Gospel Story Finder

Many faith-based institutions in the last two centuries have been at the forefront in reaching out and rescuing those subjected to cruel circumstances because their members believe that all men are made in the image and likeness of God.23 William Wilberforce, the great British statesman who was instrumental in outlawing the slave trade in Great Britain, is an excellent example.24 “Amazing Grace,” the touching hymn, and the inspiring movie of the same name capture the feeling of the early 1800s and describe the account of his heroic effort. Wilberforce’s untiring efforts were among the first steps in eliminating this terrible, oppressive, cruel, and venal practice. As part of that effort he, together with other leaders, set out to reform public morality. He believed that education and government had to be morally based.25 “His … vision of moral and spiritual enrichment was what he lived for, whether in defending the institution of marriage, attacking the practices of the slave trade or emphatically defending the Sabbath day.”26 With great energy he helped mobilize the country’s moral and social leaders in a nationwide struggle against vice.27

After a recent stake conference meeting where I had discussed the role of the family in the Church, I was approached by a sweet woman who said: “Bishop, I’m a widow and I really appreciated everything you said today. I have a lovely family, but I have many problems and I do need help. My priesthood leaders have families of their own and they have lots of problems and I don’t want to bother them and add to their problems. So what should I do?”
I asked her, “Do you have a good home teacher who really cares about you?”
She said, “Yes, I have a home teacher and he comes by every month or so; but he isn’t very involved with our family.”
Then I asked, “Well, do you have a visiting teacher who visits you and understands you?”
She said, “Yes, the Relief Society sometimes comes.”
At this point, I was praying for a right answer, when a lovely sister, who was standing nearby and heard our conversation, said, “Excuse me, but I was a widow; and even though I have just remarried, I know how you feel and I understand your problems. Please let me drop by. I’d like to visit with you.”

President Juan Medina is serving as branch president for the second time, but this experience is a bit different. This time, he can’t see those he is ministering to. “I lost my vision little by little, but I did not lose the capability to serve that the Lord has always offered me,” President Medina said from his home in Sonora, Mexico. “Being able to minister to my brothers and sisters is a privilege.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, President Medina called each member of his branch to see how they were doing. He said that this not only helped others but also helped him feel less stressed and depressed. “It is through ministering, whether someone has ministered to me or I am ministering to others, that I come to know the true love of Christ.”
President Medina said he especially loves working with newly baptized members. “You can see a clear difference between their lives before and after baptism,” he said. “Love changes them.”
When asked about the challenges he faces, President Medina didn’t mention his visual impairments at all. Instead, his comments focused on the people who are missing from sacrament meeting each week and how he wants them to know how much they are missed.
“The biggest blessing I have received is that my life has changed through the gospel,” he said. “Being blind has not changed that.”

There’s a boy at school who is teased behind his back and is lonely. I saw him sitting alone one day, so I went to talk with him. I found out that when he was a baby he had seizures and a stroke. The stroke injured his brain and makes certain things harder for him to do. I decided to invite him to my birthday party. His family was excited because he hasn’t been invited to very many parties. He doesn’t smile very often, but he smiled a lot at my party and had a great time!
Jason D., age 11, Arizona

I normally would have avoided him—a worn-down man playing a game of cards at a table in the play area of a local fast-food restaurant. He had a soft smile on his sad countenance as he watched the children play. “He must be warming himself from the cold,” I thought as I passed his table to throw away my daughter’s half-eaten meal. As I noticed his table, bare of any food wrappers or paper cups, the still, small voice whispered to me, “Buy him some food.”
I returned to my table with some cash still in my pocket. “I’ll embarrass him,” I told myself. Then a feeling of peace came, and the Spirit’s sweet whispering stilled me: “Buy him some food.”
I didn’t tell my children what I was doing; I just picked up some trash and went to throw it away so I could get near the man’s table without letting my friend who I was eating with know.
I leaned in and asked, “Can I buy you some lunch?”
He looked startled and softly replied, “If you want to.”
I pulled out the small amount of cash I had left—just enough for a meal and a drink—and gave it to the man. I returned to my seat, undiscovered by the busy moms around me, and watched the man get up to buy his meal.
As I loaded my children into the car to go home, I looked through the window and saw the man carrying a tray of food back to his empty table. On his once-solemn face was a smile.
The winter breeze blowing against my face didn’t feel quite so cold. I basked in the warm, joyful Spirit that filled me from my boots to my frozen ponytail. I remembered the teaching of the Savior:
“For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink …
“Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? …
“And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” (Matthew 25:35, 37, 40).
I am thankful for the smile of a stranger that helped me find the courage to do what is right.

