Gospel Story Finder

About 15 years ago my doctor told me that I had to make a lifestyle change: “Start being more active, or you won’t live very long,” he told me. I took his warning seriously. I decided to start running.
To make this lifestyle change successful, I needed to keep the long view in mind because if I only had the short view, I wasn’t going to get very far.
My long view is a recurring goal to run one marathon each year. This goal helps me get up and run every day because I know that on one certain day next year, I’m going to have to run 26.2 miles (42.2 kilometers). I stay disciplined to train and meet my short-term goals each week because I know they’re getting me ready for race day.
Sometimes there are things that try and stop me, like the weather. Maybe it’s too hot or too cold outside, or maybe it’s raining. So I have to run inside on the treadmill, even though I significantly prefer to run on the street. Injuries also try and stop me. Maybe I didn’t stretch properly before my run, so I tweak my hamstring. Or maybe it’s not necessarily my fault that I got injured. But no matter how it happens, I can’t give up because I know I’m going to be running a marathon next year. So I make alterations to my training. I recover and get back out running.
Running has taught me a lot about the gospel. We all have a long-term gospel goal to endure to the end and achieve exaltation. But we set short-term goals like taking the sacrament at church each week that help us get there. We get spiritually injured when we make mistakes. But we don’t give up. We repent, and we get back out there. The only way we can achieve our long-term goal is by making little changes all along the way to help us stay on track.
For over a decade, I worked as the senior vice president for Walmart in Brazil. My family was financially stable, I enjoyed my job, and life was good. But the job was demanding. It required me to travel a lot, which was interfering with our family and with my Church service. After 11 or 12 years, it was becoming too much.
My wife and I counseled together and proposed that I leave this job. We talked it through with our children, and together we said, “It’s time for us to make a change.”
When I quit, I plummeted from senior vice president to unemployed. It took nearly a year to find and accept another job. When I finally took a position with a small real estate company in the United States, I felt good about it. This job would let me dedicate more time to the things that really mattered.
But other people told me I was crazy. Why leave a stable job for a real estate company no one has even heard of? And move halfway across the world to the United States?
They were right that this was a huge change we were choosing to make. But they were wrong that it was a poor choice.
It took a lot of faith for us to switch jobs and move to a new country, but the Lord took care of us. And I had more time to fulfill my responsibilities as a husband, father, and ward member.
I believe change is mandatory for achieving our potential. We will never become what Heavenly Father wants us to become if we’re stationary in our lives. And we become like Him as we make deliberate changes in faith.
Another big change that happened in my family was when my youngest brother died in a car accident. We didn’t choose or want that for him or for us, and it’s still painful, even after 10 years. Forced change is never easy.
But the changes we don’t choose can also become opportunities to build our faith in Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. It’s easy to stay faithful when things are going our way. But can we keep the faith and keep going when the changes don’t fall in our favor?
Divorce, infertility, unemployment, illness, and other painful experiences like these are not experiences we hope and plan for. They can make us feel like life is happening outside of our control. But that’s not entirely true—amid your unsolicited circumstances, there are still things you can control. You can set small goals, even just the goal to get through one more day. You can do it! You can bear all things with patience! (see Alma 38:4).
Joseph of Egypt is a perfect example of this. His life was full of forced change—he lost his freedom twice! (Once when his brothers sold him into slavery, and again when Potiphar put him in jail.) But Joseph didn’t break down because his circumstances were undesirable or unplanned for. He adapted and grew through his experiences. And in the end, he saved his family and an entire nation. The Lord was molding him and preparing him the entire way (see Genesis 37–46).
It’s hard to be patient when forced change upsets your plan, but remember that the long-term goal is to achieve exaltation. Heavenly Father knows what we need to get there: “Ye are not able to abide the presence of God now, neither the ministering of angels; wherefore, continue in patience until ye are perfected” (Doctrine and Covenants 67:13).
Heavenly Father loves you and wants you to succeed. He wants you to be happy. And He’s laid out a plan for you to achieve both of those things.
When I see mortality for what it’s meant to be—training—the changes in my life become more purposeful. Change helps me achieve my long-term goal, which is to become like my Savior Jesus Christ. I know Heavenly Father shares the same long-term goal for me and for all His children. Just like my doctor knew I needed to change something for the sake of my health, God clearly sees the changes we need to make to become like Him. He supports us and supplies resources like the scriptures, a local congregation, and a living prophet to help us in our quest to change for the better.
On the hardest days—those days when it’s hard to get out of bed and put on your running shoes, when you know you need to repent, or when you are struggling with some other unexpected change—we remind ourselves of God’s infinite love and of His desire for us to be even happier than we are right now.
That reminder gives us the strength to make the changes the Spirit prompts us to make. And it helps us trust that the unexpected changes we’re forced to make are part of His plan for our greatest happiness.

