour,” Brad’s mother called as he left the house.
“Okay, Mom. I’ll be back.”
Walking down a sidewalk bordered with red and pink petunias, Brad looked over his shoulder at the home he had just left, still impressed by the building of white brick and by the green majesty of trees that shaded it.
Facing forward again, Brad slid his fingers into the pockets of tight denim pants, thinking about the contrast between this house on a wide street in a medium-sized California city and the home he and his parents had lived in until two months earlier.
His father, John Brannigan, had been determined to get his family out of the third-floor railroad flat on a Brooklyn street where poverty forced him to take his bride, but his son was 15 before John Brannigan, working days and going to school nights, received his degree that resulted in a job with an electronics firm and eventually earned for him the position with his company’s California office.
The three-bedroom home they bought was so different from the dreary flat Brad had grown up in, the quietness of the suburban neighborhood such a contrast to the day-and-night uproar of the Brooklyn street, that Brad had no more than begun his adjustment to the change.
“Not that I don’t enjoy the scenery and the climate,” thought Brad, “and I envy Mom her delight in our home.” He thought, too, that he understood his father’s pride in his ability to provide so well for his wife and son. Brad wondered, with a sharp twinge of guilt, whether his parents were aware of his unsettled discontent.
Mostly he missed the camaraderie of friends in Brooklyn he’d known all his life, who understood him in a way he was sure no one in this western community ever would.
Even as he brooded over his lack of companionship, he heard a cheerful, “Hi, Brad. How’s the boy?”
He hadn’t noticed Jeff Collier’s approach, so the stocky senior had greeted him and walked on before Brad could respond. Frowning, he looked after the retreating figure.
“How’s the boy?” he mimicked in a sarcastic undertone. “A lot he cares.” At the same time, he was surprised that the other boy even knew his name. Brad had been a student at Caulfield High for barely a month. In that time he had spoken to no more than half a dozen fellow seniors, but he recognized the class president. That Jeff Collier also recognized him disturbed Brad. Walking on, he decided he must have been pointed out to Jeff as “the dude with the weird accent.”
Brad entered a corner drugstore and an agony of homesickness surged through him. No place else in the California town reminded him of his own faraway city, but pausing beside the magazine rack he looked at publications that were duplicates of those on display in the drugstore in Brooklyn. An identical odor that combined the perfume of cosmetics with the antiseptic smell of medicines deepened his nostalgia.
Seated on a stool covered in shiny orange vinyl, Brad studied, with little interest, his reflection in the mirror behind the counter—a lean, tanned face, a thatch of licorice black hair worn loose over green eyes accented by arched, black brows.
The boy behind the counter asked, “What’ll it be?”
“Fresh limeade. Heavy on the fresh.”
Placing a frosted glass in front of Brad, the boy leaned his weight on folded arms.
“I know you,” he said. “You’re in my chemistry class. Have you finished the outside experiment yet?”
With slow deliberation Brad pulled the glass close, removed paper from a straw. Even though classes in his new school were hard for Brad, he was doing well in everything but chemistry. He felt sure the boy who still waited for an answer knew this, that he was taunting him. Grimly Brad drew tart liquid through the straw, thinking, “The guys in school must joke about how tough they think the students in my Brooklyn school were. Bet they think I didn’t learn a thing.”
His voice bitter with resentment, Brad said, “I suppose you breezed right through the experiment.”
The boy straightened. “Don’t even know where to start. I thought maybe we could talk it over, and also I’d like to—”
“Fat chance, man!” Brad tossed a quarter onto the counter and stalked out of the drugstore, the metallic ring of the coin echoing in his head. Fighting the ache of hurt in his throat, he strode toward his home asking himself, “How long before these dudes stop being suspicious of my background?” Brad was sure his classmates suspected him of carrying a switchblade, that they thought his clothes outlandish, and the few times he had spoken in a classroom, he’d caught glances exchanged between several fellow students who appeared to be highly amused because his speech was so different from their own.
In his preoccupation Brad nearly collided with a girl who suddenly appeared around a corner. Mumbling, “Sorry,” he would have hurried on, but she spoke his name.
“Brad Brannigan! Do you always walk right past people you know?”
Recognizing Jill Fenton he wished he could know her. Since his first day in English literature class he had been very much aware of the tall girl with the ash-blonde hair, had admired the friendliness of a smile that seemed to include everyone.
