Gospel Story Finder

I was blessed with parents who cared about my education, even though they had less than they desired by way of formal education. I share just briefly the background of my mother and her blessing upon her family by her example to acquire learning.

She was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. She lived there for the first several years of her life. During her seventh year, in a four-month period of time, she lost her baby brother, her mother, and an older brother who was lost at sea in World War 1. It became very difficult for her father to care for all of the children. She lived with aunts and other family members for a while. An aunt had joined the Church and migrated to Utah. She had married, and this aunt and her husband sent a letter to my mother’s father asking him to send one of the children, and they would raise the child. My mother was chosen. She thought she was going on a holiday. She didn’t understand that she would never see her father or siblings again in this life. She traveled by boat to Ellis Island and New York City and from there, by train to Utah.

She was raised in her new location in central Utah. She finished the eighth grade, but because of distance to school and other reasons, she never finished more of formal education. However, her life was an example of learning and education. You would often find her doing crossword puzzles, reading the newspaper, reading books, studying the scriptures, and watching quiz shows. Her writing and penmanship was beautiful. I would watch her prepare lessons for teaching in Relief Society or Sunday School. She would work at having depth and perception. She was an example of learning and teaching. She blessed our home and our lives by instilling within each of her five children a desire to know of the things spiritually and temporally.

Whitney is a very bright 14-year-old girl who joined the Church about a year ago. It was a magical moment as I looked at the girls’ soccer team who were there for her baptism. They had been there for each other many times. That’s the way it is with teams, and this team was one of the best, in soccer—and in life. Each girl was a Beehive, setting an example, standing as a witness of goodness, even on the playing field. Whitney liked being part of that. It felt good.
After her baptism, Whitney stood before us with her friend Elizabeth. Their faces were glowing, their eyes were bright, and their smiles sincere as they repeated these words they had learned by heart: “We are daughters of our Heavenly Father, who loves us, and we love Him. We will ‘stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places.’” Whitney already had the whole Young Women theme memorized. In fact, it was because Whitney’s friends had stood as witnesses that we were all there on that memorable day to welcome a beautiful daughter of God into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

I was sitting on Mom and Dad’s bed, missing them an awful lot, when the phone rang.
“Hey, Levi. Guess what?” Dad said. “Your sister Nora was born this afternoon!”
I could tell Dad was happy, but his voice also sounded weird—like he was worried.
“How big is she?” I asked, wondering if I really wanted to know the answer.
Dad was silent for a moment. “A little more than two pounds [0.9 kg],” he said. Now he definitely sounded worried. Nora was supposed to be born during Christmastime, but it was still September. “She’s tiny, all right,” Dad continued. “Remember to pray for her, Levi. And pray for us too so we can trust that Heavenly Father knows what’s best for our family.”
After I hung up the phone, I went into the kitchen and picked up a bag of beans that Mom was planning on making into soup. The package said it weighed almost as much as Nora did right now. I held it in my hands, trying to imagine what a baby that size would look like.
“Her spirit was just with Heavenly Father,” I thought, remembering what I had learned about the pre-earth life and the plan of salvation. I knew that even if Nora died, we would get to see her again because we were all sealed together as a family. But I also hoped she would stay with us here on earth.
Over the next few months, Mom and Dad were at the hospital a lot. Grandma and Grandpa came to our house to help take care of me and my younger brothers and sisters. The ward fasted and prayed for our family, and nice ladies from the Relief Society brought dinners for us sometimes. Everyone wanted to know how Nora was doing.
One evening, Mom and Dad called all of us into the living room. They told us that Dad was going with the bishop to give Nora a blessing. After Dad left in his suit and tie, Mom gathered all of us around the couch to say a prayer.
“Please bless Dad as he gives Nora a priesthood blessing,” Mom prayed. Her voice grew soft. “And please, if it is Thy will, allow her to come home and be healthy.”
As we prayed, I could feel the Holy Ghost fill the room with peace and love. It was like Heavenly Father was telling me that, no matter what happened with Nora, it was all part of His plan.
Later that night, Dad came home and told us that something wonderful had happened at the hospital. Usually Nora’s room was loud and noisy. There were lots of machines and monitors with alarms and flashing lights, and nurses and doctors were always hurrying around to help the tiny babies there. But when Dad and the bishop arrived, things were different. All of the machines were quiet. The nurses were sitting by the babies, reading or watching over them. Dad and the bishop were able to give Nora a blessing without any interruptions.
I don’t know whether Nora will grow up here on earth or return to live with Heavenly Father soon. But I do know that Heavenly Father hears and answers our prayers, and I feel peace when I remember that He has a plan for every member of my family.