Brothers and sisters, I have learned a painful lesson since I last occupied this pulpit in October of 2022. That lesson is: if you don’t give an acceptable talk, you can be banned for the next several conferences. You can see I am assigned early in the first session of this one. What you can’t see is that I am positioned on a trapdoor with a very delicate latch. If this talk doesn’t go well, I won’t see you for another few conferences.
In the spirit of that beautiful hymn with this beautiful choir, I have learned some lessons recently that, with the Lord’s help, I wish to share with you today. That will make this a very personal talk.
The most personal and painful of all these recent experiences has been the passing of my beloved wife, Pat. She was the greatest woman I have ever known—a perfect wife and mother, to say nothing of her purity, her gift of expression, her spirituality. She gave a talk once titled “Fulfilling the Measure of Your Creation.” It seems to me that she fulfilled the measure of her creation more successfully than anyone could have dreamed possible. She was a complete daughter of God, an exemplary woman of Christ. I was the most fortunate of men to spend 60 years of my life with her. Should I prove worthy, our sealing means I can spend eternity with her.
Another experience began 48 hours after my wife’s burial. At that time, I was rushed to the hospital in an acute medical crisis. I then spent the first four weeks of a six-week stay in and out of intensive care and in and out of consciousness.
Virtually all my experience in the hospital during that first period is lost to my memory. What is not lost is my memory of a journey outside the hospital, out to what seemed the edge of eternity. I cannot speak fully of that experience here, but I can say that part of what I received was an admonition to return to my ministry with more urgency, more consecration, more focus on the Savior, more faith in His word.
I couldn’t help but feel I was receiving my own personal version of a revelation given to the Twelve nearly 200 years ago:
“Thou shalt bear record of my name … [and] send forth my word unto the ends of the earth. …
“… Morning by morning; and day by day let thy warning voice go forth; and when the night cometh let not the inhabitants of the earth slumber, because of thy speech. …
“Arise[,] … take up your cross, [and] follow me.”
My beloved sisters and brothers, since that experience, I have tried to take up my cross more earnestly, with more resolve to find where I can raise an apostolic voice of both warmth and warning in the morning, during the day, and into the night.
That leads me to a third truth that came in those months of loss, illness, and distress. It was a renewed witness of and endless gratitude for the resolute prayers of this Church—your prayers—of which I have been the beneficiary. I will be eternally grateful for the supplication of thousands of people who, like the importuning widow, repeatedly sought heaven’s intervention in my behalf. I received priesthood blessings, and I saw my high school class fast for me, as did several random wards across the Church. And my name must have been on the prayer roll of virtually every temple in the Church.
In my profound gratitude for all this, I join G. K. Chesterton, who said once “that thanks are the highest form of thought; and … gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.” With my own “happiness doubled by wonder,” I thank all of you and thank my Father in Heaven, who heard your prayers and blessed my life.

Such was Walter Stover of Salt Lake City. Born in Germany, Walter embraced the gospel message and came to America. He established his own business. He gave freely of his time and of his means.
Following World War II, Walter Stover was called to return to his native land. He directed the Church in that nation and blessed the lives of all whom he met and with whom he served. With his own funds, he constructed two chapels in Berlin—a beautiful city that had been so devastated by the conflict. He planned a gathering in Dresden for all the members of the Church from that nation and then chartered a train to bring them from all around the land so they could meet, partake of the sacrament, and bear witness of the goodness of God to them.
At the funeral service for Walter Stover, his son-in-law Thomas C. LeDuc said of him, “He had the ability to see Christ in every face he encountered, and he acted accordingly.”

I shall always remember how the precepts of the gospel of Jesus Christ dramatically changed my life. Although my parents were not active in the Church, I always was inspired by the law of tithing. It was a great honor as a young boy to make an appointment with my bishop to pay 50 cents or $1 or $2 tithing—earnings from delivering newspapers, mowing lawns, or cleaning out grocery stores. Little did I know that this simple habit would affect my life’s work.