Then a year or two ago, almost thirty years after Peter’s death, I dreamed that I was on a business trip, driving my car on a highway that ran alongside the ocean. I think I was supposed to be in northern California.
In my dream I was admiring the beautiful coastal scenery and listening to the car radio.
Suddenly, in my dream, coming toward me on the other side of the road was Peter. He was a full-grown adult, but I recognized him immediately.
Quickly I stopped the car, got out, and ran to him. We hugged and danced like two happy little boys. Then we stood arm-in-arm, face-to-face, with the mighty ocean as a backdrop and talked eagerly for about fifteen minutes.
Never mentioning death, or saying “it’s good to see you after all of these years,” or anything like that, Peter finally said to me, “Well, I’ve got to be going.”
Knowing and feeling that to be true, I said to him, “Where are you going?”
“To take care of some business,” he said simply. I knew better than to ask any more. He was about his Father’s business. My heart told me so. I know that to be true of Andrew also.
I still remember how wonderful it felt in that dream to see Peter again, to hug him and talk with him after all those years since he died. The Spirit bore witness to me that Peter and I will meet again someday and that meeting will be as sweet and natural as it was in that wonderful dream.

For a jade carving to have great value, the jade has to be one solid color. Carvings made out of perfect jade sell for high prices because it is nearly impossible to find perfect jade. The Jadeite Cabbage is green on one end and white on the other, and it has cracks and ripples. No skilled carver would waste time on such a piece of jade, until someone came along whom the Chinese call a master carver.
If this jade could talk, I can imagine the conversation it would have with this new carver. I imagine the carver picking up this piece of jade.
“What do you want?” the jade would ask.
“I am looking for jade to carve,” the carver would say.
“Then find another piece. I am of no worth. I have two different colors so intertwined that you’ll never separate them. I have cracks and ripples in me. I will never be of any worth. Don’t waste your time.”
“Oh, you silly little jade. Trust me. I am a master carver. I will make a masterpiece of you.”
What makes the Jadeite Cabbage so amazing is that this anonymous master carver used the weaknesses of the jade—the two colors, the cracks, and the ripples—to make the cabbage all the more lifelike. The opaque white part became the stem of the cabbage, and the cracks and ripples make the leaves come to life. If it weren’t for the “weaknesses” of this jade, it could not have looked so real.
Because of the beauty of this piece of art, it became a gift for one of the royalties in China and adorned the halls of beautiful Asian palaces until it ended up at the museum in Taiwan.