I returned from the mission field with many hopes regarding employment. Even though I had worked before, I had no qualifications, so I did what I could to find work, but I was never satisfied and could not see any progress in my future.
I always wanted to study, but I could not pay for schooling, and my family was not in a position to help me.
When the Perpetual Education Fund was started, I saw an opportunity to change my future. I relied upon my Heavenly Father to help me, and thus I chose a course of study with His inspiration.
I chose to study nursing. My schooling required a lot of study and dedication. But I became impassioned with nursing. Three months after graduating, I was able to find employment at one of the best hospitals in Alagoas, Brazil.
I have many plans for the future. I plan to take advanced studies in nursing, and I have started to pay back my loan so others can partake of the opportunity of receiving an education and the blessings that come with it.

Reader 3: My dad and I used to fight all the time. Anytime I wanted anything or wanted to do something, I’d always give all my reasons because I was afraid dad would say no. And he always did. Then once, when I argued with dad and he said no, I went to mom. All she said was:
Reader D: “Why didn’t you ask him?”
Reader 3: “I did ask him, mom. I just told you what happened.”
Reader D: “You told me you argued with him. But you didn’t ask him. If you treat your father as if he’ll argue, he’ll argue. Next time, simply ask him.”
Reader 3: It sounded so simple it seemed stupid. But I tried. I stopped defending myself as if I didn’t deserve it, and he was more positive, too.

After devastating forest fires that ravaged much of northern California during the summer of 1993, the youth of the Chico First Ward, Chico California Stake, were ready to take action to help re-forest the area surrounding their homes.
Picking up shovels, gloves, and an attitude of love and service, the Young Men, Young Women, and their leaders planted 1,500 seedlings on a Saturday morning. Although the work was exhausting and took lots of patience and team work, the group was glad to know that the mountains they love will again be green because of their efforts.

After the completion of his mission, “life was not easy,” says Prince.

“We were still struggling as a family to put meals on the table, but that did not affect my faith in Jesus Christ.”

A former mission friend suggested that he try to move to America to study.

But in order to do that, he needed to secure a study visa. “When I went to apply for my visa the first time it was rejected because I did not have strong enough family ties to prove I would come back to Kenya after my schooling,” he says. “I was determined. I felt this was my opportunity to excel in life and somehow improve life for my family. So, I tried a second time. Again, my application was rejected.”

Undeterred, Prince decided to give it one more go.

On the way to the embassy to submit a third application, he stopped in at his older brother’s office, who had agreed to provide a bank statement to bolster his case.

His older brother asked someone to prepare a drink for Prince, and after a few minutes he was presented with a cup of tea.

“I told my brother, who was not a member, ‘you know I do not take tea.’

“He apologized and laughed and asked the lady to prepare drinking chocolate for me. I responded, ‘Do not worry, just give me the documents and I will rush to the embassy.’

“But,” says Prince, “he insisted.”

Prince waited while the hot chocolate was prepared, drank it, got the document, and left.

He was walking past the Kenya Cinema—only a few meters away from the American embassy—when he heard a blast.

That blast was the sound of gunshots.

“If I had left only three minutes earlier, I would have been caught in the middle of the August 1998 terrorist attack on the US embassy,” says Prince.

“Those extra three minutes waiting for the hot chocolate to be prepared saved my life.”