“Even me,” thought Brad. “A doll like Jill wouldn’t cut anybody.” Convinced she spoke to him only because she pitied him, resenting that pity so intensely he could barely speak, Brad muttered, “Gotta go, Jill. See you around.”
As he brushed past her, Brad’s quick sideways glimpse of the girl’s face left him with the uneasy feeling that his abruptness had marred her bright mood. Steps faltering he paused, then turned, but she was walking rapidly away, and Brad told himself, “What makes me think a snub from a guy she couldn’t really give a hang about would bother a popular girl like Jill?”
Dismissing his uneasiness, Brad was soon in an area of the town where he had been several times because a building on the corner of Vine and First streets attracted him. Rich green lawns, trimmed shrubs, and brightly grouped flowers surrounded a large structure of tan brick topped by a tapered, heaven-pointing spire. Brad thought the building was probably a church, but he couldn’t understand why there should be so much activity inside it. Every time he had walked by, people seemed to be going in or coming out.
Leaning against a tree Brad thought about his own religious background. His parents were good, honest people who had explained to him as much about God and the plan of life as they understood themselves, and although aware of the many shadings between right and wrong, Brad still felt a yearning to understand the reason for his existence, and he sensed, from the expressions of purposeful contentment on the faces of both adults and children who went in and out of the building that they knew the reason for theirs.
With a shrug, assuring himself that contentment and self-assurance were moods that could hardly be influenced by anything that took place inside a structure of brick and wood, Brad started home again, hoping he would meet no more of his classmates, not sure he could cope with another condescending greeting, but as he turned to go up the walk toward his house, four girls, walking together, called, “Hi, Brad!” not seeming to notice his surly lack of response.
After a night made restless by loneliness and a wretched sense of displacement, Brad left for school, wondering wearily whether he could ever hurdle the barrier of his strangeness, ever feel himself a part of the California community.
He was so emotionally off-balance all day that when Jeff Collier caught up with him in the hall after the last period, he walked along, unresisting, as Jeff propelled him down the hall with a hand under his elbow.
“Brad, we require another warm body on the decorating committee for the Senior Hop,” Jeff said. “You’ll be glad to know you just volunteered.”
Brad, irritated, wondered why he should help with a dance he hadn’t even considered attending, but before he could voice his refusal, Jeff spoke again.
“I’ll let you know in a couple of days where and when we’ll meet. Okay?”
To his surprise Brad heard himself answer, “Okay,” and felt the muscles in his cheeks relax in a grin, a response to the cheerful smile Jeff gave him.
Still off guard, Brad stopped to wait for Jill Fenton when she called to him outside the school.
She looked up at him with a smile that was hesitant, Brad suspected, because of his abruptness with her the evening before, but she said, “Brad, I wondered whether you’d like to come to activity night tonight.”
“To what?”
Jill laughed. “Oh, it’s an auxiliary of the church a lot of us in this high school belong to. We’re Latter-day Saints.”
“That’s one I never heard of.”
“Some people call us Mormons,” Jill continued, and before Brad could say that he had, indeed, heard of that church, but nothing he’d care to repeat, she added, “We have a chapel on the corner of Vine and First streets. If you’ll be there at 7:30 tonight, I’ll meet you at the door.”
Never could Brad remember living through such an endless evening. He couldn’t eat his dinner; then he had to spend the next hour assuring his mother that no, he wasn’t sick and yes, everything was fine at school. By 7:15 he had definitely decided he wouldn’t go anywhere near the Mormon chapel, and at 7:20 he called, “I’m going out, Mom. I won’t be late,” as he raced out of the house. What if Jill had given up on him? What if he couldn’t find her when he got to the chapel? But as he stepped onto the wide porch, Jill came through the door.
“Oh, Brad, I’m glad you came, but we’ll have to hurry. Rehearsal has already started.”
He followed Jill through a red-carpeted foyer into what was, to his surprise, an enormous high-ceilinged room that looked like a gymnasium. Near a stage on one side of the oblong area at least 30 young people, who appeared to range in age from about 12 to 17 or 18, milled around. Among them were several adults, including a big man whose broad, animated face was edged by rust-shaded sideburns. He turned as Jill, with Brad behind her, walked up to him.