In 1970, at the age of 32, I was appointed by the president of the United States to oversee the Welfare, Social Services, and Medicaid Program for the entire United States. It was an enormous task for a young man, but I thrived on my new appointment in Washington, D.C., as part of the presidential administration. Several months into that appointment, I received a call from the White House chief of staff, who asked me if I would immediately come to a meeting in his West Wing office. Nervously, I was interviewed for the next two days to determine if I was the proper candidate to become special assistant to the president of the United States and also serve as White House staff secretary. I had to pinch myself several times to realize that here I was, a young man born and raised in southern Idaho, now one of 14 candidates to possibly become one of the president’s right-hand men.

Near the end of the second day, the White House chief of staff looked me squarely in the eyes and asked a most improbable and unexpected question. He asked, “Are you a full-tithe payer in your church?” Yes, he injected the word full.

Without hesitation I said, “Yes, sir, I am. I always have been. It is an honor for me to pay a full tithing to my church.”

He said, “No one here in the White House is a member of your faith, but I know enough about your religion to know if you are a full-tithe payer, you are a person of integrity. Thus I am recommending you to the president to become his next assistant.”

The very next day I moved my offices into the White House. It was a humbling but joyful experience to know that the result of honoring the priesthood and paying a full tithing not only brings the joys of heaven but also, at times like this, can bring the honors of men.

In a 1929 American football game held in Pasadena, California, a player named Roy Riegels recovered a fumble and ran almost the length of the field toward the wrong goal line. He was tackled and brought down by one of his own teammates, thus preventing a score for the other team. He had lost his sense of direction in a moment of stress. His mistake cost his team a victory. He was a great player, but ever afterward he was remembered as the man who ran the wrong way.

Another homemaking art that was apparent was Becky’s ability to save and use money wisely.
Beginning in her early teens she began working at such part-time jobs as teaching piano lessons, tutoring second graders in reading, and selling chicken at a drive-in restaurant. Through her savings she was able to purchase a sewing machine, cookware set, typewriter, silverware service for eight, and a set of fine dishes.
“I never bought anything that wasn’t on sale and that I wasn’t sure I really wanted. I was in no hurry, so I could take my time and find the best buy. When I became engaged, I realized that if I had waited to buy these things until I was ready to set up housekeeping, I would probably have had to pay whatever price was asked.”

On several occasions President Boyd K. Packer, Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, has described an experience he had during a leadership training meeting in which a bishop indicated he couldn’t get anyone to serve as the ward Primary president. The frustrated bishop said he had talked to nine different sisters in the ward, and not one of them had agreed to accept the call.

President Packer told the bishop he knew why none of the sisters had agreed to serve: “You asked them—you didn’t call them.” President Packer said that if the call had been extended properly, it would not have taken nine attempts to get someone to accept the call.

About a year later I felt the promptings that it was time to leave Hawaii and to pursue my master degree in Athletic Training, at BYU-Provo. I called home to let my family know that my friend and I had made the drive safely from southern California. On that call, I learned that my father’s annual physical exam, that he had the day after I flew out, had produced suspicious results from his blood test and the doctor scheduled him for another blood test to confirm the findings. My mother then told me that the bishop (who was also our home teacher and dear family friend) was going to give my Dad a blessing. There was a longer pause then normal, realizing that she was trying not to be emotional for me. I knew coming to Provo was the right thing at the right time. I had stayed home two years to work and saved money, but I had also gained the benefit of spending some priceless time with my father.

As I prayed that night I asked Heavenly Father to give us, my family and I, the time so we would be able to accept His will. Early the next week my parents had received the official diagnosis that my father was in the early stage of Juvenile Leukemia, terminal for older people. It was determined that once the cancer progressed Chemotherapy would start, giving him 6 months to maybe 2 years to live. I saw my father for what would be the last time, when a couple months later my parents came up for the October General Conference.

Seven months later, on the last day of classes in my second semester, I got the phone call at work that “Dad was in a bad way and was not going to make it.” My mother asked if I would come home and with the money I had saved prior to school I was able to buy my round trip ticket home. My Dad died as my flight took off that evening from Salt Lake City Airport, but I was on my way home for my Mother and I would be there with my family as he passed beyond the veil.