More than 200 people died in terrorist attacks in East Africa that day, “but I feel I was protected personally because I lived the Word of Wisdom,” says Prince.

“I can testify that if I had thought that drinking tea was a small commandment, I am not sure I would be alive today.”

Prince saw the very real promises contained in section 89 of the Doctrine and Covenants come into play: “And I, the Lord, give unto them a promise, that the destroying angels shall pass by them . . . and not slay them” (verse 21).

In the end, Prince never went to America. He discovered that “the Lord had great plans for me here in Kenya,” he says.

When Sister Anderson was a Scout leader, Jared’s class went to the planetarium at Idaho State University. They loved watching the constellations, and he still enjoys identifying many of them. Last summer Jared and his mother often put blankets on the grass and watched the stars from their front lawn.
“That is where we have had some of our best talks,” Sister Anderson says. “They are more than astronomy talks. We talk about the premortal existence and the hereafter, all under the stars. We talk about problems and how we can best face the life we have ahead of us.”

I fared much better at fast-pitch softball. My most memorable experience in softball was a thirteen-inning game I pitched in Salt Lake City on a hot Memorial Day. The game was scheduled for just seven innings, but the tied score could not be broken. In the last of the thirteenth, with two men out and a runner on third, the batter hit a high pop fly to left field. The catch was certain, I thought. And yet the ball fell through the hands of the left fielder. For thirty-eight years I have teased my friend who dropped the ball. I have promised myself I will never do so again. I’m not even going to mention his name. After all, he, too, remembers. It was only a game.

Brenna was crying. She sat in a barber’s chair, hair pulled back, her ponytail just moments away from being cut off. The hairdresser holding the scissors was crying. Those watching the scene were also in tears.
Snip! Brenna’s long hair, which had taken years to grow out, was gone. Her ponytail would now become a gift, a donation to an organization called Locks of Love. It would be combined with other donated hair and made into wigs for children who had lost their hair because of cancer treatment or who suffer from alopecia, a permanent hair-loss condition.

In a meeting, I once told of a dentist in my ward who each year visited the Philippine Islands to work his skills without compensation to provide corrective dentistry for children. Smiles were restored, spirits lifted, and futures enhanced. I did not know the daughter of this dentist was in the congregation to which I was speaking. At the conclusion of my remarks, she came forward and, with a broad smile of proper pride, said, “You have been speaking of my father. How I love him and what he is doing for children!”

Consider the experience of Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve. Some years ago, Elder Oaks was living in Chicago when one night he was confronted by a young robber with a gun. Elder Oaks had no money to give him, no watch, nothing of value except his car—and his wife was in the car. Both Elder Oaks and his wife were at great risk. During the encounter, Elder Oaks had an opportunity to grab the gun without the likelihood of being shot. “I was taller and heavier than this young man,” Elder Oaks explains, “and at that time of my life was somewhat athletic. I had no doubt that I could prevail in a quick wrestling match if I could get his gun out of the contest.
“Just as I was about to make my move, I had a unique experience. I did not see anything or hear anything, but I knew something. I knew what would happen if I grabbed that gun. We would struggle, and I would turn the gun into that young man’s chest. It would fire, and he would die. I also knew that I must not have the blood of that young man on my conscience for the rest of my life.” (See New Era, Mar. 1994, 4.)
How should you react in a similar situation? Who knows? It would be a different time, a different robber, a different place. The point is that Elder Oaks had not conditioned himself to automatically react violently. But he had conditioned himself to listening to the still, small voice. So when the idea of grabbing the gun came to him, he was willing and able to be guided by the Spirit.
It’s also important to note that Elder Oaks had ended up in a dangerous area because he and his wife were taking another sister home from a Church activity. He certainly wasn’t looking for trouble. He had taken reasonable precautions, such as leaving Sister Oaks in a locked car and later making sure the street was clear before going back out to the car.

When I started working for Snow College in 1983, we had taken a big cut in pay to move home. We about starved that first year, but we came up with a plan for saving for our kids’ missions. Our first two children were girls, and then the next five were boys. We always planned on the boys going on missions, so we saved a little bit each month for their missions, and we also had a plan to have our home paid off by the time they started to serve.