“Marcus, it’s time!”
When Marcus hear his father call, he sprinted to the kitchen. Lined up on the counter were five of his father’s famous pumpkin pies, ready to go into the oven.
Marcus knew his job. Rolling out the leftover pie crust dough into a huge circle, he picked up the maple-leaf-shape cookie cutter and cut out a large leaf from the dough for the center of each pie.
He’d no sooner finished than he heard, “Marcus, I need you.” In the dining room, he found his mother putting one more plate on a table. “Cousin Molly’s coming. That makes seventeen. I think that’s the last plate in the house,” she laughed. “Nothing matches, but what colorful tables!”
“How come we’re having so many people?” Marcus asked.
“Because,” Mother answered, “that’s what Thanksgiving is all about—being thankful for everything, especially for people we care about. No one should be alone on Thanksgiving.”
Marcus nodded. Tomorrow will be fun, he thought.
“I need you to go down to the basement and see if that old chair is still being stored down there. If it is, ask Mr. Swenson if we may borrow it.”
The apartment-house basement was a gloomy place. When Marcus got off the elevator, he was glad to see the superintendent there, sweeping out the furnace room. “Hi, Mr. Swenson. Do you know if that old chair is still around?”
“Hello there, Marcus.” Mr. Swenson gave Marcus a grown-up handshake, as he always did. “Let me look around.”
“Are you having company for Thanksgiving, too?” Marcus asked.
“No, not this year.”
From the way Mr. Swenson said it, Marcus had a feeling that it wasn’t just this year that Mr. Swenson wasn’t having company for Thanksgiving. “Well, that’s good,” Marcus said, “because I want to invite you to our Thanksgiving dinner. You and your chair!”
“Well, thank you, Marcus! I’d love to come. What time should I be there?”
“Come at four o’clock tomorrow—but I’ll take the chair with me now.”
When Marcus told his mother that he’d invited Mr. Swenson, she said, “That was a terrific idea, Marcus. Oh, but we still need one more chair.”
“There was only the one chair downstairs, but I think I know where I can get another one.”
“Great!”
Marcus dashed out the door and up the street to school. Good! he thought, seeing his teacher’s car. She’s still here. He ran to his classroom. “Hi, Miss Fields. May I please borrow a folding chair?”
“Surely. You know where we keep them—help yourself.”
“Thanks. How come you’re still here?”
“Well, since I decided not to make the long drive home for Thanksgiving this year, I thought that I might as well finish grading these papers.”
“Oh.” Marcus thought that grading papers would be a terrible way to spend the holiday. “Uh, Miss Fields,” he said, “my family would like you to have Thanksgiving dinner with us.”
“Why, thank you, Marcus. That sounds like fun, but I have a small problem—here’s a picture of him.”
“Oh, he’s no problem, Miss Fields—just bring him with you,” Marcus said with a grin.
“What time should we come?”
“Come at four o’clock,” Marcus said. “I’ll take two chairs from here and borrow that picture to show my mom, if that’s all right.”
Marcus told his mother about Miss Fields. She laughed and said she would call Aunt Etta and ask her to bring some plates.
“Just how many more are we going to need, Marcus?” Mother joked.
“Just two,” Marcus said. “But maybe you should ask her to bring a saucer too.”
“A saucer?”
“Well,” he said, pulling Miss Field’s picture from his pocket, “I had to invite Miss Field’s cat, Chubbikins, too. Remember what you said, Mom, no one should be alone on Thanksgiving.”

My father was not a member of the Church, and my mother did not attend Church meetings when I was a young girl, but I went to Primary occasionally with my friends. One day after I recited one of the Articles of Faith to the Primary president at her home, she took my hand and asked, “Wouldn’t you like to be baptized?”
I was baptized just before my eleventh birthday, on the same day as my sister, Geri, who was eight years old. This was my choice, and my parents supported my decision. They taught me to be kind, honest, and loving, and they supported me in everything I did.

Several years ago, Wayne Lewis, of Washington, USA, published his life story. He gave copies to all of his children and grandchildren. “This was not done for the benefit of anyone but my family, to encourage them to write about their life experiences,” he says. Not long afterward, Wayne suffered one stroke, then another. “After the strokes, my counselor discovered that writing stories about my life was actually helping diminish the stresses brought on by brain injury, so I have continued writing about my life.” Now 88 years old, Wayne adds, “I would encourage everyone to write their life story. Act now, and use any format you think will be read by those you love.”

A few weeks ago I used a chain saw to cut down a tree in my backyard. It was a dirty job, and when I was done I was splattered with a filthy mixture of sawdust and oil. In that condition I did not want anyone to see me. I just wanted to be cleansed in water so I would again feel comfortable in the presence of other people.

Before Elder Derrick was called to be a General Authority, he operated a steel fabricating plant that he had started by saving twenty-five dollars a month from a meager wage. “After I had started in the business, I discovered that my grandfather had served two apprenticeships, the first for seven years to become a mechanic and the second for seven years to become a foundryman. He was well prepared to make a meaningful contribution to his newly found church. He later built the first iron stove to be manufactured in the state of Utah. Much to my surprise I found that he was in the same type of business in which I had become engaged.”