Thursday was one of those rainy English days when there is nothing you can do but play games or read in your tents. Hot meals and an opportunity to catch up on sleep were the only relief from the downpour. But during the afternoon, the two counselors in the stake presidency, Alex Stewart and Geoff Mawlam, arrived with some of their family members to join us overnight. It was President Stewart who persuaded some of the braver souls to go canoeing in the rain. It didn’t matter to him about the rain, since he capsized every time he went down the rapids anyway.

The first thing we wanted to do Friday was to dry out. The rain had stopped, but some of the sleeping bags and clothes were wet. We hung things out to dry. Then we built an obstacle course. The course consisted of various tasks—pushing the canoe trailer around some tyres (that’s the English spelling for tires); running the rapids on inner tubes; crossing over the river by rope and then wading back; climbing a rope; and monkey climbs (climbing over and through logs fashioned together like a jungle gym). Not surprisingly, most of us finished wet and dirty. Prizes were awarded for the fastest group time and the fastest individual time according to age.
Like any camp, we also had our cleanup time. The tents were dismantled, the dams broken down, the turf replaced where the fire had been. For our last meal, Brother John Dale, our chef de cuisine treated us to fish and chips from Barnard Castle.
We picked up our tents and equipment and climbed the hill for the last time. Looking back, the field seemed bare, except for yellowed patches of grass where the tents had been. All that we have now are the memories.

On 18 July 2023, I lost the most important person in my life. My mother was my strength, my pillar, but also my weakness. At that time, I was no longer attending church because I worked every day, including Sundays and public holidays, and my ward met at 8:00 a.m. I missed one time, then another … and it became a vicious cycle.
When I lost my mother, I realized I hadn’t made the most of my time with her. I began to regret not quitting my job to spend more time with her after her stroke in March 2020. She lived for three more years, but since I was often at work, I feel like I didn’t truly cherish her final moments. A sense of guilt overwhelmed me. In my mind, I was stuck in a routine: work, medical appointments, caring for my mom, sleep, on repeat. There was no room for anything else.
That’s when I understood the truth: I didn’t trust God enough. I had given more importance to my temporal needs than to my spiritual life.
Yet my mother’s passing brought me closer to the Lord again. He became my support. In Him, I found the peace and love I needed to cope with grief. I gave myself the challenge for 2024 to start attending sacrament meeting regularly again.

The Lord is also giving the Saints information and comfort through miraculous means. For instance, a sister, who was having marital problems because of her husband’s authoritative attitude, told of a dream she had that helped her resolve her bad feelings. “This sweet gentle lady came to me and told me to be patient and loving, that Arnold was a good man, and that he would change his ways. The dream stayed with me for days; I couldn’t get it off my mind. I wondered who the lady was, and how she could say what she had. Then one day, not long after, we received some long-awaited photos of Arnold’s progenitors that we had sent for to put with our genealogy. Among the photos was one of Arnold’s mother. He had never really known her, since she had died when he was only seven. But apparently she knew him well. The woman who came to me in that dream was his mother.”

Well, I know from personal experience that one of the most difficult adjustments you have to make in life is to return from a position in the mission field, where you live so close to the Lord, to a position back in the world. My own experience was extreme. I had a month between my release as a missionary and my enlistment as a member of the U.S. Marine Corps. The contrast was overwhelming. But I joined the Marine Corps at a most interesting time. Just a few months before they had recruited a Mormon Battalion of Marines. I followed them into boot camp. The reputation they had made during their period of basic training was most unique. To be a Mormon following that great group was a mark of distinction.

As the years of service progressed, I noticed how apparent those who lived their religion were among their buddies in the service. Those who stooped to the level of the world could not stop the spiral down, and I think they returned home with a heavy heart and a very concerned conscience. But those who were able to overcome, to live as they should, were unique in the service, and were noticed and used. They returned home with greater joy, satisfaction, and peace of mind.

1 That’s a great jack-o’-lantern, Wendy! Want me to help you put in the candle?
Thanks, David.
2 David, when you said you wanted to join the Mormons, I gave my permission reluctantly. I thought that you were making a big mistake.
I know.
3 Well, I was wrong. You’ve become an even better son and brother.
Thanks, Dad. I’m just trying to be the kind of person you taught me to be.
4 I think maybe we were afraid you’d become a fanatic and write us all off as sinners.
How could I ever do that? You’re the greatest!
5 Well, it’s pretty easy for people to focus on their differences.
It says right in the Articles of Faith that we should respect all religions. Joseph Smith knew what it was like when people didn’t.
6 So, what do you think?
Outstanding! What do you think?
Likewise!