When my second daughter said she would like to serve a mission, it was at the same time my oldest son was getting ready for his mission. They both received their mission calls the same day. My daughter entered the MTC two weeks before my son, and they were in the MTC at the same time. Daina went to Mexico City and Phillip went to Kiev, Ukraine. We had the money for Phillip, but we didn’t have a dime for Daina.

From the week before Daina entered the MTC to her last week in the mission field, we did not pay a full mission payment for her. It was amazing. People would come up to us and say, “You need this more than I do,” and a couple of businesses in Mount Pleasant paid a full mission payment four or five times. Even my parents stepped up. Daina’s mission was completely paid for this way.

When Daina got home I thought we were going to get rich off these missions. Not one more dime ever came in, but what a blessing those donations were. I can’t help but feel it was because we had planned and saved for many years, and the Lord did the rest of what we couldn’t do.

“Mom!” I called, dumping the mail onto the kitchen counter. “The new issue of the Friend is here.”
“Good,” Mom answered from the bedroom where she was dusting. “Maybe you’ll find something to help you with your Primary talk. What’s the subject?”
“Every member a missionary.” I plopped down on the couch to leaf through the magazine. Right away I found an article about Jesus being the key that opens the door to eternal life. All we have to do is open the door and step from darkness into light. It sounded great.
The doorbell chimed. I dropped the magazine and ran to the front door. “There’s nobody here, Mom!” I shouted.
“It’s probably the bug lady. She parks way down the street. Open the garage door for her.”
The woman who sprays our yard calls herself Lady Bug, but we just call her the bug lady. She is an exterminator who comes to our neighborhood once a month to spray people’s yards with insecticide, which helps get rid of bugs. She always rings the doorbell to let us know she’s here. Then we open the garage if we want her to spray in there.
I went down the hall, opened the door leading to the garage, and pushed the control switch for the door. The heavy garage door groaned up. I went back to the living room, flopped down on the couch again, and found my place in the magazine.
Suddenly I remembered that someone had stolen Dad’s toolbox when I left the garage door open a couple of months ago. He was not happy about it. What if it wasn’t the bug lady who rang the bell? I peered out the window and could not see her at all. I couldn’t see her truck, either.
I decided I’d better close the garage door. I sure didn’t want to be responsible if Dad’s new toolbox disappeared. I trotted back down the hall to the door that opened into the garage. My mind on my talk, I cracked the door open just enough to snake my arm in and push the control switch again.
As the big garage door grumbled back down, I went to the kitchen and got a glass of juice from the fridge. I carried it to the couch and settled down with the Friend once more.
I slurped down a big swallow of juice and found my place. Yes! This was just what my talk needed. Trusting Jesus to bring us from darkness into light went right along with missionary work.
About a half hour later, my reading was suddenly interrupted. Kerblam! I jumped, and juice sloshed down my shirt. What was that? An explosion? Bam! Bang! Bam! I knocked over a chair as I leaped for the front door.
“What’s going on?” Mom shouted, rushing up behind me, her dust cloth waving. “What’s the pounding?”
“I don’t know. It sounds like a wrecking ball smashing into the house.”
One step ahead of Mom, I darted to the back door and flung it open. Nobody! Nothing!
The racket started again. Mom dropped the dust cloth. “It sounds like it’s coming from the garage.”
“It couldn’t be. I closed the garage door.” I sped down the hall anyway and flung open the door to the garage.
I was staring into wild blue eyes. The bug lady! She held a big spray canister over her head, ready to smash the garage door again. “Thank goodness!” she gasped, slumping backward. “The door to the inside of your house was locked. I tried calling for help, but no one heard me. I thought I’d be stuck in this dark garage all day.”
I felt bad about scaring her. “I’m sorry,” I said, “but you weren’t really stuck. See?” I pushed the control switch, and the garage door rumbled up. Light flooded the dark garage, showing dents all over the door where the bug lady had banged it.
Her voice was shaky. “A switch is no help if you don’t know it’s there.” She spun around, rushed out of the garage, and made a beeline for her truck parked way down the street. She got in, gunned the engine, and roared off.
Mom shook her head. “Poor woman. It must have been scary being locked in a dark garage.”
“I think I’ll put her in my Primary talk,” I said.
Mom whirled around and looked at me as if I was crazy. “You’ll what?”
“The bug lady couldn’t use the control switch because she didn’t know it was there,” I explained. “The Friend article says that Jesus is the key that opens the door to eternal life. But you can’t use a key that you don’t know about, so we need to be missionaries and teach people about Jesus Christ.”
Mom smiled. “You told the bug lady about the switch,” she said. “If the poor woman ever comes back, we need to tell her about the key.”