Jill’s hand on his arm moved Brad forward.
“Brother Hill, this is Bradley Brannigan, the new boy in school I told you about. Won’t he be perfect for the Indian chief?”
“Hey, yeah, he sure will!” The man’s examination of Brad was candid and jovial. “Perfect. How about it, Brannigan? You ready to be in our show?”
“Your what?” Brad was confused, not only by the request, but by the bustle around him and the chatter that was suddenly drowned out by a reverberating chord on the piano which seemed to be a signal for most of the young people to run onto the stage where they lined up, arms linked.
As one of the group began to rehearse the others in what appeared to be a somewhat complex dance routine, Jill said, “Brad, our church has all kinds of interesting activities for the boys and girls our age. One of the things we’re doing in this ward right now is a musical show.”
Brad’s bewilderment must have shown in his face because Jill, smiling, explained to him that a ward was an area division of the Latter-day Saint church and that the show now in rehearsal was a dance-drama-musical production put on by the young people of the ward with token help from qualified adults.
“Paul Ensign and Jeff Collier wrote the words and music for this show,” Jill went on, “but we didn’t have anyone who seemed to be right for the part of the Indian chief. Paul said he saw you in the drugstore yesterday and thought how good you’d be, but he couldn’t get you to talk to him, so he asked me to invite you here tonight.”
Intrigued by what Jill told him, but unable even to imagine himself taking part in such a production, actually performing in front of an audience, Brad said, “Oh, I couldn’t do a thing like that, Jill, and anyway I’m not a member of your church, so—”
“Oh, that doesn’t matter at all,“ she said quickly. “You live close, and we desperately need your tall, dark, and handsome presence.”
“Flattery,” said Mr. Hill who had come up to them, “should get you everywhere, Jill. Come on, young fellow, let’s see what you can do.”
Brad, walking forward when Jill did, was amazed to find his feet carrying him onto the stage where he was thrust out in front of the grouped boys and girls. He wasn’t given a chance to say he wouldn’t be an Indian chief. Dazed, he accepted the script thrust into his hands, read lines each time Paul Ensign told him to, and when the play’s finale was reached, he was one of the performers who lined up to sing, with loud enthusiasm, “Home, Home on the Range.”
He left the chapel, part of a large group, and when they reached his house, those who were still together chorused, “Goodnight, Brad!” and “See you tomorrow.”
A glow that had been lit inside him during the evening burned around Brad’s heart and was renewed every time he remembered, during the night, how casually, yet how completely, the friendly, cheerful group had accepted him as one of them.
Entering the school building next morning, Brad was filled with anxiety and anticipation. Would the wondrous sense of belonging, which had so warmed him the night before, carry into the school day, or must he continue to keep himself apart—continue to remain different and alone?
He didn’t have long to wonder. He was barely inside his first classroom when a vivacious brunette who had played the part of an Indian princess the night before smiled at him from her seat across the room, and Jeff Collier lifted a hand in greeting when he walked in.
In his own seat Brad opened his English literature textbook to the poetry assigned for the day. A poem by Edwin Markham caught his attention. He read words that seemed to hold up a mirror reflecting his own recent actions—words about a rebel who, flaunting withdrawal from others, drew a circle around himself to shut out those who would befriend him.
Jill Fenton came in and touched Brad’s shoulder as she walked past him to her own seat. Lowering his head to hide tears, Brad read the poem’s final line that told of friends who, with their love, drew a circle around the rebel’s circle and took him in.

Question: What did Brother Smith say our ward needed?
Answer: More members. (This happened to be a missionary sacrament meeting.) Elsie, our fifteen-year-old daughter said, “That’s the answer, but just what are we doing about it?” We found ourselves planning a nonmember fireside.

Let’s take an example we can all relate to. Suppose you have a midterm test coming up in geometry in two weeks. One of your goals is to get an A in geometry. How do you go about reaching that goal? Do you wait until the last minute and cram the night before the test? This technique is filled with risk. Instead of truly understanding the material, the attempt is to learn enough that somehow you can make it through the test successfully. Unfortunately, instead of being totally prepared and confident about the subject, you walk into the classroom a little bit nervous, with a lot of hope that the teacher will ask you the questions which you happen to know. I have a feeling I’m not the only one who has experienced this uneasy feeling.