A girl’s journal is often a record of her dreams, and Annapurna Guru’s journal held her most cherished desire. “Someday,” she wrote, “I will go to the temple.”
Annapurna was not a member of the Church when she wrote these words. Raised in Hyderabad, India, she had learned something about Christianity as a child in a Catholic school. Then, in 1992, her older brother met Latter-day Saint missionaries and was baptized. Annapurna was 14 when her brother, Murthy, gave her a copy of the Book of Mormon. “Once I read it,” she recalls, “I felt it was true.”
Annapurna found in the gospel answers to her most troubling questions, especially her worry about what happens after death. But just as surely as she knew the gospel to be true, she knew something else: Her parents would not allow her to be baptized in a Christian church.
During her remaining teenage years, Annapurna lived her new faith quietly. She read the Book of Mormon and the Bible. She prayed. She learned all she could. And she began to form in her mind a beautiful dream: Someday she would marry a Latter-day Saint. Someday she would go to the temple. And someday she would give her children the precious gift she lacked: membership in the Lord’s Church.
By the time Annapurna graduated from college at age 20, her parents had begun planning a traditional arranged marriage for their beloved daughter. But Annapurna never considered her dreams to be unattainable because she felt that they were not hers alone. “I had big dreams,” she says, “but actually God had His own plans for me.”
When Annapurna was 21, those divine plans started to become reality—miracle by miracle. First, she met Santosh Murala, a faithful Latter-day Saint visiting his family in Hyderabad. A medical student, Santosh was doing a surgical residency in Chandigarh, two days away by train. When they met, Annapurna and Santosh talked for half an hour. After that brief conversation, Santosh called his friend Neil Twitchell, who was then serving as India Bangalore Mission president, and confided, “She’s gold!” Santosh felt quite clearly that this was the woman he had been looking for. Annapurna felt that Santosh—the first Latter-day Saint young man she had ever met—was the man she had been praying to find.
The two exchanged a few letters, confirming their feelings. Several months later they married. Understandably, Annapurna’s family was upset at first, as was Santosh’s. But Annapurna was legally old enough to marry a man of her choosing.
Annapurna viewed this situation through the eyes of faith. “If I had married to please my parents and other people,” she says, “then my children might never have known about the Church and the whole responsibility for that would have been on my head. This one step has changed life for me and my posterity. For this life my parents may be upset with me, but for eternity they will be happy and proud of me.” In fact, Annapurna’s parents are already more accepting of her marriage. They like Santosh and even get together socially with Santosh’s parents.
Map by Randall J. Pixton
The next part of Annapurna’s dream came true when at last she was baptized. There was no branch in Chandigarh, so the Muralas made the five-hour journey to New Delhi for the baptism. Ironically, now that Annapurna was free to go to church, the nearest branch was far away. “Before I was baptized, the church was very near my house, just on the corner at the end of the road, and I didn’t have the opportunity to go,” she says. “Now the church was five hours away, so we could go only once a month.” Then Annapurna became pregnant, and the five-hour trip was too taxing for her.
But then came another miracle, in the form of two Latter-day Saint families. “God takes care of you,” explains Santosh. A British couple, Brother and Sister Beer, came to Chandigarh, where Brother Beer worked in highway construction. Sister Beer taught institute classes to the Muralas, and the Beers held family home evening with the Muralas every week. A Korean family, the Moons, also moved to Chandigarh, where Brother Moon worked for a construction company. Every Sunday for two years, this little group of Latter-day Saints met at the Moons’ home for sacrament meeting. Shortly after Santosh finished his residency in Chandigarh, the Beers and the Moons moved away too.
In New Delhi, where Santosh is receiving specialized training in heart surgery, there are two branches of the Church. Now Annapurna’s knowledge about the Church is catching up with her knowledge of the gospel. She has learned how to sing hymns and conduct meetings.
On 19 June 2001—Annapurna’s 24th birthday—her girlhood dream of temple marriage came true. The Muralas traveled to the Hong Kong China Temple when their first baby, Neil, was not quite two. During the five full days they spent serving in the temple, the most sacred and wonderful moment came when they were sealed to each other and to their son.
Today the Muralas’ lives are full to overflowing. Annapurna serves as Primary president and Santosh as president of the New Delhi First Branch. Santosh also spends about 100 hours a week at the hospital, working 18- and 36-hour shifts. In order to have Sundays free for Church responsibilities, he works on holidays. So Annapurna spends most of her time caring for their two young children and supporting her husband in his heavy responsibilities.
And she continues to dream. She dreams of sharing the gospel with her parents. She dreams of the day when her own and others’ children—the first generation of children in India to have Primary, seminary, and Young Men and Young Women—will be strong leaders of the Church. She dreams of the time when her children will serve missions. She dreams of the time when they too will go to the temple. And she even dares to dream that that temple might be in India.