If there are those who doubt President Clark’s tribute to our Founding Fathers, then hear the words of President Wilford Woodruff:
Those men who laid the foundation of this American government and signed the Declaration of Independence were the best spirits the God of Heaven could find on the face of the earth. They were choice spirits . . . inspired of the Lord.
Everyone of those men that signed the Declaration of Independence, with George Washington, . . . called upon me, as an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, in the Temple at St. George two consecutive nights and demanded at my hand that I should go forth and attend to the ordinances of the house of God for them. . . .
Would those spirits have called upon me, as an Elder in Israel, to perform that work if they had not been noble spirits before God? They would not. . . . Said they: “. . . We laid the foundation of the government you now enjoy, and we never apostatized from it, but we remained true to it and were faithful to God.” [Conference Reports, April 1898, pp. 89–90; Journal of Discourses, 19:229]

A student who sat in the back of my classroom, walked in one day wearing a Quicksilver surfing t-shirt with the words "Eddie would go". He was a rather quiet student, but when I asked about his shirt, he explained. "Sister Bergstrom there is an important story about this I need to tell you."

This is a man who understood and believed. Eddie Aikau was a great surfer and a lifeguard legend in Hawaii. The saying came from the fact that Eddie would go when no one else would, or could. Eddie just did. In 1968 he became the first lifeguard hired by the City and County of Honolulu to work on the North Shore. Not one life was lost while he served as lifeguard of Waimea Bay, as he braved waves that often reached 30 feet high or more. In 1971 Eddie Aikau was named Lifeguard of the Year. He loved guarding when he wasn't surfing and chasing the waves himself.

Tragically, he lost his life in 1978, at the age of 31 during a voluntary re-creation of the Polynesian voyage between Hawaii and Tahiti. In huge seas, the voyaging canoe capsized. Eddie paddled off on a surfboard in an attempt to reach help for his fellow crewman. He was never seen again, but his spirit and legacy of how "Eddie Would Go" lives on.

While some laborers at the quarry were supported through the Church’s Public Works Department, other workers supplied their own housing and donated their time. A Danish immigrant, John Nielsen, recalled, “I contributed one dollar each month for a long time toward paying the men who were working in the Temple Square, cutting rock for the walls of the Temple. I also worked some in the rock quarry up in the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon. While doing this I boarded myself, furnished my own bedding, and donated my work.”

Illustrations by Sal Velluto and Eugenio Mattozzi
It was a stormy winter night. At the airport in Chicago, Illinois, many people were stranded due to delayed or canceled flights. A young pregnant woman stood in the long check-in line, nudging her two-year-old daughter forward with her foot.
Many people made disapproving comments, but no one offered to help.
Man: Why doesn’t she pick up that screaming child?
Woman: What a terrible mother.
With a kind smile, Elder Kimball walked up to the woman.
Elder Kimball: Can I help you?
Mother: Thank you.I’ve had four previous miscarriages. My doctor told me I can’t lift anything—not even my own child.
Elder Kimball picked up the crying child, rubbed her back, and gave her a piece of candy. When the girl was comforted, he informed the other passengers and the airport workers of the woman’s condition.
Airport worker: We’ll have you on the next available flight.
Supervisor: Come and sit and rest until your departure.
The woman’s stress was lessened. Later, she saw a picture of Elder Spencer W. Kimball of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
Mother: That’s him! That’s the man who helped me.
A few months after that, she gave birth to a healthy baby boy.
Twenty-one years later, President Kimball received a letter. It was from the son of that young mother.
Student: I served a faithful mission and am now a student at Brigham Young University. Thank you for helping my mother that terrible night!
President Kimball was happy that his small act of service had resulted in so much good.