This is an autobiographical account of a young man’s search for truth, a search that eventually leads him to membership in the Church. The story is all the more remarkable because Brother Cherry is a Negro. He came to grips with the Negro-priesthood issue and faced it calmly and realistically. No outside speculator, without this type of firsthand experience, can provide a better witness to the truth of the gospel than can Alan who was actually engaged in the experience himself.
And in fact, Alan has some interesting and beautiful insights on the priesthood—on the role of priesthood in the kingdom of God and its function relative to those in the Church who do not hold the priesthood: “I look to the priesthood as the channel through which the pure truth of God can flow to me. And yet as I look for this guidance and understanding I too often get confused by an emphasis that seems to be placed on the channel, or the priesthood, and not the truth which should be flowing through it. For myself, someone who cannot be part of the channel but must receive only what the channel can convey, this sometimes is frustrating. It seems to me that a man in Zion is only ‘honoring his priesthood’ when he is serving as a channel for light and truth. But a channel through which no witness, no element of truth passes is absolutely worthless to those of us who do not hold the priesthood, but are dependent upon it for direction.”
In this light, Brother Cherry’s views are valuable to every young man who holds the priesthood. But in addition to this, Alan’s conversion story and his testimony of the Lord’s hearing and answering his sincere prayers are aspects of the book that will thrill any Latter-day Saint who likes to hear faith-promoting conversion stories.

For some reason as Peter Nordhoff walked through the room, the words he heard from the television made him stop. General conference was being broadcast, and his wife, who had been recently reactivated through the fellowship of a friend, was watching.
Peter and Adrina had been raised in the Church and married in the temple, but for nearly ten years they had not been involved much with the Church. At first, his work kept him busy on Sundays. When that changed, they used Sundays to relax together.
But that conference Sunday changed their lives. “The words of a prophet of God affected me,” Peter says. “The Spirit spoke to me through God’s mouthpiece. It was like a second birth for me. Listening to the prophet helped me realize that I must start doing the things I was supposed to be doing if I wanted my wife and daughter near me in eternity.” Later that day, Peter and Adrina went to their bishop.
“We went from less-active to overactive very quickly,” recalls Adrina, smiling.

Even a young man who was dating one of our daughters (he later became her husband) accepted the challenge to pray and search for someone who would accept the missionary message. He was directed to a friend whom he had known all his life but had never approached about our Church. Within a month this young man was baptized into the Church.

I love President Gordon B. Hinckley very much. He called me to be a Seventy in 1990. I was the first Chilean called as a General Authority. It was a beautiful moment in my life. However, when I was called, I didn’t speak any English. President Hinckley, who was then First Counselor in the First Presidency, blessed me when he set me apart that I would learn English quickly.
I have two gifts that helped me to learn English quickly. My first gift is a good memory. That has been my salvation in many jobs. The other gift is my persistence. If I have a job to do, I work and work at it until it’s done. When I began to learn English at age fifty-two, I studied it five hours a day, when I had time. I listened to audio tapes every morning, then studied grammar for an hour, which was difficult for me. After that, I read the conference talks in English and listened to them on tape at the same time. I memorized about ten new vocabulary words per day. Then I read aloud in English to practice pronunciation, and I listened to English on an international news station so that I could test my understanding of what was said.
Six months after being called as a General Authority, I prepared intensely for giving my first general conference talk in English. My talk was on the Word of Wisdom.

After Ron left me alone, I thought to myself, “If the Lord would tell my brother, then I’ll bet the Lord would tell me.” So I did what my brother did, reading and praying over every page of the Book of Mormon. Because I was still young, I didn’t understand a lot of the words, but it wasn’t long before I began to feel the Lord speak to me in my heart, telling me it was true. I read the whole book through and ended up with a strong testimony even at age 12. That really helped me through my youth and in preparation for a mission.
I have always been thankful for my good brother, who loved me enough to show me by example how to gain a testimony.

“When I was filling out my job application,” says Kathryn, “I realized that there were other applicants with just as much education, and just as much job experience and things like that, but my Church experience had given me an edge. My goodness, when I think of all the jobs my mother is qualified for just because of her Relief Society experience, I’m just amazed. I can’t wait to have that same kind of experience—not only for the job market, but just to make me a more capable person.”

A young man returning from his mission shared his experience with faith. He acknowledged it as a miracle in his life. He said, “I was the first of six children born to my parents. My mother and father taught me when I was young the principles of the gospel. Faith was taught through the example of both my mother and father. When I was only 10 years old, my father, this great example of trusting the Lord, was killed in an accident. I was young and had many feelings to deal with that were new to me.” This young man said he realized that he had two choices available to him—“I could have become bitter towards the Lord and lost all that I now have, or I could trust the Lord. Because of the example of my parents, trust was the path I chose. Choosing faith has made all of the difference.”

The experiences in the Church when I saw my wife and daughter and dozens of other women go into a home on a regularly scheduled basis to help an autistic child learn how to crawl.