In college I had a friend who didn't know anything about our church. I told her there was a prophet on the earth who received revelation for his people. She quizzically said, "Oh really?" And then without hesitating she asked, "What has he told you?" I was caught off guard. But I vowed right then that I would learn what our prophet has told us. This is how I would answer her today.

He has told us to get out of debt.He has urged us to pay an honest tithing.He has encouraged us to seek education.He has pled with us to reach out in love and kindness to all people.He has asked us to be honest in all our dealings.

On another occasion we were at the visitors’ center on Temple Square with these same grandchildren. Two-year-old Ashley was tired and wanted to leave. Sister Mask asked her if she wanted to see a big Jesus like the one on our wall. She asked, “Is He as big as me?” “Even bigger,” Sister Mask replied. When that tiny, little girl looked up at the majestic Christus, she ran and stood at the feet and gazed up reverently for several minutes. When her father indicated it was time to go, she said, “No, no, Daddy. He loves me and wants to give me hugs!”

When I was a deacon, my mother told me that Elder William J. Critchlow, Jr., an Assistant to the Quorum of the Twelve, was coming to speak in our stake conference. We arrived late and had to sit in the back, far from the podium—and when Elder Critchlow stood to speak, I couldn’t see him. Mother told me to carry a chair up the aisle and place it in front of the podium. It must have looked rather strange to Elder Critchlow to see a twelve-year-old boy in the middle of the aisle, staring straight up at him.
I don’t remember much of what he said. But as he talked, a spirit settled over me, whispering, “This is a man of God. You may believe him.” At the end of the session, he came up to me and laid his hand on my shoulder. A deep peace and happiness came over me, and I learned in that moment what it means to be blessed. That early experience taught me that by hearkening to the words of the Brethren, we are on the path to becoming truly blessed in the presence of Christ. Oh, how happy we will be if we come unto Christ by trusting and following his servants.

Sierra Lybbert has a great story about prayer. When she was two, a horse stepped on her hand. Her thumb was severed, and several fingers split open. Her parents rushed her from one hospital to another to find a surgeon willing to take on the seemingly impossible repair. She said, “One doctor told my parents that the surgeon didn’t have a prayer of being successful. My mom told him that the surgeon didn’t have one prayer with him—he had many. My mother had called the temple to add my name to the prayer roll.”
Now, at 13, Sierra has a functioning hand. Her thumb works just fine, and she raised it for a few other girls from her ward to see. They had never really heard the story. All they could see on Sierra’s hand was a thin, hardly noticeable scar encircling the base of her thumb. The result seemed truly amazing.
Sierra said, “It makes me feel happy to know what prayer can do for me. It is a wonderful thing in my life.”

Soon after I began to serve as the president of the Laie Hawaii Temple, during one of these precious visits to the Baptistry, I met a couple of students from this campus (Brigham Young University–Hawaii). I was introduced to a young man, John Komotios who had been coming all week with his wife and other students. I was informed that he had recently joined the Church through baptism. As I welcomed him, I extended an invitation to him, to come back to the temple often and regularly. I also invited him, that in a year to please let me know when he would come to the temple for his own endowment so that I could join him in that future special event in his life.

About three months ago John contacted me and invited me to attend the temple when he would receive his own endowment. I had the great privilege of being able to perform the new patron instructions for John. John and his wife, Addison, shortly after he received his endowments, traveled to the mainland to be sealed. A few weeks ago, John and Addison became temple workers.