My first encounter with preaching the gospel was also exciting. In a park near my office in Bogotá, I saw a multitude, and since I had some time, I went down to see what was happening. My surprise was great when I saw the missionaries with displays about the Church and with copies of the Book of Mormon. They recognized me and asked me to stand in the middle of the park with a banner saying, “Be happy; be a Mormon.” I stood for a while in that place. I was a Mormon, but at that moment I was not so happy! But I started to feel better about my ability as a missionary, losing my fear to talk with people about the Church. I let go of my own restrictions—so many “don’ts”—and realized that this is the Church of love and service, of sacrifice and blessings, of happiness and eternal life. My message to the missionaries, to the people that are investigating the Church at this time, and to the members is, “Don’t give up; continue looking for the best results in this wonderful work.”

Each one of us has a short window of opportunity to learn to yield our hearts to God—that is, to use mortality to become more like our Savior by learning to love others as God and our Savior love us. To illustrate this I will share one last story.

I knew a man who lived in Sugar City, Idaho, when the Teton Dam broke in 1976. I heard the story from one of his friends, and I spoke with him some years ago before he passed away to confirm its truthfulness. I share it with you to illustrate how a man can come to love God and yield his heart to Him—can give God his agency, so to speak, because he only wants to do what God would want him to do and not what he himself would want to otherwise do.

In 1974 President Spencer W. Kimball had asked members of the Church to fix up our homes, our barns, and our yards.16 President Kimball told us that nonmembers of the Church would judge the truthfulness of the Church by how well we took care of what we had been given, which, by the way, I know to be true. After President Kimball had given the Church this counsel, my friend was out in his front yard one morning painting his fence and planting petunias with his wife. He had painted his barn the week before. His family had about 40 acres of land, and they were raising their seven children with the help of 40 milk cows. You get the picture.

A neighbor stopped in front of his home. The neighbor asked my friend what he was doing painting his fence and planting those flowers in his front yard. My friend kindly reminded his neighbor that President Kimball had asked us to fix up our homes and our yards. He then said to the neighbor that he wanted to be obedient.

My friend’s neighbor chided him a bit, saying, “Painting your barn and fence and now planting those flowers—that’s not going to increase your milk production any.”

My friend simply said something like this: “You are probably right, but President Kimball has asked us to do it and I want to do it.”

Within two weeks the Teton Dam broke and more than 200,000 acre-feet of water came down the Snake River Valley, destroying virtually everything in its path.17 I don’t know if you can envision what more than 200,000 acre-feet of water is like. It was a wall of water about 10 feet high and seven miles wide. Thinking of it more like an engineer, it’s 200,000 acres of land covered with more than one foot of water, or one acre of land covered with a column of water more than 37 miles high.

All of my friend’s milk cows died. His barn was severely damaged. His house was mostly destroyed. The fence in front of his home—the one he had been painting just a few days before—was gone, not to mention the petunias.

A few days after the flood, my friend saw his neighbor—you remember, the one who chided him a bit for fixing up his place. Only this time he said, “Aren’t you sorry now [with a certain spin on the word now] you took that time to paint your barn, fix your fences, and plant those flowers?”

My friend Marion hesitated for just a moment and then said, “No, they were ready to be taken.”

My friend had learned to use his moral agency in his window of time wisely. By his obedience to a prophet of God he was preparing himself to be taken—preparing himself to stand in front of our Heavenly Father with a character more like our Heavenly Father and our Savior Jesus Christ. This too is your opportunity and mine, brothers and sisters.