Temple worship and service have played an important part in the spiritual foundation in the lives of John and Addison Komotios. Their story of temple worship and service is not uncommon, but rather it is quite a familiar story that we see time and time again, that involves students and others from this special community. I see many of you spending time in the Lord’s holy house as patrons, worshiping and then again in that same week I see you as temple workers, serving others. I am sure that Addison and many of you were the light and the righteous examples to John. Now, John is being a light and a righteous example to others around him. This is a major part of our Heavenly Father’s plan. This is what the Lord wants us to do. Once you have received the light, you are to become the light to others.

Three to one—that was the ratio published at the beginning of fall semester. Ten to one was more like it. Susan Taylor twisted and pulled herself into a half-lotus position just minutes before midnight, grabbed a yellow, ruled tablet, a no. 2 pencil, and scribbled her New Year’s resolution: “Get a date; get two; get engaged; get married.”
Straightening her spine into correct posture and breathing correctly, she lowered her head within inches of the floor, at the same time forcing her arms into an unnatural, towering position above her contorted body.
Nineteen seventy-four clocked out and 1975 clocked in while she held her breath. Nostalgic dance-band music, filtering into her bedroom from downstairs, signaled the New Year. Hanging full-length on the wall, the mirror reflected her 19-year-old freshman image. She stood, swiveling gracefully from side to side. Would the guys notice? She was slimmer; she seemed taller and prettier. But still, her legs were straight, her shoulders narrow. She had, however, learned to disguise figure faults. Now her brown hair caressed her shoulders. Her new dresses fell full and easy at her ankles.
“If it weren’t for Cynthia,” she thought, “I might have a chance.” Cynthia stalked from male to male—sweet-talking, smooth-walking Cindy lured admirers to her like a spider, trapping them in filmy webs of flattery. Thanks to her, Susan had sat dateless for 12 weeks, eating almond-studded chocolate bars.
But the New Year brought new hopes.
The New Year’s bells could have been campus bells, so swiftly did the time pass for Susan. She and 5,000 other students had blown into Rexburg on a wind and a prayer. They settled down and snuggled in for the winter.
Susan hesitated at the water fountain near the open door of COB 478, her first class of the new semester. She listened for her cue.
“Quiet, please. I’d like to …”
Head held high, Susan swung into the room, swishing an ankle-length plaid skirt. Sashaying, she dipped in and out of regimented rows of students, working toward an empty desk near the window, while the teacher and the students looked on. She flipped the last corner with a flourish, confident she was making a good impression.
Then suddenly an overhead projector loomed large in her way. She stumbled over it, catching her skirt on the neck of the projector. She hit the linoleum with a thud, her straight legs scissored under a row of desks, her skirt bunched at her knees. Students snickered.
“Welcome to class, Miss … uh?” the teacher said with a smile.
“Taylor,” Susan volunteered with a blush and a gulp.
“Did you hurt yourself, Miss Taylor?”
“No, sir. At least I don’t think so.” She pulled herself up.
Phase 2 followed on the heels of her clumsy beginning. It was easy—three public telephones in three boys’ dorms, three slips of paper on which she had written in her best hand, “A cute coed is waiting by a telephone for your call. Why not give her a ring? 356-9927.”
Susan slipped into the dorms early on a Saturday morning. Assuring herself no one was there, she walked on feline feet to the booths, pushed back the doors as quickly and quietly as she could, and stuffed her notes in the coin return slots. After all, who doesn’t look in the slot when he hears the false drop of a coin? It was easy; it was sure. Now all she had to do was wait. Carried along by the early morning wind, she bounded back to her apartment, took the stairs three at a time, and only then caught up with her breath as she sank into a vinyl-covered chair by the phone.
Painting her nails, styling her hair, she waited. Each ring vibrated in her ears and set her to jittering in the chair. Linda’s parents called from Salt Lake; two boys called for Cindy; Susan waited for a fourth call.
Ring! Susan lunged for the receiver.
“Hello?”
“Hello, cute coed,” the masculine voice drawled. “This is the call you’ve been waiting for. What’s your name?”
“Sue.”
“Sue what?”
A flutter of the heart and a pause.
“Sue Taylor. What’s your name?”
“Joe.” The voice continued, “Joe McIntire.” And then irritatingly, “I repair phones. Now quit abusing the telephone system or I’ll report you!”
Click!
Downstairs the lounge was quiet except for the soft shuffling of papers as Sister Calder sorted through an old cardboard box. Susan shrank past her to the door. She didn’t want to talk to anyone just now, least of all to a successfully married dorm parent. Outside in the hall she slipped a dime in the vending machine, pulled the button, and waited for the sliding and drop of a chocolate bar. She stuffed it into the pocket of her coat, turned up the fur collar around her neck and ears, and walked out into the wind.
The sky was iron-gray, breaking only a little light through at the horizon. Patches of dirt-peppered snow crusted on the frozen grass and at the edges of the sidewalk. Gravel scratched between the walk and her shoes as she turned south toward the hilltop above the campus buildings. She shifted her body first one way and then the other, trying to escape the full force of the wind. She leaned into it, every step an effort; then suddenly, it swooped up behind her, thrusting her forward effortlessly.
“Just like the wind,” she thought, “my life is out of control. Why does everything have to go wrong?” Pulling the hair out of her eyes, she looked for shelter.
Susan passed one house, two houses, three, and then an open field. Bordering the open field, a woodshed extended beyond a garage. She pushed her way there, finding a protected log lying between two cords of wood piled eight feet high. When she straddled the log, the wind raged only three feet above her head but seemed a whole world away. Tucked away in the wood, her head on her knees, she confronted herself. Struggling against the wind had swept her clean. She whispered prayers there among the buoying smells of sawdust and raw, wintry air.
The oncoming night had nearly pinched out the rim of light when she reentered the dorm. It was bright and warm in the lounge. A couple clasped hands in front of the television; Sister Calder knelt on the floor surrounded by piles of papers and magazines. The cardboard box was empty and cast off to the side. She glanced up.
“Susan! You look absolutely frozen. Come and sit for a minute.” Sister Calder smiled broadly and patted a nearby chair.
Thinking it easier to obey than make an excuse, Susan dropped to the chair and rubbed her icy hands on the warm upholstery. She gazed vacantly at the neat piles.
“What are you doing, Sister Calder?” she asked politely.
“I’m trying to sort through some things. Don tells me he doesn’t have room to turn around in that small apartment of ours. The only problem is, I just can’t bear to throw anything away.” She laughed heartily and raised her arms in hopelessness. “Our love letters, my decorating books, these old prints—I can’t part with any of it. Not even this, though I have another copy.” She picked up a New Era that had been making its own pile. “Here, you look at it; maybe there’s something in it you can use.”
Sister Calder thrust the magazine into Susan’s lap. It fell open. Susan held it for a moment, then looking closer, she read: “Young women in Zion, worrying takes energy. Instead of worrying why you don’t date or while you’re not married, expend that energy positively. Take a class. Make a recipe or home decorating file. Join a service club. Spend 15 minutes a day with the written testimonies of the prophets. In short, develop yourself into the kind of person who attracts the priesthood bearer you desire. Happiness does not miraculously begin with marriage—it strengthens marriage. Create your happiness now, for someday it will guide you into eternity.”
Help lay before her on the page. Though printed months before, the words spoke to her at this moment. Susan held it to her.
“Sister Calder, I will keep this, if you don’t mind.”
When Susan opened the apartment door, Cynthia was draped over the couch dreaming, her legs dangling prettily over the couch’s arm. As if suddenly animated, she bounced to her feet and twirled excitedly. Her auburn hair shone in the light; her cheeks flushed with life—she looked more beautiful than ever.
“Guess what?” she exclaimed. “This fantastic guy called from one of the boys’ dorms. He said he found my phone number in the telephone booth. Can you believe that? Gosh, we talked for just hours and hours. And he’s coming over tomorrow night to see me. Oh, I can hardly wait! How will I ever be able to concentrate till then?” Cynthia fell back to the couch in a swoon.
“Hey, what happened to you?” Cynthia looked at Susan as if seeing her for the first time. “You look like you’ve been out in a hurricane. Seriously, where have you been?”
“Seriously, I’ve been learning.”
“Well, that’s what they tell us we’re here for. Just between you and me, though, I’m working toward my MRS degree.” Her secret hardly popped out like a genie long-corked in a bottle.
Susan was amused at her confession. From Cindy’s lips she could hear her own narrow view of life rumbling, tumbling down in a heap on the floor. She started for the bedroom.
“Where are you going now?”
“I need some privacy, Cindy,” she smiled brightly. “I’m rewriting my New Year’s resolutions.” As if lifted up by a breeze, Susan glided past Cynthia into the room beyond.